Quokk.auUS Military never really trained for these types of dog and pony shows
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Intentional
The way the marines, in particular, marched… no. That was sloppy and looked intentional.
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A real President, sponsorships notwithstanding.
Lol he did approach his problem with science and eventually was happy with the solution, but in the interim he also sentenced the person that proposed the scientific solution to death against gladiator and only changed his tune when someone illegally filmed the unexpected plant growth so 5/10
What we are seeing right now is how a society sleepwalks to that point.
Trump's parade was sponsored by Coinbase.
That was my point. A president standing in front of logos with a world on the brink of collapse around him. The only difference in Idiocracy is that when everything got real shitty Dwayne was still willing to try "science" whereas I'm sure the fascists would rather drink brawndo until they died to "own the libs" than admit change was required so they could eat.
I mean, if they'd been ordered eyes right and present arms, they would've.
But they probably didn't plan for him to salute so no one knew what to do and just walked on by.
Saw a short video of an ex drill instructor saying your first week in boot besides getting oriented and shit was learning to march. You dont ever forget it. That if it starts getting sloppy, the seargent or whatever starts saying left, right, left to coordinate again. The guy said it was very intentional .
I learned to march in basic in '96, I promise you it stays w you.
Yeah, I did basic training decades ago, and could probably do it right with maybe an hour-long refresher course. Even without that I'd probably be be fine just marching, it's more the "eyes left", "present arms", handling turns, etc. that would need work.
That said, you tend to follow someone's lead. From what I remember, they declare it like "by the left, quick march" and that means you're marching at a standard "quick" pace and you're lining up with whoever's to your left, and the left column follows the person in front of them, so basically led by whoever's in the front-left position of the formation. That means if people to your left, or people on the left-most column are out of step, it will have a cascading effect through the ranks.
But yeah, it's pretty standard to call out the march, and they'd definitely do that if they cared.
What's also funny is that at one point as the soldiers were marching past, they were playing "Fortunate Son" on the PA system. Now, that's massively ironic given that the song is basically about Vietnam-era draft dodgers who used their family's wealth to get out of Vietnam service like Trump.
But, making it worse is that the song has a slightly faster pace than your typical rock song at 135ish BPM. The US military generally marches at 120 BPM. It's actually really hard to hear a song at 135 BPM and march at 120 BPM. That's why generally marching music is at 120 BPM so you march to the beat. The result is that some soldiers kept marching at 120 BPM, others adjusted to match the song, and it all generally looked like shit.
I think the way they marched says more about trump than it does their ability to march. I very much doubt they forgot how to do it.
Like riding a bike. Those soldiers were doing their best to sham in plain sight and right in front of that bloated tangerine, I’ve never been so proud of the E-4 mafia in my life.
The E4 Mafia were the whole problem at the mandatory fun day?
No, the orange shit stain in the audience was
The entire thing screamed humiliation display more than anything else. And the anything else was like a half assed shitty commercial for military equipment. They had actual soldiers playing dress up for no fucking reason while wasting a fuck ton of money the VA could’ve used. Just despicable all around.
Given that Fortunate Son was playing as one of the songs...
Fucking of course it was.
I wouldn't be surprised if they also played Born in the USA and Little Pink Houses to complete the missing the point trifecta.
Or they did it as protest instead of not caring. Some might have cared a lot.
Glad he owned up to the mistake.
At least Trump seemed not to enjoy any of it, so hopefully we can put this whole stupid episode behind us, and move on to the next stupid episode.
Why the hell did they do this then?
He didn't want it because he thought he would personally enjoy it, he wanted it because he thought it would make him look badass to the other dictators he's always trying so hard to impress and emulate.
A timeline where saying, "you're no Kim Jong Un" is an insult.
During his previous term, I recall Trump and Kim Jon Un getting into a little spat (before they got buddy-buddy)...and Kim Jong Un came out of it looking like the sane one.
The next episode will involve him using an Executive Order commanding the Mint to make a Presidential Crown or something.
Fuck do I need to add this to my bingo board?
I am surprised at how many people do not get it. In military you cannot not comply with the orders, especially whan there is clearly nothing criminal with it. The guys doing sloppy marching is pretty much the only agency they have and the only way to protest and boycot that ridiculous parade.
What i find surprising is that even after making this claim you still believe these people are down to protest and boycot their superiors.
There was a brass band that was resposabal for playing to state visits. if a foreign visitor came who was not popular they would play the national anthem out of tune and out of time. The visitor would have to stand or salute while seeing there song be murdered infront of them.
"They did in protest" is the funniest cope I have heard, ever I think.
i don't give a shit either way but it makes far more sense that it was in protest than that all of those soldiers are too incompetent to march properly. insisting it must be incompetence because you want to think bad things about the us military is the real cope.
Tbf, if enough of them are bad at marching it doesn't really matter how good the others are
Or its simply that drill and parade are not really practiced outside of bootcamp because marching in lockstep requires quite some practice.
Marching lockstep is something that takes years to stop doing after getting out, though. Band kids have a similar problem. And even then you catch it sometimes, a desire to do it..
It bothers you for years when you walk hand in hand with your partner. Because you can’t hold hands and walk lockstep.. you have to perfectly time the opposite step, so you can perfectly hold their hand.
It only takes one refresher, and you go back to it.
