National Guard Iraq vets switch tools to battle California wildfires

A battle far from Iraq, but just as hot
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National Guard Iraq vets switch tools to battle California wildfires

Robert Rosbia and Mike Valdivia are among 400 deployed to help fight fires

They are working tirelessly to clear fire lines that will help firefighters

From Paul Vercammen
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Their weapon in Iraq was a rifle.


In California, it's a tool with a line of shark-like teeth.

National Guardsman Robert Rosbia takes a break from the sweaty, grimy job of slicing through thick foliage in the northern California woods.

"Here, we're protecting lives," the Iraq veteran said. "But this time I am doing it with this instead of a .50-caliber machine gun."

Rosbia and another Iraq veteran, Mike Valdivia, are among the first of 400 National Guard troops to be deployed on the ground in California in more than three decades. Their hours are spent hacking away at the brush to create fire lines -- areas cleared of vegetation -- so that firefighters can make a stand with water from the ground and help from the air.

Valdivia, a father of three from Seaside, California, said the two are prepared for working in oppressive heat.

"Your body starts kicking up a lot of heat under the collar," Valdivia said, tugging at his soaked undershirt. "In Iraq, we had temperatures of 117 degrees plus. Here, there's a lot of physical labor like Iraq."

A truck driver and married father of two, Rosbia said his wife is just happy he's deployed near his San Francisco Bay area home and not in Iraq.
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