February 23, 2007
Story & Photo by: Maj. Scott Bell, S.C. National Guard Historian
TUCSON, ARIZ.
– Ninety years after the South
Carolina Army National Guard’s last deployment to help protect
America
’s southwest border from Mexican outlaw Pancho Villa, Spc. Laverne Blackmon of
Lancaster, S.C.
is one of 2,000 Palmetto guard soldiers who will spend their annual training this
year assisting the U.S. Border Patrol along the 262-mile Tucson Sector of the U.S./Mexico
border.
The purpose of this mass deployment of S.C.
Army National Guard troops
over the next three months is to assist the U.S. Border Patrol or “B.P.”
with their ongoing efforts to put “edges back on our border.” According to B.P.
Agents -- who cannot be identified for security reasons -- for every Guardsman that
helps support the border protection infrastructure here, it is providing an extra
set of eyes and ears in the form of entry identification teams.
Agents of the Border Patrol say the effect
of the presence of the National Guard serving in a variety of support roles here in the Tucson Sector has provided them with the added manpower that has led to an
increase in illegal immigrant apprehensions and narcotic seizures.
When asked why
Mexico
isn’t doing more to stem the tide of illegal immigration into the U.S. Agents responded
– “Economics.” An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants presently in the
U.S.
send back roughly $18 billion dollars a year to their families in
Mexico
.
Photo: Spc. Laverne Blackmon, a human resources
specialist with seven years experience in the S.C. Army National Guard’s 742nd
Maintenance Company, is supporting “Operation Jump Start” by logging Border Patrol
vehicle repairs for her unit’s mechanics. She is married to Marshall Blackmon and
is a Practitioner Nurse at
Lancaster One Medical Center
.
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For additional information please contact Maj. Scott Bell of the
South Carolina
National Guard
Public Affairs Office at: 803-667-1013