D&C is used daily by the US Army, to move personnel from point A to point B. During running. During inspections. During pass and reviews.
15 years out, and "9 to the front and 6 to the rear" is still drilled into my head. Even my "about face" is still solid, while needing some practice.
This depends a lot on your branch and unit. Many many people never do a pass and review or any type of inspection other than counting inventory. I disagree that marching skills are used during running, that's freeform.
Anyone who has served longer than 3 years has done a pass and review.
Anyone who has been to a perm duty station has had a class A inspection.
Anyone who has ever served has marched daily, in formation, from point A to point B.
Double time is a marching speed, aka running, and you have to run in step.
It's the entire discourse online, mostly stemming from veterans on social media. Literally saying the same as comment above you.
Yeah seppo veterans are rarely blindly patriotic and regularly offer genuine feedback for their country and its "servicepeople" (by this they only mean their boots).
Wah. I don't want to see the entire fucking world around me filled with evidence. Wah. Wah. Wah.
I am hardly blindly patriotic, and I critique the US when is should be (Which is often).
Yes, this was a case of malicious compliance.
If you want to see evidence, here's some normal soldiers (Not ceremonial guards) marching:
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
They probably did.
For better or worse, the people in uniform are good people, who believe they are doing something honorable, right or wrong that may be. GIs have a very strict honor code amongst themselves. Loyalty, Duty, Honor, Integrity, Selfless Service. Respect. Personal Courage.
Are there sometimes faults? Of course. We are humans, after all, and no human is faultless. And there are bad people, too.
Yes, this was quite obviously done in protest. Its a silent protest. "Malicious Compliance".
From what I'm hearing from coordinators and people inside its not that they can't march. It's that nobody wanted to. They had to be there. So they phoned it in. Malicious compliance.
Like the squeaky tanks. That was a choice made in the motor pool. They could have greased them up and tested to make sure they were smooth. But they made a different call.
Lmao I didn't think about that. Probably didn't think it would be quiet enough to hear it squeak either.
Same, considering its age that thing is in mint condition and barely made any noise, really highlighted how much crowd noise wasn’t there
100%. I'm the most uncoordinated guy I know and even I learned (French army but the cadence/the mere act of marching is similar enough), like not even that far into basic either. Maybe not everything is lost for the common American!
I'm not saying you're wrong, but i do find it hard to believe. I think most people that take pride in their jobs won't half ass it.
Lol, half assing it is the default setting. Most people in the military are 18-22 year olds doing one enlistment contract and mostly hate it and want to get out as soon as they can.
Soldiers don't take pride in being used as political pawns.
Here is another event they hate doing, yet they seem to know how to march:
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
The band played "Fortunate Son". They all knew exactly what they were doing.
If shit ever does hit the fan full send (I very much doubt it) he doesn't have the army.
Got a video link? Sounds amazing.
I wouldn't put it past Trump to have requested the song
Beautiful.
Imperial March would have been dope
They didn't want to attract the worm.
No need, trump was already there.
Trump physically resembles Baron Harkonen from the old film.
"The Spice must flow"
So, the tweet isn't entirely true; my experience in the army was that we very much did irregularly do marches together, even after basic training. Every few months or so the battallion or brigade leadership would get an idea about a 'fun run' or whatever, and the start of those is always a march together. It inevitably switched to running together, but there was definitely a quick refresher on walking in step together on a regular basis.
What the tweeter missed is that there's tricks that every leadership command knows to do if they want a formation to look good.
If you wanted to put a military parade on that actually looked good you'd do a couple things prior to running it. You'd tell your various units to have a competition for who does it best, and you'd put up a basic-ass award for the winners and runners up. This ensures that any ladder climbers go out and find all the people who are actually good at this to put together a small super squad of people who actually know what they're doing. You then have them compete, and you pick the units that did the best to lead your parade.
We actually did this in basic training; my drill sgts had a little demonstration where they put the people good at keeping time together and the people bad it together. It was damn impressive how much of a difference just doing that made. One or two bad marchers can ruin a whole formation with their lack of timing.
None of this was done; at best they practiced for pt for a couple weeks before the event, but even that is iffy. They likely didn't bother to filter the parade members who can't march out, and that'd be good enough to turn this into a herd instead of a formation.
This doesn't rule out malicious compliance at all though; again, one or two bad marchees doing their best (or worst) job can completely throw off the timing of everybody behind and next to them. Same way as counting wrongly out loud can throw off someone trying to count up to 50.
From what I vaguely remember, you also want all the best marchers on the left most of the time, since you line up with the person on your left most of the time, and the very best at the front left. This was decades ago for me, but I know that there were tricks like that to make it look good.
They could have also done mock patrol movements, uneven spread, looking in different directions, and carrying weapons. A lot harder to mess up when it’s intentionally offstep.
My volunteer fire department was able to march in sync in parades despite having enjoyed a few adult beverages beforehand. What the Army did had to be deliberate.
Eeehh, so yes, after basic i did not march anywhere really. And you do need to brush up on it to keep in the swing of things…. But honestly, you know your unit is going to march in a parade months in advance, and for better or worse are going to represent the armed forces, you schedule mandatory training time.
Is it wasteful? Arguably under normal circumstances, definitely under this circumstance.
So i can only conclude that either they did not care, or do care a lot, or someone who was supposed to plan this fucked up and they just grabbed people.
