FINAL TALLY FOR OUR LATEST BORDER OP!

Conducting border operations as a volunteer is more than just putting on cool, kick ass equipment, grabbing a rifle and going out into the desert looking for trouble.  You need to be able to take what you learn while on the border and pass it along to people in your communities to help spread the word about what is really going on at the border.  Best way to do that is to talk to locals and Border Patrol Agents which is the best human intelligence (HUMINT) there is.  This particular operation we had a journalist from a popular magazine with us for the first half of the operation.  Our goal was to show him the gaps in security coverage in areas of the border.  We believe we were successful in this mission judging from some of the comments he made to us.  Two gaps that we proved were the easy way to sneak by the SBINet (Boeing made) towers that are in the desert.  Even with powerful night vision and thermal cameras on them, they are rendered useless when you walk in a wash or gully and have plenty of tree top coverage which those cameras cannot penetrate.  The second gap in security is the fact that BP does shift changes at the same times EVERY DAY!!  Well guess who knows exactly when this is?  The bad guys!!!  During shift changes we went out to show the reporter that there is a good 3 to 4 hour coverage gap in certain areas of the border.  This is ridiculous in my eyes.  BP should be altering their shift changes every day or every week of every year.  So I think we proved to the reporter that border security is not all that the pea brained Janet Napolitano says it is.  When we conduct operations, we try to have new individuals come and participate also.  We train them while we conduct operations so they get good hardcore on the job training.  There were a few first timers out this time.  Some completely new to the border watch game and some who while not new to it, were new to the terrain we work.  This terrain is the closest you will get to the mountains of Afghanistan that there is.  Some military units have even come down to train there before being deployed to Afghanistan.  So all in all it was a great week full of dedicated Americans who spend their own time and money to watch out for this country.  I couldn't be prouder of these dedicated souls.  Here are the tallies for the week.

1 illegal rescued who had maybe 24 hours to live. He was lost in the desert for 3 days in plus 100 temps.
2 drug cartel spotters captured on their way to their OP.
A total of 89 illegals apprehended in 4 separate groups that we had detected.

Latest word from a source that has friends on both sides of the border is that we definitely pissed off some bad guys in Mexico. Too bad!  Will post pics and vids soon. 

How The Battle Is Fought Here

The mission the other night was clear.  Keep a main smuggler trail under surveillance for drug or human smuggling trafficking.  Getting to the operations area was hard.  You needed to go up and over three steep hills at an incline of about thirty-five degrees.  Not easy if you are not used to it.  Especially not easy when you are carrying a vest and a pack.  Luckily a storm came in and knocked the heat down about twenty degrees or so.  Bad side of that is lightning and slick slopes to worry about.  Well we made it too the op area in one piece, after having to dodge a few rattlesnakes and cattle to get there.  However, our luck turned shitty before we even got there as our scanner picked up mexican radio traffic which could only mean one thing, we were spotted by cartel lookouts.  Oh well, on with the mission as our pickup was not for another fifteen hours.  We set up a team on either side of the trail on elevated ground and waited.  I used my FLIR PS32 thermal camera to be able to spot traffic and tell if it was a drug load or human smuggling load coming through.  We were dumped on by different storms coming through but no traffic.  As daybreak, we formed up and headed out to check the spotter location.  We hiked it to the base of the hill the shack was on that the cartels use.  Packs were dropped and the team headed up to check out the shack.  I stayed with the packs as rear security.  After about five minutes I spot two individuals coming out of a wash in a valley below me.  They immediately start climbing the trail to get to their OP.  I radio our team already up there to set up and wait.  At this point I am on my belly as our gear was dropped in a semi open area and did not want to spook the spotters.  As they walked up the trail, they took a break for about twenty minutes under a mesquite tree which obscured my view of them but not of one of our team.  Once they got rolling again, we got ready to spring the trap.  After a few minutes, the call came across the radio that the trap was sprung and the cartel spotters surrendered.  We radioed our base and they called Border Patrol.  BP asked us to bring the spotters out to meet them.  All and all it was a good mission and everybody came out of it safe.  More to follow.

Cartel Spotters Busted!!!

Yeah, we nailed a couple of cartel spotters trying to make it to their lookout position. Too tired to write about it now though since we pulled an all nighter and just got back now. Will post later.

Mexican Military Helicopter Crosses Into U.S.

While out checking a specific trail today we came across a single I.A. who had been lost in the desert for 3 days.  Unfortunately, this happened during Border Patrol shift change so we knew we would have to sit on him for a few hours.  We left him with the vehicle security members and continued on with the mission.  While patrolling the designated trail, we happened to hear, but not see, a helicopter.  We assumed it was U.S. law enforcement as we had seen one of ours earlier.  However, because our trail was low into the canyon, we could not see it.  After locating our mission objective, we headed back to the vehicles and loaded up to find Border Patrol.  About forty-five minutes later we had 3 B.P. vehicles coming our way.  We turned over the I.A. to them and they asked if we had seen the mexican helicopter that invaded U.S. airspace.  We told them that we heard it but had not seen it.  Apparently they were out looking for it when they rolled up on us. Tally for the day is one lucky I.A. turned over to B.P.  He was no more than a day or two from being toast! Tonight we pull an all nighter!

Performing Escort Duty For The Press!

 Since today is Day 1 of our op, we are still waiting for team members to roll into town.  So it was a good time to bring the reporter from Rolling Stone magazine to a known hotspot in the mountains.  Nailer was the guide while I provided security.  And it was a hot one today, over one hundred degrees.  I even felt like I was coming down with heat exhaustion so I had to hold in place and cool my body down so as not to become a heat casualty.  It happens fast out here.  Shown to the reporter was Sinaloa Cartel and arabic graffiti at the border near some known cartel spotter locations.  Also pointed out was the lack of a BP presence in this area during their shift change which the cartel have intimate knowledge of.  Another problem with border security in this area is the fact that even though there are towers posted with multiple cameras (thermal, night vision), there are plenty of gullies and washes that one can walk through with little chance of being spotted by these towers.  Between shifts there can be hours of a lack of a physical presence in this area.  As good as BP operates, they can not be everywhere at once.  Even if these towers detect traffic,  it would take hours for BP to drive in and pick up the trail.  And if no BP help is in the area to assist, this traffic might never be found.  Remember, BP readily admits that for every one illegal caught, three get away.  We believe the actual number is more like four or five.  After a couple hours on the mountain, and the reporter happy with the trek, we returned to base to rest and get ready for tonight.  More later!

New Border Operation in the Planning Stages!

Sorry for my absence these last couple of months. There has been a great reason for it though. My electrical contracting business has been really busy almost to the point that I can't control it. But now it's time for another border operation to do the job the feds refuse to do! We are in the planning stages for our next border operation this month. Stay tuned!