Walking around the National Mall or nearby Washington Union Station, passersby are sure to see some of the more than 2,300 National Guard members deployed to the nation’s capital.
For nearly a month, Guard members hailing from D.C., Louisiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Dakota and Georgia have donned their Army fatigues to help combat what President Donald Trump’s administration has called “intolerable risks” to federal government functions in Washington.
“These conditions are disgraceful anywhere, but particularly in the capital of our Nation and the seat of the Federal Government,” the Trump administration said in its executive order declaring a crime emergency in D.C. last month.
More than a dozen Guard troops who spoke to Military Times on the condition of anonymity in recent days view their current deployment as “part of the job” but say they simply haven’t seen “emergency” levels of crime since being assigned to the D.C. mission.
“Have I seen [an emergency]? I’d better not answer that,” one Guard member said, shaking his head. “Besides people falling off the steps, not really.”
Members of the District of Columbia National Guard, which account for about 40% of those deployed, have been told their mission will extend through at least Nov. 30, according to a spokesperson with Joint Task Force — District of Columbia.
On Wednesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the approximately 150 members of the Ohio National Guard will have their deployment extended through the end of November.
However, other troops from outside Washington who spoke with Military Times expressed a sense of being in the dark about their ongoing assignment, saying they had “no clue” how long they would be deployed or whether their current duties could change in the coming days.
“I don’t even know what we’re doing tomorrow,” one Guard member said.
The assignment feels “very different” for the troops, they said, who more often are called to respond to natural disasters, deploy overseas or support law enforcement during a major event like an inauguration or parade.
When Guard troops are activated to respond to civil disturbances, it’s typically in response to local or state police being — or possibly being — overwhelmed by protesters or rioters.
Some troops walking around the nation’s capital said they feel like an experiment, a “test force” to see if this type of deployment could be replicated elsewhere.
Many of the Guard members deployed in D.C. are police officers, sheriff’s deputies and state troopers who have put their civilian jobs on hold to patrol the capital’s high-trafficked tourist areas.
Several Guard soldiers said their presence likely freed local law enforcement to focus on more crime-ridden areas of the city.
“We have helped with overdoses. Some people do say they see a difference,” the Guard member said, adding, “[but] I think there are other ways to go about it instead of using the Guard.”
Weighing the cost
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is currently operating with 800 fewer officers than the number needed to police the city, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The police department told Military Times on Friday the starting salary of a new officer is $66,419, so the capital city would need at least $53 million dollars to bring its current number of 3,200 officers to 4,000.
While the Pentagon has not yet released data on the cost of the deployment for the American taxpayer, retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, who served as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Military Times last month that a deployment of 2,000 Guard members would likely cost an estimated average of about $20 million per month.
The director of studies at the Center for New American Security told CNN the estimated cost could be as much as $1 million per day. Based on these estimates, the total cost for the Guard deployment could range from about $75 million to $115 million should all troops remain through Nov. 30.
These costs, meanwhile, do not include funding for the additional federal law enforcement officers deployed to the city during the president’s 30-day federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement, which expired this week and is not connected to Pentagon funding.
One federal officer, who spoke to Military Times on the condition of anonymity earlier this month because he was not authorized to speak to the press, expressed his frustration over being pulled away from his normal casework during the federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement.
“This is overkill,” he said, as protesters shouted from across the street at Union Station. “The military police were unnecessary. The additional feds weren’t needed. We do not need to be doing this. Crime was improving,”
A trio of soldiers from the West Virginia National Guard told Military Times they saw their efforts as a “temporary stopgap” until the city could add more local police officers.
For them, the mission in D.C. felt similar to a previous assignment in the Mountain State state in 2022, when nearly 350 Guard troops provided staffing support in state-run prisons for over a year and a half to alleviate staff shortages.
“I think saving a few lives is a good reason to be here,” one of the soldiers said.
Another contemplated joining the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to help with the shortages once his deployment ended.
“I could make the drive from home,” he said. “I think it could be nice to work here.”
At the time, Trump countered that crime in D.C. was the “worst ever” and claimed it had been “many years” since the city had a murder-free stretch of even a week. Neither statement is supported by data.
This week, the president said D.C. had “virtually no crime” as he went out to a public dinner in the district for the first time since the start of his second term.
The number of crimes in D.C. between Jan. 1 and Aug. 11 of 2025 had declined about 7% from the previous year. Since the administration’s deployment on Aug.11, total crime in the nation’s capital has decreased by 18% when compared to the same time last year.
Beautification
Several of the deployed Guardsmen have been tasked with “beautification” chores around the city, ranging from picking up trash to spreading mulch — duties that were traditionally performed by National Park Service personnel.
“To date, Guardsmen have cleared 964 bags of trash, spread 997 cubic yards of mulch, removed five truckloads of plant waste, cleared 3.2 miles of roadway, and painted 270 feet of fencing,” according to Guard statistics sent to reporters on Thursday.
A National Park Service official told Military Times on Thursday the service had lost between 130 and 180 national capital region employees, in addition to manpower loss due to the administration’s freeze on maintenance contracts.
The official, who spoke to Military Times on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said many people at NPS now have multiple titles and are working “double duty every day.”
“There is this little bit of irony about the fact that the administration did all these cuts, and then went to the buyouts, and now the National Guard started kind of making up for that,” said the official.
The National Park Service communications office refused requests to publicly provide the number of staff cuts that had been implemented this year.
In a statement to Military Times, an NPS spokeswoman said that “The Washington Post continues to rely on anonymous sources, unverified claims, and made-up numbers.”
According to OPM, salaries for Department of Interior employees in Washington range from less than $100,000 per year to as much as $220,000 annually for senior executive service employees.
Cutting 130 to 180 employees from the D.C. parks would have likely saved millions of dollars for American taxpayers, but the savings amount to a fraction of what the Guard deployment will end up costing over the course of multiple months.
The NPS official who spoke with Military Times said Guard members have been eager to help, but the scope and efficiency of their work just isn’t comparable to specialized staffers.
“They’re looking for meaningful work, and it ends up being kind of tough,” the Park Service official said. “It is not possible to just plug in someone to be a plumber, arborist, engineer, contract officer, project manager, electrician, preservationist or mason.
“With volunteers, you have to get them equipment and train them on the equipment, and you can’t have as big of an impact as possible.”
The official stressed that the work they have done, “and the professionalism with which they have performed that work,” has been greatly appreciated because it likely would not have been completed with such a small NPS staff.
But the concept of bringing in a military force to “garden,” the official added, was “disrespectful.”
“We all feel so bad for them. … Right problem, wrong tool.”
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