Guardsman makes a run for Mexican border duty
By Harry Levins
POST-DISPATCH SENIOR WRITER
10/14/2006

Like so many 22-year-olds, Ben Amundson of Fenton has a touch of wanderlust. When he heard about an all-expenses-paid trip to Arizona, he signed up.

Well, he volunteered.

Amundson soldiers for the Missouri National Guard. For two weeks last month, he helped to keep watch on the U.S.-Mexican border. Although Amundson professes little interest in politics beyond voting and keeping up with the political news, he made himself a small part of a giant political issue - illegal immigration.

This spring, many American voters began charging that the border with Mexico loomed wide open. To counter the rising criticism, Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush ordered National Guard soldiers to help the U.S. Border Patrol.
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And when word came down the chain of command in mid-summer that the Missouri Guard wanted volunteers for border duty, Amundson jumped at the chance.

"I did it a lot for the experience," says Amundson. "Part of the reason I joined the Guard was to do different things and see different places."

Since January, Amundson has seen little but the inside of the Guard Recruiting Station at 4280 Telegraph Road in south St. Louis County. That's where he works full-time as a recruiter's assistant. So the chance to journey to the southwestern corner of Arizona appealed to him.

Even after he got there.

The first stop was a few days of refresher training at Camp Crowder, in southwestern Missouri. Then it was off to Fort Huachuca, Ariz., for a few more days of training. After that, Amundson was deemed fit for desert duty.

Amundson's duty day began at 4 a.m., when he would roll out of bed in a motel in Yuma. Then he'd head off to duty in the desert, part of a four-soldier "entry identification team." The team's mission was to hunker down in the desert, maybe half a mile from the border, and watch for anything suspicious.

His "day" would end in the middle of the next morning, when he'd get back to the motel. The working conditions included a daytime high temperature of 110, dipping down to 70 at night. "The daytime high makes 70 seem cold," he says.

Although Amundson and the three other team members toted rifles, their key tool was the radio that linked them to the Border Patrol. "We weren't law and order," he says. "We were only there to observe, and to let the Border Patrol know what we saw."

In truth, Amundson saw little that looked suspicious - "Just a couple of cars that pulled over for five or 10 minutes at a time along the highway on the Mexican side."

In his off-duty hours, did Amundson sample the delights of Yuma? "A little," he says. "But after a long, long shift in the desert heat, there wasn't a lot of energy left in us."

In sum, Amundson's adventure in Arizona added up to long and uneventful work shifts under less-than-comfortable conditions. So would he go back?

"I would go back," he says. "I enjoyed myself. It was a good experience - something I've never done before."

Hlevins@post-dispatch.com / 314-340-8144
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