Frances Guy

Army Day 1 August

Diplomats also get invited to parades. Luckily in Lebanon we don't have too many of these. Indeed this is the first army day for 3 years because of recent summer strife. So we get to celebrate the graduation of two years of officers. The army give the graduation class special names. 2007 is the class of the national will (the year of the fight against terrorists in Nahr el Bared) and 2008 is the class of Francois el Haj (the senior officer assassinated last December - he ought to have been the new Commander in Chief). There are families of the dead in the crowd as well as proud families of the young officers. The poor soldiers have to stand nearly 3 hours in the hot sun. The diplomats sitting in the stand in the shade are hot enough but we can't complain. The President makes another of his well judged speeches and clearly enjoys himself, remembering his own graduation in 1979. But this is not a military parade as such. There is no fly past apart from a few helicopters (the Lebanese Army has no planes -how can we talk about strengthening this national institution when they have no equipment - literally)and there are no tanks or other hardware on show. At the end they let off red, green and white balloons. If this wasn't a country of strife it would be touching, but the army needs more than balloons.

Posted at 09:17 04 August 2008 by Frances Guy  |  Comments[1]