Minuteman Project: Week 4

If anyone has any question as to the intention of the illegal Mexican invasion, this photo says it all:



(Translation: "Your City. Your Team.")

So, that's why I go to the border. One interesting conversation I had with someone this last weekend involved discussing the difference between "Mexican" and "Hispanic." Mexico is a country. A Mexican is any citizen of that country, regardless of their race. "Mexican" is NOT a race. Technically neither is "Hispanic," it is an ethnic group. But for the purposes of this post we can consider it a race. After all, discriminating against an ethnic group is just as much "racism" as discriminating against a race.

I have a problem with not only Mexicans but citizens of any other country living in my country without permission. I do NOT have a problem with Hispanics living in my country, as long as they are either Americans or they are here legally. The Mexicans (i.e. citizens of Mexico) living here illegally are slowly but surely replacing the American population in the southwest, literally taking over the country. And to top it off, if a Mexican gives birth in America, the new little Mexican baby is both technically and legally an American (even though he/she will most likely grow up loyal to Mexico), so the Mexican family is legally allowed to stay in the country!

Soon there will be more Mexicans (i.e. citizens of Mexico OR, in my opinion, their children) than there are Americans (i.e. citizens of America, regardless of race). The Mexicans will outnumber us, and be able to out vote us in our own country. This IS an invasion.

On Friday I went to the airport to pick up Rosanna. Her father was Mexican. He immigrated to the U.S. legally, and taught Rosanna English. Rosanna's father is an American, and I was proud to see his daughter, Rosanna, as part of the Minuteman Project. Rosanna could only be at the Minuteman Project for a couple days, but she flew down from Illinois to be a part of it. In my opinion, it is people like her who help this project speak to the nation with such a loud voice. Even though she could not stay the full month, she took the time and spent the money to add to the voice. The illegal immigration problem is most unfair to people like Rosanna's father, who took the time and effort to come to the U.S. legally, and who swore allegiance to America. They cheat the system, they cheat our country, and they cheat people like him most of all.

Rosanna was thrilled to be there! She worked mostly in the comm center so she could stay out of the sun (good idea, I have been burned every weekend). She was nice enough to let me take her photo by the Culpeper Minuteman flag at MMP headquarters:



I slept behind the Trading Post again for the night. This weekend I was going to work day shifts on the Naco line at the actual border. Here is a photo of the border. It's hard to see it, it is an imaginary line about 10 feet in front of the camera. The imaginary fence is about three feet closer, but it's even harder to see.



Here is one of the border markers. Those holes look like bullet holes, but I can't be sure. I was told that this particular post was infested with Africanized bees.



I parked my car and raised my Arizona flag:



Now nothing feels more 'Murican than sittin' in the back of a Jeep, your state's flag overhead, a Beretta 92 on your hip (the o-fishal sidearm of the U.S. military), guardin' the border of your country while smokin' fine tabakee grown in the state of Vir-jinnee. Even if I did buy the tabakee at Walgreens...



Most of the day I spent with an OTM, Other-Than-Minuteman. (Ok, that was a LAME joke you'd only get if you spent time on the border.) He was a "concerned citizen" from San Diego. He stayed for a while but when he realized that the media was blowing the blood and guts out of proportion, he got bored and left back to California.

Not too long after he left, a new Minuteman volunteer from California showed up to help me at my post. This is Sam, his mother was a legal immigrant from Italy. Half of his family is also of Mexican descent. Sam was a great guy to work with, I hope we can keep in touch!



Now since the Minuteman Project started, only one group has tried to penetrate the Naco line. It is believed that it was actually to test us, to see how we would react. Go figure, there was no bloodshed, and fully-automatic assault weapons were not unleashed to prey on the innocent illegals. They were simply reported and Border Patrol picked them up within two minutes, just like everyone in the Minuteman Project said would happen. But that was before I got there. Needless to say, with so little activity in the past, I was not expecting to see much.

In reality there was more to look at than at the other locations I had been posted. While no one tried to cross the entire weekend, there was quite a bit of activity on the other side of the fence.

One of the first things I saw in the morning was a Humvee with about ten soldiers in the back. It parked out of sight behind a hill, just on the other side of a railroad. Shortly after it vanished behind the hill, I started to see soldiers roaming the area:





They did not seem to be watching us. I never saw them looking through binoculars or even really watching our direction. They were however placed in locations where soon-to-be-illegals might pass by in order to get to the border. My guess is that they were there to try to warn the soon-to-be-illegals to cross elsewhere. I consider that aiding and abetting.

I also saw a lot of Groupo-Beta, a Mexican government group who are officially there to make sure that Mexican citizens are not dying of hunger or thirst out in the desert.

