Fighting the coming Wild fires is a LOT more important than standing around….
The top military commander in charge of troops deployed to Los Angeles to respond to protests against immigration raids has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth if 200 of those forces could be returned to wildfire fighting duty, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Monday.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of about 4,000 California National Guard troops and 800 active duty Marines against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom in early June to respond to a series of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles.
The federal troops’ domestic deployment raised multiple legal questions, including whether the administration would seek to employ emergency powers under the Insurrection Act to empower those forces to conduct law enforcement on U.S. soil, which they are not permitted to do except in rare circumstances. The Marines, however, are primarily assigned to protecting federal buildings….
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California has just entered peak wildfire season, and Newsom has warned that the Guard is now understaffed due to the Los Angeles protest deployment.
The top military commander of those troops, U.S. Northern Command head Gen. Gregory Guillot, recently submitted a request to Hegseth to return 200 of the National Guard troops back to Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, which is the California National Guard’s wildfire unit, the officials said.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet announced publicly….
Given the nature of the National Guard (or state militia), I would hardly be too surprised if many of those serving on Operation Rattlesnake have experience. training and specialised skills as professional or volunteer firefighters in civilian life.
Update…
The Trump administration released about 150 National Guard troops on Tuesday in the first pullback since it dispatched a military force to the Los Angeles area last month, allowing the soldiers to return to regular duty fighting wildfires in California.
President Trump began deploying thousands of troops on June 7 to respond to protests against federal immigration raids in the region. Almost 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines remain under his control for domestic responsibilities in Los Angeles.
The drawdown announcement by the U.S. Northern Command, which is overseeing the president’s military response in California, came two weeks after Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles ended a nighttime curfew because the most vigorous, and sometimes violent, protests had ended in the downtown core….
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