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Abbott Gonna Build a Texas Wall. No Details on Cost or Location

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https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/27/greg-abbott-texas-national-guard-migrants/

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Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday ramped up his latest efforts to stem the increase of migrants coming into Texas, ordering the National Guard to assist law enforcement in arresting migrants at the border who break state laws.

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“To respond to this disaster and secure the rule of law at our Southern border, more manpower is needed — in addition to the troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and soldiers from the Texas National Guard I have already deployed there — and DPS needs help in arresting those who are violating state law,” Abbott said in a letter to Major Gen. Tracy R. Norris of the Texas Military Department. “I hereby order that the Texas National Guard assist DPS in enforcing Texas law by arresting lawbreakers at the border.”

The NG soldiers I know that are probably going to get roped into this are not thrilled.

None of them would be dumb enough to say it publicly, but a couple flat out said privately that everybody in the NG knows this is all political to help Abbott win next year, and that a lot of soldiers are pissed.

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High Plains Drifter

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anybody here old enough to remember this from about 25 years ago?

 

http://www.ndsn.org/july97/goats.html

 

On May 20, eighteen-year-old high school student Esequiel Hernandez Jr. was shot and killed near his house by the leader of a U.S. Marine Corps patrol on an anti-drug operation near the U.S.-Mexico border in Redford, Texas. Hernandez was tending goats about a mile from his home when the shooting occurred. The incident is the first time that military forces on anti-drug duty have shot and killed a U.S. citizen. After the incident, border patrol activities by the military were suspended

Military officials claim Hernandez inexplicably fired his antique .22-caliber rifle twice at four Marines, and was preparing to shoot a third time when he was fatally shot in the side with an M-16 combat rifle. The soldier named in the shooting is Cpl. Clemente Banuelos. The Marine patrol was on loan to the Border Patrol from Camp Pendleton (CA), and was participating in operations under Joint Task Force-6, which runs military anti-narcotics efforts on the Border. By law, military personnel involved in domestic law enforcement are not allowed to search, seize, arrest or confront a suspect. Military involvement is strictly limited to activities such as surveillance and intelligence (10 USCA Sec. 375). Soldiers are allowed to return fire in self-defense.

Neighbors said Hernandez used his rifle to ward off coyotes, and for target practice, and suggest that is what the teenager thought he was doing if he fired any shots. "Personally, I don't think this kid ever saw them, by the indication my Rangers are telling me," said Captain Barry Caver, spokesman for the Texas Rangers, the state law enforcement agency that is investigating the killing. The Marines were heavily camouflaged, and were trained to conceal themselves so as not to be detected. The shooting appears to have taken place from a distance of 375 to 600 feet

 

 

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atomheartbevo

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Some details. Rather than donations, taxpayers are going to pay for it.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/13/texas-border-wall-greg-abbott/

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Texas to spend $25 million on 2-mile concrete barrier amid Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for a state-funded border wall

The barrier in Eagle Pass is the first glimpse into how much a state-funded border wall could cost. But Abbott’s office says it’s a “concrete barrier” that is separate from his border wall push.

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The fence, construction of which Abbott has touted online, cost the state $280,000. The contract also paid for clearing of vegetation around the area where the barrier will be built.

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The remainder of the $25 million estimate will go into a concrete barrier along the same right of way that will be able to remain permanently or be relocated if needed, said Ryan LaFontaine, a spokesperson for the transportation department. The work is scheduled to be completed in December.

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The money for the wall is being taken from the transportation department’s maintenance division budget. LaFontaine said the department anticipates reimbursement but had no information on where that reimbursement would come from.

 

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Long game...invariably, when the immigrants make into Texas anyway...they'll be frustrated by our poorly maintained state roads system, they'll turn around and return home.  

 

Damn you Abbot, you brilliant sumbitch! 

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Guest Lobo

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13 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

uhhhh, I'm in the development field, I have worked with plenty. I just don't work with any whose ambitions aren't grounded in reality.

Does this mean there won't be a Chili's or Golden Corral every 5 linear miles at the wall so we have somewhere to nosh while touring the progress?  

 

I keep picturing Robert Stack at the end of "Airplane!" up in the tower. 

