WASHINGTON – Matthew Cohen couldn't believe the DC National Guard was offering up its soldiers to help with a neighborhood clean-up.
“To have the National Guard come to our neighborhood to help pick up litter is absurd,” said Cohen, an advisory neighborhood commissioner, one of Washington's hyper-local elected officials in the city's low crime Northwest.
But he could use the help.
So long as thousands of soldiers had standing orders from President Donald Trump to remain on duty in the capital, Cohen wondered, what was the harm if his community took them up on the offer?
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