I may be unique in at least one respect. Well maybe more, but in this case I speak of having been in both Guantanimo Bay, Cuba and in Havana, Cuba in the same year. The reason this is so rare is probably evident to most of you, but just in case it is not, I will explain.
Guantanimo is an U. S. Navy base and Havana is the Capitol of the most Militant (at the time I was there, the only) Communist Country in the Western Hemisphere.
How this came about was that I worked for a Canadian company at the time and they had dealings with both the U. S. Navy and the Swiss Embassy in Havana. Actually, both had bought the same make and model of Telecommunications equipment and I was in each place working on similar problems on two identical systems. The trip to Gitmo was because I was the only person in my group who had filled out the paperwork to get a Secret Clearance when the group manager had handed it out to us. This was a difficult but mostly unremarkable trip to set up a new system.
The second trip was because I volunteered. Specifically, I was on a teaching trip to Bell Northern Research in Ontario when a request was made for an engineer to go to Havana to repair the very piece of equipment I was training people on. As both the most qualified person and the only person willing to go I got the job. It was kind of interesting in that I could not as a loyal U. S. Citizen go to Havana, but as the holder of a Canadian Green Card, I could. They got me the Green Card in record time.
The really interesting part came because of the choice of days. If you are old enough, and interested enough you will recall that in 1983 President Reagan started the only war he felt that he could win. The Great Nation of the United States of America attacked Grenada to free it from the oppression of its left leaning government. It was a very quick war, over in a mater of hours, and most if not all of the solders killed were actually Cuban Army personnel sent in to bolster the left wing Junta that had taken over the country.
This is important to the story in that it meant that the Cuban people were really PO’ed at the U. S. and of course, where was I that day? Having completed the work at the Swiss Embassy I was out walking around trying to see the sights of Havana. I don’t think the blond hair and blue eyes set me apart so much, but that residual Texas accent could certainly have led to my demise. I was setting in a café eating pork and fried plantains, trying to impress a pretty waitress with my broken Tex-Mex Spanish when I noticed something interesting on the TV. As soon as I ascertained what had happened I paid the check and hurried back to the Embassy where they made some quick arrangements and gave me a very fast ride to the airport in a nice old Lincoln with Swiss flags on the front fenders. They took me right out on the tarmac to the next Swiss-Air flight to leave Cuba. I got a free trip to London but stayed only long enough to catch a flight back to Toronto. Once back at BNR I requested to be able to go home and was on the next available flight back to the states.
When my last flight got me back to Atlanta where I was based I was invited to have a conversation with some somber looking fellows in dark suits. I told them everything I saw and did and they admonished me never to do it again without actually defining exactly what "it" was. At that point I was very happy to be allowed to go back to the relatively boring life of an applications engineer and vowed to myself to "Never Do That Again."
Uncle Dave
