By Timothy Sandoval
Sacramento Bee
AUBURN, Calif. — Traditionally, there has been a friendly rivalry between different branches of the military.
But it was more like cooperative teamwork when more than 50 veterans from the Army, Navy, National Guard and Marines learned together how to prevent and extinguish wildfires at the California Conservation Corps’ Placer Center in Auburn, a Sacramento suburb. “It’s a good program because not only do you get to spend more time with veterans, you also get to spend more time with different types of veterans,” said Jacob Delaney, 21, who served in the Iraq War. “All around you start to realize the different jobs and the different branches that everyone comes from, and their experiences will help you in the long run.”
The program is a partnership between the CCC and the U.S. Forest Service. After the training, the veterans will return to their counties and clear brush and other fire hazards in forest areas near population centers for the summer. Many of the participants hope to get an apprenticeship with the Forest Service to train as wildland firefighters.
The Forest Service spends $2 million on the veterans program, and another $680,000 comes from the state.
Returning service members have been struggling during the economic slowdown, with their unemployment rates exceeding those of civilian workers.
For the training, four crews of veterans came from San Bernardino, San Diego, Placer County and South Lake Tahoe, and have been living in tents on the training area’s lawn.
“It’s more than I expected,” said Jason Howerton, 23, who served in the Army as a medic for four years. “It’s very similar to the military in a lot of ways, as far as the way it is broken down and the way that discipline is instilled.”
Veterans ran up a hill and yelled instructions to each other while they fled an imaginary fire in a safety drill. When they got to a “safe area,” the veterans needed to pull a tarp “shelter” over themselves, which in an actual wildfire would be made of aluminum foil and silicon that would reflect radiant heat.
Copyright 2012 Sacramento Bee