The Mercedes Enterprise (Mercedes, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 33, Ed. 1 Wednesday, August 14, 1996 Page: 3 of 24
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Mercedes, Texas 78570 Wednesday, August 14, 1996
The Mercedes Enterprise — Page 3
1 MEMBER
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
The Mercedes Enterprise
(USPS 177-100)
Second class postage paid at
Mercedes, Texas78570. Pub-
lished each Wednesday at
Mercedes, Hidalgo County,
Texas, Office of publication,
230 S. Texas Ave. Subscrip-
tion rates $14.50 per year in
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78570.
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GOD'S FIVE MINUTES
THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYTHING' Ecclesiastes 3:1, The Living Bible, Tyndale House
Key Word That Opens Life
27 CAROM. 20:20
BELIEVE IN THE LORD YOUR GOD, 60 SHALL YE BE ESTAB-
LISHED; BELIEVE HIS PROPHETS, SO SHALL YE PROSPER "
This Series Made Possible by
These Business Firms and Individuals
Who Support Our Right to Worship Freely.
Mercedes Christian Church
612 SOUTH TEXAS
P.O. BOX 896
MERCEDES, TEXAS 78570
Sunday School: 9 a.m.
Sunday Worship: 10:10 a.m. & 7 p.m.
In Times Like These
--PASTOR - DON BRYNTESON
ARCH 565-1509 FAR. 565-4742
Holistic Home Health and
Community Support Services
% "FREE NURSING SERVICES"
Mid Valley 262-2255 ext 911
Upper Valley 682-3242 ext 911
Monday through Friday '
THE RIGHT CHOICE 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Dear Mercedes...
Letters from F.S. Lentz, Jr.
All ATTIC Appliance
MAI I O Repair
• Ranges ’Washers and Dryers
•Window Units ’Refrigerators
1306 South Missouri 565-4555
MARTINEZ GARAGE
565-4022
Cwlz
AUTO
PETE & BETO MARTINEZ --57
OWNERS SERVICE
1 103 S. Missouri Ave. Mercedes 78570.
RUDY GARZA
FUNERAL HOMES
1702 E. Harrison
Haringen 78550
(210) 425-8200
217 S. Main SL
La Feria 78559
(210) 797-3122
236 S. Ohio Ave.
Mercedes 78570
(210) 565-1175
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted” - St. Matthew 5:4
See us for towing, auto repairs
or welding!
.JUAN'S WELDING
and Auto Service
2190 W. Business 83
565-3711
IMELDA’S
BEAUTY SALON 92
242 S. Texas #5 1%
(Inside Super Drug Plaza). /
Mercedes, TX 785705-2'
Prop. David L. Martell oP
565-4806 ^^ '
Open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon - Sat
ton
Suzann Meyer
Massage Thenipist
West ‘Westem, Wesiaco
Ties-Wed-Ihrustay, 2-9 p.m.
Call for appointment: 969-24.11
Mercedes Memorial
Chapel
635 S. Texas Mercedes 565-1312
Traditional funerals
[ as low as $1,254,
complete with casket.
Direct cremation,
complete alternative
container, at $600.
Cemetery charges are separate
from funeral home charges.
You Can’t Have My Fan
(Continued)
Under the heading of “better late
than never” comes this quick and dirty
glossary of some Rose Garden pieces
of speech.
AAA — Triple-A, Anti-Aircraft
Artillery. Guns. The worst threat we
faced in terms of density. It was every-
where. When you saw it, the white or
black puffs, it was worse.
Barrel Roll — same as Steel Tiger
but in a different place.
BD A—Bomb damage assessment.
What, by type, the effect of the runs
were, in terms of percentage. For ex-
ample, “One bridge, 100 percent de-
stroyed.”
BBO — Best bail out, part of the
brief the FAC would give you prior to
commencing the runs, in which he
would give you a magnetic bearing
and distance to use if you got hit and
were going to step out of the airplane.
Buy it — Buy the farm. Die.
Cubi Point — Naval Air Station,
Cubi Point, Republic of the Phillipines.
Where we flew our aircraft for air-
frame and engine repair that was
heavier work than what we could sup-
port in the field. Since we didn’t rate
R&R, our skipper rotated the crews
that flew the birds (planes) to Cubi.
This was our “good deal” and it
was; flush toilets, hot water, constant
electricity and a chance to see actual
American women. When t he next bird
was ready, we’d fly back across the
South China Sea to the RoseGarden.
Cubi absorbed what happened when
and cleared you in and off it. He would
adjust the bombs as you worked it and
when done would tell you what you
did or didn’t do to it, via BDA. There
were “fast-FACs” — guys doing it in
jets. Not very good.
The General’s Head—We had our
own sometime General, a Brigadier, a
one star. He had his own one-hole
outhouse. It had a bright red door and
a single big white star painted on it.
Our troopers got off on lassoing it
from a jeep and dragging it into hiding
somewhere in the Garden. The Gen-
eral was hot amused. He ordered it
secured to the ground with wire and
engineer stakes. That didn’t work.
Group Skipper — The command-
ing officer of a Marine Air Group,
having three or four squadrons under
him. A full Colonel.
Hooch — Southeast Asia hut.
Home.
