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.
If I was the commanding officer for this absolute sham, I’d teach them to match the goose step to make a point.
“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.
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 is soldiers who willingly join that organization, knowing the same or more as we know. So they are as morally bancrupt as their leadership
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
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.
This. NATO has us troops stationed all over europe. They marched just fine during european parades.
Malicious compliance
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.
In military you cannot not comply with the orders
What i find surprising is that even after making this claim you still believe these people are down to protest and boycot their superiors.
“They did in protest” is the funniest cope I have heard, ever I think.
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).
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:
Wah. I don’t want to see the entire fucking world around me filled with evidence. Wah. Wah. Wah.
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.
Ok. I guess your perspective is correct and there is just one military that is all the same.
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”.
if by “defend our nation” he means “destabilizing foreign nations” then yeah, he is correct.
There is an argument to be made that they are defending American hegemony though Trump is fast eroding that in favor of the Chinese.
inshallah 🙏
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.
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.
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
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:
The way the marines, in particular, marched… no. That was sloppy and looked intentional.
it was intentional… they also didn’t look at or salute the Dump when he stood to salute them, under the giant Coinbase signs….
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.
Well, it’s got electrolytes!
god damn it, idiocracy is approaching too fast…
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.
in just about every snippet of a military parade i’ve seen, they show the part where troops walk by the president and he’s saluting and they salute back… and they know how to march in synch….
this was malicious compliance.
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.
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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.
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.
The original white house was burned to the ground by British/Canadian troops in 1814.
Yeah, ok, that counts as a war on US soil, but that’s still over 200 years ago.
Not to mention about 100 different American Indian Wars, though some of those were more slaughter than war.
Hard to really count them as wars for the reason you mentioned.
Japan also invaded the aleutian islands.
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?
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.
No one is immune to propaganda
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!
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Invasion is the defense.
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.
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.
I had a very high lottery number
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.
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.
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.
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.
Made more sense back in the day when you didnt have TV or anything to do for most of every day.
I did the last sentence and got punished when I was in school ☠️
Did they even know locking knees feel painful already?
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.
Beautiful.
Imperial March would have been dope
I was only in marching band. 25 years later, I promise I could still do it with zero practice. This was on purpose.
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.
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 like half the activity of marching band
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.
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.