Grigory Pasko: The Parades of the Hussars
Hurrah! Joint training for the military parade has begun outside Moscow!
It’s quite a sight – military parades. Koz’ma Prutkov is recalled right away : «Want to be beautiful – join the hussars».
Parades on Red Square – this is parades of hussars. They have nothing in common with the real life of the army. Not by chance does a saying exist in the army: on parade a military man – is like a horse: head all in flowers, but his a..s in soap.
It is best not to recall about the behind-the-scenes life of theparade: a frightening sight. I participated in two parades -impressions to last a lifetime.
Flowers, of course, there are enough of. And fanfares. And freshlypainted military hardware, which rather often can’t seem to actuallyfind its way to permanent residence with the troops.
Here are just some parade numbers: participants – ten and a halfthousand personnel; over 150 units of military hardware; a hundred andtwenty airplanes and helicopters.
And this time too everything will be the same as it ever was: upbeatwords from the generals; solemnly-heartfelt – from the president ofthe Russian Federation; shouts of «hurrah»…. Military hardware thunders through RedSquare. The cheeks of the men of state will puff up from satisfactionat how well life has turned out …Also on the tribunes – for entourage -veterans (if they’re real – then they ought to be close to ninety yearsold).
Of the new things: marching representatives of the countries ofally-armies.
The mustered warriors (three months of non-stop marching on differentparade grounds) will demonstrate wonders of combat deportment – this isnot fighting with an enemy, after all; you don’t need a lot of brainsfor this.
…No, military parades are certainly a good thing. True, it’sdoubtful that they do anything of any benefit for the military might ofthe state and the development of the armed forces. A demonstration ofmuscle against the background of the sad state of the army, thepermanent war with terrorists, the eternal reforming of anything andeverything – this is nothing more than an attempt to retouch reality.You’re not going to scare serious people with decorations anddemonstrations. If this is calculated for the unsophisticated denizen -show him old films of previous parades, from the times of the previouscentury, on the television. Only instead of Brezhnev-Andropov-Suslov,edit in Medvedev-Putin-Surkov.
They will believe!
«Our everything» once said that Russia “does not threaten anyone”,while parades – this is «a demonstration of our growing capabilities inthe sphere of defense. We are in a condition to defend our people,citizens, our state, our wealth, and we’ve got quite a lot of it”.
Wealth, they do indeed already – and still – have a lot of.
It is entirely possible that they will be able to defend it.
As concerns «people, citizens, the state» – there are doubts.
Especially after 29 March of the year 2010.
