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Illegals Blocking Marine Training
Newsmax ^ | 4/13/05

Posted on 04/13/2005 12:18:57 PM PDT by areafiftyone

Marines getting ready for combat in Iraq or Afghanistan are having their training time shortened because hordes of illegal aliens from Mexico are wandering onto their firing ranges in Arizona while crossing the border illegally.

According to the Boston Globe, the commanding officers of the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona explained that virtually every Marine squadron headed to Iraq or Afghanistan receives combat training at the station, which for nearly 40 miles touches the U.S.-Mexico border in the southwestern corner of Arizona.

Colonel James J. Cooney, the base's commanding officer, told the Globe that since July 2004, the training range has been shut down more than 500 times because of immigrants spotted on the range, causing a loss of more than 1,100 training hours.

"We're getting overrun here. Any moment we take away from a Marine's experience base could cost him his life in combat," Cooney said.

He added that his Marines intercepted more than 1,500 undocumented immigrants on the training range last year and, in the first three months of this year, more than 1,100. He said that base personnel detain the immigrants and call in Border Patrol agents to pick them up.

"I have to use Marines that aren't trained in that to do that, which puts me at a liability," Cooney said. "It's completely counterproductive to our whole training operation.

"We just don't want them to come here, because we're firing lasers, we're shooting machine guns, we're shooting 209-millimeter cannons, and we're dropping practice bombs."

The Globe reported that last summer a Marine pilot dropped a practice bomb on a target and seconds later, a few feet away, a small group of illegal immigrants scrambled from underneath a bush and ran down the range. The near miss was caught on a training tape that Cooney has reviewed.

So far the Marines said there have been no deaths of immigrants in the training exercises.

"My overall concern is that we'd have an unfortunate incident out there where we'd inadvertently harm an illegal entrant that we did not spot or see, and that in turn would cause a moratorium on training until we sorted out what exactly happened," said Cooney.

And it's not just the Marines having the problem. According to the Globe one Army base and another the Air Force base, have experienced similar problems.

At the Army Yuma Proving Ground, near the Marine Corps Air Station but about 30 miles north of the border, an increasing number of undocumented immigrants have invaded military space and disrupted training.

"The smugglers just drive them up the highway and dump them off, and these illegal immigrants stumble right onto our testing range," said Chuck Wullenjohn, spokesman for the Yuma Proving Ground, one of the largest military installations in the Western world which constantly conducts tests for ground forces on artillery and ammunition, including tank rounds, mines, mortars, and helicopter guns.

"Having anyone on this range that doesn't belong here is extremely dangerous," Wullenjohn told the Globe. "The illegal immigrant issue is becoming a bigger problem all the time."

The Air Force told the Globe it has had to interrupt exercises with F-16 pilots after undocumented immigrants were spotted on a bombing range east of Gila Bend, north of the border.

"In 2004 we suspended range operations 55 times for a net loss of 122 hours," said Jim Uken, director of the 56th Fighter Wing range management office.

There is the additional concern that foreign terrorists could cross the Mexican border and infiltrate the Arizona bases to conduct intelligence gathering or commit acts of sabotage.

"The potential exists, and that is a key reason we are vigilant about securing our training ranges," Col. Cooney told the Globe.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: aliens; marines; militarybases; training; yuma
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To: JeffAtlanta

I have a candidate for YOU: PAT BUCHANANAN!

And if that isn't good enough, I have a seconday chiioce: Dr. Alaaaaaaan Keyes!


101 posted on 04/14/2005 7:02:41 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: Calpernia
undocumented immigrants = ILLEGAL immigrants.

Do NOT let them stop you calling them Illegals. It seems like it's always kind of a joke at first, and then suddenly the old word will get you fired. Call them what they are. Illegals. It's like wetback. Can't call them that any more, getcha fired.

102 posted on 04/14/2005 7:04:06 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: azhenfud

Oh my Barney, Oh my Barney,
Had a jail and couldn't lock it,
Had one bullet for his pistol,
Had to keep it in his pocket.


103 posted on 04/14/2005 7:05:32 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: TheBattman

We'd have to admit they aren't our friends looking out for our best interests first.


