We Got the Call
/By Julia Maki
May 30, 2020. We got the call. We packed our bags, laced up our boots and left families in the night to head into the nation’s capital. It is never easy, especially the older I get. Life as I know it instantly stops in its tracks. I notified my job, and coworkers who will have to cover for me. I rattled off the next few days of meal ideas I had planned to my husband. I had an appointment two days later that I had to remember to cancel. There are challenges to being an “on call” mom because you are suddenly plucked from your “normal” life and put into a new one, but it is what we signed up to do.
Jan. 6, 2021. There was talk of activation. We got the call. The cycle begins all over again. Because of my involvement with last summer’s protests in Washington, D.C., I was somewhat prepared this time. I knew the hours were going to be long and the riot gear was going to be painful after carrying it for a length of time. I was prepared for the hatred and disdain that I was faced with last time. I promised myself I would not let it affect me this time. I had extra snacks in my gas mask bag and packed my mole skin for my potential blisters. I was ready to protect and defend against enemies foreign and domestic. But just who was the enemy? Who are we defending our country against?
The citizens? The politicians? The media?
We loaded onto the bus and headed to the Capitol from the Armory to relieve the guys that had been working a 24-hour day. As I stared out the bus window into the streets, I saw houses and parks lined with colorful Christmas lights. Wreaths still decorated the streetlamps. An occasional car would pass, and every few blocks, a couple would be walking down the sidewalk. It looked like… well, what one would imagine Washington, D.C., looked like on any other winter night.
In fact, the only indication that anything was out of the ordinary were the streets that were barricaded, making a police escort for us into the city necessary. There was also a black chain-link fence that had been put up around the Capitol lawn. This matched the fence that was placed around the White House in earlier months. It had since been covered with signs that read Black Lives Matter with additional words that supported peace, and other words that continued to divide.
We were sworn in support of the Capitol Police and sent out to guard the Capitol Building and all the congressional office buildings that surround it. The night was quiet. The protesters had gone home, and only the D.C. residents remained. There was stillness and rest, and yet it had only been a day since the break-in at the Capitol during the protesting event. For now, it appeared to be business as usual. And as people passed us, they expressed their appreciation for us being there. They told us to be safe. It caught me off guard, as I had prepared for the worst. But for the next ten hours, not a single negative word was uttered to us by the public.
Every night for over two weeks last June we worked for the DC Park Police, patrolling the streets and monuments while the protests endured until tensions calmed and destruction eventually eased. Now here we were, seven months later after another politically motivated incident of destruction and all D.C. National Guard has been activated. Although I had heard many comparisons of these two events, in my personal experience, there were very few similarities.
Previously, during the BLM movement, we (the guards and other federal agencies) were called every name in the book. We were verbally assaulted. We were physically assaulted. Bottles of bleach and urine were thrown at us along with bricks, rocks and any other available object. We were threatened every day by our own American citizens. We did our best to stop the fires and destruction across the city. And though I can only speak to what I saw in D.C., I know this happened in multiple cities all over our country. I would have expected something like this in another country, but not in our own. But the media glossed over this- even encouraged it- as, “The only way to be heard was to be destructive and cause turmoil.”
The division on social media grew apparent. The dehumanizing of people had begun months ago. In this current state, we saw masks instead of smiles. We saw uniforms or color instead of people. We saw labeled political parties instead of the personal issues and concerns that were the real reasons behind our votes. If we are for this, then we cannot be for that. If we are focused on what divides us, we will not see the breakdown of our country that’s happening before our eyes.
It took me a quite a few weeks to let go of the animosity that I felt last summer. I was fortunate. I could take off my uniform and go back to my quiet job in southern Maryland- a place that felt like it was on the other side of the world compared to D.C. However, the police forces that worked in that city never got a break.
It is true that the extremists in the crowd are always the loudest. We must remember, though, that they do not represent all voices of the population. In the end, don’t we all want the same things for ourselves and our children? They are the simple promises that this country was founded on: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It has never been more apparent how important it is for us to stand united right now. To spread kindness and understanding instead of judgment. To listen to others. To be kind to others. It could change everything.
