Cesar's Wars: Book Two No Stone Left Unturned

By Jeremy Shonick

CESARS WARS is based on the true story of Roberto Csar Montiel, a Special Forces soldier and CIA operative who made American history for 35 years: The Portable Atomic Bomb. The creation of Special Forces. The Bay of Pigs. The School of the Americas. Korea. Vietnam. Operation Phoenix. Operation Condor. The Contras. Non-official Cover. Interrogations. Torture. Through it all, his family paid the price. There were other women. PTSD. Alcoholism and abuse. In the end, the violence always comes first circle. Youre like a Mafia wife, his oldest son tells his mother. The more dad kills, the more you pray.

CESARS WARS is also the tale of a first generation American family that struggles to endure the sacrifices and understand the sins committed in the name of God, country, democracy and empire. From the rebuilding of post-war Europe and Japan, through the turbulent 1960s, and the covert South American operations of the 1980s and beyond, this is the story of a family and a nation in crisis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504921534

Jeremy Shonick

Jeremy Shonick grew up in New York and Los Angeles. A former high school history teacher, he spent four years researching the events that form the background to this story. He currently works as a Teacher/Supervisor of Student Teachers in History at UC Santa Cruz. He lives with his wife in Santa Cruz, California. They have three grown children.

Book preview

PART ON

E

THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

1

ROBERTO CESAR MONTIEL

At the start of 1962 there was no Special Forces presence in Latin America. General McAuliffe, commander-in-chief of US Forces, Southern Command, wanted to keep it that way. His responsibilities included our troops in the Canal Zone, the military attachés stationed in our embassies throughout Latin America, and the School of the Americas. Like the rest of the military, he didn’t have a clue what we were all about. Our cover story was that we were an airborne reconnaissance unit. Period. Any other questions? Take it up with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Who the hell are these people? he must have thought. They’re being assigned to me but I’m not supposed to know anything about them? And all I’m supposed to do is give them every goddamn thing they ask for? True, by the time we arrived in Panama, word was beginning to filter out, but no one, including McAuliffe, had a clear understanding of us. And, in the military, one rule you can take to the bank is this; the higher your rank the less likely you are to show your ignorance. So McAuliffe’s response was predictable. He said he didn’t need us, and thus saved face.

Needless to say, pressure was applied. Special Forces was one of Kennedy’s pet projects. We named the Special Warfare Center JFK and he gave us the Green Beret so the marriage was complete. McAuliffe still fought against us, only relinquishing on the condition that all Special Forces stationed in his AO be Spanish speaking. We therefore created a crash program at Fort Bragg. This included a night course for the dependents that Faith and I ran. I wasn’t involved in this program for very long however.

As the S2, I flew down to Panama on a C124, a separate, dedicated flight for my two-man security detail, four large, grey, coffin shaped boxes of classified documents and myself. An advance team met me on the tarmac. They backed their armored trucks up to the plane while I made arrangements with the local security for a military police escort. The four containers were kept under constant guard. I could see the questions on the minds of those who witnessed my arrival. Who is this guy? What’s his mission? One of the MPs approached me and tried to make small talk. I dissuaded him of that idea, real fast.

When our convoy arrived in Fort Gulick I was given a secure room for the containers. I positioned two guards outside the heavy metal doors. The guards rotated every eight hours, twenty-four hours a day. My orders to them were simple: No one besides myself enters this room. When in doubt, shoot first and ask questions later. It must have looked like Mission Impossible to outsiders. Again, I could almost hear the MPs thinking out loud, What’s going on here?

Listen. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a rush when I landed in Panama. There is an allure to the secret world and, considering all of the sacrifices working in that world entails, you can allow yourself to feel that charge once in a while. But you’d better keep it in check. You’d better have a good ground switch. And don’t forget, physically I was not one hundred percent. Not by a long shot. So the attention, the status if you will, was good for my ego.

I had two weeks to set up my shop before the main party arrived, so I had to move fast. On my second day I went to Fort Amador, to the J2, the Joint Command, and introduced myself. The strangeness of the situation was not lost on me. There I was, a Sergeant First Class. At the J2, even the staff officers were colonels. I showed them a copy of my orders and asked to be put on their distributions lists and daily assessments coming from the Pentagon.

Later that day, I went over to the Agency people. The friendly reception didn’t surprise me. Special Forces may have been in the shadows as far as the rest of the military was concerned, but not to them.

We’re glad to see you guys down here. It’s about time we got to work with some professionals. What channels have you set up? they asked.

I told them what I had accomplished that morning. I’d also like to get a Teletype. And I’d like to get a tie in with UPI and AP so that I can review all of their raw traffic.

No problem. In fact, we’ll include the dispatches from the embassies. Just tell us which ones you want. On Friday every embassy around the world writes up the events of the week. The commercial attaché writes up his part, the defense attaché writes his part, the cultural attaché writes his part and so on down the line.

Excellent. That will help us when we brief our men before we send them out.

We’ll get working on that.

Thanks.

Glad to have you on board. We hit if off from the very start, let me tell you.

Once the main body of the Eighth Special Forces group arrived in Panama we began to work on our first goal: developing an in-depth, from the ground up understanding of every country in Latin America. Only after this task was accomplished could we begin to work on our real mission: establishing contact and working with the indigenous in targeted countries to develop a guerrilla force potential. In Special Forces terminology: unconventional warfare.

Don’t be confused. Although it is referred to by many names: insurgency, guerrilla warfare, partisan warfare, or little wars, it’s the same thing. The-Powers-That-Be wanted all of the continents of the world to be covered for any eventuality.

