NORFOLK, Va. — James McDonough served in the U.S. Army for 27 years, fighting in Vietnam and delivering humanitarian aid to Rwanda. For him, Saturday’s military parade in Washington for the Army’s 250th anniversary — coinciding with President Donald Trump’s birthday — is about the resilience of a vital institution and the nation it serves.
“The soldiers marching that day represent all of that history,” said McDonough, 78, of Crofton, Maryland. “They don’t represent a single day. They don’t represent a single person. It’s the American Army still standing straight, walking tall, ready to defend our country.”
Christopher Purdy, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, called the parade a facade that paints over some of the Republican president’s policies that have targeted military veterans and current service members, including cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs and a ban on transgender troops.
Purdy said the parade, long sought by Trump, will needlessly display U.S. military might on the president’s 79th birthday.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Purdy, 40, of Atlanta. “It’s expensive. And whatever his reasons are for doing it, I think it’s entirely unnecessary.”
Until recently, the Army’s long-planned birthday celebration did not include a big parade. Added under the Trump administration, the event, featuring hundreds of military vehicles and aircraft and thousands of soldiers, has divided veterans.
Some liken it to the military chest-pounding commonly seen in North Korea, a step toward authoritarianism or a perverse birthday party for Trump.
Others see it as a once-in-a-lifetime accounting of the Army’s achievements and the military service of millions of soldiers over centuries. The parade is not about Trump, they say, but the public seeing the faces of soldiers when so few Americans serve.
The Army expects up to 200,000 people could attend and says the parade will cost an estimated $25 million to $45 million.
Trump, speaking at Fort Bragg this week, said Saturday would be “a big day” and noted “we want to show off a little bit.”
“We’re going to celebrate our greatness and our achievements,” he said. “This week, we honor 250 years of valor and glory and triumph by the greatest fighting force ever to walk the face of the Earth: the United States Army.”
For Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr., an Army veteran who fought in Iraq, the parade is a missed opportunity to honor generations of veterans, many of whom paid a steep price and came home to little fanfare.
“Sadly, the timing and the optics and divisive politics have ruined it,” said Martinez, 48, of Katy, Texas. “And I’m not picking one side or the other. Both sides are guilty.”
Joe Plenzler, a retired Marine who fought in Iraq, said Trump wants to see troops saluting him on his birthday as tanks roll past.
“It’s just suspicious,” the 53-year-old from Middletown, Virginia, said of the timing.
“I absolutely love the Army from the bottom of my cold black Marine heart,” he said. “But if the Army’s birthday was a day later, we probably wouldn’t be doing it. I’d rather see that $50 million take care of the men and women who went off to war and came back with missing arms, legs and eyeballs, and with damaged brains.”
Joe Kmiech, who served in the Army and Minnesota National Guard from 1989 to 1998, supports the parade because the Army is “part of American culture and our fabric.”
He notes the Army’s pioneering contributions to engineering and medicine, from dams to new surgical techniques. Like many veterans, he has a strong familial connection: His father served in the Army, and so did his maternal grandfather, who fought in World War II.
“I didn’t vote for President Trump, but the commander in chief is going to be part of that celebration,” said Kmiech, 54, of Roberts, Wisconsin. “The distinction needs to be made that the parade is a celebration of our Army, not of a person.”
For Gulf War Army veteran Paul Sullivan, Trump and the parade are inextricably linked.
“This Trump tank travesty is all about stroking Trump’s ego,” said Sullivan, 62, who lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia. “If Trump truly cared about our service members, he would sit down with them quietly and say, ‘What can we do with $50 million or $100 million to make your lives better?’ He’s not.”
McDonough, the veteran from Crofton, Maryland, disagrees that the parade is about Trump or too costly. He said the U.S. held a grand celebration in New York after World War II when the nation was deeply in debt.
“We certainly need to bring our debt down, and we certainly need to take care of our veterans,” he said. “But it’s a false dichotomy. It’s like saying if we bought two less aircraft carriers, we could do so much better to take care of our poor.”
And McDonough said soldiers’ oath is to the Constitution, not to Trump.
The president “understands the importance of doing this, not only for the Army, but for the nation,” McDonough said.
Purdy, the veteran from Atlanta, said the parade’s brazen flex of military strength is not an American tradition, particularly absent a recent victory.
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t celebrate the country,” he said. “But for us to be projecting this type of hard power, in such a real in-your-face way, that’s just not who we are.”
Trump is brushing aside old alliances and foreign aid that have helped maintain peace for decades, Purdy asserted.
“It signals a real dark turn if we’re just going to roll out the tanks,” Purdy said.
Michael Nardotti, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said military hardware has long been in American parades, which can help recruitment.
More important, he said, is the tremendous value in the public seeing soldiers’ faces in a parade when active-duty troops make up less than 1% of the population.
“’People are the Army,’” said Nardotti, 78, of Aldie, Virginia, quoting a former Army chief of staff.
Nardotti said he’ll listen carefully to Trump’s speech.
“I hope it sends the right message,” he said.