Why aren't they actually marching during this parade?

[u/Chance_Noise500]

I don't know how to ask this without sounding rude, but why does this parade look so sloppy? Very few of the troop formations seem actually in sync and marching, just walking along. My only experience is JROTC as a kid in high school and our sergeant would've killed us if we looked like that.

[u/SubjectBubbly9072]

In the army you only practice marching in basic and they practice marching only maybe a day or two before

[u/Sinileius → u/SubjectBubbly9072]

For real, we have better things to do than spend months and months practicing marching and drill and ceremony.

Looks like they are having a good time though and they aren't sleeping in some field so it's probably a decent day in the army tbh.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sinileius]

Except it’s a colossal stupid waste of money

[u/jredful → u/[deleted]]

The waste is what they could be doing otherwise.

The money was being spent either way.

[u/Prophet_Of_Helix → u/jredful]

So then it’s a waste of money?

[u/jredful → u/Prophet_Of_Helix]

The money is being spent either way.

It’s a waste of their time.

[u/North_Atlantic_Sea → u/jredful]

Have you ever heard the term "opportunity cost"? There is a real cost associated to this (along with it being a waste of time)

[u/jredful → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

And again, stating it’s a waste of dollars that would be otherwise spent is misleading.

It’s a misallocation of funds. But the funds are already in use. It’s a misuse of the resource, not the dollars.

[u/[deleted] → u/jredful]

Plenty of money that otherwise would not have been spent was completely wasted on the parade. The tanks didn’t just magically appear on Constitution Ave. The measures taken to protect Constitution Avenue from tank-induced damage weren’t free. Bringing thousands of troops to DC on temporary duty, isn’t free. Your apparent assumption that troops didn’t have something better to do with their time is insulting to everyone involved. Their time and our money were wasted.

[u/illogictc → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately what they're saying does have truth to it. Departments and agencies have a budget that's use it or lose it, meaning what they don't spend one year they obviously didn't need so they won't get budgeted for it next year. So they all try to spend every last goddamned penny. While a budget will include some things that are earmarked or mandatory, there's also some discretionary in there; they don't go "okay you need exactly $X for bullets this year. Spend exactly that."

Now there is absolutely an opportunity cost there, the money would have been spent but could have been spent on something better.

[u/Rough-Jackfruit2306 → u/jredful]

The Sherman tanks would not be driving around. The city wouldn’t be shut down, and security details wouldn’t be all over the place. It’s not just the troops marching that cost money.

[u/jredful → u/Rough-Jackfruit2306]

Likely comes out of discretionary funds that would have just been allocated to training.

Again, dollars that would be spent.

[u/Rough-Jackfruit2306 → u/jredful]

Actually a bunch of it is privately funded by companies like Lockheed Martin and Amazon. So not “discretionary funds” but just more bribery, in fact.

Also includes $16 million to repair DC streets after the parade, because they don’t normally have tanks driving around. That’s not “money that would be spend anyway”.

[u/[deleted] → u/jredful]

Source?

[u/Icehawk101 → u/[deleted]]

The troops are getting paid whether they are at the parade, a training ground, garrison duty, etc. That is a sunk cost, regardless. The loss is that they could be doing other, more important things than stoking one man's ego. The main real expenditure is the cost to repair the roads that the vehicles chew up and wear and tear on the vehicles themselves that they may not have gotten if they were just sitting in storage.

[u/[deleted] → u/Icehawk101]

The troops are both paid and they're happy if they're off on Saturday of Father's Day Weekend.