Fuck off with that “they were just following orders” nonsense.

The subject of my comment was that they were specifically instructing the people under them not to just follow orders.

Congress and the VPOTUS were being actively hunted by a large armed group. Local law enforcement clearly was not qualified to handle it and the exiting POTUS, who has well documented ties to russia et al, was actively supporting the insurrection.

Here's a pretty good outline of how things fucked up so badly. Most of that is talking about the National Guard, not the federal military which I was specifically talking about. They're very different.

I don't really have much to add to that summary. You might say that some mid-level commanders in the Guard should have seen what was going on and just charged in without waiting. I get that, you might be right. I don't think the federal military should have done the same thing. They're designed to kill motherfuckers at a big scale. I think if they'd charged in and started shooting anyone who was still in the Capitol who didn't belong there it would have been a lot worse than what happened. Maybe not. I don't think it's totally crazy or "waiting to see who wins" for them not to do that though.

Unlike, say, kids protesting or getting a bit too rowdy after a sports game where suddenly the national guard are all ready to start busting some teeth.

If you want to talk about the National Guard all of a sudden, then sure. Like I say, they're very different; most of the Guard are basically civilians who do a little bit of military work on the weekends. They do flood relief, they work alongside ordinary people every day during the week (mostly). They did kill some kids at Kent State several generations ago in a wildly different time of American politics and viewpoint, barely removed from the Red Scare times and World War 2. What happened after that? What sports event, what kids protesting and when? I feel like you're thinking of some totally different event that didn't involve the Guard, or just wandering off into thinking that your stereotypes about how things work are reality without any connection at all to actual events. For most of the BLM protests, the Guard functioned more or less to protect the protestors against the police for example (while getting bottles thrown at them and people yelling at them as if they were the enemy.)