Posted on 10/10/2025 8:19:50 AM PDT by DFG
A nine-day-old snippet of testimony in front of Oregon lawmakers is rocketing around social media as Portland awaits word from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on President Trump’s troop deployment plans.
Oregon’s top military leader offered some reassuring — or infuriating, depending on one’s political perspective — comments about the role of National Guard soldiers during a proposed federal troop deployment to Portland.
Speaking before a state Senate subcommittee, Brigadier General Alan R. Gronewold told legislators that before deployment, the two companies of soldiers would be trained in “protective crowd control.” That training is now up in the air as Gov. Tina Kotek on Tuesday ordered troops to go home after a federal judge ruled over the weekend that Trump had no authority to call them up.
Gronewold said Guard soldiers serve two purposes: “One, to defend America, and two, to protect Oregonians. And so by serving in this mission, they will be protecting any protesters at the ICE facility.”
The general’s comments Sept. 30 resurfaced online this week and drew both praise and scrutiny in equal measure. It’s an open question whether soldiers from the guard — from Oregon or any other state — will actually deploy outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in South Portland.
A federal judge paused President Donald Trump’s mobilization on Saturday, and expanded her order Sunday to block units of the guard from any state after Trump said he would muster troops from California and Texas.
The administration has now appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has set a hearing on the matter for Thursday. There’s no definite timeline for the appellate court to issue a ruling.
Gronewold, for his part, noted that the president’s federalization meant the soldiers would be taken out of his chain of command and placed under the control of the U.S. Northern Command.
He said the meaning of Trump’s social media post authorizing “full force” by the soldiers was unclear, as the phrase is “not a doctrinal term that the Army uses.”
Gronewold closed out his remarks by asking lawmakers to spread a message about the difference between local troops and federal law enforcement agents.
“We’re the home team, and our job is to protect and serve Oregonians, and we follow lawful orders, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “Please treat them with dignity and respect.”
Gronewold echoed that sentiment in a Sept. 29 letter to troops.
“I know some of you may have strong feelings about this mission. That’s Okay. You are citizens first, but you’re also service members who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and follow the orders of the President and the Governor,” Gronewold wrote. “That oath doesn’t come with an asterisk that says, ‘Only when I agree with the mission.’”
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You know. How it was in Kenosha and other places during the "summer of peace and love".
The murderous rioters, protected. The people who try to defend themselves, arrested and put on trial.
I actually like what was said. It is an excellent understanding of the oath taken.
I do not know how the National Guard works, but to take the statement of the General at face value, they obey the orders of the President and State Governor. Here, those two are in opposition and that leaves me nonplused. Perhaps only the NG from another State can be used, in this instance - specifically where the Governor is trying to countermand the President.
Wait and see how it all goes down. If it is as it might seem then the Oregon general is setting up for the first actual shooting battle in the incipient civil war. If the intent is to remove the rioters to keep them from injury then he is using locally acceptable language to describe helping ICE do its job.
When you change pronouns referring to the same person or persons you confuse the sentence and obfuscate meaning.
“Gronewold, for his part, noted that the president’s federalization meant the soldiers would be taken out of his chain of command and placed under the control of the U.S. Northern Command.”
I think the general answered the question. The president is in command when National guard troops are federalized, not the governor.
Good catch! Thank you!
That General works for the Governor so Trump cannot fire him, so the very obvious solution is to bring active Army troops down from Ft Lewis Washington to handle the mission. There are about 40,000 soldiers at Ft Lewis ready, willing and able to accomplish the mission.
For most observers Oregon is an enigma. Some background. In the nineteen sixties, coinciding with the war in Viet Nam, many Southern California and New York state liberals, sent their kids west to school at the University of Oregon. Out of state tuition was cheap, and it seemed a good place to dump the family fack-ups. The dummies either led the crusade againt the war in Viet Nam, or followed along. By 1968 there were two hotbeds of Marxist revolution: Eugene, Oregon, and the upper east side of New York City. The brats graduated, but did they return to their homes. Hell no. They stayed on in Oregon, where living was cheap and homelessness was a payoff. And like a cancer they metasticized. Oregon youth, being somewhat ignorant of what was happening, capitulated. Thus, today to find an Oregonian who can claim an indigenous heritage prior to 1965, people actually accustomed to work for a living, you have to go out to eastern Oregon. Should the well armed Antis, the real Antis being sent to Portland, be asked to replicate Kent State, there will be few to mourn the killed, and that includes their their parents — the pot smoking post World War II generation that whelped the most miserable generation this nation has ever known.
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