A Message to Troops in D.C. from other Service Members & Veterans

Available as downloadable leaflet for outreach to soldiers

The following statement was written as a collaboration between veterans and active-duty soldiers, and is currently being distributed by them to soldiers in Washington, D.C. It is available here as a printable leaflet for those who want to do the same.

War based on lies and false pretenses delivered us, our families, and civilians abroad 20 years of disaster. Now we face another war based on lies and false pretenses, but this time on American soil. The “war on crime” is a smokescreen.

Crime in Washington D.C. has been at a 30-year low with a significant drop in violent crime. The motivation for the deployment of federal troops is purely based on the racist fantasies of those in power. Republicans have wanted to take over the District since 1973, when it created a Black-led political establishment.

It also serves as a mechanism to test the limits of Trump’s authoritarian power. Constitutional lawyers have called this deployment “an unlawful prototype of a police state … a first step in Trump’s march to militarize America’s cities and subvert democracy.” If he gets away with it in D.C., it will be used again and again in whichever city the MAGA movement (and media) decides to target.

Its purpose is also simply the spectacle: it is no coincidence that it coincides with the Commander-in-Chief being deeply mired in perhaps the most explosive cover-up ever in US politics: details of his longtime, close relationship to the world’s most notorious pedophile and child sex trafficker. You are being used as distraction propaganda to protect an Epstein associate.

Trump is building up ICE as his own loyalist paramilitary, which he has just granted an annual budget bigger than the entire Russian military. He wants other armed state sectors–police departments, US Marshalls, the FBI, and the military–to act as other wings of his power: beholden to him rather than constitutional law.

We can’t expect any resistance to this drive towards despotism to come from the police forces. The only hope of a barrier within the system is from the ranks of the military.

That is exactly why Trump and Hegseth immediately moved to purge “disloyal” generals and JAG officers as soon as they took office. They have made it so that the burden of protecting democratic rights and freedoms falls on junior officers and enlisted troops, like you.

It is moments like these that service members can and must make a stand. Trump wants to use our social weight as soldiers to serve his branding stunts. Imagine the impact if we stopped being silent props.

Many of us–veterans young and old, Reservists, Guardsman and active-duty personnel of all ranks–are already in this movement, even part of the protests that some of you in uniform have faced. You can be part of it too. Join us and make a difference when it really matters.

Troops looking to connect can call or text (757) 453-5986.

Print the leaflet version of this statement here.