With each phone call home, the troops describe a mission unlike any other.
One soldier from Tennessee told his father that from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day, his only task is to walk around Chinatown. Another service member from Mississippi told a loved one that she’d been repeatedly cursed at while on patrol. During a call to his wife, a guardsman from Louisiana said there was confusion about what the military was actually doing there.
“We haven’t gotten critically low on morale, but we’re falling fast,” said one soldier who, like others quoted in this story, spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak to the media and feared reprisal.
Of the more than 2,200 National Guard soldiers President Donald Trump deployed to Washington, DC, last month, in addition to a wave of federal law enforcement, roughly 1,300 are from out of state. Guard members on the DC mission and their relatives who spoke to CNN said they left behind civilian jobs and children to serve – a sacrifice they understood when they enlisted.
And while domestic missions typically have National Guard troops responding to crises like hurricanes or wildfires, in DC, much of their work has involved more mundane tasks – patrolling popular tourist destinations and assisting with “beautification projects” including picking up trash, raking leaves and laying mulch.
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