"Governor Abbott, should we tell the people where exactly we'll build the wall and how we're gonna pay for it?"
"No...that's just what they'll be expecting." 

But I remembered who lives here, they're expecting exactly what they're getting.  140 miles of token wall, built to shit specs, in places nobody crosses anywhere anyways, that'll wash out in a flood, built with Chinese materials, Mexican workers, and a grift by Harlan Crow.  I think some of you Trumpers actually want to be fucked over.  You like being screwed with.  It's part of the thing for you.  NTTAWWT

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Longhorn_Fan68

Longhorn_Fan68 34079

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25 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I think some of you Trumpers actually want to be fucked over.  You like being screwed with.  It's part of the thing for you.  NTTAWWT

Actually there is a shitload wrong with that. If it only affected them, fine, be a masochist. but it affects way more people than just themselves

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2 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

Actually there is a shitload wrong with that. If it only affected them, fine, be a masochist. but it affects way more people than just themselves

I guess my fetishes also effect other people.  I feel so bad for people that have stayed in a hotel room immediately after my wife and I checkout.  

If you have a super deluxe premium rewards status with Hyatt.  Maybe just switch brands at this point.  

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Longhorn_Fan68

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1 minute ago, Lobo said:

I guess my fetishes also effect other people.  I feel so bad for people that have stayed in a hotel room immediately after my wife and I checkout.  

If you have a super deluxe premium rewards status with Hyatt.  Maybe just switch brands at this point.  

did you get the "Trump Special" with Russian hookers and piss too?

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2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Wtf. For a wall?  Really?  

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The Texas House approved nearly $2 billion in additional funding for border security operations, giving Gov. Greg Abbott more state dollars to implement his plans to build a border wall and incarcerate migrants for state criminal offenses in an effort to deter migrants from coming to the state.

Lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a funding bill by a vote of 85-36 that would triple what the state allocated for border security during the last biennium. The bill now moves to the Senate. The $1.88 billion appropriated by House Bill 9 is in addition to the $1.05 billion lawmakers approved for border security this spring.

Nobody wants to lose a primary to a MAGA type.

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100 miles actually.  Which will take until the end of another Abbott administration to build.  So yes, in the grand scheme of things---a largely worthless gesture that won't accomplish much in the way of actual border integrity.  

Also, when you announce precise funding parameters, obtained easements/eminent domain acquisitions, and promised construction schedules to appease your idiotic base.  What do you think legit human traffickers/drug runners do with that information while you bid out the project to your moronic friends in the business?  Hang back and give you a head start?  There are smarter ways to cut off human and drug trafficking.  It can even save lives.  

Maybe you can't feel how stupid you're being.  

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6 hours ago, Lobo said:

There are smarter ways to cut off human .... trafficking.

Moot point. The state/feds will never seriously go after the agricultural and construction industries that are benefitting from the illegals coming over the border.

They may around up a few hundred illegals at Tyson chicken farms every few years, but they are easily replaced.

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atomheartbevo

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Donny boy, on the off chance you, a UT grad reads a website devoted to UT sports, let me clue you in on a few things:

  • We have 1,950 mils of border with Mexico
  • Huffines has not explained where the billions and billions of dollars will come from for the border wall.
  • We have 19,000 soldiers in the National Guard.  
  • That's 10 per mile of the border. The vast majority of NG troops are not meant to camp on the fucking border and play border patrol - they are supporting active-duty units, they are doing National Guard shit like maintaining their equipment, training, qualifying, etc.
  • Those soldiers didn't sign up to spend their summers and winters and everything else in-between hanging out on the border.  
  • The state has to reimburse the federal government for certain things involving the National Guard when they call up the NG (unless it's a federal emergency or whatever).  The state can't even afford to build the wall, but he thinks he can deploy the NG whenever he feels like it.
  • The state has to pay those NG troops for every day they are down there.  That will run into millions every month, tens of millions every year, not counting fuel and food and wear-and-tear on vehicles and housing along the border.
  • The feds can fuck around with his usage of the NG if they aren't happy and/or can show that it's degrading those NG units in a manner that affects national security.

