'Is this really happening?' National Guard Members on Trump Deployments

0:00Outside a metro station in Washington D.C.C.C.A couple months back, a commuter walked up to two National Guardsmen and handed them a business card with a handwritten note on the back. Thank you for your service to our country and please remember your oath to the Constitution as well as your duty to disobey illegal orders. Steve Walsh captured that scene for NPR. He's a military and veterans reporter for WHRO in Norfolk, Virginia. He was in Washington to see how members of the Guard felt about their deployment to the Capitol. We aren't using their names because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

0:34I think there was a misunderstanding of why we were here. People were assuming the worst case scenario. And now that we've kind of settled in our role, what we do here, I think people are finally understanding that we are here to help. National Guard troops are still in D.C. three months since President Trump declared a state of emergency. Troops from around the country are patrolling the National Mall and metro stations and also doing landscaping and litter pickup. Not everyone in D.C. feels they're helping, though. Some troops have been met with protests and bullhorns. One resident followed around Guard members on patrol and played the Imperial March from Star Wars.

1:16On one occasion, he was handcuffed by D.C. police and is now suing for alleged First and Fourth Amendment rights violations. The National Guard, like the rest of the U.S. military, is traditionally nonpartisan. The current commander-in-chief is stress-testing that principle. In a speech to top military officers in September, the president said American cities could be training grounds for our military. It seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places and we're going to straighten them out one by one.

1:54Federal courts have so far blocked Trump's efforts to send troops to Portland, Oregon and Chicago. And all of this has thrust the guard into the middle of a contentious debate about legal guardrails on the domestic use of the military. I really went to like a dark place when they sent the troops to LA and then eventually DC and now like Chicago. Like every time I see that it's just like, this is just not what any of us signed off for it. Consider this. President Trump's National Guard deployments have spurred soul-searching among some members. NPR sat down for a conversation between troops.

2:35From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

2:46It's Consider This from NPR. So this year, as news of President Trump's troop deployments unfolded, a few National Guard members in Ohio did what lots of us do. They turned to a group chat to process it. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf heard about the chat and flew to Ohio to meet some of the members who do what members of the military almost never do. Speak to the press. Shortly after Trump took office earlier this year, Jay started feeling very unnerved about the president's executive orders surrounding the military. I got with some people that I knew were like-minded, and then they knew some other people, and we decided that a chat, like a place that we could express these things with people that are feeling the same way.

3:30We're only identifying Jay and other National Guard members in this piece by their first initials, because they fear retribution for speaking to the media. Jay went to A, a member of his unit in Ohio, and brought up the idea of an encrypted chat. We're on there every day, sharing information, news articles, whatever. And it's not even like necessarily expressing opinions or anything. It's just expressing like questions about things that come out, right? We needed something to be able to talk to each other. That's C, also a member of the same unit, also in the chat. The four of us are sitting in a tiny study room in a public library in suburban Ohio.

4:04Did it just kind of start growing a little bit? Like how many people are in it now? It's like 10 or 12. And was there like a vibe shift at some point where people were kind of looking at what was happening with these National Guard deployments and saying, like, wait a minute. I really went to, like, a dark place when they sent the troops to L.A. and then eventually D.C. and now, like, Chicago. Like, every time I see that, it's just like, this is just not what any of us signed up for. And I just wonder, like, who's going to stand up to this, you know? All three of these Guard members have served for years, even decades.

4:39The concern about being sent out on one of these deployments is legitimate. Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine has said he will send troops to other states. There are around 150 from Ohio in D.C. right now. That voluntary directive has come to this unit. None of these three have taken it. They point out it's hurricane season, usually when National Guard members are thinking about deployments to help in the aftermath of a storm. Those are the moments a lot of members of the National Guard live for. Like, they're able to go into these other areas and maybe provide a little bit of assistance during these tough times.

5:11but instead we have D.C. come across our desk like, anybody want to go to this? And no one raises their hand. Well, what exactly are we going to be doing? Like, are we going to have leave? And those answers aren't very clear. And whenever we don't get that, especially for these city moves, members ask questions. And wherever you are on the political scale, you still have those questions, right? They say they've tried to raise these questions further up the chain of command. We were concerned. We asked the question. We got a kind of a poo-poo, I will say. And for me, it's just, I don't let them off the hook.

