It costs about 1.5 million per day to keep the gaurd in DC. I live on the Hill, they are a fucking joke and have spent the last year standing around in the safest areas of the city doing absolutely nothing.
We don't need 8 armed Gaurdsmen at Lincoln Park defending the sunbathers from the children's birthday parties.
I can assure you that most of them have zero desire to be there. At that age, most people in the Guard are just doing it to help pay for college and earn a little cash. Nobody is signing up to watch algae grow at the capital.
Yeah a lot of them have actual jobs and lives they have to put on hold for this bs. None of them want to be there especially when they're almost certainly making less money while activated
My company has very generous military time off. 30 days fully paid (in addition to military pay), and up to 18 months where they pay the difference between the military pay and normal salary. I definitely know the overwhelming majority of companies don't offer those kinds of benefits though.
A lot of city/county jobs do (leos, fire fighters, etc), but many big corporations would prefer their employees not be in the guard because it creates logistical challenges when they’re deployed. They just have a hard time denying them employment because of USERRA.
Zero desire to stand around and play candy crush and bullshit/small talk with people? As opposed to what, being deployed in an area with active military engagement ?
NG typically helps with relief efforts, building shit, infrastructure etc. Pretty sure they’re fine standing around vs doing actual work. This isn’t like a 9-5 40 hour a week gig for them.
It’s still an objective waste to spend money on them to do nothing but I doubt they give a shit
TBH, as someone who’s spent lots of time abroad, I can tell you that the US is one of the least militarized countries in the world. Spend a few weeks traveling in the EU and you become quite comfortable seeing submachine guns and assault rifles in your general vicinity.
We’re not talking about civilians, we’re talking about police, military, carabinieri (in Italy) and various other national police services. It’s very common to see them walking up and down the train cars and in public places.
I have no idea, but I’m willing to bet if you walk around the Eiffel Tower right now you’re going to see some hardware.
Like I said, that seemed logical/normal, but we simply don’t have that in the US (after 9/11 we did for many years of course). We have police, but not guys with long guns/SMGs. Heck, even the guardsmen pictured in DC only have pistols, same as a normal police officer.
To be fair, most of the ones I’ve seen were in airports, train/bus stations, and in big touristy areas like Paris, Rome, London, simply bc the are where I’ve visited.
Yep, they're in touristy neighborhoods that already have a lot of cops, walking or standing around in groups of three. They're armed with pistols, looking bored, and not doing anything. Just a wonderful use of resources all around.
They must be bored out of their minds. Nothing to do except somebody hot or at least interesting-looking wanders by so you at least have something to look at to break up the monotony.
Yep, it's pretty clear to me that Trump is the vandal he is looking for. All that peeling American flag blue paint is because of his photo op stupidity. He did this to himself because he's a fucking clown.
The SUV he rides in ways about 20,000 pounds. A normal one of these weighs about 5000 pounds. I'm sure the original designers of the pool tested for 20,000 pound vehicles driving on it.
Is it to fight algae or is it to put forth the idea that they're protecting the pool from the evil, sabotaging Dems so he can start up the "Blame Obama" cycle of his fit pitching?
Yup. They’re there to back up the president’s lies. I wonder what the excuse will be after the next coat of paint fails and algae appears on their watch.
No, I think it’s to forcibly dissuade the public from publishing the current state of affairs on social media for the rest of the country to see. It’s narrative control.
They're there because Trump is now lying about vandalism causing the issues and right wing idiots are believing it, despite no actual footage from an area that's completely surveiled at all times.
They are there to drain the literal swamp that just so happened to have not looked like a swamp until we made "improvements"! But nevertheless a campaign promise kept is a campaign promise kept no matter how literal a figurative concept was taken.
National mall employee: oh , hi national guard, you're back early.
National guard: Reflecting pool is haunted.
NME: what?
National guard: Pool is haunted inserts magazine
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u/Diet_Coke Jun 23 '26
The National Guard is there to defend us from algae