Others phoned in to say the Guard should play no part in federal immigration raids and that they worried about immigrant family members who might get swept up. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t want to deport their uncle or their wife or their brother-in-law,\u201d Woolford said. \u201c… Some of the language people have used is: \u2018I joined to defend my country, and that\u2019s really important to me \u2014 but No. 1 is family, and this is actually a threat to my family.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Although active-duty soldiers are largely restricted from publicly commenting on their orders, veterans\u2019 advocates who are in direct contact with troops and their families say they are deeply concerned about the morale of the roughly 4,100 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles<\/a> amid protests against immigration raids. <\/p>\n In interviews with The Times, spokespeople for six veterans\u2019 advocacy organizations said many troops were troubled by the assignment, which they viewed as overtly political and as pitting them against fellow Americans. <\/p>\n Advocates also said they worry about the domestic deployment\u2019s potential effects on military retention and recruitment, which recently rebounded<\/a> after several years in which various branches failed to meet<\/a> recruiting goals. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re hearing from our families is: \u2018This is not what we signed up for,\u2019 \u201d said Brandi Jones, organizing director for the Secure Families Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates for military spouses, children and veterans. \u201cOur families are very concerned about morale.\u201d <\/p>\n Horse riders make their way past U.S. Marines near the Paramount Home Depot during the Human Rights Unity Ride on June 22, 2025. <\/p>\n (Carlin Stiehl\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Janessa Goldbeck, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and chief executive of the nonprofit Vet Voice Foundation, said that, among the former Marine Corps colleagues she has spoken to in recent weeks, \u201cThere\u2019s been a universal expression of, \u2018This is an unnecessary deployment given the operational situation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that the LAPD and local elected officials repeatedly said deploying the National Guard and active duty Marines would be escalatory or inflammatory and the president of the United States chose to ignore that and deploy them anyway puts the young men and women in uniform in an unnecessarily political position,\u201c she said.<\/p>\n She added that the \u201cyoung men and women who raised their right hand to serve their country\u201d did \u201cnot sign up to police their own neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly<\/a> said Los Angeles would be \u201cburning to the ground<\/a>\u201d if he had not sent troops to help quell the protests. <\/p>\n \u201cWe saved Los Angeles by having the military go in,\u201d Trump told reporters<\/a> last week. \u201cAnd the second night was much better. The third night was nothing much. And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming.\u201d<\/p>\n The troops in Los Angeles do not have the authority to arrest protesters and were deployed only to defend federal functions, property and personnel, according to<\/a> the military\u2019s U.S. Northern Command. <\/p>\n Task Force 51, the military\u2019s designation of the Los Angeles forces, said in an email Saturday that \u201cwhile we cannot speak for the individual experience of each service member, the general assessment of morale by leadership is positive.\u201d <\/p>\n The personnel\u2019s \u201cquality of life,\u201d the statement continued, is \u201caddressed through the continued improvement of living facilities, balanced work-rest cycles, and access to chaplains, licensed clinical social workers, and behavioral health experts.\u201d <\/p>\n U.S. Marines guard the Federal Building at the corner of Veteran Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n It is unclear whether the National Guard troops, federalized under Title 10 of the United States Code, had been paid as of this weekend. <\/b>Task Force 51 told The Times on Saturday that the soldiers who received 60-day activation orders on June 7 \u201cwill start receiving pay by end of the month\u201d and that \u201cthose that have financial concerns have access to resources such as Army Emergency Relief,\u201d a nonprofit charitable organization.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-Orange), an Army veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cfor his plan to manage the logistics of this military activation, but he has failed to provide me with any clear answers.\u201d<\/p>\n Tran said in a statement to The Times that \u201cthe pattern of disrespect this Administration has shown our Veterans and active-duty military personnel is disgraceful, and I absolutely think it will negatively impact our ability to attract and retain the troops that keep America\u2019s military capacity the envy of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an email that the governor is \u201cworried how this mission will impact the physical and emotional well-being of the soldiers deployed unnecessarily to Los Angeles.\u201d <\/p>\n On June 9, Newsom posted photos on X<\/a> depicting National Guard soldiers crowded together, sleeping on concrete floors and what appeared to be a loading dock. Newsom wrote that the president sent troops \u201cwithout fuel, food, water or a place to sleep.\u201d <\/p>\n Task Force 51 told The Times that the soldiers in the photos \u201cwere not actively on mission, so they were taking time to rest.