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.
In candid interviews, the guard members described their feelings throughout their time on the deployment, and their worries about the new norms it's establishing. They discussed the cost, which is expected to run into the billions. And they say they worry that Trump's unprecedented use of the troops is damaging the National Guard's reputation with the American public.
All were skeptical about the administration's original reason for the deployment — to help with law enforcement after declaring a "crime emergency", despite a 30-year low in violent crime in the city.
"Now, with it being a year, it's hard to feel like that justification holds any water," said one guard member. "It feels like the guard is being exploited in a sense."
Another said it feels more like a political stunt, pointing out the way the guard has been inserted into certain narratives by the administration, like being ordered to patrol the perimeter of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool following its faulty renovation.
"I hope that there will be some accounting someday — probably after President Trump is gone — about why we were there, and was it worth it? But none of that is gonna happen right now," that member said.
NPR reached out to both the White House and the D.C. Joint Task Force regarding the concerns raised by the guard members.
The White House responded by reiterating how safe D.C. is now, without providing evidence that the guard is responsible for decreasing crime.
In a statement, Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, the interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, called the deployment "unique" and pointed to "significant accomplishments" that guard members contributed in the past year, including assisting law enforcement with apprehensions, rendering medical aid and reuniting lost children with their families.
"Whatever individual perspectives they carry away from their experience, their service and sacrifice deserve our respect," Blanchard wrote.
"My initial reaction was just shock"
Trump first deployed the D.C. National Guard in August of 2025 — something he can do since the president controls the district's guard. Hundreds of guard members in the district were pulled from their civilian jobs and immediately called up.
"My very initial reaction was just, I guess, shock and feeling like this context and this situation just felt like a very authoritarian move that kind of felt uncharacteristic of something you would see in our country," said one member of the D.C. guard, adding that the reasoning behind the deployment contributed to the confusion.
In the days and weeks that followed, Republican governors began sending members of their guard to help with the mission.
"Walking into it, we had no real specifics," one guard member who was deployed from West Virginia remembered thinking. "The president is calling out the guard to make D.C. safe. Well, what the what the f*** does that mean?"
All remembered a scramble in the early days to figure out what everyone should be doing, as more and more troops — who were all deputized as special law enforcement and armed with a handgun — arrived. They said that despite the confusion, there was a collective effort to figure out how to be useful and effective. Military members are trained to be apolitical and follow orders.
"All of these people showed up, and then it was more of an after-the-fact figure out what we're going to do," one said, saying everyone was really trying to be as helpful as possible to the community with whatever resources they were given, like providing Naloxone to counter the effects of an opioid overdose or helping a bicyclist who had been hit by a car. "We can argue about why they were there and whether they should be there, but soldiers and airmen were trying to do the best with what they had."
In the early days, troops were largely assigned to help with beautification projects around the city: clearing trash along the road, bagging leaves in public parks or trimming trees at the National Mall. The guard member from West Virginia said that many of the members he had arrived with — most of whom had raised their hand for the deployment — became quickly disillusioned.
"I know there were a lot of people that showed up from West Virginia specifically that were just like, I want to help, and then later they found out that they were taking out trash and setting up (logistical equipment). I think they later fell off mission as soon as they could get off," he said.
Patrolling the streets
As the deployment continued, troops were assigned less to beautification projects and more to presence patrols around the city — which the task force says are an effort to deter crime — and settled into a routine that one guard member described as "mundane" and another as "monotonous."
"At some point, I found myself going, well, at least this isn't that bad. At least I'm not doing anything illegal, and that's always counterbalanced with, like, this is wasting everyone's time," one said, adding that it became clear that the "point of the mission is presence."
One member who served in Afghanistan likened the patrols to tactics commonly used by the U.S. military during the War on Terror in communities to instill goodwill and monitor the opposition.
Another said the lack of clear goals made the deployment feel never-ending, even as Trump falsely claimed there was "almost zero crime" in D.C. and touted its success.
"If it's safe now, then why are we here?" one guard member asked. "You don't really know when good is good enough, or when we can go home. It's just a continuing thing."
