Texas slashes Guard benefits while spending millions to expand border mission
The Texas National Guard is massively expanding its state active duty mission at the U.S.-Mexico border, with “thousands” of troops already there and “thousands more on the way” via unit-level involuntary mobilizations, Texas Military Department officials confirmed to Army Times.
Even as the border mission, dubbed Operation Lone Star, expands, Texas has slashed its tuition assistance budget by more than half — to roughly $1.4 million — to comply with a state-mandated budget reduction.
The benefit cut for soldiers comes after the Texas legislature provided a $300 million funding boost for the Texas Military Department’s border mission amid a record-high year for Border Patrol apprehensions.
Some critics of the mission have argued that the activations are a political ploy by Gov. Greg Abbott, who faces a primary challenge from former state Republican Party chair Allen West, a hardline conservative rival. West is a former Army officer who was forced to retire after he tortured a detainee while deployed to Iraq as a battalion commander in 2003.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/10/26/texas-slashes-guard-benefits-while-spending-millions-to-expand-border-mission/
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