This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and this is what fading morale sounds like.

People are referring to the National Guard as National Gardeners.

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Imagine for a second that you run a business and you employ someone who is in the National Guard. There are a lot of benefits to hiring these folks like generous tax credits, and these are often talented professionals with a wide range of skills. However, they do get pulled away for duty from time to time, usually for about two weeks every summer, but when there's an emergency like a natural disaster, they might be called up at a moment's notice with no clear end date. As a boss, you have to fill holes in the schedule, make sure someone qualified can step in. It can be a drag on productivity and profits, but it's something employers come to expect, and those extended deployments don't come around all that often.

I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order, and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly.

'Well, recently, six Republican-led states sent hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. To assist the D. C. National Guard with President Donald Trump's crime crackdown.

It's a safe zone because it's very safe. You can walk down the street now and nothing's going to happen. No crime, no murders, no nothing.

Trump claims the mission has been a big success. However, critics complain he's turned National Guard members into political pawns, and it's not exactly clear how long these troops will stay on D.C.'s streets. What is clear, though, is that this is no ordinary mission, and morale is not exactly sky high. So how is this deployment impacting these troops and their families, and what can it tell us about how possible deployments to other cities might go? CNN senior reporter and writer, Isabel Khurshudian has been looking into this. Now, Isabel, right before we came on the mics here, the DC attorney general actually sued the Trump administration over this deployment. We'll see how that plays out. But in the meantime, I wanna take a step back. How does a National Guard deployment actually work?

So these are active duty military personnel who also lead civilian lives most of the time. And when they get called up, when there is a deployment, their job will still be waiting for them when they get back. That's sort of legally promised. But still, in some cases, people might own their own business. And that's obviously quite difficult to have to leave that.

They have to drop everything they're doing and go on this mission.

Exactly and you know some of that time moments notice sometimes you know these deployment you know about them in advance and can sort of make more arrangements in advance national guard specifically the answer to both the state on the federal level as so they can you know be deployed for various reasons and obviously people understand that that that comes with the job you know sometimes having to you know miss moments in a young child's life or make special childcare arrangements. But it's still quite difficult.

And how long do these usually last? Cause this one in DC is for 30 days, but can they go longer?

Yeah, some deployments can be quite long if they're, you know, someone sent abroad, you know, that could be like a year. The ones for D.C. Have typically been for 30 days and they're expected to get extended for people to get kind of the continuity of full health care benefits, housing allowance, you know some other things like that. That doesn't mean that the soldiers here will stay for the full length of their orders. It just sort of gives more flexibility and also more benefits for the people deployed here. So guardsmen, they expect deployments, they expect long deployments but this one has been extremely unique for them.

Hmm. Why is that?

'Honestly, an unprecedented deployment in itself. The National Guard has, you know, never really been used like this. But then there are other factors for the guardsmen here. And me and, you, know, my CNN colleagues, we reached out to a number of guardsmen who've been deployed to D.C., as well as their families. You know, active duty personnel can't speak to the media unless they're specifically permitted to. So, we were very careful with protecting identities so that people could... Speak freely to us. And the guardsmen themselves, you know, what they've also been telling family is that one quote we got was, this is crazy. Part of it is the orders themselves are very strange. It's a lot of, you know, quote unquote beautification projects. That's fallen a lot more to the DC Guard than the out-of-state Guard, but that's raking leaves, trash pickup, replanting mulch. And as a guardsman, you expect to be deployed in the event of a hurricane or a wildfire, some kind of natural disaster in the U.S. And typically then people are really happy to see you, right? You're coming to help them. In this case in D.C., a lot of local residents are not happy.

Go home! Anything for a check, right? Go home, fascists! Go home.

As a result, what a live guard are telling their families and also told us is, you know, people are being mean to them or they're yelling at them.

I imagine that creates some odd feelings if, like you say, National Guard usually come in in a moment of crisis, they're cleaning things up, they are helping people out of tough situations, and some folks here are being sent in to rake leaves or pick up trash.

'Yeah. And to be fair, some of the Guard and the family we spoke to did say they support President Trump. They support using the Guard in this way that crime does need to be cracked down on in D.C. But the National Guard themselves are not actually being used to crack down on crime, right? Their purpose here is as sort of a deterrent presence is what, you know, officials are describing it as. They're not being sent to high crime areas. They're actually in pretty safe parts of the city, right? Around monuments, you know, the National Mall, kind of a high traffic tourist areas in many cases, or metro stations, union station. So, you now, even for the guardsmen themselves, when they've called home, what their family has told us is they don't really understand themselves what they're doing here. The orders are obviously quite mundane when sometimes the assignment is stand here this metro station from 4 p.m. To 4 a.m., or, you know, walk around Chinatown. You know, that's created a little bit of confusion, and it's one thing if, you're a single guy, and you left a not that well-paying job, and you're getting paid here, and you are also staying in a hotel and getting three meals a day. But in other cases, people make more in their civilian day jobs than they do when they're serving in the guard.

Oh, wow. So they're not only just missing time with their family, but they're actually taking a financial hit by being on this deployment.

I would say most are taking a financial hit. That's the majority.

'So your daughter-in-law is currently in D.C.?

She is.

