Donald Trump wants a parade to celebrate U.S. military members, the White House confirmed on Tuesday.
“President Trump is incredibly supportive of America’s great service members who risk their lives every day to keep our country safe,” White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
“He has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation.”
An anonymous military official told the Washington Post that the president was inspired by a parade he saw in Paris, on Bastille Day.
“The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” the official told the Post. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”
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Trump has previously praised the French parade, saying in September, “It was one of the greatest parades I have ever seen.”
At the time, he mentioned he would like to see his own country produce a similar celebration for Independence Day festivities.
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Trump officials said planning is still in its “infancy,” according to the Post, and a date hasn’t been set.
The newspaper listed a few pitfalls of hosting a parade, including the cost, which could be in the millions of dollars, and the fact that army tanks could “chew up” the streets in Washington.
Muscular military parades of the kind that are common in authoritarian countries like China and North Korea are not common in the U.S.
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The U.S. traditionally has not embraced showy displays of raw military power, such as North Korea’s parading of ballistic missiles, as a claim of international prestige and influence.
In fact, North Korea is currently planning a “threatening” military parade on the day before the start of the 2018 Olympics, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
Along with France, Russia also hosts a historical military parade on Victory Day, celebrating its Second World War victories. France’s Bastille Day parade has celebrated its military since Napoleonic times.
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John Kirby, a retired Navy rear admiral and former spokesman for the State Department and the Pentagon, reposted on Twitter Tuesday night, an article he wrote for CNN’s website last summer after Trump mentioned he had been dazzled by the Paris parade. Kirby said a big military parade in Washington is a bad idea.
“First of all, the United States doesn’t need a parade down Pennsylvania or any other avenue to show our military strength,” he wrote. “We do that every day in virtually every clime all over the world.”
*With files from the Associated Press
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