They had quads:



And trucks:



It is rumored that Groupo-Beta is not only warning the soon-to-be-illegals to cross elsewhere, but also driving them to better locations. I also consider that aiding and abetting, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

This suspicious truck wandered back and forth along the border for a while. It looked like they were looking for a place to cross, but could not find one with all the Minutemen everywhere.



Groupo-Beta talked to them for a bit, then they drove off. Suspicious again, but they stayed on their side of the border so I was happy. I was told later that it was very likely that they were simply picking up trash from the area. It's possible...



Every once in a while a train would drive by. What happens is soon-to-be-illegals will ride the train to this point and jump off. The train was always going slow, but I still don't know how thrilled I'd be about jumping off of a moving train. We never saw anyone jump off, but shortly after a train went by at one point there was a person out in the field between the train and the border. He never tried to cross the border.



Here is something interesting. Groupo-Beta decided to spray paint something under the train track. It said "!PUENTE EL DUNDY!" I think. Might have been DUNCY. Or something else... Puente is "Bridge." I have no clue why they did that. If you have any thoughts leave a comment...



Things were exciting on our side of the fence as well. Nearly every Border Patrol truck that drove by waved or gave us "thumbs up."



Now this is a job I could get used to. Riding quads, playing with night vision goggles at night, and wearing a gun at work. They get PAID to do this!



Here is a Border Patrol truck watching the valley:



Law does not allow Border Patrol to build permanent watchtowers. This is one of their mobile units on a hill:



And if you really want the high ground, helicopters are the way to go:



That night I packed everything into my car, locked the doors, played Neverwinter Nights for a while, then went to sleep.



I slept right there on the border. Since there were other Minutemen very close by, and since the border itself has seen so little activity since we got there, I thought it was a good idea. What I failed to take into account was weather. About 1:00 I woke up from what I thought was someone shaking my car. The hail pounding the roof of the car let me know that no one in their right mind would be outside trying to break into my car. Unless they were trying to get out of the storm... Oh, the things that go through your mind when you are still half asleep. As I woke up I realized it was wind.

I flipped on the radio and heard the section chief warning all of us to stay in our cars and don't drive. Flash floods are common in the area. It was difficult, I half expected to see Auntie Em fly by. Or worse, end up in Oz myself...

Here is a shot looking through the window as lightning hits. It's nothing spectacular, the storm had died down quite a bit by that point:



By morning the storm had passed:



The wind kept the flags blowing all day though:



I had a two-ton steel "tent" to sleep in. I was surprised to see that this poor guy was even still "in Kansas":



As I got out of my car in the morning, I saw that someone else had arrived at our post. This is Mary. She is one cool lady. She even packs a pistol at 77 years old, and has more energy than I do! And I have to give her a lot of respect- she made sure to leave in time for Church, then quickly returned.



Mary watching as the train arrives:



After the cold and restless night our sector chief, Ed, was very kind and brought us some nice hot strong coffee.



He also brought by a local resident from Sierra Vista who in turn brought us some Dunkin Donuts. He asked not to be photographed so I photographed the donuts.



Then who else would show up but Rosanna! She was taking a break from the comm center to visit the border.



Rosanna helped me out. We were looking at something in the field that we thought MIGHT be a person sitting on a log. Here is Rosanna helping out:



...and here is what she was looking at (the image quality was a LITTLE better in the binoculars):



We decided that it was just a part of the log and not a person. Even if it was a log, as long as it stayed on that side of the border I was happy.

Not too long after Rosanna left we had someone from Flagstaff (I believe) show up, just to thank us for being there. He was absolutely thrilled to meet us and told us he planned on joining the project.



Shortly after he left, who would show up but the local residents whose land my brother and I were at the weekend before!



We continued to watch the area for a while, but all we saw was Groupo-Beta and soldiers. Sam got bored and decided to call Mom from the border with a satellite phone he had rented. He said that he paid for it, might as well pay a few more bucks and use it.



And of course there was the wildlife. This little guy looks a lot bigger in the photo than he did on the ground:



I almost had to call the Border Patrol on this one:



This bird was pretty big. He hovered directly over us for a bit but I was too slow getting my camera.



Every once in a while we'd feel like the wildlife. I swear- the sheer terror on the faces of these ACLU Illegal Observers as they drove by us rolling tape (or is that pot?) made us feel like animals in the zoo. Can I sue for that? Honestly, they looked like terrified children staring at the exhibits in the "Snake Pit" at the zoo.

One lady in this car gave us the "peace" sign as they drove by at about 2MPH. I resisted the urge to start crying- after all, all the death and carnage was finally starting to get to me.



