Nearby, a medical company is not getting ready for its overseas deployment, either; the soldiers are instead building aid stations in southwestern Texas.
Eight weeks after President Donald Trump’s decision to send 5,900 active-duty U.S. troops to the border with Mexico to help stop a migrant caravan fleeing drug violence in Central America, Pentagon officials say the mission is starting to affect “readiness” — a military measure to determine whether U.S. soldiers are prepared for battle.
If the border deployment ends in January, the latest date for which the military mission has been extended, Defense Department officials said the damage could be absorbed.
But the diversion of forces follows warnings — including by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Army’s chief of staff and Trump’s pick as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — that the Army was still years away from its goal of having 30 combat brigades ready to fight at any given time.
U.S. troops stationed at the southwest border to drive and fly Border Patrol officials around are not conducting the missions and training needed, in one military catchphrase, to “fight tonight,” officials said.
And military units that have not been sent to the border must now pick up the routine duties for those who have.
The government shutdown, spurred by Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall, has not affected staffing of the border deployment, Defense Department officials said, because Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security employees at the border are considered essential personnel.
To be sure, the number of troops being diverted is small enough that the effect on overall readiness has been minimal.
Marine Col. Amy R. Ebitz, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, said the border deployment might actually help readiness, not hurt it. She noted that troops who are welding structures and driving around Border Patrol agents are still engaged in training — even on tasks unrelated to combat.
“It’s an opportunity to train,” Ebitz said. “We do it all over the world, so why would our border be any different?”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.