We arrived the night of January 5th. DC was oddly quiet. We had to share a hotel room for 4 of us as we all were financially tight at the time. It was a close-quarters, but we made it work. We left the hotel to see some of the sights that evening, taking pictures of the Capital building lit up at night. We spoke to police on duty, and they seemed friendly and answered some questions for us. Nobody else was there and it felt strange. We headed to get some food (which was hard since most places were closed). We finally found a food truck run by some nice Pakastani folks and got some grub. While we were standing in line, a group of US soldiers appeared kind of out of nowhere. We had veterans in our group who confirmed they were legit military but found it odd that they weren't wearing any distinguishing patches. They were all young with the exception of the two higher ranking officers (we assume because the others were deferring to them). The only patch we eventually saw was on a ruck sack one of the soldiers was carrying...US Space Force. Our veteran buddies approached them and said what branch and unit they had served in and asked who these guys were with. They replied, "Thanks for your service, but we can't say. We're just here on orders." They genuinely seemed to regret not giving more info but kept looking at their superiors. We then watched them all descend into a parking garage of a non-descript building. We headed back to our hotel where we saw several groups in the lobby and in front of the building. We got some odd vibes from some, but many seemed like normal folks. We got to bed late that evening as the excitement of the coming day kept us up a while (not to mention some snoring).

I will continue with a Part 2 when I have more time today...