Word: guantanamo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Your article "The Good Life at Gitmo" [Oct. 15] was rather short. If you had written about the miserable life on Guantanamo Bay, it would have been substantially longer. It might have mentioned such problems as the unavailability of supplies, fresh produce and clothing, and low morale. I don't agree with you totally that the serviceman is reluctant to leave after completion of assignment because of the base services and freshwater sports. My conclusion, after talking to my peers during a year at Gitmo, is that, whatever the discomforts, they would rather do a tour of duty...
...state correctly: "U.S. forces landed there in 1898 to help the Cubans overthrow their Spanish rulers, and stayed for good." But then you say: "The U.S. controls Guantanamo Bay ... under a perpetual lease negotiated with the Republic of Cuba in 1903." No one, most Americans will agree, "negotiates" perpetual leases allowing foreign military bases on lome territory. Cubans were robbed of their revolution and denied self-determination, sadly, by the largest "democracy" at the time...
Through a driving rain that swept the Cuban coast, 2,100 U.S. Marines stormed into Guantanamo Bay, the tiny U.S. military base that perches like a lighthouse on the eastern tip of Fidel Castro's island fortress...
...denounced America's "occupation" of Guantanamo and condemned the "unjust blockade with which the United States Government continues its efforts to isolate the Cuban revolution." He called on the U.S. to desist from its "repressive maneuvers" aimed at perpetuating Puerto Rico's "colonial status." Shouts of "Fidel! Fidel!" echoed through the hall when Castro finished his stemwinder, and he reveled in a 1½-min. standing ovation. Among less enthusiastic spectators: U.S. Ambassador Donald McHenry, who listened impassively through the diatribe...
...protected by a 723-acre minefield and guards carrying M16s. From time to time, everyone on the base, including women and children, practice evacuation exercises- similar to fire drills on the mainland- just in case of an emergency like the 1962 missile crisis. Even so, the Americans at Guantanamo Bay have taken the flap over the Soviet brigade on Cuba with remarkable calm. One reason is that they have never seen a Soviet soldier, and they see Cuban troops only through binoculars...