quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
Watching the coverage, love seeing the hardware but Holy Mary mother of GOD, is that what passes for marching (drill) these days?

I mean “Pass and Review” in front of the Commander in Chief in the first US military parade EVER and they are all just schleppin’ down the street. Out of step, heads bobbing all over. Crap, I’ve seen ping pong balls in the surf in better sync.

Have to agree. Piss poor marching, that's for sure.

Do they still teach drill and ceremony?

Likely the product of the previous administration. Best guess. Hope we have at least 250 years more for our grand Army.

Happy Birthday US Army.....But from what I saw made me want to get back into uniform wearing my Drill Sgt (Campaign) Hat and re-train these troops in proper Drill And Ceremonies....... Their performance to me was sub-standard. Hopefully the new Command staff can remove all of the wokeness from previous command staff................................... drill sgt.

I'm ignoring the shamble-past, and concentrating on the FACT that everyone of those people has volunteered to be there, and offered Uncle Sam a blank cheque to be drawn on their future lives.

Many of us here have done the same, and many of us, NOT here, did the same. My 'cheque' was returned, slightly creased and worn at the edges, but unredeemed.

Theirs were paid in full.

So may I - a 33-year Army veteran - and my wife, an ex-Royal Air Force nurse - join in wishing the United States Army a very happy birthday - and many more of 'em.

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
Watching the coverage, love seeing the hardware but Holy Mary mother of GOD, is that what passes for marching (drill) these days?...

Yeah, but how do you march to Metallica or Guns & Roses?

I have not marched in 50+ years, but IIRC it was much easier with a drill sergeant counting cadence or a band playing marching music.

Did anyone catch the Old Guard? I did not. As a ceremonial unit they should excel at marching.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:
Did anyone catch the Old Guard? I did not. As a ceremonial unit they should excel at marching.

I did. They were in step, but rifles were not dressed.

turned it on late, and got to see from the civil war till we got tired,

had it on ABC , whose coverage was awful, and switched to Fox or some similar station (was on HULU) which was much better till they started apparently looping some video,

Bibles:

https://godblesstheusabible.com/collections/bibles

This Bible also features a copy of:

Handwritten chorus to “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood
The US Constitution
The Bill of Rights
The Declaration of Independence
The Pledge of Allegiance

This is history being made and you can download the parade and even get a copy of the Bible plus that they put together.

MSN's headline on it: "Trump's birthday military parade"

Geeze.

Linked article

To be fair, the article isn't quite as biased-sounding as the headline.

I remember it well.

Stand by for the Navy's 250th, coming up in October.

And the Marine Corps birthday this year will be 250 also.

quote:

Originally posted by rat2306:
And the Marine Corps birthday this year will be 250 also.

Yep, on November 10. Thankfully it will only be my 46th birthday though lol.

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
I mean “Pass and Review” in front of the Commander in Chief in the first US military parade EVER and they are all just schleppin’ down the street.

This was definitely not "the first US military parade ever".


It was just the first one in several decades, with the most recent prior one being the parade after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

Before that, there had been more than a half dozen large scale military parades, dating all the way back to the two day parade marking the end of the Civil War in 1865.

After the Civil War parade, there were two parades in 1919 (in both New York and DC) to mark the end of WW1, another one in 1938 to commemorate Army Day, one in 1942 to boost morale after the US entry into WW2, and another in 1946 to mark the end of WW2. Then there were large military parades to mark the presidential inaugurations for a couple prior service presidents, like Eisenhower in both 1953 and 1957, and JFK in 1961. Followed by the aforementioned post-Gulf War parade.

Altogether, this was about the 10th large scale US military parade.

(I'm not counting the post-liberation parade by the US Army's 28th Infantry Division in Paris in 1944, as that was overseas.)

Thought occurred to me; many of the troops appeared to be marching with slower, shorter strides than many of us (and perhaps them also) were trained on. Perhaps it was due to the need to maintain time and distance with the vehicles? Heard that the vehicles were being restricted to 3 mph.

I wonder what plans the Marine Corps may be making?

Say what bad things you will about the Chicom, but if you want to see military parade perfection, watch theirs. The synchronized movements are incredible.

I really enjoyed the units that wore period uniforms. They looked to be carrying weapons correct for the time. Also, they seemed well drilled. I'm guessing they did some practice beforehand.

I don't know who was in charge of picking out the rock music instrumentals for the parade but I think Black Sabbeths War Pigs and Metalicas Enter The Sandman was in poor taste.

quote:

Originally posted by rat2306:
Thought occurred to me; many of the troops appeared to be marching with slower, shorter strides than many of us (and perhaps them also) were trained on. Perhaps it was due to the need to maintain time and distance with the vehicles? Heard that the vehicles were being restricted to 3 mph.

I wonder what plans the Marine Corps may be making?

I noticed this too, none of them actually seemed to be marching with the standard marching stride, it was all half stepping barely above just walking and looked terrible.

The Brits had their Trooping the Colour ceremony the same day and THAT’S how you do it. They know how to put on a parade with full pomp and everyone in perfect step.

With that being said, I’m proud to be a member of our Army and 250 years is quite an accomplishment!

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by rat2306:
Thought occurred to me; many of the troops appeared to be marching with slower, shorter strides than many of us (and perhaps them also) were trained on. Perhaps it was due to the need to maintain time and distance with the vehicles? Heard that the vehicles were being restricted to 3 mph.

I wonder what plans the Marine Corps may be making?

I noticed this too, none of them actually seemed to be marching with the standard marching stride, it was all half stepping barely above just walking and looked terrible.

The Brits had their Trooping the Colour ceremony the same day and THAT’S how you do it. They know how to put on a parade with full pomp and everyone in perfect step.

With that being said, I’m proud to be a member of our Army and 250 years is quite an accomplishment!

They could have done better with fresh boot camp graduates. I don't remember that pronounced lifting of the thigh and breaking at the knees when marching, that's walking or schlepping as someone said.

We don't have the do the straight leg skip march of the north koreans but, yeah, that looked pretty ragged.