[English Text]
By Lisa Mullenneaux
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Excerpt "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."
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© 2007 Lisa
Mullenneaux and Penington Press