Kim Jong Un Trump Reviews the Troops

The man Orange Man, who never served in the military, stood bravely reviewing the troops whose uniform he never wore, despite the possible pain of those possible bone spurs that prevented his possible service.

It was something to see, a $90 million extravaganza with more than enough room along the sidelines, if you cared to attend.

The New Republic probably said it best: Trump’s Military Parade Was a Pathetic Event for a Pathetic President. The turnout wasn’t anything like what he wanted—and not everyone who showed up was even a fan of his.

I own up to not being a supporter of this administration, as each day brings yet another discouraging episode. But showing off our military superiority has never been an American thing, and I hope this will fade away without repetition. We outspend every nation on earth by twofold and ought not to brag about it.

This military the Orange Man so envies, failed every financial accounting the Pentagon ever attempted, and simply cannot account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets. Yet it continues to spend 42% of our national budget. Most of us cannot wrap our heads around a billion dollars (a thousand million). $4 trillion is four thousand billion, a figure that’s not easy to hide on a balance-sheet, yet hidden, forgotten, or simply misplaced, it remains.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican president and a former 5-star general, led our armies in Europe to victory in the Second World War.

He was a man who knew about war, as close up and personal as one can get, and this is what he had to say: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

We saw the evidence of that, rolling down the streets of Washington on Saturday.

Let’s hope, for the last time.