Something the Media Never States about the National Guard

[haele]

20. She wanted a job with "meaning" as she knew it.

Ask why young people joined the National Guard after September 11th, or after pretty much any major national disaster?
Right Wing Media and politicians have created an environment where there's an appearance that big cities like DC are a hellscape inhabited with roving gangs of foreign criminals, violent homeless drug addicts, and sexual deviants; while terrified US citizens stay home desperate to protect few jobs, home, and children.
And she wanted a "respected" job that generally was helpful to her state during a natural disaster (when not being used as a political stunt) could get her a free education, some health care, and a chance for promotion and better pay if she stuck with it.
Whether or not she joined to help her state if there was a massive flooding or fire event, or if she joined for the benefits and training to supplement a lifelong job at the local Waffle House or Walmart and was otherwise okay with patrolling the "evil" streets of DC where it was obvious since the ballistic subway sandwich event that she and her comrades would be unwelcome - no reasoning is any sort of justification to exaggerate her part in the victim blaming.
After she joined, she was just a game piece -a NPC, if there's anyone to blame for her being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's her Governor and the liar in Chief who ordered her presence.

(Yes, I'm assuming her only job options were Waffle House and Walmart; when I went to boot camp, most of the women from the Appalachian regions were faced with a future of marriage (or aging out at 27 after several serial marriages in one case) or a lifetime of low paid waitressing, bartending, or retail.)