Why Was California State Guard Volunteer Firefighting Force Dismantled?

The California State Guard is the uniformed military of the state. “The CSG is a seamless fully integrated State military operational force enhancing the civil support and federal readiness of the California Military Department and our interagency partners,” the California State Guard website says.

They are a reserve force made up of retired police, former military, retired fire fighters, and doctors, “that support the state missions and federal readiness of the Army and Air National Guard.”

“The California State Guard is made up of primarily unpaid members who train and serve the State in a military capacity. CSG members are also subject to call for Emergency State Active Duty (ESAD) by the Governor.”

Their mission:

Organize, train, equip, deploy, and employ our Airmen, Soldiers, and Sailors, to deliver integrated staff, enhanced federal readiness, civil support, and historical contribution capabilities to the California Military Department, interagency partners, and the Governor.

As a reader shared, they train with the National Guard on military bases. They guard the National Guard, Army, and Air Force bases, in uniform, with guns. “You must think of them as akin to the militias of old, combined with the volunteer fire brigades of old.”

“During WWII, this entity used to be called the Home Guard.  I’m sure you’re aware of how they supplemented the other first responders during that era, which has value when the state or nation is in crisis.  That’s the idea.”

“Anyway, the modern California State Guard is formal and well-trained.”

They undergo the same training as law-enforcement and active military. They observe rank, wear uniforms and follow protocols.

The State Guard includes many firefighters, cops, retired firefighters, doctors, former military, and the like.

“They are all experienced volunteers. They all work for free. Their officers have BEGGED Gavin Newsom to use them for fire breaks, to clear brush, to fill sandbags before rains, to assist the elderly who get trapped in snowstorms (like in San Bernardino last year). Use them to fight fires, to evacuate people and pets.”

We are told that the Newsom administration has refused primarily because the labor unions that protect government employees don’t like that these guys work for free.

Our source says the union has specifically asked Newsom not to use the California State Guard.

The Globe has contacted members of the California State Guard for confirmation and details, but we have not received replies back yet. We will update this article when we do.

And now, members of the California State Guard are sitting idle, while Los Angeles neighborhoods burn.

The Daily Signal has a damning report Thursday about how “a high-ranking military appointee of California Gov. Gavin Newsom diminished the state’s emergency response volunteer firefighting units, according to Maj. Gen. Jay Coggan, retired commanding general of the California State Guard.”

From their report:

“Newsom appointed Matthew Beevers to serve as adjutant general of the California Military Department in May 2023. Beevers has a history of marching in LGBTQ pride parades and was investigated for alleged antisemitism against a subordinate, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Beevers denied making the antisemitic comment.

Shortly after his appointment, Beevers decommissioned the Emergency Response Command, a highly trained joint command consisting of two volunteer units, according to Coggan.

Prior to Beevers’ decision, Emergency Response Command included Team Blaze, a firefighting detachment, and Team Shield, a security forces detachment that worked with Team Blaze on firefighting missions. Coggan, the retired commanding general of the California State Guard, started the command in February 2021.

Governor Newsom hired Christy Bouma in 2022 as Legislative Affairs Secretary, Previously, she was the California lobbyist for the firefighter’s union.

Politico reported on Bouma:

Christy Bouma has been Newsom’s chief liaison to the Legislature since 2022 and played an instrumental role that year in collecting votes for Newsom’s late — and largely successful — climate change push. She is a veteran of Sacramento politics whose former lobbying shop represented politically influential groups like firefighters.

It is difficult to calculate how much these thousands of volunteers could have done to mitigate and/or assist with the outbreaking fires. And even if they were not used to fight the fires alongside LAFD, they could have assisted with evacuations. They could have assisted in the evacuation of the elderly from nursing homes.

They could have directed traffic, kept evacuation routes clear, and even fed the firefighters.

The California State Guard Volunteer firefighters were trained and should have been a priority in fighting the LA fires.

The Daily Signal continues:

Beevers’ decision eliminated Team Blaze’s autonomy, and it was slashed in size and moved under National Guard unit Task Force Rattlesnake.

“The California State Guard was fully operational,” a senior enlisted leader who asked to remain anonymous told The Daily Signal. “Between the boats, the fire team [Team Blaze], [Team] Shield, we were able to work organically and move as a unit and be operational. And what Beevers did was cut out every piece of it that was operational and made it a support.”

The senior enlisted leader told The Daily Signal that the California Professional Firefighters Union complained to Cal Fire that it didn’t want “nonprofessional firefighters” on their fires. According to the enlisted leader, Cal Fire put pressure on Beevers, who caved because Taskforce Rattlesnake, a large program run by the California Military Department, is funded by Cal Fire.

The calamitous contagion of DEI into the state’s most important public safety institutions, from the state down to local agencies, will haunt California for decades.

“At the San Francisco pride parade June 30, 2021, then-Deputy Adjutant Gen. Beevers said: ‘The reason we’re here is to ensure that everybody knows folks in the California Military Department, California National Guard, we’re all about inclusion, about ensuring that everybody wants to serve cancer, because when we’re representative of our entire population, we’re more ready, we’re more lethal.’”

“When the history of these fires are written, people will conclude that it was 25% the weather and 75% incompetence and poor management,” former California Rep. Mike Gatto, a Democrat, told The Daily Signal.