Soldiers in Our Streets

And more headed this way

Photos by Raven3rivers

Occupied DC #116

After nearly a year of soldiers in our streets, I was reminded again of the shock value to out-of-towners.

One of my friends, who drove in to get a sub with me at an Italian deli in NoMa, spotted National Guard troops at the end of the block. The unguarded look on his face told me just how what-the-hell he felt about their presence.

I looked at him and shrugged; this is our life now.

The soldiers were strolling and talking like casual Sunday brunchers who paid them no mind.

One goal of deploying troops was to see if Americans would tolerate military occupation. The White House/Project 2025 executors chose the one city deprived of effective home rule for its experiment.

Now the occupying force is being increased sixfold, from 800 troops last August to 5,000 in a “summer surge” ordered by the White House occupant to make himself feel safe. Hard to believe he lived in New York City.

Lots of us feel threatened by armed troops roaming a peaceful city, and some of us have learned to ignore the trios haunting the subways and monuments in camo. I still tell them to go home. Quietly and with my hands visible.

And March 7, the White House occupant created another layer, ordering the activation of the 260th Special Purpose Brigade of the D.C. National Guard, the only Army brigade specifically designed to “coordinate military support to civil authorities and protect critical infrastructure” here.

I was delighted to hear they’ll have a cute uniform patch with three red stars and two red bars like the District of Columbia flag. But I haven’t heard a thing about recent threats to infrastructure — unless you count the Washington monuments and institutions subject to the White House decorator’s construction whims and tantrums.

Believe it or not, the lesser issues of military occupation include the enormous $1.5 million-a-day cost, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The total expense so far is estimated at more than $330 million in a recent House committee report. That’s about the same amount the White House wants to cut from public health preparedness and response next year.

The unnecessary deployment keeps Guard soldiers from their homes and jobs. The troops, normally used for important work like disaster response, are, according to the Guard’s own statement, picking up litter. When I see them, they are loitering in subway stops and strolling around neighborhoods and downtown like tourists but with free room and board plus pay. They also do landscaping.

Their own website describes their role in these vague terms:

• supporting the community
• compassion and outreach
• serving neighbors
• cleanup and enforcement.

As for enforcement, despite the fictional “crime emergency” used to justify last year’s troop deployment in DC, violent crime had already dropped 35 percent in 2024, the year before the current administration unleashed a barrage of false claims about city safety, cleanliness, and immigrants.

Homicides dropped 32 percent; robberies, 39 percent; and car thefts, 53 percent before Trump moved into the White House.

In 2025, which includes a period when DC policed its own citizens and later federal involvement, the numbers are about the same: homicides, down 32 percent; robberies, 27 percent; and car thefts, 57 percent.

Big investment, much bragging, little difference.

Now, piling on, the next law enforcement task force, that “summer surge,” will include the U.S. Marshals Service and federal agencies added as hammers much like ICE, which ran roughshod over our city and others last summer and fall, terrorizing schoolchildren and ripping families apart.

“This new surge would essentially double that cost” of $1.5 million a day, NPR reported recently.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been enlisted, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Homeland Security Investigations, which will focus on fraud and will use intelligence “to follow the money, uncovering fake identities and grifters taking advantage of the systems meant for people in legitimate need,” according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Office and the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. I have no idea what little conspiracy theory that last one references.

The latest blow? An offhand remark by the White House toddler, who said the soldiers “look great,” and indicated the deployment was intended to be permanent all along.

DC already holds six military bases, and sits across the river from the Pentagon.

What’s it going to take to make a spoiled, rich racist comfortable in his temporary home on 18 fenced acres guarded by the local police, the U.S. Park Police, the Secret Service Uniformed Division and the U.S. Marine Corps?

Or does he have another reason to keep soldiers posted in the nation’s capital?

End the occupation!