This Will Go Well

Imagine being so uncaring, ambitious, and selfish that you’d pull people away from their day jobs and their families so that you could add one line about border issues to your announcement speech. https://t.co/9WuxWF3Pa7

— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) June 1, 2023

Or: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it:

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. 

Virginia's National Guard will have nothing to do, and a lot of time in which to do it.  Nobody will notice, and Youngkin will get his headlines.

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].”

Posturing is what really matters.