Governor Greg Gianforte recently announced that he and 24 other Republican governors were “standing in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbot, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border.” Our Governor said he was leading them to “demand answers” from President Biden, and forming an “American Governors Border Strike Force” to communicate and coordinate against illegal drugs. A week later he stood behind Abbott on the border in Texas and said he’s been sending Montana troops to support the Texas Governor. As this came through my television Montana’s Republican Congressional Delegation were in Washington DC humiliating themselves by bowing to Trump’s back-channel demand they not to give our President a “win” on the southern border by passing the first bipartisan immigration legislation in years. Where was our country in all this?

On the Texas border Gianforte and 11 Governors were backed by 12 National Guard soldiers standing in formation. Were I one of the guardsmen sworn to follow the orders of the officers appointed over me, I would be wondering, “What the Hell is going on here?” National Guard personnel are sworn three times to protect and defend: once protecting and defending the Montana Constitution, once as a Reserve Soldier of the United States Armed Forces protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States, and once as a soldier of the National Guard of the United States protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. Emergency Management Assistance Compacts have used this flexibility to evolve as a way the states and federal government assist each other during times of fire, flood, hurricanes and the current testing of federal resources at the southern border. EMAC missions happen when the President declares an emergency. I suspect our Governor bent the truth in Texas when he said he’s been sending Montana troops to support Operation Lone Star.

National Guard troops from all states for many years have been sent to the southern border, including for the counter drug program. Since 2006 the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have received support from Guard being paid as Title 32 National Guard or Title 10 Active Component personnel.

Operation Lone Star, Abbot’s huge Texas National Guard mission, is state-funded based on a state-only declaration. The first money to pay soldiers came from left-over COVID Relief Funding in 2021. Now there are internal State of Texas funding concerns. Paying, feeding, billeting and moving troops gets expensive. Soldiers’s pay is an important personal right, never satisfied with rubber checks. Gianforte should be cautious unless Texas can show Montana the money.

An additional border mission will make it harder for Montana commanders to maintain readiness for their federal mission as a combat reserve of the Army and Air Force. Recruiting and retention for the politicized Texas mission, would become the challenge it has for Texas, where State Active Duty numbers once ranging as high as 10,000 are now half. Military readiness is hard to maintain and not to be taken lightly.

I, for one, sincerely thank all those guardsmen and their families for their service and wish that all those around us these days, hell bent on acquiring power they can’t handle, will be open-minded enough to agree to a new federal legal framework that will lend more order to current efforts at managing our border to help protect immigrants from predators and allow timely processing of their applications to become our new fellow citizens.