A soldier keeps watch at the Lincoln Memorial as thousands of peaceful demonstrators were met with a huge military presence Wednesday following a week of tenses clashes in the capital
Daily Mail: BREAKING NEWS: Generals WIN battle with Donald Trump as 82nd Airborne soldiers are REMOVED from D.C. after chairman of joint chiefs publicly slammed president telling troops to 'uphold the Constitution'
* Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne division of the Army were ordered out of Washington, D.C. and back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina on Thursday night
* The about 200 active duty troops were kept on standby at bases near the nation's capital and were never called into the city in the midst of riots
* The move is a clear reversal after Donald Trump faced backlash for calling in the military to serve as backup should the National Guard need assistance
* Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former Army General John Allen and former Defense Secretary James Mattis all pushed back against Trump
* Milley told troops in a Thursday memo to 'uphold the Constitution'
* 'We all committed our lives to the idea that is America' after he defended protesters' right to assemble,' he added in pen at at the bottom of the letter
* Mattis and retired four-star General Allen both bashed Trump in separate op-eds
* They specifically called out police clearing Lafayette Park with tear gas and rubber bullets so Trump could visit a church across the street for a photo-op
* 'It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment,' Allen said of the church visit where Trump held up his bible for photos
* 'Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try,' Mattis wrote
Hundreds of combat soldiers with the 82nd Airborne were ordered to leave Washington, D.C, Thursday after retired generals and the nation's top officer rebuked Donald Trump over his use of the military.
Members of the elite unit had been deployed to the nation's capital to back up National Guard soldiers ordered onto the streets by Attorney General Bill Barr in a show of force.
The active duty soldiers will head back to base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a senior Defense official told NBC News, after Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly told the nation's troops to 'uphold the Constitution' and said that the National Guard was under governors' control - pointedly not the president's.
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WNU Editor: The Daily Mail is giving the Generals too much credit. Correction. Too much credit. These troops may be leaving for a simpler reason .... like maybe the threat is no longer there .... Trump: 'I don't think we'll have to' send military to cities (The Hill).
Update: Maybe this redeployment is premature .... As White House braces for largest protest yet, Pentagon sends troops home (McClatchy News).
