National Guard News

December 17, 2006

Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Rudy Salcido, 31, La Puente; killed by roadside bomb

Years before he was sent off to fight — and die — in a real war, Rudy Salcido waged makebelieve battles in the wilds of Azusa Canyon.

August 7, 2005

Company A Comes Home

This article is part of an ongoing project by the Los Angeles Times and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism under the supervision of Times California correspondent Rone Tempest. Durrell Dawson, Felicia Mello, Jeff Nachtigal, Melissa Nix, Rebecca Ruiz, Sandhya Somashekhar and Shlomi Simhi were the writers; Jakob Schiller and Tristan Spinski the photographers. Also contributing was Christine Prince, a student in the Goldman School of Public Policy.

January 30, 2005

COVER STORY

Who's Dying in Our War?

Some months after the Americans took over the sprawling Balad Air Base, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, someone posted an enigmatic sign on the main gate asking: "Is Today the Day?" Soldiers at the base, which the U.S. military renamed Logistics Support Area Anaconda, or Camp Anaconda, take turns speculating about what the sign means. In the tense months leading up to today's planned national elections in Iraq, the population at the base has swollen to more than 22,000 soldiers and civilian contractors. Some Camp Anaconda residents—installed in relative comfort inside the 15-square-mile compound that now features four dining halls, two swimming pools, a first-run movie theater and a Burger King franchise—have concluded that the sign is a military safety message: "Stay Alert!"

October 17, 2004

Army Trainers to Become Fighters in Iraq

FT. IRWIN, Calif. — The Army calls it "The Box," a vast battleground in the heart of the inhospitable desert dotted with dusty villages marked up in Arabic graffiti declaring, "Saddam Hussein, the Great Arab."

September 17, 2004

THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Kerry Blasts Bush's Character in Speech to National Guard

LAS VEGAS — Sen. John F. Kerry on Thursday charged that the Bush administration has been "shortchanging" members of the National Guard, many of whom have been killed and wounded alongside regular troops in Iraq.

September 16, 2004

Text of Sen. John Kerry's Speech to National Guard Convention

LAS VEGAS

May 23, 2004

The Hidden Cost of Iraq War

SACRAMENTO — It won't show up on the Defense Department's budget, but the prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq is beginning to burden state and local governments as they struggle to get by without employees mobilized into National Guard and military reserve armed forces.