October 25, 2005
Washington: 'Minuteman' effort moves northwest

USA TODAY

LYNDEN, Washington -- From a parked van, Ben Vaughn and Larry Loop, a couple of middle-aged Vietnam War veterans, peer across a 3-foot-wide drainage ditch — the U.S.-Canadian border.

Two-lane roads run on both sides of the ditch. No fences or barriers are there to keep someone from walking across the border. Houses line the Canadian side of the road, behind them forests and farmland.

Vaughn and Loop, members of a volunteer "Minuteman" contingent like those that stirred controversy earlier this year in Arizona, hang out for several hours but see nothing out of the ordinary. It is a far cry from the desert of the U.S.-Mexican border, where undocumented immigrants try to sneak into America every day. That doesn't matter to these Minutemen. They say they're here to make a political statement about the vulnerability of the nation's borders.

"If we can help keep some terrorists from coming across that would be great," says Vaughn, 58. "Even just slow them down."

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Posted by Richard at October 25, 2005
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