Interesting pictures at the link too.
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http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=572812

Border detail offers welcome change
Guardsmen find same work, less danger than in Iraq
By MEG JONES
mjones@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 3, 2007
San Luis, Ariz. - The terrain is similar and the thermometer readings are almost identical: lots of sand, triple-digit temperatures in the summer and short sleeves in the winter.

The job is pretty much the same, too: grade roads, dig ditches, weld things together or cut them apart.

But hard hats have been traded for helmets, body armor is nowhere to be seen and the danger comes in the form of thrown rocks, not bullets, shrapnel or improvised explosive devices.

Sgt. 1st Class Dennis Brushaber, 42, of Medford spent almost a year in Iraq with the 724th Engineer Battalion in 2003 and 2004 building roads and base camps, conducting roadside-bomb missions and performing controlled detonations of explosives. He was in Arizona for a couple of weeks in January helping build stadium-style lighting along the Mexican border on the western tip of Arizona.

"It's nice to be in the States," said Brushaber, who works for a construction supply company in Wausau.

Brushaber was in Arizona for annual training last year and is back again. This time he doesn't have to explain the mission to his family and friends.

"You can tell people back home, 'Hey, I worked on that fence on the border.' So you know you built something that'll be here for a long time," Brushaber said as he watched a backhoe push sand onto PVC pipes containing wiring for the lights.

Wisconsin troops from three engineer battalions - the 229th, 724th and 829th - spent their two-week annual training in Arizona last month and January helping construct lighting, fences and steel barriers designed to stop vehicles speeding across the border from Mexico. The 200 or so visiting for a few weeks were in addition to Wisconsin National Guard members who are doing the same tasks but for as long as two years.

Because most Guard equipment is in Iraq or Afghanistan, the soldiers are using leased equipment to construct fences and walls, lighting systems and Normandy barriers.

Not far from where Brushaber and other engineers were working, another group of Wisconsin National Guard soldiers lifted 100-pound steel panels into place to lengthen the fence that stretches east from the border crossing at San Luis.

Soldiers standing on a sky crane welded pieces into place while others hopped between each side of the fence - jumping into Mexico and then climbing back into the United States every few minutes - to help lift the pieces. They were told not to stray too far into Mexican territory, no farther than the length of the steel panels they were handling.

Some people on the Mexican side were none too happy to see their work.

"We got banged on our first day," said Staff Sgt. Craig Twinde of Camp Douglas, who served in Kuwait with the 829th Engineer Battalion in 2003. "The guy next to me got hit. A couple (rocks) bounced off the crane.

"Better than bullets."

Barriers suited to terrain
The wall won't be one endless structure but rather a combination of 15-foot-high fencing and vehicle barriers. In places like San Luis, three fences are going up along with lighting.

Walls are being built or lengthened in areas where there is a lot of foot traffic into urban areas such as San Luis on the west end of Arizona, Nogales in central Arizona and Douglas on the east end.

In areas that are mostly wilderness - where illegal immigrants pay so-called coyotes to ferry them over the border packed into vehicles - 400-pound Normandy barriers are being built and installed. These barriers are similar to those the Allies encountered on D-Day and are sturdy enough to stop a speeding truck, or at least slow them down enough so agents can quickly respond.

The Arizona border is 389 miles long, and 370 of those miles will eventually have some type of barrier. The remainder is in the mountains.

"Fencing itself is not going to stop illegal immigration. Where we have most of our fencing is in urban areas where a successful entry can happen from seconds to minutes," said supervisory Border Patrol agent Gus Soto, adding that those who make a break for it in wilderness areas usually have a couple days of walking ahead of them, which gives Border Patrol agents more time to catch them.

Soto acknowledges that other fences and walls throughout history have not been successful, but he pointed out that the Great Wall of China was designed to slow down fast-moving armies, not keep them out. And he bristles at comparisons to the Berlin Wall.

"The Berlin Wall was made to keep people in. Our walls don't have concertina wire, they're not meant to hurt anyone. They're humane. They're meant to slow down illegal drug trade and illegal aliens. We're not here to hurt anyone. We're here to safeguard our borders," said Soto, who is based in Tucson.

Soldiers take precautions
To protect National Guard soldiers working on the border, armed U.S. Border Patrol agents are either with them or a radio call away. Each day before Wisconsin troops go out to work, they listen to a safety briefing.

Since Guard units began arriving for Operation Jump Start last summer, there has only been one incident. Four Guardsmen from Tennessee were confronted by armed men in January in Sasabe. The Guard members retreated from the border and called Border Patrol agents. No shots were fired, and the armed men disappeared into Mexico.

"We always do a threat assessment each day," said Lt. Col. Robert White, a 1983 Kenosha Tremper High School graduate who is in charge of Operation Diamondback, the engineering effort to secure the Arizona border. "If there's a spot that's bad, then we go somewhere else."

Before the National Guard arrived, U.S. Border Patrol agents were building fences, welding steel and driving heavy machinery instead of tracking down illegal immigrants and drug shipments.

"What the National Guard has done has freed us up for other duties to allow agents with badges and guns for border patrol," said U.S. Border Patrol agent Murel Addison in San Miguel, where Wisconsin soldiers were cutting up railroad rails and welding them into Normandy barriers.

"Every opportunity we get, we thank them for coming down here," Addison said.