On the way home from the border, I stopped by the Trading Post to drop off a blanket I had borrowed. While there I heard a rumor that some of the ACLU had finally dressed up as if they were illegals and ran our Huachuca line. They were reported by Minutemen and caught by Border Patrol. There was a brief mention that an ACLU member shoved a Minuteman. Interestingly it's the end of Wednesday now and I never heard anything more on the incident, so I am not sure any of it really happened at all, and I am pretty sure no one shoved anyone. That would have made international news when the ACLU is involved. Besides, by the time it got to me I am sure it was 5th or 6th hand information.

On my way past the Huachuca line I saw this group of people. There were both Minutemen and ACLU, and this is a bigger group than is normal. This is very possibly the location of whatever "incident" happened, if anything happened at all.



I will be going back to the project one more weekend for the conclusion of the project.

Rosanna posted her experiences here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1390888/posts

Sam posted some of the photos he took here:
http://www.yellow-roller.com/pic.html

Here is a satellite photo (Thanks for the link, Sam!) of the area we were at (click on "Satellite" at the top right, and the best zoom is third from the top). We were directly in the center of the screen:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=31.33416,-109.79516

Minuteman Project: Week 3

Finally getting a chance to post for this week.

I'll start off with a conversation that was overheard in Spanish on 2-way radio near the Huachauca Mountains outside of Sierra Vista, AZ:
"We've got to get down, to get our loads down!" [Meaning drug loads]
Reply: "We can't, man - those f***ers are everywhere!".

He he...

This time Mike and I were able to spend four days on the border, so I have quite a few photos. As we were stationed a few miles into Arizona, our weekend was very quiet. This is essentially because the border is completely secured by the Minutemen at the border itself.

Our first two nights were spent watching for people coming out of the Huachaucas again.

Our first night we were again posted at a wash just past a culvert. This one was more of a drainage pipe and the wash was quite deep.

Here is Mike NOT getting ready to sleep. After all, he slept the entire trip from Tucson to the border and he is wide awake and ready to watch the wash for illegals:



Here is Mike watching the wash for illegals:



I had the privilege of working the night with two very nice legal immigrants, both from Sweden I believe. This is a bad photo, both of them are in photos later on in the post. I am bad with names, I should have written them down.



Morning on the Arizona border:



Here is a photo of the wash we were watching. Before we left we took a walk down into the wash to see if there were any new footprints, which there were not.



Mike sure is tired after staying up all night watching the wash...



Here we are at noon. I was able to get about three hours of sleep, but Mike STILL has not slept a wink!



For a while the next day we sat at the same location where we saw the three illegal immigrants the week before. We were technically off duty, but I figured it would be good to park there anyhow. I was able to get in some time playing Neverwinter Nights on my laptop. Mike finally got some sleep.

That night the section leader met up with the new shift just across the wash from us. He stationed a new group there and moved us to a new location.



Once at our new location we met up with Chris Simcox who let us play with a thermal camera for a while. That was FREAKING COOL (for lack of a better term). We chatted for a while and moved into position above the new wash. We had a great view, even at night, only about 20 feet from the wash. Once in the car, I told Mike I was going to take a 30 minute nap since I had only had 3 hours the night before. It was tough, Mike had barely slept at all, but he still got a photo of me sleeping to get me back for all the photos I got of him watching the wash:



This is the wash we were watching:



After getting about 3 hours of sleep, we met up with Chris Simcox at an orientation for new members:



Chris told us that we would get to work a different section for the next two days near the San Pedro Riparian River. He warned us not to actually go onto that land since I had my Beretta (funny how the government feels it necessary to "protect" the river from me but allows the illegals all the access they want). During the orientation meeting we got buzzed by the Border Patrol UAV:



After the meeting our wives arrived for lunch at the Trading Post:



After lunch we waited for Chris Simcox to show us where our new post was. Then we waited some more. And waited... It's alright, we got to visit longer with the families.



Chris finally arrived, he had been at a meeting, so I decided to forgive him for not being there. Again. No really, he is a VERY busy guy. Frankly, I was ready to give up after four days, I don't know how he does it.

We followed Chris to the house of a local resident so they could show us around (I won't say names, several of the residents have hits on them because of their efforts to stop illegal immigration and the drug flow). We had a chance to talk to a few of the neighbors, and I can't express in words their frustration with this problem, or how much they appreciated the Minutemen being there. They told us that since we got there, they have finally been able to sleep through the night without their dogs barking at passing illegals all night long.

Below is a photo of me (red shirt) and a local resident (camo).



One thing that struck me was the fact that quite a few of the local residents were wearing camo, which they apparently wear all the time. They talked to us about their nightly patrol through the surrounding desert. What a way to live.

They led us to one of the illegal camps. I could post photo after photo after photo of all the trash, but I'll post one:



This went on and on and on. Clothing, bottles, used diapers and worse. Absolutely everywhere. I asked if it was left because they had to leave quickly when Border Patrol shows up, and the response was "No! They leave it because they don't need it any more."

