Posted on 09/06/2005 11:29:32 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
MEXICO CITY (AP) -
A Mexican army aid convoy set out for the U.S. border Tuesday, carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens and supplies to feed the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Large Mexican flags were taped to many of the 35 green-painted Mexican army trucks and tractor trailers as they rumbled northward, in what apparently will be the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846.
The trucks, carrying 195 unarmed soldiers, officers and specialists, were expected to arrive in Laredo, Texas, sometime early Thursday, the president's office said. From there they are to proceed to Houston, where they will apparently be used to produce water and hot meals.
The convoy included two mobile kitchens that can feed 7,000 people each per day, three flatbed trucks carrying mobile water treatment plants, and 15 trailers of bottled water, blankets and applesauce.
It also includes military engineers, doctors and nurses.
In 1846, Mexican troops briefly advanced just north of the Rio Grande in Texas, which had then recently joined the United States. Mexico, however, did not then recognize the Rio Grande as the U.S. border.
The two countries quickly became mired in the Mexican-American War, which led to the loss of half of Mexico's territory in 1848.
Mexico sent a squadron of pilots to train in the United States in the 1940s, but they served outside the United States - in the Philippines - in World War II.
In 1916, the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa led a group of irregular fighters in a brief raid into Columbus, N.M., in what is considered the last battle against foreign forces on U.S. soil.
Mexico was planning another 12-vehicle aid convoy to leave Tuesday or Wednesday and already has a Mexican navy ship steaming toward the Mississippi coast with rescue vehicles and helicopters.
Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has said Mexico is setting up consular offices in trailers around the disaster zone to help some of the estimated 140,000 Mexicans who live in the region, 10,000 of them in New Orleans.
In addition, help was offered by a search-and-rescue group called "topos" - which translates as "moles" - organized by youths who dug through collapsed buildings after Mexico City's 1985 earthquake.
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Better send a convoy of laborers to do the cleanup and construction work as well.
That's just what New Orleans needs -- Mexican water treatment plants.
Are they gonna cross the border in the desert?
"Better send a convoy of laborers to do the cleanup and construction work as well."
I'm sure they're packed as well.
Don't worry, they've been pre-positioning that for years...
Getting Mexicans here is not the problem.
WILL THEY GO HOME?
Do you think it a possibility that a few of these Mexicans might not be able to find their unit when it is time to depart?
Do you think it a possibility that a few of these Mexicans might not be able to find their unit when it is time to depart?
I hope they can make it through the killing fields of Nuevo Laredo unscathed.
I have a feeling that their Army members are going to stay here then bring their families.
Chips and salsa, huevos rancheros, frijoles, Muchas gracias. I could survive but nobody would stay in the same room as me.
When we had wildfires here in Texas, they brought in a team of hot shots from Mexico to put out the after fires that pop up. They were great, and nobody stayed behind when their task was finished.
Depends on their motives. Do they really feel our pain and want to help...or do they just want to rub our noses in the dirt (rather mud) now that we're down.
This isn't much of a post, but this is my very first and I just had to think of something to say..
Maybe that was what was going with the Mexican Military just on the other side of the Border when we were out there tonite.
Excellent post, and welcome to FreeRepublic!
They will need to go back home!
But .....who knows.
And what the heck are unarmed soldiers? Civilians?
How about redirecting those trucks to help their own people in deep poverty to help prevent them from coming here?
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