🪖 From Defender to Oppressor: What Happens When We Turn Our Troops on Ourselves

What began as a show of force is leaving soldiers morally wounded and the public deeply divided.

TL;DR
When U.S. troops are deployed into American cities, it’s not just the public who pays the price. The service members themselves—trained for war, not protest—are thrown into missions they aren’t equipped for, legally or emotionally. What begins as a show of strength often ends in moral injury, broken trust, and silence.

I’ve seen this story unfold before—from Kent State to Rodney King to now—and I’m using my voice to say: we can’t keep doing this.

They say it’s about keeping the peace. Protecting buildings. Maintaining order.

But when the helmets go on and the rifles come out—when American troops are lined up on American streets, facing civilians with signs and chants and grief—“peacekeeping” starts to sound like a cover story.

I’ve lived long enough to know what it means when no one talks about the cost—to the troops. When we pretend these missions don’t change people. That kind of silence is dangerous.

“They are 100% warfighters trained for infantry combat in war zones… not designed for domestic civil unrest.”
— Marine, Reddit

That quote says more than most headlines will. We train our troops for war. And then we drop them into civil protests and tell them to hold the line—against their own people. It's not just a bad fit. It’s a moral landmine.

When we send service members into our own cities under orders that feel more political than constitutional, we don’t just risk escalation—we risk doing lasting damage to the people in uniform.

“Looks like the time’s quickly approaching for those in uniform to decide if they’re going to follow & protect the principles of the Constitution, or obey the whims of a wannabe dictator & his lackeys.”
— Veteran, Reddit

Because once you’ve been seen as the enemy, even for a moment, something in you shifts. You’re not just a soldier anymore. You’re a symbol. A threat. A pawn.

And when the uniform becomes a target, it’s not just the public that loses faith.
The troops do too.

⚔️ Moral Injury and the Fight Within

Most Americans don’t think of troops coming home from a domestic mission with trauma. But they should.

When you put a uniform on and stand face to face with a civilian—someone who looks like you, maybe is your family, your friend, your neighbor—and you're told to be ready to confront them, something happens inside. Especially when you can see the hurt in their eyes. The anger. The fear. And you start to wonder what it is they see in yours.

For some, that’s when the real injury starts. Not from a bullet. But from the moment they begin to question what they’re doing—and why.

“After the George Floyd protests, I couldn’t look my cousin in the eye. She was at one of them. I was on standby in gear. I didn’t choose that.”
— Army National Guard soldier, anonymous forum post

Moral injury is different from PTSD. It’s not just fear or trauma—it’s betrayal of self. It’s what happens when your actions, or even your orders, violate the core values you believed you were serving. And unlike a sprained ankle or a broken bone, moral injury doesn’t show up on any chart.

No one trains you for that moment. No one hands you a guidebook that tells you what to do when you feel like you're betraying your oath just by standing still.

We talk a lot about what happens to veterans. But we don’t talk enough about what we put them through on purpose.

👁️ When the Public Stops Seeing a Protector

We ask service members to wear the uniform with pride. To represent honor, duty, and sacrifice.

But what happens when the people looking back at you don’t see a protector?
What if they see a weapon? A warning? An oppressor?

When troops are deployed into American cities—not for rescue, not for relief, but to hold a line between protest and power—the uniform itself takes on a different meaning. The message it sends is no longer neutral. And the people inside it feel that change.

“The looks we got weren’t scared or grateful. They were furious. We weren’t ‘help.’ We were ‘them.’”
— California National Guard member, 2020

That shift in perception cuts both ways. It isolates the troops from the public they once felt proud to serve. It isolates the public from an institution they once trusted. And it makes future service harder to imagine—for both sides.

For National Guard members, this is especially brutal. These are people who live in the same neighborhoods they’re deployed to. They shop in the same stores. Their kids go to the same schools.

And when they come back from these missions, they don’t go home as heroes.

They go home wondering if the neighbors think they’re a threat.

“After the L.A. deployment, I stopped wearing anything military-related in public. I didn’t want the looks. I didn’t want the questions.”
— Former Marine, Reddit

That’s not just a cost.
That’s a fracture.

🕰️ We’ve Been Here Before—and We Keep Forgetting

This isn’t the first time American troops have been sent into American streets.

It’s just the latest.

In 1970, the National Guard was deployed to Kent State University during student protests against the Vietnam War. The result? Four students dead. Nine wounded. Shot by fellow Americans in uniform.

Public trust in the military plummeted. And for decades, the Kent State massacre stood as a warning: this is what happens when you use soldiers to do a job meant for dialogue, not dominance.

I was 13 when the news broke about Kent State. It shook my little brain. It felt like it didn’t matter what we did—the man would always win. I cried for the students killed that day. I saw the soldiers not as heroes, but as oppressors. And I couldn’t make sense of it.

Looking back now, after wearing the uniform myself, I still carry that conflict. I still remember what it felt like to watch people in fatigues turn their weapons inward—on kids not much older than me.

By 1992, I was 35 and struggling to get control of my PTSD. I was living in a studio apartment in a bad part of town. I was broke and frightened. Then the Rodney King verdict came down—and things started cracking more than usual. Helicopters shining their spotlights into my window. Random gunfire outside. The city felt like it was unraveling.

I turned on the news and saw the troops in the streets again—and my stomach turned, just like it had when I was 13.

In 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal troops appeared in the streets of Washington, D.C., and helicopters buzzed over demonstrators to intimidate the crowd. Active-duty military commanders were pulled into the political spotlight. One, General Mark Milley, later apologized for even appearing in Lafayette Square in uniform.

“I should not have been there.”
— Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

We should’ve learned.

But here we are—again. Troops in helmets, positioned under Title 10 orders. Vague missions. Public fear. No clear endgame.

What ties these moments together isn’t just the uniforms or the optics.
It’s the lesson we refuse to learn:

The military is not the answer to domestic dissent.

And using it that way doesn’t just fail to fix the problem—it compounds it.

🛑 We Are Running Out of Excuses

Every time this happens, they tell us it’s different. That this moment requires strength. That order must be restored.

But the truth is, we've been here before. And every time we fail to learn the lesson, the cost gets higher.

We’re not just risking escalation. We’re not just testing the Constitution.

We are breaking the people we send in to “restore calm.” We’re feeding a machine that turns soldiers into symbols of state power—and then discards them when the headlines fade.

“After the L.A. deployment, I stopped wearing anything military-related in public. I didn’t want the looks. I didn’t want the questions.”
— Former Marine, Reddit

When you put someone in uniform and tell them to stand against their own, you don’t get peace.
You get silence.

And that silence settles deep in the bones—of the troops, of the community, of the nation.

It’s happening again now.

And if we don’t speak up—not later, not after it’s over, but now—then the next time will be even worse.

And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.

I was 13 when I saw it happen the first time. I didn’t have the words back then—I just knew something was breaking.
Now I do have the words.
And I’m using them.