Letter to the editor: Trump's parade tanks, Brunswick Beacon

Brunswick Beacon, 06.26.25

Trump “reamed out” his defense secretary because it was sparsely attended. Julie Mason at Trump-friendly NewsNation said, “Tens of people enjoyed” it. Russia’s state television, run by Trump’s pal Putin, mocked Trump with the video: "How Trump imagined his parade. What he actually saw." It compared massive crowds at North Korean parades with the underwhelming turnout for Trump’s 79th birthday.

While North Koreans must attend parades, here attendance is voluntary. That makes the contrast between Trump’s vanity project and the simultaneous “No Kings” protests even more meaningful.

Some 4-6 million Americans marched against Trump. Independent data journalist G. Elliott suggests it was the biggest day of demonstrations in U.S. history, drawing nearly 2 percent of America’s population. Protestors took to the streets in over 2,100 cities and towns (including nearly 1,000 in Shallotte!) to reject Trump’s dictatorial behavior. Nobody forced them. They voted with their feet and marched freely by the millions in overwhelmingly peaceful protests filled with joyful noise. 

Trump’s ears must have burned as the U.S. Army Band “Downrange” repeatedly performed “Fortunate Son,” John Fogerty’s scathing indictment of draft-dodging “millionaire’s sons.” Trump dodged Vietnam because a podiatrist diagnosed him with bone spurs. The podiatrist’s two daughters say it was a favor to his landlord, Trump’s millionaire dad. Donald, Fogerty said, “IS the Fortunate Son.”

The puny crowd at Trump’s $45 million exercise in self-gratification was so quiet you could hear the squeak of tank treads chewing up D.C.’s streets, which will cost the Army $16 million to repair. 

The human cost was far greater. Tragically, and needlessly, a truck hauling a tank from Trump’s parade struck and killed 39-year-old Sierra Nichole Smith. I’ll never forgive Trump for terminating President Biden’s Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase Program, which saved 13,000 veterans from homelessness last year; 90,000 more would have benefited going forward. Trump squandered money that could have saved thousands of my fellow veterans on a birthday bash to stroke his pathetically fragile ego.

Michael P. Rush

Leland