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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.
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