Sincere tour, misguided mission
The National Guard's historic role is being usurped
No one should doubt the sincerity of Major Alex McDonough. A veteran of three tours of active duty, Iraq and Afghanistan, he rejoined the National Guard in part, he says, because he became tired of being a civilian “working to make someone else money.”
And no one should doubt the sincerity of Jake McCumber, program manager in “Natural Resources and Integrated Training Area Management” at the Cape’s big military base, a passionate naturalist who will interrupt a tour to point toward a jeep 25 feet away to exclaim, “Look at that moth! Pretty neat!” And then he’ll add, “Sorry, I tend to do that.”
They were our guides on a sunny November morning, 35 civilians touring Camp Edwards, the northern 15,000 acres of 22,000-acre Joint Base Cape Cod. The visit highlighted the National Guard’s operations, with another point:
A new machine gun firing range, clear cutting another 170 acres, is the right thing to do not only in the name of national security but (strange justification though it seems) to support species diversity.
Hard to imagine two people better suited to make their cases. Yet even harder to imagine that a machine gun range at Camp Edwards is how we make our country safer, let alone the best way to encourage biodiversity.
Then there’s the overarching assumption impossible to accept:
That the proud, historic mission of the National Guard, always distinct from active combat, always focused on protecting and supporting American civilians in crisis, requires that every Guardsperson should be able to kill enemies a mile away with a machine gun.
But I jump ahead. Let’s take the tour:
Two buses stood beyond the Bourne base entrance, a military vehicle and a commercial coach, so the group divided to get underway.
Small problem: The military bus wouldn’t start.
“Welcome to the Army,” shrugged one of the soldiers, among 1400 “weekend warriors” on-site for periodic training (39 days a year per soldier). When a gentleman taking the tour mentioned he had jumper cables in his car and offered to get them, the driver said no, no, can’t do that, military equipment and all.
“That’s one reason why we have two buses,” announced Major McDonough, shepherding everyone into the commercial coach. Masks required.
Our first stop was a Training Support Center where a virtual indoor range had been created to practice loading and firing weapons, video screen targets gauging accuracy, meant to gain proficiency while reducing the amount of live ammunition expended.
“People ask, ‘Why not all virtual?’” Major McDonough offered. “I have two answers. The first, maybe not so satisfactory, is because the army says so.” The second, more substantive: “You need to fire your assigned weapon,” not a facsimile, to ensure a more realistic training experience.
From there we headed north into what McCumber called “a premier conservation site.” The land has been used for generations as a training ground including an “Impact Area” for firing munitions big and small, patches of landscape still dotted with casings and unexploded ordnance among thousands of acres of trees.
There are also 17 pumping facilities that have been working 24/7 for decades to treat millions of gallons of groundwater contaminated by chemicals leaching into the aquifer, dangerous military residue that might take as long as 30 more years to filter out.
In one section, firing ranges offer troops space and targets. And from McCumber’s perspective all of this is a blessing for the likes of whippoorwills who need open fields to prosper, macro-moths that thrive in pine barrens, scores of bird and animal species.
When we arrived at the KD (Known Distance) range, we were at ground zero for the proposed machine gun expansion. The range already is long and wide, but accommodating eight 800-meter lanes would mean another 100 acres cleared. And then for soldiers to give 50-caliber guns a true workout there would be another two lanes 1500 meters long, just under 5000 feet so just under one mile; 70 more acres leveled.
“Areal denial weapon,” is the term Major McDonough used to describe the guns.
Multiple swaths of land already cleared are insufficient. So too is a facility just approved for Fort Devens outside Boston, to be constructed at a cost of $9 million, another new firing range. The Devens footprint can’t expand to 1500 meters, McDonough explained, and given few alternatives in the Northeast, Camp Edwards needs to pick up slack to handle demand.
“It’s a math problem,” he added.
McCumber argues that military clearing and training, like controlled burns, is great habitat management, a remarkable turn of thinking:
*Environmental stewardship is celebrated in the very place where the military created a massive Superfund site requiring decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to try to clean up.
*Assurances are made that firing ranges and gunfire do not spook the amazing variety of animals, on the ground and in the air.
*Whippoorwills and micro-moths justify military preparedness.
But even more remarkable is how this proposed machine gun range reveals the extent to which the historic role of the National Guard has been usurped.
The Guard never was meant to be another military arm like Army, Marines, or Navy. It was a force to help Americans in need, civilians ready to step into temporary military mode, donning camo to deal with domestic crises.
That’s because the Founders of this country were very clear about one thing:
We will never allow the military to take control of our streets. We know what Redcoats look like, we know what that can lead to. “National Guard” is the name for a reason. The governors, state by state, will be these groups’ commanders-in-chief.
What happened?
The short answer is 9-11. Fear and panic redefined and expanded the concept of “Homeland Security.” The National Guard morphed.
Major McDonough understands this well; the old calling and mission, as he put it, was “break glass in case of emergency” -- call in the Guard. The new mission, a radical departure, became “fight and win our nation’s wars.”
If you buy that change of mission, and believe 50-caliber weapons a mile away can stop real threats like terrorism (cyber, economic, and otherwise), maybe clearing another 170 acres for another gun range makes sense.
But if you don’t buy that, then this is as good a time and place as any to stop it.
If you’d like to encourage Governor Baker to do just that, jump on the Association to Preserve Cape Cod’s website and forward a note: https://apcc.org/
(With special thanks to Alex McDonough and Jake McCumber; guys, you did a great job.)
NEXT: THE TRUE HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH ROCK
Haven’t subscribed yet? Here’s how to keep seeing a Voice:
If the girls volley ball team from Great Barrington can ride a bus to Hyannis (197 miles) and a ferry (20 miles) to Nantucket to play their counterparts, I fail to see why the National Guard can't travel the 99 miles (no ferry) from Bourne to Fort Devens to practice firing machine guns on the newly constructed range there.
I did post this comment on the APCC website and urge others to do likewise.