Mexican troops back in the U.S.
Convoy bringing food, water, medicine Pancho Villa’s soldiers last there in 1916
NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO—
A Mexican army convoy rolled into the United States yesterday with food, water and medicine for Hurricane Katrina victims, the first Mexican military operation on U. S. soil since 1916. The convoy of 45 vehicles and some 200 troops is part of an aid package that includes ships and rescue teams. People cheered, waved, honked car horns and rang bells in villages as the convoy snaked up to the border this week, crossing into Texas from the city of Nuevo Laredo, witnesses said.
Mexicans, who often have a love- hate relationship with their northern neighbour, are surprised and proud at being able to help in the hurricane aftermath. Mexico has often been the recipient of foreign aid for earthquakes and other natural disasters. While millions of Mexicans have trekked north in pursuit of the American dream, many at home are still angry at having lost half their territory to the United States in the 19th century. Mexico is one of dozens of nations, including some as poor as Cuba and Bangladesh, to offer aid to the United States as it grapples with one of the worst natural disasters in its history. The Mexican army trucks, filled with thousands of readytomeals, drinking water and medical equipment, were searched at the border like regular vehicles and took two hours to cross into Laredo, Tex. Officials say the unit will remain in San Antonio for 20 days. Mexican forces under revolutionary Gen. Francisco (Pancho) Villa, angry at U. S. support for a rival, staged a small raid into New Mexico in 1916. They were the bedraggled remnants of an army faction on the losing side of the Mexican revolution, but their action is seen by historians as the last military incursion into the United States. The Villa troops killed several people on a raid on Columbus, New Mexico, prompting Washington to send a larger force into Mexico in retaliation. The two countries fought a full- blown war in the mid- 19th century, when the United States took what are now its southwestern states from Mexico.