'So one woman we spoke to is the mother-in-law of a service member from Mississippi who's been deployed here.

First she she was like you know I just hate that they're cussing us and I hate how they're treating the American soldiers you know when you know we're putting ourselves out away from our families and all that

'Every time this soldier's called her mother-in-law, basically the mother- in-law described her as she sounded mentally tired because it had taken a drain for her to be yelled at. She said she was actually spit at in one situation by people in D.C.

Was like, we're here trying to clean up the city, try to help them, and then we're getting treated like this.

'And for her, this deployment comes at a great sacrifice because her mother-in-law told us about how she's having to help with, you know, the young child, help her son who's also working while her daughter-in law is deployed.

It's kind of put a hardship on everybody, but she loves her job, she loves what she does.

So you understand these sacrifices, I think, naturally, when it is an emergency, a big crisis, when you see sort of why you're needed. I think for some people, the sort of deployment is difficult to swallow if it goes on for a long time. Morale is going to take a hit because of the things you're having to miss out on at home.

We'll be right back.

Yeah, so I guess I'm wondering if they're just kind of being used as this physical deterrent, just their mere presence out at these popular places. Do they feel at all that they're being used as political pawns here?

Yeah, so we spoke to retired Army Major General Randy Manner, who is the former acting vice chief of the National Guard.

The secretary of defense quotes, the soldiers are very happy to do this mission. That could not be further from the truth. Soldiers hate standing around. They hate being in parades.

And, you know, he mentioned that he's seeing things where people are referring to the National Guard as like national gardeners.

National gardeners. Oh boy

'Because of the beautification projects and you know something else we had in our reporting is that some GOP governors who initially were very gung-ho to you know deploy their state national guards as part of this Trump crackdown on crime in various cities are now a little hesitant because they don't want the optics of their soldiers being used for trash pickup, which is why a lot of the beatification responsibilities are falling to the D.C. Card.

The fact that they're doing this beautification crap is also indicative of the fact that if it was all about law enforcement, they'd be doing the law enforcement. They're not.

You know the national gardener saying that something randy manor mentioned as that's the kind of thing that will become very deflating uh... For the guardsman

Well, yeah, and as Trump considers whether to send troops into other cities, I imagine that troops from other states would look at this deployment and hear some of these stories and feel deflated before they even set foot in the city, let alone whatever protests come their way once they are there.

Yeah, I do think, you know, as Manor said, it drives a wedge between the people in the military, where you usually have people, you know, very thankful to troops, coming up to them and saying, thank you for your service. Now you have people coming up to them in the streets of DC and saying go home.

This idea that the guard are there to watch us and to intimidate us will, if it is continued over the next months and years, will absolutely drive this feeling that those men and women in uniform are not us and they are against us.

And in fairness to these, you know, soldiers, they're following orders, you know, they don't really have a whole lot of choice on if to be here. But in general, it does create the situation where for cities where the local officials don't want this, it creates an antagonistic relationship between the people and the military.

And I imagine that dynamic is what is at the heart of a lot of these opponents of Trump's moves who say, yes, this is why the military should not be deployed on American streets because you get into not only power struggles but you foster a sense of resentment among certain communities who just don't want these troops on their streets.

Exactly. And then there's also the cost element.

Yeah. How much is this costing?

Yeah, it starts to cost, experts say, about a million dollars a day. That includes, you know, seven million just in catering, food, five million for 18 weeks of laundry services, according to a CNN review of the contracts, an additional five million for a tent city was approved, $600,000 in air conditioning rental. So it does start to add up for an administration that's otherwise made a big fuss about cutting spending.

So finally, I guess I'm wondering about this broader crime crackdown in D.C. We've had a few weeks of it now. Has it actually produced results? Like, I know the White House claims there is no crime anymore, which is just absolutely not true. But what do the numbers actually say about how this is going?

So the important context to this is, obviously, the Trump administration justified this by saying that violent crime was out of control in DC, even though it had actually declined in 2024 and declined again in 2025, according to DC crime stats. So as of Tuesday evening, the Joint Task Force for the DC mission says there's been a 37% drop in carjackings, 50% decrease in robberies. 23% drop in violent crime since the mission began. But, you know, grain of salt of being when it's percentages, it's a little bit difficult to know exactly the hard numbers. So sort of the consistent thing we were told by guardsmen and their families is because this isn't a typical mission with kind of a clear end date or a clear goal for what constitutes, I guess, it being done or success. I think a lot of the morale issues or even the rising anxiety, it sounds like, is from kind of the indefinite end date of it all. That's something we heard a lot from a lot of families is Okay, we understand that this is important. We support President Trump. It would be good to know when, you know, the soldiers are coming home or exactly kind of what the plan is. I think because it's such an unconventional mission, where again, a lot of guard are just walking around most days or standing in one spot, I think mentally it's difficult for them to figure out, okay, when does this end? Or, you now, when's the end goal achieved?

Yeah, just a lack of clarity around the specifics. Understandably stressful for some of these folks and we'll see what happens with these other cities, but a bit of an example here of how this could go. Well, Isabelle, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

That's it for us today, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, make sure you're following us wherever you listen, that way a new episode will pop into your feed automatically. You just sit back and let us come to you. We'll be back on Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.