Be the appearance of an armed patrol. I have seen it in Baghdad, in Syria, in the streets where I ruled fear and peace was fragile. I never expected to see that same aspect in the subway in our own capital.
Traveling from my home in the northeast of DC to Dupont Circle, I passed several pairs of soldiers of the National Guard in teams, in stations, in trains and patrols on the sidewalks. Some wore side weapons. One caught me looking and greeted with an antagonistic smile. I stopped, I showed my military identification and talked to him. We talked briefly about what it means to be a professional in uniform, about how the army is tried not only by its strength but by its moderation.
I reminded him that the most important weapon that a soldier carries in a city like this is not in his hip: it is the confidence of the people around him. He numbly nodded, but while I was moving away, I wondered how much that message could stay when the mission itself pushes these young men and women to the roles for which they were never trained.
Dupont Circle is not a remote corner of Washington. It is a center: full of embassies, Think Tanks, coffee shops, bookstores and sidewalks full of people. On any day, you will find students who debate the policy on lattes, diplomats who go to meetings and activists who meet in the park that anchor the neighborhood. It is a crossroads of international ideas and life of the local community. To see armed soldiers patrolling, you have to see the force imposed in a place built for conversation, exchange and civic trust.
They shot me in Iraq, led convoys through deserts marked by war and spent almost five years of my life in operations in the Middle East. In spite of everything, what worried me in those places was the fragility of confidence between the armed patrols and the civilians that surround them: the restless sense that a spark could undo any dim stability. I never expected to feel that fear, not for me, but for our society, while traveling in the DC subway.
This Sunday, I retired as a command sergeant. In almost three decades to use the uniform, I never carried a weapon issued by the Government to civil spaces in the United States. Even convoys between facilities were closely regulated. The civilians did not see us entering Krispy Kreme or addressing public transport with guns in our hips. What I saw last week did not look like the disciplined army that I know.
That should harm us.
While without a doubt these guards are proud patriots, they are not experienced veterans. Most are teenagers, far from home, trained for battlefield tasks, but not for the unpredictable realities of an important city. In DC, like most of the big cities, you not only find travelers. You find people in crisis: lack of housing, addiction, unrelated mental illness. A place could avoid eyes or walk. But what happens when the person in crisis aggressively passes towards an 18 -year -old with a gun in the hip and limited training in decalcalación?
The risk is not abstract. Police officers are trained for these situations because they find them every day. A homeless man shouts on someone's face. A woman in trouble resists an order. A soldier, out of his depth, is certain that he reads the moment badly and will reach his weapon. The spark becomes a fire, and trust between citizens and the military burns with it.
I do not question the courage or commitment of these guards. I have fought by his side in combat and know his sand. But I also know its limits. Ask them for watching it a city is unfair, for them, and for the people who are supposed to serve.
This is not what the guard was built for. Its mission is to respond to disasters, provide logistical support and support civil authorities, not serve as an armed sample of force in the streets of the city. However, this is how they are being deployed in the capital of the nation, as they were in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
The view of the troops with weapons that patrol the sidewalks, shipping trains and the cafeteria post have now extended from the second largest city in the nation to the capital of the nation. What was once extraordinary is to be treated in silence as routine.
That should be alarmed to all.
The view of the soldiers with weapons that patrol the DC streets and the angels should feel discordant. Because once we accept it as normal, we begin to accept what our military has always fought, the idea that legitimacy comes from the barrel of a gun.
I have seen how it looks in the states failed abroad: control points divided by neighborhoods, convoys that intimidate civilians, armed patrols that blur the line between the protector and the occupant. Those societies did not collapse during the night. They eroded slowly, as citizens got used to soldiers who carried out tasks once reserved for police or community leaders. When people realized the cost, trust was gone.
That is not the America in which we should become.
For 28 years, I used the uniform with pride. I implemented several times, I directed soldiers in combat and believed that our service meant somewhat bigger, that we defended a rooted way of life not with fear, but in freedom. While I take the uniform for the last time, my biggest concern is that by placing young soldiers in impossible positions, we are undermining the confidence between society and the members of the service that maintain our united democracy.
The barrel of dust is real. And the sparks are here.
Sergeant command. Major Eric Chastain is an attached teacher at the USC campus in Washington, where it teaches social analysis. It served as the first stalling advisor of the White House in the White House.
