Thousands of members of the U.S. military are involved in the upcoming presidential inauguration ceremonies, handling everything from security and transport to marching and other ceremonial aspects throughout the day.
For some, it’ll mean an extremely early start, with arrivals at certain locations as soon as 2 a.m. on Jan. 20. But for those planning the event, there will be even less sleep than that as they nail down the logistics and brace for the inevitable changes and hiccups along the way.
It’s just a fact of life when you have about 5,000 people coming in from all over the country to participate.
Maj. Gen. Trevor Bredenkamp, who commands the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region, is tasked with overseeing the logistics of it all.
“When I look at this, I kind of think (of the) Macy’s Day Parade for Thanksgiving,” Bredenkamp said. “You think about how big that is.”
Personnel will be spread throughout the region, staging in Northern Virginia, D.C. and Upper Marlboro, Maryland. About 5,000 troops will be involved in aspects of the parade that day.
Spread out on the floor of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall is a giant map of the area around the National Mall, where much of the activity will occur that day. What are called Rehearsal of Concepts (ROC) Drills began on Wednesday and will continue in the weeks ahead.
“It’s a ceremonial event, but we do view it as an operation,” said Brig. Gen. Don Bevis, deputy commanding general of the inauguration.
Practicing it all “really kind of affords us that opportunity to have a dialogue about the things that we have laid out, that we have planned, thought through, that we believe should work in theory. And then we get to sort of practice it here in a pseudo-reality kind of situation.”
Some of those involved behind the scenes have participated in the planning of this event for many years. For others, this is their first time.
“We can inform all these people who may be doing it for the first time, ‘Hey, be careful about this,’ that we learned this on the two inaugurations ago, and we walk away with that shared understanding. So it looks like we’ve all been doing it many times,” Bredenkamp said.
But one thing they can’t really account for yet is the weather.
“We don’t know what the weather is going to be like on the day of,” Bredenkamp said. “What are the conditions going to be on Jan. 20?”
“We don’t know on the day of, what is the requirement? So it’s anticipating, and thinking through what are some of those challenges that we might face,” he added.
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