Gitmo Travelogue, Friday, 18Sep

Noreen had her uniform inspection and then we headed off to Marine Hill, where the Marines that watch the fence between Gitmo and Cuba are quartered at. Marine Hill has the "White House," the HQ building for the Marines, their barracks, and a gym. At one point, there were nearly 2000 Marines stationed at Gitmo, the number is down to 113, and 14 of those are admin. We were at Marine Hill to catch the bus to take the "Northeast Gate" tour, the famous gate that everyone thinks of and see pictures of. On the busride to the gate, our tour guide (a Marine) explained some of the highlights, such as the mine fields that the US laid (60,000+ mines) that they then de-mined (only 3 unaccounted for!) and the spots along the road that could be blown up with concrete barriers to block the road and force invading Cubans & Soviets to traverse the minefields while invading the base. The Cubans also laid lots of mines on the approaches to Gitmo, but their mines are to keep people in, not to keep the Americans out (and they didn't make maps of their minefields, which will make the eventual demining of the fields VERY difficult). He also covered the history of Gitmo, going back to 1494 when Columbus first landed here; some smaller battles of the Spanish-American war were fought on lands that now make up the base, too.

The fence between Gitmo & Cuba is really just a 6' high fence topped with barbed wire, running the 22 mi of "border." In one spot, right near the gate, there is a 25' high fence/net that is intended to stop rocks from hitting the small building (with a tin roof) the Marines use as their HQ for the fence guards (used to be used as a barracks, too) - the Cubans would throw rocks at the building to harass the Marines. After the 25' fence went up, the Cubans then took to climbing the new fence and would hang wind chimes composed of a coat hanger and metal crap (cans, etc) on the new higher fence - 2 of the coathangers are still on the fence, but they don't have anything hanging anymore, so they're just remnants of the Cold War. There's also a huge Globe and Anchor symbol made of concrete on the small hill (see pic) - this is a result of the gamesmanship, too. The Cubans would shine bright lights on the building and hill nearby, but the Marines had the Seabees come out, and under the cover of a tent, they put the Marine logo into the hill. The Marines removed the tent and now the Cubans were shnining a light on the logo, which they quickly turned off. The Marines then installed their own light to illuminate the logo.

But, now, things are significantly more civil. The Cubans and Americans meet every month (in fact, the meeting for Sept had just occurred at the building with the tin roof that morning) to discuss various issues. They have a mutual-aid agreement of sorts in place to help out in disasters and even did a drill a few months ago where a Cuban helicopter fought a fire on Gitmo and the Marines went over to help out in a mass-casualty drill. The Americans can even overfly Cuba with medevac (medical evacuation) flights, which means that someone injured on base can be in Miami in short order, without having to go the "long way" around.

It was a very cool tour and was the reason that I scheduled my visit for this particular week - the tour runs every 3rd Friday.

At Gitmo, you can check in a day early (and drop off your suitcase) for the space-available seats on the flight out on Sat, so we went to do that around 3pm. When we got there, they asked for a letter from Noreen's command that we hadn't bothered to get since I didn't need it. It was already 3:30 and we were worried that no one would be in the office to do the letter and that'd mean I would be at Gitmo until Tuesday (when the next flight was). We ran back to Noreen's barracks so she could get into uniform to go to the office and she had me call the admin guy for her unit; he was in and he typed up the letter. We got to her office and waited for her department head to come back and he signed it and we went back to the air terminal office to get me checked in. Dinner that night was at the galley for "surf & turf," serving t-bones, lobster tail & crab claws, which they do every Friday dinner. The galley was mobbed and for $4.40 each, it was a great dinner (though, since it was the galley, there was no beer. How can you have a steak without beer?)