To anyone to who has been following the messages of Gov. Kristi Noem, especially residents of Texas and South Dakota, I offer the following interpretation (with apologies to George M. Cohan) of what I think she’s trying to say and plans to do relative to the ongoing crisis at our nation’s southern border: “Send the word, over there, that the Guard is going, the Guard is going over there. Over, I’ll send ‘em over and they won’t come back ‘till they get that Wall built over there.” If they go, this occasion will mark the fifth time our governor has sent our state’s National Guard troops to the border.

What she sees as her mission — and South Dakota’s mission? — is all spelled out in her message put forth on Feb. 23: “The Freedom to Be Secure — and How to Keep it.” How would I sum up those words of our governor on that date?  Sincere, serious, dedicated, well meaning — but a tad bit melodramatic.

In military parlance, the commander-in-chief has defined “the threat” and the armed force required to defeat it. The governor believes our communities today “are even more at risk of having our security ripped out from under us than ever before.” As an aside, I pose this question to the governor: Would you say our “freedom to be secure” is greater — or less — than it was on Jan. 6, 2021? If you had been asked to “send soldiers” on that day would you have answered the call?

I have no idea how the governor would respond to the above. Be that as it may, as commander-in-chief, she seems determined to send 60 “soldiers” (I assume from the Army National Guard) to the Texas “warzone.” However, since whoever goes will be helping to build a border wall — not an especially soldierly mission — I suppose she could send the Air National Guard.

But  … “What do you do when you have a warzone on your hands? You send soldiers.” And the mission: “South Dakota’s finest will be in Texas helping to build the border wall and keep our country secure. I am proud of them for their dedication to the cause, and I am incredibly grateful to them for answering the call to serve their state and nation.”

I know we have a variety of MOSs (military occupational specialties) in the Army Guard. Is there an MOS for “wall builder”? With perhaps a sub-specialty of “Trump specifications”? I’m sorry, but to me the mission at this point seems a little sketchy. Will these troopers be actual “builders”? Pouring concrete, erecting steel beams, excavating, moving dirt, driving pylons? Perhaps national security demands the details of the 60-man mission be highly classified. Could the cost of the mission and who pays the bill make it so?

The Feb. 26 issue of The Brookings Register contains: “Thoughts on Gov. Noem’s deployment of the Guard,” by state Representative Tim Reisch, District 8. A former adjutant general of the South Dakota National Guard. He doesn’t question “Gov. Noem’s decision in deploying our National Guard to the southern border. I truly believe it is a national crisis that threatens our citizens, and her decisions thus far have made sense to me.”

He does, however, discuss some of the intricacies of National Guard units relative to the mission. In the simplest of terms, Guard units serve two bosses, depending on the nature of the mission: the president of the United States as commander-in-chief; or a state governor as commander-in-chief. The nature of the mission also determines who pays the bill. It’s complicated, but the former South Dakota TAG does a good job of putting it in simple terms.

Coincidently or not, but not surprisingly, on Feb. 23, Gov. Noem was at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. She delivered one of her shucks-I’m-just-a-farmer-rancher-who-went-on-to-become-South Dakota’s-first-female-governor speeches. As usual, there was a lot of “I” in her speech — and some “we.”

Here, the governor also weighed in — with some “I” and “my” — on the southern border: “I was the first governor to deploy my National Guard troops to the southern border.” She was “alarmed” that under Title 10 President Biden might “take away my ability to be Commander in Chief of my National Guard.” Sounds a bit trumpish; former President Trump liked to refer to “my generals.” Tell that to four-star-general Marines John Kelly and James Mattis, who both at one time served at the pleasure of the former president.  

One piece of her CPAC comments really got my attention: Following a visit to the border, she “offered to bring razor wire there so Texas would know that South Dakota stands with them.”

I can only assume that our farmer-rancher governor is familiar with what injury and pain ordinary barbed wire can bring to animals and people. But razor wire? Gov. Noem, are you willing to see people, many of them women and children, severely injured by a weapon of this nature? Would you be willing to have your Guardsmen deploy such a weapon?

After considering all the above jingoistic machinations of our governor relative to South Dakota’s foreign policy (Has her staff been reading Clausewitz?), I’d like to offer my own tune — again with apologies to George M. Cohan: “Keep ‘em home, Governor Noem. Are they needed, yes really needed, are they really needed over there?”

Have a nice day.