Ranch Rescue
Personal accounts of life on the border
Thu Dec 5 20:25:01 2002
208.152.73.213

Personal accounts of life on the border
http://www.ranchrescue.com/stories.htm#silentwar2


"Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else. There is no other way. If you do not think your home is worth defending, you do not deserve one."

-- Roman Emperor Lucius Septimus Severus, to his sons

Mrs K Morales lives on a ranch in Duvall County, Texas, nearly fifty miles from the border, but still in the path of the hordes of criminals pouring into our nation. She has been the victim of 2 home invasions by criminal aliens:

Silent War 2

It was 7AM and my husband was away working. I was sleeping in my bed. I was safe, wasn’t I?

No I wasn’t, because my home sits on an isolated, remote, ranch near the southern border of the USA. Rural property owners in or near our border counties are never safe.

I had been sleeping soundly, until a frightening CRASH woke me. I had been sleeping face down, with my right arm under my pillow, cradling my head. At the sound I awoke and turned my head to the left, looking over my left shoulder. Inches from my throat was a pair of hands, grasping for my neck! I shot my right hand out and grabbed my .40-caliber pistol off the night stand and rolled onto my back.

There standing in my room, was an illegal alien criminal. I carefully took aim, dead center on his chest.

He took one step back, lowered his hands...... and SMILED!

He then began taunting me, DEMANDING that I get out of bed and make him something to EAT! He told me he had come from mexico and was hungry, and that I was to get out of bed and cook for him NOW! I told him that I wasn’t cooking for him and to get the Hell out of my house!

He LAUGHED at me.

He told me not to be silly, that I should put my gun down and cook for him. I told him that he was crazy, that my husband was a cop and he better get the Hell out. Again he laughed.

So I switched tack, I told him that if he didn’t leave that I was going to call the Border Patrol. This induced a fit of laughter from him and he informed me that not only was he not worried about Border Patrol, but, and I QUOTE:

"They CAN’T catch me ..they don’t even TRY"

To this criminal, the US Border Patrol was a joke. Finally, after a lengthy standoff with him DEMANDING everything from food to money, he just turned tail and ran from my bedroom. As I was dressed only in a T-shirt, I was in no condition to give chase. It also wasn’t worth my life. I had no way of knowing how many more criminals might have been waiting outside. In the past we have had groups of over 30 come up to, and sometimes into, my home! This was the second time in 11 months that I had been the victim of a home invasion, both times at the hands of criminal aliens. (Read Silent War.)

I am 5'4" and I weigh 115 pounds. Even armed, I am no match for such a large group of male criminals who have no respect for the laws or morals of this nation. I am hoping to conceive a baby soon. I just pray that in the following months the headlines don’t scream:

"PREGNANT WOMAN KILLED BY TRESSPASSING CRIMINALS ON US/MEXICAN BORDER"

Or will that even make the news? Will anyone actually care? Or will I just be another statistic?

FOOTNOTE: The US Border Patrol BP arrived 30 minutes after I had called them. The Patrol Agent informed me, "He’s gone across the road", and then went back to his office.

The criminal was right, the Border Patrol didn’t catch him. They didn’t even try. We are on "our own" out here.

Silent War

We live in Duval county, 48 miles from the Mexican border and 4 miles from the Webb County line. My husband and I live on a ranch, just across the road from the railroad tracks, on a major highway in Texas. It's a major highway both for vehicles and for illegal aliens.

My husband is a law enforcement officer, therefore he had to attend a TECLOSE training course one night. My in-laws were visiting and we were outside putting up new gates to compliment the barbed-wire topped fence that surrounds our house. Due to the number of illegal aliens jumping over it, it had dropped into disrepair. We spent our time outside talking, laughing, and generally being a ranching family, enjoying our life out here, discussing cattle, the weather, and all the little things that every rancher understands.

My in-laws bid their farewells and left my husband and I alone as the sun was beginning to dip and twilight was getting close. My husband, complete with uniform and gun, left to attend his course and left me alone to enjoy the twilight hours on our peaceful ranch. Soon that peace was to be shattered completely.

The day had been hot and humid and I decided to go inside and have a lay down. I left the front door open but the screen door latched. I had just laid down when I heard the sound of our screen door being forced opened. My heart froze in my chest. I lay there listening to the intruder ransack our home. To be honest, I was frozen in terror. When I heard the screen door slam shut, I decided to investigate.

