Investigation reveals disaster that unfolded after GOP governors and DOD sent troops to the borderhttps://t.co/op1gmFhEsC
— Raw Story (@RawStory) December 8, 2021
On the evening of Sept. 10, a soldier deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border slid a manifesto under each door in his brigade headquarters and then slipped away.
The frustrated Army National Guardsman assigned to the 110th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade headquarters had seen enough.
Three soldiers had died in three months, the most recent in an alleged DUI just five days earlier, and more than a dozen troops from the mission had been arrested or confined for drugs, sexual assault and manslaughter.
“Someone please wave the white flag and send us all home,” the letter pleaded. “I would like to jump off a bridge headfirst into a pile of rocks after seeing the good ol’ boy system and fucked up leadership I have witnessed here.”
The unit never found the author.
Not well at all:
This is the story of a task force that left soldiers at isolated observation posts for hours on end without the night vision goggles they needed. They stared into the darkness and fell asleep on the job while awaiting shipments of equipment for months, and only assisted in less than one in every five apprehensions. Legal restrictions on the use of Guardsmen left them with little more than watching as a mission. Army Times interviewed seven Guard troops involved in the mission and obtained hundreds of pages of documents and audio tapes, including official incident reports and planning documents.
Among Army Times’ findings:
When troops weren’t on duty, most were at hotels in remote locations. Alcohol and drug abuse became so widespread that senior leaders issued breathalyzers and instituted alcohol restrictions that tightened as the misconduct incidents piled up.
Leaders initiated more than 1,200 legal actions, including nonjudicial punishments, property loss investigations, Army Regulation 15-6 investigations and more. That’s nearly one legal action for every three soldiers. At least 16 soldiers from the mission were arrested or confined for charges including drugs, sexual assault and manslaughter. During the same time period, only three soldiers in Kuwait, a comparable deployment locale with more soldiers, were arraigned for court-martial.
Troops at the border had more than three times as many car accidents over the past year — at least 500 incidents totaling roughly $630,000 in damages — than the 147 “illegal substance seizures” they reported assisting.
One cavalry troop from Louisiana was temporarily disbanded due to misconduct and command climate issues — an extremely rare occurrence.
A 1,000-soldier battalion-level task force based in McAllen, Texas, had three soldiers die during the border deployment. For comparison, only three Army Guard troops died on overseas deployments in 2021, out of tens of thousands.
Perhaps nowhere were the issues more evident than in McAllen, where nearly two battalions’ worth of troops lived, led by a single understrength battalion command team that required additional help and manpower.
“We are literally the biggest threat to ourselves down here,” said one staff officer who served on the mission.
You might even call it FUBAR:
For several months after the Guard troops took over in October 2020, the night-shift troops didn’t even have night vision, documents reveal. This was despite units identifying the capability as a shortfall months before deploying, according to multiple sources. One officer said his unit “didn’t receive the NVGs until April,” nearly 10 months after requesting them in July 2020.
“[My soldiers] turned the lights on the vehicle, and stare[d] into the darkness around them,” vented the officer.
“Soldiers [were] just manning these observation posts for up to 12 hours a day, in some instances six days a week, just staring out into the desert,” said another officer. “And at night … they just stare out into the void.”
Another officer directly familiar with the equipment fielding process said the initial request for states to send the equipment was “categorically denied because those are [state] equipment and this is a federal mission.”
The underequipped soldiers repeatedly fell asleep on duty — unable to see anything and unable to do anything more than pick up a radio even when they saw something.
This included a March incident when a Fox News crew found two troops asleep in a CBP truck while six migrants were patiently waiting for arrest nearby. Many who cross the border wait for authorities to find them so they can begin the asylum request process.
Or just inhumane:
Many of the Guard troops live in hotels in remote areas along the border, with few opportunities for recreation. They’re not allowed to have personal vehicles, and they’re not permitted to have unauthorized guests in their hotels, according to policy documents reviewed by Army Times.
For months, TF Phoenix was docking per diem money from soldiers who took leave or a pass outside of the border region and returned to their homes, according to multiple sources. The practice continued until the U.S. Army North inspector general found it was against regulations, said two sources with knowledge of the complaint.
“Per diem ranges from [$54 to $71] a day,” explained one staff officer. “So, if a [soldier] wanted to take some time off, [they] essentially had to pay up to $284 for a four-day pass to do so.”
The conditions may have contributed to mental health issues for some soldiers. TF Phoenix reported at least 34 cases of “suicidal ideation” during its year at the border.
In one case, a Puerto Rico National Guard soldier slipped away from her unit, caught a flight home and sought inpatient psychiatric care.
The isolation and the disincentives for taking time off also helped foster an alcohol and substance abuse crisis among some units, several sources said. One officer argued that the soldiers were flush with cash and ripe for trouble — many had no expenses and few productive outlets for their money.
You should read the whole article. Bottom line: this is America. We use people and dispose of them like kleenex:
One officer, though, said he wants to see the mission end, though he won’t get his hopes up.
“It’s much easier to fund 3,500 troops to go do fuck-all in the desert than it is to pass [immigration reform].”
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