MARINES AGAIN WILL TRAVEL THE REO GRANDE

The units will help build roads, but patrols have not resumed along the
border where a Marine shot and killed a teen last year

CANDELARIA, Texas -- Camouflage netting, M-16s and secretive missions to
track drug traffickers are gone. The Marines are on a more mundane
assignment -- giving civilian agents access to rugged border areas.

For the first time since a young Texan was shot and killed by a Marine last
spring, the Marines have returned to the banks of the Rio Grande.

Army and Marine units deployed in several Texas border areas last month to
build or improve roads to barren and hard-to-reach places that officials say
are havens for drug traffickers, bandits and illegal immigrants from Mexico.

The Pentagon suspended the use of armed military personnel in the anti-drug
patrols after the May shooting death of Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., 18, as he
herded his family's goats near the remote West Texas hamlet of Redford.

A Presidio County grand jury investigated the shooting but never filed
charges against the Marine corporal, who said he fired his M-16 only after
Hemandez shot his hunting rifle at the camouflaged patrol.

Although the Pentagon has yet to resume the patrols, it has approved the
construction projects under Border Patrol supervision.

Despite some ambivalence about the presence of troops and concerns that
construction so close to the RioGrande could cause environmental damage,
officials say the mission is going smoothly.

As military vehicles rumbled in the shadow of the Sierra Madre recently,
Presidio County's top elected official said he hoped the shooting would rest
in peace.

"I realize things are dangerous and you never know what can happen, but this
has been smooth as glass," Presidio County Judge Jake Brisbin Jr. said.
"What happened was a horrible confluence of events. It could happen any
time, anywhere."

Even though no criminal charges were filed in the shooting, the incident
jarred the area. Some residents decried the militarization of a border
shared by a friendly neighbor and partner in the North American Free Trade
Agreement.

Hernandez's family has said it intends to file a lawsuit against the
government in the young man's death.

The Justice Department continues to investigate the incident, and a federal
grand jury is considering whether the shooting of Hernandez constituted a
civil rights violation.

Brisbin, a Marine veteran who was wounded three times in the Vietnam War,
said there has been healing since the shooting. "We've learned, and we'll go
forward," he said.