Washington, DC, will host its largest military parade in over three decades tomorrow to commemorate the US Army’s 250th anniversary. The event, expected to cost $25M to $45M, also coincides with Flag Day and the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump, who is expected to give an address.
Flag Day, in the United States, a day honouring the national flag, observed on June 14. The holiday commemorates the date in 1777 when the United States approved the design for its first national flag.
(see history)
The idea to set aside a day to honour the national flag came from several sources. Bernard J. Cigrand, a Wisconsin schoolteacher, in 1885 urged his students to observe June 14 as “Flag Birthday.” He later wrote an essay published in a Chicago newspaper that urged Americans to proclaim this date as the day to celebrate the flag. In 1888 William T. Kerr of Pennsylvania founded the American Flag Day Association of Western Pennsylvania, an organization to which he dedicated his life. A lesser-known claim is that of George Morris of Connecticut, who is said to have organized the first formal celebration of the day in Hartford in 1861.
Festivities begin on the National Mall with a morning fitness competition and conclude with a parachute jump, concert, and fireworks. The roughly mile-long, three-hour parade (starting at 6:30 pm ET) is expected to draw about 200,000 spectators and feature more than 6,000 soldiers, dozens of aircraft, more than 100 vehicles, several horses, two mules, and one cavalry dog traveling from Texas. A similar event Trump proposed in 2018 was canceled due to expected high expenses. The last military parade honored the end of the Gulf War in 1991, with similar events historically reserved for war victories and presidential inaugurations. Meanwhile, over 1,800 demonstrations are planned nationwide to counter the parade and protest the administration’s policies.