Marchers in Trump’s Inaugural Parade Announced
Anthropologists can take a tooth and reconstruct a culture. I think the parade participants tell a lot about where we…
Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Neil Boyer (Ethiopia 1962-64)
Marchers in Trump’s Inaugural Parade Announced 
No high school or university marching band in the D.C. area will march in the parade
Forty organizations — including several military and veterans groups — will march in President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural parade.
Trump’s inaugural committee announced Friday morning which groups accepted an invitation to participate on Jan. 20.
No high school or university marching band in the D.C. area will march in the parade.
These groups are set to participate:
1st Cavalry Division Horse Cavalry Detachment – Fort Hood, Texas
1st Infantry Commanding General’s Mounted Color – Ft. Riley, Kansas
Boone County Elite 4-H Equestrian Drill Team – Burlington, Kentucky
Caisson Platoon, Fort Myer – Fort Myer, Virginia
Cleveland Police Mounted Unit – Cleveland, Ohio
Coastal Florida Police & Fire Pipes & Drums – Palm Coast, Florida
Columbus North High School Band – Columbus, Indiana
Culver Academy Equestrian – Culver, Indiana
First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Fishburne Military School Army JROTC Caissons Battalion – Fishburne, Virginia
Frankfort High School Band – Ridgeley, West Virginia
Franklin Regional High School Panther Marching Band – Murrysville, Pennsylvania
Indianapolis Metro Police Motorcycle Drill Team – Indianapolis, Indiana
Kids Overseas – Richmond Hill, Georgia
Lil Wranglers – College Station, Texas
Marist College Band – Poughkeepsie, New York
Merced County Sheriff’s Posse – Hilmar, California
Michigan Multi-Jurisdictional Mounted Police Drill Team & Color Guard – Ann Arbor, Michigan
Mid America Cowgirls Rodeo Drill Team – New Buffalo, Michigan
Nassau County Firefighters Pipes & Drums – East Meadow, New York
North Carolina Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association – Hillsborough, North Carolina
NYPD Emerald Society Pipes & Drums – East Moriches, New York
Olivet Nazarene University – Bourbonnais, Illinois
Palmetto Ridge High School Band – Naples, Florida
Russellville High School Band – Russellville, Arkansas
Talladega College Band – Talladega, Alabama
Texas State University Strutters – San Marcos, Texas
The Citadel Regimental Band & Pipes and Summerall Guards – Charleston, South Carolina
The Freedom Riders – Kersey, Colorado
Tragedy Assistance Marching Unit – Arlington, Virginia
Tupelo High School Band – Tupelo, Mississippi
University of Tennessee Marching Band – Knoxville, Tennessee
VMI Corps of Cadets – Lexington, Virginia
West Monroe High School Marching Band – West Monroe, Louisiana
American Veterans – national
Boy Scouts of America – national
US Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations – national
Disabled American Veterans – national
US Border Patrol Pipes & Drums – national
Wounded Warriors – national
Also, each branch of the U.S. military will be represented. Additional participants may be announced later.
Inaugural committee CEO Sara Armstrong said in a statement that people across the United States wanted to participate.
“People from every corner of the country have expressed great interest in President-elect Trump’s inauguration and look forward to continuing a salute to our republic that spans more than two centuries,” she said in a statement.
Trump’s inaugural parade will be shorter than previous inaugural parades, inaugural committee spokesman Alex Stroman is quoted as saying in a post published Thursday on Breitbart.com
“… He’s going to have a shortened parade, and he’s going to go into the White House and get some work done before he goes to the [inaugural] balls,” Stroman reportedly said.
Anthropologists can take a tooth and reconstruct a culture. I think the parade participants tell a lot about where we are, today, as a culture.
-I think it was appropriate for NPCA to apply and I, too, am glad that they are not going to be included.
-The preponderance of participants are military; horses, not tanks will parade up Pennsylvania Avenue. I think that makes a certain sense. Military units do not have to scramble for funding to participate. God forbid that there would be any kind of incident along the parade route. However, if there were, the military participants are trained to react in a discipline manner to any emergency and that would be a plus.
-Finally, I think it prudent that there are few high school marching bands. Parents might be wary of a potential security threat for their students. Also, student populations in the US, today, are multi-national. The Supreme Court ruled, back in the 80s, that any child in the US, regardless of immigrant status, was entitled to a public school education and school do not ask or record the immigrant status of their students. It is reasonable to assume that schools might have undocumented students in their population and just decided it would be prudent not to identify these students, either through background checks that might be required for students, or if executive orders involving the undocumented were canceled immediately after Trump takes office. It is impossible to predict how this might impact such students, if they would have been any, and/or their parents.