Customer Reviews

Vieques Island: A Few Good Men on Radio Hill

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Memoirs like this one provide the only look available on small bits of American military life. Generally, they are privately published and done many years after the fact at the request of friends or family.

Two other examples are The Belles of Shangri-La and Korea Between the Wars: A Soldier's Story.

The Belles of Shangri-La, by George Abraham, is a memoir by a U.S. Army doctor stationed with black American soldiers in Liberia during WWII. They were guarding the Firestone rubber plantation.

Korea Between the Wars: A Soldier's Story, by Fred Ottoboni, is a memoir about a young man serving during the post war US military occupation of what became the Republic of Korea.

I appreciate the service done by the authors of these books in writing them. Five stars for history that otherwise would be lost.

There are many books available about WWII and the Korean War but you won't find many about GIs in Liberia or the 1945-48 US military occupation of Korea. And this book is the only one that includes a view of what it was like being a young marine assigned to Vieques 50 years ago.

The military bases on either end of Vieques are gone now leaving the former military land--purchased from its owners (the people who lost their homes were illegal squatters on private property, most from the Virgin Islands) shortly before the US entered WWII--almost entirely pristine and still under federal care, meaning no development. Not surprisingly, and in a typical Pyrrhic victory for the looney left, Naval Station Roosevelt Roads closed soon after the Navy left Vieques, devastating the economy of eastern Puerto Rico. Nice going, guys.

Notice: This book is not for kids. Now that the US Navy has pulled out of Vieques Island, one of the highest peaks on the Island will never be the same. Reports are that Vieques has never developed as it was anticipated. A comparison to Vieques Island might be Dominica, however Vieques certainly had more night life in the dark than Dominica has today under the lights. Just reading the chapter titled "The Woman in the Red Dress," will set the average female reader aflame with passion. This is the perfect book for your Pastor's wife to keep at her bedside, because the cover does not give away the passionate life of the young, hot-blooded Marines of the Cold War, serving in the years 1952 and 1953. Vieques is just a short hop from San Juan or St. Thomas, and any time a small Navy boat headed for these weekend liberty ports, a few of the Marines from Radio Hill could be seen boarding, dressed in their class A khaki uniforms, ready for a hot time in Hispanic Caribbean towns. The things these young men did would have them court-maritaled for years if they were serving in Iraq. Read about old John, the native of Vieques, who brought them bananas, soda pop, Don Q Rum, and other contraband, as well as hot Hispanic Senoritas from Isabel Segunda. You'll want to catch the next flight to San Juan!