They deliberately half-assed the parade because they don't like the way Trump treats them. Trump calls them "suckers and losers." He cuts their benefits Why would you show any loyalty (or enthusiasm) to someone who treats you like that?
More Trump quotes:
"You fucking generals. Why can't you be more like Hitler's generals?" 2017
On the burial of US Army private Vanessa Guillén:
"It doesn't cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!" December 4, 2020. Trump has denied having made the remark.
"We're not going to support that loser's funeral." August, 2018. Trump has denied having made this remark.
re: John McCain, who was captured and tortured for five years:
"He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you." July 18, 2015.
"But, you know, during the Vietnam War, I got very lucky. I had a very high lottery number." November 9, 1995.
On the 1,800 US Marines who died at Belleau Wood in France during World War I
"Suckers." November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.
On US soldiers in World War I
"Who were the good guys in this war?" November 11, 2018. Trump denies having asked this question.
"I don't get it. What was in it for them?" November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.
On disabled veterans
"Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded." September 30, 2019.
"Look, I don't want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn't look good for me." Summer 2017.
I can understand why someone would ask who the good guys were in WW1.
It's a question that shows a childlike understanding of war in general, but that's how war is often sold. A team sport with body bags.
That said, WW1 is hard to pick a "good" side. It was a mess of a war, but no side was particularly vile when compared to the others...
But for a US president, there's only one valid answer.
A US president can admit that Vietnam was not a shining moment is US history, but the world wars? No.
ah yes. that's how lottery works
During the Vietnam War there was a draft, so you could end up being conscripted and shipped halfway around the world to fight it. One way to avoid getting drafted was a lottery where, if you picked a high enough random number, you could avoid being drafted.
The thing is, Trump never picked a lottery number. Instead, he got five draft deferments, 1 medical and 4 educational. A lot of rich people at the time were able to avoid military service alltogether by getting a doctor to sign off that you had a sketchy illness. In Trump's case, it was bone spurs, which apparently healed right up after the Vietnam War ended. Trump kept his 1-Y deferments until after 1972, when he was reclassified 4-F (permanently ineligible for service). By claiming he got a "high lottery number" Trump makes it sound like staying out of Vietnam was an amazing stroke of luck. That was just another lie. Trump had powerful friends and family intervene for him. Luck had nothing to do with it.
TIL
Dodging the draft was the most moral action, after fragging your officer and joining the PAVN. Of course Trump only did it because it coincidentally happened to line up with what served him, but at least he didnt use his connections to pilot a bomber or something.
🏅"Could have committed more atrocities"
I'm a PATRIOTIC Republican who PROUDLY wears the American Flag on my Shorts and Truck and TRUMPS RIGHT! Our Soldiers are LOSERS AND SUCKERS!
Ok, but 1. fuck John McCain that ghoulish piece of shit is in hell lmao. 2. Trump's point about soldiers who die on the other side of the planet, fighting for the profits of people like Trump, is absolutely valid. I have no idea what that thought is even doing in an imperialist's brain.
Making occasional anti-war gestures and comments muddies the water enough for Libertarian-minded types to support him. It's the same reason Biden occasionally criticized Netanyahu, it's all theater.
Decades of Hollywood Military propaganda ruined in one single day.
I was only in marching band. 25 years later, I promise I could still do it with zero practice. This was on purpose.
100% and I can't imagine the effect of basic training and what you learned there being forgotten until long afterwards.
In the British army, even regular non-guardsman, infantry will usually parade into towns. They love a bit on pomp and ceremony. For example, even now regiments like the black watch regiment would be bagpipes bearing, marching in perfect unison into some place and then roll off to war.
They didn't want to be there and their imo their COs didn't want to kick off at them in front of the cameras.
If you were in marching band, there's a good possibility that you had more thorough training in marching than what's given in basic training, especially if you went to competitions. Marching makes up like half the activity of marching band (it's in the name). Marching is only one of a plethora of things that are taught during the few months of basic training, and once you're out of basic, you may never have to march again.
I also think your expectations on how rhythmically-inclined the average person (or soldier) is might be on the high side based on your experience in an activity with a bunch of highly rhythmically-inclined people.
I was in army cadets for like 2 years about 17 years ago and could still do this with 0 effort and I have a very poor sense of rhythm.
Trust me, anyone that's spent more than like an hour learning to march could still do it with ease decades later.
https://lemmy.world/comment/17703689
This isn't true at all. Marching is really easy, especially when there's music to March to. I did a bit of drill in basic, and we would get a bit of practice before something a lot smaller than this, and we would be ace in 20 minutes of practice. They are doing this on purpose.
They were "marching" to an instrumental of Fortunate Son. No way that's marched at that cadence without being janky as fuck at best.
Also fortunate son while marching past amazing Trump they must have known
Amazing music choice. Very fitting. I wonder who came up with that.
That's fair but they look shit and they should know how to fuxking March it's not the changing of the guard it's walking in time.
Marching makes up about 25% of daily life for a solider. We had PT formations, morning formation, weekend safety briefing formations, formations for training sessions, etc etc. If you have an element of troops, of any size, and they need to move from Point A to Point B, you're marching there.
!maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world
If I could march in a brass band after very limited practice, these guys can. They just didn’t want to.
“A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.”
– Soviet observation during the Cold War
Story time, boys and girls.