I grabbed our .22 rifle and went outside. There stood an Illegal alien holding a bag of things he had stolen from our home, and he was now stealing fruit from the tree just outside our front door. I raised my weapon up. He looked at me with a cold stare and gruffly told me "Hey lady, I just wanted water". I pointed at the bag he was carrying and said "That's NOT water". He just stared back at me with dark eyes.

Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.....THERE WERE MORE OF THEM !!

They were sitting just outside our house fence. I knew I was in a very dangerous situation and that I was now way outnumbered, alone in the middle of nowhere. I decided that I was in no position to safely detain them, so I raised my weapon up higher and ordered them off my land, then went back inside to call for help.

I dialed 911 and guess what? No response. I called again, and again no one answered. So I then called the closest Sheriffs Department, in nearby Jim Hogg County. I begged the man for help, as I was in my home, still looking at the men who had just ransacked it: THEY HADN'T LEFT. They were standing outside, looking in at me. The man on the other end of the phone said that since I lived in Duval County, I would have to call the Duval County Sheriffs Office. I explained that the Duval County Sheriffs Office was over 30 miles away and I needed help NOW. I was in deep trouble.

He declined to help me but said, "Well, I guess I can call the Border Patrol". I screamed "YES!!! Get me help now !!!"

Well, the Border Patrol finally showed up over 20 minutes after the illegals had left. I was later informed by the Border Patrol Agents that they had been told only that I had "seen" illegals and that they had not hurried to get to my home, as they had not been told that it was an emergency!

This is the short version of my story, and I have glossed over my terror, my shaking knees and my house in ruins. But I would like to highlight a couple of things:

1. No 911 system. No one answered.
2. Jim Hogg county Sheriff's Office refused to respond to my emergency. However, they regularly respond in Duval County to non-injury traffic accidents and go even further afield into Webb County on occasion. So it seems that they only respond when they feel like it.
3. The Border Patrol Agents, after looking at the tracks left by the criminals, told me something that chilled my bones: that this large group of illegals had been stalking my ranch house for about 2 hours before coming up to ransack my home. That meant that they had been watching us, waiting to strike. It also meant that they SAW that my husband was a cop and they didn't care. Just how dangerous does it have to get out here before our government takes notice and begins to care? How many of us have to DIE?
4. No, these trespassers and home invaders were NOT caught
5. These illegal aliens trespassed on my land and then made it worse by breaking into my home and stealing property, making this a FELONY offense. The Border Patrol does a good job, but this was a serious enough matter that I should have received help from my local law enforcement. I didn't get any help from the Jim Hogg County Sheriffs Office, so I'm very lucky to be living in Duval County. The Duval County Sheriffs Office filed a report as soon as I was able to reach them. They are a great bunch of officers! NOTE: you MUST file on trespassers ASAP so that the Border Patrol can hold the violators. If you don't, then the Border Patrol will just send them back to Mexico, with no charges filed.
6. Jim Hogg County Sheriffs Officers LAUGHED and JOKED about no one answering my 911 call. WHEN are people going to take this matter seriously? What if I didn't have a gun? What if I had stayed outside a bit longer and got jumped? RAPED? MURDERED? Thank goodness I don't know the answer to that question, but it is on my mind every day now.
7. This sort of thing happens EVERY DAY where I live. Living under this stress is both mentally and physically exhausting.

"So why do you stay?", I hear people ask. The answer is very simple: we LIVE here! We should be free to live our lives without having to fight a daily war with INVADERS from Mexico. Our government gives the illegals more rights than our citizens...This isn't right!

But we stay on, we love this land and our lives here . Why should we move? We will stay on and protect what is ours !!

As they say, "These colors don't run ! " and ranchers don't either !!! It takes a TOUGH breed to be a rancher and we will show just how tough we are by NOT moving, standing our ground, and continuing to fight this silent war.

NOTE: Shortly after sending this story to us, Mr and Mrs Morales joined Ranch Rescue and are now LIFE members. We salute them for their courage in the face of this overwhelming invasion.

The following is a first-hand account of one evening for Cochise County residents Steve and Kathy Golden, shortly after moving to Arizona:

Welcome to the War

The thunderstorms had moved on to the east, lighting Texas Pass with a pure flashbulb brilliance. Clouds still roiled above our house, but the big tankers were long gone for the Dragoon Mountains, leaving only their stomach rumblings above and dampened soil below. Pale pink tinged the grey western sky now, in advance of evening.

I took a deep breath, taking in the wet desert air, smelling of mesquite, sage and mustard weed. Here along the San Pedro, the river made most things green even in the height of August temperatures, the hum of insects and clicking screech of cicadas a backdrop to the virtual smell of rain dampened colors. Lovely, just lovely, I thought.