Those soldiers will go off and fight if called up, but if they have to spend months down on the border every year to score political points for a fucking Mogwai so he can appease a bunch of MAGA types, and it fucks with their jobs, their schooling, their families, etc. so they won't re-enlist.  So that weakens the Texas National Guard and our national security.

But let's say you could get 1,000 National Guard soldiers down on the border for say a month every year.  12,000 soldiers (the other 7,000 are busy doing NG shit that has to be done, supporting active units, deploying, training, qualifying, etc.) and let's say that didn't drive them away from re-enlisting (although I have a feeling it will keep many from enlisting in the first place), and let's say you could get state funding to pay for them and to reimburse the feds for the insured NG expenses.

So every month there are 1,000 NG soldiers on the border.  For a fucking border that runs 1,950 miles.  

But wait, there's more.  Those soldiers have to sleep!

And where are they going to sleep?  You going to make them camp out in their little shelter tens for a month every year along the fucking border?  They'll love that, especially in the summer and winter.

So at any one time, there's most like 300-500 soldiers who are awake on a border that runs 1,950.  So we'll say there is a soldier who is awake and alert for every approximately 4 miles.

But you sure as fuck aren't going to deploy them individually - they'll be in teams of two or more, so you are looking at areas where there are no soldiers for 8 miles or more.

Oh, and if they apprehend somebody, they have to come off the border, do all of the processing, etc. which can tie them up for hours and leave many more miles of border with nobody around.

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You fucking Mogwai.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/us/del-rio-texas-border-crisis/index.html

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With 8,600 migrants remaining under the Del Rio International Bridge, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday officials are using "unprecedented" methods to deter migrants from crossing into the state, including parking Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles for miles along the border to create a "steel barrier."

Animated GIF

Also, why do I think that the rumors about the border being open are being spread by far-righters.

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This is the right thread.

30 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Using vehicles for miles along the border to create a "steel barrier"?  Really?  

Uh, what if the Haitians learn how to roll under cars or worse...step over them using the space created by two bumpers touching.  

 

7 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Haitians be like...

Best Hood Slide GIFs | Gfycat

 

 

 

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atomheartbevo

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So how is the border stuff going?  Maybe the Surly lawyers can chime in, but this doesn't seem to bode well.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/travis-county/travis-county-judge-rules-mans-arrest-as-part-of-operation-lone-star-was-unconstitutional/

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A Travis County judge ruled Thursday that a man’s arrest at the nation’s southern border last year as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star was in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

A hearing was held Thursday regarding a writ filed by Jesus Alberto Guzman Curipoma. 

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According to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, Curipoma was arrested on the border on Sept. 17, 2021 under Operation Lone Star, which launched last March to address smuggling at the Texas-Mexico border. 

Travis County District Judge Soifer ruled in favor of Curipoma at the end of the hearing, the DA’s Office said, and granted him dismissal of his charges for criminal trespass.

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“After careful consideration, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office agreed that Mr. Guzman-Curipoma’s prosecution for criminal trespass as part of Operation Lone Star violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and represents an impermissible attempt to intrude on federal immigration policy,” said Travis County District Attorney José Garza in a statement. “In addition, DA’s office concluded that based on the evidence, there were multiple ways in which the OLS program has failed to satisfy basic, fundamental, and procedural state and federal constitutional safeguards.”

Just last month, the governor’s office announced another $38 million in funding for Operation Lone Star, which went toward special equipment, travel costs and additional overtime and pay for personnel. 

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Also last month, questions were raised about the mission after a string of deaths among Texas National Guardsmen who were deployed to the border for Operation Lone Star. The Army Times reported on Dec. 23 four guardsmen died by suicide since the end of October. The Texas Military Department confirmed those four deaths but did not confirm if they were suicides.

 

 

 

 

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I am not a practicing attorney, but what is the play here with not admitting that they were in fact death-by-suicide?  Is this some sorta civil litigation coverage?  

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https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/02/01/haste-and-planning-failures-doomed-operation-lone-stars-troops-to-suffer/

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In October, amid a historic surge of Texas National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, one soldier’s leader told him “not to worry” about getting sent there. He could sit this one out.

The part-time senior noncommissioned officer said he still feared an unanticipated call-up — he owns a small business and he has a son with a disability.

