Hell of a War Comes to Trout Heaven

The trout still rise. Deaf to the war around them, they lift to the surface, rippling the black river in chase of mayflies hatching in the dusk of a Michigan evening.

Bombs make thunder in the distance. The soldiers of Camp Grayling are in training.

If not for the National Guard, the Au Sable River would be heaven for trout fishermen, as it once was.

If not for the fishermen, the state forest in the heart of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula would be a military paradise for simulating air raids and tank shellings.

The town of Grayling delicately depends on both for its bustling economy.

“You will find a way to compromise or you will perish,” City Manager Jerry Morford says. “Some people like to fish. Some people think the Guard needs a place to train.”

Grayling needs both.

The river cuts through its heart. And the town of about 2,500 is literally surrounded by the accouterments of war. The airfield is on the northwest side of town. The main camp sits on the west, with a proposed air assault strip farther out. The tank firing range is on the east.

On the air-to-ground artillery range north of Grayling, 4,000 jets and helicopters and gunships each year bombard the dun-colored soil with bombs and bullets. Some of the bombs are live. Most are concrete dummies.

Some local residents take comfort in the shelling. “I get some sense of security out of knowing that these people are here,” says Henry Mason, a World War II veteran living in nearby Gaylord.

Guard opponents worry that the exploded shells are lacing the river headwaters with lead and other heavy metals, creating a toxic no-man’s land. Guard officials refute the claim.

To add to the irony, a pair of bald eagles has been successfully raising chicks inside the artillery range for three years.

This was a rather contained battle until the late 1970s, when the end of the military draft focused new attention on building up the nation’s oldest force, the National Guard.

National Guard training camps are expanding around the country to train the nation’s estimated 568,000 citizen-soldiers, a portion of whom are now headed for the Persian Gulf.

The Guard proposes a firing range on federal land in northeastern Montana, a 630,000-acre tank range in Nevada. Maine’s National Guard wants to build a 720,000-acre training camp called Deepwoods.

“They’re squandering our natural resources,” says Grace Bukowski in Nevada with the national Rural Alliance for Military Accountability. “I question the need for more acres. The military now controls 25 million acres in the country.”

In Michigan, Camp Grayling has become a year-round proving ground for the state’s forces, for other states and even for military contractors wanting to test weapon systems.

The annual surge of Guardsmen peaked in 1987 at more than 35,000 when the whole 38th Infantry Division based in Indiana came to Michigan to train.

The clash with fishermen came in 1988, on the opening day of trout season. Anglers on the Au Sable waded into the water to the sound of Ohio Guardsmen firing their tank cannons.

The timing was unfortunate, says Lt. Col. Brian Downey, a spokesman for the Michigan National Guard. Since then, the Guard has pledged to keep silent on holiday weekends and in the dead of night.

“The basic element of the conflict is because we make noise,” Downey says. “It’s the nature of the place. Until they find a silencer for a howitzer, there’s no way to get around it.”

The Guard means about $4 million a year to Grayling by the military’s own estimates of what Guardsmen spend on gasoline, chewing gum, beer and other items. Just to make sure, the Guard sends camp participants on their two-day passes with $100 in their pockets.

To some, Grayling has sold its heritage to the military.

“There’s a disease here,” says Arnold Copeland, a Connecticut fisherman who retired here last year. “The river is being stake-driven through the heart by military officials.

“I am just sick of people whose life is dependent on wrecking cars or killing fish or blowing up trees.”

A mile or two from the tank-shelling range, Rusty Gates’ lodge marks the beginning of what fishermen revere as the Holy Water. That is how good the fishing is. That is how religious trout fishermen are about their sport.