[Terry O'Connell]

Good history lesson Rapadou. Pena Gomez was a great Dominican patirot, who did his best for his country in a brave and honorable manor. People, like Bob Saunders, should know this. However, you use the Workers World as the source for your thread. WW is a left slanted rag that bends facts to suit its cause. Much of the report you cite is slanted drivel. Here is a first hand account of the "Second US occupation:

In July of 1965, I was a 18 year old United States Army private, of the 101st Airborne Division, attached to a Special Forces Green Beret Company. I was fresh out of jump school at Fort Hood Texas, sent to Santo Domingo from Patrick Air Force Base in Coco Beach Florida. I believe we arrived on the 16th of July. We were assigned to support the small Marine guard at the US Consulate and to protect various other US interests. My most vivid memory of the time was the complete calamity the city was in. Armed gangs looting shops, hotels, offices, stealing anthing they could get. Dominicans shooting Dominicans. Many brave Dominican solders and police were killed and wonded in these weeks. Just when it seemed that the Dominican Police and Army units were gaining control over the street mobs, the Marines came. All hell broke loose. Some Dominican units went over to the street gangs, others stayed with us.
The street fighting was horrible. Terrible times. I remember my sargent caught three jerks loosely dressed as Dominican police. They were sooting at the protesters, then inciting the mob to attack us, blaming the shootings on the Marines. I was ordered to take them over to the police units still at the Prisdental Place. No small, task since the mobs were between our position and the palace. The next day I saw their bodies shot in the head, just where my buddy and I left them. Contrary to the WW report, my unit was then assigned to guard the jails in the city to prevent just what WW says happned. To the best of my knowledge, we set no one free and did not arm anyone. It was not in our interest to give wepons to anyone. Four of us were sent to the Navy base to guard a small tanker which was being used as a jail. Don't know who was in there. I know nothing of this guy Dan Mitrione or what he did or did not do. While at this duty I had a relatively quiet few days. While talking with a few Dominican Navel officers I was supprised to learn that this Gomez fellow was liked and admired by many loyal to the junta. Anyway, I was at the Navy base three days then ordered to the compny staging area wher we were flown directly to San Francisco Califorina, then to Da Nang, Vietnam. Spent three years in country, but that's another story.
In 1993, while working in Antigua I meet a beautiful Dominican girl and married her. She is the daughter of one of Pedro Gomez's cousens. Go figgure.
TO'C