5:42In response to NPR, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said that the Pentagon is confident in the National Guard and, quote, their collective ability to carry out any and all orders by President Trump. In D.C., where more than 200 troops have been deployed for months, Guard members are largely patrolling the streets. But Jay says that bothers him. It's kind of like fear-mongering, you know, people who don't see people in uniform every day. You send 50 of them out to walk their street, it's going to send a message, you know. even if they're not doing anything. They also say it's the continued and increasingly hostile rhetoric around the deployments that has them worried.

6:16In cities like Portland or Chicago, the Trump administration has said troops are needed to quell unrest and protect federal immigration facilities and officers. Federal judges and local governments have disagreed. Those deployments are tied up in court. And the administration has publicly talked about using the National Guard to help with immigration enforcement, something broadly illegal under U.S. law. Threatening to send troops to Chicago, the president famously posted an Apocalypse Now-style AI-generated picture, which said, quote, I love the smell of deportations in the morning. I bring that up.

6:48And I wonder, you know, I see you all kind of taking a deep breath. That must have gone in the group chat. Like, we were just like, is this real? That's the question. It's so unbelievable sometimes that we have to, like, get assurance. Is this really happening? For that to come from, like, the epicenter of the military, it ripples out. You see that and it frees up other people and they start to quote the same things because it's coming from the top and it starts to create a divide in an organization, cracks in the culture, and those become fault lines. I ask them if they've thought about leaving, ending their military careers.

7:22I would get out if I could. The only reason I want to finish my current contract is just because I feel like there's weight to what I do and say right now and I just want to use that to do some good. If for some reason this became so unbearable that I was like, I have to get out of the military, then you are a cog in a machine. So I get taken out, someone else is just going to be put in. I like the idea that I can make a difference within my six feet. And if there's enough of us in a military organization, I think that's enough to make a bigger difference than what we realize. So to be clear, not every engagement I've ever done, every deployment I ever have been on, I've agreed with, but that's what the apolitical military is, right?

8:05You go when you're asked and you're called when it's legal and lawful. But right now, how I'm feeling, lots of therapy has taken me to the point where at least I can be okay if I have to say goodbye. That sucks. And the things on my mind are, what is my line that I won't cross? What am I prepared to give up? Is this tarnishing my service? Is it undoing everything I thought I was fighting for, because I spent a lot of time being really proud of my military career and my service just to watch it possibly go up in flames. Yeah, thank you for sharing that, because I can imagine that's really hard, and it seems like maybe you don't even really have the answers to those questions yet.

8:47I know what my line is. I am a cog, right? Like, somebody else can replace me, so that's why I'm sitting here. I'm okay if I have to go, if I'm asked to go, I have a way. But right now I got to stay and do the good I can because the person behind me might not. Conversations like this aren't just happening here in this public library in Ohio. They're happening all over the country. In the military culture, it's really easy to feel like if you have questions or dissent that you're the only person who thinks that. Brittany Ramos-DeBarros is the director of About Face, a nonpartisan nonprofit made up of current service members and post-9-11 veterans to be a resource for those who might be questioning their deployments.

9:29The group has started an information campaign specifically targeting members of the National Guard around the country, flyers, posters, billboards, encouraging them to reach out if they're having doubts. She says more than 100 have so far. We take very seriously making sure that people do understand what they could be facing if they follow their conscience. But the thing we also help people think through is what is the cost of not following your conscience? Because as Iraq and Afghanistan vets in particular, many of us are living with that cost every day. Debaros is a combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan.

10:03She says she believes the patrols in U.S. cities are sending a message. In Afghanistan, we used to regularly carry out what are called presence patrols, where there was no purpose or mission other than to be present in the space and normalizing that we were there and letting people know, oh, if you act up, we're here and we're watching. NPR reached out to the White House for comment on this story. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson asserted that Trump's deployments are lawful and necessary to, quote, protect federal assets and personnel following violent left-wing riots. Back in that library room in Ohio, as we're wrapping up our conversation, I ask all three Guard members if they have a final thought.

10:43I swore no to the Constitution, not a person. And I just feel like, I don't know, I just really, really implore my peers and everybody outside looking in to just think about that. Because if the moment that we stop asking the questions, then everything falls on their face. There's troops all across the military with their own kind of feelings, reasons for do I or don't I, you know. So I hope that those people can all connect. One way to do that? Start a group chat. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Ohio. This episode was produced by Vincent Acovino and Erica Ryan, with audio engineering by Simon Laszlo Jansen.

11:23It was edited by Elena Hartunian and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

11:32It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.