Just two days after President Trump signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency on our southern border (see CONFIRMED: Trump Will Sign EOs Today Sending Military to the Border and Ending Birthright Citizenship – RedState and It Begins: US Military Orders Troops to Southern Border As Trump Vows to 'Repel Forms of Invasion' – RedState), the Department of Defense has ordered about 1,500 active duty soldiers and possibly a Marine contingent to augment the 2,500 active-duty troops already on the border.

“First operations for them should commence within the next 24-48 hours, they’re moving right now, as we sit here,” a senior military official told reporters on Wednesday.

Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said he directed the Defense Department to “begin augmenting its forces at the southwest border” with 1,500 ground personnel “as well as helicopters with associated crews, and intelligence analysts to support increased detection and monitoring efforts.”

Salesses also confirmed CNN’s earlier reporting that US Transportation Command had been instructed to prepare to use US military assets, including military aircraft, for migrant repatriation flights.

For this effort to be more than symbolic, it has to be done right. I have two primary concerns with this deployment. 

First, the right people need to be sent. The current package consists of troops "performing mostly logistical and bureaucratic tasks like data entry, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance." We haven't seen the troop list for the current 1,500-man augmentation force, but with up to 10,000 troops potentially heading to the border, we can guess that the military mission will soon expand beyond those reported tasks. 

Right now, a lot of people are visualizing paratroopers and Marines patrolling the border and rounding up illegals. That can't happen unless President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, and we should want to avoid any situation where young soldiers are placed in the position of acting as law enforcement officers and find themselves in a nebulous situation where the use of force may or may not be justified.

The real need is for aviation that will allow Border Patrol agents to be in the right place with overwhelming force. Drones are also needed. Medical and support units that can staff rest camps for people guarding the border and detention and screening facilities for apprehended illegals are also needed. Engineers are needed for construction projects. Communications units are needed to allow units to coordinate operations. In short, the troops must be heavily weighted to the combat support and combat service support specialties.

The second priority is ensuring that the deployed assets are properly used. Of particular concern is that the Department of Defense has decided to roll the deployment of troops to the southern border into the existing Joint Task Force North. JTF-N was formed to interdict drug traffic and remains primarily focused on supporting law enforcement operations. Its area of operations includes all of North America and the Caribbean.

Based on Fort Bliss, Texas, Joint Task Force North (JTF-N) is a joint service command comprised of active-duty and reserve component soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guardsmen, Department of Defense (DoD) civilian employees, and contracted support personnel. JTF-N is the DoD organization tasked to support our nation’s federal law enforcement agencies in the identification and interdiction of suspected criminal activities conducted within and along the approaches to the continental United States.

JTF-N, an element of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), operates within the entire USNORTHCOM area of responsibility - encompassing the North American continent, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands, in air, land and sea approaches.

Including an additional mission to JTF-N's portfolio as well as some 10,000 troops to supervise, will not only hinder the border mission, but it will have a detrimental effect on the ability of JTF-N to execute its core responsibility. We've seen what happens when troops are sent to work under a headquarters that doesn't know how to use them. They sit around, complain, and eventually come home. 

Former RedStater Colonel (ret.) Mike Ford has an excellent solution to the problem. The US Army already has a logistics headquarters that is battle-tested, structured, and staffed for precisely this mission.

A Theater Sustainment Command (TSC) is an Army logistics headquarters commanded by a 2-Star General.  When augmented with the appropriate subordinate commands, it is capable of providing logistical support to over 300,000 personnel. Support provided can include: Shelter, Food, Medical, Security, Fuel, Supplies, Engineering, Finance and Postal Operations along with Administrative Support, to name but a few.

The premiere example of such a unit is the 377th Theater Sustainment Command (TSC) located at Belle Chase Joint Reserve Base, across the river from New Orleans, Louisiana.

The 377th is a multi-component unit, with Active, Reserve and Civilian members. It can also serve as a Joint Force headquarters when augmented with members of the other branches of our Armed Forces.

It has a storied history. During operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, the 377th and its subordinate commands, deployed to Southwest Asia and grew to a peak end strength of over 47,000 personnel from all branches of the U.S military and with civilian and Coalition Force members. The command operated in more than 15 countries and four different continents to support over 300,000 US and Coalition service members and civilians.

The 377th was later activated to provide logistical support for U.S relief efforts in Haiti, following an earthquake that took hundreds of lives.

Whereas a combat unit could also be deployed if, for example, cartels mounted large scale attacks, your immediate needs at the border as our Commander in Chief require a different skill set than combat units.

I was assigned as the Chief of Staff for the 377th TSC and saw this truth unfold during the Haiti relief operation. The Joint Chiefs sent the 18th Airborne Corps Headquarters as its initial response, instead of immediately sending a senior logistics headquarters. Only later was a Theater Sustainment Command established. Much time was lost regarding what that kind of command has to offer.

The decision to move troops to the border is superb, both in adding resources to an overstretched Border Patrol and in the symbolic message it sends. To make this deployment truly effective, it must work under a headquarters equipped to carry out the mission. Dumping yet another mission on a headquarters with a vast area of operations and a law enforcement focus doesn't seem like the best way to go.