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

Summary

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Consider This from NPR

Episode: "Is This Really Happening? National Guard Members on Trump Deployments"

Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Juana Summers
Correspondent: Kat Lonsdorf

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the realities and emotional turmoil experienced by National Guard members amid President Trump's controversial deployments to U.S. cities under a declared state of emergency. With troops stationed in Washington D.C. and other urban centers, Guard members, often instructed to stay silent, cautiously share their concerns, anxieties, and questions about the legality and purpose behind these deployments. The episode spotlights an encrypted group chat, where members find solidarity and space to process doubts, and brings in the perspective of a veterans advocate on the moral dilemmas of serving under contentious orders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. On-the-Ground Reality in D.C.

• National Guard presence in D.C. persists months after Trump’s emergency declaration, performing patrols and menial tasks.
• Public Perception: Initial misunderstanding and suspicion from residents; some show support, while others protest or mock the troops.
  • Example: A man handed a Guardsman a note saying, "Thank you for your service...remember your oath to the Constitution as well as your duty to disobey illegal orders." (00:09)
• Some residents met Guards with hostility; one played the "Imperial March," was handcuffed, and is now suing city police. (00:47)
• The National Guard’s traditional nonpartisan role is being tested.
  • "The current commander in chief is stress testing that principle." — Juana Summers (00:47)

2. Guard Members' Emotional Response: The Group Chat

• Three Ohio National Guard members (Jay, C, and a third) describe using an encrypted group chat to share news and fears.
  • The chat grew as members sought "a place that we could express these things with people that are feeling the same way." — National Guard Member 1 (Jay) (04:20)
  • "We needed something to be able to talk to each other." — National Guard Member 4 (04:57)
• The deployments are making them question their service for the first time:
  • "This is just not what any of us signed up for." — Jay (02:07; 05:19)
• Lack of clear communication from command on the purpose or details of deployments adds unease:
  • "Are we going to have leave? And those answers aren't very clear...wherever you are on the political scale, you still have those questions." — National Guard Member 3 (06:04)

3. Guardrails and Questions about Legality

• Federal courts have blocked some deployments (Portland, Chicago); the President's authority is fiercely debated.
• Some Guard members fear the deployments function as intimidation:
  • "It's kind of like fear mongering...even if they're not doing anything." — Jay (07:03)
• The group's emotional distress is compounded by provocative rhetoric and administration social media posts.
  • "Is this really happening?" — National Guard Member 3, reacting to a Trump AI-generated meme (08:04)

4. Struggling with Duty, Pride, and Limits

• Members wrestle with whether to continue serving.
  • "I would get out if I could...I just want to use [my role] to do some good." — Jay (08:25)
  • "If I have to get out of the military, then...someone else is just gonna be put in. I like the idea that I can make a difference within my six feet." — National Guard Member 3 (08:39)
  • "What is my line that I won't cross? What am I prepared to give up? Is this tarnishing my service?...I spent a lot of time being really proud of my military career...just to watch it possibly go up in flames?" — National Guard Member 4 (09:00)
• They reaffirm the importance of the oath to the Constitution, not to a person or party.
  • "I swore an oath to the Constitution, not a person." — National Guard Member 4 (11:46)

5. Wider Dissatisfaction & Efforts for Support

• Brittany Ramos DeBarros, director of About Face, notes Guard members nationwide are connecting and questioning their deployments.
  • "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." — Ramos DeBarros (10:15)
  • About Face provides resources for those grappling with conscience vs. duty: "What is the cost of not following your conscience? Because...many of us are living with that cost every day." — Ramos DeBarros (10:45)
• She likens DC and other city patrols to “presence patrols” in Afghanistan, meant to intimidate residents.
  • "There was no purpose or mission other than to be present...letting people know, oh, if you act up, we are here and we're watching." — DeBarros (11:10)

6. Looking Ahead: The Importance of Vigilance and Connection

• Members affirm the need to remain watchful and support each other.
  • "If the moment that we stop asking the questions, then everything falls." — National Guard Member 3 (11:56)
  • "There's troops all across the military...I hope that those people can all connect." — National Guard Member 1 (12:01)
  • The suggestion: "Start a group chat." — Kat Lonsdorf (12:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Thank you for your service...remember your oath to the Constitution as well as your duty to disobey illegal orders." — Anonymous DC commuter note, read by National Guard Member 1 (00:09)
• "This is just not what any of us signed up for." — Jay (02:07; 05:19)
• "I like the idea that I can make a difference within my six feet." — National Guard Member 3 (08:39)
• "What is my line that I won't cross?...Is it undoing everything I thought I was fighting for?" — National Guard Member 4 (09:00)
• "I swore an oath to the Constitution, not a person." — National Guard Member 4 (11:46)
• "If the moment that we stop asking the questions, then everything falls." — National Guard Member 3 (11:56)
• "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 (10:15)
• "Start a group chat." — Kat Lonsdorf (12:13)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:22 | Intro, setting the DC scene, and initial National Guard perspectives
• 03:50–06:32 | Introduction to the Ohio group chat, Guard members' private coping
• 06:32–07:13 | Members’ worries about deployment purposes and communication from command
• 07:13–08:21 | Trump rhetoric, media influence, and cracks in military culture
• 08:25–09:43 | Reflections on careers, moral lines, and service pride
• 10:15–11:27 | About Face advocacy and support for questioning troops
• 11:46–12:13 | Final thoughts from National Guard members; the call to connection

