SunHerald.com | 09/10/2005 | Mexican, Dutch Marines arrive to help

SunHerald.com | 09/10/2005 | Mexican, Dutch Marines arrive to help: "For the first time since the 19th Century, Mexican troops landed Friday on U.S. soil, sent from the Mexican Navy ship ARM Papaloapan anchored near the USS Bataan. The Mexican ship's name means, 'River of Butterflies.' Marines from Mexico, Holland and the U.S. are part of an international Hurricane Katrina cleanup effort building up on ships about 20 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Four Canadian ships are on the way.

'Our President called George Bush and three days later we came here,' said Oscar Martinez Pretelin, a fleet or admiral rank officer aboard the Papaloapan, a 440-foot-long U.S.-built troop landing ship. Vincente Fox is the president of Mexico.

'We are honored to help the United States,' Pretelin told press and television reporters Thursday aboard the Mexican ship."