Virginia Guard Volunteers Heed Call to Scout Border

Soldiers and airmen receive first aid training in outdoor classrooms designed to help troops acclimate to the heat they will experience in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico. (Linda Davidson - Linda Davidson)

But not everyone is so sure. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said federal dollars would be better spent on technology and more agents. The deployment is a "political showpiece" with minimal potential impact, he said, noting that the Border Patrol said the Guard presence will free up at most about 500 agents for patrol duties and that some states are sending troops for just two weeks.

"There's only so much they can learn" in a short time, Bonner said.

For Virginia Guard members, the deployment is a good occasion to take part in a national mission, represent their state and get hot-weather training that could come in handy, Maj. Gen. General Robert B. Newman Jr., head of the state Guard, told reporters here. The Arizona desert, Newman said, "bears a whole lot of resemblance to Afghanistan and Iraq."

At the edge of a grassy field on the 45,000-acre base last week, soldiers and airmen from units across Virginia toted dummy rifles and gulped water. Among them were police officers and electricians, an Army band clarinetist and a father of six.

For many, political tussles over illegal immigration seemed far away and irrelevant. Staff Sgt. Darin Black, 41, a medic, chose to miss his first wedding anniversary to go to Arizona because he is "a professional soldier -- no matter what the mission." And Pvt. James Allport, 21, who hopes to serve in Iraq, is taking his camera to Arizona because "it does look nice down there, from all the pictures."

For others, the immigration issue played a part.

At one first-aid training station, 1st Sgt. Ward Moore watched as Pvt. Aram Christopher knelt over a soldier portraying a person in shock. A trainer barked questions: Should Christopher move the casualty's head to the side? What if the casualty has a neck injury?

Shock, Moore noted, is a condition not uncommon in migrants felled by heat and exhaustion. Training, he said, had included briefings on the border situation: the drugs smuggled across, the empty water bottles dotting the landscape, the so-called coyotes who promise clients a one-hour walk. And the bicycles abandoned by people who set out on quixotic rides only to be sidelined by rocky and scorching desolation.

"A lot of them have been sold a bill of goods," said Moore, standing with his arms akimbo. He recently bought a time share in Puerto Vallarta, he said, and saw muddy Mexican poverty around the corner from resorts where employees wash the trunks of palm trees. The border work, he said, is a "humanitarian-type mission."

Across the road, Roush watched Sgt. Timothy Bayless, 28, give a session on "operational awareness." Roush, a police officer, said thousands of troops along the border does not equal militarization -- it won't be "martial law or anything," he said -- but it will certainly help close the border. And that must be done, he said.

"We have a lot of drug trade that comes across there," Roush said. "We have people that aren't able to get jobs here. It's not necessarily supporting the economy."

In the shade by the first-aid station, Cpl. Rick Sommers had joined Moore. Sommers said he was border-bound for a host of reasons: He is concerned about terrorism and drugs coming into the United States and upset about illegal immigrants already in the country and the employers who hire them.

Sommers, a former firefighter from Appomattox, Va., said he has seen firsthand the use of public services by illegal immigrants -- who, he has heard, hurt the economy and use false Social Security numbers. The recent retiree had been thinking about joining the Minuteman civilian border patrol when the Guard called.

"If I did the things that they're doing, I'd be in jail," Sommers said of illegal immigrants. "Enough is enough."