Towards this end, I started accepting Mobile Training Team assignments. My thinking behind this was straightforward. The best way to get an accurate feeling for any region is to go there. From Tierra del Fuego to Mexico City, these assignments were as varied as the needs of the governments who asked for our help. Our skill set was impressive. We could teach military tactics, medicine, radio communication, and engineering. And we could be counted on to help in the case of emergencies and long and short-term construction projects. Our medics were practically doctors. Our radio communicators could build and repair radios, televisions, and phone lines. Our demolitionists and engineers knew how to construct bridges, roads, buildings, canals, and dams.

In the beginning, I jumped at any opportunity to gain access to a region. And of course, regardless of what the job was, equally important from my point of view, was intelligence collection. My final words to the countless teams I sent out during this phase of our reconnaissance were always the same: Observe, question if possible and, above all, experience.

When the Mobile Training Teams returned from their assignment, I put them into isolation. Each team member was debriefed separately. Initially, I did all of the debriefings myself. These sessions were among the most fascinating aspects of my work. Weekly embassy releases and press updates are all well and good, but nothing can take the place of boots on the ground.

What did you see that struck you as noteworthy or unusual? What were the working conditions? How would you describe the morale of the people, the economy, the stability of the government? How safe did the people feel in discussing their problems with you? How much confidence do they have in their government? I wrote up all of their responses and sent back to the States anything that seemed to be important in the area of intelligence.

Within a few months I had teams going out all the time. All over. I was inundated with data! As hard as I worked, I couldn’t keep up. One week, in late February, I did not leave my workplace for five days straight. I took catnaps on a cot that I had set up next to my desk. I’m all for pushing the envelope. A seventy-hour workweek has never bothered me, but this was too much. I was drowning in goddamn paperwork.

I therefore requested people to assist me. I needed analysts and I needed writers. The-Powers-That-Be were sympathetic, but unhelpful. In our table of organization, there was no allowance for either. The rules were clear: because we did not collect, process and produce intelligence primarily for others, we were not considered an intelligence operation in the traditional sense, hence my manpower shortage. But goddamnit, we were producing intelligence for our own use, and lots of it, a continent’s worth, to be precise. To be effective, I needed people and I needed them fast.

I therefore took a good look around at personnel who might be available. When I considered psy-ops, psychological operations, the light bulb went on. I went back to the Powers-That-Be with my idea. They were incredulous at first.

You’ve got to be kidding. These kids are not even volunteers. They’re draftees!

I don’t care. They’re college graduates, youngsters with smarts. Let me screen them and see if I can come up with a team.

You’re serious?

Absolutely.

Well I’ll be damned.

A few days later, I was given the green light. I interviewed well over fifty before I settled on eight whom I felt could do the work. I told them that the hours would be long and that they might experience some frustration in getting up to speed. They smiled and assured me they were ready for the challenge.

On their first day of work I gave them a brief tour of the workplace. After the tour, I had them assemble in front of a large geo-political map of Central and South America. Take a good look at this map, I said. Within the next hour we are going to divide it up. Depending on size, population, and strategic importance, each one of you will be responsible for two, three, or four countries. You will consider your relationship to your countries like a marriage. You will live with them, eat with them and sleep with them. They will never be far from your mind. To say that you will become an expert on every aspect of their existence is an understatement. You will attempt to know them better than they know themselves. Towards this end, all of the data relating to your areas, regardless of source, will go to your desk. Any individual or Mobile Training Team going into the country for which you are responsible will be referred to you. And this is just for starters. Now who has any prior expertise in any of these countries?

That entire first week, those kids looked like they were caught in the high beams. They didn’t know what hit them. I pushed them hard. One of the youngsters who had impressed me during the interview process was an English major from Yale. He had a lightning quick mind and he wrote beautifully, but at twelve-thirty on his first day of work, he informed me that he would be taking an hour for lunch.

Eat at your desk, I said.

Excuse me?

You heard me.

At five o’clock Mr. Yale began to pack his things.

Where are you going? I asked.

I have a five-thirty appointment.

Pick up the phone and cancel it.

It’s important!

Not as important as this work.

He gave me his best New England, upper crust stare, but he unpacked and got back to work. In fact, he became one of my top analysts. Like so many young people today, all he needed was the push. The discipline.

We worked in an air-conditioned basement, underground: grey walls, grey concrete floor, grey ceiling. The space was divided into three rooms. Two of the rooms were the size of a modest house, twelve hundred square feet each.

My eight psy-ops analysts worked in one of the large rooms. Between their desks and files it could get pretty crowded. The other large room was reserved for briefings and debriefings. We were constantly reconfiguring the room’s small dividers and cubicles depending on the size of the Mobile Training Team going out or coming in.

My office, where I had the Teletype and my desk, was six hundred square feet. These three areas took up the entire basement floor of a four-story building. The vault for Special Forces was with me on my floor.

Security was tight. To get into the building required a pass. To get into my section required another. And we were on a military base that was already secure. Windowless, and at a constant temperature of sixty-eight degrees, we were pretty well removed.

The place was always humming. There was never a dull moment. The instant that I felt that I was up to date and that I understood it all, I would catch myself and start looking around, questioning. I knew that if I kept looking, a better picture would eventually emerge. Sometimes it was subtle. Other times it hit me in the face: a new angle to explore, a new set of influences to be factored in.

We spent so much time in that damn basement it felt like we never came up for air. We became a tight group. How porous are we today, Sarge? my people liked to ask me. The question served as both a rallying cry and a way to relieve some of the strain.

Still too porous.

How fine do you want it?

Down to the square inch.

And how large is the net?

The whole goddamn continent.

