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The last American military parade that I saw was the inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 – not counting my days in the US Army. It was a hell of a show. What impressed me the most was the giant M65 203mm Atomic Cannon that was wheeled up Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.
I was also deeply impressed by Gen. Eisenhower. There was no huff or puff with him, no wildly inflated claims, no bluster, no efforts to lay the groundwork for a military-run regime. None of what the Soviets used to call ‘Bonapartism.’ Just a real soldier who served America proud and became our finest president of modern times. I still like Ike.
But I also detest militarism and fake patriotic warmongering. Every spring I walk the blood-soaked battlefields of World War I in France and am sick at heart by the botchery and stupidity of the first great modern war. Having been a GI and covered 14 wars and conflicts as a news correspondent, I hate all form of militarism, flag-waving and patriotic oratory.
Except one! France’s Bastille Day Parade on 14 July. Much as I’m an ardent anti-militarist, few things thrill or move me as much as seeing France’s massed soldiers and fire-fighters marching down the lovely Champs Elysée, and the thunder of hooves of the armored cavalry of the Republican Guard. What a magnificent spectacle. It reminds me of what another great president, Thomas Jefferson, said: `every man has two homelands. His own, and France!.’ Who has a beating heart that cannot be moved by the mighty strains of La Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, which was originally called ‘the War Song of the Army of the Rhine.’
Bastille Day marked the beginning of democracy and human rights for the world. The French Revolution also brought the Terror and Napoleonic Wars, but it was still an epochal moment in mankind’s history. Without great amounts of financial and military aid from France, the United States might not have gained its independence. Today, it might still be ruled by the same bunch of nincompoops in London who have brought Great Britain so low. Ironically, France’s gross overspending on supporting the American Revolution led directly to its own revolution of 1789 that overturned its monarchy.
This week will see a newly minted military extravaganza in Washington whose real purpose is to glorify a president who avoided military service in Vietnam due to a questionable foot problem. As a veteran, this fake triumphal parade leaves me feeling unwell. Militarized politics – just what recent past presidents have avoided.
I had been accepted to do a PhD at Britain’s Cambridge University that would have kept me out of military service. But in an admittedly Quixotic act, I enlisted in the Regular Army to serve in the infantry in Vietnam. Fate kept me in the US, teaching senior officers strategy and tactics. But I had at least done my duty as a citizen. In retrospect, Vietnam was a lousy, unjust imperial war, but I had served my country which had given a new life to both my parents.
I limped through Army basic and advanced infantry training with a broken bone in my left foot. Unlike our current commander in chief.
I wish the government would spend the estimated $45 million ear-marked for this ego fest on wounded veterans.
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“In retrospect, Vietnam was a lousy, unjust imperial war, …”.
You had been accepted to do a PhD at Cambridge and couldn’t see that at the time?
When I was a senior in High School, I was facing the real possibility of being conscripted for Vietnam (this was 1967). I went to the University of Buffalo Library and read “People’s War, People’s Army” by Vo Nguyen Giap. I saw the entire Vietnam War with great clarity then, as if seeing a battle unfold over many days from a mountaintop lookout, peering through low clouds. I have never changed a single major viewpoint about the Vietnam War since 1967. As the war unfolded, there were no big surprises other than the tenacity of the Americans in pursuing a costly ideological crusade for very little geopolitical gain. And I’m not that smart.
It amazes me that you went on to teach senior officers strategy and tactics.
Trump’s spending $45 million on a stupid parade will barely register with most real Americans. Are you inviting us to share your moral outrage? Not happening. Right now, with both internal and external wars going on, we have more important things to worry about. You’re not a real American and don’t think like we do. We don’t even know when “Bastille Day” is and couldn’t tell you what happened then.
Looking forward to the thrill going up my leg when I see all of those big, beautiful weapons.
And the way he federalized the Arkansas NatGuard, sending in the 101st Airborne to threaten white kids with bayoneted rifles, in order to make sure blacks could integrate with white kids in Little Rock… Well, certainly a proud moment in American history. Just a real soldier, for sure.
And now, almost 70 years on, we can all see what foresight the man had, resolving systemic racial conflicts, giving black kids the opportunity they always desired, in order to show the world their innate academic ability, and be judged by their character. Go Ike!
