Here We Go Again: ‘Anonymous’ National Guard Officer At Lafayette Square Calls Trump A Liar, ‘What I Just Saw Goes Against My Oath.’
Politico claims they spoke with 10 national Guardsmen that were deployed to Washington DC during the George Floyd riots. One National Guard Officer who requested to remain anonymous claims what he saw violated people’s civil rights and the Trump Administration is lying.
The military officer who refused to be identified told Politico:
“As a military officer, what I saw was more or less really f—ed up,” said one D.C. Guardsman who was deployed to Lafayette Square last Monday and who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. The official line from the White House that the protesters had turned violent, he said, is false.
“The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line,” he said. “A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo op.
“I’m here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and what I just saw goes against my oath and to see everyone try to cover up what really happened,” the Guardsman continued. “What I saw was just absolutely wrong.”
One Guardsmen said that tear gas was present outside the White House, however, the incident he is describing occurred the night before the President visited St. John’s Church. Based on the account from a soldier it appears this soldier was either improperly trained or the story is fake. Here’s what the other anonymous soldier told Politico:
One of the Guardsmen at the scene said the White House isn’t being truthful.
“I’ve been tear gassed before. I was there the night before when we got tear gassed, there was tear gas there” on Monday evening, he said. He added that he and some of his soldiers felt the effects of the tear gas from their colleagues because they didn’t have masks on.
In a statement, Capt. Chelsi Johnson, a spokesperson for D.C. National Guard, responded to accounts of Guardsmen who had been accidentally affected by tear gas.
“They were instructed to put their gas masks on if/when they were ordered to or they noticed the police were putting theirs on. Every Guardsman was issued a gas mask,” she said. The U.S. Park Police has acknowledged firing pepper balls into the crowd, which is also a chemical irritant.
The question I have is if you see police putting on their masks, or start to feel tear gas, why wouldn’t you don and clear your mask?
The soldiers and officers that allowed their names to be used had different experiences some positive and others negative. Unfortunately, the story highlighted that the Army built after 9/11 that was used to hearing “thank you for your service” is now struggling with what the protestors said to them.
One Guardsman told Torrie Osterholm, the DC National Guard’s director of psychological health, “I never thought I’d get a bottle thrown at me and be told I should die and I should kill myself.”
This is what the left is doing to our police and military, tearing them apart.