Published
4 years agoon
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump isn’t taking “no tanks” for an answer on the Fourth of July.
He said Monday a display of U.S. military tanks will be part of a special event he’s headlining July 4 in Washington, and an Associated Press photographer saw at least two M1A1 Abrams tanks and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles on flatcars in a railyard at the southeastern edge of Washington.
Military police were guarding the vehicles, which were visible to passers-by on nearby paths.
A U.S. official told the AP that the military vehicles to be used in the July 4 event were being stored at the railyard.
Trump had wanted a military parade of tanks and other equipment in the District of Columbia after he witnessed a similar parade on Bastille Day in Paris in 2017. That plan eventually was scuttled, partly because of cost, though Trump apparently held on to the idea.
Local officials also had objected because of the damage the heavy armored tanks could do to city streets.
“We’re going to have some tanks stationed outside,” Trump said Monday from the Oval Office, appearing to acknowledge local officials’ earlier concerns.
He offered no specifics on where the vehicles would be located.
“You’ve got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks,” he said. “So we have to put them in certain areas, but we have the brand new Sherman tanks and we have the brand new Abrams tanks.”
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The Abrams tanks weigh more than 60 tons apiece and were been shipped on railroad freight cars, from Fort Stewart, Georgia, the nearest Army base that has them. The White House declined to release more specific information.“We’re going to have a great Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. It’ll be like no other,” Trump said. “It’ll be special and I hope a lot of people come. And it’s going to be about this country and it’s a salute to America.”
“I’m going to say a few words and we’re going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world and other planes, too,” he said.
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