On June 26, 2023, Sarah Beckstrom enlisted in the West Virginia National Guard and began serving with the 863rd Military Police Company’s 11th Brigade. 

On November 26, 20-year-old Beckstrom, stationed in Washington, D.C. since August as part of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Mission, joined up with her colleague, 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, near the Farragut Square Metro Station. At about 2:15 p.m., 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in 2021 under a Biden-era initiative known as Operation Allies Welcome - and had previously worked for the U.S. government and the CIA - carried out an “ambush-style,” calculated attack, killing Beckstrom and severely wounding Wolfe while brandishing a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver.

Lakanwal, who lives in Washington state with his wife and five children, was wounded during the shooting and taken to the hospital. He faces at least one first-degree murder charge. 

Almost immediately, sentiments were expressed worldwide for the horrific tragedy that killed Beckstrom, who was lauded by the West Virginia National Guard as a hero. On Nov. 26 at 4:48 p.m., U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan – Chester County’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives - posted the following message on her Facebook page:

“My thoughts are with the members of the West Virginia National Guard who were shot this afternoon in Washington, D.C.

“I am grateful to the first responders on the scene, who apprehended the suspect and prevented more violence from breaking out.”

Houlahan’s post, to the surprise of very few, has received 618 comments related to her comments as this newspaper went to press. Most of the comments were civil, expressing equal condolences and heartbreak over the Washington, D.C. killing of Beckstrom and wounding of Wolfe. Others, however, used their posts to verbally bludgeon Houlahan, connecting her recent post – created with five other lawmakers calling for the U.S. military personnel to disobey illegal orders - to the killing, and holding Houlahan and her colleagues personally responsible: 

“Dem rhetoric absolutely inspires this,” began one post. “Deep in your heart, you absolutely know this.”

“The pot stirrer needs to clam up,” one post read.

“You incite hatred and violence!” read another post. 

Similar sentiments went on through a seemingly endless scroll:

“Don’t play victim to circumstances you created.”

“U are part of the Seditious 6, Advising, urging, or in any manner causing or attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States! U are attempting to undermine The Chain of Command and ur actions give rise to Terrorist Attacks like happened in DC today!”

“You actually put a target on their back. Someone listened to your words and took action.”

“Were you able to wash the blood off your hands from the National Guardsmen who were shot by an Afghan illegal?”

“This is what happens when you say stupid stuff lady..actions have consequences...”

In truth, as the investigation continues to unfold, Lakanwal’s shooting of Beckstrom and Wolfe had no ties to the video made by Houlahan and her fellow officials but was the horrible aftermath of his severe mental illness, but no matter – the invented truth always reads better. Over the last week, both the Biden and Trump administrations have tossed blame for the shooting on either side, as officials question the thoroughness of initial screening under Operation Allies Welcome that allowed Rahmanullah Lakanwal to seek asylum in the U.S.

There is little reason to be surprised at the visceral attacks levied against Houlahan and the superficial blood on her hands placed there by her accusers. At the exact time human civility and basic decency should be the norm – with carefully chosen words of sentiment and condolences – the killing of Sarah Beckstrom has become the latest gunpowder in our American discourse, instead of its latest tragedy. Social media has become the birth mother for an entirely new society unmoored by rules and regulations governing decorum, and where the gunpowder of our national conversation is sweet to the smell and pungent with the reality of our actions. The horrible murder of a 20-year-old woman on the streets of our nation’s capitol should be treated with respect, in the same tenor contained in Chrissy Houlahan’s message on Nov. 26. 

Sadly, such respect is now a perishable and vanishing subsidiary of who we once were, and we are now left to witness our nation continue to sink slowly and fortuitously into the abyss of who we have become.