A friend who served in the Cuban military told me a story. But to better understand the context of my anecdote, first know that military service in Cuba begins at a very early age, even before you are conscripted at sixteen. Every living Cuban adult, male or female, has served in their military.
My friend served three months as a roving security officer for Cuban high ranking ministers and even the man himself, Fidel. He told me that Fidel, had a security detail of four men plus his own personal body guard, with him at all times. The rank and file soldiers were rotated out hourly and monthly, so as to not establish Fidel’s day to day routine. In fact, Fidel moved around the Island in a sort of rotation for himself.
The four soldiers were rotated out eight times per day or every three hours. The four replacements would present themselves, under guard, and were handed the holstered weapons for their duty by the soldiers they were replacing, but they were not allowed to remove the Russian made Makarov pistols from their holsters. To do so even inadvertently, was to invite severe consequences. As it turns out, he later found out from an armorer buddy, none were loaded. The guards were never told this but a rumor was allowed to circulate, that at least one pistol, had no bullets in its magazine. This served two purposes. First, to instill the realization that, even if allowed to be this close to Fidel, you weren’t trusted. And secondly, to discourage any would-be assassin from an attempt on Fidel, as you didn’t know you had a loaded weapon. Knowing that, no one ever attempted to assassinate Fidel for the fear of pulling an empty gun.
Now think on this... None of the 25,000 National Guardsmen in DC these last few days, were allowed to have any ammunition with them. To have brought any ammo with them would have resulted in a Court Martial, and an all paid vacation at Leavenworth military prison, Kansas.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they were treated with sanctimonious contempt and accused of being Trump sycophants scheming insurrection, and as such, if you were a white male in particular, you were subjected to an FBI desk jockey’s vetting of your private and public profile. Outrageous!
You tell me how this travesty of trust in our military, is any different from that practiced by Fidel Castro and other dictators? Now I hear that the Democrats, are looking to hire out to private security contractors to replace their secret service and Capitol police with operatives that are not bound by the oath to the Constitution. We are going down a dark path indeed.
Thanks for the correction!
“Martial” .. not Marshall
🙄