Yep, RR only existed for supporting the bombing range on Vieques, so when the range went bye-bye, so did the base. I was deployed down there in Jan-Feb '03 for the last live fire there, had three carrier groups to qual before pushing over to the gulf for the big gunfight, and our job was to interdict the protestors. None made it past us, nabbed several as well, and the groups were all in and out on time. When we got there, the base commander gave us the lowdown on the shut down. Very few in PR wanted us out, he said polling had it at 10% as I recall, but the loudest voices (backed by Sharpton, Kennedy Jr., J. Jackson, et al) got heard. What they didn't know was it cost them around $250M annually into their economy, and they were rather pissy the base was closing. DoD's reply was that we didn't need two bases in the Caribbean, and Castro damn sure wasn't getting GTMO back. Base got mothballed mostly, basically a NG base now that has only an inkling of employees it once had, and their aspirations of turning it into a cruise ship port were also squashed since it's still federal land.
Fuck around and find out at its best. I still say we should just grant PR their freedom and let them be a fully sovereign nation, no longer having to live under our big mean military boot. Write off their debt and cast them off, we have enough leech states with California...
