Washington, D.C. has rarely seen a summer quite like this. As August 2025 draws to a close, the nation’s capital is awash in scenes that have sparked fierce debate, ridicule, and alarm across the country. National Guard troops—around 2,000 strong, according to USA TODAY—have been deployed throughout the city, not in response to a natural disaster or civil unrest, but rather to tackle a "crime emergency" declared by President Donald Trump. Their mission? It’s not just about law enforcement. Many of these soldiers have been spotted picking up trash, spreading mulch, and donning yellow gloves and orange vests over their camouflage uniforms as they work on more than 40 "beautification projects" in parks and public spaces around D.C.
The striking visual of soldiers collecting litter near the White House, Lafayette Park, the Tidal Basin, and the National Mall has set social media ablaze and drawn sharp commentary from all sides. The spectacle reached its peak when a giant Trump banner was unfurled on the Department of Labor headquarters—a move that, for many, conjured uncomfortable echoes of authoritarian regimes. Professor Michael Clemens’s viral Bluesky post captured the mood: "This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself." As the image ricocheted across Reddit and X, reactions ranged from humor to horror. One Reddit user, UUMD, warned, "These pictures and events will be properly addressed by history: cautionary tales of what did and can go wrong in America." Another, Tallslim1960, "joked": "Totally normal. In North Korea." The sentiment was echoed on X, where a user simply wrote, "I am ashamed of what my country is turning into..."
The deployment’s stated purpose was to address a supposed surge in crime. Yet, as The Washington Post and The Daily Beast have reported, crime data shows D.C. is actually experiencing a 30-year low in offenses. Local officials have pushed back, questioning the necessity—and the optics—of such a heavy-handed federal response. Despite these facts, the White House claimed that more than 1,000 arrests had been made as part of the crackdown, with federal law enforcement joining National Guard troops on the streets.
But the most visible task for many Guardsmen hasn’t been policing—it’s been cleaning. According to The Washington Post, the troops have stepped in to fill a void left by major staffing cuts to the National Park Service. Where there were once 200 workers tending the city’s gardens, only 20 remain after what the National Parks Conservation Association describes as a loss of nearly a quarter of the permanent staff during Trump’s second term. "It’s everybody—the masons, the maintenance workers, the groundskeepers, the plumbers. Every shop is short," a Park Service official told the Post. The result: soldiers are now picking up the slack, literally, with trash bags in hand.
For some, the unusual sight of military personnel performing municipal chores has been a welcome one. "I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident," one Guard member told The Washington Post. "But there are different things we could be doing." Others, however, see the move as a gross misuse of military resources—and a costly one at that. The National Priorities Project, a nonprofit that analyzes federal spending, estimates the price tag for the deployment at more than $1 million per day. "America’s brave National Guard troops should be training, or they should be living their lives at home, prepared for whatever serious deployment lies ahead—not spreading mulch at Trump’s whim," opined USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke. He continued, "Congratulations to President Donald Trump and his whip-smart administration on turning America’s brave National Guard troops into the most expensive gardening crew in human history."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for his part, has often spoken of instilling a "warrior ethos" and focusing on "lethality" among America’s soldiers. Critics have pointed out the stark contrast between that rhetoric and the reality of troops scrubbing graffiti and picking up discarded bottles on the National Mall. As Huppke quipped, "Perhaps when Hegseth spoke of ‘lethality,’ he was warning America’s crabgrass to watch out. War fighters are coming for your lawn, and they mean business."
The Trump administration, however, has defended the deployment as part of a broader plan to "Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again." In a statement to The Daily Beast, Joint Task Force-D.C. said the Guard was playing "a variety of roles"—from supporting law enforcement and providing a visible deterrent to crime, to participating in the "beautification process." Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell added, "The Defense Department is incredibly proud of our D.C. National Guardsmen and their work to make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again."
President Trump himself has not shied away from the optics, trumpeting the effort on Truth Social earlier this month. He promised to make the capital "more beautiful than it ever was before" and ordered homeless people to "move out" immediately. His post included images of tent encampments, reportedly snapped from his motorcade en route to his Virginia golf club.
Yet, for many observers, the deployment raises troubling questions about the militarization of American cities and the proper role of the armed forces in peacetime. Some see it as a dangerous precedent, normalizing a military presence in civilian life for reasons that appear more political than practical. As one viral comment put it, "It took us only seven months to get to this point." Others point to the cost and inefficiency: "The job of the National Guard is not to make up for an administration’s stupidity," wrote Huppke. "We shouldn’t have National Guard troops who will one day regale their grandchildren with tales of the Great Mulching Brigade on the National Mall or the Georgetown Battle Against Five Improperly Discarded McDonald's Containers."
The deployment has also faced resistance in the legal arena. According to The Washington Post, grand jurors have refused to indict in several high-profile cases tied to the crackdown, and a federal magistrate judge described one arrest as stemming from "the most illegal search I’ve seen in my life." Another arrest, the judge said, had lacked "basic human dignity."
Meanwhile, the city’s residents and the nation at large are left to ponder the implications of this unprecedented use of military personnel—not just as guardians of public safety, but as the caretakers of its parks and the unlikely face of a new, controversial vision for the nation’s capital. Whether history will judge these events as a bold response to urban challenges or a cautionary tale about executive overreach remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the summer of 2025 in Washington, D.C. will not soon be forgotten.
