After attack on two West Virginia Guard troops, their hometowns question deployments : NPR
After two West Virginia National Guard members were attacked while serving in Washington, some in the state are questioning President Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
After two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot while patrolling Washington, D.C., some West Virginians are questioning the entire deployment. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom was killed. Air Force personnel – sorry. Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe remains in critical condition. NPR’s Scott Neuman reports from their hometowns.
SCOTT NEUMAN, BYLINE: Most weekday mornings at Vickie’s Restaurant in Webster Springs, the town of about 800 where Army specialist Sarah Beckstrom grew up, you’ll find school bus driver Kenny Kidd. For many years he accompanied Beckstrom to school.
KENNY KIDD: She was a great kid. She always had a smile on her face, always ready to help and always liked to give me a hard time (laughs).
NEUMAN: Kidd’s has heard reports that the West Virginia Guard spends most of its time landscaping and picking up trash in Washington, D.C., rather than restoring order.
KIDD: They’re not doing their job up there.
NEUMAN: West Virginia is a deeply red state, but it’s not hard to find people who agree with Kidd. On a freezing morning, Roseanna Groves waits for the Quarter Store to open. It’s a second-hand clothing store where everything costs a quarter.
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NEUMAN: Groves is related by marriage to the Beckstroms. She also doesn’t understand the point of having the West Virginia Guard in Washington.
ROSEANNA GROVES: I think it was crazy, really, that they sent them there.
NEUMAN: Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey is defending his decision to send guard troops to Washington, D.C., at the request of the Trump administration. Deployment is voluntary. Democratic state lawmakers sharply criticized Morrisey for signing the bill, and several newspaper opinion pieces echoed that sentiment. NPR reached out to the governor’s office for comment but did not receive a response by airtime. But the governor’s media representatives denied reports that the guard was used for cleaning work.
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NEUMAN: About four and a half hours north, along winding mountain roads, is Martinsburg, West Virginia, where Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe is from. Berkeley County Commissioner John Hardy is one of several community members who showed up to a prayer vigil on her behalf. Hardy says there are always questions when people are put in danger.
JOHN HARDY: There was a mission to accomplish. This mission was being accomplished. And unfortunately, it’s just something that… a senseless act that happened.
NEUMAN: As people try to understand this senseless act, they hope and pray that Staff Sergeant Wolfe comes home.
Scott Neuman, NPR News, Martinsburg, West Virginia.
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