MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's hear more about this from a former top official in the National Guard, retired Major General Randy Manner. He served as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. He was part of the D.C. National Guard between 1997 and 2012. And I also want to mention he's had a long career in both the National Guard and on active duty. Welcome, retired Major General. Thanks so much for joining us, and thank you also for your honorable service.
RANDY MANNER: Well, you're very welcome, and thank you as well.
MARTIN: So we asked D.C.'s Joint Task Force last night about the Guard's mission, and they told us they support law enforcement in, quote, "maintaining order and ensuring that public spaces are safe and well maintained," unquote. So we've seen National Guard troops brought in in times of civil unrest. We've all seen that. We've also seen them support major events, like an inauguration. But have you seen anything like this in the past?
MANNER: This is unprecedented. It would not meet the criteria for the deployment of National Guardsmen whatsoever. This is absolutely a law enforcement operation in the very best of cases. It is not a military operation. It does not require National Guardsmen or active-duty military. And no matter what anyone says, this does not meet the criteria. I've never seen anything like this in my 36 years of service.
MARTIN: What concerns you most about how the National Guard troops will be utilized in D.C.? I guess, what informs your view of this?
MANNER: Some of the other speakers talked about the fact that our National Guard is not trained in policing actions. This is not what they do. They are predominantly in support operations. And so that's the first and most important thing. They don't have the experience and the training that the Metropolitan Police and other law enforcement agencies have. The second one is that it actually negatively impacts military readiness because it pulls people - soldiers and airmen - out of their units and reduces their ability for those units to prepare for war for deployment.
And also, quite frankly, the sad thing is, this is a political prop. Our young soldiers and airmen are political props, and it's something where they are actually - it's being done on the backs of our young men and women. We - think about it. Many of these young soldiers and airmen actually earn more money in their civilian jobs than they do in the military. So you're having people deployed. Some people are being pulled out of vacation. Some people are being pulled out of college, and here they are moving in for no legitimate reason.
MARTIN: So let's break up - let's take some of these issues sort of one by one. You are part of a group, the bipartisan National Security Leaders for America, that issued a statement saying that the National Guard is stretched nearly to its breaking point. What do you mean by that? I particularly want to hear your concerns about readiness.
MANNER: The most important thing that we are here to do is, No. 1, to be able to serve as the strategic reserve for the United States, for our active-duty military forces for overseas deployments. The National Guard is involved every single day around the world performing missions that are critical to the well-being in the United States. And the No. 2 mission is to support the states in terms of national - excuse me, of natural disasters such as - as we're coming up in hurricane season or forest fires or flooding. We are there to help the American people. This is actually also changing the entire context of the way that the average citizens in these cities are going to start viewing both our National Guardsmen and our military.
If you remember back to 9/11, after that period, we had national guardsmen in every airport. The objective was to reassure the people that it is safe to fly. And, in fact, it actually did that for the many months that they were serving there. This, in contrast, is where we don't have - we should not have military on our streets in our American cities. It is absolutely the way that dictatorships run, not democracies.
MARTIN: It's interesting. It seems to be - like, you're saying, in part, it's a readiness issue. It's a training issue. It's a suitability issue. But you're also concerned that people will stop looking at the Guard as people there to help them...
MANNER: That's correct.
MARTIN: ...But see them as people who are there to do something to them or to occupy them as an occupying force...
MANNER: Exactly.
MARTIN: ...That they might be a target, in a way, is, I think, what you're saying.
MANNER: That's exactly correct. Military vehicles in front of public buildings and the idea of constantly there with weapons, that is absolutely called intimidation, and I'm very concerned about the impact on both our recruiting as well as, of course, the perception of many of the people of color as they see the National Guardsmen from other states coming in to occupy Washington, D.C.
MARTIN: And before we let you go, as briefly as you can, when we asked the Joint Task Force about rules of engagement, they said that all service members deployed will get an initial briefing on the mission and operational environment, and that prepares them. Is that enough?
MANNER: No, absolutely not. The last - they are called rules for the use of force. And the last one that I actually saw was for 2020 for the D.C. National Guard. Every soldier is supposed to have a plastic card in their pocket that explains exactly what they're supposed to do, and it is drilled into them. It's not supposed to be a one-time briefing. This is a very - potentially dangerous situation. Again, it's a police action, not a military action.
MARTIN: That is retired Major General Randy Manner, who served as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. He's now with the bipartisan group National Security Leaders for America. Major General, thanks so much for joining us.
MANNER: Thank you so much.
MARTIN: And I also want to mention that we asked the Republican governors of states sending National Guard deployments to the nation's capital to join us for an interview. They were not available or didn't respond to our invitation. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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