Guantánamo Public Memory Project

Tag: Oral History

Behind the Cactus Curtain: Innocence in the Midst of History-Making

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Hearing Susan Lagos reminisce about her childhood of horseback riding, traveling with her parents, learning Spanish, and memorizing Shakespeare for high school English, you would think she was a fairly normal middle-class American who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. But Susan did not grow up in America; she grew up as a civilian’s…

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Peace and Solitude: A New Perspective about Life at GTMO

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If you stopped a person on any street in America today and asked them what they thought about the U.S. naval station at Guantánamo Bay, chances are, you would hear a response about “detainees,” “torture,” or the “War on Terror.” If you asked a person who has lived or served at GTMO that same question,…

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Social Life at GTMO: Soldiers at Play

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I came to Pensacola to study at the University of West Florida, but almost anyone you might ask would consider this a military rather than a college town. Comparatively, when many people think of The U.S. naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, they immediately think of the military installation there.  This means thousands of military…

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“I Never Missed Out on Anything”: GTMO Children and Growing up Abroad

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“I never missed out on anything,” said Daline Riley, who was born at GTMO in the 1950s and spent several years at the Caribbean base as a teenager. Daline was one of several GTMO children interviewed in the summer of 2012 through the University of West Florida’s Public History program. “It gave me a better perspective; it…

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Oral History and Guantánamo

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  Guantánamo is about people. Mired in the languages of the War on Terror, and previous to that, of relief efforts and military operations, it is a fact easily obscured. Guantánamo has been variously discussed as a ‘detainment centre,’ a ‘prison,’ a ‘military base,’ a ‘camp,’ one full of ‘detainees,’ ‘prisoners,’ ‘refugees,’ ‘soldiers,’ with a…

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