All remembered a scramble in the early days to figure out what everyone should be doing, as more and more troops — who were all deputized as special law enforcement and armed with a handgun — arrived. They said that despite the confusion, there was a collective effort to figure out how to be useful and effective. Military members are trained to be apolitical and follow orders.

In the early days, troops were largely assigned to help with beautification projects around the city: clearing trash along the road, bagging leaves in public parks or trimming trees at the National Mall. The guard member from West Virginia said that many of the members he had arrived with — most of whom had raised their hand for the deployment — became quickly disillusioned.

As the deployment continued, troops were assigned less to beautification projects and more to presence patrols around the city — which the task force says are an effort to deter crime — and settled into a routine that one guard member described as "mundane" and another as "monotonous."

"At some point, I found myself going, well, at least this isn't that bad. At least I'm not doing anything illegal, and that's always counterbalanced with, like, this is wasting everyone's time," one said, adding that it became clear that the "point of the mission is presence."