THE BORDER REPORT

You hear the stories all the time: the Mexican drug cartels are far better equipped than the law enforcement tasked with capturing them. But a U.S. Marine and reader of The Border Report sees what Mexican law enforcement carries on a daily basis and offers a different perspective – these guys are better armed than the U.S. military fighting the war on terror.

TIJUANA – I’ve been working for a security consulting group based out of Tijuana now for roughly 6 months, fresh out of a stint pounding the ground in the Marine Corps, twice in Iraq, once in Afghanistan.

Now, I split my time between the U.S. and Mexico, and on this particular Monday I had an important lunch meet with a socio of mine, but I wanted to arrive at The Grand Hotel early to do a little work online.

As soon as I crossed the border I realized that I needed to change my point of attack, otherwise I was looking at sitting in a bumper-to-bumper ride all the way to the meet. With the amount of spring breakers and other tourist, and not to mention that it was near lunchtime, I wanted to avoid the main streets as much as possible, so I cut across the entrance into Tijuana and headed towards Ensenada.

This meant I would have to go through downtown, and right underneath the Tijuana Arch. This is the colorful world of a Mexican border town that any movie director tries to emulate, but they just can’t capture the actual character of the underworld that exists in these streets. The sidewalks are littered with drunks, hustlers, and prostitutes, the smell of burnt oil from worn transmissions, every building is near collapse, yet scattered through the cars parked there are 2008 Cadillac Escalades, black as night, with rims that cost a fortune. These are the streets that belong to the Mexican underworld.

Something was different this time though, every street I took, every corner I turned there was a police presence that I never had seen before, local, state, and what was probably federal, but no military. Even if the military was there, they would not have had any room to place themselves, the cops were taking up every inch of space. As I sat there in my car and waited for the light to turn green, I heard the obnoxious deep honking of the Mexican police siren, so I looked over my shoulder and saw a truck piled high with new reinforcements.

Parked right beside me was a brand new Chevrolet pick-up, and what was climbing out of the truck was one of the most fully equipped Baja State Police Officers I have ever seen. For heaven’s sake, it was the most fully equipped police officer I have ever seen anywhere, regardless of the country.

Black Kevlar helmet without a dent or scratch, wrap around shades, flak jackets so new they still had the crease in them from being in the cargo container, radio attachments to the left shoulder, what looked like a .45 holstered on his right hip, an MP-5 shining right at me, not a speck of dirt on it, not a hint of rust near it, brand new khaki pants, black leather shooting gloves that couldn’t have been a week old, and highly shined steel toe black combat boots. What were they running towards so hurriedly?

Tijuana is a tough town, and this part of the city is one of the toughest beats on the street, I wasn’t surprised to figure that something was up. I knowingly took this route, and knew I could have the possibility of running into some unsavory characters. I whipped my head back around scanning the sidewalks for everyone’s hands, trying to catch a glimpse of the perpetrator before the gun toting super cops unloaded their arsenal on him, but no one was holding a weapon, so what was going on?

As I was preparing myself for what was about to be one of the greatest gun battles the city has ever seen, I scanned the street one more time, and that’s when I saw what was happening. The nearest taco stand was the target, and these five police officers decked out with the latest in combat fashion straight out of a Blackwater USA catalog were closing in quickly. There mission was simple, devour as many plates of Carne Asada as possible.

I pondered for a moment about the garbage I was accustomed to. As a Marine we’re told up front, no one cares about you, no one likes you, and most of all no one is going to give you anything. You get your first taste of that in training, backpacks with one shoulder strap, flak jackets that don’t even fit across your chest, Kevlar helmets that are held up under your chin with a shoe string and an A-2 service rifle with a stock full of the sand from every beach on the face of the earth. It’s what I loved about the Corps, it’s what built my character: They were up front with us from the get-go. You better get used to it right away, because it doesn’t get any better then what we had right there. So that’s what we did, and no one complained, the greatest warriors the USA has to offer, and a crumby piece of Kevlar isn’t going to keep us from doing our job.

Your rifle jams up because it’s rusted out … that’s your fault Marine, you should have cleaned it better.

Flak jacket doesn’t stop the 7.62 mm round of an AK-47 … don’t get shot Marine, you should have worked on your sprints more. No excuses and a true Marine never needed to give one. You’ll never hear a grunt Marine complain about the equipment he had or didn’t have in a battle, but you will hear a former grunt tell you that a cop in Mexico has some pretty damn good equipment, so what in the world is he complaining about?

Now, granted it’s been a while since I have heard the complaint from a law enforcement spokesman in Mexico use the excuse that the cartels have more firepower, and better equipment, but if and when they do use that as an excuse, I’d like to tell them that it’s not the equipment that wins the war … besides, theirs is top notch anyways.

Will is a former Marine who served from 2002-2006 in Iraq and Afghanistan.