A Guardsman at the Capitol

Apparently having passed the necessary vetting, a long-time reader writes from his unit guarding the Capitol:

My guard unit was called up last [week] to help secure the Capitol and has been providing security since [January 16]. In 48 hours of on-duty security I have not seen a single protester — only one drunk guy who cussed my 2nd platoon (which raised morale for a good two hours – soldiers like and respect fluent profanity).

Last night I saw probably 2000 riot-prepared soldiers unload from buses and enter the perimeter. This level of military involvement surpasses overreaction, skips past overkill, and pegs “insane.” Whoever ordered this response is completely out of touch with reality.

Twenty thousand is a difficult number to explain. It’s especially strange how it’s a much larger number, relatively, than in 7 A.D. when Varian lost about that many in the Teutoburg forest. But 20,000 troops is three times as many as I deployed to Kuwait with in 2019 for a rotation there, and that seemed huge.

The cost of having these troops in the District of Columbia for one week, including all the movement, food, hotel rooms, and medical probably runs over $100 million. It is just another data point that indicates the people running the country are not living in the same reality as the rest of us.

And now (I wrote my first draft several days ago) there is word that “some National Guard units” will remain in DC through MARCH to “guard the senate.” To guard the Senate? For THREE MONTHS?

May I just say, if you had any respect for the FBI or any belief that it was not a fully partisan organization, you were completely wrong. If there was any “credible intelligence” that there was enough of a threat to require 20,000 national guard troops at the Capitol this past week, then the FBI is completely failing. The fact that the alleged credible evidence was clearly inaccurate tells me that I should not ever trust the FBI with anything I would give a 19-year-old soldier…

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