Dear Editor,
Mr. Zach Byrnes' letter laments about militarization of our northern border and how sad he is about our relationship with our neighbors to the north. Woe is me.
Now for some facts. The US military has long trained on our northern border, in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
Why? Because it's cold.
Short of Alaska it is the best place for winter warfare training. Granted, it's not your everyday units that do this, they are more specialized, but there are some regular units as well.
Lord knows I tromped through the snow on the Highline enough times. I don't remember scaring off any elk either. We did do a couple joint exercises with the Canucks though.
Trade: Canada for years has undercut us in trade. Their subsidies in forestry along with the help of the Sierra club all but killed forestry in the north west.
Their subsidies in the dairy industry caused a huge deficit in milk and cheeses in northern states, the electricity battle in the north west is insane. There are more but those are the highlights.
Now for the border itself.
Any county sherif in northern Montana and North Dakota will happily tell you about the amount of meth that comes south, and the human trafficking in both directions.
Abandoned cars in pastures that got stuck in northeast Montana etc.
One last tidbit, 80-plus percent of those on the terrorist watch list here illegally came south from Canada and their oh so welcoming asylum practices.
I, for one, think it would be great to have a unit permanently home stationed in northern Montana somewhere, a calvary regiment is a pretty good deterrent.
Richard Nielsen, Gillette
