VIDOR SAILOR HELPING MILITARY 'WAR ON DRUGS'

Not all of Southeast Texas's soldiers are fighting on the other side of the
ocean.

Others are struggling against elements whose body count isn't tallied on the
battlefield but from street to street.

U.S. Navy Sailor Anna J. Wade and her peers aboard the U.S.S. McCampbell won a
big battle in the "war on drugs" last month, seizing 1.36 metric tons of
cocaine from a sailing vessel off the coast of Central America.

The crew was dispatched to stop and board the suspected ship "Sin Rumbo," a
Canadian-flagged vessel. During a search, they discovered the illegal cargo in
a hidden hold aboard the vessel.

"The crew performed really well," said Wade, a 1998 graduate of Vidor High
School. "We make a great team."

The cocaine and the vessel's master were transported to the destroyer to be
handed over to appropriate authorities.

The Navy vessel was then given permission to sink the vessel using its Mk-45
gun system.

Wade, the 23-year-old daughter of Curtis and Verna Mae Williamson of Vidor, is
a fireman aboard the ship.

"I lent a hand wherever I was needed," said Wade, a two-year Navy veteran.

The U.S.S. McCampbell is one of the Navy's newest guided-missile destroyers -
commissioned August 17, 2002. It is homeported in San Diego.