Well said! I find it amazing that so-called ‘academics’ were all in for imperial wars at the time when the rest of us could clearly see the reality. No different today when ‘experts’ were all in for Middle East wars only to condemn them years later after millions had been slaughtered.
Eric,
The French Revolution produced the Jacobians. A good argument can be made that European civilzation was destroyed by 1789.
Hoya Saxa
JMJ
Sorry, Eric, but any American who willingly went to fight in Vietnam was a fool. Trump’s move was the smart ones. Necessary wars being fought to win are a patriotic duty, this was not. The Vietnam conflict was one big joke on the American people and a tragic waste of over 50 thousand young lives.
Agree. The Jacobins were pure evil and paved the way for the even more evil Bolsheviks.
Did Ike’s Farewell Address 17 January 1961 match his foreign policy record
in office from 20 January 1953 ? No.
Not as overrated a revolution as under Reagan and Trump
by both friends and foes it was a charade compared to the credit his final address history has given him. Moreover, Eisenhower and the more interventionist Republicans stole the 1952 GOP convention from the more prudent and restrained Senator Robert Taft.
The French help to the US came from the French monarchy not from the Jacobins nor
Girondins.
While it is true that reform was necessary it was underway. The French Revolution was
no gift to humanity.
Much of what you weave through your thoughts resonates with me while much of
it does not and seems to be in conflict with your overall theme and good instincts
Perhaps this reporter should note this parade was planned for the 250th Anniversary of the US Armed Forces before Trump became president. It just happens to occur on his birthday.
The parade thread on pol is basically jokes about what an utterly pathetic looking military America now has. The frumpy, mismatched and ill-fitting uniforms, the inability to march properly, the dysgenic, overweight appearance of the personnel.
It was supposed to be a show of might and glory, but many found it embarrassing. They really shouldn’t have bothered.
If foreign dignitaries are invited to the parade, I wonder if Trump will in invite his new friend Ahmed al-Sharaa? This would give the new “president” of Syria a chance to get up close and personal to the people (U.S. military) that he spent many years killing and maiming. Letting bygones be bygones our hero Don will probably give the reformed ISIS and al-Qaeda leader a grand tour of the White House.
Chinese women do it best.
Video Link
The Jacobins were pure evil and paved the way for the even more evil Bolsheviks.
Redpill – certainly. One also sees traces of the Jacobins in various brutally vicious movements today.
Not to mention all that ‘egalite’ – how has that turned out?
Yes but didn’t they liberate the –how many? six?– ruffians incarcerated at the time in the Bastille? …
I stopped reading after this:
“I had been accepted to do a PhD at Britain’s Cambridge University that would have kept me out of military service. But in an admittedly Quixotic act, I enlisted in the Regular Army to serve in the infantry in Vietnam. Fate kept me in the US, teaching senior officers strategy and tactics. But I had at least done my duty as a citizen. In retrospect, Vietnam was a lousy, unjust imperial war, but I had served my country which had given a new life to both my parents.”
Well, one thing is for sure – as parades go this was a rather lousy parade. Trump looked annoyed. Makes you wonder if the “new Army” did it on purpose.
Congratulations. That means you stopped reading his article at the point where there was only two more lines to go to finish it. Are we supposed to be impressed? Do you want a gold star for not reading those last two lines?
Thanks for that. I read the same thing: the place was practically empty. Its value was symbolic only.
It was like two teams of schoolboys playing “capture the snow fortress” and throwing snowballs as “hand grenades” in winter. It’s surprising that grownups are sometimes no different. They say “Hamburger Hill” in Vietnam was about the same.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” — Shakespeare (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)
To be 100% honest, I was mostly just interested in Melania and her exquisitely-tailored cream-colored pinstripe suit. Dolce & Gabbana? Whatever.
As the Civil War re-enactors passed, I saw Trump conversing with his Third Lady. My lipread:
M.: “Vhatt eez theeze soldiers?”
D.: “Civil War.”
M.: “Oh…between Nort and Sout? Zee slavery war?”
D.: “That’s right. Lincoln.”
M.: “Republican President, no?”
D.: “Right.”
The M.I.C. Eisenhower warned about in 1960 was about four times smaller in dollar adjusted terms then it is now.