President Donald Trump made the bold and correct decision this year to deploy America's men and women in uniform to one of the most dangerous hellholes on the planet. A war-torn wasteland where the homicide rate rivals Baghdad, and that's only accounting for the murders that are actually reported.
We're talking, of course, about Washington, D.C.
The National Guard marched into the nation's capital (and other liberal dumps) with heads held high as the usual suspects—local commissars, professional protesters, and journalists acting as both—shrieked into their oat milk. The Guard did its job anyway. And they won.
On their watch, violent crime and homicides plunged. The streets became cleaner and quieter. And for the first time in living memory, the District began to resemble something closer to a functioning American metropolis than a graduate-level anarchist project.
The brave men and women of the Guard did this while knowing exactly what the stakes were.
That reality was brutally proven when 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal—imported courtesy of alleged president Joe Biden—ambushed Guardsmen in broad daylight, murdering Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and critically wounding Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe. Their fellow troops didn't throw tantrums or ask to work from home. They put on the uniform, went to work, and got the job done.
So yes: The men and women of the National Guard are Washington Free Beacon Men of the Year, as are their brethren across the United States Armed Forces. This year. Every year. And every year after that, until someone finds a finer group of people on planet Earth. Good luck.