War on weeds? Leaf-blowing, mulch-shoveling National Guard get green thumbs in DC parks
WASHINGTON − It’s possible there was a typo in the order. One letter can make all the difference.
Law enforcement.
Or was it lawn enforcement?
For a squad of National Guardsmen deployed by President Donald Trump to downtown Washington, DC, it appeared to be the latter.
Armed with shovels, rakes and a leaf blower, they established a beachhead in McPherson Square, just north of the White House, on a recent late summer morning. They shoveled wood chips, raked them smooth and blew leaves and debris from sidewalks beneath the statue of Civil War hero Brig. Gen. James McPherson astride his horse. A few tourists ambled through the 1.6-acre park under the shade of an ancient red oak.
More: President Trump targets Washington DC's 'old, tired, exhausted' grass amid takeover
But for the hum and whine of the leaf blower, it was a far cry from Trump’s depiction on social media of a lawless city rife with “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum,” that he vowed to make “DISAPPEAR.”
That’s precisely what District officials would like to see happen to the National Guard presence.
On Sept. 4, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit to end what he called the illegal deployment of more than 2,000 National Guard troops from seven states to the district. He branded it an involuntary military occupation that exceeded Trump’s authority.
“Deploying the National Guard to engage in law enforcement is not only unnecessary and unwanted, but it is also dangerous and harmful to the District and its residents,” Schwalb said in a statement.
More: Federal judge in DC blasts DOJ after grand jury refuses to approve felony charges
The Guardsmen in McPherson Square, ferried there by U.S. Park Service personnel, seemed a world removed from crime and savagery and scum.
Under the title "Joint Task Force Beautification," soldiers have scrubbed more than 3.2 miles of roadways, collected more than 677 bags of trash, and helped the National Park Service to dispose of five truckloads of plant waste since Trump first mobilized soldiers to Washington, according to a Sept. 2 update from Maj. Micah Maxwell, a National Guard spokesperson. Nearly 2,300 National Guardsmen are currently deployed to the nation's capital – 950 from the city's own force and 1,340 from other states.
“It’s the National Guard, not the 'National Gardeners,’” said Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “Our soldiers should be used for real emergencies, not unwarranted deployments.”The Pentagon declined to answer questions about how yard chores made the soldiers more fit to fight.
Crime in DC
To be sure, defenders of the military crime crackdown can point to data to make their case for the troops. Among major cities in the U.S., DC does have high rates of violent crime and murder. But the Metropolitan Police Department reported a 35% drop in violent crime and a 15% decrease in overall crime from 2023 to 2024. And 2023 was a particularly high year for crime: there were 274 homicides reported, higher than any year since 2005, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
More: Trump says Washington is unsafe, but the data tells a more nuanced story
Trump, for his part, has spoken about how important it is for the nation's capital to maintain a pristine appearance. “I had a wonderful father, very smart, and he used to say, ‘Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don't go in,'” Trump said last month. “’Because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen's dirty also.’ Same thing with the capital. If our capital's dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect it.”
Some Defense Department personnel responded to the deployment to Washington with skepticism. One senior Defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, joked that the war on terror has become a war on weeds, and the National Guard troops, when they become sergeants, will be ready for any threat the garden throws at them.
Connecting with communities
The Defense official did say that Guardsmen are particularly skilled at connecting with communities, often filling sandbags before floods and helping clean up after storms. Mulching and blowing might not fit anybody’s definition of crime fighting, but they’re making the community better.
But wielding a leaf blower, even by military troops deployed to stop crime, is not without risks. It’s against the law to rev up noisy, stinky gas-powered blowers inside Washington, DC. There’s a loophole, however, on using them on federal land, on which McPherson Square sits.
After all, only a few letters separate lethality and leafality.
Tom Vanden Brook has covered the Pentagon for USA TODAY since 2000. His enterprising coverage of the Defense Department has shed light on everything from MRAP vehicles credited with savings lives and limbs, to the Army's suicide crisis.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: So much for leaf-ality? Shovel-armed National Guard tend DC's parks
