Bored Soldiers Grill James Mattis About What the Hell They're Doing at the Southern Border
Right now, there are more than 5,000 U.S. troops stationed at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, ostensibly to provide some deterrent to migrants attempting to cross the border unlawfully. What are they actually doing there? A good question, and one the troops themselves would very much like to know the answer to.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who is down at the border visiting said troops right now, has really not wanted to answer that question for several weeks as the president blatantly has used his department for a perverse political stunt right that revved up before the election. Mattis has been largely able to dodge questions from the press, but it seems he didn’t reckon with the prosecutorial tendencies of a bunch of bored enlisted dudes who are going to miss Thanksgiving with their families because Donald Trump decided they should live in a tent city for weeks and eat nothing but MREs even though they’re just a stone’s throw of a Whataburger.
During his visit, Mattis fielded some questions from his men, which ABC News reporters on the ground livestreamed.
“What are the short-term and long-term plans for this operation, sir?” one soldier asked. (This comes about 12 minutes into the stream, embedded below.)