When I joined the Army and went to basic training, one of the first things they did was show us how to stand at attention, at-ease, right face, left face, and about face. Then they turned the training unit and marched off.
And then stopped and screamed at us for marching like Nazis.
Turns out, you don't see US soldiers marching like that because it's stupid as hell, and you can't do it for twenty miles with a rucksack. The US military for all their many, many faults, is real good at war, and marching like a toy soldier doesn't help you do war.
So we learned how to march like Americans, which is much more casual. The only thing you've gotta do is make sure you match the stride length of the soldier in front of you, but even that is more of a suggestion than a hard rule. We got good, though, because we were assholes.
We would ease out behind someone who was walking somewhere and roughly the same height, and step slightly faster than the person in front of us, until we were close behind them. Then you perform a little skip at the last second to get back to the same stride and close the last few inches. The end result is that your chest is hovering about an inch from their back, your nose is an inch from the back of their head, and your hands are swinging right behind theirs. While walking at full speed.
You haven't had a jump scare until you've marched two blocks, turned your head, and glimpsed someone's face an inch from your own.
The point of a uniformed service is to show your enemy that you have control and command over people who will follow your orders. Demonstrating this lowers your enemy's will to fight back. It gets soldiers on the other side to think "If these guys are so organized that they march in unison, we don't stand a chance."
These military parades are no longer valuable except to authoritarians. Normal functioning democracies don't use national military forces to project power. They do so using diplomacy and other political methods.
But Trump, Kim Jung Un, Modi, and Putin all use it to flex their authority to their base.
It will not surprise me if in the next year, a new division in the army is created for parade duty for the president's birthday where next year their marching will be perfect.
All so that Trump can get his dick hard.
The British can all do it for things like the Queen's funeral.
The USA absolutely uses military prowess to project power. It just happens to be that marching soldiers no longer does that anymore; that's what Air Force flybys at college football games are for.
Fair enough.
That would just be the chefs kiss of silly bullshit on top of everything else.
It Follows....
...him through the train turnstile
It's like in Catch-22 when Lieutenant Scheisskopf thinks that it's in vogue to march with your arms barely moving, and no one knows any better.
probably one of the first things every soldier world wide learns is marching. Malicious compliance it is.
"Defend our nation" by starting wars to keep rich people rich?
Unironically yes. You don't get to be the center of the universe without showing up on the periphery to kick someone else's nuts in from time to time.
This clip -- of Tom Friedman saying the attack on Iraq was morally justified because we had to take out "our big stick" and tell Iraqis: "suck on this" -- is one of the most deranged and psychosexually twisted war justifications ever.
no sometimes they start wars to get rich people richer
but for reals its not the soldiers starting wars its the higher ups and the people who make weapons who start wars
It's crazy that the people involved for the most noble (to them) reasons are the ones most likely to be pulling triggers and/or getting killed, while the ones starting the war for evil reasons typically come out ahead as long as they are willing to ignore the mountain of bodies in their wake. (cue narrator)
Or as a wise man once said:
Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?
Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor? Why do they always send the poor?
the bottom line is money nobody gives a fuck
Unfortunately I think you are correct.
it is what Serj says in SOAD's song Boom!
great music video for that btw
It is soldiers who willingly join that organization, knowing the same or more as we know. So they are as morally bancrupt as their leadership
When has the US military defended the nation? I got the impression that they're mostly used for invading foreign countries for financial gain, cf Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Guatemala, Korea.
This is what Americans call "defending the nation"; making war in other countries than their own, believing themselves to be the world police.
I think America has only ever been attacked... Twice... In all of history (Pearl Harbour and 9/11), and both times the defense was pretty piss poor.
Japan also invaded the aleutian islands.
America was attacked hundreds of times. The native people lost.
I'm not sure either of these events can even be counted as an attack. Pearl Harbour is roughly 3800km from the mainland. It's basically an overseas territory. An attack there is like saying the Falkland War was an attack on the UK.
And 9/11 was a terrorist attack, not a war. While it was a big attack, it was still only carried out by a handful of non-state-actors. That's quite a different thing than an actual military attack by a country.
Afaik, the last war on US soil was the civil war.
Hawaii was not a state for almost 2 decades after pearl harbor, so yeah.
The original white house was burned to the ground by British/Canadian troops in 1814.
Not to mention about 100 different American Indian Wars, though some of those were more slaughter than war.
Yeah, ok, that counts as a war on US soil, but that's still over 200 years ago.
Hard to really count them as wars for the reason you mentioned.
Not saying you're wrong in general but we didn't invade Kuwait.
Fair, taking it off the list. It just comes up naturally when I list the horrible things the US has done bc of the highway of death. Still an example of the US military not defending the US, but definitely not an invasion of Kuwait. Thanks for the correction, I was sloppy!
Yeah. That's kind of America's whole thing. Making money. Exploiting everything. Americans are the Ferengi.
Defending America = defending capitalism = doing whatever they can to make American, capitalist companies more profitable.
I don't hate capitalism. Don't get me wrong, but I generally don't like capitalists.
Capitalists are what makes capitalism capitalism. How can you hate one without the other?
No one is immune to propaganda
The same way I don't hate Christianity but most Christians drive me up a wall.
The concepts can be good, valid and even the best option in some cases, but the way it's weilded can be dramatically different based on the person wielding it.
You are comparing apples and oranges with your explanation.
