Deployed In the U.S., And Idle
BASE CAMP DONNA, Texas — Sergeant 1st Class Daniel Micek, with the 89th Military Police Brigade, tore open the brown packaging of his meal ration one recent day.
It was a chicken and noodle dish, one of the more sought-after rations because it came with Skittles candy. But from the cot outside his platoon’s tent at the Army’s latest forward operating base, Sergeant Micek could almost see the orange and white roof of a fast-food hamburger joint 12 kilometers away but off limits under current Army rules. The desert tan flatbed trucks at the base are for hauling concertina wire, not food runs.
Such is life on the latest front where American soldiers are deployed. The midterm elections are over, along with President Donald J. Trump’s rafter-shaking rallies warning that an approaching migrant caravan of Central Americans amounts to a foreign “invasion” that warrants deploying up to 15,000 active- duty military troops to the border states of Texas, Arizona and California. But the 5,600 American troops who rushed to the brown, dry scrub along the southwest border are still going through the motions of an elaborate mission that appeared to be set into action by a commander in chief determined to get his supporters to the polls, and a Defense Department leadership unable to convince him of its perils.
Instead of celebrating the recent Veterans Day holiday with their families, soldiers with the 19th Engineer Battalion, fresh from Fort Knox, Kentucky, were webbing concertina wire on the banks of the Rio Grande. Nearby, troops from Joint Base Lewis- McChord in Washington State were making sure a sick tent was properly set up.
And 3,200 kilometers away, at the Defense Department, officials privately derided the deployment as an expensive waste of time and resources, and a morale killer.
Defense Department budget officials fret that if the number of troops sent to the border does reach 15,000, the price tag could hit $200 million.
The last time active- duty troops were sent to the border was in the 1980s, to help with counternarcotics missions. Since then, Mr. Trump’s predecessors have relied on the National Guard.
The Defense Department’s fiscal 2019 budget had carved out funds for fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, for the war in Afghanistan, and to prepare for a potential conflict with a foreign nation.
There has been no money set aside to combat the migrants bound for the American border. The troops are tasked with the same logistical, support and even clerical jobs that National Guard soldiers sent earlier this year are already doing.
The military’s morale issue is also worrisome. The deployment orders last until December 15, meaning the troops will be on the border over Thanksgiving. They will have little to do beyond providing logistical support, unless Mr. Trump declares martial law. The troops will not be enforcing immigration law — that would run afoul of a law that limits the use of the military for domestic purposes, unless a special exception is made.
“When you give a soldier a real mission, you have less of a morale problem, even if it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving,” said Representative Anthony G. Brown of Maryland, a former Army helicopter pilot who served in the Iraq war. “But when you send a soldier on a dubious mission, with no military value, over Thanksgiving, it doesn’t help morale at all.”
Wedged between a four-lane highway and the American-Mexican border wall, Base Camp Donna is reminiscent of those found in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s. Electricity is scarce. There is no mess hall, just the prepackaged meals. Military officers patrol the perimeter at night. The tents sleep 20 soldiers and have no electricity or air- conditioning.
The troops do not receive extra combat pay. Nor is there hostile fire pay, since the troops will not be interacting with the migrants.
At the base, some soldiers dug a trench outside their tents, to keep water from pooling around their cots.
Others shuffled to port- a- potties and foot- powered sinks as more troops unloaded their bags and marched off quietly.