Desert Hawks | Al Jazeera America
▻http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/arizona-border-militia/index.html
NOGALES, Ariz. — A former U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran, dressed in camouflage, scans Mexican radio traffic as he sits beneath a mesquite tree in the moonlight in southern Arizona about a mile north of the border with Mexico.
Using a field radio and military-style calls signs, he talks to two other reconnaissance teams of veterans with night-vision gear and semiautomatic weapons stationed at lookout posts on nearby hilltops, alerting them to possible drug-smuggling activity on the southern side.
“Right now … It’s kind of a Mexican stand-off,” said “Spartan,” who said he served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and asked not to be identified by name. “They are basically waiting for the Border Patrol shift change, and when that happens, probably we will be able to stop that,” he said, referring to the suspected drug mules trying to cross the border.