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Usually, long-term Guard deployments come from the federal government, with nearly a year’s notice — the NCO had several months to settle his affairs before two previous deployments. But Operation Lone Star is different.

Faced with a humanitarian crisis along the Rio Grande, pressured by conservative rivals and chided by right-wing cable pundits, Gov. Greg Abbott decided last fall to move thousands of troops to the border as quickly as possible. And the Texas Military Department, which oversees the state’s National and State Guard branches, did all it could to comply — with haste.

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Never before has Texas — or any other state — involuntarily activated so many troops under state active duty authority for such a long-term mission. Nor has it been done so quickly.

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A few days after being told he’d likely sit the deployment out, the NCO was ordered to report within 72 hours, he said. If he didn’t, his commanders told him, the state would issue an arrest warrant.

“I had to cancel $60,000 worth of business contracts,” the NCO, who requested anonymity because he feared retaliation from Guard leaders, said in a text to Army Times and The Texas Tribune. His employees all quit.

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After “three weeks of sitting on my ass with zero task or purpose,” he was sent home. But it may be too late to save his business. He says he still hasn’t found a new project and had to sell his company’s van to pay his mortgage, car payments and business loans.

“I didn’t want to get out of bed for a week,” the soldier said. “I was unemployed … and [I] felt exactly as if [the Texas Military Department] put me there because of their … lack of planning and leadership.”

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His story is just one of many hardships service members say have resulted from Abbott’s unprecedented border security push, called Operation Lone Star.

During a two-month period beginning in September, Operation Lone Star ballooned from a lean 1,000-volunteer outfit to a mandatory mobilization of up to 10,000 members of the Texas Military Department. According to a senior Guard leader’s leaked comments during a virtual town hall for unit leaders, they’re expecting the current wave of troops to be there for a year, and they’re preparing for yet another wave of deployments.

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Interviews with 33 verified current and five former Texas National Guard troops and documents obtained by Army Times and The Texas Tribune show that these problems were predictable — some of them also happened during the Guard’s 2017 response to Hurricane Harvey.

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But Abbott’s haste in rolling out the deployment made similar problems inevitable. The active and former soldiers say that Abbott’s order left Guard officials scrambling to execute a mobilization that would have normally taken several months to adequately plan.

“If we had known from day one that the goal was [10,000 troops], we could’ve planned,” said one soldier directly familiar with the operation’s mobilization process. “We pride ourselves on … the number of [federal] deployments Texas supports. But this? This is not something to be proud of.”

Quote

A National Guard general from another state added, “There’s no conceivable way that could have gone smoothly. There’s no way.”

The general, like the other currently serving troops who spoke with Army Times and the Tribune, requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media about Operation Lone Star. Most said they feared retaliation.

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The former top enlisted soldier in the Texas Army National Guard, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Featherston, blamed the state’s top general for the failures and accused the state of “hoping they would go away.” Featherston went on retirement leave in mid-August, before the border mission’s rapid expansion, and officially retired on Nov. 30.

“Based on the lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey, [Maj. Gen. Tracy] Norris should have known better than to think that standing up thousands of troops on this timeline would go smoothly,” said Featherston, who was the noncommissioned officer-in-charge of operations during the Harvey mobilization.

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The National Guard is primarily staffed by part-time troops who have civilian jobs, lives and families. Sometimes they’re called to full-time duty by the federal government. Those deployments are often yearlong missions, but Guardsmen are alerted months ahead of time so they can get their affairs in order — and troops alerted less than 120 days prior to deployment usually can’t be forced to go.

The Guard can also be deployed by governors for what’s known as state active duty. Typically those are short stints to respond to natural disasters or civil disturbances.

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Operation Lone Star is a distortion of what state active duty is designed to do, according to the Guard general from another state, who is in charge of nearly 10,000 people.

“A lot of [Operation Lone Star’s problem] is just the nature of the fact that you’re doing [it] on state active duty,” the general said.

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Like a federal call-up, the mission is expected to last at least a year, but many troops received only days’ notice, and they face a high bar to get a hardship exemption to avoid deploying. For example, service members said, Border Patrol agents, police and other first responders who serve in the Guard are typically exempt from state missions, but only Border Patrol agents are automatically exempt from Lone Star.

