I saw the same in Italy, Spain, Greece in the 1980s. All public and important civilian spots like banks and port areas had heavily armed soldiers standing guard against the population.
I remember thanking God I was an American, and thus did not live in a police state.
Hell, in the 1760s-1770s, when the British sent troops to Boston, the locals were so repulsed by their presence that an armed conflict broke out.
For very good reason, one of the chief fears of the Founding Fathers was a standing army; an armed force that intermingled with the civilian population. We have a Third Amendment that specifically prohibits troops from being quartered in private houses without homeowner consent, but what we don't realize is that today's paramilitary police forces have largely become a type of standing army that itself is often at odds with the civilian population. Cops are guilty of using language that solidifies this relationship when they call non-cops "civilians."