Tens of thousands of National Guard troops who deployed to Washington, D.C., ahead of a 2021 inauguration under threat of violence are eligible for a brand-new award in recognition of their service..."In recognition of their service as part of the security mission at the U.S. Capitol and other facilities in Washington, D.C., before, during and after the 59th Presidential Inauguration, the District of Columbia National Guard plans to present all Soldiers and Airmen who took part in the mission one or both of the following decorations: the District of Columbia National Guard Presidential Inauguration Support Ribbon and/or the District of Columbia Emergency Service Ribbon," Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Carver, spokesman for the Virginia Air National Guard and director of Joint Task Force-DC Joint Information Center, said in a statement.
Sounds familiar.
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: cohortes praetoriae) was an elite unit of the Imperial Roman army whose members served as personal bodyguards and intelligence for Roman emperors. During the era of the Roman Republic, the Praetorians served as a small escort force for high-ranking officials such as senators or provincial governors like procurators, and also serving as bodyguards for high-ranking officers within the Roman legions. With the republic's transition into the Roman Empire, however, the first emperor, Augustus, founded the Guard as his personal security detail.
The American Republic may well have ended with the 'fortified' election of 2020. In retrospect, we may mark this passage as having been as firm a transition to something else as we now mark Augustus' rise as the end of the Roman Republic.
5 comments:
I hesitate to raise this notion. Still, this is a small group -- just large enough to correct my somewhat out-of-date experience.
When I carried a rifle for the military it was a very RARE day I simultaneously carried any ammunition for it. And on those days I was on a firing range, with range control officers, all hyper-alert to ensure I never fired any ammo thru my rifle except at designated moments out of day.
When I was assigned to "interior guard duty" -- which happened a lot -- I carried a rifle, wore a helmet, sometimes even walked around in a flak jacket. But I was a "guard" with a fairly useless piece of inventory from the company arms room.
When the US Marines were sent to Lebanon as part of a peace-keeping effort, and some were set to guard the barracks, those Marines were carrying rifles without ammo.
Have the rules changed lately? Are "guards" now routinely, actually, going armed when walking an "interior" post?
Weirdly, in Iraq, soldiers were required to carry ammo and rifles inside the wire but not to load the ammo into the rifle (pistols for officers and certain personnel). But the Ugandan mercenaries we hired to watch the DFAC had loaded rifles all the time.
So far I haven't heard that these Guard guys have been issued ammo; I don't think the Congress actually trusts them at all. But the fact that they're making a service ribbon out of this suggest they're viewing it as a kind of campaign, not as a momentary deployment.
The Praetorian Guard at one point picked the emperors, didn't it? The National Guard in DC is quite the opposite, just puppets dancing on a stage. Poor guys.
Eventually. Just like the barbarian auxiliaries brought in first to provide extra security eventually declared themselves emperors; and then, later, decided they didn't need to ape the Roman forms at all, and went back to being kings.
I tend to think the FBI is a more likely candidate for Praetorians, myself. But under the current system, it'll all be corrupt sooner or later, unless there are some significant changes.
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