While using the city’s buses and Metros, it was very apparent the most probable danger in DC is falling on sidewalk ice and at the unshoveled bus stops.
The National Guard, the group that was brought into the city by President Trump for the protection of the residents of the city, was doing nothing to protect its residents.
National Guard Should Buy Shovels Not Bullets
Of the two thousand National Guard personnel sent to Washington, every day at least 15 National Guard personnel in groups of three or four were at various corners around the Eastern Market Metro stop. These young men and women in uniform watched as residents slid, climbed over and fell through piles of snow and ice.
Never did I see one of the young National Guard soldiers help the mothers with babies in strollers that were pushing through piles of snow to get onto a bus or help a person with a cane or walker.
I introduced myself as a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel. I asked if their officers had told them not to help residents, something I would have hoped that each would have done out of uniform as pure courtesy toward others. The polite answer, “No ma’am, but that’s not our job. We are to protect you from criminals.”
Have you apprehended any criminals? “No ma’am, but we are always ready.”
Have you thought to ask if the National Guard could buy some shovels for you to help protect citizens from injury? “Yes, but no one has.”
A total of 2,188 National Guard troops have been assigned to the joint task force in Washington, DC, according to a government update reported by the Associated Press. 949 D.C. National Guard troops, as well as close to 1,200 troops from several states, with West Virginia having deployed 416 guardsmen.
So much for a good use of the National Guard deployment in Washington, DC.
Ann Wright is a 29-year U.S. Army/Army Reserves veteran, a retired U.S. Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She is a member of the Veterans For Peace Advisory Board. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the 2010 Gaza flotilla. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book Dissent: Voices of Conscience. She has written frequently on rape in the military.