DEL RIO, Texas – The National Guard has kept Cpl. Rhett Saunders employed since high school, and that is just fine with the young man from Texas.
Soon after returning from a year of force protection duty in Baghdad, Iraq, Saunders volunteered to join the duration force for Operation Jump Start along the Southwest border with Mexico.
“This is almost exclusively volunteers,” LTG H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said of the duration force during a July 14 Pentagon briefing.
“The Guard has kept me employed for two years,” Saunders said. “Why not another year? The Border Patrol needs help. Apparently we’re doing something good.”
He had no idea what he would be asked to do for his part of the National Guard’s support to Customs and Border Patrol. He did not know he would land on his feet, doing something he’s loved all his life, something that’s in his heart. He is taking care of horses.
He has been riding animals since he was 3 or 4 years old. He first rode a steer when he was 7. He was riding bulls when he was 12.
After he signed on for a year of Operation Jump Start duty, Saunders heard that the Border Patrol needed a couple of Guard members to support its horse patrol.
“I was excited. Very excited,” he said as he stroked a palomino named Termite at the Border Patrol’s stables at the Del Rio Station in mid-July.
“I make sure they’re fed. The stalls are clean. Keep them exercised. Make sure the tractors and trailers are ready to go.”
The Border Patrol uses horses to reach areas inaccessible by more modern vehicles.
Saunders, a member of the Texas Army Guard’s 111th Engineer Battalion, is an example of something observers say is unique to the Guard. He brings civilian skills to his military role. In his case, a lifetime of working with horses and other animals makes him a wrangler who the Border Patrol doesn’t have to train; an asset that frees up agents to spend more time on the border and less time in supporting roles.
Saunders is not alone. Texas Army Guard Sgt. Henry Wesley Jr. with Service Battery, 4th Battalion, 133rd Field Artillery Regiment, is a deputy sheriff in his civilian life.
So it made sense for Wesley to help Border Patrol agents in the command center that serves the Del Rio Station facility that processes apprehended illegal immigrants and drug runners.
In accordance with policy, Wesley has no contact with apprehended people. The National Guard is not playing a law enforcement role in Operation Jump Start.
At the command center, however, Wesley monitors holding areas through one-way glass, keeps an eye on video surveillance monitors, takes telephone calls and works on computers. Because he’s there, fewer agents have to be in the command center and more can be in the field.
Like many of the Guard members participating in Operation Jump Start, Wesley has an upbeat, positive attitude about the mission.
“You get to do some service for the country and help out the people of Del Rio and the Border Patrol,” he said.
Also at the Del Rio Station, Spc. Guillermo Hernandez, from Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 36th Infantry Division, watches television monitors connected to cameras along the border.
Hernandez served in Iraq as a member of the regular Army. He served during Hurricane Rita last year after he joined the National Guard. Now he’s serving for another year.
“It feels great to be home,” he said. “I’m being deployed, but to my home. It’s a totally different environment. We’re helping law enforcement. And they appreciate our help.”
Blum was asked about repeated deployments during his Pentagon briefing.
“Nobody is coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan or an overseas [deployment] and being forced to do this,” the Guard Bureau chief said. “There are some people down there that have just come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and want to do it. That's a different paradigm all together.”
Saunders and Hernandez are examples of what the chief of the National Guard Bureau was talking about – Soldiers and Airmen who live to serve.