Troops guard a federal building during “No Kings” protests Saturday in Los Angeles. Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty
Retired Brigadier General Greg Smith spent 35 years in the Army National Guard. He’s seen riots. He’s protected political conventions. He led the military’s joint task force in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. But he’s never witnessed the US armed forces being used the way they’ve been deployed recently in Los Angeles. “This is madness,” he says of President Donald Trump’s call-up of both the National Guard and the Marines in response to protests over the administration’s immigration raids.
Normally, federal troops are deployed at the request of a governor, often when a state’s resources are overwhelmed with something like mass protests or a natural disaster. But earlier this month, Trump unilaterally federalized 4,000 soldiers from the California National Guard and called in 700 Marines in response to protests opposing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement—all without the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Smith says it appears there’s little to no communication between local police and those military groups, which could lead to potential conflicts on the ground. But he also sees a larger issue playing out: the president wielding the armed forces for purely political purposes.
“I’m watching the military becoming co-opted by politicians, and where that leads is some really troubling places,” Smith says. “If that happens, the roots of our democracy are in extreme danger.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Smith talks with host Al Letson about the “madness” of federal troops entering LA in response to recent protests, why the Insurrection Act needs reformed, and what he sees as the military being increasingly tasked with enforcing a political agenda rather than defending the Constitution.
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This interview was transcribed and edited for length and clarity.
Al Letson: Right now in Los Angeles, people are protesting ICE detentions and they were met with local police, the Marines and the National Guard. Now, the Guard wasn’t called up by Governor Gavin Newsom, but instead by President Trump. Under what authority did Trump have to order the Guard to become involved and why?
Greg Smith: One of the things that’s not well explained in the media is that the California National Guard, as soon as the president calls it to federal duty, stops becoming the State National Guard. So they are no longer answering to the state of California or its governor. They now have the same status as the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne. They are federal troops at that point. That means that there are a whole lot of things that they can’t do because they are no longer under state control. So the president, under the Insurrection Act, can call up federal forces to protect federal facilities or quell an insurrection or protect citizens whose civil rights are being violated.
President Johnson did this in 1965 in Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. What President Trump is alleging is that looting and property destruction are violating the civil rights of shop owners. So that’s the authority he’s using. But here’s where it gets a little convoluted. He didn’t use the Insurrection Act. He didn’t say, “I’m calling out the Insurrection Act.” He went to an obscure section of Title X, which governs the armed forces. And if your listeners care, it’s Section 12406, which authorizes the president to call up forces to protect federal facilities and federal personnel. However, the order is supposed to be executed through the state governor. That didn’t happen. And that’s the basis of California’s lawsuit.
So as someone who’s been in the Guard and been a commander in the Guard for many years, now retired, what was your thoughts on watching this LA response and how it was organized?
I’ll tell you my thoughts. My thoughts were, this is madness. Let me use the example of the Boston Marathon bombings. Civil support is a tiered response, leveled response. So when something happens, the local authorities respond. When they’re overwhelmed, they say to the state, “We need help.” When the state resources are overwhelmed, they say to the federal government, “We need help.” That didn’t happen here. The reason that it’s a tiered response, Al, is to achieve something called unity of effort. And I’ll say that again, it’s a military term, but unity of effort basically says everybody is singing from the same hymnal. They’re coordinated, they’re moving together.
There’s also a concept called incident command. And what that is, is when madness is occurring, that there is one element that says, “We are in command here,” and the other elements say, “Okay, what do you need us to do?” During the marathon bombings, Boston Police and the FBI did what was called a unified command. So when I’m pushing forces into the city of Boston, I’m in communication with them. “Where do you need us? What do you need us to do? What resources do you need?” That’s not happening in LA. You’ve got the police and the California Highway Patrol dealing with demonstrations. And oh, by the way, now you’ve got this whole other military group, and there appears to be no communication between the two.
