Back in late 2001, when we started to see Afghanistan often on TV reports after the American invasion, my mother remarked that the distant land reminded her of the Wyoming country she grew up in during the 1930s and ’40s.
“No paved roads or power lines,” she commented, “and it’s dry and rugged and empty.”
The resemblance between Afghanistan and the rural West has also been noticed by the U.S. Department of Defense, which sees southern Colorado and northern New Mexico as a good place to train soldiers and pilots for duty in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Air Force has announced plans to conduct training missions over 94,000 square miles of New Mexico and Colorado, with some flights as low as 200 feet — a prospect that makes ranchers worry that their cattle will be spooked.
Part of the flying zone overlays Pinon Canon in southeastern Colorado, land the Army wants for on-the-ground training. Landowners have been fighting that for several years, winning a few rounds, but it’s still on the table.
And nearby to the west, over and around the Sangre de Cristo range, the Colorado Air National Guard keeps working toward a “Military Overflight Area” for training its pilots.
So in some ways, the Defense Department resembles the rest of the Washington establishment — the West is “flyover country.” The West was also the place to test nuclear bombs from the 1940s into the 1970s. But it may be of some comfort that, at least to date, there’s been no talk of testing Predator drones out here.
Ed Quillen is a freelance writer in Salida, Colorado.
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