Saving Arizona

By Jerry Seper and Matthew Cella

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.

"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," he said. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.

"This is going on here in Arizona," he said. "This is 70 to 80 miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States."

He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government's "continued failure to secure our international border," saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit.

In a recent campaign video posted to YouTube, Mrs. Brewer - standing in front of one of the BLM signs - attacked the administration over the signs, calling them "an outrage" and telling President Obama to "Do your job. Secure our borders."

BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they were put up this summer.

There's more if you're able to read it...

I've been to Casa Grande, or near it, back in 1968. I was learning to fly at
Williams AFB near Mesa, about 25 miles East of Phoenix. Before USAF would
let us touch any of their expensive jet trainers, we had to commute down to
an airfield near Casa Grande, about 50 miles Southeast of Phoenix, and prove
that we could fly the T-41, a Cessna 172.

Early in my aviation career I soloed an Austin-Healey Sprite off the side of
a winding road and landed gear-up in a gully. The Sprite was sold as scrap
to a guy who thought he could salvage the engine. I was shipped to a Navy
Orthopedic specialist in New York after the Air Force filled out all the proper
forms to ensure that I would never, ever fly again in any kind of aircrew job.
I'll tell all about that someday when I'm feeling sorry for myself, if ever.

I was in the hospital getting my head, neck and shoulder injuries tended to
in the Spring of 1968. That Navy hospital was crowded with casualties from
the Vietnam Tet Offensive. I saw an awful lot of young guys missing body
parts, essential parts that they had planned on using to make a living or to
get around or to have a life after the military and the war.

In Fall 1968 they had me as fixed up as they could, and decided to give me
a medical retirement. I turned the idea down and requested to be evaluated
for retention and retraining into the intelligence career field. I got past all the
boards and tests with a temporary waiver to do just that. Spent most of 1969
in intel school, and in late 1969 found myself in Vietnam. When it came time
for my temporary waiver to be re-evaluated, damn if the AF didn't forget to
schedule it, what with a war going on and all, and I forgot to remind them.

While I was over there doing intel stuff, two of my old roommates who had
been better drivers and became pilots, were shot down and killed. Life just
doesn't seem fair sometimes. Shortly after I came back home I volunteered
to go back and got an assignment in "HUMINT", Human Intelligence, running
spies. Had to take some classes at the Army Intel Center at Fort Huachuca,
Arizona. - That's way South of Tucson, about 15 miles from the border. Didn't
spend much time there though, found out when I arrived that the position I
was heading for had been "downsized".

So, back to where I came from and waited for the next assignment to pop out.
Intel was a high-demand field during the war and volunteers were rare. Next
assignment was a dream: flying intel guy on the Airborne Battlefield Command
Aircraft - a C-130 that was fitted with a "pod" in the back full of brass that ran
the air war in Southeast Asia. Excellent! Everything was going smoothly in my
processing until I reported to a base to go through their altitude chamber testing
and the technician noticed the form that the doctors back at Williams AFB had
neatly filed in my medical records, forbidding me from ever flying in any USAF
aircraft in any crew position, even as a freaking intel officer who has no chance
whatever of affecting safety of flight.

When I finally did get back to the war it was in Special Operations, which used
to be called "Air Commandos", and it was just as exciting and satisfying as it
sounds. Despite rumors to the contrary, we won that war, it wasn't even close.
I'll tell you all about THAT one of these days too.

Sorry for making you read all these words,
I just wanted to give some perspective on my
connections to Southern Arizona, and why I'm
totally pissed that obuma and the federal government
have ceded it to foreign invaders without a fight.