This article is a collaboration between RealClearInvestigations and Soldier of Fortune magazine, with Heath Hansen of SOF on the border.
Commentary
CORONADO NATIONAL FOREST, Ariz.—As blazing sunlight ebbs to a star-studded sky along the U.S.-Mexico border, members of the Arizona Border Recon group peer through field glasses at a trio of men on the southern side in camouflage fatigues and carrying pistols and AK-47s.
The men, almost certainly members of Sinaloa cartel factions, are using their own binoculars to scan random gaps in a roughly 30-foot-high wall of thick metal bars that stretches for miles along a flatland carved by arroyos and dotted with rocks, saguaro cactus, and high grasses. At times, a solo gunshot echoes on the Mexican side, a sound the AZBR knows from experience is a signal to people to start moving north….