GOP Lawmakers Question Guard’s Long D.C. Mission

Republican lawmakers have questioned plans to keep National Guardsmen on Capitol Hill into March.

A group of House Republicans, including two drilling Guardsmen, asked acting Army Secretary John Whitley to explain why it’s necessary to extend the Guard mission in Washington, D.C., nearly two months after the inauguration.

Others have more directly questioned the credibility of threats that seem to have spurred the decision to keep at least 5,000 Guard soldiers and airmen on duty in the nation’s capital.

At the deployment’s peak, more than 26,000 Guardsmen from all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virginia Islands and the District of Columbia were on duty for the 59th Presidential Inauguration (State Roundup, page 28). About 7,000 Guardsmen were on duty in D.C. at the beginning of February.

The letter from Republican House members, led by Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., specifically asks for the Pentagon’s justification in keeping the Guardsmen in D.C.

“As you know better than anyone, our National Guard men and women are deployed on short notice and pulled away from their families and jobs,” said Waltz, a colonel in the Maryland Army Guard. “Further, the Guard has endured unprecedented stress on the force in the past year given COVID-19, social unrest, natural disasters, and ongoing overseas requirements.”

“The National Guard should be used as an option of absolute last resort,” he added.

Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., who serves in the South Carolina Air Guard, also signed the letter.