In the beginning I must admit that I was just feeling my way around, playing it by ear. To state a goal of thoroughly understanding every Latin American nation was easy. To achieve that goal was a major task. Just getting the internal part of the organization up and running was challenging, especially given the fact that I was creating something new. In fact, my use of psy-ops draftees dovetailed into an expansion of Special Forces.

Kennedy was pro expansion. He believed we needed more units. So did Yarborough, our overall commander. He was a colonel and he was looking for stars. To get that general’s star you needed more people to command, so Yarborough’s thinking went like this: If the team medic is doing such a great job, why not create a medical detachment? If the demolitionists are doing such a terrific job, why not create an engineering detachment like the C-bees? And so on down the line. Thus, a Medical, Engineering, Psychological Warfare, and Communications Detachment were created and attached to the Special Forces Group. That group was called Special Action Force.

In Panama, my S2 shop became the pilot unit for this new concept. It was a natural fit for us. Perhaps this helps to explain why we were so eager to take on missions that weren’t military per say, but were more what we called civic action.

Pull out a map of Central and South America. Close your eyes and put your finger on that map. Chances are a Mobile Training Team was there. Sometimes the project was small, sometimes not. Our first work in Peru began with a request from President Prado. Could we help him in his attempt to open up a thousand miles of the Rio Maranon, one of the nation’s major rivers, to ocean-going navigation? In response, I sent down a team of demolitionists. Their findings stunned me. The river dropped approximately one thousand feet from dry season to wet season. A thousand feet! Three massive rock formations would need to be removed.

Jesus F. Christ, I thought. Prado’s a loyal ally, but can’t we start with something simple like a bridge or a road? Each one of those rock formations looked like it was the size of Gibraltar!

Our team did not accomplish a complete opening of the river but their work helped a lot. And the intelligence information they brought back was first rate: from the attitudes of the people towards their government in Lima, to the practices of the Cubidor Indians, the head shrinkers who inhabited the area.

In Nicaragua we sent in teams, led by engineers, to dig for water wells. This project was part of a wide variety of agricultural programs we initiated in the highland areas along the Sierras between Managua and Jinotega, rich coffee country.

An epidemic, spread by rabbits, broke out in Bolivia. Our medics isolated the region, sealing it off in preparation for the doctors who arrived later.

Of course, various governments asked for military training. As the School of the Americas in Panama was strictly for the officer corps of the Latins, these governments saw the arrival of Special Forces as an opportunity to bring good training to their troops as well. We were happy to oblige. And despite what the American Professional Left would have you believe, we attempted to instill a sense of discipline, responsibility, and professionalism in our trainees.

Jesus F. Christ. The American Marxist propaganda machine has really wreaked havoc in this area, working overtime to spread its poison, especially among our youth: The School of Torture! The School of Evil! The School of Imperialism! I’ve heard it all.

Don’t believe a goddamn word of it. Before the arrival of Special Forces, the School of the Americas in Panama was just another academic institution for military personnel. In the program of virtually all of the military academies in Latin America, one year was spent studying there. Military tactics were taught. Period. After the arrival of Special Forces, the curriculum was expanded, and the training became more rigorous. But torture? Never. I never saw it, I never heard about it and I never had reason to suspect that it was taking place. Not from our side. Now, if you want to talk about torture in Latin America, yes, it was widespread, but to place that evil at our door? How naïve.

Listen. If history has taught us one lesson, it is this: democracy cannot be expected to grow overnight. To end torture worldwide is a goal we can all strive towards, but to condemn the United States for working with governments who have not yet achieved that goal shows a total misunderstanding of how the real world works. It’s complicated, goddamnit! Would you condemn France or England for having traded with us in 1840 or 1850 while we practiced slavery?

Which of the following groups of Americans voted in our first presidential election in 1789? Women? Slaves? Indians? Indentured servants? Non-landowning whites? Sorry, but the answer is no on each count. If we are generous, we can say that ten percent were allowed to vote, but the truth is, it was less than that, perhaps closer to five percent. And yet, look at how proud we are of that milestone event, and rightfully so. Because the seed was there. There was social mobility. There was a small but vibrant middle class of traders and artisans. Still, it took us until the mid-1960s to insure the right to vote for everyone. That’s close to one hundred and seventy-five years. And we had luck on our side, a democratic heritage to guide us.

Within the British Empire, a system of checks on the power of the king goes back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1245. A Bill of Rights, which we used as a model for our own Bill of Rights, was in place since 1691. You cannot compare this history to the history of Central and South America.

Among the Incas and the Mayas and the Aztecs there was no hint of democracy, no personal freedom. Virtually all authority was centralized. It was a completely different world. And, unlike the British who came to live in the New World, the Spaniards and the Portuguese who overthrew the natives, came to the New World for one thing and one thing only; to find enough gold so that they could return to their home country to live like a king.

The land grants that the Spaniards received from the Crown gave them rights of ownership to everything above the ground, including human beings. Where was the democratic tradition to counterbalance this outright exploitation, this evil of slavery? The Church? Think again. Although there were notable exceptions, like de Las Casas, the Church did not conduct itself with any decency whatsoever. The mission of the priests was to convert the natives, not to protect them from the horrors they were experiencing. To convert them was to subjugate them to yet another form of slavery.

You have to pity the poor Latins. Five hundred years after this horror show we still see signs of it. The shackles, both personal and collective, are still there. The caste system is still there. The colonial attitude that might makes right is still there. The rule of the strong man, including his use of torture, is still there. Are you going to lay all of that on the doorstep of the School of the Americas as well?

We are not magicians, goddamnit! There is no fairy tale wand that can be waved. Education takes time.

