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Thousands of troops accompanied by dozens of tanks and aircraft will stream through the National Mall in Washington DC for a military parade billed as celebrating the US army’s 250th birthday on Saturday – which also happens to be the day Donald Trump turns 79.
The president has long desired to hold a military parade in the capital, and is finally getting his wish months after returning to the White House for a second term, and days after ordering federalized California national guard and US marines to the streets of Los Angeles in response to protests against deportations.
Washington DC will briefly become the second American city to see soldiers in its streets, albeit for markedly different reasons.
The all-day event held in the shadow of the Washington Monument will begin with a fitness competition and official ceremony to mark the army’s birthday with a cake. At 6.30pm ET, 6,700 soldiers accompanied by armored vehicles such as the M1A2 Abrams tanks are scheduled to march down Constitution Avenue Northwest past the White House, as Black Hawk, Chinook and Apache helicopters fly overhead. Trump will appear to preside over an enlistment and reenlistment ceremony and accept a flag from the Golden Knights Parachute Team, before fireworks will fill the sky.
“I think it’s time for us to celebrate a little bit. You know, we’ve had a lot of victories,” Trump said earlier this week. He has denied any connection between the parade and his birthday, instead noting that it coincides with the Flag Day holiday.
While Washington DC is used to playing host to an array of events in and around the National Mall and White House, the parade has proven to be particularly disruptive to day-to-day life in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of more than 700,000.
Coming at a cost the army estimates to be between $25m and $45m, the parade’s preparations have caused the closure of busy roads for up to four days, while flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport will halt for an unspecified time during the event.
City leaders have expressed concerns that the tanks and armored vehicles will damages roads not designed for their weight, and the army has said they will place metal plates on parts of the route, and outfit the equipment with rubber on their treads.
“President Trump’s longstanding wish to waste millions of taxpayer dollars for a performative military parade in the style of authoritarian leaders is finally coming true on his birthday,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the federal district’s Democratic non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. She condemned the event’s expected impact on the city’s roads, as well as the decision to hold it after Trump’s administration spent months firing federal workers or coaxing them to resign.
“Although this parade will feed President Trump’s ego and perhaps his base, it will not serve any legitimate purpose,” Holmes Norton said.
