It was a busy weekend in the news.

Almost overshadowed, in fact, by other happenings was Saturday’s military parade in Washington., D.C. thrown by President Donald Trump to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States Army on the nation’s traditional Flag Day, which also coincided with the president’s 79th birthday.

Did you watch the television coverage of the parade, and, if so, what did you think of it?

That’s our Question of the Week for readers.

The idea for the parade was apparently sparked back in 2017 during Trump’s first term when he was in Paris for France’s traditional Bastille Day parade alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. If they can do it, why can’t the largest military power on Earth? Trump thought to himself and said to others.

But the idea took eight years to come into being. During his first term, a top officer who had been born in then-authoritarian Portugal, Gen. Paul Selva, told the president “that’s what dictators do.” His then-secretary of defense, James Mattis, said he would “rather swallow acid” than sponsor such a parade.

But just months into his second term, Trump got his wish.

Certainly thousands of spectators, many of them service members past or present and their families, joined the president and members of his cabinet and military brass for the three-hour event in the nation’s capital. But news photos also showed a lot of empty seats in the grandstands. Was that because of citizen disinterest or the light rain that was falling?

Costs for the parade are estimated at around $25-$45 million. Is that taxpayer money well-spent to celebrate history and the troops, or could it have been spent more wisely elsewhere?

Toward the end of the event, Trump gave a short speech in which he said, “Every other country celebrates their victories. It’s about time America did, too.”

Should there in fact be more military parades in our country to show our patriotism? Or is there a good reason that there hasn’t been such a spectacle since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991?

Email your thoughts to opinion@scng.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number (it will not be published).