October 22, 1999
Vieques a small island of 51 square miles off the coast of Puerto Rico was expropriated by our government for use by our military forces, mainly the United States Navy, to use as a live fire training ground in 1941. At the time, it was a patriotic gesture by the Puerto Rican people to lend their island to train our World War II pilots. Hitler was on the march, submarines prowled the Atlantic Ocean and the coasts of North, as well as South America. The islands in the Caribbean sensed the imminent danger they were in.
As was usual during these times, the military departments when taking over property owned by states, counties or cities for the war effort usually stated in their agreements that all properties expropriated for the war effort would revert back to the rightful owners. But as we all know now, the returning of property, now developed into ship piers, bases, airstrips etc, became an enormous task with military usually reluctant to close down the now unneeded bases and return them back to the rightful owners.
Puerto Rico has been asking for 58 years for the return of the Island of Vieques… The residents that live on the one third of the island want their island back. Their lives have been in danger from the incessant bombings on their island and threatens their lives. Nine thousand five hundred lives are daily threatened when the Navy's fighter planes, F-18's practice using their `smart missiles,' their 5,000, 2,000 & 1,000 pound bombs that are fired upon targets located on the other 2/3rds of the island. We have seen over and over how even the sophisticated missiles miss their targets by miles. No one is safe not even the citizens living on the main island. Puerto Ricans have been killed bombed to death by our Naval planes!
The question must be raised: does the U.S. Navy really need to have this island or any other island to train their pilots? Any sailor with any time at all on a flattop, destroyer, missile ship, or cruiser can testify that gunnery practice, either from on board the ship or from airplanes can be carried out in the middle of the ocean in the middle of no where. Hundreds of times, during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam the ships practiced by firing on large targets being towed by small ships or boats thousands of miles out at sea. Our pilots suffered no loss of skills by not bombing an island! Even on family day cruises, our carriers demonstrate their warplanes ability to shoot down a towed target… most of the time, the planes are five or 20 miles away not visible to the people on board ship. The first thing they see is a plane going by at Mach 1 much later the target blows as the much slower bullets or bombs arrive on target.
The Navy and our government is being obdurate over returning the island to its rightful owners, the PUERTO RICAN government… The question is why? Puerto Ricans are U.S. Citizens, they are about to have a plebiscite to determine their ultimate political status: Commonwealth, Independence, or Statehood. They have earned the right to be treated with respect and equals. Doubters can count the number of Medal of Honors they have earned, or better yet count the thousands of graver markers on our nations graveyards of all those PuertoRicans who gave their lives in defense of our country!
World War II is over! Return all private lands that were expropriated for the war effort!
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