OK shah...I made the changes to the script. I put the 'ifdown/up' commands ahead of the 'network start' command but I got an 'ifdown eth2 - device not configured' error message on the subsequent reboot . And on login eth2 was using DHCP! However...

If all of this so far hasn't sounded a little crazy, what I'm about to say will - some boot ups eth2 will be using DHCP and other boot ups eth2 will be using a STATIC IP....and I cannot tell when it will be using what. Out of sheer curiousity, I rebooted the system 6 times and half the time DHCP was being used and the other half, of course, a static IP.

I'm having a hellava time trying to rap my brain around this. I think it's time for me to move on to another distro - naw, gotta figure it out, right?

Thanks!