Parade will include tanks, soldiers sleeping in offices
Even to take place on Trump's 79th birthday
By: Cybele Mayes-Osterman
and Tom Vander Brook
USA Today
..... The big military parade planed for June 14 [2025] - the U.S. army's 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump's 79th birthday - will feature dozens of tanks rumbling thought the city's streets, warplanes buzzing overhead and 7.500 solders housed in movement office buildings downtown, according to Army planning documents.
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USA Today had an exclusive look at the latest planning documents that detail the elaborate choreography required for a massive military parade and unofficial birthday party with few, if any, precedents/ On June 8, 1991, thousands of troops, along with tanks and other armored vehicles paraded through Washington. That was to honor their victory in the Gulf War. Then-President's George H.W. bush;s birthday was four days later.
..... Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had thousands of troops at their inauguration. Eisenhower's boasted tanks and jeeps and warplanes.
..... The military, an institution with a loyalty to the Constitution and no political party, is balancing new political challenges this time. Is the parade a celebration of the Army's stored heritage, or an homage to Trump and the political movement he leads? Or both? army officials say that they have long planned a major celebration for their milestone anniversary.
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Democratic lawmakers, though, say Trump has coopted the parade for his own political purposes.
..... "This is Trump. this is all about his ego and making everything about him," said Rhode Island Senator jack Reed, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The only thing he'd be disappointed about is that he couldn't fly his plane over the parade."
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Trump has maintained the parade is all about celebration :the greatest military in the world."
..... Its cost is "peanuts compared to the value of doing it," he told NBC's Kristen Welker on May 4. [2025]
..... The latest price tag for the parade is $30 million, a figure expected to rise to perhaps $45 million.
..... Soldiers and their equipment will begin to arrive in the nation's capital from across the country in the days leading up to the parade. They will be housed in the Department of Agriculture building and a former government warehouse owned by the Gen real Service Administration on 7th Street.
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There chow will consist of two Meals Ready to Eat and one hot meal per day. They'll also receive $50 per day in extra pay.
..... The parade will salute the Army's heritage form the Revolutionary War to the present, with soldiers in period uniforms
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There will be 120 vehicles, including 24 Abrams tanks, 24 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, an armored vehicle similar to design but smaller than a tank and four Paladins, massive self-propelled howitzer cannons.
..... Vintage warplanes, such as the World War II-era B-17 bomber and P-51 Mustang fighter, are scheduled to fly over the National Mall. They'll be followed latter by newer aircraft, including 50 Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
..... The parade will cross in front of Trump's viewing stand on Constitution Avenue just south of the White House.