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Episode Tone & Final Thoughts

The episode balances empathy, candidness, and urgency as it elevates unfiltered voices of service members at a crossroads—caught between orders and conscience. The dialog is raw, introspective, and captures the anxiety of men and women called to serve in a time of historic political polarization. Above all, the message is clear: they are not alone in asking hard questions, and solidarity—in group chats or broader dissent—may be the start of protecting both democracy and the dignity of service.

Transcript

[Juana Summers]

Outside a Metro station in Washington, D.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.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[Juana Summers]

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.

[National Guard Member 1]

I 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.

[Juana Summers]

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. On 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 US 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.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[Juana Summers]

Federal 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.

[National Guard Member 1]

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 anything any of us signed up for.

[Juana Summers]

Consider this. President Trump's National Guard deployments have spurred soul searching among some members. NPR sat down for a conversation between troops. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

[National Guard Member 2]

This message comes from AT&T. America's First Network is also its fastest and most reliable. Based on RootMetrics. United States Root Score Report 1H2025 tested with best commercially available smartphones on three national mobile networks across all available network types. Your experiences may vary. Rootmetrics rankings are not an endorsement of ATT. When you compare, there's no comparison.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

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[Juana Summers]

It'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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

Shortly after Trump took office earlier this year, Jay started feeling very unnerved about the president's executive orders surrounding the military.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

We'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.

[National Guard Member 1]

We're on there every day sharing information, news articles, whatever, and it's not even.

[National Guard Member 3]

Like necessarily expressing opinions or anything. It's just expressing like questions about things that come out right.

[National Guard Member 4]

We needed something to be able to talk to each other.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

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. The did it just kind of start growing a little bit? Like how many people are in it now? It's like 10 or 12.

[National Guard Member 3]

12.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

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.

[National Guard Member 1]

Wait a minute, 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 up for. And I just wonder, like, who's going to stand up to this?

[Kat Lonsdorf]

You know, all three of these Guard members have served for years, even decades. The 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.

[National Guard Member 3]

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. But instead, we have DC Coming 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?

[Kat Lonsdorf]

They say they've tried to raise these questions further up the chain of command.

[National Guard Member 4]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

In 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.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

They also say it's the continued and increasingly hostile rhetoric around the deployments that has them worried. In cities like Portland or Chicago, the Trump administration has said troops are needed to quiet, 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 US 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 and I wonder, you know, I see you all kind of taking a deep breath. That must have gone in the group.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[National Guard Member 3]

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. It. And it starts to create a divide in an organization. Cracks in the culture, and those become fault lines.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

I ask them if they've thought about leaving, ending their military careers.

[National Guard Member 1]

I 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.

[National Guard Member 3]

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 gonna 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.

[National Guard Member 4]

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? You 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?

[Juana Summers]

Yeah.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

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.

[National Guard Member 4]

I 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 gotta stay and do the good I can because the person behind me might not.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

Conversations like this aren't just happening here in this public library in Ohio. They're happening all over the country.

[Brittany Ramos DeBarros]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

Brittany Ramos DeBaros is the director of About Face, a nonpartisan nonprofit made up of current service members and post 911 veterans to be a resource for those who might be questioning their deployments. The 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.

[Brittany Ramos DeBarros]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

DeBaros is a combat vet veteran who deployed to Afghanistan. She says she believes the patrols in US Cities are sending a message.

[Brittany Ramos DeBarros]

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 are here and we're watching.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

NPR reached out to the White House for comment on the 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 that they have a final thought.

[National Guard Member 4]

I swore an oath 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.

[National Guard Member 3]

Because if the moment that we stop asking the questions, then everything falls on their face.

[National Guard Member 1]

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.

[Kat Lonsdorf]

One way to do that, start a group chat. Kat Lamsdorf, NPR News, Ohio.

[Juana Summers]

This episode was produced by Vincent Akovino and Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Simon Laszlo Jansen. It was edited by Elena Hartunian and quote, Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun. It's consider this from npr. I'm Juana Summers.

[National Guard Member 2]

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[Kat Lonsdorf]

Hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon prime members can listen to Consider this sponsor free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get consider this [e-mail] that's plus.NPR.org.