Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
So why don’t we just talk a little bit more about New Mexico today. I know you met with the New Mexico National Guard today and the National Guard has been having a pretty tough time in DC working under pretty difficult conditions. What are they saying to you? What are some of their concerns?
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
So the New Mexico National Guard, they were really happy about the deployment and maybe it’s because our New Mexico National Guard made sure that they took care of each other. So they actually were in a hotel. The ones that I met with, their shift was from three o’clock in the afternoon to 3:00 in the morning. And they said, so even though it was a 12-hour shift, sometimes it would turn out to be a 16 hour shift, just would take so long to get through everything they needed to get through. Their hours were really long. They were protecting the Northwest quadrant of the Capitol premises. So as they said, we had great views of the monuments, and I think they were really proud of the fact that they got to go up there and do it, and that they responded quickly and that they participated in it.
They were from all over New Mexico. I asked them like, where are people from? They started shouting the different cities and it’s from the North and from the South. And somebody even said Phoenix. So I said, that’s New Mexico, we’re so welcoming—we’ve even let somebody from Arizona be part of our brigade. And there was not a grumble among them. I mean, for many of them, they’d never been to D C before. All of them got to go into the Capitol at one point in time and, you know, see the return that they were initially in the Capitol visitor center. That’s where you see all of the pictures of, they’re all sleeping on those marble floors and stuff like that. But they were not sleeping on the marble floors because they had arranged for a hotel.
MCD:
It’s interesting to think about the National Guard because they’re front and center right now. And normally you really don’t hear that much about the National Guard and sort of what they do and what their interests are until you need them. It’s sort of like the immune system or something—until it’s needed and kicks into action, it kind of has a low profile.
TLF:
And that’s exactly what it is because, as you’re thinking about it, the National Guard steps up and responds to crises and emergencies. The National Guard, beginning in 2020 in New Mexico, they have been our go-to. We need more people helping. When I go get my COVID tests, cause I’m a frequent COVID tester since I’m flying back and forth and want to be as careful with everybody be as possible, it’s the National Guard that are my first people I talk to. And they are always positive and helpful and nice. So they’ve been out at Navajo; what they were doing was sometimes just in front of Walmart telling people to remember to put on their masks. They have done everything from just to encourage people to put on their masks at some of our big box stores to actually helping out delivering health care, to going to DC and having their guns with live ammunition.
I mean, they were prepared, if there would have been anything violent, to repel it. And they talked about the fact that for some, this was the first time they’d had to go out with live ammunition. But they also, what I told them, I always get emotional when I talk about that day and the attack on the democracy, not because I was in fear for my life, but that it was such an attack on something I love so much. And so I got a little emotional talking about what it was like and how awful it was to have that attack. Cause they refer to it as the incident on January 6th, they did their job by having such an overwhelming presence at the Capitol. There were no incidents, there was nothing. It was, from their perspective of what they were doing, uneventful. From our perspective of watching an inauguration and watching the peaceful transfer of power and how beautiful that all was.
It was marvelous, but it was marvelous because we were surrounded by an armed presence, which shouldn’t be there. But they did their job, they kept the peace. So it’s like, isn’t that great that they kept the peace. It was really wonderful to hear them be so positive about it all. There was not a grumble among them. And then the other thing is that, like I said, they, many of them had never been there before and they were so proud of how they had responded and that they were there. And when they said, how many can you send? First it was 40. Then it was 80. Then it was a hundred. Then it was 200. And they were so proud of the fact that they had such a response, and that they were there. And then the other wonderful thing is to acknowledge that, like you said, it’s the immune response, except for we need to remember that everybody who went, not only do they leave their families, they also leave their work. So if you’re a teacher or you’re a firefighter or a police officer or working wherever you’re working, you have left that job for two weeks or a week. So they are true community right there everywhere in the community. There was a public defender in Santa Fe who was National Guard and he ended up doing a couple of tours in Afghanistan or Iraq. They’re in our community, they’re among us and then they answer the call and they go,
MCD:
It’s interesting because you don’t think about the fact that they’re in some kind of funny hybrid between having a full-time job and being on call for something that also can be a full-time job.
TLF:
Yeah. And what I didn’t truly realize, cause most of the Guard people I’ve known in my personal life have joined the Guard after being in active service. And it’s actually not the case—a lot of the Guard, this is their first time in a military setting. And sometimes they’ll go to active service after being part of the Guard. I had always thought about it the other way, but he said no, that many of them are not. In fact the adjunct Brigadier General that I met with, he came through law enforcement, and they were young. The officers I met with, they weren’t as young. But when you looked out at the larger crowd I met with, they were young. And then the other thing that the National Guard, I mean they just, they were so excited. They wanted to share everything about the National Guard with me.
It was really wonderful. You know, they have these programs for at-risk youth and they said a lot of the Guard people come in because they have a very good tuition assistance program. So that if you basically do your service with the Guard and do the basic training and all of that, and you go to a state school, your tuition is pretty much paid for. So it is a way for kids who might not have the means to go to university to be able to go, have it paid for, and then also have this ability to have the income stream from serving in the Guard. And New Mexicans, among Latinos and Native Americans, we have such high ratios of serving in the services that … for lots of different reasons.
MCD:
So when you meet with them, do they have some interests, do they have something that they’re trying to accomplish through meeting with you? Is it just like relationship building? What happens?
TLF:
Congress impacts all kinds of things, including their budget. In this instance, they wanted to make sure I was aware of what they do, and what they are doing in New Mexico, so that we were aware of their programs. Like they were talking about this youth program. And would you be willing to, when it happens again, just because these are at-risk kids who’ve dropped out of school and we like having people speak to them to show them there are lots of different things can do in life. And there’s lots of different stories of how you ended up succeeding. So lots of things from, they want to make sure that a Congressperson understands what it is they do and the role they play. I knew a lot of what the National Guard did, but boy was it illuminating, I was really excited cause it was like, I didn’t know all of that detail about the National Guard and now I do. And so it was great. And it was also my very first, that is the other kind of exciting thing. It was my very first physical meeting in my district because everything’s been done by Zoom. And so, you know, I actually went out to the National Guard armory and met with them. And so it was kind of my, this was my very first maiden, you know, I’m a Congress person coming to meet with part of my constituency. That was also pretty neat and fun.
MCD:
Was that made possible by the fact that you’ve been vaccinated?
TLF:
Yes and no. It was possible by the fact that they’re all there, there really isn’t a way to go meet with them on zoom because there were hundreds.
MCD:
But I mean the safety protocols were in place.
TLF:
The safety protocols, yeah, they all had their safety protocols. Everybody was sitting the big facility. Everybody had their masks on. I’ve been vaccinated. They’ve all been vaccinated, not all of them, but they all had the opportunity to be vaccinated. And so most of them were all vaccinated. And everybody had their masks on and where the commanders spoke was fairly far away from everybody else. So I spoke where the commanders spoke.
