Members of the US National Guard who have been forced to deploy and remain in Washington, D.C., under President Donald Trump's insane orders are now beginning to publicly speak out about how "embarrassed" they are to have taken part in Trump's utilization of US troops against the American public.
In an eye-opening report published by NPR, one of the Guard members who spent months deployed in the nation's capital says they now have serious concerns about the mission spearheaded by the president as it morphs into Donald Trump's longest and largest domestic military deployment to date, after kicking off in August 2025.
As it stands, the D.C. deployment has been extended to run throughout the length of Donald Trump's second presidential term -- leading one to wonder if he's scared of what would happen if he allows them to leave.
Three members of the National Guard who have been forced to serve under Trump's purview in D.C. spoke with the publication under the condition of strict anonymity, as they are still enlisted in the US military and therefore strictly prohibited from speaking out publicly without express permission from the US government. Each of these individuals has served over a decade in the military.
One of those National Guard members told the publication, "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."
Trump originally cited a "crime emergency" as the driving force behind his decision to deploy the National Guard throughout the nation's capital, despite the fact that the city's violent crime had recently reached a 30-year low.
"Now, with it being a year, it's hard to feel like that justification holds any water," one of the Guard members told NPR. "It feels like the Guard is being exploited in a sense.”
Another told the publication that they were initially "shocked" by the orders, admitting that the deployment "felt like a very authoritarian move that kind of felt uncharacteristic of something you would see in our country.”
They all agreed that the use of the National Guard for long-term crime patrol would only serve to damage the institution's reputation.
"If we continue down this path," one of the Guard members warned, "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.”
Trump has utilized the National Guard force as his own makeshift police presence in the nation's capital, where he is a less-than-beloved man.
