Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital. On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment. Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots. “It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name. Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city. The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.