The U S has assigned troops in the past to help with disaster relief, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and as soon as the relief effort was completed, the troops redeployed to other areas of service.
There have been rotating units with Homeland Security since 2002, but never before have there been dedicated units expressly tied to NorthCom.
http://www.army.mil/-news/2008/09/15/124...The response force will be assigned on Oct. 1 to U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., and placed under the operational control of U.S. Army North, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.This week, Col. Lou Vogler, U.S. Army North's chief of future operations, and Marine Corps Lt. Col. James Shores, director of plans and policy for Joint Task Force Civil Support, participated in a round table interview with online journalists to discuss the force, including its unique mission and training."U.S. Army North is the Army component of U.S. Northern Command," said Vogler, "and we're charged with coordinating the federal military response in the land domain for domestic operations or disasters, to include CBRNE."Vogler said that the response force is a scalable, dedicated force that is prepared to reinforce state and local responders when they request federal assistance. The force's alignment under U.S. NORTHCOM shortens the line of command to increase readiness and responsiveness.
I'm not going into all the black flag, fema camp stuff here. I urge you to look into it, and report what you can verify.
The October deployment of combat hardened veterans will be just in time for the November mid-term elections.
UPDATE - 22 months ago
This is from the US ARMY TIMES web site in 2008
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ar..."Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future," said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. "Now, the plan is to assign a force every year."
"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control..."