BAY OF PIGS

Bay of Pigs
I read that a couple of days ago was the fiftieth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. It brought to mine, Rodrigues. He was a Cuban captured in the Bay of Pigs. He was with us at Leavenworth (Command and General Staff College) and quite the character and lived just down from us. I can still see him in my mind’s eye, sitting at our kitchen table and me printing out the key things in my notes. He would pretend he could understand the instructors but didn’t get a word they said. And, depending on me for his notes was even funnier. I got about a fraction of anything. I was uninterested and bored. It is now funny. My wife used to get so mad. She had things to do and there sat Rod and me printing out my notes. Guess you had to be there.

I think he was imprisoned too after the Bay of Pigs. I know he was wounded. I remember the pain—the emotional pain—you could literally feel it when he talked about being abandoned by the US, waiting on the beach for air cover that never came.

Sometimes when I think of the military involvement of our country, to include our present two wars, plus Libya—just don’t know what to say. I doubt we have ever cleanly escaped any of our misadventures, based on one’s perspective.

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FROM MY BUDDY, Retired and the absolute best military officer/leader I’ve ever known. His comments, slightly edited and used without permission.

I do remember Rodrigues. And you’re right, he didn’t have a clue often at what was being said. And that is funny that he depended on “you” for passing along information. I do remember that you weren’t terribly impressed with the experience. But, you and he got through the course and that’s what counted. Did you ever hear from him after we left Leavenworth?

I did know that the fiftieth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs passed recently. And my thoughts sort of paralleled yours. We have abandoned our “friends” more than once. Sometimes I wonder why people even expect that we will help them out at all, or if we do help initially why they would expect us to stay the course. On the other hand, we hung in there in Europe during the cold war and we’re still there. We hung in in Korea for sure. And we’re still in Kosovo, we still have UN peacekeepers in the Sinai, or somewhere, and for crying out loud we’re still in Iraq trying against all odds to put that place back together. So, I guess we aren’t totally unreliable. Hard to know what’s the right thing to do in Libya. I still think the President is on the right course. I think in international politics you can afford to lead from the rear sometimes.