How does 2025 National Guard casualty count compare to previous years (2020–2024)?
Executive summary
Available reporting documents a high-profile November 26, 2025 ambush that left two West Virginia National Guard members critically wounded while deployed in Washington, D.C.; coverage does not provide an authoritative, consolidated 2025 National Guard fatality or casualty total to compare with 2020–2024 annual counts (not found in current reporting) [1] [2]. State and national outlets describe individual incidents and mission-specific deaths — for example at least 17 Texas Guardsmen died during a 2024 border mission — but a single, official year-by-year National Guard casualty table in these sources is not provided [3] [4].
1. What the November 2025 shooting tells us — a dramatic single incident, not an annual trend
The November 26, 2025 attack near the White House wounded two West Virginia National Guard members in what officials described as a targeted ambush; multiple outlets report the victims were critically injured and the suspect taken into custody, but none of the supplied reports aggregate this into a 2025 annual casualty count [1] [2] [5]. These accounts are situational: they illuminate the risks that Guard members face while deployed domestically, but they do not by themselves establish whether 2025 is higher or lower in overall casualties compared with prior years [6] [7].
2. Where reporting does provide year-specific casualty numbers (state missions, 2024 examples)
Local and specialty reporting supplies some concrete counts tied to discrete missions: investigations of the Texas border mission documented at least 17 Texas National Guardsmen deaths through 2024, from causes including drowning, negligent discharge and suicide [3] [4]. That mission-level figure is useful to understand particular operational risks but cannot be extrapolated into a nationwide, multi-year Guard casualty trend without broader Defense Department or DCAS data [3] [4].
3. Official, comprehensive annual casualty data is not present in the supplied sources
The set of articles provided includes news stories, state reporting, and the National Guard’s public pages, but none of these sources offers a definitive, year-by-year National Guard casualty table for 2020–2025. A Defense Department database (Defense Casualty Analysis System) exists and is cited in the search results, but the snapshot of that portal provided here does not return an accessible summary in these materials, and no explicit year-to-year numbers for 2020–2024 are quoted in the news items offered [8] [9]. Therefore, available sources do not mention a consolidated 2020–2024 comparison.
4. Differences in what “casualty” can mean — why direct comparisons are complicated
News reports use varied language: “died,” “killed,” “wounded,” “critically injured,” and mission-specific tallies (for example, mission-related deaths in Texas) [4] [3]. Official military fatality and casualty systems classify causes (combat, accident, suicide, illness) and include distinctions between activated/ federalized Guard service and state missions; none of those classification breakdowns or consistent definitions for 2020–2025 are spelled out across the supplied stories, complicating any simple year‑to‑year comparison using only these sources [9] [8].
5. What a careful comparison would require — and why current sources fall short
To compare 2025 to 2020–2024 authoritatively, a reporter would need: (a) an official Defense Department or National Guard Bureau tally of National Guard deaths/wounded per calendar year with cause categories; (b) clarity on whether counts include activated federal-duty Guardsmen, state-active-duty missions, and Title 32/Title 10 distinctions; and (c) verification that individual mission tallies (like the Texas OLS mission) are not double-counted. The supplied materials reference mission figures and an official casualty database but do not supply that complete, disaggregated yearly data [8] [3].
6. How outlets framed 2025 incident coverage and political context
Reporting around the November 2025 shooting quickly folded into debates over Guard deployments, immigration vetting, and the Trump administration’s domestic mission in cities — coverage emphasized the operational context in D.C. and prompted policy reactions such as a temporary halt to processing Afghan immigration applications and calls to increase Guard presence in Washington [6] [10] [6]. These political framings matter because media accounts of casualties during politically fraught deployments can magnify perception of a rise in deaths even when national-level trend data are not yet presented [10].
7. Bottom line for your question — evidence gap and next steps
Available reporting documents notable mission-level and incident-specific deaths (for example: the at least 17 Texas guardsmen who died on the border mission as documented through 2024, and two Guardsmen critically wounded in D.C. in November 2025) but does not provide a consolidated annual National Guard casualty series for 2020–2024 to compare with 2025 [4] [2] [1]. To produce a rigorous year‑to‑year comparison, consult the Defense Casualty Analysis System or official National Guard Bureau/DoD annual casualty reports (DCAS referenced in the search results) and request clarifications about definitions and mission status [8] [9].