First chapter of the book "Ni una Bomba más: Vieques vs. U.S. Navy" Courtesy of the author: Lisa Mullenneaux

Copyrighted by Lisa Mullenneaux 2000. To order, send $12, plus $2 shipping, to The Penington Press, PO Box 829, NY, NY 10009-9998. Also available from amazon.com

CHAPTER ONE: ONE BOMB TOO MANY

"Viequenses are the only people on the earth for whom World War II never ended."
--Arturo Meléndez López

For six decades, the Marines have landed on Vieques' Blue Beach in a hail of firepower and seized a fictional battleground on the island's eastern tip. It's a scene that personnel stationed at Observation Post 1 (OP1) in the 900-acre live-fire zone have witnessed since the Navy began staging its mock invasions in 1941. Practicing with real weapons is essential, the Navy insists, to get troops combat-ready.

On the night of April 19, 1999, the Navy's "shooting script" went disastrously awry. At 6:49 that night the pilot of a FA-I8C Hornet flying at 400 miles an hour was cleared to drop two Mark-82 500-pound bombs by a range officer at OP1. Seconds later his payload missed its target by a mile and a half, killing a civilian security guard and injuring four others. Nothing in the bomb run, it turned out, went according to plan. And it would change the Navy's relationship with Vieques forever.

David Sanes Rodríguez, 35, knocked unconscious by the bombs that exploded 55 and 35 feet from where he stood on a "hurricane locker" storage building, bled to death from his injuries. He was doing what he got paid for: patrolling the firing range for possible intruders. Inside OP1, Chief Gunner's Mate Luis Morán, and security guards Edgar Colón, Gary Anderson, and William Duncan were injured by fragments of the building's ceiling and windows, blown out by the blast.
The Navy's investigation, released six months after the accident, blames the pilot, who misread landmarks, and the range control officer, who cleared the pilot to drop his weapons without having seen him in the skies. The report also makes clear the Navy knew that Sanes was risking his life because he was outside during bombing practice. "Over the years," the report reads, "there have been many close calls. Ordnance has been mistakenly dropped on OP1, on the maneuvering areas west of OP1, and into the surrounding waters of the LIA (live-impact area).

The drama began at 6 p.m. precisely when two Hornet pilots took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy for their bomb run. The lead pilot was a captain, call sign T-Bolt 26; the wingman was a first lieutenant, call sign T-Bolt 27. The first and second attacks were aborted because of cloud cover.

The third time the flight leader told his wingman to drop both bombs. But the wingman mistook the north end of the mock runway for the south end. Locking his computer bombsight on what he believed was the "north convoy" and his intended target, he was actually aiming for OP1. On the ground, observers spotted the lead Hornet but not the wingman. Though safety regulations demand a visual fix, the wingman was cleared "hot" (OK to drop weapons) at 6:49. Chief Gunner's Mate Morán later reported he thought the two planes were attacking together (in a section) and gave the "cleared hot" command because he had seen the lead plane.

Of the four men on duty at the OP that night, only Sanes was outside and, thus, fully exposed to the bombs, one of which left a 12-foot-deep crater, the other started a brush fire. Three security guards were inside and the fourth, Chief Gunner's Mate Luís Moran, was a "spotter" who was responsible for scoring the pilots' target practice. What he spotted that night, before the bombs hit, was the belly of the second plane flying directly overhead. He shouted "Abort, abort, abort" and dove for cover.

Although the Navy insists the April accident is the first to claim a life on Vieques, it was not the first in the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility (AFWTF). The AFWTF is the world's largest military complex with sites on mainland Puerto Rico, St. Croix and St. Thomas, as well as on Vieques. Until 1975, Vieques' sister island, Culebra, was also part of the AFWTF. An identical bombing accident there in 1946 killed nine Navy personnel. Former employee Sixto Colón testified that "The Navy used to paint the Observation Platform in Culebra white, as they did with the tanks serving as targets, so the pilots mistook the OP for a target and bombed the place, killing a group of Navy people, including officers." In fact, the accidental shelling of Mayor Ramón Feliciano's house caused him to sue the Navy and led indirectly to its eviction.

