Unease grows among deployed National Guard troops

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Mary Ellen Klas / Bloomberg Opinion

“Nobody signed up for this.” That’s the reaction I keep getting from military and National Guard veterans about President Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to U.S. cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors.

They worry that the very thing military members enlist to do — to serve and protect the country — is being undermined by a president whose use of the military for a political stunt is making the nation less safe. By erasing the sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics, Trump is risking generational harm to the professionalism of our fighting forces.

“I’ve had so many conversations with current National Guard members who talk about the fact that, like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore. You know, maybe I should leave,’” says Jermaine Collins, who served for 10 years in the Ohio National Guard.

Collins is an organizer with Common Defense, a nonprofit advocacy group for progressive veterans. He spends a lot of time talking to Guard members. He says many are deeply conflicted, by their desire to serve their country while being “used by the president to play a political game.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-unease-grows-among-deployed-national-guard-troops/

[wcmagumba]

1. The National Guard along with ICE and others are being converted into Rump's personal military force...

They need some SS patches like the Nazi police had...

[Wounded Bear]

7. I believe I saw patches on their arms with a large T on them...

Maybe that was for Texas. They were in Chicago, which had some Texas NG sent to.

[2naSalit]

2. They have agency...

And they should use it.

[Hekate]

8. What agency do they have while in uniform & before their term is up?

Asking for a friend.

[questionseverything]

3. People in the guard used to be able to be proud because they were helping someone in need

Now they are used and abused like toy soldiers a child kicked over

[hildegaard28]

4. They could

Send a message with mass resignations.

[Submariner]

5. Cankles wants the NG to get mad at us

because he thirsts for some Kent State-like bloodshed. The bloodlust hate is in his eyes everyday.

[slightlv]

6. I used to create Remote lessons, as well as in-college, for these guys and the Reserves.

I can't imagine any of them being happy about this stuff... well, there was that ONE guy that I scared so bad with my in-your-face liberalism that he never came back to sell me an energy drink he was peddling! (LOL)

[Hekate]

9. The last 4 paragraphs...

These vets and others describe to me a National Guard comprised of young men and women from mostly working- and middle-class families who join to serve their fellow Americans while improving themselves. Many of them are people of color, first-generation Americans, or immigrants. Asking them to be deployed to cities to stand next to federal agents who bully and intimidate people, disrespect Americans, and disregard both human and constitutional rights creates a kind of moral injury. It could have repercussions for generations.

It could also remake the face of our nation’s military. In the last three months, 15 junior officers, all women and people of color, have told Manner that they are eligible to retire in the next year and, rather than stay and serve, they have decided to leave now. He says the surge in military recruitment in the last year is the result of a years-long investment of money and resources by the military. But Manner predicts those gains will be reversed in a year because of Trump’s actions, leaving a military less diverse and more ideologically homogenous, conditions that research shows could hamper both public trust and operational strength.

As I’ve written before, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is not about cracking down on crime, as he claims. It’s an elaborate attempt to demonstrate a show of strength for a president intent on consolidating power to establish an authoritarian government. Although the law limits when the president can federalize the National Guard to invasion and rebellion, Trump is blurring the lines by demanding that it go after an undefined “enemy from within.”

So far, the Trump administration orders to the National Guard have been broadly understood to be legal orders, the vets tell me: “lawful, but awful.” But they worry about a scenario in which they get an order to fire on unarmed civilians, forcing them to decide whether or not it is an illegal command they have a right to disobey.

They are being abused and used — and they know it. This is incredibly damaging.

[JohnnyRingo]

10. I'm not surprised that many are disillusioned, but I don't think it's a stunt.

I strongly suspect he's testing the logistics for a future martial law when the military will be called up to quell uprisings. He thinks everyone loves him, but the people really in charge see the writing on the wall and probably see a need to stop any upcoming "illegal protests". We've heard that phase lately as well.

Trump himself is describing the city takeovers as "training exercises" in largely blue areas. I believe that to be a rare bit of truth from this administration.

[Skittles]

11. Cadet Bonespurs, using the military as political props

IT IS DISGUSTING