Army Sec: $40 million parade on Trump's birthday a 'Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'

The Army’s $40 million parade Saturday to celebrate its 250thanniversary is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase the service, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told USA TODAY.

That it also falls on President Donald Trump’s birthday, and that he’ll preside over the tanks and troops that rumble and march past him from a specially built reviewing stand? Simply coincidence.

“Unless soldiers 170 years before he was born somehow timed that date,” Driscoll in a June 12 interview.

Driscoll talked about the parade and who’s expected to attend (invitations almost certainly have been extended to Mark Esper and Mark Milley, top former officials who clashed with Trump, he said). Driscoll also addressed the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objection of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the No. 1 threat to his soldiers – cheap, lethal drones.

Planning for the Army’s 250th birthday began before Driscoll became the civilian leader of the Army on February 25, he said. A longstanding tradition for armies, a military parade was deemed a natural way to highlight the Army’s strength and service to the United States.

“I think sometimes the media gets in its own way in telling stories,” Driscoll said. “The coincidence that the president's birthday is on this date that occurred 250 years ago, and that we the Army want to tell this story, is I think going to be backed up. The reason we are spending this money, the reason we are so excited about it, I think we'll be backed up by recruiting data in the months ahead.

“This is not intended to be performative. We sincerely believe this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

The parade, which includes potential damage to streets in Washington, D.C. from armored vehicles including 38 70-ton Abrams tanks, will range in cost from $25 million to $40 million.

Democrats have criticized the event as a waste of money to promote Trump's image.

"This is Trump. This is all about his ego and making everything about him," Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on May 14. 

The televised parade will reach a broad audience of Americans and spur some of them to serve, Driscoll said.

“We believe that so many Americans are excited about this and will tune in,” Driscoll said. “And it will quantitatively fill up our recruiting pipeline for the years to come. We think it is absolutely worth the investment.”

Driscoll said he believed with near certainty that Esper and Milley had been invited to attend the parade. The Army, a spokesman for Milley and the White House have not confirmed that.

Esper is the former Army secretary Trump promoted to Defense secretary and then fired in November 2020 after he lost the election. Esper incurred Trump’s wrath for urging restraint in deploying the military against protesters. Milley, a retired Army general, its chief of staff and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also lost Trump’s favor after apologizing for appearing in uniform near Trump after law enforcement officials forcibly cleared racial justice protesters from Lafayette Square, near the White House, so Trump could walk across it.

The parade features dozens of armored combat vehicles, helicopters, vintage warplanes, thousands of soldiers in uniforms from the Revolutionary War to the present, horses, two mules and a dog.

The procession will highlight the “robustness and incredible talent of our soldiers,” Driscoll said. He hopes that Americans “feel pride and honor” when they watch the parade.

“This is their Army,” he said.

In 2017, during his first term, Trump wanted to hold a military parade, but Pentagon officials were leery of appearing to politicize the armed forces. Then-Defense Sec. Jim Mattis said he would “rather swallow acid,” according to “Holding the Line,” a book by his former speechwriter Guy Snodgrass.

That Army, through its National Guard troops, is engaged at Trump’s order in helping protect federal buildings and Los Angeles and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as they continue their crackdown on migrants expected of being in the country illegally.

The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles is justified and was approved by the voters who elected Trump. Trump, Driscoll said, is doing exactly what he said he’d do during the campaign.

“Our system was designed for exactly these moments,” Driscoll said.  “The reason we have presidential elections, the reason so many Americans turned out in November to support our president, Donald J. Trump, was for exactly these kinds of moments. If you look at the four-year period when President Trump was out of office, I think the American people didn't want violence in their communities.”

The National Guard soldiers deployed to Los Angeles are talented, well trained and “excited” about being there, Driscoll said.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked the Pentagon for more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops for law enforcement support for its immigration crackdowns.

Driscoll said he hasn’t been briefed on the request but that the Army is ready to operate inside U.S. borders in legally appropriate ways.

“If the president feels, in consultation with the rest of the administration leadership, that is the best use of our National Guard, the Army stands by to support,” Driscoll said.

Rising risk from drone warfare

On a separate issue, Driscoll talked about what he considers to be the top lethal threat to soldiers. Cheap, weaponized drones have become the weapon of choice in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Driscoll wants the Army to lead the Pentagon’s effort to counteract drones.

“It's the number one thing we talk about every single day,” Driscoll said.

Ukraine stunned Russia with a drone attack on its strategic warplanes.

“That should send fear into the hearts of armies around the world,” Driscoll said. “A solution that was tens of thousands of dollars and pretty cleverly done over six months with very little signature to catch. It took out multiple billions of dollars of equipment, and that threat is real, and that threat is one that is being faced by every country.”

Is the Pentagon better prepared than Russia for such an attack?

“I don't know,” Driscoll said. “Hope so.”