Yeah. It seems like a recipe for disaster.
Yeah.
So the courts have gone back and forth over the legality of Trump calling the troops without Newsom. I just want to dive through that legal stuff again. So we already talked about Title X. What’s Title XXXII?
Title XXXII is federal funding for National Guard soldiers under the governor’s command. So that’s typically how you are paid and how resources are provided for an emergency; a flood, a hurricane, a wildfire. But Title XXXII is gubernatorial command and control. So Title XXXII has really nothing to do with what’s going on in LA right now because Governor Newsom has been really kind of shoved aside.
Yeah. And State Active Duty
So State Active Duty is when, and I worked on the State Active Duty a lot, is when the governor says, “Hey, National Guard…” And remember, the governor is the commander in chief of the National Guard. “Hey, I need you to go sandbag that river. It’s not a federal emergency, but I think it’s pretty darn important from a state side.” So the money’s coming out of the state budget. So to be honest, Al, the State Active Duty Title XXXII provisions are really about who pays the bill
Right. Okay.
Both under the governor’s command and control.
Last technical question. What is the Posse Comitatus Act?
I’ll tell you what it is and then I’ll tell you where it comes from because it has a very interesting origin. Posse Comitatus is a long strictly held concept, which basically says you cannot employ federal troops to conduct law enforcement activities against people within the United States. Posse Comitatus says law enforcement has that responsibility, military does not. Not allowed. The only exception is the Insurrection Act. And that really should only be invoked when there is a civil war. But we’ve seen presidents use that act under less provocation.Posse Comitatus actually comes out of southern states during Reconstruction because they didn’t like union troops stationed in southern states enforcing voting rights. Posse Comitatus comes into the legal framework, I believe, in the 1870s or the 1880s. And it was really a move by the former Confederacy to get union stabilization troops out of the south.
So it was used in the Civil War, but it’s actually a good idea that the government cannot use military against its citizens.
Agreed. It’s a good provision.
So we talked about this a little bit earlier, but can you tell me what is the Insurrection Act? And do you think it should be applied to the protest? I mean, does that act need reform?
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. The Insurrection Act needs reform. So the Insurrection Act, I’m not looking at notes, but I’m going to say it’s been used, oh goodness, probably a dozen times. President Eisenhower used it to desegregate schools in the south. President Bush used it in the Rodney King riots response. But that was at the request of the states, and that was a state governor saying, “Hey, I need help. I need federal troops in here to restore order.” So that was, I would say, an appropriate use, is when the governor says to the president, “Send help.”But what’s an insurrection? The courts have not defined it. And I’m going to go out on a limb and tell you, I sure as heck think that January 6th was an insurrection, but we didn’t have calling out the Insurrection Act then. But the activities, the protests, the level of civil disobedience in Los Angeles, is that an insurrection? I’m not a lawyer, but that doesn’t look like an insurrection to me. The Insurrection Act needs reform, it needs specificity. Congress needs to take that up. And if they won’t, then the Supreme Court needs to rule on what constitutes an insurrection.
So you talked about this a little bit before, but I just want to go a little deeper. While you were in the National Guard, the Boston Marathon bombing happened in 2013. Tell me about that day and the role you played in command.
So the Massachusetts National Guard, probably since the Boston Marathon began, has always secured the route along the 26 miles up to the city of Boston. So I had done that as a young officer. And it’s not tough duty, Al. You are out there very early, but the job consists of, the runners are coming down the route, you are turning to the people behind you in the crowd and saying, “Hey, can you folks step back up on the curb?” And they do. It’s a very simple job. And by two o’clock in the afternoon, life is good.
However, 2013, I’m at the finish line with Staff Sergeant Patrick Smith. I could not call him my driver. He was my guardian angel, my bodyguard, my conscience. So I’m with him. And he’s saying, “Hey, let’s watch more runners.” And I’m saying, “No, no, no, no, no. I got stuff to do. Let’s get back to headquarters.” We were maybe 20 minutes away from the finish line when my Blackberry went off and I remember the voice of Colonel Mark Merlino saying, “Sir, there have been explosions at the finish line. There are multiple fatalities and widespread injuries. What are your orders?” Life changed very quickly.