SAM — Surface to Air Missile,
from the shoulder fired heat seeker,
SA-7, to SAM 2’s and 3’s. Two’s were
telephone pole sized, three’s were
shorter. Sometimes launched with ra-
dar guidance, sometimes ballistically
or optically. Either way, if they hit
you, it could mess up your whole day.
Skipper — The commanding offi-
cer of the squadron, a Lieutenant Colo-
nel.
Steel Tiger—An area of Laos near
North Vietnam so designated by our
government for operational purposes.
Not a good place.
T.A.D. _ Temporary Additional
Duty orders. Just what it says. PCS
was the other kind: Permanent Change
of Station.
Topping Off — Aerial refueling
until you were full of gas.
Hop—A mission, or sortie. Where
“hop” came from I don’t know.
Music — The sound in your hel-
met ear phones of someone looking at
you with radar. That usually happened
prior to a SAM launch. Sometimes the
enemy would turn it on just to get your
attention. It worked.
Two Pointer — A mission where
the FAC observed us taking fire. It
took twenty points for an air medal;
for us. One for a combat hop, two for
a combat hop where you took fire. I
Up North — Across the DMZ, the
demilitarized zone.
XO — The executive officer, next
in command, usually the black hat, the
hard guy.
Plaines Des Jarres — Plain of It was never my intent to garble up
Jars, PDJ. The “J,” aflat area south- the remembrances with military arid
west of Hanoi, in Laos, used as a flying stuff. In fact, it never was my
burial ground by Laotians who put intent to commit much of this to paper
the remains of ancestors in tall in the first place. But I did. Anyone
stone jars. The French occupied who puts things like this down has to
Laos a while, saw the place, and
named it thusly. The North Viet-
namese Army (NVA) used it as a
the carriers docked at Subic Bay staging area for material to be dis-
nearby, after long line periods on Yan-
kee station, and when people like us
hit “civilization” after time in the
jungle. More on Cubi later.
tributed and moved south down the
network of roads and paths known
as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Downtown — Hanoi.
R and R — Rest and Recreation.
When the Vietnamese were in full
E andE—Escape and evade. What prosecution, armed forces members
you did if you went down. We were all were given time and place to reunite
trained and each had a game plan. with their wives and families.
FAC — Forward air controller. R.O.E. — Rules of Engagement.
The guy in a little spotter plane, usu- Ours were two runs max on a hot target,
ally a prop job, who marked the target which was a target known to be firing.
be careful.
To paraphrase John Graves: “Gold
knows that with four generations of
men who have seen war, they are plen-
tiful enough.”
1 did it for many reasons, am doing it,
mostly because I left some friends there.
They didn’t get to continue and by then,
they had invested themselves in me. ;
None of this is new. But it was new
to me then, and we were all so very
young.
And alive.
Que te vaya bien, eh?
Fleet
By Barry Evans
veryday Wonders...
The Fluke of Intelligence nervous system demands a long (and held by ET-lovers is that brain size de-
(In light of last week’s announce- vulnerable) gestation period followed velops independently of body size. It
ment by NASA scientists that they by a long childhood, during which the doesn’t In fact, increased body size de-
have discovered what they say is evi- young are taught survival skills by mands a larger brain, so that in general,
dence of single-cell life on Mars, this their parents. Humans, of course, are intelligence is not so much a function of
column is especially appropriate.) the prime examples, as any parent still brain size as it is of body weight :
waiting for their 20 year old to leave
home can confirm.
Believers in extraterrestrial life v Thus, elephants and whales hay
often argue that natural selection fa- larger brains than humans, but they
vors intelligence, so that there’s a good Another approach to the improb- have much more body to coordinate;
chance primitive life on a planet will ability of intelligence appearing — they need all those brain cells just to
eventually lead to intelligent beings, one that gamblers might appreciate — operate. Instead of just looking at brain
They claim that small nervous sys- was taken by biologist EmstMayr. He size, a truer measure of intelligence is
terns are likely to lead to larger ones pointed out that innumerable species obtained by comparing brain size
which, almost inevitably in the view have arisen on our planet over the past against body weight. So for instance,
of some proponents, lead to the com- four billion years, yet only one—man “smart” animals, like chimpanzees and
plex systems which underlie intelli- —has developed high intelligence. gorillas, are well above the average
ratio...but humans are nearly off the
Even among the primates, the scale. We re so far from the norm that
Most scientists who have studied smartest mammals alive, at least 100 we’re an anomaly.
evolution of life on Earth would heart- species didn’t evolve sufficiently to
ily disagree. The consensus among make tools or use language beyond the Nothing would make me happier
biologists and anthropologists is that abilities of a human infant. The odds, than hearing that a message has been
humans are here by accident, and that in other words, of intelligence evolv- received from intelligent extraterres-
for the most part, greater intelligence ing naturally are poor when you look at trial beings. But don’t expect the evo-
in a species is a liability rather than an the only example of a biosystem that we lution of intelligence hereon Earth to
advantage. know. support the chance of that happening.
The evolutionist C.O. Lovejoy, for In addition to believing in the near- As the satirical version of
instance, claims that intelligence is a inevitability of intelligence arising once Desiderata puts it, “You are a fluke of
reproductive hazard, since a complex you’ve got life, another primary myth the universe.’ ,
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The Mercedes Enterprise (Mercedes, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 33, Ed. 1 Wednesday, August 14, 1996, newspaper, August 14, 1996; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1632172/m1/3/: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library.