Marine/pastor says resolution against naval base one-sided
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 15, 2000
Commissioners to the 2000 General Assembly did not hear both sides of the story when, by voice vote, they called on the U.S. Navy to stop all military training and bombing on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, according to a Presbyterian minister who is a Marine public affairs officer at the Pentagon.
Lt. Col. Carl R. Lammers, former pastor of United Presbyterian Church in Blue Rapids, KS, says he received a report by mail outlining some of the decisions of the 2000 General Assembly, including the commissioners’ resolution on Vieques. “My sense is that my commissioner-friends came down on the wrong side of the issue,” Lammers said in an e-mail to The Layman Online.
The commissioners’ resolution calling for a withdrawal from Vieques was introduced by Vilmarie Clinton-Olivieri and Nelson Gutierrez-Pagan of the Presbytery of San Juan.
They contended that the Navy operations, including bombing, have posed “an enormous threat to the health of [the island’s] 10,000 inhabitants, to its natural resources, its economic progress and its peace. …”
Lammers said the commissioners should have also heard from military officials, including a joint statement by Adm. Jay L. Johnson, former chief of Naval Operations, and Gen. James L. Jones, current commandant of the Marine Corps. Their testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee represented “down-to-earth facts not circulated at the General Assembly this summer,” Lammers said.
Protests against Naval operations on the island have intensified since April 19, 1999, when a civilian security guard, David Sanes-Rodriquez, was killed because a pilot made a tactical error and dropped two 500-pound bombs on the wrong site.
Johnson and Jones said, “The Navy and Marine Corps profoundly regret the tragic death of Mr. Sanes-Rodriguez and the injuries suffered by the other victims of this accident. Many Sailors and Marines, over long careers, have lost friends and colleagues due to the hazardous nature of our profession, and we certainly understand the pain, suffering, and questions that this kind of accident leaves with families. We have studied this incident, discovered the factors that led to the tragedy, and have instituted procedures to prevent this type of incident from occurring again.”
Johnson and Jones said the Sanes-Rodriquez death was “the first loss of life on the ground from the release of ordnance” since the base opened more than 50 years ago.
The commissioners’ resolution said the U.S. Navy forces have used 75 percent of the land on the island since 1941. But Johnson and Jones said the ordnance area comprises less than 3 percent of the island’s land mass and is nearly 10 miles from the island’s population center, separated by a range of mountains. They said closing Naval operations on the island would be a great security risk and cost billions of dollars.
They said that the U.S. has invested more than $3 billion on land, facilities and training in the Puerto Rican Operating Area, “of which the Vieques range and nearby Roosevelt Roads Naval Station are the centerpiece. Even if a suitable replacement site could be located, which we have not been able to do, land acquisition and construction costs make it almost certain that duplicating even a fraction of Vieques’ capabilities would cost considerably more than the three billion dollars already spent.”