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Wednesday, October 19,1983/The Battalion/Page 5
Reagan asks for guidance
Marine’s widow prays
I United Press International
lENSACOLA, Fla. — The
Iwile of a Marine captain killed
■Beirut said Tuesday she
told President Reagan she was
praving he made “the right
jirisions” about sending
troops to Lebanon.
■ “I told him I had been
praving for him to make the
right decisions,” said Marian
•'Gail” Older, wife of Capt.
lhael J. Ohler. “It meant a
Kto me. It was really some-
Big to get a call from the
A Ksident. I’m thankful we
f inave the type of government
wht re people care.”
I /■Ohler, 25, said she received
lorovitI telephone call from the
/J’gRll Rfcgan Monday night.
‘ ■' ^ e warUe< J to express his
ttinee Ipndolences and said he and
■rs. Reagan were praying for
He,” she said. “He believed
the 0||y husband gave his life for
and h his country.
W'He told me he had done
..more praying for guidance in
I last two years than he ever
■l before. He tried to en-
3 Brage me and said I had a
good life ahead of me,” Ohler
ed.
il asked i!
vide J2i;
ISENfot
m. Then
e self-supi
A memorial service for
Ohler will be at 1 p.m. Friday
at the Marine Corps Air Sta
tion in New River, N.C. Ohler
will be buried at Barrancas
National Cemetery on Pensa
cola Naval Station.
Ohler, a helicopter pilot
and air liason officer, was sta
tioned at the air station and
Camp Lejeune, N.C. before
he was ordered to Beirut in
May.
He was shot in the head
Sunday when Marines came
under small arms fire from
Shiite Moslem positions in
Beirut. He was the seventh
Marine serving with the Multi
national Force to die.
Ohler said her husband
hoped the force would bring
peace in Lebanon.
“My husband served the
Lord through serving in the
Marine Corps,” she said. “He
told my daughter in one of his
tapes he was there to help
those people get some peace
like we have here.”
Capt. Rick Hamme, a
friend of Ohler’s who saw him
in Lebanon earlier this year,
said fellow officers at Camp
Lejeune were surprised by
the captain’s death.
“It was a shock. People said,
‘Mike, not Mike.’ He was well-
known and loved,” said Ham
me, who traveled to Pensacola
to help Ohler’s family com
plete funeral arrangements.
When they met in Beirut,
the two talked of their fami
lies, Hamme said. “I have a
4-month-old son at home. We
talked a lot about his wife who
was expecting.”
Ohler, a native of Hunting-
ton, N.Y., never saw his 3-
month-old son Benjamin,
who was born in June after he
left the United States. He is
also survived by his 2-year-old
daughter, Sarah Marie.
Mrs. Ohler came to her pa
rent’s home in Pensacola from
Jacksonville, N.C., where the
couple had lived, when her
husband went abroad. The
two met in Pensacola in 1978
while he was undergoing
flight training and they were
married in November 1979.
Ohler graduated from the
Naval Academy in 1977.
Illegal aliens
fill farm void
United Press International
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The
U.S. Census Bureau estimates at
least half the 3.5 million to 6 mil
lion illegal aliens in the United
States are from Mexico.
In New Mexico, the immig
rants blend into the local popu
lation easily and generally be
nefit the agriculture sector,
according to Clyde Eastman, a
sociologist with the New Mexico
State University Agriculture Ex
periment Station.
Eastman said undocumented
workers are willing to do much
of the ranch and farm work that
Americans find undesirable,
and they will work for lower
wages.
“Production of many agricul
tural commodities is not very
profitable,” Eastman said. “And
any savings goes directly into the
producers’ bank accounts.
“In this situation, even small
amounts become a relatively
large portion of the profit.
“But the availability of willing
labor is more important than
cost savings.”
Eastman interviewed 50 pro
ducers involved in New Mexico
agriculture about production
practices and employment of
undocumented workers, and he
said the immigration situation in
New Mexico is unique.
Eastman said Mexican work
ers can cross the border relative
ly easily on their own, with
friends or relatives.
If they intend to work near
the border, the cost of coming
over is low and they often come
and go several times a year, he
said.
He said illegals who remain
near the border are less likely to
be exploited or mistreated, com
pared with those who seek em
ployment far into the country’s
interior.
Eastman said if the un
documented worker is removed
from the state’s agriculture
scene, the ramifications could be
far reaching.
Producers, he said, would
have difficulty finding Amer
ican labor willing to do some of
the tedious, boring work neces
sary to keep operations going.
It is also a safety valve for
Mexico,” he said.
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