The Guys of Texas

It was like a scene out of Woody Allen's Bananas. A ragged band of soldiers played The Yellow Rose of Texas in 110 degrees heat as two helicopters, their blades whipping up dust in the clearing, touched down at the base camp in Honduras, three miles from the Nicaraguan border. Out of one jumped Texas Governor Mark White, in combat boots and freshly pressed camouflage fatigues. Out of the other, a platoon of reporters, who quickly surrounded him. The Governor also brought 400 lbs. of Texas barbecued beef, 7,200 flour tortillas, 100 lbs. of pinto beans, and buckets of barbecue sauce and jalapeno peppers.

The $1,400 Texas meal, paid for by the Governor's political fund, was a home- cooked treat for the 419 volunteer Texas National Guardsmen participating in the Big Pine III war games. Invited by the Department of Defense, which frequently asks National Guard units to assist in maneuvers, the reservists flew down to play the bad guys in the second stage of the three-month-long joint operation. With 17 tanks and 17 armored personnel carriers, they staged a mock assault on a Honduran hilltop position, sweeping toward the encampment in a 4 1/2-mile-wide front while Honduran warplanes darted overhead.

Many of the reservists were well prepared for the two weeks of maneuvers. Most were of Hispanic origin, almost two-thirds speak Spanish, and many were Viet Nam veterans. Hondurans from Las Hormigas, a village near the Texans' temporary base (dubbed "the Alamo"), responded with surprise and delight when they heard the foreign soldiers speaking Spanish. "I was asked if we were in the Mexican army," Sergeant Raul Ortiz, 35, a Viet Nam veteran, laughingly told TIME Correspondent David S. Jackson. The men who had seen action in the war were excited by the prospect of a sham battle. "These boys are pretty charged up," said Staff Sergeant Ray Sloane, 38, another Viet Nam veteran. White, who as Governor is commander in chief of the Texas National Guard, went down at the invitation of the Defense Department, which paid his way. "We've got our troops down here," he said. "We want to see how they're doing." Texas' participation, while generally popular in the gung-ho state, was criticized by some as politically motivated. White, a centrist Democrat not known for grandstanding, denied that he was boosting U.S. policy in the region. "I'm not trying to send any signals," he said, "except to support the men."

During his two-day stay, White behaved much as politicians will in media- intensive situations: he shook hands with the men, posed for pictures, gave speeches and signed autographs. He gave a cattle brand in the shape of Texas to Colonel Roy Kimerling, commander of the joint task force participating in the games. Surrounded by ten Army guards, White even inspected a municipal project, a new well dug by his Guardsmen.