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Esteban Santiago, an Iraq war veteran who for reasons still unclear shot more than a dozen random travelers in an airport 5,000 miles from his Alaska home, lived just three blocks from a popular Veterans of Foreign Wars hangout. He never visited. Santiago spent two years in Alaska, working as a security guard and National Guardsman... he didn’t make much of a mark— except with law enforcement from a string of domestic disputes with his girlfriend and mother of his infant son. But, increasingly, his life was falling apart. Last January, he was arrested after roughing up his girlfriend, accused...

Washington is beefing up security in the run up to President-elect Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, including the deployment of 5,000 National Guard troops downtown amid security concerns. Mayor Muriel Bowser said despite increased security concerns, the city is prepared and ready for the event, she said Friday at a press conference with U.S. Secret Service and other security forces. "We prepare for the biggest number possible," Bowser said. Secret Service special agent Brian Ebert said the Washington field office is "well-prepared and ready for this inauguration." In addition to the 5,000 National Guard troops being deployed in the city, 3,000...

Bonuses and student loans to be forgiven in most cases In October, I reported that thousands of California soldiers in the National Guard soldiers were being forced to repay over-paid enlistment bonuses and student loans. Many of these brave men and women were struggling financially to meet the repayment terms. Shortly after the Department of Defense took a substantial P.R. hit once the details behind this travesty became widely known, Secretary Ash Carter announced he was suspending this program. Lawmakers have formally hammered out a compromise agreement that allows the Pentagon to forgive bonuses and benefits that were improperly awarded....

Approximately ten years after the Department of Defense offered hefty bonuses to provide an incentive for soldiers to re-enlist, the Pentagon is now demanding the recipients pay it back. The Los Angeles Times reported that only soldiers in certain jobs--intelligence, civil affairs and some noncommissioned officer posts--were entitled to receive bonuses. Investigators discovered rampart fraud and mismanagement by California National Guard officials who were gaming the system to meet enlistment targets. California Nation Guard’s incentive manager, retired Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, plead guilty to filing false claims of 15.2 million on behalf of her fellow California National Guard members. From...

For the last three years, retired California National Guard Master Sgt. Bill McLain’s wife, Terese, has repaid a bit of his enlistment bonuses to the Pentagon with a caustic note. Each month, she writes “blood money” on the $100 check — the token amount the McLains pay on the $30,000 debt they deny owing — that she sends to the Pentagon. “Shame on you. Extortion,” she writes on the envelope. The Pentagon cashes each check. Facing a groundswell of public outrage, the Pentagon scrambled this week to temporarily suspend its demands for thousands of California Guard soldiers to repay enlistment...

Link only: http://www.fox25boston.com/news/mass-national-guard-state-police-raid-81-year-old-womans-home-to-seize-pot-plant/454037484

Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. After a tense standoff, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the court order.

An Army National Guard brigadier general assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a major general in charge of a Kansas-based infantry division have been recently relieved of their duties, according to a report in USA Today and an Army statement released Friday. Brig. Gen. Michael Bobeck is accused of having an extramarital affair — a violation of military law if proven true — and is being investigated, according to the USA Today report. Bobeck has been reassigned from his post on the Joint Chiefs pending the results of the investigation. The report also indicated that Bobeck had a...

Before citizen-soldiers of the 48th Infantry Brigade deployed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Georgia National Guard troops spent months training away from their families and day jobs as they prepared for war. Now a shrinking Army wants them able to get ready for combat sooner. The brigade’s 4,200 soldiers are the first of 13 National Guard and Army Reserve units nationwide chosen to test a new role that pairs them with commanders on active-duty who will oversee their training. The Pentagon hopes the change will make the Guard and Reserve troops better prepared to fight overseas at a...

Donald Trump will be in Baltimore Monday to speak to a conference of National Guard officers at the Convention Center, The Baltimore Sun reports. Although Maryland currently has a Republican governor, who has said he does not plan to vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton in the November election, it is traditionally a blue state. And an OpinionWorks poll released earlier this week shows that Clinton has a strong lead. Trump has campaigned in Maryland before during this election. That was all the way back in April, when he had not yet won the Republican nomination, although he was a...

After a night of rioting, things were calm Sunday morning but Gov. Scott Walker is not taking any chances. He has called out the National Guard. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Gov. Scott Walker activated the National Guard on Sunday to assist the Milwaukee Police Department upon request in the aftermath of violence in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood after a fatal police shooting.Walker said he activated the guard after a request from Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. and conferring with Mayor Tom Barrett and Ma. Gen. Donald Dunbar. Saturday night chaos erupted after dark in response to an officer involved shooting...

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<p>MILWAUKEE (AP) — Wisconsin’s governor put the National Guard on standby Sunday in case of another outbreak of violence in Milwaukee, after a deadly police shooting touched off a night of arson and rock-throwing in a mostly black neighborhood.</p> <p>At least four businesses were burned and an officer was hurt by a thrown brick in the unrest that erupted on the city’s north side Saturday night a few hours after the killing of a black man who authorities say was armed and fleeing a traffic stop.</p>

Story to follow! ABC News Twitter feed........ ABC News Politics ‏@ABCPolitics 8m8 minutes ago NEW: Gov. @ScottWalker activates Wisconsin National Guard to assist Milwaukee police upon request:

As a sense of calm returned to Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood Sunday morning after a night of rioting and gunfire, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. called for the National Guard to respond to the area. “We cannot allow for a repeat of what happened last night. I am going to utilize all available resources to accomplish that," said Clarke, whose department patrols county parks, in a news release. He also said he would be involved in "ongoing discussions" with city officials about the situation. Clarke said he had consulted with Gov. Scott Walker and Major Gen. Donald Dunbar....

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has requested the mobilization of the National Guard in the wake of violence that erupted in the City of Milwaukee late Saturday, August 13th and early Sunday, August 14th. Clarke made the request after consulting with Gov. Scott Walker and Major Gen. Donald Dunbar of the Wisconsin National Guard. Clarke said the following in a statement as part of a news release: “We cannot allow for a repeat of what happened (Saturday) night. I am going to utilize all available resources to accomplish that.”

An Iraq war veteran claims she was fired by Trump University because she needed two days a month off in order to serve in the Army Reserve. Corrine Sommers, who worked for Trump University for five months, sued Trump University after she was dismissed in October 2007. She reached a confidential settlement in that case. But she later alleged that she was fired because of her military service in a November 2012 deposition she gave in a federal class action suit that accused the school of fraud. That deposition was unsealed this week. Sommers alleged that a supervisor at the...

Both will be speaking at 7:00 pm EST Lawrenceville, New Jersey National Guard Armory Doors Open at 5:00 pm

Here we go… The US Army now has its first female infantry recruit, a police officer in Louisiana. According to Fox News: Tammy Barnett said she figures her new job will be a lot like her old one. With one notable exception: She’ll be the first female to do it. The 25-year-old Louisiana police officer is set to report to basic training as the Army’s first female infantry recruit, The Army Times reported. Barnett will serve in one of the military occupational specialties opened to women on April 1. She made her initial visit to recruiters in November, took her...

A division of the Department of Veterans Affairs tasked with fixing up the VA's broken veteran suicide hotline has dropped roughly 1.4 million phone calls from veterans since fiscal year 2015, a VA whistleblower told the Washington Examiner. That high number of abandoned calls is raising questions about whether the VA is doing all it can to fix up the suicide hotline, which has been criticized as the latest part of the VA that is failing veterans. Scott Davis, a whistleblower and program specialist at the VA's Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta, noted that the VA's Health Resource Center is...