VIDEO: Troops Question Los Angeles Deployment

An inside look at the ill-fated mission in soldiers’ own words

Private First Class Andrew Oliveira comments on the LA mission

Thousands of troops, National Guard and active duty Marines are being withdrawn from Los Angeles, the ill-fated mission quietly ending, the objective so confused that even the Defense Department’s official news service is publishing stories about soldiers questioning the point.

I’ve also been talking to those soldiers, and they affirm that so much of the Trump-Hegseth show of force was little more than an unnecessary and politically-motivated publicity stunt. So much so that I’m told that the Pentagon has ordered the California Guard to preserve all records related to the deployment, just in case the military is sued.

“Turns out there could be reasonably foreseeable litigation regarding the mobilization in the future,” one Guard source tells me, adding wryly: “Shocked.” (Asked about any such order, spokespersons for the California National Guard did not respond to my request for comment.)

“I'd say a lot of the action, quote unquote, has died down quite a bit; so a lot of … [what we’re doing] is just us showing our presence,” says Nicolas Gallegos of the Guard’s 1st Battalion, 143rd Field Artillery Regiment.

Gallegos is referring to the anti-ICE protests and civil unrest in LA that precipitated the military deployments last month. Almost since the deployment began, troops on the ground saw that “unrest” had mostly dissipated.

“I think we all feel a little bit anxious about what, why, why we're here,” says Private First Class Andrew Oliveira, an electronics repairman with the 578th Brigade Engineer Battalion told the defense news service. 

Far from the North Korea-style “Everything’s great!” public relations exercise I expected, soldiers who deployed to LA are shockingly open about not just the nature of the mission but their own unease with it.

“At first it was a little scary, not knowing what I'm jumping into,” says Specialist Nadia Cano, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist with the 149th Chemical Company.

If the Defense Department sees fit to quote these soldiers in official media, imagine what they’re saying privately.

What’s striking is how young and inexperienced many of the soldiers are, a concern flagged early on by Army sources I was talking to. Many barely have a year of military service under their belts.

“ I'm still sort of new to the Army … It’s my second activation,” says Specialist Carlos Vasquez, a combat medic with the 143rd Field Artillery Regiment.

Vasquez is the only soldier mentioned by the Guard’s own public affairs apparatus I could find who seemed enthusiastic about the mission. He cites Michael Bay movies and the Call of Duty video game series as his inspiration for joining. 

For me, I love being activated. It's my second activation … It's really fun to be out supporting what's supposed to be, you know, an important mission, making sure everything's safe or making sure the civilians are safe, making sure we're safe and everything, you know.

I just, I love wearing this uniform … I enlisted with the Army 'cause I saw all the fun stuff when I was growing up. All the ads, the Michael Bay movies, the Call of Duty. And so I still have pride in this uniform. I'm still sort of new to the Army though, so it's two years. So everything still has its gold wrapper to it really.

Staff Sergeant Zachary Shannon, a squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, alludes to his efforts at reassuring soldiers that the deployment involved  “doing the right thing,” as he put it, and of the importance of not listening to the protesters.

“I have advised my service members to just keep it professional, keep it military, military professionalism in one ear out the other in a sense that if they say something, my soldiers know who they are and they know why they're here and they know. That they're doing the right thing and if there is a protestor saying otherwise, they should know that that's not true.”

If you’re confused about the point of the deployment, you’re not alone. The term “show of presence” originally appeared in an operations briefing leaked to me. A story I published in this newsletter about that admission precipitated an internal Army investigation almost as farcical as the deployment itself.

Leaked Army briefing

The soldiers I’ve talked to often expressed puzzlement as to what their orders are, which they said seemed to change at a moment's notice with plans starting and stopping seemingly every day. In one case, the Guard arrived for an operation late and just turned around and went back to base without having done anything.

Is the withdrawal of 2,000 Guardsmen and 700 Marines, what’s been announced so far, the end of the mission, or is it just the Pentagon’s way of reorganizing for the next phase?  I don’t know yet. Guard sources tell me that most of the remaining troops on the streets will be military police, troops who in theory are trained and ready to engage in crowd control and similar missions in the future.

I welcome help from Guard, Army, and Marine Corps soldiers who can further shed light on the tangled mess. And of course to you readers whose subscriptions make my work possible!

— Edited by William M. Arkin