Dominican+Republic+Civil+War

Return to MIBARS prior to Vietnam

During the Dominican Republic civil war US Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division were sent to the Dominican Republic. In 1965, Detachment D of the 1st Military Intelligence Battalion (ARS) was sent to Costa Rico to support the troops in the Dominican Republic.

Larry Letzer, Det D Repro OIC, 1965, HHC ’65 – ‘66 This is what I remember about our (Detachment D) deployment to Ramey AFB Puerto Rico in support of the Dominican Republic. We had very little time to prepare and then the Detachment convoyed to Seymour Johnson AFB in South Carolina to load our stuff onto C-124 Globemasters. The Repro section had the ES-22 laboratory and to load it in the C-124 we had to deflate the tires. Upon arrival in Puerto Rico we set up right on the tarmac next to Base Operations. This becomes important later in the story. What a way to go to war. As a newly minted 2LT I had the hardship of living in an air-conditioned BOQ room about 300 yards from the flight line. The mess hall was open 24 hours daily and served outstanding chow. Although the ES 22 was older than most of the guys that worked in it, and through a lot of TLC mainly by SSG Emil Stas the Repro’s section NCOIC we were able to reproduce imagery flown by the Air Force. Most of the imagery was 9-inch square film that we printed and gave to the II section to interpret. During our stay at Ramey, there was a bit of excitement. A P51 Mustang flown by a **Dominican pilot who just happened to be on other side** landed before being spotted by approach control. All sorts of alarms were sounded as he taxied in front of Base Opns. A couple of Air Force Police pointed their pistols at him and asked him in Spanish if his plane was armed. Remember he is sitting 10 feet in front of the Base Operations with the business end of the plane pointing at the building. He answered, Yes the plane was armed. He was wrestled from the cockpit and quickly taken away. A couple of days later the base commander and his S2 were both relieved and two radar dishes were installed to prevent this from happening again. CPT Mickey Moore was our commander and he let us do our job. He was a very well liked and respected leader. I remember spending one night in a tent on the palace grounds in Santo Domingo listening to Floyd Patterson defeat Sonny Liston. We spent 31 days deployed in support of, hell I was so far down the line I do not know whom we were supporting. But, the 31 days was long enough to qualify us for the combat patch on our right sleeve.