Posted on 01/30/2007 4:34:16 AM PST by devane617
Since Sept. 11, 2001, American troops have stormed the badlands of Afghanistan and the harsh deserts of Iraq to topple regimes linked with terrorists.
But in Juan DeSosa's mind, the war on terror began 43 years ago today - on the swampy southern coast of Cuba. He and a band of CIA-trained Cuban exiles came ashore at an obscure inlet with the hope of unseating Fidel Castro.
The inlet was called Bahia de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs.
"This is a group of men that went to save their country from Communism," said DeSosa. Now 77, he is a well-known figure in downtown New Port Richey, where he founded Juan's Black Bean Deli.
DeSosa was just 34 when Castro crushed the Bay of Pigs invasion. He and more than a thousand freedom fighters spent the next 20 months in a Cuban prison.
After the invasion, he said, "all at once, they were totally forgotten."
Of course, DeSosa remembers. Castro was not a distant enemy to him: The two went to the same Catholic high school in Havana, and before the revolution, DeSosa loaned some office space to his former classmate. DeSosa later watched the once-prosperous country wither in Castro's grip, and he begged the dictator he despised to spare his brother's life.
In the years since the botched invasion, Castro has remained a not-so-distant enemy to the United States, DeSosa said. From his perch 90 miles south of Key West, Castro lent a hand to Latin American guerrillas, African militants and Palestinian terrorists.
All from an island in America's back yard.
"We don't learn by our mistakes," DeSosa said. "Right now we still have this man in Cuba who's a total criminal, as bad as Hitler, or Mussolini, or Hussein, and still he is laughing at us."
* * *
DeSosa remembers the Havana of his youth as a land of plenty. His father worked his way up to president of Galban Lobo, a major sugar company. His mother raised DeSosa, his three brothers and two sisters.
A 1930s picture of his elegant childhood home hangs on the wall of his New Port Richey cafe.
In those days, he said, "the Cuban people were a very happy people."
DeSosa first crossed paths with Castro at Belen School, an elite Jesuit high school with a 60-acre campus in Havana. Already the future dictator's genius and charisma were apparent.
"We used to get mad because we'd have to study so hard for the exams," DeSosa said. "He used to come in two days (before the test) and look at the book and be done."
After graduation, DeSosa ran his family's rice planation on the Guanahacabibes Peninsula, the westernmost edge of the island. He still kept an office in Havana, though, and allowed Castro to use the space.
It was from that office, DeSosa said, that Castro organized his first coup attempt in 1953. Thousands of dollars in forged checks from DeSosa's business helped finance the failed attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista. Despite his protests that he knew nothing of the effort, DeSosa was rounded up with the other revolutionaries. His older brother, Eugene, negotiated his release from jail.
DeSosa had the grim chance to return the favor six years later, when Castro staged his second coup - this time successfully ousting Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. By then, Eugene DeSosa led one of the largest newspapers in Latin America, Diario de la Marina, and he made no secret of his opposition to Castro.
He was arrested and summarily sentenced to death.
Juan DeSosa swallowed his now-growing animosity toward Castro and went to the Hilton Hotel in Havana, where Castro was staying.
"I said to him, "We were friends once. My brother is going to be killed. Please save him,' " DeSosa said.
Castro did. Eugene DeSosa spent 20 years in prison, but he left alive.
* * *
In short order, the semblances of Cuban society peeled away. The government confiscated private property. The free press was nearly silenced. The promise of free elections vanished.
Juan DeSosa gathered the rest of his family and fled to Miami in 1959. He got a job as a garbage man, then started a business delivering groceries to people's homes. The service flourished.
In the spring of 1960, whispers spread through the Cuban exile community of a covert American mission to overthrow Castro. Without hesitation, DeSosa signed up and boarded a secret flight to Guatemala.
The CIA trained about 1,500 recruits like DeSosa for a year in the balmy mountains of Central America. They learned combat techniques, parachuting skills, interrogation tactics, weapons know-how and survival skills.
They were also drilled on the three-part plan of attack:
Some would enter Cuba two months before the invasion - a few with student visas, others smuggled in by boat. They would stir up the residents to rise against Castro when the invasion began.
A fleet of B-26 bombers would conduct three days of punishing air raids over Cuba, destroying Castro's parked fighter planes. The bombers would be painted like Cuban planes and flown by the exiles. To maintain the appearance that America was not involved in the plot, the United States would say the pilots were defectors from the Cuban air force.
Once the air raids knocked out Castro's air fleet, the rest of the exiles would arrive by boat in a secluded swampland - the Bay of Pigs. They would capture a pocket of Cuban territory and establish a rival government that would be recognized by the United States.
The 1,500-man group called itself Brigade 2506, after the serial number of one of the men who died while scouting sites for a training camp.
In April 1961, the training was over.
"They came and called us and said, "We are going to Cuba. The time has come,' " DeSosa said.
But nothing went according to plan.
* * *
The air raids began April 15, 1961 - and Cuban and Soviet officials immediately traced the attack back to the United States. Officially, President John F. Kennedy denied any involvement. Unofficially, he pulled the plug on the rest of the air raids, leaving most of Castro's air force intact.
