A year after President Donald Trump sent National Guard troops into Washington, D.C., some of the service members carrying out his unprecedented domestic deployment are now publicly questioning the mission—and one says he is outright embarrassed to be associated with it.
Three current National Guard members spoke anonymously to NPR about their experiences, describing growing frustration over a deployment they say has damaged their view of the Guard and left them questioning what they are accomplishing.
“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 said.
Another went even further, saying the experience made him reluctant to even discuss his affiliation with the National Guard because of what he described as the “abuses of the National Guard in this D.C. mission.”
‘What the F— Does That Mean?’
Trump initially sent hundreds of Guard members into the nation’s capital in August 2025 after declaring a “crime emergency.” The deployment was eventually extended through the remainder of his term, turning what was initially presented as an emergency response into a years-long military presence.
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But according to the troops interviewed by NPR, even some of those ordered to carry out the mission struggled to understand exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
“Walking into it, we had no real specifics,” one West Virginia Guard member recalled. “The president is calling out the Guard to make D.C. safe. Well, what the what the f— does that mean?”
The answer apparently included considerably more than fighting violent crime.
Troops described clearing trash, bagging leaves and trimming trees around the National Mall. Eventually, one service member concluded that the real objective seemed to be simply keeping uniformed troops visible in the city.
“The point of the mission is presence,” the Guard member said.
Taxpayers Are Picking Up a Massive Tab
That “presence” isn’t cheap.
According to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, federal troop deployments to American cities cost an estimated $496 million in 2025 alone. CBO estimated that continuing deployments that were active at the beginning of 2026 would cost roughly $93 million every month.
And the price tag becomes considerably harder to defend if the deployments aren’t actually reducing violent crime.
A July analysis from the Center for American Progress examined National Guard deployments across multiple cities and concluded that they produced no measurable reduction in violent crime, homicides or gun victimization. CAP projected the broader deployments could cost taxpayers more than $1.7 billion by the end of 2026 if they continued at anticipated levels.
Trump responded by attacking the organization rather than accepting its findings.
“The report is just another Radical Left SCAM,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, while ridiculing the organization as the “Center for American Lack of Progress.”
But dismissing a progressive think tank is one thing. Dismissing troops actually carrying out the mission is another.
‘Did They Have to Be Here?’
The consequences became tragically real in November when two West Virginia National Guard members were shot near the White House. Twenty-year-old Spc. Sarah Beckstrom was killed.
One Guard member told NPR that Beckstrom’s death left him repeatedly asking a haunting question: “Did they have to be here?”
Another described her death as feeling “absolutely futile,” saying the incident made the entire mission emotionally “untenable.”
Guard Member Warns Mission Could Damage Institution
Perhaps the most politically damaging criticism isn’t about money or even crime statistics. It’s about what Trump’s deployment could do to the National Guard itself.
The Guard has traditionally been associated with responding when American communities desperately need help—from hurricanes and floods to wildfires and other emergencies.
But one of the service members interviewed by NPR warned that turning troops into a permanent domestic “presence patrol” could fundamentally change that perception.
“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,” the Guard member said.
That’s what makes these accounts particularly difficult for the Trump administration to brush aside.
These aren’t Democratic lawmakers attacking Trump from Capitol Hill. They’re not protesters criticizing him from outside the White House. They’re National Guard members who were actually sent to Washington and ordered to carry out the mission.
After a year on the ground, some of those troops are now openly questioning what the deployment accomplished, how much it has cost—and whether they should have been there at all.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
