National Guard

Staff Sgt. Vincent W. Ashlock put in nearly 10 years in the active-duty Army as a young man. After he left, his yearning to get back in uniform never waned. Three years ago, he signed up with the California Army National Guard and found himself, at age 42, staffing dangerous checkpoints south of Baghdad. "Getting back into the service was his mission in life," said his mother, Margot Stengel. "When he went to Iraq, he said: 'I finally feel like a man.' He just felt good about what he was doing.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Gen. David Baldwin as the new head of the state National Guard on Saturday, swearing in the Afghanistan veteran at a California Cadet Corps celebration here. Brown took a short break from his campaign on the state budget to join the ceremony, looking on as hundreds of elementary, middle and high school Cadet Corps members from around California marched in unison to a National Guard band at Los Alamitos Army Airfield. The cadet program is dear to Brown's heart.

The contingent of National Guard troops scheduled for deployment next month at the California- Mexico border will be smaller and more narrowly focused than past missions, aiming at front-line deterrence rather than building fences and roads, according to federal officials. The 224 California National Guard members are part of President Obama's move to bolster enforcement efforts along the entire U.S-Mexico border, first announced in May. Most of the 1,200 National Guard troops heading to the frontier, about 550, are going to Arizona, the major illegal immigration corridor into the U.S. The California contingent will be posted at strategic areas across San Diego County and will drive U.S. Border Patrol vehicles, using binoculars and night-vision goggles to spot incursions and report them to federal agents, according to Kim Holman, a National Guard spokeswoman.

The Obama administration formally asked Congress on Tuesday for $600 million in emergency funds to hire another 1,000 Border Patrol agents, acquire two drones and enhance security along the Southwest border. The money would also pay for an additional 160 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and extra Border Patrol canine teams, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco)

Even those who are appalled by Arizona's harsh new immigration law — as we are — recognize that the state's misguided decision to take federal matters into its own legislative hands did not come out of the blue. Arizona is the preferred superhighway for drug and human smugglers. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the nation, and almost all of those abducted are either illegal immigrants or linked to the drug trade. The recent killing of a rancher in southern Arizona has increased the sense of lawlessness and danger at the border; police believe the killer was involved with drug trafficking.

President Obama will send up to 1,200 additional National Guard troops — and request $500 million in additional funds — to support law enforcement efforts along the Southwest border, the White House said Tuesday. The move was widely seen as offering the president political cover for his pursuit of immigration reform. The National Guard will target the trafficking of people, money, drugs and weapons, national security advisor James L. Jones and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said in a letter to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.

Walter J. Hickel, a former governor of Alaska who served as Interior secretary under President Nixon until he was dismissed for objecting to the treatment of Vietnam War protesters, has died. He was 90. Hickel died Friday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Anchorage, said longtime assistant Malcolm Roberts. Hickel was fired from his Interior post in late 1970 after sending Nixon a letter critical of his handling of student protests after the deadly National Guard shootings at Kent State University and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

Portions of Rhode Island and Massachusetts went into survival mode Tuesday as homes were flooded, schools were closed and flights and trains were delayed because of record rainfall. Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri asked residents to get home by dinnertime to avoid the worst flooding in the state in more than 100 years. Thousands of basements were flooded across the state, the governor's office said. National Guard troops were activated in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The United States, and California in particular, has been built by immigrants who legally crossed our borders in search of a brighter future. For generations, these legal immigrants have made immeasurable contributions to creating a unique and vibrant California. As Americans and Californians, we are right to welcome people from all over the globe when they obey our laws and are willing to play by the rules. Illegal immigration is another matter entirely. With the state budget in tatters, millions of residents out of work and a state prison system strained by massive overcrowding, California simply cannot continue to ignore the strain that illegal immigration puts on our budget and economy.

Mary J. Kight, already the first woman general in the California National Guard, will become the group's first female leader Tuesday. She will also be the first African American woman at the helm of any national guard in the country. Kight, 59, a Republican who lives in Sacramento, recognizes that for some, these are important firsts. "It depends on who is looking at me," she said. "If it's important to them, then you know, I acknowledge that it is also important. But . . . I am doing my job. I am doing what I am asked to do."