ICYMI: Rep. Auchincloss in The Washington Post: "I'm a Marine. Trump is putting soldiers in an impossible position."
ICYMI, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (MA-04) is a former Marine captain who commanded an infantry platoon at Twentynine Palms, the base from which 700 United States Marines were deployed to Los Angeles by President Trump last week. Rep. Auchincloss set out in The Washington Post how these Marines are trained for urban warfare abroad, not crowd control at home.
Please find the text of the op-ed below:
"The president's deployment of Marines to Los Angeles is not only unnecessary and illegal. It is also unfair to the Marines themselves. As a former captain who commanded infantry at Twentynine Palms, where these Marines are stationed, I empathize with their dilemma.
The sergeants and corporals have to adopt tactics against their training. The lieutenants and captains have to wrestle with the lawfulness of this executive order. And esprit de corps for all the Marines must be suffering as they ask themselves, on this convoy from inland California to the coast, "Is this what I enlisted for?"
These 700 Marines belong to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. That's an infantry unit — not military police, not logistics, not communications. Infantry in Twentynine Palms are training at the Marine Corps' premier live-fire base to destroy the enemy. Their tactics are geared to locate, close with and destroy the People's Liberation Army or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not Angelenos.
The sergeants and corporals who will be the close-in tactical leads in the city are trained in Military Operations on Urban Terrain. MOUT is not urban policing, which is what the Los Angeles Police Department practices. Instead, it involves cordoning off a section of a city, clearing each building with fire and maneuver, and then controlling lines of fire to suppress the enemy in the next section of the city. The population is treated in accord with the law of armed conflict, not the Bill of Rights. It is combat, not crowd control. Property, public or private, is collateral damage.
These tactics make sense when America is fighting a war. But they are wholly unacceptable in an American city. The sergeants and corporals being deployed have reportedly been given four days of thrown-together training in which to unlearn years of urban warfare instruction and adopt the tactics and techniques of police officers. Even the best noncommissioned officers I served with could not make that work. They should not have to. Our country needs them training to defend us, not used as photo ops for a president whose approval ratings are softening.
These noncommissioned officers report to lieutenants and captains, who are platoon and company commanders. They in turn report to the battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel. These officers are sworn to both "support and defend the Constitution" and "obey the orders of the President of the United States." I do not know these officers personally, but I have known many like them and I have sworn that oath myself. I am certain they take that oath solemnly. Right now, their commander in chief is putting them in a Catch-22. What is a 25-year-old officer to do when the orders of the president do not support and defend the Constitution?
As a member of Congress, I can plainly state and act upon my interpretation of the president's executive order. It is unnecessary — Los Angeles is not in "rebellion," as the president claims. And it is illegal — it contravenes both the law and principle of posse comitatus, which generally prevents the president from using the military for domestic law enforcement. But these young officers are not a check and balance on the president, like I am. They are under his command. He is demoralizing and denigrating their units and their service. If and when a judge agrees with me on the illegality of this order, the battalion commander must immediately return his Marines to the barracks.
Critics might counter that the Marines are only defending federal personnel and property as part of a broader effort to uphold law and order. Certainly, all people and property should be protected. Protest is legal; rioting is not. Violence or destruction should be met with arrests. The LAPD is well trained and equipped for that mission. If it needs help, it can ask for regional and state assistance, including from the National Guard under the command of the governor. The active-duty military does not figure in that response escalation; indeed, the Los Angeles police chief has said the deployment of Marines "presents a significant logistical and operational challenge."
This deployment is not just bad for the police. It's bad for the Marines, too. They did not sweat and bleed in training to be used as political props. As this president grasps for every political advantage, he is attacking not just the Constitution but also the morale and mission of one of this country's greatest institutions, the United States Marines."
