Column: National Guardsmen Should Serve As Domestic Fail-safe
This story was written by Amanda Gibb, Daily Evergreen
Fire has been wreaking havoc throughout the western United States, but California has been hit the hardest. To help fight these fires 400 National Guardsmen have been deployed to California instead of Iraq. The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has asked for an additional 2,000 National Guardsmen to join those already working the fire lines around Big Sur.
The climate is similar to Iraq, forcing those battling the blaze to deal with extreme heat and tedious work. But the weapons of choice on the fire lines are axes instead of rifles. And guardsmen are busy saving homes on American soil instead of occupying land that is not ours.
The work guardsmen are accomplishing in California is tangible and directly benefits the people of the U.S. Our troops sacrifice is welcomed in California, which is new because they havent received gratitude for their service in a while.
Families of National Guardsmen are comforted knowing that no one is shooting at their loved ones. They are safer because Guardsmen are strictly working as support, building scratch lines and fire breaks with hand tools while the professional firefighters tackle the fires head on.
According to the Associated Press, the federal government has committed $100 million and 80 percent of its firefighting resources to California alone. State officials say this fire season has seen the most fires burning at one time in recorded California history. The cause of all this destruction was a lightening storm that ignited 1,460 separate fires around the state. Through combined efforts, the number of fires has been whittled down to only 320 active fires as of last Friday. Damage has been minimal, comparatively speaking, with only three deaths as a result thus far.
I am glad that our military is being put to use in a place that desperately needs all the help possible. It is not only our National Guard that is being asked to fight but New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Greece and Mexico have also volunteered to send firefighters and necessary equipment to help battle the fires. These fires have allowed us to combine efforts not only between military and local firefighters but also with foreign countries.
Our nation has many growing problems and it is long overdue that we focus on our homeland. The destruction the fires will leave behind will be catastrophic to our struggling economy. All of the resources available need to be given to the victims of the fires in our country. I hate to sound selfish, but our citizenry needs to be our nations first priority. The National Guards service in California has done more good in the last month than they have in the last five years of occupying Iraq. If we brought our troops home, perhaps even more could be accomplished.