East Into The Sunset


Posted On: Wednesday - May 29th 2024 7:29AM MST
In Topics:   Immigration Stupidity  Books

Note: Right now, VDare is selling this book for $15. You just have to email them and maybe send an old-fashioned paper check.



Andrew Morrison, the author* of East Into The Sunset, was a US Border Patrol Agent for 20 years. The full name of the book includes Memories of Patrolling in the Rio Grande Valley at the Turn of the Century. Agent Morrison's time down there was only his 1st 5 years ('99 - '05) of his career at the BP, before he moved up to the Canadian border. Things have changed over the last 5 years up in the north, but at the time in question, the Mexican border was where all the action was, hence the book's concentration of stories from the author's time down there.

Firstly, so as not to make the Peak Stupidity reader wonder as long at the previous readers of this book would have, here's the deal with "east into the sunset": The guys working the Rio Grande portion of the US/Mexico border - all of the Texas border, 1250 miles from El Paso/Juarez down the river to Harlingen/Matamoros/South Padre - referred to downriver as "east". (Mr. Morrison explains this in more detail.) As with most rivers there are big bends** here and there, so portions where the author/BP Agent worked would have been flowing to the west, but still regarded as east as far as directions used in planning, radio communication, etc.

This is a book of closely related short stories. After Mr. Morrison gives his own background and a description of the BP training, he reels off (possibly in hundreds of) stories of his time working the Rio Grande in the goal of keeping foreign invaders out of America. Most of these were recovered letters and emails to his family back on the East Coast. The stories do not all fit on a timeline, though generally they follow these ~5 years of the author's BP work in the region. Some of the stories were put together as they are stories of a certain subject or to make the same point. These may be from early to late in this period.

As usual for me, but even more so in this book, I could not follow every single character, and some were true "characters" too. "Wait, who's this guy I'm supposed to remember again, and from what story?" There are a lot of agents written about. I didn't feel the need to keep up with them all - the stories are very good, once you get used to Mr. Morrison's style. (You've got to remember that most of these were formerly letters.)

Some things that I had no idea about previously follow: One was the use of seismic sensors - this is back up to 25 years ago now - to detect footsteps out there in all that land. There were false alarms, but generally these were helpful in finding out where illegals were moving when already away from observation points on the river or on the Texas bank of it. The fact that OTMs (Other Than Mexicans)***, unless known criminals, I suppose, were being taken for processing to be released into the US even back then is not something I'd known. Also, that the relations between the Border Patrol and the illegals was non-violent to the extend written about was somewhat surprising. Just as now, the agents had to worry about being Derek Chauvined. (There are some stories on this aspect of the work, often quite amusing.)

Since I mentioned these OTMs, along the lines of the present situation, BP Agents would sometimes let them alone or even actively avoid them. Detaining them meant time-wasting paperwork spent on people who were not going home, while it could have been spent actually sending Mexicans home or (more of the time, from what I gather) keeping them out.

A majority of the BP Agents in this region at the turn of the 21st Century were Hispanic. There was corruption, but Mr. Morrison doesn't give the impression that the Hispanicity of his colleagues had them avoiding the job. The stories of the lazy and uncaring agents vs. those who wanted to do the job, like Mr. Morrison, included White, Black!, and Hispanic agents.

It's the case with a lot of jobs that there are people who don't mind doing busy work or anything, whether at all related to the basic goal of the operation, and those who do mind. There are those who simply are there for the paycheck and years-o'-service. They don't care about the mission and lean toward avoiding trouble vs. doing the job. Others are gung ho, like Mr. Morrison. I would put myself in that latter category for the work that I do.

Therefore, we read about Mr. Morrison's desire for the boat duty, going up and down the river looking for invaders. The use of inner tubes to cross, including to hold some baggage, sounds to have been prevalent. Mr. Morrison slashed usually-temporarily abandoned inner tubes and some in full use, IIRC in many of his stories. He was known to be the King of inner-tube slashing.

I'll stop here regarding the particulars. The Peak Stupidity reader may want to enjoy them himself.

Let me end with one important point. Things are different now, having changed drastically starting January 20th of '21. The invasion is being planned and encouraged at this point. Though 100's of thousands yearly, maybe some years up over a million, crossed illegally into America during those years and in the places described in this book, things were still different. The Feral Gov't (and their behind-the-scenes instigators, Big Biz and nation-wreckers) didn't at all mind the illegal aliens coming, but they did not actively PREVENT the Border Patrol from at least TRYING to accomplish its mission. Andrew Morrison was one such agent who worked against the higher-ups to do the job that patriotic Americans have always wanted done.

As the lady said, though, "At this point, what difference does it make?" That applies here, but it shouldn't stop the author of East Into The Sunset, from being proud of his work. Thanks to Andrew Morrison for the good reading too.



* He writes a roughly-twice-monthly column on the Washington Pundit site in addition to pseudonymously writing elsewhere.

** In fact, the Rio Grande River (in GW Bush terminology, where, you know, family values don't stop or even get waterlogged) has a Big Bend National Park.

*** During this time period, "OTM" meant Central American, maybe Brazilian, but not more than a very few OTNW (Other Than New World?) Nowadays, the sky's earth's the limit.

Comments:
Moderator
Thursday - May 30th 2024 7:58PM MST
PS: Ooops, Mr. Smith, I got it backwards myself. I was thinking of the roads but then, yeah, US-1 is on the east and US-2 goes across the whole northern tier, and also the US-20 from Boston all the way though to Everett, Washington.

Down in Florida #1 hugs the coast, and is the same road as A1A in The Keys, possibly part of Alarmist's stomping grounds. North of there, pretty much every city you can think of has US-1 going through it, with the residents just knowing the road names: From Jax on across rural Georgia, then Augusta, Columbia, SC, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, FS, Baltimore, etc....