104 posted on 04/14/2005 7:09:34 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: Americanexpat
MARINES ARE NOT THE ANSWER! A constructive dialogue with Mexico is... </sarc>
105 posted on 04/14/2005 7:12:03 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: StoneColdGOP
George W. Bush sure as hell doesn't.

All GW Bush cares about is Halliburton.

106 posted on 04/14/2005 7:14:02 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: HiJinx

YEah, but the ATF has a much bloodier record since then.


107 posted on 04/14/2005 7:14:55 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham
He pulled out his ivory handled .44 magnum and shot that Villista in the heart, cool as you please, while the man was readying a shot at him. It was said that just a few years prior, young Patton would have made a helluva gunslinger. Then they didn't have any way to get him back to the camp, so Patton said "the hell with it, tie him across the front of the car." Of course he had NO intention of displaying the man like a trophy, it was purely out of necessity. <wink>
108 posted on 04/14/2005 7:20:51 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: areafiftyone
hehe, we used to get illegals on the firing ranges at Camp Pendleton as well. Have to halt live fire training while the pack of illegals are rounded up and escorted to the Border Patrol. There are signs all over Camp Pendleton telling them not to cross into the area...it's even in Spanish...I can't imagine what it would be like to wake up to a platoon of Marines firing M-16s, SAWs and M-204s inches from where I was sleeping.

We really need to seal the border...this is getting ridiculous.
109 posted on 04/14/2005 7:23:12 AM PDT by KurtAZ (So they've got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won't get away)
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To: KurtAZ

NEed those signs like the ones on the 5 freeway near TJ with the family running across the freeway. Most of 'em can't read I guess, or else they've been told "the gringos can't touch you, they're scared of Meeeester El Presidente Foks."


110 posted on 04/14/2005 7:41:39 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: johnb838

Because wetback is a slur, applied to one ethnic group and always in a derogatory fashion. Illegal is a description of legal status, applicable to any action or object. The words are not comparable.


111 posted on 04/14/2005 8:01:25 AM PDT by Caesar Soze
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To: johnb838

I never said the Marines were the answer. I do not believe Marines are the answe. Evidently dialoge is not working either beciase V. Fox and his crew think it is their God given right to tell their citizens to break our laws.


112 posted on 04/14/2005 8:03:57 AM PDT by Americanexpat (A strong democracy through citizen oversight.)
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To: Americanexpat

*I* think the Marines are the answer,


113 posted on 04/14/2005 9:39:57 AM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: johnb838
I have a candidate for YOU: PAT BUCHANANAN! And if that isn't good enough, I have a seconday chiioce: Dr. Alaaaaaaan Keyes!

Both are nuts. I'm not saying that we should hope for a viable third party so that we can vote for them - I'm saying that only a viable third party can drive the GOP to the right.

The GOP follows the democratic party and stays just to the right of it. The democratic party has been drifting further and further left and so has the GOP.

To be honest, I don't know of anyone off hand that could be an instant contender in a third party. The person would need to be a fiscal conservative but more libertarian on the social side.

Lately, the GOP has been running the exact opposite - social conservative/fiscal liberal. No wonder spending is out of control.

114 posted on 04/14/2005 12:22:19 PM PDT by JeffAtlanta
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To: areafiftyone
Offer free t-shirts with big red dots on them to the illegals as they cross into this area.
115 posted on 04/14/2005 12:28:26 PM PDT by TheForceOfOne
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To: JeffAtlanta

Actually.... I agree with you 100% about running some primary candidates to drive the party to the right. Tancredo is one, if he doesn't have skeletons, which I'm not so sure about. People write him off, but he makes a lot of sense when he talks, he's not the right-wing kook he's painted to be.

I'd like to see McClintock from California try to go national. I don't suppose a State Senator could make a serious run, but he's a darn good conservative and if he could get some money he might be able to make a splash.

Mainly we HAVE to get some people in there that won't allow the dead silence we heard on the illegal invasion last time around. That was the biggest load of bull I've ever been fed I think.


116 posted on 04/14/2005 3:41:35 PM PDT by johnb838 (Santo Subito! Presto!)
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To: CATravelAgent
RE: "FENCES! This should be the first section in a security fence that stretches from the Caribbean to the Pacific."

...BUMP!!!


117 posted on 04/19/2005 3:29:37 PM PDT by Seadog Bytes (“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”—Edmund Burke)
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