NEAR RADAR HILL, N.M. – Three men scurry around mesquite bushes in the open desert near the United States’ border with Mexico at about 10:45 on a mid-June night.
The New Mexico desert just north of the border is virtually uninhabited, and the night is pitch black. The temperature is nearly 100 degrees.
The men may not see very far or very much, but someone is watching their every move.
Using night vision equipment, a National Guard Soldier in the comfort of an air-conditioned, armored skybox tracks the men’s journey.
The Soldier, a member of the New Mexico National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 200th Infantry, is working Operation Jump Start, acting as the eyes and ears for Border Patrol agents. Up to 6,000 National Guard troops are scheduled to be serving on the southern border in four states by Aug. 1.
The Soldier calls the Border Patrol, which dispatches two agents in trucks to the scene as the Guard member gives directions and keeps the men in sight.
Are they undocumented aliens? Drug smugglers? Gang members?
Meanwhile, some 200 feet up in the sky, Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Lowe is flying a National Guard UH-58 helicopter. He hovers about one minute’s flying time away, probably unheard by the aliens because he uses his years of experience to minimize the whump-whump-whump of the blades.
Lowe is on a different mission from the one executed by the Soldier in that earthbound skybox, explains his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Mark Williams.
“Our primary mission is to assist Border Patrol with drug trafficking,” Williams says.
The National Guard has been assisting federal, state and local law enforcement agencies on the border for years. Troops involved in a variety of missions have graded roads, built fences, erected powerful lights and cameras and conducted operations to help stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. Those missions continue even as Operation Jump Start kicks into high gear.
“We provide the helicopters that [civilian law enforcement agencies] may not have,” Lowe says. “We cover the nights for them.”
Tonight, Lowe is flying that counterdrug mission. But since he’s only a minute away, and since no one knows what the suspicious men are up to, he responds when he hears the radio traffic.
“We can’t tell from the air whether they’re drug traffickers or undocumented aliens,” Williams says. “You never know what they’re carrying or what their purpose is.”
Lowe heads for Radar Hill while Williams watches a screen that displays images acquired by a night vision device attached to the underbelly of the helicopter.
The pair is able to fly because of the night vision goggles mounted on their helmets – goggles that turn the night from dense blackness punctuated by stars into an eerie, green-tinted landscape on which they can see every bush and on which people show up like glowing ghosts.
First, the National Guard counterdrug crew watches the Border Patrol agents get out of their vehicles and search the desert with flashlight beams that sweep left to right and back again.
Williams sees something on the screen, something white in the bushes. The Army National Guard aviators turn on a 30-million candlepower beam – called a Nightsun – mounted beneath the chopper as they direct the agents to the material.
Trash. A false alarm. The beam is turned off. The agents continue searching. Williams scrutinizes his screen. He spots three vaguely human forms lying on the ground. Williams is sure this time, and he again helps the agents find a path through the desert scrub.
“Turn left,” he radios to the ground. “Stop. … Turn. … 180 degrees back.”
The light comes on again, and the three freeze on the ground, their spot now turned to daylight.
The Border Patrol agents apprehend them.
As quickly as he arrived on scene, Lowe banks the helicopter away, returning to his counterdrug mission.
While Lowe’s primary concern is drugs, a gallon jug of water sits in the back of the chopper.“That’s not for us,” he says. “That’s for undocumented aliens.” Lowe has seen the dead in the desert, and he’s about saving lives, whether by impounding drugs or staving off dehydration. “Sometimes we’re flagged down because they’re desperate,” he says.
In those situations, the crew shows the water jug to the undocumented aliens from the air, drops it a safe distance away, then resumes hovering, guiding in Border Patrol agents for the apprehension.
On this night, the crew helps the Border Patrol apprehend men who could be carrying drugs or are simply seeking better paying jobs in the U.S. than they could get back home. By watching from the sky, the crew has helped ensure the safety of the Border Patrol agents.
That earthbound National Guard Soldier on Operation Jump Start duty first saw the men and reported them to the Border Patrol. Agents set out to apprehend. The National Guard counterdrug pilots who own the night sky swung into action to assist the Border Patrol. The agents got the undocumented aliens – or drug smugglers. Three more people avoided a possible death in the desert. Or perhaps the night’s work resulted in less cocaine or marijuana on U.S. streets.
That’s exactly the way officials say the National Guard’s assistance to the Border Patrol is supposed to work: Soldiers and Airmen being the eyes and ears for agents who are better able to apprehend people who violate America’s southern border.
“The Border Patrol is good at what they do,” Williams said, “and we’re always glad to assist.”