Puerto Rico Irony

So I have firsthand experience and knowledge of what has been happening in Puerto Rico over the years. I was stationed at naval station Roosevelt Roads for about 3 years from 2000 to 2003. As a side note, that was some of the best years of my life living down there as a bachelor. The base had closed shortly after I had left.

I was one of the ones that was personally dealing with the large ongoing Anti-Navy protests in Vieques, which is a small Puerto Rican island-municipality 8 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. Part of Vieques was used as a US military bombing range for 60 years up until it's closer in 2003 due to the protests. In 2001 on Vieques, I was one of the guys that apprehended Bobby Kennedy Jr, Al Sharpton, Edward Olmos, Luis Gutierrez, and Jesse Jackson (among many other protesters over the time I was there) for cutting the fence line and trespassing on federal property during a "peaceful" protest of the Navy.

Obviously Puerto Rico was receiving millions of dollars just for the Naval Bases being there. I saw the anti-American protests with my own eyes over those years and their main goal was to kick the Navy out of Puerto Rico (which obviously happened) and ultimately gain independence from the US. It was widely known while I was there that the massively corrupt politicians in Puerto Rico were just pocketing all of the money that the US was sending to Puerto Rico and now we see how much debt they are in and are pushing for a US bailout. All I can do is laugh at the irony of Puerto Ricans now demanding help from the US after all of the anti-American sentiment I've witnessed during my time there.