MARINES REPAIRING ROAD, IMAGE

Border Residents Wary After Teen's Death Despite Aid In War On Drugs

CANDELARIA, Texas - The Marines have come to this little town on the Rio
Grande to repair a local road - and their local image.

It was just an hour's drive from here that a Marine last year fatally shot
a teenager as he herded his family's goats. Now 200 troops have returned
unarmed, save for the bulldozers and graders they'll use on the gravel road
north of town.

They've camped next to the town's school and flung up a giant Quonset hut
the school can keep and that teachers hope to use as a cafeteria. The
soldiers help in lessons and join the kids each morning in pledging
allegiance to the flag.

It's been a treat for the students, teachers say.

"You should see how excited the kids get," said Johnny Chambers, head
teacher in Candelaria. "They love to read their lessons to the Marines."

But many residents eye the troops nervously. They resent that even remote
Candelaria, once described as the end of a road to nowhere, can't escape
the national angst about drugs and illegal immigration.

"A lot of us came here to get away from everything, and now we feel like
we've been invaded," said Janet Hinds, a secretary at Candelaria's school.
"The drug war is changing the whole nature of the area."

Feelings are running high along the Rio Grande, a small river that is more
of an inconvenience to local residents than an international boundary.
People share stores, mailboxes and even schools with friends and relatives
across the border.

Now the drug war has arrived in force, bringing fast change to an area
that's used to little.

A couple of hundred Marines can't help but create a fuss in a town with a
two-room school and no store, and where most of the 60 residents come from
a handful of families.

About 500 Marines will work in the area, with about 200 present at any one
time. They're part of a national effort by the Pentagon to support police
fighting drug traffickers. They came at the invitation of the Border Patrol
to rebuild a river road that snakes north of Candelaria but is almost
impassable now.

Their main adversary is a big piece of granite just north of town. The
route becomes little more than a trail that disappears into mud alongside
the bluff, where the river frequently floods.

Planners now call it the Bi-National Friendship Road.

One unit suggested dynamiting the bluff. That wasn't going to fly with the
locals, said Maj. Ruben Garza, the project's chief planner.

"We could've been blasting for months," he said with a smile.

The Marines elected instead to cut two miles of new road around the back of
the bluff, part of the rugged terrain of West Texas. Border agents say the
road will help them guard an area long known for smuggling items from
tequila to blue jeans and more recently cocaine and marijuana.

The troops will open 42 miles of river road. Without the access, agents say
they largely depend on catching smugglers and undocumented immigrants
farther inland - as they approach U.S. 90, a hike of about 24 hours to the
east.

STIRRING UNEASE

Marine officers say they know their presence stirs unease, particularly
after the death last May of Esequiel Hernandez, an 18-year-old shot by a
Marine on foot patrol near Redford.

The incident focused attention on the Pentagon's border role. After the
Redford shooting, policy-makers suspended the reconnaissance patrols and
are expected to cancel them altogether.

The military's biggest task was and remains construction, mostly roads and
fences. The Pentagon also provides intelligence, air reconnaissance,
transportation and training for anti-drug operations around the country.

It's an appropriate mission for the military, said Brig. Gen. James J.
Lovelace, commander of Joint Task Force 6 in El Paso. A former Army prison
houses the 170-person command in the outlying desert of Fort Bliss, a
sprawling base at the edge of El Paso.

"I've got more requests for support than I have money to provide it," Gen.
Lovelace said. "We have skills and resources that are unavailable elsewhere."

Federal law prohibits soldiers from making arrests, so the military only
works in tandem with civilian police agencies. The task force also doesn't
initiate its operations along the border.

A civilian council sifts through requests for task force help, which must
relate to the drug fight. Military coordinators then find units willing to
volunteer for the assignments, and the task force pays for what amounts to
a training opportunity.

FORMERLY POPULAR

Before they were suspended because of the Redford shooting, the military's
reconnaissance patrols were among its most popular operations. Undermanned
Border Patrol units liked the help in watching miles of frontier.

The Marfa sector, which includes Candelaria and Redford, covers 420 miles
of the Rio Grande from the east side of Big Bend National Park nearly to El
Paso. It works with 127 agents on three shifts.

"We really can't cover much of the border," said Jerry Agan, the Border
Patrol's deputy chief for the sector.

"The military's always been a big player with us out here in the war on
drugs."

Four Marines patrolled near Redford last May at the request of the Border
Patrol. Their leader shot Mr. Hernandez after the youth fired at the
camouflaged soldiers, and was preparing to shoot again, the Marines said.

Federal and state grand juries heard evidence and declined to file charges
against the Marines. But a public outcry arose against the armed patrols.

"There's still some sensitivity out there about Marines on the border," Mr.
Agan said.

So besides building a road, the Marines have a public affairs mission, he
said. "We think they've done a great job."

Some landowners on the route voiced initial concerns about the work. But
planners say the project hasn't met the kind of opposition aimed at a
similar road project near Laredo, which faces a suit filed by environmental
and other groups.

Presidio County residents raised questions at public hearings as well. "But
nobody left the meetings with serious objections," said County Judge Jake
Brisbin Jr.

Nonetheless, it's a gamble - the risk of another incident vs. the value of
a new road, he said.

"I think it's a risk worth taking."

BROAD BENEFITS

The county gets a free road; the Border Patrol is paying for the materials;
and the military is providing the manpower. Several Marine units, including
reserves from Wisconsin and Minnesota, jumped at the chance to come to the
sunshine of West Texas in the dead of winter.

It's experience for engineering units that rarely get to practice their
roadwork, said Maj. Don Lumpert, who's brought a team from Camp Pendleton
in California.

"We might get to fix some roads here and there on the base, but that's
about it."

The project isn't without its risks for the military. Troops at the Laredo
project are building their road within sight of traffickers across the
border. Drug agents learned of threats to open fire at the soldiers,
raising security concerns there and upriver at Candelaria.

Because the troops are unarmed, a couple of Border Patrol agents have
joined what's called Camp Candelaria. The agents sleep in a large
recreational vehicle seized from traffickers.

Their presence alone makes some residents nervous. Most of the students at
Candelaria's school are legal residents, but most of their mothers aren't,
said Ms. Hinds, the school secretary.

So far, the agents and Marines haven't bothered Mexicans who regularly
cross the river to collect mail and shop at the store down the road, said
Pilar Avila, 32.

"We're not used to having agents here all the time," she said. "They
usually come and go."

Still, some locals bemoan the loss of isolation. Sitting at the end of a
dead-end spur gained Candelaria a little notoriety. Texas Monthly magazine
called it "The Road to Nowhere" in an ode last fall to its rugged beauty.

The presence of troops has made everyone nervous about the future, said Jim
Blumberg, an area rancher.

That tension won't completely dissipate even after the soldiers leave, he
said. "We'll get agents running up and down this road and then the tourists
will discover it."

That isn't entirely bad, said Mr. Brisbin, the county judge. The towns
along the river were dying - Candelaria lost its cotton gin and then its
only store years ago.

"I bet it'll have a new store within a year," he said. "It'll be good to
have cars traveling that road."

© 1998 The Dallas Morning News