Chuckwalla National Monument would protect approximately 660,000 acres of public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park. It would also preserve our military history. The proposed monument includes sites where U.S. soldiers lived and trained for battle in World War II, including Camp Young (to the south of Joshua Tree National Park) and Camp Coxcomb (to the east of the Park).

The U.S. Army picked the desert for these sites because they needed a training location that had similar conditions to the North African desert. More than 1 million service members were trained throughout what is known as the Desert Training Center (which included parts of the California Desert, Arizona and Southern Nevada).