National Guard used political purity test on guardsmen prior to DC trip

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Most civilians would be forgiven if they believed that when you join the National Guard, you’re vetted for fitness, patriotism, and duty to country, and that you wouldn’t have to be re-vetted for patriotism and duty prior to an assignment.

But National Guard members being assigned to the inauguration this week received another layer of scrutiny, just to make sure they are not one of the insurrectionists they would be guarding against in the nation’s capital.

Late in 2020, Alaska Guardsmen were asked via email if they wanted to volunteer for the assignment to D.C. to take part in the events around the Inauguration. That was before America witnessed the citizen siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

About 80 of them volunteered, and it appears most of them are on their way to DC on Sunday, Jan. 17.

“The roughly 25,000 National Guardsmen deployed to the U.S. capital to ensure President-elect Joe Biden is able to be sworn in peacefully went through an additional background check to weed out any whiff of domestic extremism,” Major Gen. William Walker told a national security reporter from DefenseOne.com. (Italics ours). Walker, pictured above, is the 23rd commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard.

The extra layer of security is more of a deep dive into guardsmen’s backgrounds than when they initially enlisted, he said, describing it as “another layer” of security above and beyond the continuous monitoring of the force.

That likely means poking around into social media activity of guardsmen, or social clubs, and memberships.

Update: Associated Press is reporting that the FBI vetted all guard members before allowing them to go to D.C.

The vetting process, spurned by worries from defense officials, was confirmed by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, according to AP.

”We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” McCarthy is quoted as saying. “The question is, is that all of them? Are there others? We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this.”

One guardsman likened it to sending all Japanese-American fighters in World War II to Italy because of the perception they could not be trusted.

Members of the National Guard, unlike those in the active duty military, do not relinquish their First Amendment rights, and so many of them may still express their opinions on social media platforms.

Must Read Alaska reached out to members of the Guard, who said they had never before seen additional screening on political grounds.

Walker may demand more screening, but it’s up to Alaska Maj. Gen. Torrence W. Saxe  to accept the task and the purity test conditions with it.  Saxe is the Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard.

It’s unclear if Saxe was told of the extra screening that would be applied. Must Read Alaska has requested a comment. This story will be updated with his comments.

The DefenseOne story is at this website.

54 COMMENTS

  1. If you need 25,000 National Guard Troops to ensure your Inauguration than you were not duly elected your being installed.

    • It won’t stop here with “Dear Leaders” inauguration. He’ll be opening the border, in effect undoing Trump’s wall, flooding the country with lord knows what, then building said walls around “themselves” all in the name of security. What a fantastic way to keep the boot on the peoples neck, whilst saying, “its all for your own security and wellbeing.” Yeah, welcome to the new American caste system.
      .
      Hegelian Dialectic in action.

    • Apparently it’s because we have enough extremists who still believe the election was stolen and might be willing to commit treason in order to prove something to their cult leader.

      • Your opinion, and it does not mean much as it is clearly leaning left with heavy fog, as you cannot see the truth.

      • Could you answer a simple question?
        .
        How did Biden win the Presidency while losing 18 of 19 bellweather counties?
        .
        Why does being skeptical of that fact make me an “extremist”?
        .
        I think you’re projecting.

      • On the left, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone! Anybody beating to death an elderly person, veterans, the store owners trying to protect their livelihood, or a security guard who is there guarding the store will likely do anything!

      • It’s not treason if they really believe the election was stolen, at least from their point of view.

        You are commiting a fallacy. Basically Person A believe X is true and because of that believe the conclusion Y is true or must be done or whateaver, YOU believe X is false and based at that belief you you believe that conclusion Y is false, must not be done and etc…

        You them call them stupid or evil for believing the conclusion Y to be true. The thing is they believe the conclusion Y is true at a situation where premise X is true and you are implying they believe they are believing conclusion Y is true at a world where premise X is false.

        This is a fallacy, but you aren’t alone with that fallacy, tons of people commit it nowadays, its a very common in a post-2014 world.

  2. If you need 25 thousand NG Troops to ensure your Inauguration, then you were not duly elected; you’re being installed.

    • Nah, it’s just to let Trump supporters know they’ll be shooting a lot more of them in the face if they try anything silly ?

      • No, it was in the neck after one of your antifa members lied (as usual) screaming that she had a gun!! Sadly for you, they’ll not only be coming after Trump supporters, but you too.

  3. Not the first time. I recall George Bush wanted us (Ak Army National Guard Aviation) to sign a loyalty oath on the run up to possible deployment to the first gulf war. They decide not to deploy us so the issue went away. I felt insulted at the time as I swore an oath already.

    • Ole’ Bushy wanted to make sure that you were willing to die for him, but not him for you! That’s all!! No biggie..

    • Then, once they were done with them they threw them out to sleep on a frozen concrete floor!! Real class these thieving-heathens have going for themselves UNTIL Jill brought them a couple of baskets of cookies!!

