Inspired Life

Upset by veterans who stormed the Capitol, these vets decided to clean up trash the mob left on the streets of D.C.

By Sydney Page
Jan. 14, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EST

When Capitol Hill was in chaos on Jan. 6, David Smith was there. ... Smith, 40, was distributing hand-warmers to homeless people nearby when the siege started. He watched in disbelief as a menacing mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. ... “It was pretty gut wrenching to see,” said Smith, who retired less than a month ago after serving in the Navy for 13 years.

As a veteran, he was especially horrified, he said, to learn that his fellow vets participated in the insurrection, including Jake Angeli, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” and Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed in the Capitol.

“That was a dagger to the heart,” said Smith, who was a combat medic in Afghanistan. “Just because you served in the military doesn’t give you impunity to storm the Capitol building.”

On his commute home to Germantown, Md., Smith spotted remnants of Wednesday’s riot strewn around the streets. Trash littered Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent areas, and signs and stickers with racist and fascist symbols and messages were “all over the place,” he recalled.

Smith decided he wanted to do something about it, calling on a group of fellow veterans and volunteers to do a thorough sweep of the area around the Capitol and downtown D.C. Beyond ridding the area of hateful markings, Smith hoped to reinforce that the veterans who participated in the siege do not represent them all.



The cleanup group was led by David Smith, 40, who was a combat medic in Afghanistan, and retired from the military in December. (Ben Peifer)

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Veterans and other volunteers spent two hours Sunday picking up trash and scraping off hateful stickers and signs plastered to beams and buildings around the Capitol and downtown. (Ben Peifer)

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