Some of the boats carrying freedom fighters on the early morning of April 17 capsized on reefs. Others boats, like the one carrying DeSosa, were destroyed by Cuban fire.
The boxes of dynamite and ammunition in DeSosa's boat exploded, throwing his crew into the water. DeSosa swam more than a half-mile to reach the beach at Giron.
"I had to start fighting," he said. "I shot at the MiGs flying over us."
He fought all day before running out of ammunition. Then he hid in a secluded patch with other fighters, but the group had no food or water. They were captured two days later.
The brigade lost about 107 men - some in combat, others to executions. About 1,113 fighters were taken to the Castillo del Principe, a dank 18th-century castle on a Havana hilltop that had been converted into a prison.
They spent 20 months in the crowded cells. They subsisted on spoiled black-eyed pea soup and endured the taunts of jailers who told them they were forgotten by their families and their country.
During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, guards told the prisoners that the lower floors had been packed with dynamite. The prison would explode if the U.S. Marines came for them.
"We were waiting to be killed, that's what we thought," DeSosa said.
But the prisoners showed no signs of breaking. None of them admitted what Castro wanted to hear: That America sponsored the Bay of Pigs mission.
Instead, they recited the rosary at night, and sang songs during the day. One of the prisoners composed an anthem:
No Madre, lagrimas no.
Eleva tu corazon.
Se que tu hijo murio,
tambien se donde, en Giron.
No Mother, don't shed more tears.
Lift your heart.
I know your son has died,
And I know where, in Giron.
* * *
DeSosa spent those months running up and down the stairs, doing sit-ups by the hundreds - anything to make himself dead tired. That way he could fall asleep as soon as he closed his eyes, without the time to think about his plight.
He does not blame America, or even Kennedy. He believed the president, still new to office, got bad advice from the aides who urged him to halt the air raids.
"I never felt the country abandoned us," DeSosa said. "I feel some people abandoned us."
By the fall of 1962, the U.S. government began negotiating for the release of the prisoners. Castro put a price on each prisoner's head: $25,000 for those who were farmers, $50,000 for skilled workers such as mechanics, $100,000 to $250,000 for upper class members, and $500,000 for the commanders, according to Felix Rodriguez, president of the Brigade 2506 veterans' association.
DeSosa's freedom cost $125,000.
American companies donated medicines and other supplies totaling $53-million to $62-million, according to varying accounts. Planes brought the former prisoners back to Miami in time for Christmas. Many of them gathered in uniform and presented the brigade flag to Kennedy.
"He promised he would return that flag to a free Havana," said Rodriguez, who runs the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami. "He opened the armed forces for the Cubans to go back to training."
About 200 of them - including DeSosa - went straight into the U.S. military, Rodriguez said. But America never returned to Cuba.
DeSosa served 15 years in the Army, including one year in Vietnam. A case with his military decorations, including a Legion of Merit medal and a Bronze Star, hangs in his New Port Richey deli, but DeSosa doesn't like to talk about the combat.
Life after the military was a string of business ventures: DeSosa sold produce, did landscaping, worked in a couple of restaurants, became a security guard, and then opened his Cuban deli on Main Street five years ago.
His two marriages produced six children and 18 grandchildren. His daughter, Michelle, runs the deli; his wife, Sandy, works the counter; but DeSosa still does the cooking. Most of the dishes are his grandmother's recipes.
DeSosa tells his Bay of Pigs story to remind people of his brigade's sacrifice, and of the danger still lurking in this hemisphere. He supports President Bush's efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, but says America should not forget about Castro.
"I am a Cuban-American, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs and of Vietnam, and I'm not sorry for one minute of it," he said.
"If they ever need me, I'll be there."
Article from today's St Pete Times about Juan's Deli closing in New Port Richey, FL
Juan's Black Bean Deli, a modest institution that offered up homemade Cuban food, has closed. Juan's opened eight years ago in downtown, where the now-stalled Main Street Landing project is located. Owner Juan DeSosa temporarily moved to an "express" location on Grand Boulevard, in anticipation of moving into Main Street Landing once it was finished. The indefinite delay of that project prompted DeSosa to look elsewhere downtown. He said Monday he could not find a place with affordable rent. DeSosa, who turns 80 next month, added that his doctor suggested he take a break. But he said he's thinking about another dining venture at some point.
Kennedy lost his nerve.
Thats why Castro is stil in Cuba.
The more one studies Kennedy's Presidency, the less one thinks of it. Bay of Pigs. Cuban Missile Crisis, Viet Nam, we were lucky to survive.
Kennedy like Clinton couldnt keep it in his pants either.
I actually dreamt, last night, that Castro died.
I wish every REpublican had the opportunity to sit with Juan DeSosa for an hour or so, and listen to him talk about his life, and America. He is an incredible gentleman, a walking history lesson, great cook, great American, and a modest humble man.
I agree with you. Very over rated.
He led these Cubans down the garden path, I doubt if many of them felt too really bad when he got it in Dallas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.