After the biggest buildup since World War II, the 4000 troops and ICE agents have begun the slow demobilization efforts of more than 2,000 National Guard troops announced this week.
Base Commander Lt. Col. Dan Fox told ENE that the process is already underway to begin demobilizing 2,000 National Guard troops from Task Force 79 that were deactivated from federal service this week.
“I want to make it clear,” said Fox, “I don’t command these troops,” the base commander said, but is responsible for the services required by the base to facilitate the various training, movements, deployments, and now, decommissioning.
“I don’t command them at all. I am relevant. I’m responsible for the ground that they live on and coordinating for their availability,” said Fox.
Accordingly, Fox said, in simple terms, he has facilitated a process of decommissioning the troops from their federal service back to the state National Guard.
“They will now return home to various parts of the state to resume their California National Guard duties,” said Lt. Col. Fox.
“The processing has started. The demobilization process for the individual service members could take between three and five days. It’s an iterative process. We won’t start processing all 2000 at the same time,” he said.
“Our goal is to process an average of 400 troops per day,” said Fox.
If necessary, Lt. Col. Fox said convoys and other transportation will be arranged to return the National Guard troops.
In fact, Fox said Task Force 49, which contains the additional 2,000 National Guard troops previously federalized, is also expected to be demobilized “at a time to be determined.”
“I don’t have any information on when that will be,” he said, adding “I don’t think it’ll be too long from now, but I don’t know what exactly I mean by too long.’
In addition, with the departure of troops will also mean that some of huge white tents and other portable structures quickly assembled on the base will now be disassembled.
“At the moment, I don’t exactly which ones, but generally they won’t all be needed,” he said.
The JFTB base commander suggested that while he had no direct knowledge as yet, it was expected that at some point, the additional National Guard troops in Task Force 49 will also be demobilized, and even the ICE support teams on base will depart.
When and if the order is given to demobilize the additional troops, Fox said they will be processed in the same manner as those departing this week.
Even Fox is expected to depart, headed to a new assignment this fall, though he says the unexpected troop surge at the base will not be forgotten.
Regrettably, I’m leaving soon,” said Fox.
“But this has been a great opportunity to learn the capabilities of the base, so that if you know that in the future, not that we’re going to do this exact type mission, but any missions that come up where we have a large footprint of soldiers or any type of service members, this has given us some really good insight into how to get it done, “ the commander said.