As we walked back to the house to get our vehicle and begin our patrol, one of the neighbors stopped us and told us that we had just missed 18 illegals being loaded into a pickup vehicle across the street from where we were. He had called the Border Patrol, but there was little they could do now.

We kicked ourselves for a while, but then went to our car and drove out into the desert where we were going to observe for the night:



Because we were having trouble with one of the locks on my car, one of us stayed with the car while the other walked out a bit. We were sure to stay within visual range.



That whole night was uneventful. About 2AM the moon went down, and the Generation 1 night vision that the local let us borrow was useless. We decided to call it a night and get some much needed sleep. We drove back to the house and slept in the car hoping to get up again before morning, because that is when the illegals are on the move. Unfortunately our lack of sleep got the best of us and we over slept until 6. I drove back to the Trading Post and we got some more sleep.

About 9, I heard a lot of noise outside the car. I got out and Jim Gilchrist was there yelling to me to turn my radio on, do a channel check and follow the column of cars heading to the Naco Border Patrol Station for a rally. Well, at least I got about 6 hours that night...

At the rally:



The guy in the light blue shirt behind Jim is one of the immigrants from Sweden I worked with the first night.





Here is an interesting photo of the ACLU Legal Observers video taping me taking a photo of him. OK, it's not as good as the photo of one of them rolling pot. I like the Colorado flag in the background though...



After the rally we followed Jim Gilchrist to the border. Finally I got to see the actual border up close. One thing that I noticed is that there isn't a single sign ANYWHERE informing anyone that this is an international border. Not on our side, not on theirs.

Here is a panoramic shot of the border:



And this is Jim talking to one of the Minuteman aircraft on the radio:





When I walked to border the very first thing I saw was a hole. I didn't even have to look, there it was right in front of me. Jim was nice enough to let me get a photo with him at this hole:



Now I voted for Bush in 2004. I was not completely pleased with him, mostly because of the Patriot Act. I voted for him anyway, also largely because of the alternative. Then came this Real ID Act, which pushed me closer to the edge (see my other posts). But ever since he called me and the patriots I have been working with for the last few months "vigilantes," he lost my support. These people are true Americans, heroes, and he called them "vigilantes." I will never vote liberal, but there is more than one conservative party out there. I am not saying I won't vote Republican, they just have to earn my vote now. If that's what it takes...

I kept my bumper sticker on my car until I got to the border to let Bush know what I think about his comment (like he will ever read my blog):









As always, media follows Jim everywhere! The man in the blue shirt is the other immigrant from Sweden I worked with on the first night.



More ACLU on the border... it's ok, the Mexicans intending to cross can't tell them from us. Makes us look even bigger.



Driving back to the Trading Post, we drove past the rally at the Border Patrol Station.



Before night fell, we went back to the same place we were the night before. We walked through the camp again to see if there was any new trash (and therefore if anyone had been there). There didn't seem to be, but with that much it's difficult to tell.



One thing I did find this time through was a "terrorist mask." Apparently they are worn by the Mexican Army. I'll leave it to your imagination how it got several miles into Arizona.



Here is Mike. The fence behind him is the San Pedro Riparian River area. It's amazing that if I had placed only a foot across that fence while carrying a pistol and someone saw me do it, the federal government would have shown me just how much respect it has for the Second Amendment. No, I didn't test them- I am there to watch for illegal activity. Breaking the law would not help anything.



I was able to fiddle with the lock on my car and finally got it secure. Armed with REAL Generation 3 night vision, we were able to move around a bit away from our car.









Again the night was quiet. The "gun-toting vigilante militia" on the border were just too effective and no one was getting in. That's ok, I prefer it that way, and it gave my brother and I lots of time to chat about things.

Eventually the sun came up. Using nightshot on my camcorder early in the morning looks very similar to what I would see using the Generation 3 in starlight:




Before heading out, Mike and I walked back to the camp to see if anyone was there or if there was any new trash. Notice the path we are on in the photo. It is caused by illegals.



On the way back we found some flowers for the wifeys. We had to chuck them, they were full of bugs.



We slowly and quietly walked into the area, if we saw or heard anyone we would turn around immediately as to avoid contact. No one was there and there was no new trash as far as we could tell.

We left the camp and decided to check out another one across the street- the one that the 18 had apparently been at the night before. Again we walked in slowly, ready to turn back if we heard anything or saw anyone. It was empty too, except for all the trash. This one was larger and had even more trash:





Walking back to the car we finally saw another living being:



We drove back to the trading post and slept for a couple hours before returning to Tucson (contrary to my Week 1 posting, I don't like to drive while sleepy).