The Novelty of Placing our Active Duty Military on our Actual Border.

A novel idea of border security is to place our active duty military on our actual border. Last I checked, the purpose of a national military force is for defense of the homeland, which specifically includes the defense of those borders. I've been told by a great many people on both the "left" and "right" sides of the aisle that somehow this is just not doable. Either the border is too long or it's an unnecessary move or it's too costly, or some other such excuses. My rebuttals:

-There are a great many highly secure borders in the world. Israel's borders are highly secure even though they're attacked fairly regularly. They have placed their military on their border and erected barriers, and are actively guarding them with both manpower and the best tech they can get their hands on. South Korea has a border that millions would love to cross, but few have dared to try and fewer still have made it. They guard it with their military and with OUR military as well. Don't tell me we have no men who know how to guard a border. We have plenty. Hungary and Poland have borders that thousands of North African and Middle Eastern migrants are attempting (and failing) to cross daily, and if they ever make it at some point, it will have more to do with communist infiltration in their respective political systems than it will with military incapability. They are currently holding those lines well as long as they maintain the support of the people who make the rules. India and Pakistan have a fairly secure border, guarded with barriers and enthusiastic soldiers.

-The US military is currently deploying hundreds of thousands of our young men and women to secure hundreds (if not thousands) of embassies, compounds, bases, forts, FOBs, outposts and camps throughout the world. What would be the square mileage of those areas we currently secure around the globe? I believe that by bringing some of those troops back here and placing them along our 2,000 mile border with Mexico, and putting them there on a combat footing rather than a paper pushing "advise and assist" role, our border crossing could be cut drastically. We are currently rotating the US Army brigades and divisions through combat deployments to Afghanistan (18 years later still). What if we rotated them through combat deployments on our border instead? Same guys, same weapons, same equipment, slightly different mission. We have to keep the cartels off of our border.

-Deploying Army divisions to the border would be much cheaper than deploying them across the globe. Southern Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California aren't going to cost nearly as much as Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, Japan or any of the other dozens of spots our troops are securing right now. And they'll never have to ask "what are we doing here again?"

-The cartels and smugglers on the southern border have become a major threat to US national security (or have been for years). They are at least as sophisticated as any terrorist group overseas, just as motivated and are probably more aggressive and creative with their methods. Additionally, they're already here. Already starting conflicts inside our borders. Already killing US citizens. Infiltrating our neighborhoods. They have supply and sale contacts in your town, right now, if not actual armed soldiers. Some of our law enforcement know exactly who they are and where they are. Some of them openly wear their colors and tattoos. They're unafraid for a reason. If we aren't defending our border, then we aren't defending the interior.

I suspect that the lack of border security has more to do with a lack of willpower on the part of our national leadership than it does lack of ability on the part of our military. Unfortunately I believe that even our high level military leadership may lack the will to make these proposals. Fighting Afghan insurgents must be preferable to fighting drug cartels south of the border.

I tell people to "stay out of Sarajevo" as a way of telling them to avoid the trouble spots. But what happens when the trouble spots come to you? Ammo, buy it cheap and stack it deep. You'll need it. Try Ammo.com. Look to Brownell's for replacement gun parts. If our leadership isn't going to use our military to defend our actual national border, then it will come down to you to protect your border, wherever that may be. Be prepared to do so.