US President Donald Trump arrives to deliver commencement remarks at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 1, 2025.

Critics are blasting US President Donald Trump over a plan for the American Army to hold a massive parade on June 14.

That date is both the 250th anniversary of the US Army and Trump’s birthday, and the parade is ostensibly for the military and not the president.

However, Trump has long craved just such a military spectacle. He wanted one during his first term, but had to settle for a somewhat smaller-scale event instead.

And while the Army has long planned a celebration for its big birthday, the Associated Press reports that those plans didn’t include a parade until very recently. The news agency said the event “could include a Stryker battalion with two companies of Stryker vehicles, a tank battalion and two companies of tanks, an infantry battalion with Bradley vehicles, Paladin artillery vehicles, Howitzers and infantry vehicles” as well as thousands of soldiers.

The U.S. military does not typically have large parades, even for big milestones, except on rare occasions. The last major military parades in the United States of this scale may have been for the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

In addition, Trump’s parade comes as he ushers in an era of strict austerity, with major cuts across departments and throughout the federal government, including cuts to scientific research, school lunches and

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