In general, the Interstate pattern is like the old US numbered highways, but, yeah, that part is the opposite.
The Alarmist
Thursday - May 30th 2024 12:27PM MST
PS

And in my US stomping grounds, you find things like A1A.

Adam Smith
Thursday - May 30th 2024 12:21PM MST
PS: Me again...

๐ผ๐‘ก'๐‘  ๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘š๐‘œ๐‘ ๐‘ก ๐‘Ž๐‘  ๐‘–๐‘“ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’๐‘ฆ ๐‘Ž๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘ ๐‘’๐‘™๐‘ฆ ๐‘ก๐‘Ÿ๐‘ฆ๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘“๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘’ ๐‘๐‘’๐‘œ๐‘๐‘™๐‘’...

I don't really know that. There might be a perfectly good reason to use the opposite numbering scheme for the two different highway systems. Perhaps it helps avoid confusion? I don't know. I've never really thought about it.

Anyway...
https://i.ibb.co/Xb4XK8L/Roads.jpg

Cheers! โ˜ฎ๏ธ
Adam Smith
Thursday - May 30th 2024 12:11PM MST
PS: Good afternoon, everyone...

๐‘‡โ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘™๐‘œ๐‘ค๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘›๐‘ข๐‘š๐‘๐‘’๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘-๐‘† 2-๐‘‘๐‘–๐‘”๐‘–๐‘ก ๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘Ž๐‘‘๐‘  ๐‘Ž๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘ค๐‘’๐‘ ๐‘ก (๐‘™๐‘–๐‘˜๐‘’ ๐ผ-5 ๐‘–๐‘› ๐ถ๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘–๐‘“๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘›๐‘–๐‘Ž) ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘ ๐‘”๐‘’๐‘ก โ„Ž๐‘–๐‘”โ„Ž๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘Ÿ๐‘‘ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐ธ๐‘Ž๐‘ ๐‘ก ๐ถ๐‘œ๐‘Ž๐‘ ๐‘ก. ๐‘‡โ„Ž๐‘’ ๐ธ-๐‘Š 2-๐‘‘๐‘–๐‘”๐‘–๐‘ก ๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘Ž๐‘‘๐‘  โ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘ฃ๐‘’ ๐‘™๐‘œ๐‘ค๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘›๐‘ข๐‘š๐‘๐‘’๐‘Ÿ๐‘  ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘ ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘กโ„Ž (๐‘–.๐‘’., ๐ผ-10) ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’๐‘› โ„Ž๐‘–๐‘”โ„Ž ๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘’๐‘  ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘›๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘กโ„Ž (๐‘’๐‘ฅ. ๐ผ-90, ๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘™ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘ฆ ๐‘“๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘š ๐ต๐‘œ๐‘ ๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘› ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘†๐‘’๐‘Ž๐‘ก๐‘ก๐‘™๐‘’.)

Funny how the Interstate Highway System's numbering scheme is the opposite of the one that is used on the United States Numbered Highway System...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_101

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_90

It's almost as if they are purposely trying to confuse people.

(or something?) โ˜ฎ๏ธ
Moderator
Thursday - May 30th 2024 11:43AM MST
PS: Right, M. I was just explaining it all to my son.

2-digit odd numbers are north-south routes, while 2 digit even numbers are east-west routes. The spur roads usually start with a 1. Loop roads start with 2, 3, 4, etc, as they don't want confusion among cities that aren't so far away. OTOH, I'm pretty sure there are multiples of 205s or 295s, etc. The lower numbered N-S 2-digit roads are in the west (like I-5 in California) and get higher toward the East Coast. The E-W 2-digit roads have lower numbers to the south (i.e., I-10) and then high ones to the north (ex. I-90, all the way from Boston to Seattle.)

Then, there are the mile markers. They start from 0 (no sign there though) at the south or west end of the road or the State.

The old US highway system has the same pattern for numbering based on direction and location of the roads, but no spur roads and that (many times the "Business route", i.e., the old road with a bypass being the new main road), and I don't know whether most of them have mile markers - I think so. Oh, and 1,2, or 3 digits doesn't mean as much. They can be long ones or shorter ones.

M
Thursday - May 30th 2024 9:52AM MST
PS
Interstate highway naming (and highways most places for that matter) have directions based on where the endpoints are located relative to each other.

From what I remember, US interstates have a numbering scheme based on things like whether they're the main road or a spur, whether they're north-south, east-west, or something else e.g. ring road, whether they actually cross state lines, etc.

It's not followed for all interstates though.

For rivers, "downstream" is usually obvious. Although in the lower Mississippi you might have to stand there for a while to find out.
Moderator
Thursday - May 30th 2024 7:45AM MST
PS: Yes, Alarmist. Geography is a blast. As for the terminology used by the BP, I suppose, as with the Rhein or any river, "downriver" and "upriver" seem simple enough (along with "river right" or "river left" for those navigating them).

The lowland rivers do so many bends that a compass is not helpful - one needs to just know what side one started on, left or right. There are the oxbow lakes that show the paths that the river used to take not so long ago, not on geological time scales - possible one's grandfathers and such remember when some lake was still part of the river.

Then there's the Interstates 77 and 81 - near Wytheville, Virginia, the northbound 77 is the same as the southbound 81 and vice versa.
The Alarmist
Thursday - May 30th 2024 7:21AM MST
PS

Consider the Rhein, which flows to the North. Down South is the Upper Rhein, and up North is the lower Rhein. And there are places where crossing it puts you in another country, and other places where it doesnโ€™t. And, unlike most other Germanic rivers, it is masculine rather than feminine.

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