Two recent studies have found that the National Guard presence has had no effect on violent crime in the city, while it has minimally decreased more opportunistic crime, like petty theft and vehicle break-ins. Both also found that local policing could produce better outcomes for less money.
The deployment comes with perks
A majority of the nearly 4,700 guard members deployed to D.C. are from other states or U.S. territories, most of which are led by Republicans, and have volunteered for the assignment. All three guard members said that despite their concerns, they understood why people might raise their hand.
"It's a good paycheck, and I can't blame them for wanting to better their own financial situation when the economy is how it is right now," one said, noting that many of the troops are very young, come from more rural communities and might not have steady income back home.
There are a host of other incentives as well, from per diems to boosts to their retirement benefits.
The guard member from West Virginia said that normally, on domestic deployments, he was used to sleeping on the floor of an armory, maybe without electricity, and eating ready-to-eat military meals. But this D.C. deployment was much more comfortable.
"The food on the mission was very good. My hotel was very nice," he said, noting that was different even from other times he had come to D.C. on deployment for events like the inauguration.
The thousands of out-of-state guard members have been staying in hotels throughout the city for more than a year. Recently, the federal government awarded a nearly $300 million contract — the largest of its kind ever — to a local company for thousands of furnished, luxury apartments, saying the move would ultimately save money on extended lodging for the troops in D.C.
That guard member said that when elected officials or other leaders would come visit the troops, they would always ask how they could make it better.
"There was never a discussion of whether you should be here. It was always, 'What do you need?'" he said. "Which is nice as a military member, but once we see what all this is going to cost in the very end, it's probably not going to feel so great."
An estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the D.C. deployment at its current level costs about $3 million per day. The Pentagon estimates extending the deployment until 2029 will cost an additional $1.4 billion. A total cost estimate by the nonpartisan watchdog Project on Government Oversight for the deployment is around $3.4 billion.
A personal cost
The deployment has also had a human cost, after a gunman shot two guard members from West Virginia patrolling near the White House last November. One of those members, 20-year-old Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, was killed. It was a pivotal moment in the deployment.
"I remember feeling just really sad," one guard member said, starting to tear up a bit. "And I kept thinking — did they have to be here?"
Another said the killing similarly made him question the necessity of the deployment in real terms.
"The thing that really stuck out to me was how absolutely futile that death felt, and that was hard to live with," he said, noting he still thinks about Beckstrom almost daily and sometimes visits the spot where she was shot, even though he didn't know her personally. "After her death, this mission became untenable for me emotionally."
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, called the shooting a "direct challenge to law and order in our capital," and the White House responded by adding hundreds more troops to the city.
The guard member from West Virginia said he's been specifically angry about the shooting, saying he's had to work in therapy about guilt he's felt for not being there when it happened.
"We were made a target, and I don't know that anybody did a very good job of planning for the worst-case scenario," he said.
Blanchard refuted that, saying that "no mission is without risk" and the loss "remains deeply felt across the National Guard."
"Force protection and the safety of our Soldiers and Airmen remain paramount. We continually assess the operating environment and adapt to changing conditions to better protect the force while accomplishing the mission," he said in a statement.
A harm to the National Guard's reputation
The extended and growing deployment — and the administration's unprecedented use of the National Guard in other parts of the country — has led to a rising anti-guard sentiment, which all three members acknowledged.
Throughout D.C. in the areas most patrolled by the troops, signs are plastered on lampposts and chalked on sidewalks urging "National Guard Go Home" and "Troops out now." Residents regularly approach the patrols and speak their mind, sometimes with what one of the guard members called "misdirected anger."
The guard member from West Virginia said it was the first time he'd ever not had the community in a domestic deployment welcome the help, since the guard usually shows up after floods or natural disasters.
All were concerned that there was damage being done to the reputation of the National Guard.
"If we continue down this path, where this kind of 'presence patrol' mission becomes the new definitive image of the National Guard, it's going to completely rebrand everything that was noble about the National Guard into being mundane at best and threatening at worst," one guard member said.
"I would like to think there would be enough mechanisms to have checks and balances that would be able to say overtly that's not what we want to see in our country," another one said.
The member paused before adding: "I don't know if that's the case right now."
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