Tanks arrive in D.C. for Trump's Fourth of July celebration

[wing2000]

The US military are citizens of the US. Also, the military is nothing without the citizens and vise versa, I believe. One without the other doesn't work out too well.

Furthermore, I think your hate for Trump is blinding you, really.

I am calling for balance. We have Memorial and Veterans Day to honor the troops. Why militarize the 4th of July?

Having the parade as we did was perfect for the 4th of July, which was by the way a military victory.

No it wasn't. The British did not surrender until 1781. July 4th marks the Continental Congress' approval of the Declaration of Independence.

Not only that, many different people were recognized during the presidents speech, not just military.

Good.

This has nothing to do with the parade/celebration of the 4th of July.

What good is freedom if we don't live by the Constitutional values that represent our country?
Has the President every quoted the US Constitution?

 

[Archivist]

Why do we show off modern military hardware, yet we scrapped both the Saratoga and Enterprise after their long WW II service and scrapped every battleship that was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

 

[Gigimo]

Why do we show off modern military hardware, yet we scrapped both the Saratoga and Enterprise after their long WW II service and scrapped every battleship that was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

Scrapping ships when their usefulness has passed is standard operating procedure unless some group or state buys the ship and turns it into some kind of memorial or museum.

 

[Archivist]

Scrapping ships when their usefulness has passed is standard operating procedure unless some group or state buys the ship and turns it into some kind of memorial or museum.

Yes, I realize that. But the heroic USS Enterprise should not have been scrapped, and at least one of the battleships that survived Pearl Harbor should have been saved. Obviously Arizona and Oklahoma were lost at Pearl Harbor, and Pennsylvania was badly damaged near the end of the War. West Virginia and Nevada aren’t coastal states. But USS Maryland could easily have been docked at Baltimore or Annapolis, and USS California could have been preserved at San Francisco. Other states preserved their battleships, Texas, New Jersey, Alabama, North Carolina, Massachusetts among them. Maryland or California could have done that as well.

 

[Gigimo]

Yes, I realize that. But the heroic USS Enterprise should not have been scrapped, and at least one of the battleships that survived Pearl Harbor should have been saved. USS Maryland could easily have been docked at Baltimore or Annapolis.

The expense to maintain them after awhile would be enormous and I have no doubt some people would see it as a massive waste of money (for differing reasons) that's why you don't find too many left.

There is one remaining ship from that era the "dreadnought" Texas, built before the Pearl Harbor BBs and wasn't there at the time of the attack. She is the only surviving BB that served in both World Wars (I and II) and is currently moored at San Jacinto Battleground. The only older surviving "pre dreadnought" BB that I know of is the Japanese Mikasa located at Yokosuka. If you ever get the time to visit either one go it's like entering a time machine.

 

[Archivist]

The expense to maintain them after awhile would be enormous and I have no doubt some people would see it as a massive waste of money (for differing reasons) that's why you don't find too many left.

There is one remaining ship from that era the "dreadnought" Texas, built before the Pearl Harbor BBs and wasn't there at the time of the attack. She is the only surviving BB that served in both World Wars (I and II) and is currently moored at San Jacinto Battleground. The only older surviving "pre dreadnought" BB that I know of is the Japanese Mikasa located at Yokosuka. If you ever get the time to visit either one go it's like entering a time machine.

Yes, I’ve been aboard Texas as well as the old armored cruiser Olympia in Philly and several of the battleships and carriers that were preserved. Yes, they are expensive to preserve, but if other ships were saved by their states, Maryland or California could have preserved their Pearl Harbor veterans. It wouldn’t be any more expensive for them than for New Jersey or Texas. And somebody should have preserved the Enterprise. Halsey tried to have her saved but failed. It was a great tragedy that she was scrapped. Her contributions were no less than those of the USS Constitution 200 years earlier.

 

[Gigimo]

Maryland or California could have preserved their Pearl Harbor veterans.

Some states have a different idea of what history is than others and so made the decision to spend their funds in other ways.

Yeah it would be nice if they had saved Enterprise but her name lives on in subsequent ships and the next one will have her keel laid next year sometime and have the designator CVN 80. She isn't the only famous warship to have an ignoble ending, the most decorated warship in Royal Naval history Warspite
ended up going to the scrappers because she ran aground and was too badly damaged to refloat/save.

When I was in the AF they decided to close Carswell AFB in Ft Worth which had housed the 7th Bomb Wing, but it had so much history they didn't want to deactivate it. So they decided to deactivate the 96th Bomb Wing at Dyess AFB (my outfit) and rename us the 7th Bomb Wing. Needless to say we had to do a lot of sign changes around the base, repainting of aircraft and changing of insignias on our uniforms

 

[Archivist]

Some states have a different idea of what history is than others and so made the decision to spend their funds in other ways.

I realize that. It doesn’t mean those states made the right decision.

Yeah it would be nice if they had saved Enterprise but her name lives on in subsequent ships and the next one will have her keel laid next year sometime and have the designator CVN 80.[/QUOTE]

But carrying on the name isn't the same as saving the ship. We would probably have a modern USS Constitution if we had scrapped the old frigate, but it wouldn’t be the same.

She isn't the only famous warship to have an ignoble ending, the most decorated warship in Royal Naval history Warspite ended up going to the scrappers because she ran aground and was too badly damaged to refloat/save.

Another tragedy that shouldn’t have happened, but that one was a British decision.

When I was in the AF they decided to close Carswell AFB in Ft Worth which had housed the 7th Bomb Wing, but it had so much history they didn't want to deactivate it. So they decided to deactivate the 96th Bomb Wing at Dyess AFB (my outfit) and rename us the 7th Bomb Wing. Needless to say we had to do a lot of sign changes around the base, repainting of aircraft and changing of insignias on our uniforms

Wow.