The right parade

Inspired by his Bastille Day trip to Paris, President Trump sent word that he wants the Pentagon to “honor” the troops with a great pompand-circumstance military parade — including, presumably, tanks rolling through D.C. Since when did making America great again mean imitating the French? Bastille Day celebrations are necessary to remind France that it was once a global military power. The United States, which spends more on defense than the next eight nations combined, doesn’t have to show off its tanks and missiles in a gaudy ritual procession.

Its power, sometimes quiet, sometimes explosive, is real. Besides, the folks at the DoD have much better things to do.

But the President is on to something. Honoring the brave men and women who serve is a noble cause indeed — one New York’s been practicing for nearly a century. Our Veterans Day Parade, founded in 1919, is the largest commemoration of service in the nation. More than 30,000 active-duty military personnel, veterans, high school band members and other supporters march up Fifth Ave. — Donald Trump’s street — every Nov. 11.

Private citizen Trump, in fact, helped rejuvenate that parade beginning in the late 1980s, peaking in the 1995 tour de force that attracted a halfmillion people to commemorate the 50th anniversary of World War II’s conclusion.

It’s that spirit of gratitude, not a swaggering showcase of tech and hardware, that we should build upon, via a good old-fashioned ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes for the thousands who have fought in America’s post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and unofficial battlefields.

Some 3 million people have answered their country’s call. The wars may have been domestically divisive, and may not have ended neatly or ended at all, but recognition is overdue.

Leave the equipment on the bases and in the battlefields where it belongs. Let the troops roll up Broadway, near where the war on terrorism began, in floats and in humble cars, to loudest cheers.