A white National Guard commander called the standoff in Lafayette Square “the Alamo,” implying that the White House was under siege. Black members of the D.C. Guard objected to turning on their neighbors. Army leaders told pilots to “flood the box with everything we have” as two helicopters buzzed protesters in the streets.
D.C. Guard members, typically deployed to help after hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters, say they feel demoralized and exhausted. More than 60 percent are people of color, and one soldier said he and some fellow troops were so ashamed in taking part against the protests that they have kept it from family members.
Senior Army leaders — in an effort to prevent what they feared would be a calamitous outcome if President Trump ordered combat troops from the 82nd Airborne Division holding just outside city limits to the streets — leaned heavily on the Guard to carry out aggressive tactics to prove it could do the job without active-duty forces.
Guard leaders issued a flurry of ad hoc orders that put thousands of Guard troops in face-to-face conflict with fellow Americans.
And when National Guard officials requested written guidance allowing troops without military licenses to drive armored vehicles around Washington, the officer in charge of the task force, Brig. Gen. Robert K. Ryan, said it was a verbal order from the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. James C. McConville. Written confirmation never came, and a Defense Department official with direct knowledge of the situation said General McConville never gave such an order.
Mr. Trump himself was enraged by news reports that he had been moved on Friday night, May 29, to a White House bunker because of the protests outside his gates. The president was alarmed and unsettled by the violence, and by Monday, he was threatening to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow him to order active-duty troops into cities across the United States. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, objected, saying it was a terrible idea to have combat troops trained to fight foreign adversaries at war with Americans.
General Milley and Mr. McCarthy warned the Guard throughout the day that if it could not control the protests, Mr. Trump would most likely call in the 82nd Airborne. The pressure was particularly intense on the D.C. Guard, which had the only sizable military force on the streets.
By 5 p.m. June 1, Lieutenant Jenkins-Bey’s D.C. Guard troops had positioned themselves in a line behind the D.C. police just outside Lafayette Square. The lieutenant had often reminded them that “this isn’t a deployment against the enemy.”
A few hours earlier, Mr. Esper had told the nation’s governors in a conference from the White House call with Mr. Trump that troops controlling the protesters needed to dominate the “battle space.” Lieutenant Jenkins-Bey made clear to his troops in the following days where he stood: “We’re not here to dominate any battle spaces or anything like that, our job is simply to stand the line between the police and the citizens so that they can say what they need to say.”
Thirty minutes before 7 p.m., when Washington’s curfew was to go into effect, U.S. Park Police rushed into a crowd of protesters at Lafayette Square. Lieutenant Jenkins-Bey, in line with his troops behind the police officers, said he was taken by surprise as the assault with tear gas and rubber bullets began.
After the assault, General Milley, clad in fatigues, walked across the park behind Mr. Trump and his entourage for a photo opportunity at a nearby church. And, after that, low-flying helicopters sent protesters scattering.
“The reason you didn’t see Guardsmen commanded by governors use heavy handed tactics in states is because it devalues them, and increases tension at a delicate moment,” said Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran who is the chairman of VoteVets.
By Sunday, Mr. Trump — under widespread criticism — ordered the Guard from other states to return home.
On Tuesday, during a conference call with commanders on the situation in Washington, General Ryan, the task force commander, likened the defense of Lafayette Square to the “Alamo” and his troops’ response to the huge protests on Saturday to the “Super Bowl.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/national-guard-protests.html