Religion and belief are two separate things.
Christians drive you up a wall because of their beliefs not because of their religion.
This is not the same as hating capitalists but not capitalism.
Invasion is the defense.
Seems like the kind of thing someone who's been the president before would know. It's like draft-dodging and believing everything you see on tv are qualities of a shitty president.
I despised drill and ceremony. Standing in the heat and humidity, waiting to move and watching soldiers drop because of heat stroke. Never lock your damn knees.
I did the last sentence and got punished when I was in school ☠️
Did they even know locking knees feel painful already?
Made more sense back in the day when you didnt have TV or anything to do for most of every day.
I'm sure they felt very proud being brought on and ordered to march on display like trained monkeys.
I thought it was in unison but it certainly didn't have the giant goose stepping.
Yeah! They need to do important stuff!
Like point guns at me while I'm going to the grocery store!
Military doesn't do that, that's for cops after they get out of the military.
Oh, so who was the guy in digital camo standing next to the grey armored vehicle doing that?
Because im pretty sure that wasn't a cop; he looked like he might've actually know how to use his gun.
Edit: did not see crayons, but it was a few hours after lunch and there was a pretty nice art supply store nearby.
Cops have camo and rifles. I genuinely don't think the army has vehicles any color other than green, tan, and woodland camo.
Did it look like this?
More sidewalk colored. Different hat? I think?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat
Those were cops.
Nope. Wasn't that.
Im aware of what a cop looks like. I have been outside.
At this point we have a rough time and im not going to identify vehicles for location. Not gonna dox myself harder than i already have.
He's about to get out and become a cop.
No. Like i said; he was holding his gun properly.
National Guard maybe? Officially they are not military though. Edit: Yes they are I was wrong sorry
National Guard ARE part of the military, they wear U.S. military uniforms and are deployed to U.S. invaded and occupied countries like Iraq.
They are officially civilians, no? I know they can be called up into active service but outside of that...
They do both. The band "We gargle military balls" made a song about it.
Sorry I misremenbered their name.
Marines have also been deployed
Except when deployed when the police are "overran".
Yeah, the military's job is to point guns at people when they're going to the grocery store in other countries, primarily.
gotta stroke shitler's ego.
It's very important for soldiers to focus on doing "important work to defend our nation" (murdering brown kids) and that they're "productive at their jobs" (bombing hospitals)
I came here for this but found people already pointing it out.
DeFeNdInG as seen by everyone else: going to places 5k km away and murdering every living thing there.
VeTeRaNs as seen by everyone else: steroid micro-penis assholes murdering women & children
The bravest and most honorable men in our nation are doing the hard, honest work of fucking all those military wives while their chud husbands are deployed abroad.
If my kids were Army and were participating at an event, i would go watch. It sucks that it could have been a nice, reasonable celebration of the Army's 250 years of service but instead it was hijacked by a dipshit charlatan and turned into something that no one wanted. I feel sad for the families of the participants.
You mean they spend zero time on showmanship training and thus twirling rifles serves a practical and essential combat purpose?
No one will ever match North Korea's marching game.
I personally enjoy their "Jumbotron" where everyone holds a pixel and they change in unison.
On a fucking Saturday too. They wanted to be with their loved one probably.
I woulda filed a chit for gastro or something.
I think it was probably in protest. However they can, I guess.
Actually, they do train for this. So nice try. They hate Trump.
AD military here,
Been in 5 years. Haven't marched since basic.
Deleted by author
There is an argument to be made that they are defending American hegemony though Trump is fast eroding that in favor of the Chinese.
They can dEfEnD oUr NaTiOn against brown peasants, but can't march in step because they apparent forget how to do so after basic training? Shit, it's been over 20 years since my military service and I'm 100% sure I could still manage to march in step
Who fucking cares?
That may be; but how many of those people just didn't fucking care because of the dress and deportment of leadship?
I mean personally I think that's more likely to be the real reason – they mostly looked they just didn't give a flying fuck and didn't want to be there.
I just find these justifications of "well they're busy defending our nation so they don't learn marching" idiotic
One of the ships I was posted had to have the entire crew practice marching before a parade for freedom of the city. But we had come off of deployment not long ago.
Go to a concert and you might hear people clapping along to a song. All they have to do is meet their hands at the proper time, at speed. Some people are a half second off, and they don’t have to maintain distance, stave off boredom, or consider their stride. Humans kinda suck without practice
I find the parade itself more than idiotic. It's anti-American and counter to our very principles.
Fuck how they marched. You can have your comments but holy shit it pisses me off that you're focusing on how they marched instead of on the abject evil forcing them to do it in the first place.
I just think it's odd that they're not wearing class A's or even B's
When I was in 20+ years ago they didn't even want us stopping for gas off-post in our BDU's on the way home from work
Wearing white parade gloves in that uniform also just looks weird
I would bet money that this was a protest of their own. They didn't want to be shown as North Koreans and be used as a tool like that. I appreciate what they did.
I thought that was weird, too. I wonder why?
