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the National Guard was posted to DC to fight crime, but they're not allowed to do anything
Meanwhile, members of the National Guard from other states had been dispatched to DC. Those troops, the soldier says, were given the more public-facing roles—like patrolling street corners and the Metro—where they were exposed to heckling and abuse. I asked how they spent their days. “Have you ever seen them do anything?” he replied. “They’re just standing there. They smile. They wave. They walk around and quote-unquote ‘patrol.’ ” The National Guard is not law enforcement, he stressed. Members generally can’t arrest or detain people, so there isn’t much that they’re authorized to do.
Officially, Trump’s “DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force” is about protecting the city from violence in the wake of several high-profile crimes. Some locals and tourists appreciate it. Some have thanked servicemembers on the streets. But to many, the military presence has looked like authoritarianism. The soldier said he’s never seen this level of animosity toward members of the Guard. Civilians are “yelling in our face, recording us, taking pictures of us, walking away looking scared.” He blames the President’s rhetoric, which he feels has pitted soldiers against the communities in which they live and serve.https://washingtonian.com/2026/01/21...man-tells-all/Responding to a summary of the soldier’s opinions of this deployment, a spokesperson for the DC National Guard wrote that servicemembers “bring a wide range of perspectives to any mission, particularly one conducted in a highly visible and complex environment. The DC Safe and Beautiful mission was established to support District and federal partners through a whole-of-government approach focused on public safety, deterrence through presence, and community confidence—not to replace civilian law enforcement.” The statement also noted that guardsmen “perform a range of public safety support functions,” including “providing medical assistance, administering naloxone to reverse overdoses, reuniting lost minors with their families, deescalating violent incidents, and supporting law enforcement apprehensions.” The National Guard’s “enduring responsibility,” the statement says, “is to serve the American people—often in challenging cir stances—by strengthening public safety, reinforcing trust, and supporting democratic ins utions at home.”
But the soldier does not believe that Safe and Beautiful has served those ends. To be clear, his dissent isn’t ideological. He trends Republican, and he voted third party for President in 2024. He simply thinks the mission doesn’t make sense. Local crime is a problem, he said, though not bad enough to justify bringing in federal troops. And he believes that it’s wrong—“objectively unnecessary and almost wicked”—to station armed soldiers on street corners as props in the deterrence of crime. “I love my country and I love the Army,” he said, “but this is not what I signed up to do.”