2

The Canal Zone is roughly forty miles across from Colon on the Atlantic side to Panama City, which borders it on the Pacific. It is ten miles wide, five miles on each side of the waterway. There are forts at both ends of the canal to protect the entrances and the military bases. Fort Amador, the headquarters of the US Southern Command, is on the Pacific side. Kobbe and Clark Air Force bases as well as Fort Clayton were also located there. At one time Fort Clayton was the Southern Headquarters of the US Army Geographic Service. Their job was to map Latin America from Mexico all the way down to the tip of Chile.

Fort Gulick, which is where the School of the Americas is located, is on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone. This area became the permanent home of Special Forces. Fort Davis and Fort Sherman were also located on this side. The Jungle Warfare School was established on the other side of Gatun Lake.

The Panamanian climate is humid and warm. If you stay out of the mountainous areas, you can live your life without owning a sweater or a pair of long pants. When the temperature dips below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which is exceedingly rare, the locals reach for their wool jackets. Highs are almost always in the mid-eighties, year round. Panama has a prolonged rainy season from May through Christmas. Between the rain and the humidity, once you step outside, you feel as if you are always wet. It’s just a part of life. When you are in the rain forest, you’re not just wet. You’re drenched.

Roughly fifty thousand US military personnel were stationed in the Canal Zone at that time. That’s Army, Navy, and Air Force, plus dependents. This number does not include American civilians living in the Canal Zone who I would number at about twenty thousand. They had their own police department, fire department, and bureaucratic infrastructure. There were six hundred of us in Special Forces.

The kids didn’t see much of me, I’m afraid. I often felt like I lived, slept and breathed in that underground bunker. Twelve to sixteen hour days were standard. Sometimes I worked around the clock. I was constantly challenging my team members and myself: to learn more about their regions, to study more, to make this assignment the central focus of their lives.

No stone left unturned, was my motto. I made a small wooden placard with those words printed in English and in Spanish, in bold letters, on the wall close to the entrance, a daily reminder.

Ninguna piedra sin remover.

For the record, I was stationed in Panama as the S2 for Special Forces Latin America from the start of 1962 until the end of March 1967 when I returned to the States before heading off to Vietnam.

3

Ten months after my arrival in Panama the Cuban Missile Crisis brought Cuba once again to the front and center of the world stage. In the event of an invasion, Special Forces teams were going to jump in. Other teams would be transported by submarine.

I volunteered to be part of the invading force, but was denied by Bull Simons, my commanding officer. He told me, Berto, you’re the first guy I thought of, but let’s face it. As long as you have that rod in your leg you’re staying here. You get all fucked up jumping in there and you’re not an asset. You’re a drag.

Bullshit! I can make it. Let me in there.

I can’t take that chance.

Sure you can. I’m ready.

Not with that piece of metal in your leg.

That hurt, let me tell you. I wanted to be part of the invasion in the worst way. I had unfinished business to attend to. The ambush on the road in Guatemala had made it personal.

At the start of the crisis the Special Forces teams were put on alert and kept in isolation. I briefed them on the situation as it developed. If we had been given the green light, their role would have been to foment a rebellion among the Cuban people. It would have been tough, but we figured that there were enough people inside Cuba who would support us to give us a fighting chance. The presence of Soviet troops would work to our advantage. Nobody likes foreign soldiers on their soil. And remember, we had a number of three-man teams that had been infiltrated into Cuba in preparation for the Bay of Pigs that were still operational.

Psychologically, that was a tough two weeks for me. That balloon was about to go up. Everyone around me was getting ready to move. I knew exactly what was taking place in Bad Tolz as well as in Panama. Men I had trained with and sweated blood with were getting reading to put it all on the line and goddamnit, I was being denied my chance to be a part of that. What the hell had I been working towards for all of these years? What had become of me? Bull Simons, a man I respected with every ounce of my being, a man I would have gladly given my life for, had pronounced me unfit for combat.

Throughout the crisis, despite the fact that, like everyone else, I worked virtually around the clock, that thought gnawed at me. A real body blow.

Within a week after the crisis had passed, I paid a visit to the doctor. How about giving me a clearance so that I can make water jumps. Even with this metal in me, I figure I need to start somewhere.

After he finished with his exam the doctor looked at me and nodded his head. I can do better than that. I can take that rod out right now. Your leg is strong enough.

Hell yes. How long will that take?

You’ll come in one day and we’ll prep you. The next day we’ll operate and the third day you’re out.

Okay, fine. Schedule me.

At the end of October I had that steel rod taken out. Six weeks after that I was jumping like before. My physical limitations that began right before the Bay of Pigs ended eighteen months later with the operation shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bookends.

4

BERTO JR.

I was an average student at best throughout my elementary school career in Fort Bragg and Panama and this bothered my parents a great deal. Not working up to potential, was a phrase that my teachers used so often that my mother turned it into an acronym: NWUP! I dreaded report cards and back-to-school nights.

I just finished talking to your teacher and once again I discovered that you have the same middle name: Roberto César NWUP Montiel Junior. What do you have to say for yourself? Wait until your father hears about this!

Corporal punishment was not standard practice, but I did receive my share, meted out equally by my mother and father, most often around the issue of my poor grades and the mischief I raised with my brothers. The worst beating I ever received was in Panama. It’s the only time my dad took a belt to me.

For one reason or another, I could not pronounce the word tariff, nor was I able to fully comprehend that particular form of taxation. Tar-if sounded right to me so I decided I was going to stick with it through thick and thin. I believe I was in fourth grade at the time, studying Early American colonial history. Tariff was one of my ten spelling words for the week, falling in between representation and taxation. My dad had just come back from one of his many extended absences and was in his Re-Asserting-Man-of-the-House-Phases, so you could say that this was an instance when, what I later came to understand as his RAMP and my NWUP collided head on.