My assumption was to try and make the troops look more menacing as a message to places like LA, really hoping for an NK dear leader style ass kissing but just got to hear the squeaking of a Sherman instead.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last time they did a parade was back in '91 after the first Gulf War, they wore a combat uniform then as well but also wearing their LBE
But that was just after the ending of actual major combat operation, so it wasn't entirely out of place to wear the desert uniforms that were worn for that particular theater of operation
I'm not sure why they chose combat uniforms for Trump's parade, maybe Trump requested them or it was a bargaining olive branch to the troops from the brass to try to keep participation high since dress uniforms are much less comfortable to wear in parades and require more effort on the part of the soldiers to prep
I know we always did our best to avoid those kinds of events that required them
It's been over 20 years since I was in marching band and I could absolutely do it. But not play a woodwind. That takes practice...
Same, but whacking stuff with a stick is generally easier
I can play a woodwind just as well as these guys were marching.
I was only in JROTC 20+ years ago and I'm pretty sure I can march in step.
Sounds like it was too loud to hear the cadence by the reviewing stand. I don't think it was an ability jssue or an apathy issue.
Even then you'd expect them to be able to march in step with each other even if they can't hear some cadence.
Like I said in another comment, I think it's just more likely they did the bare minimum because they absolutely didn't give a fuck about being performing monkeys for King Trump
edit: I was in the military for years. I don't understand how some of y'all make marching in step and in formation sound like fucking quantum physics
You need some kind of cue to keep in step. If you can see the other guys feet, that helps, but often tinted you can't. The sound of yourself matching helps, but without some occasional cadence, or other governing factor, the speed of the match tends to change in a collective sort of way. My BMT platoon would get faster as we marched, unless the DI shouted at us occasionally.
It's certainly possible and even likely that there were people marching who just didn't give a fuck or were purposefully marching like shit, but as somebody who's served and marched plenty, you'd be surprised how quickly things get messy. It's easy, sure, but it can get out of hand quickly.
If one person goes out of step, especially with no cadence cues, those behind follow the one who's fucking up either consciously or subconsciously. Then the one who's leading the out of step march shuffles to get back in sync, forcing everybody behind them to have scramble to shuffle back into step. It's a domino effect.
Like I said, I won't say it's not possible that you're right, but if you were to watch any marching group you'd see people out of step in almost every case. Regardless of if they wanted to sabotage Trump's parade in this case, most of the people I served with wouldn't want to intentionally make their unit look like a bag of hammers - which sloppy marching does.
I think a lot of people are over analyzing this but like I said, it's still possible that what you believe is true.
This is just not accurate.
Here's an example proving it incorrect:
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
That's just a unit. Not a ceremonial one.
I mean the honest truth is the military hates Trump just like the rest of us
It's not hard to march
It's what you learn on your very first day of basic training in Canada. You're expected to march in time everywhere you go throughout your training. You only get to stop once you reach your unit. Even clerks have to do this, it's just basic discipline.
The key difference is you can actually march to that music. Fortunate son is slightly too fast for a proper pace which is why the front of the one group was wavy and people were out of step. Also if anyone was actually calling cadence, the people on the left side probably wouldn't have been able to hear it over the music.
Marching can be done to no music.
Side ranks keep sideeye on the element leader to the side, everyone else keeps side eye to the person on their right.
There are also the marshall with the whips. If all else fails, you keep cadence to that.
In a silent march, you keep in step with the "Clomp clomp clomp", which also, is quite easy to do, and is done often.
Yeah, you literally just keep the beat in your head. Anyone can do it.
Your left, your left, your left righto left righto left right your left, keep in step, keep in step, step, step, step...
Runs through my head when walking alone, 15 years later.
"Boots, boots, boots, boots..."
True, but keeping time with the steps of those around you while music is playing at a completely different tempo is not something I would trust a non-musically trained soldier to do well.
My wife falls in step beside me without even realizing she's doing it. You learn this day one of basic up here. By the time you get out of BMQ it's instinct. And it doesn't eat up any training time, because your practice is just walking in time with your unit every time you go anywhere.
Except, every soldier is quite capable of doing it, and does it routinely.
I don't know much about the military, but I am very familiar with the marching arts. Discerning between two different tempos and keeping your feet in time with only one of them is a lot harder than it sounds. Unless there is time allotted to learning that skill specifically, I doubt any group of soldiers are going to do it flawlessly.
They may not fall apart, but its not going to look pretty. And apparently, it didn't. If every soldier is capable of doing this, then why is there a whole post about how badly they did it?
Because there's a fair chance they did it purposefully.
It is genuinely, such a hilariously piss-poor excuse.
My wife is in the Canadian Forces. She is ridiculously good at her job, and everyone in the CAF is trained to a ridiculously high standard. By the time she exited occupational training she was already qualified on more weapon systems than most US soldiers ever touch in their entire careers. Her unit shoots sub-MOA groupings for fun. They meet and often exceed the physical standards for Ranger school. And this is just reg-force infantry.
And despite all that, she is also so completely capable of keeping a tight march that she actually has to stop herself from automatically falling in perfect step next to me when we're walking down the street. And no, the excuse of "Oh, you can't march to Fortunate Son" doesn't count for shit. My wife can mark perfect time with no music at all. Christ, one time in training her MCpl made her unit all put on their gas masks and mark time while singing Oh Canada, and they didn't get to stop until it was perfect. And no, they did not have a fucking drum or backing music. She's not on a drill team; Canada doesn't have drill teams. This is just something they do because it's part of the basic standard of being a soldier.