\u201d At the time, the statement continued, \u201cit was deemed too dangerous for them to travel to better accommodations.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, according to Task Force 51, the military has contracted \u201cfor sleeping tents, latrines, showers, hand-washing stations, hot meals for breakfast, dinner and a late-night meal, and full laundry service.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMost of the contracts have been fulfilled at this time,\u201d the military said. <\/p>\n Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Times that Newsom \u201cshould apologize for using out-of-context photos of National Guardsmen to try and make a political argument.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnder President Trump\u2019s leadership military morale is sky high because our troops know they finally have a patriotic Commander-In-Chief who will always have their backs,\u201d Jackson wrote. <\/p>\n Troops have been posted outside federal buildings in an increasingly quiet <\/a>downtown Civic Center \u2014 a few square blocks within the 500-square-mile city. <\/p>\n Their interactions with the public are far different from those earlier this year, when Newsom deployed<\/a> the National Guard to L.A. County to help with wildfire recovery efforts after the Eaton and Palisades fires. <\/p>\n At burn zone check points, National Guard members were often spotted chatting with locals, some of whom brought food and water and thanked them for keeping looters away. <\/p>\n But downtown, soldiers have stood stone-faced behind riot shields as furious protesters have flipped them off, sworn at them and questioned their integrity. <\/p>\n Members of the California National Guard stand by as thousands participate in the \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest demonstration in downtown Los Angeles on June 14.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n During the boisterous \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests<\/a> on June 14, a woman held up a mirror to troops outside the downtown Federal Building with the words: \u201cThis is not your job. It\u2019s YOUR LEGACY.\u201d On a quiet Wednesday morning, a UCLA professor, standing solo outside the Federal Building, held up a sign to half a dozen Guard members reading: \u201cIt\u2019s Called the Constitution You F\u2014ers.\u201d <\/p>\n James M. Branum, an attorney who works with the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, said that, in recent weeks, the task force has received two to three times more than the usual volume of referrals and direct calls. The upward trend began after Trump came into office, with people calling about the war in Gaza and increased military deployment<\/a> to the U.S. southern border \u2014 but calls spiked after troops were sent<\/a> to Los Angeles, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these folks joined because they want to fight who they see as the terrorists,\u201d Branum said. \u201cThey want to fight enemies of the United States \u2026 they never envisioned they would be deployed to the streets of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n In his June 7 memo<\/a> federalizing the National Guard, Trump called for their deployment in places where protests against federal immigration enforcement were occurring or \u201care likely to occur.\u201d The memo does not specify Los Angeles or California. <\/p>\n California officials have sued the president<\/a> over the deployment, arguing in a federal complaint that the Trump administration\u2019s directives are \u201cphrased in an ambiguous manner and suggest potential misuse of the federalized National Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGuardsmen across the country are on high alert, [thinking] that they could be pulled into this,\u201d said Goldbeck, with the Vet Voice Foundation. <\/p>\n Jones, with the Secure Families Initiative, said military families \u201care very nervous in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are so unprepared for what\u2019s happening, and they\u2019re very afraid to speak publicly,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Jones said she had been communicating with the wife of one National Guard member who said she had recently suffered a stroke. The woman said her husband had been on Family and Medical Leave Act leave from his civilian job to care for her. The woman said his leave was not recognized by the military for the domestic assignment<\/a>. He was deployed to Los Angeles, and she has been struggling to find a caregiver, Jones said. <\/p>\n Jones said her own husband, an active-duty Marine, deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment based at Twentynine Palms \u2014 the same infantry unit<\/a> now mustered in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n The unit was hard hit<\/a> in Afghanistan in 2008, with at least 20 Marines killed and its high rate of suicide after that year\u2019s deployment highly publicized<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jones said she was stunned to learn the battalion \u2014 nicknamed<\/a> the War Dogs \u2014 was being deployed to Los Angeles. <\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Wait, it\u2019s 2\/7 they\u2019re sending in? The War Dogs? Releasing them on Los Angeles?\u2019 It was nuts for me,\u201d Jones said. \u201cTo hear that unit affiliated with this \u2014 for my family that\u2019s been serving for two decades, it brings up a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n The Los Angeles deployment comes at a time of year when the California National Guard is often engaged in wildfire suppression operations \u2014 a coincidence that has raised concerns among some officials<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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