Well Son, I Don’t Think You’re Welcome In Mexico Anymore.

In 1969 my Dad had gotten orders to move to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As a going away present our old babysiter Eilfie, from Trysa, Germany, who was married to Cowboy, one of my Dad.'s men had given us a German Shepherd puppy that she had named Nanook II (after one of our former dogs).

Nanook slept in a shoe box at my Mom's feet in the car all the way from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Nanook kept growing, and growing, it seemed she would never stop. By the time we were able to move into the new housing units they had built on base, she could rest her head on top of Dad's, if she stood on her hind legs. She was so big when she laid down on the seven foot long sofa her head would be on one arm and her hind feet on the other. To say she was huge was an understatement.

Nanook lived in our back yard. She broke every chain we put her on, until Dad finally gave up and put her on a tow chain and nailed it in the ground, with a railroad spike, then she just pulled the spike out of the ground. She went through three bowls of water, a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, and t bone steak every day. She could jump the 7 foot high privacy fence around our portico with out even trying.To exercise her we would pile into the car and take her up into the Huachuca Mountians and Dad would hold her chain out the drivers side window while she ran alongside the car.

Once when we were all goofing around outside I got knocked over and my right upper arm was sliced open by the brand new stucco on the outside of one of the houses. Nanook ran and got my Mom and Dad. They brought me to the emergency room my arm was sliced open all the way to the bone.

Nanook loved to play flag football with us. One day after we got home from school we let her off her chain to come play a game of football out in the front yard, a strange car pulled up and parked in front of the neighbor's house, Nanook went nuts. She ran over to the car sniffing all around it, and barking, she finally just jumped on the hood of the car, and wouldn't let anyone near it. The guy who'd climbed out of it earlier came out of the neighbor's house and told us to get our dog off of his car. We told him that we couldn't, he got mad and stormed back into the neighbor's house, muttering under his breath.

We were getting tired of this strange new game that Nanook had thought up and were actually getting a little creeped out by it. She had never disobeyed orders before. We decided to call Dad at work and tell him what was going on. He showed up with several MP (Military Police)cars that surrounded the house across the street. The owner of the car eventually came out of the house, his hands on his head. Two of the MPs ran up and one of them hand cuffed him and hauled him off to a police car. Dad and a couple other MPs looked the car over, it was stuffed with pot, from end to end. Dad talked Nanook off of the car and brought her home.

After being questioned, the guy they arrested, admitted to ownership of the car, and showed the MPs several silos filled with pot, and the hunt was on. There was no way one man could have smuggled that much pot in one car.Teams of dogs and soldiers were scouring the desert in and around base, and the silos, trying to find out where all the pot was coming from. They eventually found a tunnel system leading under the border into Mexico. The ring was busted and the tunnels shut down.

About half a year later Christmas was coming and we all decided to head down to Nogales to do our yearly Christmas shopping. The lines over the border were enormous so we headed out early right after breakfast. We spent the whole day shopping, only stopping at noon to have lunch in a beautiful restraurant, complete with a Mariachi Band, that wandered amongst the tables. In Nogales you could only see homes through gates in walls that were studded with broken bottles, some even had barbed wire and/or razor wire running along the top of the walls. Dad said "Watch in another twenty years we will have to start putting walls around our homes in the States too." After lunch we continued shopping until Dad decided it was time to head home. It was getting late and we needed to head to the house and make dinner for everyone.

We paid our car guard, a teenage boy, and climbed back into it to head home. When you drive to Mexico you need to hire a boy to guard your car, if you don't when you come back to where it's parked you will either find it has been stolen or stripped. My father told me it's like a kid mafia, the boy you're paying is actually a part of a gang, and paying him is paying the gang not to strip your car, or steal it.The line to the border gate seemed to be miles long, and it felt like it took forever before it was our turn be questioned by the border guard. When Dad pulled up to the gate the border guard took one look at Dad and went into the guard shack and got on the phone. Our car was immediately surrounded by border guards with guns and we were ordered out of the car.

