I should not have been in the position I found myself in that October. No one should, but especially not me. Soft on crime had been the rallying cry of my opposition in every election I’d ever run in. My approval ratings fluctuated within normal ranges, all except the military question. I always scored low when it came to military might.

Yet here I was, sending young people into a war zone. President West Pledges Troops. The headline ran on loop in my head.

And it wasn’t a war zone halfway across the world, where the customs were inscrutable and the people distant, their deaths somehow, guiltily, less meaningful. I was sending the National Guard into cities in my own country for the first time since LBJ. And some of them were coming back in boxes.

They were dark days, and the legacy I’d imagined for myself—strengthener of the economy, leader in healthcare and education, preserver of the American dream—was ground into the ash of flares and burnt vehicles. White sheets and black arm bands.

“What do I always say?” Jules muttered caustically one night as we stood in the office outside the Oval, watching the news. “White people are the worst.”

Betty Sanderson, residence head florist—who had taken to replacing my flower arrangements at strange hours and was undoubtedly checking up on me—snorted. “Oh, honey, if y’all were better at being bad, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But that?” She gestured to the screen. “That’s just sloppy.”

I realized my legs were numb from standing and leaned back against a desk. “How about we not give the white supremacists pointers.” In the early days, the late-night talk show hosts had been clever and biting about the cartoonishness of this turn in American history. Not anymore.

The news network replayed a six second shot I’d already seen so often it haunted my dreams: a man in a mask swinging a pipe at an impossibly young looking National Guardsman, knocking him down. That’s where they cut it off on television, but the entire clip was available online, the one that showed three other men, only two of whom had masks, detaching from the larger group and descending on the boy (hard to think of him as anything other than a boy), who didn’t appear to regain consciousness as he was beaten to death.

On film.

His poor parents. I’d spoken to them, of course. Said all those hollow words people say. But he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. This was America, dammit. The America I was nominally in charge of. And somehow I’d let this happen, this travesty of power and powerless. These people were trying to take over my country, and while they’d never succeed, they fully intended to do as much damage as they could in the attempt.

I was crying. Never let them see you cry was one of my rules, one of the first ones. But I couldn’t help tears slipping silently down my face as I watched more footage—violent skirmishes between protesters and counter protesters, a rally in which the Hitler salute was cheered, a disturbing shot of a little white girl pulling a child sized Klan hood over her head to the proud applause of her family.

And through it all I thought about the Guard, the people who’d trained and waited and had no idea that they’d be called to civil unrest—racial civil unrest, for god’s sake—in our own time. “That poor boy,” I whispered, as they showed the same six seconds again.

“Okay, you stop.” Jules clicked off the television and pointed at me. “Don’t give me that shit, ma’am. That ‘poor boy’ signed up, served his country, and knew the risks.”

“He knew he’d end up killed by his fellow Americans on a street corner? Really, Jules?”

“You think it never occurred to him that maybe being a Guardsman might be dangerous?”

Betty nodded. “My family’s been Navy going back generations. They take it seriously, ma’am.”

“So do I. I take it seriously! I take it seriously that I sent these kids in to get beaten by the people who elected me!”

“No offense, Madam President, but those people did not vote for you.”

“That’s for goddamn sure,” Jules said. “And we didn’t want their votes anyway.”

“It’s still my fault that—”

But Jules didn’t wait for me to finish my sentence. She spun around and walked to the portico doors, sticking her head out. “Hey, you two were military, right? Yeah, c’mere.”

Agent Danielle Ehrlmann stepped inside, followed by Ram Ruiz. They stood just inside the door, both of them looking as alert as ever. “Is there a problem, ma’am?” Danielle asked.

“Isn’t there always?” Jules shot back. “What branch did you serve with, Agent?”

“Air Force, ma’am.”

“You ever think about what would happen to you if things went wrong?”

I stood up. “Jules, that’s offensive. Dani, you don’t have to answer.”

“I don’t mind, ma’am. Sure, thought about it some. But you sign up to do a job, so you do a job. Same as with the Secret Service.”

They would step in front of a bullet if it was heading in my direction. It wasn’t the kind of thing I ever forgot, but I didn’t always remember it, either.

“See!” Jules said triumphantly. “Ram, what about you?”

“Marines, ma’am. It was an honor to serve my country. If I hadn’t come back, it would have been an honor to die for it, too.” He paused. “Can’t say everyone feels that way, but the people I know do. There’s no greater pride than wearing the uniform of the United States military. Any branch, any generation, any conflict.”

He didn’t say including this one, but I heard it anyway.

I had tears in my eyes again. “Thank you both for your careers in service.”

They chorused “Yes ma’am” and slipped back outside.

Two hours later, on the way back to the residence, Ram cleared his throat. I glanced back and slowed my steps. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, ma’am. I…don’t want to speak out of turn.”

“You aren’t. Say whatever you like.”

He nodded. “Ma’am, if I had died or been seriously injured while doing my duty to my country, the last thing I’d want anyone to feel for me is pity. Or responsibility. I made a choice, and I stand by that choice. And I’d want the dignity and respect that comes from knowing I lived by my principles. Ma’am.”

We were nearly at the door. “I can’t help feeling like if I’d been a better president, this wouldn’t be happening.”

“How could you have prevented it, ma’am?”

I stopped walking. “I’ve thought about it from every angle. I can’t come up with a single thing. Sure, there are things I could have done differently, but I’m almost certain none of them would have changed the hearts and minds of these people.”

“For whatever it’s worth, ma’am, I can’t think of anything you could have done that would have changed the outcome, either.”

“Thank you.” Abruptly, I wanted to cry again. “That means a lot, Ram. Thank you.”

He fell back so I could enter the building. “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

The violence continued for weeks, and I called two more sets of parents and one husband to offer my condolences. And each time when I praised someone’s courage and valor, I remembered Ram’s words, his noble profile in the bright lights of the portico. No pity, no blame. They were brave and they’d died doing the thing they’d signed up to do, and I would not disrespect their memories by feeling sorry for them.

But damn, I was relieved to call off the troops when the protesters took their white sheets and went home.