thedrifter
07-13-06, 11:25 AM
The shot heard across both sides of the border
The sun still burns hot in the May desert sky at about 6 p.m. along the Texas/Mexico border. Under that sun, a high school student, all of 18 years old, is tending to some goats near his home in Redford, Texas. He is carrying an old single-shot .22 caliber rifle to ward off coyotes and rattlesnakes.
Some 200 yards in the distance, unknown to the 18-year-old, a group of four Marines are deploying to a clandestine hiding spot in the desert to keep an eye out for drug traffickers who might seek to traverse the border via car or on foot with backpacks.
The Marines are dressed in full camouflage, :: Ghille suits in fact, and are armed with potent M16A2 rifles and sophisticated radio equipment. Suddenly, the kid with the antique .22 rifle sees something. Maybe it's a coyote; maybe it's just his imagination. But he fires off a shot. A second later, he fires again.
The bullets whiz by the four Marines. They squat. One of the soldiers contacts his command by radio. The high-school kid heads for a nearby abandoned church that is not too far from his family's home. He is still carrying his rifle and is still not aware that he has just fired his gun at a group of Marines carrying out a covert drug-war assignment.
In front of the weatherworn border church is an old stone well, now dry and packed with dirt. The Marines maintain radio contact with their command operations.
Ellie
The sun still burns hot in the May desert sky at about 6 p.m. along the Texas/Mexico border. Under that sun, a high school student, all of 18 years old, is tending to some goats near his home in Redford, Texas. He is carrying an old single-shot .22 caliber rifle to ward off coyotes and rattlesnakes.
Some 200 yards in the distance, unknown to the 18-year-old, a group of four Marines are deploying to a clandestine hiding spot in the desert to keep an eye out for drug traffickers who might seek to traverse the border via car or on foot with backpacks.
The Marines are dressed in full camouflage, :: Ghille suits in fact, and are armed with potent M16A2 rifles and sophisticated radio equipment. Suddenly, the kid with the antique .22 rifle sees something. Maybe it's a coyote; maybe it's just his imagination. But he fires off a shot. A second later, he fires again.
The bullets whiz by the four Marines. They squat. One of the soldiers contacts his command by radio. The high-school kid heads for a nearby abandoned church that is not too far from his family's home. He is still carrying his rifle and is still not aware that he has just fired his gun at a group of Marines carrying out a covert drug-war assignment.
In front of the weatherworn border church is an old stone well, now dry and packed with dirt. The Marines maintain radio contact with their command operations.
Ellie