Even before becoming president, Donald Trump made his commitment to pomp and circumstance clear. He maintained a name for himself in the first place in part through licensing his name to construction projects and putting it up in big letters on buildings around the world.
Since becoming president, Trump has occasionally seemed to act as though he’s still thinking of how to get his name on yet another building. In that light, it recently came out that he wanted the Pentagon to conduct a military parade, although to be clear, he’d made indications to that effect in the past.
Now, however, his directives have actually turned into something tangible. CNN has obtained a memo signed by executive secretary for the office of the secretary of defense U.S. Navy Capt. Hallock Mohler Jr. that outlines how the military parade will go.
According to the memo, which was sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday, there will be no tanks in the parade, since including them would likely do damage to roads and perhaps other pieces of infrastructure in Washington, D.C., where the parade will be held.
The parade will even still feature a “heavy air component” that will include older aircraft “as available.” It will be integrated with the annual Veterans Day parade held in Washington, D.C., and will highlight the work of members of the U.S. Armed Forces throughout all of American history, stretching all the way back to the Revolutionary War era.
In addition, according to CNN, the parade will “feature period uniforms from the Old Guard Fife and Drum, a unit that parades in period uniform.” Veterans and Medal of Honor recipients will “surround Trump in the reviewing area of the Capitol during the event,” according to the outlet, and the route will take the parade from the White House to the Capitol.
Apart from the parade, Trump has overseen widely touted reforms at the Veterans Administration, although ironically, the significance of those reforms has been undercut via a travel scandal that’s engulfed the VA Secretary.
VA Secretary David Shulkin met shortly after the scandal broke with White House chief of staff John Kelly for the purpose of mapping out how to keep the focus on the reforms in the midst of the scandal.
The Shulkin travel scandal is just the tip of an iceberg of questionable spending inside the White House. Among the most recent revelations of this trend is the report that the Interior Department signed a contract to spend nearly $139,000 on new doors for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s office.
The Interior Department chalked up the high price to the historical nature of the building.
The trend of Trump officials spending in an out of control fashion has reached such an extreme that last year, a Cabinet secretary — Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price — resigned in the face of excessive travel spending.
This context of incessant excessive spending is the one in which this military parade is being planned. The president has insisted that considerations for what is a “reasonable cost” will weigh on the decision-making when it comes to the parade.
He is reported to have gotten the idea for the parade in the first place after visiting celebrations for Bastille Day in France last year.
Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
