The White House has ordered a daily victory parade to celebrate the American win over Iran, and the Pentagon has begun training marching units for the ceremony at every base from Norfolk to San Diego. Each morning at six, a battalion will march the length of a regulation parade ground carrying a banner that reads «Mission Accomplished, Again», before a reviewing stand where the president will stand for exactly eleven minutes.
Base commanders have been instructed to recruit one new drill sergeant per installation to teach recruits the victory step, a slightly longer stride that officials say projects confidence to foreign observers. Logistics officers say the program has already consumed most of the spare dress uniforms in the Army supply chain, and a fleet of trucks now hauls folding chairs between depots.
Asked whether the parades would continue after the reviewing stand was dismantled, a senior staff officer at the Pentagon replied: «The victory is complete, which is precisely why we must keep rehearsing it.» He added that the parade schedule would be extended to weekends once the marching bands finished learning the new anthem, which contains no lyrics and runs for twenty-two minutes.
In Tehran, a spokesman said that the Iranian side had been informed of the schedule through a diplomatic note and had responded with a single sentence, which was then printed on a banner and carried past the embassy in Washington by a volunteer wearing a very large hat.