, Columnist
National Guard Troops Didn’t Sign Up for This
Walking a tightrope.
Photographer: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images“Nobody signed up for this.” That’s the reaction I keep getting from military and National Guard veterans about President Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors.
They worry that the very thing military members enlist to do — to serve and protect the country — is being undermined by a president whose use of the military for a political stunt is making the nation less safe. By erasing the sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics, Trump is risking generational harm to the professionalism of our fighting forces.