Pentagon chief tells Guard troops at Capitol ‘Department of Defense is behind you’

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday personally thanked National Guard troops deployed to the U.S. Capitol, telling them “the Department of Defense is behind you.” 

“Let me say up front that I’m absolutely grateful for your service and your professionalism and your commitment. Your country’s grateful and certainly our lawmakers here who are doing the business of our government are really, really grateful,” he told Guard officials outside the U.S. Capitol in an unannounced visit.

“I want to check to see if you’re getting everything you need … the Department of Defense is behind you.”

National Guard troops from around the country have been deployed to Washington, D.C., since the beginning of the month following the violent events of Jan. 6, when rioters supporting former President Trump attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn election results.

U.S. security agencies warned of threats of further violence leading up to President Biden’s inauguration, causing roughly 26,000 guardsmen to pour into the city at the height of the deployment.

The inauguration was ultimately incident free, and the Guard has since drawn down to about 7,000 members who are expected to stay through the start of February before retracting further to about 5,000 until at least mid-March.

The remaining troops patrol Capitol Hill armed with M4 semi-automatic rifles, taking breaks in the halls of the Capitol and spending time off duty in local hotels.

Austin’s visit comes as Republicans in Congress have begun openly questioning whether intelligence exists to justify keeping the guardsmen in D.C.

The new Pentagon chief, who spent the visit walking along the fencing perimeter set up outside the government buildings, engaged with numerous troops to thank them and urge them to “stay focused.”

“Let’s stay focused because we’ve got you out here for a reason and we don’t want to take anything for granted,” he said.

“I recognize this is not easy duty, but it’s important duty,” he told one guardsman. “The lawmakers that work in those buildings behind you there, they’re really, really grateful and happy. They don’t get a chance to tell you that personally every day, but trust me, they tell me that, how grateful they are.”