LA National Guard Logs More Hours on Xbox Than in Crowd Control

LOS ANGELES — After more than a month stationed in Los Angeles, thousands of National Guard troops are heading home after bravely defending federal buildings and ranking up considerably in Call of Duty.

Roughly 4,000 guardsmen were ordered to LA last month by President Trump to help manage ICE protests, despite objections from Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass. “Only about 200 of them were actually used,” Bass said on Face the Nation, adding that the rest spent most of their time “in complete boredom playing video games.”

While some troops were deployed for crowd support in the first days of unrest, most were later confined to watching empty corridors, polishing equipment that was already clean, and becoming disturbingly good at Halo.

“Frankly, it’s the most expensive LAN party in U.S. history,” said one Pentagon official. “But it is what it is.”

“We were deployed, we stayed alert, and we definitely kept the break room under control,” one guardsman noted.

In a Sunday statement, Trump defended the mission: “The National Guard kept LA peaceful. So peaceful they were able to get some digital combat training in too. That’s a win-win.”