Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
It was a family-friendly conclusion to a celebratory day, with events on the Mall and fireworks at the end. What had been billed as an overwhelming display of military might turned out to be a linear history lesson, from the early days of revolution to the age of robotic dogs and flying drones. A narrator made sense of it all over loudspeakers and for those watching the live stream on television, with a script that rarely strayed from the Army’s disciplined sense of itself as a lethal fighting machine in the service of democracy and the Constitution.
The tone was reminiscent of the wall texts and exhibits at the National Museum of the United States Army, which opened on the grounds of Fort Belvoir in November 2020, during one of the most dangerous moments in recent American history. Like Saturday’s parade, the museum celebrates the Army’s history, but it does so with the temperance and nuance of serious professional historians, and a well-crafted historical and cultural narrative that largely steers clear of propaganda. It opened in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s first term, after he lost reelection, and only days after he fired his defense secretary, Mark T. Esper. There was, at the time, considerable anxiety that Trump might attempt to use the Army to sustain his false claims of election fraud.
news.yahoo.com
The tone was reminiscent of the wall texts and exhibits at the National Museum of the United States Army, which opened on the grounds of Fort Belvoir in November 2020, during one of the most dangerous moments in recent American history. Like Saturday’s parade, the museum celebrates the Army’s history, but it does so with the temperance and nuance of serious professional historians, and a well-crafted historical and cultural narrative that largely steers clear of propaganda. It opened in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s first term, after he lost reelection, and only days after he fired his defense secretary, Mark T. Esper. There was, at the time, considerable anxiety that Trump might attempt to use the Army to sustain his false claims of election fraud.
Trump wanted a military spectacle. Instead, he got a history lesson.
The parade must go on, and the Army sidestepped a major crisis of image and messaging.