JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
We start this hour with some rare insight into how some members of the National Guard are feeling about their ongoing deployment to Washington, D.C. For more than a year now, thousands of troops have been patrolling the capital after President Trump declared a crime emergency. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been talking with several who spent many months on that deployment, and she is here in studio with us now. Hey, Kat.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So, Kat, just start by telling us a little about these guard members you've been speaking with.
LONSDORF: Yeah, I talked to three different guard members who spent a lot of time here in D.C., each with more than a decade of service. They all spoke to me on the condition of anonymity because they're still serving and are not authorized to speak publicly.
One of the reasons we haven't heard much candidly from guard members during this time is because, especially under this administration, the rules in the military about speaking to the press and the ramifications for breaking those rules have become a lot stricter. Most of the people I talked to - talked with for this didn't even want their voices on the radio, even anonymously.
SUMMERS: Wow. OK. What did they tell?
LONSDORF: Yeah, all of them were pretty critical of the mission here in D.C. for various reasons. We discussed their concerns about the cost, which is stretching into the billions, their worries about the way this constant patrolling of troops on the streets of D.C. is normalizing their presence, and also potentially damaging the National Guard's reputation with the American public. Here's an example of what I heard from one of them who did agree to have his voice on air.
UNIDENTIFIED NATIONAL GUARD MEMBER: 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. I don't want to think about being in the National Guard. I don't want to necessarily discuss my affiliation with the National Guard, just because of the abuses of the National Guard in this D.C. Safe And Beautiful mission.
LONSDORF: He says that absolutely isn't how he's felt previously, when he's been on deployments to help communities after natural disasters, that kind of thing.
SUMMERS: Yeah. Other people that you talked to - do they feel similarly?
LONSDORF: Yeah, one talked about how, now that she's no longer part of the D.C. mission, she avoids coming to the city because seeing the patrols makes her uncomfortable. All three talked about how they didn't buy the justification for the deployment, which, as you said, came after Trump declared a crime emergency despite a 30-year low in violent crime in the city. But they were following their training, which requires them to be apolitical and follow orders.
They all said that reasoning was confusing to them in the beginning but even more so now as this deployment has been extended for several years. One guard member said, quote, "it feels like the guard is being exploited." Another told me, he hopes there will be some kind of official reckoning someday about why the guard is here and whether it's worth it. But he didn't think that would happen while Trump is in office.
SUMMERS: And Kat, did you put these concerns to the White House and the National Guard?
LONSDORF: Yeah, Brigadier General Leland Blanchard II, the interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, responded with a lengthy email defending the mission. He said, quote, "whatever individual perspectives the guard members carry away from their experience, their service and sacrifice deserve our respect."
The White House responded by reiterating how safe D.C. is now without providing evidence that the guard has decreased crime. Trump has repeatedly said the same, but the guard members told me that even that is confusing for them because, as one of them put it, if it's safe now, why are we still here?
SUMMERS: And Kat, the deployment here in Washington, D.C., is happening in the larger context of President Trump's deployment of the guard elsewhere in the country.
LONSDORF: Yeah.
SUMMERS: What did guard members you spoke with have to say about that?
LONSDORF: Well, these guard members and a lot of experts I've been talking to are concerned that this kind of constant patrolling of American cities by armed troops is becoming normalized under this administration. We talked about how it's also changing the perception that a lot of Americans have about the National Guard who are largely traditionally part-time, traditionally members of the community and are called up in absolute emergencies like floods and hurricanes when other resources are overwhelmed. One worried that what's happening here in D.C. is rebranding the National Guard into, quote, "mundane at best and threatening at worst."
SUMMERS: NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Thank you, Kat.
LONSDORF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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