Intro...

Before Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror,… Before Somalia, Bosnia, Operation Desert Storm, and Panama’s Operation Just Cause, joining the military was an almost casual decision for high school graduates looking for structure, college money, travel, excitement, status, or simply just to get away.
The threat was nuclear; the enemy was the massive Soviet military machine on the other side of a wall, bogged down in their own “Vietnam” in Afghanistan, and lurking as insignificant advisers in small “communist friendly neighborhoods.” As teenagers in those days, the combat we saw in some U.S. made movies about the Vietnam War were respectable, but one movie about combat in Grenada carried-out by the then current military was trivialized, glamorized, and mocked our then active duty U.S. Marines. To a teenager watching the news and going to movies, the military looked challenging but fun. Most of all, safe...


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In Panama, after December 20, 1989, the media flooded in without resistance & swarmed at the chance of covering the aftermath of the battle between U.S. Armed Forces and Noriega’s Panamanian Defense Force and his elusive “Dignity Battalion.”

The battle was reported as a success by mainstream media, but the entire rationale was not clearly absorbed. It was repeatedly reported solely as a manhunt for Manuel Noriega.
The true fact was that a week prior to the operation Noriega was not hiding from anyone. Our intelligence knew where he ate, where he drank, where he slept, where he worked, where his plane was parked, and so on. The invasion army was a pro-active measure to suppress any response of the removal of Noriega. At least one PDF defector advised officials prior to the planning of the operation that PDF officers had orders to attack U.S. installations and destroy specific areas of the canal’s locks to deem it inoperable if an ousting were to occur or be attempted.

I was deployed, along with hundreds of other MP’s, to the Panama Canal Zone in the summer of 1988. Our role was primarily as peacekeepers and protectors of military personnel and dependants within the Canal Zone.

Based on my orders and briefings, as a Private with a common "secret" level security clearance, I was made to understand that pulling my trigger in Panama could cause an international incident and lead to the early expulsion of US Armed Forces out of the Canal Zone, and possible revocation of the indictment of Manuel Noriega.
My understanding, as an individual solider, was that this truth was the main motivation behind Noriega ordering his PDF to adopt the policy of conducting menacing activities towards U.S. citizens, military personnel, and installations during the MP deployments of 1988 & 1989. Details of all U.S. service personnel and family members that were killed, raped, beaten, kidnapped, detained, harassed, mugged, and intimidated throughout the Canal Zone, prior to December 19, 1989 would be overshadowed by the overwhelming ultimate response to these activities; the response was called “Operation Just Cause.”

What is written here is my personal story, and hopefully it will stimulate others to share their experiences regarding this time and place. Parents, children, and other family members in Panama & the U.S. will mourn the loss of their loved ones that died during the indictment period and during Operation Just Cause… It was an unfortunate, unnecessary waste of hundreds of lives. Perpetuated by one persons dream to become a “Pablo Escobar with Stars,” or a “Fidel Castro with perks.” He could not succeed in the presence of thousands of resident U.S. service members & and their families. More importantly, he could not use them as pawns as a means to propel him from his warrant.