Say tear.

Tear.

Say if.

If.

Say it will tear if it’s stretched.

It will tear if it’s stretched.

Say tariff.

"Tar-if"

Goddamnit Junior!

"Tar-if."

Jesus fucking Christ! Say air!

Air!

Care!

Care!

I don’t care if!

I don’t care if!

Care if!

Care if!

Tariff!

"Tar-if!"

Are you fucking with me?

"Tar-if!"

What can I say? My dad lost it. In no time flat, he removed his belt, laid me over his knee and proceeded to take his frustrations out on my backside.

Although school held little interest for me, I was not without curiosity for my surroundings. The thousand shades of green, the heat and dampness, the flora and fauna of the jungle, the very smell of the place pulled me in. My brothers and I grew up listening to my mother’s stories about Nicaragua. By virtue of proximity, language, and my mother’s clear joy at being back in her element, Panama felt like it was part of my biographical imagination. It may have been a new world for me, but it was not an alien one.

There is no blue that comes close to the iridescent richness of what my brothers and I called the Royal Blue butterflies. Bats at night, howling monkeys, trails of ants, las cucarachas, our own pet alligator, mangoes the size of small footballs, parakeets: Panama was a kid’s paradise. We took full advantage of what the place had to offer.

My dad was more present in our lives in Panama than at any other time. In retrospect, I don’t know how much of the time he spent with us was tied in to his work, using the family as cover, but of course I was oblivious to that idea at the time. All that I knew was how happy I was that he was around more, always taking me places, sometimes alone and sometimes with my brothers. In the fall of 1979, shortly after the Nicaraguan Revolution, I revisited some of those sites that I first experienced with my dad as a boy. What brought me back to Panama in the first place was my desire to be present for the ceremony that marked the return of the canal, the handing over of the keys if you will, from the US to Panama.

In accordance with the Carter-Torrijos Treaties, the Canal Zone ceased to exist on the first day of October 1979. Arm in arm, I walked with the Panamanians into the Canal Zone on that day. I was thrilled to be a part of that march, that long awaited liberation. It was a great time to be in Central America. I felt that the changing of the guard was at hand: the victory of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and now the first step in the righteous return of the canal.

The fact that my dad was a good drinking buddy of both Torrijos, the de facto president of Panama, and Somoza, the recently fallen Nicaraguan dictator, was not lost on me. So you could say that I was with the Panamanian people both as self and as self appointed symbol as I participated in the march into both real and symbolic space. I figured that at least one member of my family needed to make that journey forward.

Of course, for my father, that moment marked an unforgivable step backwards. Just as he never forgave JFK for losing the Bay of Pigs, he never forgave Carter for giving up the canal, without so much as firing a shot! In my dad’s eyes, Carter was a defeatist and a naive dreamer who dared to question that Holiest of Holies: American exceptionalism. His admiration of Ronald Reagan, Carter’s successor and self appointed redeemer of the American Dream, can only be fathomed as a reaction to the sliver of truth regarding America’s proper role in the world that the Carter presidency allowed into the national discourse, a painfully small sliver, but enough light to scare the crap out of all those, like my father, who longed for the good old days of Cowboys and Indians.

But bask in that sliver of light we did on that first day of October 1979. After the ceremony, the party was on. The truth is I don’t remember much after the initial march. If ever a people could be exempted from the charge of overindulging, it was the Panamanians. The liquor did not stop flowing for a solid week. When I left to rediscover the secret places of my youth, it was flowing still. The party may have continued through Christmas for all I know.

My first stop on that journey back in time was Fort San Lorenzo, a place I often visited with my father. He would drive me on a dirt road to an ancient Spanish fortress, covered with jungle, overlooking the Chagres River on the Atlantic side, all the while telling me stories about how the pirates had tried to make their way up the river on their journey towards Panama City, one of the sites where the Spaniards bunkered their gold.

I remember walking around that fortress with my dad for what felt like hours. The vines and crumbling stones made up a green-white-grey-black mosaic in my mind. As if in answer to my unspoken question, my dad once said, Without vigilance, the jungle always wins. Remember that. We were completely alone, not another human around, but I never worried. I knew my dad could handle anything. Sometimes he would go off for a few minutes to go make potty in the woods, as he would put it, only to return with a bulge under his shirt or in his pocket that I had not noticed before.

Sometimes my dad took my brothers and me to Pina Beach, a few miles southwest of Fort San Lorenzo. On the drive out, he terrified us with his stories about how super-shark-infested the waters once were and how, after the bloody battles between pirates and Spanish soldiers, the sharks would eat their fill of the wounded, the shipwrecked and the dead.

When we arrived at the beach he would take us snorkeling. Brian and Mike and I would be face down in the water, exploring the depths through our masks, trying to keep the shark thoughts at bay when, something awful would take hold of one of my legs. I remember thrashing about with all of my might, ripping the plastic mask off my face and screaming, Help! Help!

Gotcha! When I turned I saw that my dad was standing right behind me. He had a huge grin on his face. He couldn’t get enough of that stuff.

One time my father took me on a trip outside of the Canal Zone to a remote jungle area. He parked the car and we walked a couple of hundred yards to the bank of a swampy river. A silver canoe was magically waiting for us. I sat in the front of the canoe and my dad paddled from behind. An hour or so later we passed under a bridge and he beached the canoe. I remember the dampness as my feet sank into the brown mud. We walked from the edge of the river up to the high ground. From his backpack, my dad took out a red ball that he proceeded to kick.

Get that ball for me, Junior. I retrieved the ball. He kicked it again in a different direction. Go get it, he said, holding on to my shoulder. His voice dropped to a whisper. And look around under the brush nearby. Take your time. Look carefully. Don’t tell me what you see until you get back here. Then whisper it to me, OK?

