'It embarrasses me to be involved': Inside the National Guard D.C. deployment

Thousands of National Guard members have been patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C. for more than a year, in what has become President Trump's largest and longest domestic military deployment. Illustration by Mari Fouz​ for NPR hide caption

As the sight of armed, uniformed National Guard troops became ubiquitous in Washington, D.C. over the past year, one voice has been notably absent from the public discourse around the deployment: the guard members themselves.

"I will say very frankly that the bad taste that this mission left in my mouth, it actually embarrasses me to be involved in any way," one guard member who was part of the deployment for several months recently told NPR.

Thousands of National Guard members have been patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C. for more than a year now, in what has become President Trump's largest and longest domestic military deployment. Their presence has become a common, and controversial, topic of conversation among D.C. residents and constitutional experts alike, raising concerns about the normalization of armed troops in a city for an extended period of time.

Members of the military are not allowed to speak to the press without authorization. Under this administration, those rules and the ramifications for breaking them have gotten even stricter.

But some members who are no longer a part of the mission have become more open to sharing their thoughts as the deployment enters its second year – and has been extended to the end of President Trump's term.

"I don't want to think about the National Guard. I don't want to necessarily discuss my affiliation with the National Guard. I don't want to fulfill my normal National Guard duties just because of the abuses of the National Guard in this D.C. mission," the guard member said, noting that isn't how he's felt after previous domestic deployments.

That guard member was one of three who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity because they are still serving and are barred from speaking publicly. All of them were deployed as part of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission for many months and each has more than a decade of service.