Hell, even our AIT D&C was crispy AF. Every fiber of our being was purely focused on immaculate execution. I do miss that. The intensity of
notthat natural motivation and not the manufactured stuff that gets you through daily morning formation.###"SOUND OFF"
😈👏 ooooh, Jodie you done did it now. I hope you like getting your tits blown off because you bout to get your tits blown off.
This is a false dichotomy, as though you can either be productive or learn to march. Obviously you could do both.
Broadly speaking, yeah. We send every member of the US Army through "Basic Training" even though 95% of them will never actually fire a gun or climb over a fence or jog ten miles in the rain for the rest of their careers.
Parade March is a thing we don't bother to drill into units (except specifically tasked "Parade Units" that exist to do little circus acts for the high command's amusement). But we could do it instead of the GI Joe training for the private class janitorial staff if we felt like it.
The bigger picture is that the US Military is a fountain of economic waste, social abuse, and pointless bloodshed in the name of machismo. Trump's parade is just the cherry on a seven layer cake of squandered national wealth.
But it's the thing liberals will fixate on, because we can't ever actually say "The Pentagon sucks ass and makes the world an objectively worse place to live in". It always has to be about this one Great Man Of History doing things wrong in a way his hypothetical liberal alternative would not.
That is not accurate.
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
Soldiers utilize D&C every day, by and large. Even when running. Its how soldiers are moved, as a group, from point A to point B.
You can. And they do.
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
This is a false dichotomy, but also, maybe if all the others have been doing it for millennia there is a reason. For instance, having large groups that walk fast while not taking too much space, but also many other things :
Marching into battle, study
No, you can NOT learn to march like they do in North Korea or China and have any time left in your day to do an actual job or even train to fight. That crap takes time.
Um...
https://youtu.be/aeFltEjzR2Y?t=1212
Um... That is nothing like the pageantry they put on on North Korea and China.
I guess no, they cant learn to goose step, that quickly, because US troops dont goose step when marching.
That video is just some guys walking in sync (on my tax dollar). Have you seen an NK parade?
Military is absurd. Ceremonial is the least destructive thing they can do I think.
If they dislike Trump so much, they had like, you know, all their tanks there and stuff, they should have just removed him from office.
They were mostly like WW2 tanks from what I saw. I'm sure their weapons systems were dismantled or decommissioned
Those tanks were museum pieces.
If they're all really so unhappy to do this, I'm not saying they should do a coup... but I'm not not saying that, either.
The U.S. military has done nothing to defend their "nation" for over 100 years. They ONLY defend the corporate oligarchs' ability to steal resources and use slave labor in third world countries.
Lmao yet Ukraine still stands thanks to American intelligence and military apparatus.
I'm not even an American but this kindergarten sentiment on Lemmy is so exhausting.
And then promptly fucked right out of peace negotiations immediately after signing the resources deal. Fits perfectly well with
Are you suggesting that kindergarten political thought is somehow less valid? You must hate children!
Yeah you get a lot of these 'moral purity absolutists' with all the nuance of an edgy teen. Some of them, or course, are edgy teens, but 100 years is a super odd choice even so. You'd think by the time they were 13 they'd have heard of at least one war that came pretty close to defense against a malign hegemonic power with ambitions of global domination....
It really reminds me how I felt when I was an edgy 16-year old but luckily for me social media wasn't really a thing yet so it didn't bother anyone.
Which they provide exactly as long as they profit exponentially from it. Dont pretend like the US would provide foreign aid out of generosity.
I am of the mindset that a good thing done for selfish reasons is still ultimately a good thing done.
Me too, but that still doesnt contradict the comment above drmoose's
I never said it did, I'm just offering perspective.
It's possible that you're overestimating the US contribution
Looking at the conflicts they have been explictly or covertly involved in, it does seem like they are attempting to create a hegemony. That's not to say that some good doesn't get done along the way but it is more of a byproduct than the intent.
But... Ukraine falling to Russia would strengthen the US's military (and cultural) hegemony over the western world. If this truly was the rationale behind the US's involvement in Ukraine, everything we've done thus far would make absolutely zero sense. Strengthening Ukraine and spurring investment into the home-grown EU defense industry only serves to weaken our position as the lynchpin of NATO. A better justification for US involvement in Ukraine is that this is a great opportunity to starve Russia's economy by forcing them into conflicts they cannot economically support (which was much the same strategy that lead to the collapse of the soviet union).
It's also a great opportunity for Russia to starve the US economy by getting them involved in conflicts it cannot economically support. And the US is far more overextended due to other conflicts.
You might have a point if the US were fighting in Ukraine, but... we're not? We're advising the Ukraine army, sharing intelligence we'd be gathering anyways and giving AFU a bunch of export weapon systems we found by rummaging around in the pentagon's couch cushions. This has been a spectacular opportunity for the US because it costs us almost nothing, yet what used to be considered our biggest opponent is teetering on the brink of cultural and economic collapse. Seriously, even if Kiev were to fall tomorrow NATO would be no-contest the victor. Nobody cares about the bear any more.
Yes, we're just sacrificing their lives for the realpolitic of weakening Russia, which is also bad.
Lmao, y'all actually believe this shit.
The US spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on the military, more than the next nine countries in the world combined. Every government program designed to actually help people gets cut to feed more money into the war machine. It's no wonder we have "military equipment between our couch cushions," because military equipment is what virtually all our tax money goes towards, when it's the reason we can't have things like free healthcare or higher education. Notice how we never seem to find money between our couch cushions for those things?
