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if by "defend our nation" he means "destabilizing foreign nations" then yeah, he is correct.

Eeehh, so yes, after basic i did not march anywhere really. And you do need to brush up on it to keep in the swing of things…. But honestly, you know your unit is going to march in a parade months in advance, and for better or worse are going to represent the armed forces, you schedule mandatory training time.

Is it wasteful? Arguably under normal circumstances, definitely under this circumstance.

So i can only conclude that either they did not care, or do care a lot, or someone who was supposed to plan this fucked up and they just grabbed people.

"Defend our nation" by starting wars to keep rich people rich?

I am surprised at how many people do not get it. In military you cannot not comply with the orders, especially whan there is clearly nothing criminal with it. The guys doing sloppy marching is pretty much the only agency they have and the only way to protest and boycot that ridiculous parade.

It's very important for soldiers to focus on doing "important work to defend our nation" (murdering brown kids) and that they're "productive at their jobs" (bombing hospitals)

I think the way they marched says more about trump than it does their ability to march. I very much doubt they forgot how to do it.

No one will ever match North Korea's marching game.

From what I'm hearing from coordinators and people inside its not that they can't march. It's that nobody wanted to. They had to be there. So they phoned it in. Malicious compliance.

Like the squeaky tanks. That was a choice made in the motor pool. They could have greased them up and tested to make sure they were smooth. But they made a different call.

The way the marines, in particular, marched… no. That was sloppy and looked intentional.

When has the US military defended the nation? I got the impression that they're mostly used for invading foreign countries for financial gain, cf Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Guatemala, Korea.

I despised drill and ceremony. Standing in the heat and humidity, waiting to move and watching soldiers drop because of heat stroke. Never lock your damn knees.

They deliberately half-assed the parade because they don't like the way Trump treats them. Trump calls them "suckers and losers." He cuts their benefits Why would you show any loyalty (or enthusiasm) to someone who treats you like that?

More Trump quotes: "You fucking generals. Why can't you be more like Hitler's generals?" 2017

On the burial of US Army private Vanessa Guillén: "It doesn't cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!" December 4, 2020. Trump has denied having made the remark.

"We're not going to support that loser's funeral." August, 2018. Trump has denied having made this remark.

re: John McCain, who was captured and tortured for five years: "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you." July 18, 2015.

"But, you know, during the Vietnam War, I got very lucky. I had a very high lottery number." November 9, 1995.

On the 1,800 US Marines who died at Belleau Wood in France during World War I "Suckers." November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.

On US soldiers in World War I "Who were the good guys in this war?" November 11, 2018. Trump denies having asked this question.

"I don't get it. What was in it for them?" November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.

On disabled veterans "Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded." September 30, 2019.

"Look, I don't want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn't look good for me." Summer 2017.

The band played "Fortunate Son". They all knew exactly what they were doing.

If shit ever does hit the fan full send (I very much doubt it) he doesn't have the army.

I was only in marching band. 25 years later, I promise I could still do it with zero practice. This was on purpose.

They didn't want to attract the worm.

This is just not accurate.

Here's an example proving it incorrect:

https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212

That's just a unit. Not a ceremonial one.

This is a false dichotomy, as though you can either be productive or learn to march. Obviously you could do both.

“A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.”
– Soviet observation during the Cold War

The entire thing screamed humiliation display more than anything else. And the anything else was like a half assed shitty commercial for military equipment. They had actual soldiers playing dress up for no fucking reason while wasting a fuck ton of money the VA could’ve used. Just despicable all around.

to defend the interests of our nations elites.

Story time, boys and girls.

When I joined the Army and went to basic training, one of the first things they did was show us how to stand at attention, at-ease, right face, left face, and about face. Then they turned the training unit and marched off.

And then stopped and screamed at us for marching like Nazis.

Turns out, you don't see US soldiers marching like that because it's stupid as hell, and you can't do it for twenty miles with a rucksack. The US military for all their many, many faults, is real good at war, and marching like a toy soldier doesn't help you do war.

So we learned how to march like Americans, which is much more casual. The only thing you've gotta do is make sure you match the stride length of the soldier in front of you, but even that is more of a suggestion than a hard rule. We got good, though, because we were assholes.

We would ease out behind someone who was walking somewhere and roughly the same height, and step slightly faster than the person in front of us, until we were close behind them. Then you perform a little skip at the last second to get back to the same stride and close the last few inches. The end result is that your chest is hovering about an inch from their back, your nose is an inch from the back of their head, and your hands are swinging right behind theirs. While walking at full speed.

You haven't had a jump scare until you've marched two blocks, turned your head, and glimpsed someone's face an inch from your own.

At least Trump seemed not to enjoy any of it, so hopefully we can put this whole stupid episode behind us, and move on to the next stupid episode.

If I could march in a brass band after very limited practice, these guys can. They just didn’t want to.