The April accident was also not the first time pilots had hit the OP where Sanes lost his life. Capt. James Stark, commanding officer of Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba, PR, admits that pilots dropped dummy bombs in October 1995 and February 1998, causing extensive building damage but no loss of life. Five live bombs fell near the landfill in Santa María in 1993 and in 1995 two pilots dropped bombs near the boat Coki Ayala. Fortunately, passengers escaped injury. In 1996 a fisherman was wounded in an explosion 45 feet underwater, and in 1997 a live bomb was found in the Media Luna neighborhood.

Perhaps worse for residents than the threat of death from bombs is the noise of their impact at all times of day and night. The vibrations crack buildings and cause a rumbling that can be heard as far as 40 miles away on St. Thomas. Until recently, the Navy was allowed to bomb 180 days a year and rented the target zone to as many as 16 countries the rest of the year. No wonder residents over the years complained of living in a "war zone." "What's the point," asks Pablo Connelly, who has a seven-year-old son, "of saying 'don't buy your children violent toys' when they grow up seeing and hearing them explode everyday?"

Right after the accident, the Navy suspended operations at Camp García pending an investigation it said might take several months. Wasting no time, Gov. Pedro Rosselló wrote to President Clinton on April 20 asking for the "immediate and permanent cessation of United States and allied activities that entail the use of weaponry anywhere in the vicinity of the municipality of Vieques, Puerto Rico." He reminded the president that nearly 200,000 Puerto Ricans had served in the military and could hardly be called unpatriotic. In fact, Puerto Ricans enlist at a greater rate than any other U.S. citizens except Hawaiians.

But Rosselló and Resident Commissioner Carlos Roméro Barceló stopped short of asking the Navy to leave Vieques. It was residents in Vieques and pro-independence supporters (PIP) on the Big Island who took to the streets -- and the airways -- to press their advantage and insist "Navy out." The day after the accident, hundreds of Viequenses picketed town hall in Isabel Segunda's main square with the mayor, Manuela Santiago Collázo, joining calls for the Navy's removal.

Santiago had visited the accident site earlier that day with Capt. James Stark, who then met with the Sanes family to express his condolences. The funeral that followed Thursday drew hundreds of people, who jammed the mass led by Monsignor Alvaro Corrada del Río at the Monte Santo Church. The procession to New Cemetery drew even more. All 16 of the victim's siblings attended with their parents Epifania and Silverio. Of her brother's death, Sandra Sanes Rodríguez said: "Monday it was him, maybe tomorrow it will be a school. It could happen again."

But even before the funeral took place, a monument to the victim was being created inside Camp García at what fishermen would call "Monte David." At the far eastern end of the island, facing OP1, Alberto "Tito" de Jesus and local fishermen placed a huge white cross against a target tank with a banner that read: "Que se vayan" (they should leave).

Five hundred pro-independence supporters marched on April 22 -- three days after the accident -- outside the entrance to Fort Buchanan in Guaynabo, PR. Present were members of PIP, the Congréso Nacional Hostosiano, and the Independent Union of Telephone Employees. "What else is needed." asked union president José Juan Hernández, "that a bomb be dropped in the middle of the town square?"

Sanes' death solidified anti-Navy sentiments like no event in anyone's memory. It also created a rare bond among the leaders of Puerto Rico's three parties-pro-commonwealth, pro-statehood, and pro-independence-not noted for consensus-building. Political opponents Rosselló and San Juan Mayor Sila Calderón both appealed to Clinton to find military alternatives to Vieques. On April 29, commonwealth senators voted unanimously to sue the Navy to halt the bombing. A poll by Precision Research Inc., released the same day, showed that 74% of Viequenses (the people of Vieques) wanted the Navy out for good.

By the end of a history-making week, Independence Party president and Senator Rubén Berríos had vowed to occupy the target range if the Navy decided to resume exercises. In embracing civil disobedience, he said: "The time for words has passed and the time for action has arrived."

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