  4. Censorship & military force against civilians are the tell tale signs of an illigitimate government.

        • Stalin was a lot like Trump, but he had military background at least. Trump has nothing to give the American people, something that took a lot of them 4 years to figure out ??

          • You mad that President Trump gave you a ‘JOB’ and a good economy, closed the borders and NO WARS?? Well, maybe you should contact your Ped-o and ask him what you can do for him now!! I’m sure he’d rather spit in your eye than look at you fools now!!

  5. If we are sorting soldiers into Conservative and Liberal then I am happy I am on the Conservative side! But at the same time, if this is how America now rolls I think we all need to have an adequate arsenal and ammo. The CMP re-opened its .45 auto sales again on 1/4/21 if you do not yet have one. Only one per US citizen is allowed.

  6. What country are we in? These are the things China or Russia would do. This country is falling apart!

  7. Nothing new. The AKRNG was put through a political litmus test in the 90’s. At the time, billy was in office, McVeigh blew up the OKC building and the national guard witch hunt was on.

    How would you feel about being asked questions of a political nature about your personal life, having your name checked off and some comments written in a remarks block, then having to step up and have your picture taken..? Sounded like NKVD tactics then, still holds water today.

    Those that did not hand out the “right answers”, their lives were made hard and they either retired or life was made hard for them and they just got out.

    • Wrong person being forced to take the litmus test or was this while Billy-Bob was preoccupied with the young staff member??

  8. The purity oath and background checks ensure loyalty to the military chain of command and the civilian leadership that ultimately commands it over loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and the citizens of the United States.
    With the assurance that the lower levels will blindly follow orders an installed political tyranny can rest easy without fear of a military that could easily remove it from power to reestablish proper representative government.
    Obviously the upper echelons of our military are fine with fraudulent elections and installed, rather than elected, leaders or something would have been done about the 2020 election.
    Now we just need obedient and compliant lower ranks willing to do the dirty work of putting down citizens angry about being ruled rather than represented.
    History shows us that this is tragically easy to do.

    • Bill Barr has made it clear: Any claim that the election was stolen is pure bullsh$t. That’s coming from a Trump loyalist.

      • Agreed, but it took Mueller 3 years and $45,000,000 tax dollars to prove Barr’s point. A fine example of liberal government waste and largess if ever we saw one!

      • I don’t need to take Barr’s word for what anyone can see with their own eyes.
        .

        Loyalist or not.

      • Bill Barr was not a Trump loyalist!! Why do you lefties just throw garbage out there when Barr couldn’t be more clear that he was going to do nothing but give lip service about why he sat on his hands and did nothing the entire time!!

  9. I am so glad I am no longer in the uniform I loved! I can’t begin to imagine what it was like during Obama and what it will be like under Hiden Biden and Kamala Harris (she will be POTUS in 3 months or less).

  10. The vast majority of 0-6 and above in the military are either fighting for board and lobbying positions in the defense industry, or upper level political appointments, this heavily compromised. The days of the patriot leadership in the nation’s defense structure are sadly long over. The enlisted ranks are largely still the freedom loving patriots you would imagine, but the leadership class looks at the civilian population with as much disdain as your elected leaders do.

  11. I don’t envy the leaders who will be elected leading America when this country falls. There be chaos, confusion, destruction, crime like it never saw before. The young leaders under 50 vying for leadership positions i think they are half crazy or they are completly unaware what will happen under their command.

  12. The government will be vetting National Guard personnel who volunteer to assist at the inauguration; however, don’t even dare suggest that we vet illegals who will be streaming across the border bringing their diseases including COVID, or be they drug or human traffickers. Go figure!

  13. Some might really believe it’s just extremist and Trump supporters who think the election was fraudulent, but it’s way more than those people who believe there was election fraud. A high number of Normal everyday people, independents, and even some long time democrats believe the ballot was fixed, and not just by some so called propaganda on Facebook. They believe by hands on computer and mail in ballot fixing. So to neatly tuck all this into a far left fetched, only the extremest feeling blanketing this nation on a whole, is a false notion to only bury some of your biased heads further into the biased media sand, and a ploy to silence the great majority of this nation who believe there was true 2020 election fraud.

  14. So who knew questioning the results of an election made one a terroristic extremist fit for censorship and forceable reeducation? Who knew that attending a rally would result in the FBI going full “papers please” mode after the summer we just had? Who knew the illiberal left would call for the cancellation of all political dissent including any news outlets they find triggering (I’m looking at you Facebook). 1984 as instruction manual, full stop.

  15. Saxe should have never approved the mission, and the Governor should have nixed if Saxe was unwilling to do so.
    As former ANG and ARNG, such vetting would be an affront. One swears an oath to the U.S. and State of Alaska Constitutions as well as to obey lawful orders.
    This vetting was based on color and political vote. Great shades of the loyalty tests of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.
    What’s next? Black uniforms with silver piping and SS runes on the collars for those who pass the loyalty test?

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