Did it? Who considered the Russian Federation a bigger opponent than the PRC?
Looked in a mirror lately? The US just elected Trump, in part because people think he represents an alternative to the disastrous establishment policies that pour endless money into pointless foreign wars, and to an economy that is working for fewer and fewer people. Seems like "on the brink of cultural collapse" describes the US to a T.
But moreover, the whole American Empire is falling apart around us. Every year, more and more countries that are just as significant as Ukraine are choosing to make deals with China, to start trading and cooperating with them instead of us. Because the US is trying to rule the world through force and intimidation, while China is manufacturing consumer goods and building hospitals and infrastructure for developing and middle-income countries - the things we won't even build domestically. Who would want to side with us when you can look at our domestic situation and see that it's declining and awful? If that's the best we can provide our own citizens, then what could we offer to other countries?
If I were an "accelerationist," like people sometimes baselessly accuse me of, I would 100% support spending more on the military and getting involved in these stupid unwinnable conflicts all over the world, dumping endless amounts of money towards any situation we can use bombs and not sparing a penny for actually making anyone's life better, because those self-destructive policies will ensure the downfall of the US more than anything else could. The problem with that being, the US is likely to start WWIII in that scenario, the more clear it becomes that the military is literally the only tool that we could possibly use to maintain hegemony, since it's the only thing we spend money on.
Must have forgotten that Ukraine became a US state, these edgy kids
Somehow I doubt that someone in a professional armed forces can't fucking march. It's just left, left, left right left
Anyone can march. Marching in perfect sync with 50 other soldiers in formation is another matter and takes quite a bit of practice and coordination like any other group dance routine.
I've been out of the military for almost 20 years and I can still march to a cadence.
Active duty? They could march if they felt like it. They did not.
Just gotta keep the bends outta those elbows, troop!
You learn a lot about the speed of sound
Lol they're pro military just to make Trump's joint celebration with the military look bad
Trump just needs to up his dictator game and threaten everyone involved, especially the leadership, with jail time or dishonorable discharge if they don’t shape up and goose-step properly.
We're there soldiers in WW2 cosplay? I'd be so embarrassed.
They defend our nation? How, and in what ways? Bonus points if you can describe it in : current era facts, non-hegemonic, and without using the word “preemptive strike”, and with action on our soil.
Realistically, by way of being the political equivalent of a fleet-in-being.
Mostly, though, by way of ducking up anyone who looks like challenging our putative superiority.
so hegemony?
More or less. No bonus points for me, I guess.
Deterrent?
Listen, those golf courses ain't gonna upkeep themselves.
America has the best military in the world, that is the top thing we do right.
that does not make sense nor does it answer my question.
We have soft power (or at least we did) with a huge military and spy system to back that up. Do you want a class in military defense and offense? Putin had to use psy ops and put his own puppet in the white house to get what he wants, his military is crap. We protect our allies as well. So you'll have to explain exactly what you're asking and I'm sure people in this thread could answer. There are a lot of military people here.
the US military has a documented history of psyops and actions against its own. In addition to war crimes. Like all other nations, sure!!
Sure you can describe the US in relation to other militaries, but you cannot, in good faith, make the claim that it is right, honorable, or even efficient.
He said nothing about "right, honorable or efficient." He said we have a huge military/spy complex, and that gives soft and hard power as a nation. Hes right.
Some greasy idiot with a loaded shotgun walking into a grocery store also gains a lot of hard and soft power about his grocery store experience. It might be imbecilic power that has consequences, but its power.
What are you exactly asking? This is starting to seem like troll baiting. Since I'm in the discussion, it's a little harder to just give you a break, but I am warning you. If you were speaking to someone else, you'd be out for a couple of days.
Edit: It's happening to others as well, I'm going to give you a few days break.
PTB
So, no answer will be good enough for you.
Incorrect.
The answer truly is that there is nothing good about the US gov or its military.
Russians be like "they can't march, maybe they can't even clean a toilet bowl with their fork or fuck and tortue a child, we totally win"
From what?
Shit excuse. It takes more effort not to march in unison.
It's also something that is taught in UK army, since the collapsing bridge incident.
Wild first point but we'll ignore it.
What is the collapsing bridge incident?
It's common knowledge that soldiers don't walk in unison on bridges. It dates back to 1831.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broughton_Suspension_Bridge
Same thing happened in France twenty years later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angers_Bridge
It also postponed the opening of a bridge in London by two years in 2000:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London
I think this is what they are referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broughton_Suspension_Bridge.
TL;DR: The bridge collapsed because soldiers marching on it created force they hadn't anticipated, soldiers breaking step supposedly don't have as much of an impact.
London Bridge falling down, falling down, falling down?
Didn’t it collapse because they walked in unison, causing resonance?
I’ve been trying to explain to people for many years that China’s military is mostly just for show, but it isn’t the US if we’re not demonizing China for no reason.
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given that they lost in Afghanistan, after 2 decades, to one of the military of one of the poorest countries in the world. proves that the US military is nothing but a scam to funnel tax payer money to the pockets of MIL shareholders.
Didn't North Korean military slap US military with their dick on their faces for years? Isn't that the reason a North Korea exists at all?
Murica is just a puppet that rump has his arm up its ass