So that’s why we have training. We were very concerned about something called a Mumbai style attack where the initial explosions are actually a faint to draw responders in, and then the ultimate attack follows afterwards. Some people have criticized me for that. They say, “Well, don’t you feel silly when it turned out to be two people?” No, I don’t feel silly. You always plan for the worst. So that’s how things played out. I will say this, I was unhappy that we were told that we couldn’t be armed, and there were some hard words exchanged about that. We paired National Guard teams with armed Boston policemen because I didn’t like the idea of soldiers being exposed to danger.
Well, fast-forward, when the Tsarnaevs came up out of hiding, we aren’t. We actually didn’t ask at that point. We just said, “If we’re going after armed and dangerous terrorists, we have to arm ourselves.” And so we moved into Watertown and we formed the net around the Tsarnaev apprehension area. I’m very proud of what soldiers did.
In your book, there were times where you talk about Guardsmen being relentlessly taunted for hours on end by protesters. Do you think that a Guard should have weapons at a protest?
So, if I can tell another story.
Yeah, please.
When I was very, very young, I was 24 years old, I was quickly dispatched to a civil disturbance with a force of 40 soldiers, who, by the way, were not the 40 soldiers that I usually commanded. They were the first 40 people to arrive. And somebody said, “Lieutenant Smith, take those 40 people and get over there and secure that state hospital.” The context, which doesn’t really matter, but the legislature had declined to fund the budget. The state workers who manned the hospital had gone on a payless payday and they were angry. And they wanted to shut down the hospital, but there were people in the hospital that were on life support. I’m sure you can understand the crisis now.
Yeah, it’s tense.
So at night, we’re out there trying to hold back these very angry workers who haven’t been paid. Things get worse at night because people have a sense of anonymity. So there was a lot of pushing and shoving. There was a lot of spitting, kicking, those types of things. Soldiers are human, and you can really only take so much of that before you become tense. So at one point, one of the protesters broke through the line and he grabbed me by the shirt and he said, “I want your name. You’re in charge here. I want to know who you are.” I’m 24 years old. I’m an army lieutenant. He’s a drunk, middle-aged guy. I grabbed him by the shoulders and I pushed him back outside the picket line and I said, “I don’t touch you, you don’t touch me.”
What I didn’t realize is that he stumbled and he fell and everybody laughed at him. About 15 minutes later, it’s pitch black. There’s this scuffle. And my guys are taking somebody down to the ground. And the police, we had a couple of policemen with us, are cuffing this guy. And I looked down and I realized it’s the guy who had grabbed my shirt. He had a baseball bat, and he was coming to use my head as a fastball. So let me go five days from there. So the operation goes on. This is in the summer. Five days later, it’s afternoon, and I’m out looking for soldiers on the picket line, because I’m back and forth in the hospital looking at our soldiers who are doing operations like feeding and changing beds. And I can’t find the picket line. It’s gone. There are no protesters, there are no soldiers.And I look behind this bush and everybody is sitting in the grass with a case of Budweiser in the middle of all. And they’re all drinking their beers, having a great time, soldiers, protesters, all together. I’m a lieutenant. I just can’t be drinking on duty. I took two steps forward and I said, “What’s the mission here?” To keep peace. That’s about as peaceful as anything’s going to get.
Absolutely.
So I shut my mouth and I went back to the hospital. But here’s my point. On night one, we would’ve killed each other. On day five, we were drinking beer together. What I learned is, the first mission in crowd control is to de-escalate the situation. You don’t push people down so that other people laugh at them. To try to diffuse the situation. Took me a while to learn that.
