Victory Parade - only love

Today on Red Square, the celebration of the 67th anniversary of Victory was celebrated. Almost 1,500 veterans came to the parade, and the vast majority - in military uniform, on which orders and medals were fixed. Many had tears in their eyes, the sincerity of which cannot and should not be questioned. That is why I love the parade.

Meanwhile, few people know that several years ago the Ministry of Defense considered the possibility of abolishing the parade. When I first heard a similar conversation, it was difficult to believe in it. The questions arose in my head “How?”, “Why?”, “Why?”.

The situation was as follows. After the Georgian campaign of 2008, it became obvious that the Russian army was not at all as combat -ready as it seemed. Dmitry Medvedev launched an instruction to the start of the global reform of the army, giving it a new appearance. And one of the parties to this appearance was the activation of combat training of troops. No extraneous actions, exclusively the combat component. Nothing superfluous.

The parade in honor of Victory Day could well have become superfluous, since he did not fit into this concept. In a conversation with me, one of the colonels of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Defense mentioned that the 65th Victory Parade was to be the last, since the excommunication of about 15 thousand military personnel from combat duty did not fit into the concept of the new army. And the demonstration of the best samples of military equipment was not the most, from a pragmatic point of view, the necessary attribute.

In general, the maximum pragmatist has become a symbol of the military department of the era of Anatoly Serdyukov. Reduction, reduction, compacting. But you can reduce the number of army, reduce - the amount of contracts for the purchase of weapons and military equipment, and make compact - headquarters and chief men. None of this can be done with the Victory Parade. This is perhaps the only holiday that remained in the form in which he initially conceived. For any person in uniform (and no matter how many stars are on them), and not in uniform, in principle, it is also a native holiday, the one that each of us once saw for the first time. The army-the past, current, future-can be treated differently. The Victory Parade is only to love.

Today I looked at how on the paving stones of Red Square, minting a step, the summary regiments of the Ground Forces, the air forces, the navy, the missile forces of strategic intended purpose, the space forces, the Air Forces, as well as the radiation, chemical and biological protection and engineering troops followed. As marched as part of ceremonial calculations, the battalions of the railway troops, the division of the operational purpose of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I watched the T-90, BTR-80 tanks, self-propelled guns of operational-tactical missiles “Iskander”, torn-wireworms “Smerch”, self-propelled arthrotics “MSTA-S”, combat vehicles of the “Buk-M2” complexes, mobile missile systems “Topol-M”, rush installations of the anti-aircraft missile system S-400 “Triumph”, The eight of the latest anti-aircraft missiles of the shell-C1 ... At the moment, you are your political, patriotic, at least any views, you are proud. This feeling increases significantly when the "goodbye of the Slav" sounds.

To date, the issue of canceling the Victory Parades is no longer worth it, the minister did not have a hand to voice this idea at a higher level and give cooking the status of official conversations. But if such a decree was signed, then many would have been advanced for the minister to take off his shoulder straps and quit. In the case of Anatoly Serdyukov, it would be enough just the second.