Subject: Warfighting

Congratulations to President Trump and his whip-smart admin on turning America’s brave National Guard troops into the most expensive gardening crew in human history. Violent crime in DC was already down considerably before the president did anything, and now some of the troops – patriots who have jobs and homes and families they were pulled away from for this deployment – are spreading mulch and picking up trash in our nation’s capital. One Guard member: ‘I think it’s nice, as a DC resident. But there are different things we could be doing.’”

… “Simply put, he’s using Nat Guard troops to do whatever he wants, from getting Americans used to seeing a military presence in the streets to any light gardening the president might desire. He has no concern for the men and women in uniform or for the vital role they play in responding to actual crises.”

… “The National Priorities Project, a nonprofit federal budget research group, estimates the cost of the DC deployment at more than $1 million per day. Trump’s authoritarian reality show does not come cheap. What’s worse is the way these soldiers – all dutifully following orders – are being used as high-priced labor to compensate for National Park Service cuts the Trump admin made earlier in the year.”

… A Park Service official to WaPo: “The service used to have 200 people assigned to maintain thousands of acres of trees and gardens in DC, and now there are 20. It’s everybody ‒ the masons, the maintenance workers, the groundskeepers, the plumbers. Every shop is short.”

… Military Times on Trump using troops for landscaping: “Such DC-based chores once fell to National Park Service staff, but in the wake of significant NPS cuts, the admin has determined that personnel wearing orange reflector vests atop camouflage have the warrior ethos necessary to beautify. Various critics, meanwhile, have suggested the beautification work runs counter to Pete Hegseth’s oft-repeated mission statement of bringing ‘a warfighting ethos back to the Pentagon. Everything else that distracts from lethality shouldn’t be happening,’ he said in December.”


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