Ignoring the current political situation for the moment, first, lots and lots of very good people are not particularly suited to the military and if you’re not going to get anything out of it why waste four years of one’s life being unhappy?
I have some qualification to speak to the subject, I’m a retired senior military officer although I’ve been retired now longer than I was on active duty and I’m old enough to wear a Viet Nam service ribbon in my ribbon bar. And yes, I have over 500 days of “combat time” which quite a bit when I was in. Now days, service members frequently have years and years of combat time. I was fortunate that I didn’t need to manufacture an excuse to complete my college education, my first year of college, I had a college deferment and then the draft lottery came along and my draft number was 311 — mandatory service only in case of thermonuclear war. <G>
Successful military personnel require a great deal of self discipline, ability to keep their mouth shut and the patience to wait for things to happen in it’s own time. And the ability to ignore a great deal of bureaucratic running around. As a result, military service can be as crushing as working in a “cube city” for a large corporation. People who are creative, impulsive, impatient or have even a slight problem accepting authority figures will have difficulty serving in the military. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t excellent productive members of society, just means that the military is the wrong place for them. There are many folks that I counseled that they should consider other options to make a living. Sometimes counseling was via formal discipline as authorized by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, other times over a cup of coffee on a late night watch. And I have no doubt that there are any number of people I put out of the service for either the “convenience of the government” or “other than honorable conditions” that made a whole lot more money over time than I did either in the service and/or in my post military career. They were the square peg in the round hole and it was my unfortunate duty to correct the situation. An example is the late Steve Jobs, brilliant, self confident, egotistical with the competence to make it stick. If he had served under me in the military, I would probably written very unflattering Fitness Reports (officer evaluation) on his potential for the military. But his yearly earnings was several times my lifetime earnings <G>!
I have often pondered the reason so many people of “liberal” political philosophy have honorable and often excellent military service yet so many flag waving people of “conservative” political philosophy do not. My explanation is that the military is the employment of “last resort.” How many young men have been offered the choice by a judge either join the service or go to jail (and yes I’ve had young people serve in my units that had to make that choice) though the military has always tried to get judges not do that. So young liberal students finishing their college degrees find that a degree in Fine Arts, History or Renaissance English isn’t very employable and join the military to get a couple years to sort things out and eating regularly is nice when you are young. The people with connections and/or degrees in Business Administration, Accounting, law etc. go to work and start their career and depending on their competence, may wind up as policy makers and law makers. If so inclined, they tend to do their “flag waving” after achieving financial success rather than before. It is very pleasant to have smart and capable people assigned to your military unit, but it is also nice to have senior governmental officials that watch out for your needs in the great Governmental budget battles.
In the past, military parades were a common stable of the U.S. experience. Good excuse for a holiday and it was a non-monetary way of rewarding those in uniform by holding them up to the population as “good examples.” That fell out of favor during the Viet Nam era when the military was vilified as being agents of an unpopular government.
Why does Trump want a big parade, here is as good an insight as we’ll probably get:
https://pilotonline.com/news/military/l ... 78a36.htmlAs a taxpayer, the questions that need to be answered, probably by the Pentagon Brass, are what are the goals that may be achieved, how much does it cost and does a parade provide a cost effective way to achieve them? Personally, I would probably vote against it if I was in a position that my opinion meant anything. But until I see a decision matrix, I’ll wait and see.