OK, dad.

When I came back with the ball, I whispered, I saw a metal container.

Really? I’m going to kick the ball over that way again. When you get the ball could you put that container under your shirt and bring it back with you? Don’t say a word again and don’t drop it!

OK, dad.

He kicked the ball and I returned with it. The metal of the cylinder felt cold and smooth against my skin.

Excellent! Now how about if we get back in the canoe and you can eat some lunch while I paddle us back.

I didn’t know how hungry I was until I started eating. My mom had made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, my favorite, which my dad had kept in a cooler along with a thermos of milk. When I finished the second sandwich and drank the milk down to the last drop, I said, What are you going to eat, dad?

I guess not one of your mother’s famous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, huh? He started chuckling.

I’m sorry dad.

I’m fine. I’ve got my thermos of coffee which I’ve been sipping on while you’ve been chowing down.

Dad?

Yeah.

Can I tell my brothers what we did today?

Sure.

Everything?

One hundred percent.

At that moment I turned around from my place at the front of the canoe to look at my father. He had just put the paddle on his thighs and was in the act of unscrewing the top of his thermos. I watched him drink his coffee, close the thermos, take out his cigarettes and light up. The canoe glided magically through the dark water in the exact middle of the stream. At that moment, I was certain that my dad was the strongest, wisest, most peaceful man in the world. But I knew, even then, not to ask him what was in that metal canister.

In 1979 I did not revisit the site of our canoe trip, but I did spend a week walking the grounds around Fort San Lorenzo and visiting Pina Beach, Coco Solo, Fort Clayton, Gulick, Davis, Kobbe, Amador, and the Gatun and Miraflores Locks, while retracing all the secret paths of my childhood in between.

Before I left to head north to Nicaragua I spent a final evening in Panama City with some friends. The party was still going strong.

5

BERTO JR.

In Fort Gulick we lived right down the road from the School of the Americas. When the Cuban Missile Crisis hit the whole base went on alert. A six PM to six AM curfew was imposed. I remember my dad giving us one of his many lectures about how serious the situation was and that we had to be ready for any eventuality and to do exactly what my mom asked. After that, he was gone for a while.

Inside the house that first night, my brothers and I went a little stir crazy. We were used to being outside, raising hell, until bedtime. After dinner, we took the rubber tips off of our bows and arrows, whittled the wood down and hid under the dining room table by the door, waiting for the Soviets to march in. When it dawned on us that they might be no-shows, we started shooting at the bathroom door at the end of the hallway. We tore into that door something awful before my mom discovered us.

Junior! What are you and your brothers doing?

We’re practicing, just like dad said.

Practicing for what?

In case there’s an invasion.

From whom?

The Russians!

You’ve woken up your brother! Look what you’ve done to the door!

Dad said to be ready!

My brothers were sent to their rooms while I suffered a hard yank on the ear and a couple of solid slaps across the face.

I don’t know which is worse, your actions or your response.

Come on, mom.

Don’t ‘come on mom’ me!

Some time after we moved to our new quarters in Fort Davis, my dad decided that all of his boys were going to learn Spanish. Years before, he’d laid down the law that our house was to be English only so it came as quite a surprise to us when, one night after dinner, he set up a small blackboard in the living room and began to lecture us on the difference between the verbs Ser and Estar. Man, did he get upset when we started squirming in our seats, looking out the window. We wanted to go play!

For some strange reason my dad also felt that I was now of an age when I needed to learn about the evils of Marxism, so, for a short period of time, I got double whammied. After a half hour of conjugation my brothers were dismissed while I endured an introduction to dialectical materialism. This was the time of Mary Poppins and supercalafragalisticexpialadocious so I assumed dialectical materialism fell into that singsong category. Was I in for a surprise.

Let’s start with the notion of the dialectic, OK?

OK.

Think of two opposing forces, like two people who want different things. One parent wants their son to be a teacher and the other one wants their son to be a baseball player. Are you with me so far?

Yes.

So what happens?

Is this about school dad, because I’m really trying this year.

This isn’t about you Junior. Just think of some other kid.

Like who?

Like one of your friends from school, OK?

OK.

So what happens to this little guy when he grows up? His mom wants him to be a teacher and his dad wants him to be a baseball player. Give me your best guess.

What does he want to do?

"Good question, but let’s not worry about that. Let’s just say he wants to please both of his parents. Mom wants one thing, dad another. It’s not easy is it?"

Are you mad at mom about something?

What?

Are you and mom having a fight about me?

Goddamnit Junior! This is not about you! What do you think might happen to the boy?

When he grows up?

Yes. Take your time.

I looked at my dad. I looked out the window. I could hear my brothers playing outside. Where does he live?

It doesn’t matter!

Why not?

Because that’s not part of his problem.

Oh.

"What if I told you that the boy grew up to become a baseball coach? Would that make sense?"

I guess.

"As a baseball coach he would be teaching just like his mom wanted and he’d be part of baseball which is what his dad wanted. OK?"

Sure.

That’s the dialectic. You take two opposing forces and out of the conflict between them a third thing is produced. Sometimes it’s predictable, sometimes not. Thesis and antithesis create synthesis. Get it?

I think so.

So tell me why the boy becomes a baseball coach.

Because he wants to please his parents?

Yes, but tell me why he settles on that choice.

Because he’s nice?

Sure he’s nice, but why that choice?

Because he’s too small to be a professional baseball player?

Goddamnit Junior, this has nothing to do with size!

Then why can’t he play baseball?

