National Guard troops deployed in D.C. add sanitation, landscaping duties

[In It to Win It]

WaPo - Gift Link

The August air was crisp Tuesday as members of D.C’s National Guard, a key component of President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the District, scooped, spread and smoothed mounds of mulch around the city’s treasured Tidal Basin cherry trees.

As they raked, specks of dirt and mulch floated upward into early morning sunbeams, an idyllic image starkly at odds with the president’s portrayal of Washington as a violent, lawless dystopia. The assignment was atypical for these troops, who more often are called on to respond to emergencies or deploy overseas, and it left some questioning if landscaping should be a military mission at all.

“I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident,” said one Guard member. “But there are different things we could be doing.”

More than 2,200 troops, some from as far away as Mississippi and Louisiana, have been deployed in D.C. since Trump’s declaration of a “crime emergency” here. Ostensibly, they were mobilized to support federal law enforcement and local police, but in recent days those orders have expanded to encompass “beautification” tasks such as trash removal and groundskeeping around the National Mall and other federal property. Service members may work on removing graffiti, too.

Typically, custodial work like this falls to the National Park Service, which was already facing staffing shortfalls when the Trump administration this spring directed additional cuts as it gutted the federal workforce. The service used to have 200 people assigned to maintain thousands of acres of trees and gardens in D.C., and now there are 20, a Park Service official told The Post.

National Guard soldiers called into service for President Trump's law enforcement surge in D.C. have been assigned to spread mulch at federal monuments.

Normally the Park Service does that, but the administration laid off the workers.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

— Brad Heath (@bradheath.bsky.social) 2025-08-27T11:51:17.166Z

[sop]

1. Not much of a crime wave in DC if the NG has time for sanitation and landscaping duties.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Will they wash windows?

Maybe they could offer pet grooming or dog walking?

[MineralMan]

3. Could they be any more disrespectful of our National Guard troops?

I'm disgusted by this nonsense. They're not janitors or groundskeepers. They are soldiers. Send them home. Don't make them do menial tasks.

[AZJonnie]

4. They want to convince the public it's in their interest to have armed military deployed to their communities

"Look! They're planting trees and cleaning up graffiti! Don't you just love them being here, after all, they're here to HELP!"

Also Trump probably feels the entire military makes too much money since they're not getting their asses shot off somewhere, so he's defunding the agencies that used to do the work, and making the soldiers do that work instead. With the convenient 'benefit' that Trump is the CoC of the military, so he gets to dictate which cities and states he wants to deploy them to.

Next the military will taking the fees at the gates of Nat'l Parks like Yosemite, driving the buses around the valley, staffing the visitor center, and most importantly (to him) policing the park. The Ahwahnee will probably be rebranded to a Trump Hotel.

This is all about putting HIMSELF in charge of everything.

IOW, POWER.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. How much you want to bet someone Trump knows is making money off their labor?

Maybe some donor who has contracts for landscaping and waste disposal and the National Guard just provided them free labor.

[johnnyfins]

7. Yep. And TSF is always getting his cut.

[johnnyfins]

8. Just like Warden Norton

in Shawshank Redemption

[lame54]

6. Grunt work while...

Untrained ICE thugs get paid much more