I finally continued locking up the storage shed, wanting to get inside and start dinner for my wife, though I was reluctant to leave the stormy twilight at this point. This was the first peace either of us had known in days, and she had enjoyed the recent lightning and noise as much as I had. It had been long since either of us had been in thunder country, and that had been high in the Sierra Nevada's. The novelty of desert monsoons had not worn off as yet.

With the click of the padlock, I smiled and turned for the house. Kathy, I thought, was happy, but tired from the day's activity, having spent most of it at the clinic. The annual tests required of a heart transplant recipient were simple though taxing, even for a person in her thirties. I had driven her home in the rain, exhausted and glad to be over her first tests in our new state. Perhaps her recovery would be speeded by this wonderful place.

I could see Kathy smiling though the front window, waiting for me to finish putting away the shovel I'd used to clear a drainage ditch through the chain link fence. The dogs were already inside, slurping down their meal, and I was half way across the enclosed yard when I heard it.

Laughter. Voices. From behind me.

Stopping in mid stride, I turned one direction, then another to place what I was hearing. Yes, definitely to the south, toward the wash that ran across our land. Two voices at least, though the words were indistinguishable from the low-level road noise of the nearby highway.

I slowly turned back toward the south fence, glancing over at the gate to make sure I had locked it. As I reached the chain link, I began to see a red-orange spark of light through the mesquite. Blast! A fire! Whoever was out there had intentions of camping out, and on my property. Despite the recent rains, the area behind our plot was empty of any other homes or buildings, but full of dead grass and thick brush. The last thing we needed was a fire getting loose in there.

Mumbling in disgust, I ran back to the house.

"Stay inside, and stay by the phone!" I rushed into the bedroom, grabbing a Winchester carbine as I turned to Kathy. The wide-eyed look she gave me at first slowly turned to anger.

"Did you hear somebody outside?"

"Yeah, and they've got a fire going. If you hear anything bad, hit 911 and get in the bedroom with the dogs! And don't unlock the door, even for me. I'll have my key with me!" Leaving the shotgun and a fire extinguisher out, I did not wait for more conversation, but headed for the front door.

The snap of the locks behind me sounded final, like jumping off a starting line at full throttle, and the pale pre-night seemed to close in around the house. I looked out from the steps on a landscape so changed by the loss of day that it was more than earthly, filled with the tense strangeness of a dark place where human beings should not go.

Tree limb shadows wavered in a light southeasterly breeze, each split in a ghostly twain by a rising half moon.

Something else. Silence. No insects, no owl hoots, no animal rustlings in the brush. The distant voices had stilled them.

They came again over the creaking of mesquite stalks in the wind, the words more distinct, more casual, as if they were settling in after a long day. I smiled a grim toothless smile, knowing who lay over there now, and I levered a round into the carbine's chamber, while putting the safety on.

Having come from an area of California which saw many "undocumented aliens" pass through, most seeking the seasonal jobs in the agricultural fields, the Mexican slang was more than familiar. Oh, brother! What do they think they're doing this close to the house? They have to know we're here. My Spanish had never been much beyond "Si" and "Adios", but it was up to this. These boys were in for a surprise.

Stepping off down the dirt driveway on the balls of my feet, with the carbine in hand across my chest, I made for the trail that led through a gap in the brush near the southeast fence corner. Most of that path was well worn, as I had been clearing old branch dams in the county's flood control wash for the last week, leaving little plant debris along the trail to make noise under my boots.

Stop. Take several easy steps, toes first. Stop. Listen. Just like stalking, wait a few moments longer than last time. Step once, pause briefly, take two more, stop. Listen. Keep the trees between you and the light as much as possible, as you step off slowly five times.

Break the pattern, stop again. Don't scrape your shirt sleeve against that branch, lot of thorns here, listen. Watch the gun's barrel, don't catch it on something. Step twice again....

It was not a long way, maybe a bit over seventy-five yards straight from our door, but the journey was much more twisted, first along a meandering dry flood trail used by myself and smaller desert life. Then down into the wash, strewn with cut grass stalks and mesquite limbs that can echo like a pistol shot when stepped upon. The path here was narrow where there was nothing on the ground to shout of my presence. It wandered up the dry stream toward the graveled street that passed in front of our new home, twisting past dim-lit piles of sawed limbs, then took a hard left up the opposite embankment.

Soft dirt rippled down the damp low wall under my feet as I climbed it, softened but not overly muddied by the previous light rain.

Nevertheless, the red clay mix, sticking to my soles in ever thi



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