Needless to say, the evil mysteries of Marx took some getting used to, but by the time I started fourth grade my dad was satisfied that I had taken my first step. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out that along with his work as the S2, my dad was also teaching Spanish and Political Theory classes at the School of the Americas. The mystery of the living room tutorials was solved. He was using his boys as a sounding board for his pedagogical practices.

It was about this time that my uncle Ernesto and my aunt Magdalena and her husband Luis, came for extended visits. Luis spent a year studying at the School of the Americas. A year later, his younger brother, Javier, did the same. Their relationship to my father was a mystery to me. Their deference was so obvious, and yet they outranked him. Luis was a major in the Nicaraguan military. Javier was a captain. My dad was still a sergeant! I remember thinking that my dad must have some special powers that exempted him from the normal chain of command.

Luis and Javier weren’t the only officers, US and foreign, who spent time in our home. It seemed to me that my mom was throwing a party for this colonel from Panama or that major from Guatemala two or three times a week. I watched my father carefully at these events. He drank his Johnny Walker Black and smoked his Salem Menthols and went about his business as The Man of the House with such ease, such grace. When US officers were present he may have deferred to them in his initial introductions, but by the time dinner was served they were equals.

There was clearly something special about my dad. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there it was. He had status. I decided right then that I was going to get to the bottom of this mystery no matter what. It took me twenty years to say out loud what I discovered.

My father’s status among these men was the status of the torturer. Not the thug who inflicts the pain, but the man behind the one way mirror, the man in the dark corner, the man who calls the shots. The extractor as well as the collector and keeper of intelligence: the S2.

6

FAITH

When we returned to Fort Bragg from Philadelphia, Berto built a padded table for Danny’s patterning therapy. I bought the best alarm clock I could find. The next day, at eight AM sharp we began. I swear to you on the soul of my father, over the course of seven years, you could count the number of patterning sessions we missed on two hands. We had so many people volunteer to help us with Danny, especially during the years when we were in Panama, that after Berto retired from the CIA I took in six disabled children from Colombia as a way of repaying God for the help that others had given to me. I believe in that.

Military life is so different than civilian life in this way. You are part of an extended family. You don’t harass people. You don’t make fun of people. Your first impulse is to help. In all of the years that we lived in the Canal Zone not once did anyone look at me in a funny way when they saw me pushing Danny in a wheel chair or carrying him in my arms, which I did until he was nine years old. Have you seen the movies about the Amish and their barn raisings? It’s like that. Teamwork. Cooperation. Taking care of your neighbors without having to be asked.

When we left Panama to come back to the States, my civilian neighbors asked me, How can you live like that? Two years here, four years there? I always answered, How can you stay in one place for so long? Isn’t it boring? Germany, Fort Bragg, Panama, and eventually Taiwan, La Paz, Caracas, and Lisbon. My family has seen the world!

There are several airports in and around the Canal Zone. The boys and I landed on the Pacific side. We needed to drive to the Atlantic side where Berto was stationed. He had already been in Panama for two months.

About half way between Panama City and Colon we passed through a dense jungle area. We drove past Indians carrying their handmade baskets and weavings and wooden trinkets into town. Some balanced stalks of green and yellow bananas on their heads. The boys’ eyes opened wide. They couldn’t believe it. They were full of questions. Where do they live? Where are they going? How can they carry so much on their heads? Finally Junior tapped me on the shoulder and asked, Mama, is this the place where daddy found you? My God! I had filled their minds with so many stories about Granada and the richness of the land that, at the sight of the first stalk of bananas, my oldest son thought he had discovered my hometown!

No Junior. I met your father in San Francisco.

Our house in Coco Solo, where we stayed until military housing became available, was beautiful. Berto had hired a live-in maid to help with the cooking and cleaning. Blanca, who was nineteen when I arrived, ended up spending five years with us. That first night, right after dinner, the kids went straight to bed. They were exhausted from the day’s travel, but I was entranced. When the sun went down the fireflies came out. I had not seen fireflies like this since I was a girl in Granada. At that moment I realized how close I was to Nicaragua, to my family and to the joys of my childhood. I felt so happy! A few minutes later I heard a scream from one of the bedrooms. Berto and I rushed in. The overhead light was on. Junior and Brian were standing on their beds.

We don’t like this place! It has big bugs!

Where?

They pointed towards the closet. Sure enough, when Berto opened the door, there they were: cockroaches!

The next morning, after breakfast, I took the boys to a park across the road from our house. I stopped in a lush, shaded area, at the very edge of the jungle. I’m sure you don’t know this, but I am a magician from the tropics, I said. Look at this. If I touch this plant and say the magic words it will close. My father taught me these words many years ago and I have not spoken them for a long time. I wonder if I can remember them. Yes! I closed my eyes. My hands were almost touching the leaves of a plant, a variety of a palm tree. Zimzalabimbumbazaladuzaladim! I touched the plant and it closed.

Mama how did you do that? Brian asked. Can you teach me?

Sure I can, but let me first touch your forehead to see if you are ready to receive the magic words.

I’m ready, mama!

Me too!

Me too!

Oh yes, I can tell that you all are. So let’s sit down here and see what we can do. Sitting on the grass in the shade of the trees with my three boys across from me, and Danny next to me in a wheelchair I felt my father’s presence so clearly, so beautifully.

Teach us the words mama, Junior said.

Zimzalabimbumbazaladuzaladim!

Zimzam-

Zimzim-

Listen carefully. We’ll break the magic word into parts. Zimzala-

Zimzala!

The boys worked hard to learn the word. Then we all stood up and, one by one, Junior, then Mikey, then Brian worked their magic. The leaves closed!

We did it! Junior said.

Of course you did. I’m proud of all of you, but what about your brother? Do you think Danny is ready to receive the magic words?