Before Operation Lone Star, the most significant state active-duty mission in Texas history was during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when Abbott mobilized more than 17,400 Guard troops for less than a month before some went home and others transitioned to a federally funded mission.

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In early October, Abbott ordered the Texas Military Department to activate 2,500 more Guard members and send them to the border. By the end of November, the number sent to the border would reach at least 6,500, with thousands more supporting the mission from elsewhere.

Holton, the state public affairs officer, said this deployment timeline was “inaccurate,” but she declined to elaborate. Army Times and the Tribune reconstructed the activation’s timeline through more than 40 pages of official documents and spreadsheets obtained from verified sources.

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The activation’s speed became a preoccupation of Texas Guard officials, the soldier directly familiar with the mobilization process explained.

“The ‘whys’ were never addressed,” the soldier said. “It was just a constantly increasing weekly [mobilization quota] requirement.”

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As the state scrambled to source troops for the surge, it began to involuntarily activate thousands of service members for a mission with no clear end date. The state has also threatened to issue arrest warrants for troops who do not show up. Army Times and the Tribune obtained filled-out warrants and charge sheets for four soldiers, but Holton said no troops had been arrested.

Of the more than 20 involuntarily activated troops who spoke with Army Times and the Tribune, none reported having more than two weeks’ notice of their deployment. Some reported having as little as two days to drop their civilian lives as police officers, college students, small-business owners and cyber security professionals; make arrangements for child care; notify their employers; and say goodbye to friends and family.

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In the Brownsville area, some of the state’s most elite troops — its Air National Guard cyber operations forces — are “sitting at a watch point for hours on end with their thumbs up their ass doing nothing,” a member of the cyber unit said.

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Many Guard members told Army Times and the Tribune that doubts about their mission’s effectiveness have compounded their dissatisfaction with its hardships, and some of them are beginning to plan their departure from the service.

Retention is typically a lagging indicator of service member frustrations. Many troops are bound by service obligations that keep them from simply quitting. But that hasn’t stopped some from heading to the exit.

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For example, many of the cyber airmen deployed near Brownsville — whose civilian paychecks can more than quadruple their base military pay — are either quitting after their contracts’ end or requesting other assignments away from the Texas Guard, the unit member said.

“[They] signed up for cyber warfare,” the unit member said. “If [they] wanted to do border patrol, [they] would’ve applied with Border Patrol.”

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They make up one of the Air Guard’s cyber protection teams, a recent U.S. Cyber Command and National Guard Bureau initiative meant to protect against cyber threats in their home regions. In Texas, their missions include a 2019 response to a ransomware attack that incapacitated 22 Texas counties.

The departures harm the region’s ability to respond to cyber threats, the unit member said.

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“If asked to mobilize our unit as a [Cyber Protection Team] today, we couldn’t do it,” he said. “Too many have left already.”

The hard-to-replace cyber troops aren’t the only ones leaving.

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Another Texas Air National Guard unit on the border, the 432nd Air Expeditionary Group, reported looming retention problems after a recent survey. Out of 73 respondents who reported their contracts would expire before the end of their Operation Lone Star deployment, 45 said they were “not likely” to reenlist or extend their contracts. That’s a sharp contrast with the Air National Guard’s national rates: The service retained 92% of airmen with expiring contracts during the year ending on Sept. 31, 2021.

Army Times and the Tribune also obtained retention data for the Texas Army National Guard, TMD’s largest branch — and a branch that usually has higher attrition rates than the Air National Guard.

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The Army National Guard received a goal of 505 reenlistments between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31. It secured only 327 reenlistments, or roughly 65% of the target set by the National Guard Bureau, a national headquarters that coordinates resources among states but doesn’t run operations.

During the same period in 2020, the state convinced 368 soldiers to re-up against a target of 484 — a 76% rate. During the first three months of 2021 it did even better, exceeding its target with a 105% rate.

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Soldiers’ decisions to leave or stay in the Guard are personal and complex, but falling retention numbers amid Operation Lone Star’s massive, involuntary troop surge could signal a troubling trend, members said.

A senior full-time NCO assigned to the border said none of his company’s troops plan to reenlist — and nothing short of a fundamental shift in leadership will convince them to stay.

