THE KINGSVILLE INCIDENT

KINGSVILLE - Dean Poland received the warning in time to climb up to the
roof and watch the lights approach from the west, arc northward, double
back and head straight toward his taxidermy shop.

Skimming the treetops and power lines, four black helicopters streaked by a
few yards from his vantage point and landed on top of an abandoned,
two-story Exxon office building just across King Street.

"We could see vague shadows of men pouring out of them," Poland said. "Then
we could hear gunfire and grenades going off, and we could see flashes of
light through some of the windows that were broken out."

Two larger choppers, both without lights, followed the first four. While
one hovered over the First National Motor Bank, the other leapfrogged the
old Exxon building and landed at two other abandoned buildings - once
headquarters of the police and fire departments - a block away. There were
more explosions, and a column of smoke rose into the night sky.

Trey Elmore heard the noise and stepped onto the sidewalk outside his arts
and crafts supply store. Several streets had been closed off by police, and
spectators were gathering at the intersection of Kleberg Avenue and Sixth
Street.

"What's going on?" Elmore asked Mayor Phil Esquivel.

"I don't know," the mayor replied.

But the mayor was one of the few people in this town of 26,500 who did know
what was going on but had pledged himself to secrecy. Members of the Army's
elite anti-terrorism unit known as Delta Force were using Kingsville as a
training ground for an urban commando assault.

For the past two weeks, the "real world" training has been conducted at
several sites in the coastal bend area, frightening some residents who were
kept in the dark and angering others who objected to dangerous maneuvers
being staged in civilian areas.

Although the interior of the former Exxon building was prepared to contain
the grenade blasts and the soldiers were using plastic bullets fired with
low powder loads, Elmore felt the citizens were placed at risk.

"Those choppers do go down," he said. "I'm all for the military, but why do
this in the middle of a town?"

That sentiment was echoed by Randall Jarris, a farmer.

"Somebody could have gotten hurt," he said.

Poland, however, was one of those who enjoyed the Feb. 8 exercise.

"It added a little excitement," he said. "It was kind of like going to the
air show we have every year" at the Kingsville Naval Air Station.

What seemed to upset many residents was that they had no warning that the
training would be conducted in their town. The mayor and City Council
permitted the Army to use the abandoned buildings, but at the Army's
request, kept it a secret.

Shortly before the 7 p.m. maneuver, police distributed fliers in the
immediate vicinity, telling residents that a military exercise would take
place.

Walter Sokalski, spokesman for the Army Special Operations Command in Fort
Bragg, N.C., said the secrecy is a safety precaution.

"We don't want to draw a crowd," he said. "That puts a burden on the local
police and creates dangers."

Members of the Kleberg County Commissioners Court also were upset that they
were not notified in advance. They received calls from frightened residents
who thought a bank was being robbed. One woman told Commissioner Romeo
Lomas she thought the world was coming to an end.

Tomas Sanchez, the county's emergency management coordinator, said he would
have tried to stop the maneuvers if he had known about them.

"I think they are dangerous to the people of Kingsville ," he told the
Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and added, "It scares citizens to see black,
unmarked helicopters and men jumping out of them in black Ninja suits."

While there were no injuries, the mock assault did result in one mishap
that fueled concerns over safety. At the old police station, soldiers using
a welding torch to cut through wires accidentally ignited a fire that
gutted the building and did structural damage to the roof. The Army said it
would pay for the damage.

Almost as the Special Forces departed Kingsville for Corpus Christi, the
controversy over the in-town training spread to the Internet and political
camps.

>From its Washington, D.C., office, the Libertarian Party issued a press
release demanding that the military "stop terrifying small town invasions."

Conspiracy theorists on the World Wide Web began asking, "Is the U.S. Army
invading Texas?"

On radio talk shows, callers were allowing that the urban assault training
was preparation for martial law that will be declared during the chaos that
will accompany massive computer failures in the year 2000.

One reader e-mailed the Corpus Christi newspaper: "I think this is the
first indication of what is going to happen in 2000. The executive orders
have already been signed that the Constitution is to be suspended, and we
will see King William in power and in charge. And our rights as free
citizens will be abdicated."

"It is just routine training," Sokalski said. "This is training that will
save lives down the road."

Using abandoned buildings in civilian areas is a long-standing practice, he
said, because it is more realistic than what can be experienced on a
military base. The Army looks for towns that are willing to allow the
maneuvers and works with the local police to safeguard lives and property.

"The training starts on bases," he said, "but a base doesn't have the same
flavor as a city, the same lighting and layout. They're not getting the
real world training angle on a base."

Going into a more realistic setting, he said, "is the final exam for these
guys."

After the Feb. 8 training assault on Kingsville , residents of Port Aransas
reported seeing choppers in that area, although no training exercises were
conducted in the town, said City Manager Tommy Brooks. On Wednesday, the
soldiers staged a mock hostage rescue of an ambassador from a jail cell at
the old Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi.

>From there, the unit was scheduled to move to San Antonio for on-base
training. Last year, San Antonio city officials turned down the Army's
request to conduct air and ground assaults in the city.

Kingsville Mayor Esquivel said the feedback he has received suggests that
most of the town's citizens favor cooperating with the military.

"It was a great show of support for our country," he said. "It is something
big for this city. It just breaks my heart to see people twisting it and
blowing it out of proportion."

As for the county commissioners, who, in a letter to the Army last week,
demanded that they be informed of similar exercises in the future, Esquivel
said, "I wish the County Commission was as concerned over our
infrastructure as they are over this."