The Lost Paradise of Panamá

October 3 is the 16th anniversary of the battle in Mogadishu, Somalia. Several members of Task Force Ranger were killed and wounded. 

On October 1st of this year, the 2nd Ranger Battalion celebrated its 35th Anniversary. Previously, there had been ranger companies assigned to larger units. In 1974, Gen. Abrams consolidated those companies into battalions, the first one being formed at Hunter Army Airfield in January. Its commander was Ltc. K.C. Leuer, (later a Major General). The last time I saw the good general he was a brigadier. I was on a helicopter that was going to a secure location at Ft. Sherman, and from there to the USS Saipan, and then Nicaragua. It was the fall of the Somoza’s and the rise of the Sandanistas. I was checking the pins on my frags, making sure they were spread out. Only moments before one of our guys had thrown a grenade in the dayroom and we were a little spooked. Thankfully for a safety clip, that grenade didn’t go off. Gen. Leuer is still with the ranger community and serves as Chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation (NRMF).

Randy Shughart (Medal of Honor, Somalia), would have been proud to have been a part of 2nd Battalion’s anniversary. As I raise a toast to his memory, I think about other rangers, like Ltc. Powell. I didn’t know him as a commander. He was killed in a training accident in September, 1981. I knew him as the battalion XO. Shughart used to brag how he could get an officer to make a left-handed salute. That led to a dare, and one day while we were walking through the quadrangle he tried his theory out on the XO. I couldn’t believe it. I thought he’d try it out on a 1st Lt., not a field grade officer. Maj. Powell instinctively raised one arm, stopped, then the other… I was hoping we were out of Harm’s Way. We were about ten feet past the XO when we heard, “RANGERS!” Shuggie dropped and started doing push-ups. I looked at Powell and I dropped too.

I also thought about PSG Jimmie Bynum, also killed in that training accident in September, 1981, and MSG Tim Martin, (Silver Star, Somalia), KIA on the same day as Randy. And there’s one more. Colonel John T. Keneally. The Colonel wasn’t a 2nd Batt Ranger, but he served in 1st Battalion and was later CO of the 3rd Battalion. He was killed during a training exercise in 1992. I first met Keneally in Panama when he was a captain. He was headed to 1st batt and we had some pretty intense discussions about life in the ranger battalion. A few months later I heard someone calling my name, and out in the street wearing a black beret was Cpt. Keneally. I used to call him Cpt. Kirk because he so much looked and acted like Kirk from Star Trek. I dedicated my last book, Danger Elite, to the memories of PSG Bynum, Col. Keneally, and MSG Martin.

The men that trained us were, and are, The Best. We absorbed every word in their classroom. May the tradition continue…always.

October 3 is the 20th anniversary of the attempted coup d’etat against the commander of the Panama Defense Force (PDF), General Manuel Antonio Noriega.

It wasn’t the first time, but it’d be the last. Only a US led invasion would remove the Mouse that Roared. He’d later surrender to Gen. Wayne A. Downing, (affectionately known as WAD by his fellow soldiers) outside of the Papal Nuncio in January, 1990. It was strange watching these events unfold on TV, outside the gates of a place I used to run by when I lived in PC. Little Tony had only recently become Panama’s “Maximum Leader” or Head of State. He mistakenly believed it would insulate him from being forcibly removed.

I reminisced a little. Years before, Panama Defense Force officers used to send their troops to train with us. They’d show up in our AO (area of operation), with a light rucksack, and one canteen of water. There’s no way, not even for an acclimatized Panamanian, that you can survive on one canteen of water a day. They knew it–and we knew it. Behind the backs of their officers, we’d get them the gear and water they needed, jump into the Rio Hato area, and be out in the boonies for the next week or two. Even then, Major Noriega was well-known for his pock-marked face. With his illicit money, he went to Europe to have it fixed, but to no avail. For anyone that has ever cut the rough skin off of a pineapple, you know that pock marks are left. And so it was that Noriega’s hated moniker became, Cara de Piña, or Pineapple Face.

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October third  and fourth will always be memorable for me.

Forever.

They are always in the back of my mind for different reasons–until the day actually arrives.

October 3, 1989, near the shores of the Pacific, the day that General Noriega’s Special Forces attempted a coup d’etat at his Comandancia—just down the hill from the Southern Command Headquarters on Quarry Heights. The new US Commanding General and the Bush administration may have been caught off-guard with the news, and Noriega was able to get a coded message out through his mistress in case of such a coup attempt. Subsequently, Battalion 2000 rolled into Panama City and rescued the beleaguered general. Had the coup been successful, it may have prevented the US invasion in December.

Also starting on October 3 and ending October 4, on a different ocean–the Indian, and in a different year–1993, members of Task Force Ranger were killed on the Horn of Africa in Mogadishu, Somalia. I lost two friends that day. Master Sergeant Tim Martin, and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart.

I raise a toast to the memory of those who fought, and to those today that fight, to free the oppressed, wherever they are, soldier or civilian.