National Guard members who have been deployed to Washington D.C. are starting to view the action as more exploitation than anything else, National Public Radio reported on Tuesday.
The National Guard has been deployed for a little over one year, as of Aug. 11, after Trump declared a national emergency over "crime." The city has enjoyed a crime rate that reached a 30-year low before Trump's soldiers showed up. While Trump sings the praises of his work and claims crime is down, the Guard soldiers remain stationed in the city.
"If it's safe now, then why are we here?" asked a Guard member speaking to NPR. "You don't really know when good is good enough, or when we can go home. It's just a continuing thing."
At least $660 million has been spent so far as of early August, PBS News reported.
So far, soldiers have complained that the long-running deployment has left them disillusioned, concerned about democratic norms and worried that the mission is damaging public trust in the Guard.
Thousands of troops have patrolled the capital since last year, and it has become Trump's largest and longest military deployment ever. The mission was named “D.C. Safe and Beautiful.”
Early on, the Guard soldiers were doing trash pickup, leaf bagging and landscaping. The report said that volunteers found it disappointing. After several reports surfaced showing the soldiers, gardening they were moved to “presence patrols.” The goal is to deter crime by standing around.
"I know there were a lot of people that showed up from West Virginia specifically that were just like, I want to help, and then later they found out that they were taking out trash and setting up (logistical equipment). I think they later fell off mission as soon as they could get off," said the member from West Virginia.
"Now, with it being a year, it's hard to feel like that justification holds any water," said a different Guard member. "It feels like the Guard is being exploited in a sense."
Another called it a "political stunt," pointing out the way the Guard has been inserted into certain narratives by the administration. Namely, the "mission" of patrolling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after the installation of a new liner was botched.
"I hope that there will be some accounting someday — probably after President Trump is gone — about why we were there, and was it worth it? But none of that is gonna happen right now," that member said.
Two recent studies found no meaningful impact on violent crime in the city. The opportunistic crimes, like petty theft, include breaking into cars or stealing bikes. Those have been slightly reduced.
"My very initial reaction was just, I guess, shock and feeling like this context and this situation just felt like a very authoritarian move that kind of felt uncharacteristic of something you would see in our country," a member of the D.C. Guard told NPR.
"Walking into it, we had no real specifics," a West Virginia Guard member recalled thinking. "The president is calling out the guard to make D.C. safe. Well, what the what the f—— does that mean?"
"All of these people showed up, and then it was more of an after-the-fact figure out what we're going to do," another Guard member said of Trump's plan. They also said that they're trying to build goodwill in the community by helping folks out when they need it. If someone overdoses on opioids, Guard soldiers have Naloxone. A cyclist who was hit by a car had the Guard soldiers rush to their side.
"We can argue about why they were there and whether they should be there, but soldiers and airmen were trying to do the best with what they had," said a soldier.
Trump's gardening projects were blasted by one Guard member as "mundane." Another called it "monotonous."
"At some point, I found myself going, well, at least this isn't that bad. At least I'm not doing anything illegal, and that's always counterbalanced with, like, this is wasting everyone's time," one said. They added that it's clear the mission's purpose was "presence."
Three of the Guard members said that they certainly understand the draw because those members are being paid extra to be deployed. They also get a food allowance. Typically, one explained, they deploy to places that may not have electricity and they're sleeping on the floor.
"The food on the mission was very good. My hotel was very nice," the Guard soldier said. He also said it was very different than the deployment for inauguration.
The federal government handed over a nearly $300 million contract to a company that offers furnished, luxury apartments for the soldiers.
Another soldier said that officials frequently come to visit to ask what they need, but no one ever asks whether they should be there.
"Which is nice as a military member, but once we see what all this is going to cost in the very end, it's probably not going to feel so great," he said.
Deploying the Guard to D.C. until Trump's final day in office will cost an additional $1.4 billion. However, NPR cited "a total cost estimate by the nonpartisan watchdog Project on Government Oversight." That study found that it is more likely to cost around $3.4 billion.
Congress ultimately slashed the Washington D.C. budget by $1.1 billion. To put that in context, policing in Washington costs about $600 million annually. So, the total spending could normally have funded the DC police for almost six years.