Touch his forehead!

Good idea. Let me see. Oh yes, he’s definitely ready.

How will he learn the words, mama? Junior asked.

That’s easy. If you’ll speak the words for him that should work. Let me bring him to the plant. I undid the straps to Danny’s chest and neck support, because at that time he could not hold himself up. I lifted Danny into my arms and placed one of his hands near the leaves. OK. I think he’s ready.

Zimzalabimbumbazaladuzaladim! I touched Danny’s hand to the leaves. Sure enough, they closed.

Later that day Junior asked me, Can you teach us any more of your plant magic, mama?

Of course.

What can you teach us?

Tomorrow I will teach you about the palmarita.

What’s that?

It’s a plant whose leaves will make an imprint on your body and protect you if you are nice to it and speak to it in the proper way.

What’s the proper way?

Respectfully, of course.

What time tomorrow?

In the morning is always a good time with plants. They are happy and fresh at that hour.

How do you know so much about plants, mama?

These are the plants and trees that I touched and played around as a child. My father introduced me to them just as I am introducing you. Perhaps someday you will introduce your children to these same plants.

7

FAITH

Berto is the most strong-willed and determined person I have ever met. My God! Not being able to jump out of airplanes, while he was recovering from his injuries, just about killed him. He had a need to jump that I could never understand. During the Missile Crisis he was terribly hurt inside. He had to be a part of the action.

Perhaps this helps to explain why, on a whim, shortly after he got the pin removed from his leg, he decided that the family would drive from Panama to Nicaragua so that we could spend Christmas with my mother in her new home in Jinotepe. I was against the idea, but my husband was insistent. I understand now that he needed the adventure. He needed to test himself in the jungle.

Why can’t we fly like everyone else? I asked him. Is there even a road?

Of course there’s a road. The Pan American Highway will take us door to door.

But the highway is not completed yet. Everyone knows that.

It’s close enough. Trust me.

My goodness! Between the six of us, three days’ worth of provisions and Christmas presents, our Plymouth station wagon was bursting. Berto strapped two extra tires on the roof for good measure and off we went.

Driving north on the Pan American Highway from Panama City, all was well. We rode in style on concrete. We arrived in Santiago by lunchtime. Santiago is half way between Panama City and David, the largest city in northern Panama and our first day’s destination. The boys cheered and jumped out of the car. I picked up Danny and, side by side with my husband, walked through the heat and a light rain into a small diner.

The trouble began after lunch, on the outskirts of Santiago. At the place where we were told the highway resumed, my husband stopped the car. We all stared. There was no concrete, no asphalt, just dirt. In the distance, through the rain, I spotted what appeared to be giant boulders in the middle of the road. Berto turned the car around to ask directions at the nearest market.

Where’s the Pan American Highway going north?

One block up and to the right.

Are you sure?

The owner of the market walked outside and pointed at the dirt road that we had just been on.

Where are you going? he asked.

Nicaragua.

The man’s eyes opened wide. Where?

Nicaragua.

Come on. Where are you really going?

Nicaragua.

Well, so you say. It’s that way for sure. Good luck!

Berto drove slowly. He leaned forward over the steering wheel. His head almost touched the glass as he peered past the windshield wipers into the constant mist. Between the heat and the dampness rising up out of the earth, the warm rain coming down and the deep, lush green of the rain forest, I felt like we were entering into another world. It was all very beautiful, but just a little bit scary. Especially when I realized that we were the only vehicle on the road.

And what a road it was! This was no Pan American Highway, but a narrow dirt road that was riddled with boulders! Most could be avoided, but every twenty minutes or so Berto had to get out of the car and figure out a way around them, with little or no room to spare.

My husband is an excellent driver, but he was no match for those rocks. First he broke off the driver’s side mirror. Then he scraped up the passenger side of the car, a deep, ugly wound that ran the length of both doors. An hour later he matched that scrape on the driver’s side. Then he bent the front bumper. Next he bent the back bumper and broke a taillight. Finally he hit a boulder, blew a tire and bent the steering column. He could turn right without a problem, but turning left required a good deal of work.

This was the first time in a year that the boys had spent any real time with their father, so I was determined to be supportive, but I was appalled! My husband was turning a perfectly good car into a piece of scrap metal right before my eyes! I held my peace until it got dark.

How much further to David?

You just asked me that a half hour ago.

A half hour ago it was still light.

Beyond the beam of the car’s headlights I could not see a thing. Not a single speck of light. And still, no cars in either direction! I was convinced that we were lost and would simply float away in the mists. The rain had not let up since Santiago.

My husband seemed unperturbed. With time for calculations and maneuvers, I figure we’re averaging ten miles an hour, maybe twelve. We’ve got a hundred and fifty miles of unimproved road. Berto slowed down to study the next set of obstacles in our path. We’ll be in David by first light for sure.

You mean sunrise?

At the latest.

I see. I looked at my four boys in the back seat. Danny was asleep, but Berto Jr., Mikey, and Brian sat upright. They each held a flashlight in their right hand. They were already itching to get out of the car and help their dad get through the boulders up ahead.

At the latest?

That’s right.

¡Dios mio!

At four AM we arrived in David. My husband dropped us off at a motel and proceeded to drive to a garage so that he could be first to be served in the morning. Where he found his energy, I will never know.

By noon the car was repaired and off we drove. The area around David was paved, a first class road for the first ten miles. In fact, the road was acceptable all the way up to the border of Costa Rica. From that point on it deteriorated. Once again, we were traveling alone, on a narrow dirt track, into the mists of the rain forest.

I see we’re back in your element. I put my hand on my husband’s shoulder and managed a small smile. "The map says we have two hundred and seventy miles of