National Guard threatens to cancel training and exercises if not reimbursed for $521M Capitol deployment | Washington Examiner

National Guard threatens to cancel training and exercises if not reimbursed for $521M Capitol deployment | Washington Examiner: The half-billion-dollar National Guard price tag to man the U.S. Capitol for more than five months following the Jan. 6 riot has emptied the Guard's coffers and will affect readiness if Congress does not act, National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson said Wednesday. National Guard members were deployed in 2020 for more than 21 million service days to respond to missions, including the domestic COVID-19 response, hurricane relief, fighting wildfires, protecting cities ravaged by the George Floyd protests, and overseas missions. But the Guard’s largest and most expensive mission was to protect the U.S. capital, including providing security for the presidential inauguration and the much-criticized militarization of the U.S. Capitol grounds with razor wire and 7-foot nonscalable fences. The peak deployment in the nation’s capital required 26,000 service members from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.