Governor Kristi Noem’s Beltway spokesman, Ian Fury, says his boss and his staff, in the words of journalist Arielle Zionts, “found no legal or ethical issues‘ with Tennessee auto rescue billionaire Willis Johnson’s private $1 million gift given to him at pay the south dakota national guard stunt trip to the Mexico-Texas border. But Team Noem only looks tough for securitiesdo not Hegelian dialectic. But all these titles indicate how immediately everyone senses the ethical issues which consist in extracting the army from rich partisans:

Dwight Stirling is a law professor, National Guard historian, and California Guard reserve military attorney. He said the donation was against federal and state law.

The donation raises questions beyond the law, Stirling said.

“If we allow a private citizen to donate money for a particular operation or mission then it looks like those soldiers are working for the billionaire or for the donor and that puts the chain of command in doubt and so what that really does is raise the question about the whole legitimacy of this mission,” he said. [Arielle Zionts, “Experts Say Private National Guard Donation Raises Legal, Ethical Issues,” SDPB, 2021.07.01].

But hey, why get bogged down in ethical constraints? Let’s talk numbers:

Governor Noem wants to send 50 troops from South Dakota 1,400 miles from home for 30 to 60 days. Let’s go in the middle and assume it’s a 45 day mission. Kristi’s Billionaire Boyfriend one million dollars breaks down to $444 per soldier per day. I don’t know what their daily shifts will be like in McAllen or Laredo or anywhere along the Rio Grande, but these deployed soldiers will be on duty and away from their families 24 hours a day, so $444 for the whole day reduces to $18.50 an hour. And it’s not just paying for the work; it’s paying for all the trucks and guns and other equipment our mercenary guards need to carry out their godfather’s mission. So $18.50 an hour is the cost of hiring not only the labor of a National Guardsman, but all the equipment needed to support the mission.

So suppose I only have one-hundredth of the wealth that Willis Johnson has in his big pockets. Suppose I want to donate $10,000 to the State of South Dakota for the Governor to deploy the National Guard on a mission of personal interest to me. At the rate Willis J. is getting, I can buy 540 National Guard man-hours. What could I spend this on?

1. Since it takes me an average of an hour and a half to shovel my patio, sidewalks and driveway when it snows, I could have a guard come and shovel me after 360 snowfalls. If it snows enough to justify shoveling ten times every winter, I can get Guard snow removal for 36 years.
2. I could hire a platoon of 20 guards nine times for three-hour stays to accompany me as armed bodyguards as I report on Republican hate rallies in Aberdeen.
3. I could hire 65 guards to get into the South Dakota capitol with their guns (good call ahead for Capitol entrance passes) to accompany me through an entire day of committee hearings, blogging from the gallery, and interviews with legislative leaders and other government officials (I walk towards Ian Fury with my camera and 65 soldiers: “ Governor, can I ask you some ethical questions? questions?”)
4. I could hire a guard to drive me on a three week desert vacation in a really cool army off-road truck.
5. I could hire 540 guards to stand behind me on the Brown County Fairgrounds racetrack stage at my own patriotic campaign launch rally.
6. I could hire 54 guards to set up and take down the stage and open the doors at my campaign launch rally.
7. I could hire 100 guards to each spend 5.4 hours helping distribute mail-in ballots to voters on the reservation.
8. I could hire four guards to provide security and drive the women to Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls for nearly 17 eight-hour shifts.
9. i could have it all 153rd Engineer Battalion gather in Sioux Falls and march in rainbow uniforms in the Pride Parade next year.
10. I could hire 20 guards to spend three straight Saturdays touring the state and picking up vulgar, unpatriotic flags from public view.

I can think of many other valuable missions, and so can you, dear neighbours! We can pool our money and find good uses for our great guards, if we act like Kristi and get past our finicky ethical considerations.