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“They’re soldiers, and they have to soldier right now,” he said. “But if they extend, they don’t want life to be this way. None of them joined active duty — they join the Guard [part time], and they understand they can deploy, but goddamn, man, we’re deployed all the time.

“They’re not staying, because what’s gonna happen next?” the NCO added. “They want their life back.”

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It's a very long article and the whole article is worth a read - it's some solid research by the Army Times and Texas Tribune, with FOIA requests.

I've said it in other threads - I know for a fact it's impacting retention heavily - Abbott is willing to fuck up the NG/ANG long-term so that he can win this year.  He does not give a shit about the long-term retention as long as he can pull some numbers out of his ass and do photo ops with the soldiers on the border in the next year or two.

And it was creepy reading the article and them having interviewed various people who are afraid of retaliation if their views on the deployments come to light - the people I know who have been impacted have also mentioned a fear of speaking out on social media about some of the stupid shit they are seeing and have been dealing with.

And I know some folks are going to jump in and say "well they signed up for it", and the answer is right there in the article:  They didn't sign up to play Border Patrol and help Abbott get re-elected.  Abbott gave out orders that went against the norm/traditions/etc.  The federal government doesn't do this shit, but Greg Abbott didn't give two fucks what his orders actually meant, that he was fucking up a lot of lives, that soldiers were reduced to eating fucking peanut butter sandwiches and shitting in the bushes, etc. because he had to have his photo ops and be able to say that he was doing something so that his base would continue to support him.

But if you want to believe this is what they signed up for or that they have no right to complain, by all means, believe that.

But come back to this thread in a year or two when the reenlistment numbers are down as contracts expire and be prepared to tell us why so many are bailing.

Abbott was free to try and get the legislature to hire more DPS, etc. in a more formalized law enforcement role, but the National Guard/Air National Guard was just way too tempting, way too easy.

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High Plains Drifter

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54 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

It's a very long article and the whole article is worth a read - it's some solid research by the Army Times and Texas Tribune, with FOIA requests.

I've said it in other threads - I know for a fact it's impacting retention heavily - Abbott is willing to fuck up the NG/ANG long-term so that he can win this year.  He does not give a shit about the long-term retention as long as he can pull some numbers out of his ass and do photo ops with the soldiers on the border in the next year or two.

And it was creepy reading the article and them having interviewed various people who are afraid of retaliation if their views on the deployments come to light - the people I know who have been impacted have also mentioned a fear of speaking out on social media about some of the stupid shit they are seeing and have been dealing with.

And I know some folks are going to jump in and say "well they signed up for it", and the answer is right there in the article:  They didn't sign up to play Border Patrol and help Abbott get re-elected.  Abbott gave out orders that went against the norm/traditions/etc.  The federal government doesn't do this shit, but Greg Abbott didn't give two fucks what his orders actually meant, that he was fucking up a lot of lives, that soldiers were reduced to eating fucking peanut butter sandwiches and shitting in the bushes, etc. because he had to have his photo ops and be able to say that he was doing something so that his base would continue to support him.

But if you want to believe this is what they signed up for or that they have no right to complain, by all means, believe that.

But come back to this thread in a year or two when the reenlistment numbers are down as contracts expire and be prepared to tell us why so many are bailing.

Abbott was free to try and get the legislature to hire more DPS, etc. in a more formalized law enforcement role, but the National Guard/Air National Guard was just way too tempting, way too easy.

 

 

If gambling weren't a sin, I would bet a lot of money that 90+% of those soldiers vote for Abbot next election. Because muh guns!

 

 

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Bullneck

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On 7/28/2021 at 10:14 PM, High Plains Drifter said:

 

anybody here old enough to remember this from about 25 years ago?

 

http://www.ndsn.org/july97/goats.html

Military officials claim Hernandez inexplicably fired his antique .22-caliber rifle twice at four Marines, and was preparing to shoot a third time when he was fatally shot in the side with an M-16 combat rifle. The Marines were heavily camouflaged, and were trained to conceal themselves so as not to be detected. The shooting appears to have taken place from a distance of 375 to 600 feet

Quote

"The previous qualification was at 200, 300, and 500 yards."

^^^ So basically shot by snipers.  

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