'It embarrasses me to be involved': Inside the National Guard D.C. deployment
National Guard members deployed in Washington, D.C. are expressing frustration and embarrassment over the extended nature of their mission. The deployment, which has lasted over a year, has raised concerns among experts regarding the normalization of military presence in the nation's capital.
Why it matters
It highlights the tension between domestic security operations and democratic norms, as well as the internal morale issues within the National Guard.
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.
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