Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, just 20 years old, was supposed to be serving her country — not dying in its capital. The West Virginia National Guard member was shot and killed while on patrol in Washington, D.C. on Thanksgiving Eve, part of a controversial deployment ordered by President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Her boyfriend says she never believed she should have been there in the first place.
Beckstrom’s longtime boyfriend, Adam Carr, told CNN that she often questioned the mission. “She was like, ‘People spit towards us, cuss at us, throw things at us — and we can’t do nothing,’” Carr recalled. “She couldn’t detain nobody. They told them to just call the cops. She said, ‘Why am I here if I can’t do nothing?’”
Carr said Beckstrom was proud to serve but frustrated that the Guard’s deployment to D.C. had turned into “a show of force with no purpose.”
“She wanted to make a difference, desperately,” he said. “But she also knew it was pointless if they weren’t allowed to actually help people.”
Beckstrom and fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, were ambushed while patrolling in southeast D.C. late Wednesday night. Wolfe remains hospitalized in critical condition.
The two were among thousands of troops deployed to the capital after Trump placed the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control in August, claiming the city was “out of control” amid a surge in violent crime.
Instead of traditional patrol duties, Guard members were frequently seen cleaning parks, painting over graffiti, and distributing food — tasks critics said were more symbolic than strategic.
“They wanted to protect people, not sweep sidewalks,” said a National Guard official who spoke to The Washington Post on condition of anonymity. “Morale was low. No one really knew what we were supposed to be doing.”
President Trump addressed Beckstrom’s death during a livestreamed Thanksgiving call from Mar-a-Lago, where he spent the holiday.
“I just heard that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia — a young, magnificent person — has passed away,” Trump said. “She was outstanding in every way.”
The president has faced mounting criticism for the D.C. deployment, which many city officials — including Mayor Muriel Bowser — have called a “political stunt.” Bowser said the National Guard presence created “confusion and tension” with local law enforcement.
Beckstrom’s father confirmed his daughter’s death in a heartbreaking Facebook post: “My baby girl has passed to glory. This has been a horrible tragedy.”
Carr described Beckstrom as a devoted, generous person who lived for small acts of love.
“She would make lunch for me every morning before work — sandwiches, chips, even fruit,” he said. “I told her to sleep in, but she’d still get up. That’s who she was. She’d do anything for anyone.”
As Washington reels from the killing, questions linger about why Beckstrom — and so many other National Guard troops — were placed in a political crossfire far from home.
“Sarah believed in service,” Carr said quietly. “But she also believed in purpose. And what they gave her wasn’t either.”
Source: CNN, The Washington Post, Department of Justice, West Virginia National Guard
Discover more from Next Gen News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The way this woman was treated by the residents of our nation’s capital is a testament to how all Democrats treat our military and law enforcement. Our military should have law enforcement personnel by their side so then they are threatened then arrests can be made immediately. The Democrat Party has always been the party of hate and mental disorder. They need to go the way of history to be remembered for what they have always stood for. They are the neo-confederacy socialist fascist party, anti-America and anti-American.
Yes, those were evil Democrats, not “people”, disrespecting our military… and U.S. Marshals, not Guardspeople, probably should have been sent in, instead…