Border Engineers

For many people on both sides of the CaliforniaMexico border, the most
obvious results of the Guard's ongoing commitment to supporting counterdrug
efforts are the fences and access roads that mark the international frontier.

Located just inside U.S. territory, the 5to14foothigh welded fences are
intended to stop or significantly delay both drugbearing vehicles and
individual smugglers attempting to dash northward across the border. The
roads, which spread out just behind the fences, improve the U.S. Border
Patrol's ability to monitor the border and apprehend suspected smugglers
before they can disappear into nearby towns and cities

The California Guard's engineer effort on the border began in 1989, when
the first troops began upgrading the network of roads used by the Border
Patrol. It was an immense and very important undertaking, for the poor
condition of the existing roads hampered the Border Patrol's ability to
locate, identify and stop the dozens of drugcarrying vehicles that
illegally crossed into the United States each day.

"It was like a frontier town from the 1880s when we first arrived," said a
warrant officer who has been with Team Engineer from the beginning. "The
bad guys did exactly what they wanted to do, because there was no line to
discriminate between the United States and Mexico. Things were wide open,
and the bad roads kept the Border Patrol agents from being where they
needed to be."

The Guard engineers began by making surface repairs and improving the
drainage on key roads in the area stretching inland from the Pacific Ocean.
Work was initially concentrated on the Otay Mesa area and around the San
Ysidro port of entry on Interstate Route 5.

The improvements were immediately successful: the Border Patrol's new
mobility on the border allowed agents to stop much larger numbers of
drugcarrying vehicles attempting to cross into the United States,
resulting in an almost immediate 1100 percent increase in cocaine seizures
on the border.

The success of that first smallscale engineer operation quickly led to the
formation of Task Force Engineer. Among its first missions was to plan and
build a primary eastwest patrol road along the border. The mission was
given to the Guard engineers, while active duty, Guard and Reserve troops
began construction of a fence along the border under the management of the
Defense Department's Texasbased Joint Task Force 6. JTF6 managed the
fence building operation until October 1996, when it was taken over by the
California Guard engineers.

As the fence crept slowly eastward from the Pacific Ocean, the Guard
engineer troops kept slightly ahead, improving or building roads as they
went. Since 1990 Team Engineer has helped construct, maintain or improve
some 600 miles of road along the border, in the process moving nearly 1
million linear cubic yards of earth while adhering to all applicable
environmental regulations and guidelines.

The border fence and access roads form a joint obstacle, according to Capt.
Wade Rowley, Team Engineer's commander.

"From the California Guard's point of view, the border fence exists solely
to deter smugglers attempting to carry illegal drugs into the United
States," Rowley said. "The tactical concept of the improved roads and fence
is to deny the smugglers the easy crossings they long had, which took place
in heavily populated areas crisscrossed by major highways. The fence ties
in with natural obstacles like rock outcroppings, and it and the improved
border access roads force the smugglers farther away from builtup areas.
That gives the Border Patrol more time to spot them and apprehend them.

"For example," Rowley added, "before the fence was put in, a vehicle or a
smuggler on foot could cross the border at San Ysidro and in about two and
a half minutes disappear in builtup areas, onto city streets or onto I5
North. The fence eliminates that easy access and pushes the smugglers
further and further east. They now must now try to cross in rugged and
asyet unfenced parts of far eastern San Diego county, which gives law
enforcement about an hour to 90 minutes to apprehend the vehicles and up to
eight hours to apprehend the people on foot."

As the fence and improved roads have moved eastward, so have the soldiers
involved in their construction. Once based near the ocean, Team Engineer
currently works out of Camp Morena in eastern San Diego County. The site
has a headquarters complex, barracks, dining facility, vehicle maintenance
sheds and helipad.

"Camp Morena supports our counterdrug operations," Rowley said, "as well as
all other counterdrug operations in the area. For example, we house and
feed JTF6 units undertaking counterdrug ops in this area., and we provide
facilities for the medevac helicopter that supports our activities out here.

"We have essentially three jobs right now," Rowley said. "Our headquarters
staff runs Camp Morena. We also have a platoon that is dedicated solely to
roadbuilding operations. And we have a platoon that's dedicated just to
fence building."

The roughly 100 soldiers who make up Team Engineer are drawn from
throughout the state, and all are on a fulltime status known as "active
duty for special work." The soldiers live on the economy, renting or buying
homes throughout southern San Diego county. Rowley estimated that more than
70 percent of his troops had been working on the counterdrug task full time
for more than three years, with about a 25 to 30 percent annual turnover in
personnel.

Surprisingly, only a small part of the turnover is caused by working
conditions that can often best be described as "extremely challenging." And
the heat and dust the soldiers routinely have to deal with are only a part
of the challenge.

"It's rough work and we push real hard," Rowley acknowledged. "In the
summer we'll work six or seven days a week, 10 or 11 hours a day.

"The hardest parts are the terrain and the logistics," the warrant officer
said. "The terrain is rugged, and it's mostly rocks. And it can be real
difficult getting the equipment and materials we work with into some of
these places.

"The conditions are definitely realworld," he added, "the kind soldiers
would encounter if they ever had to deploy to another country in wartime.
But that's really one of the benefits of this job: The soldiers who come
through here, whether for two weeks of annual training or as fulltimers,
certainly experience things they'd never see during regular annual
training. It absolutely makes them better soldiers and better engineers."

"This job fits virtually every task performed by combat heavy and corps
engineers," Rowley agreed. "The processes and equipment they use here on
the border would translate directly to what they'd do in combat. Plus it
takes the same leadership skills, the same logistics skills, the same
planning and the same hard work that would go into any wartime project."

In addition to their work on the border, the soldiers of Team Engineer must
still fulfill the normal training requirements for Guard soldiers.

"We drill with our home units one weekend a month and two weeks each year,"
Rowley said, "plus we have to keep up with service schools and the other
normal requirements of a military career. And as if that wasn't enough, our
soldiers also serve as cadre for and advisors to rotational active duty,
Guard or Reserve units that come to the border area."

All these requirements ensure that Rowley usually has an average of just 45
people working on any given day. But, he said, each person out on the
border knows that the work is important.

"The best part about this job," he said, "the part that makes the work and
the heat and the hours worthwhile, is when we see a picture of a smuggler's
vehicle hung up on one of the steel barricades we built. Then we know we're
really helping our communities by curbing the flow of drugs across the
border. That's a tremendously good feeling."