I was stationed in Gitmo for three years. Every once in a while, a Cuban would defect. Sometimes quite dramatically. Our base was surrounded by the world's largest active minefield. These Cubans would risk their lives crawling or running through them to get to us.
Most of the time, they didn't make it. Every once in a while you would hear a large explosion and see a mushroom cloud. I would silently hope it had been a deer each time.
Our Marines were not allowed to assist someone on the run until they reached our side of the fence. Once/If a defector managed to make it to our side, the closest Marine would "capture" him, and receive an instant promotion.
I was responsible for a transmitter site right on the fenceline. There was a guard tower there. One day I went up to the site, and the young marine (18 years old!) told me he had just seen an attempted defection.
For some months, the Cubans had been building an additional fence inside their fence. As it was nearing completion, one of the fence builders suddenly made a dash for our side. The other Cubans opened up on him with automatic weapons. Just a few feet from our young Marine. Not a damn thing he could do.
In the 60s, there were about 500 Cubans working on our base. Each day, they would come from the Cuban side, strip down inside a concrete building, put on clothes provided by the U.S., walk through a concrete cattle run, and come to work on the base. At the end of the day, the process was reversed.
By the time I was stationed there in the 80s, there were only 50 Cubans left. As each one retired, Castro would not allow someone to come in their place. So we supplemented the losses with Jamaicans.
On the day of their retirement, a Cuban was allowed to make whatever purchases they wanted at our Exchange store and bring those items back with them to Cuba.
If a Cuban chose to defect, they were given a house on the base, and lived there the rest of their lives. And the base was only 37 square miles, half of which was bombing range. Their children were offered American citizenship.
I met a woman there in her 30s who had been born on the base. Her dad was a defector. She went to America in her twenties and stayed for about 7 months. She couldn't stand it. She was used to the small town community atmosphere of Gitmo.
Strange, eh?