The border guards surrounded us and ordered us into the main building. We went in, and they put us in a jail cell about 8' long and 4' or 5' wide. It had one little window about 8' or 9' up the outside wall. Mom, Dad. and six kids ( from about a year old to 11 years old) in that little room with no place to go to the bathroom, no air conditioning, and no water. They took Mom out and questioned her. They eventually brought her back, and then they took Dad out, to question him. Dad was entirely ticked. He was one of those old time Blackfoot men, you know the kind, the quieter he got the angrier he was.

The whole time we were locked up he kept asking to use the phone. Finally, I guess he'd had enough and demanded to have his phone call. He called his adopted father, who just happened to be the base General of Fort Huachuca, his nickname was General Bulldog. They brought Dad back into our jail cell, but this time when they closed the door on him, he looked at Mom and smiled. He told her "I got through to Dad. Everythings going to be alright." The Mexican border guards claimed that my Mom and my little brother were Mexican Nationals, because they had caramel skin coloring, and blue black hair I suppose,and we were trying to smuggle them out of the country.

A little while later Bulldog showed up. I swear he and his men must have sped all the way to the border, because it seemed like it didn't take him long at all. We knew he'd arrived because we could hear him hollering, and threatening to have the press there in a flash, that the guards had caused an international incident that wouldn't please the rest of the United States when it hit the news wires.

The door to our cell opened and Bulldog was standing there with his hands on his hips all he said was "Come on we're goin home". We got in our car, Bulldog got in his, and some of his men got in another one. Bulldog's car led the way. with us in the middle. and his men behind us. We made it home and the only thing I remember him saying to my Dad was "Well son, I don't think you're welcome in Mexico anymore."

The only thing I could think of was that this was retalliation for my dog Nanook shutting down the underground smuggling ring.

Score One For The Good Guys!

Mexican marines raid town police force, nab 8 cops

By MARK WALSH Associated Press Writer updated 10:35 p.m. PT, Wed., March. 17, 2010

VILLALDAMA, Mexico — Mexican marines detained more than half the police force of a northern rural town Wednesday for suspected ties to drug cartels.

Marines arrested eight of the 12 officers on the force in Villaldama, a town of about 4,000 people in northeastern Nuevo Leon state, said town hall clerk Erasmo Villarreal.

Nuevo Leon Secretary General Javier Trevino said the police chief was among those arrested.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35924058/ns/world_news-americas/

But personally I think it was just a show for the murders a few days ago, and if they don't keep up the battle I will lose faith in the Mexican Government once again.

FBI: No evidence U.S. victims targeted

Killings of 3 Americans in Mexico a case of mistaken ID by drug gang?

updated 6:04 p.m. PT, Tues., March. 16, 2010

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Confused hit men may have gone to the wrong party, the FBI said Tuesday as it cast doubt on fears that the slaying of three people with ties to the U.S. consulate shows that Mexican drug cartels have launched an offensive against U.S. government employees.

Gunmen chased two white SUVs from the birthday party of a consulate employee's child on Saturday and opened fire as horrified relatives screamed. The two near-simultaneous attacks left three adults dead and at least two children wounded.

The attack drives home just how dangerous Ciudad Juarez has become — and just how vulnerable those who live and work there can be, despite the Mexican government's claims that most victims are drug smugglers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35861483/ns/world_news-americas/

The US is doing it's part in trying to solve the murders.

Crackdown Aims to Find Killers of 3 in Mexico

By MARC LACEY Published: March 18, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Some 200 American law enforcement agents cracked down Thursday morning on a notorious gang in El Paso, Tex., in an attempt to determine whether its heavily armed members were behind the shooting deaths of three people connected to the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez over the weekend.

The raids involved agents from several federal agencies, and about 50 members of the Barrio Azteca gang were taken in for questioning, according to Andrea Simmons, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. field office in El Paso.

The gang operates on both sides of the United States-Mexico border, and Mexican soldiers were also conducting operations, according to a spokesman for the Mexican military, Enrique Torres.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/world/americas/19mexico.html?partner=rss&emc=rss