Do you think that kind of training is being given to the Guards now as far as to be able to work with protesters? I think that some of our rhetoric, when we talk about these protests, when we talk about these clashes, is that the people that you are up against are like your sworn enemies and not fellow Americans. And I feel like that’s the missing piece on both sides is that we are not looking at each other like we are fellow Americans, that we all have stake in this thing. And people’s first amendment rights should be respected and the give and pull between how that respect is shown. I’m just curious, is anybody being trained in that fashion?
The answer is yes and no. Remember, Al, that as a citizen soldier who’s only available for training for a relatively short period of time, there’s a lot that has to be done. Weapons qualification, physical fitness, nuclear, biological and chemical training, how to wear a gas mask and protect yourself, first aid. I could go on and on and on and on. Some units get very good crowd control training. When National Guardsmen go into a crowd control situation, they’ve got, I want to say, three priorities. One, to secure whatever it is they’re securing. They’re always either securing a building, protecting a group of people, or there’s an objective to be secured.
Two, they are making sure that no one’s rights are being abused. So they are very aware of free speech rights. People can say what they want to say, do what they want to do. The line becomes fuzzy when punches are thrown, kicks are… Where is the line between assault and acting out? And the third thing is safety, to make sure that no one is hurt or killed. So they’re aware of that. I am confident that they know what they’re doing there. In terms of how to do it and whether they’ve been specifically trained on crowd control, maybe, maybe not, and probably not.
Yeah. Which, does that concern you when watching what’s happening in Los Angeles?
So I certainly don’t want to hold myself up as some guru, but in Massachusetts, when we had to put troops into civil support missions, we generally went to military police organizations or air security police. They have some training around this in terms of their basic job training. They also are likely to also be law enforcement personnel. Remember, when you get a Guardsman, you’re getting a soldier and you’re getting some other profession. So mainly military police and air police units are full of cops. So putting them on the street to do crowd control is a good thing. They know how to do that.
I didn’t see any effort in LA for them to recruit military police, mainly because military police will wear an armband that says MP. I didn’t detect any of that. It would’ve been wiser for California to activate their military police units because there’s a much higher level of expertise. And I will also tell you this, we very rarely, almost never put National Guardsmen on the street with long arms. Pistols are what we put them on the street with, because it looks like law enforcement, it’s less intrusive, and it leaves their hands free to do other things.
Did you see Guardsmen with long arms in California?
Yes.
Or at the protests in LA?
Yeah. That’s all they have.
And you think that’s a mistake?
That I do.
Yeah. So my last question to you is, the National Guard has been such a huge part of your life and career. Seeing what’s happening right now, how concerned are you about the Guard being used for political purposes?
Hugely. I mean, I am a citizen soldier. I believe that what makes the United States military unique is that we don’t give up our citizenship. And so therefore, the military needs to be comprised of people who are progressive, conservative, socialist, I don’t know, vegan, carnivores, all sorts of people. And it needs to be that way because we are a pluralistic, expansive society. And the military needs to be able to be an honest broker, a fair-minded force that protects everybody regardless of what their opinions are.
I’m watching the military becoming co-opted by politicians. And where that leads is some really troubling places. Not only are people starting to doubt whether the United States military would protect them because of their political leanings, but now people are becoming nervous that the military may be used to enforce a political agenda. If that happens, Al, the roots of our democracy are in extreme danger. The United States military has always accepted that we work for civilian leadership. We’ve never challenged that. But we’ve also always maintained that while we work for you, you don’t own us. Your party does not own us. There are questions arising about that nowadays, and that makes me fearful.
Well, it feels like that is specifically what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wants, is that he wants a military that is completely loyal to not the Constitution, but to President Trump.
I’m very glad that you mentioned that. Commitment to defend the Constitution is the oath we swear over and over and over again. The President is not part of it. Only respecting the fact that he is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces under the Constitution. But we are devoted to the Constitution. So yes, I have concerns.