(Tribune Content Agency) — It’s been decades since James Tracy last walked the streets of Havana, but the memories of the lively city remains vivid.
Tracy, a retired master gunnery sergeant who served 30 years in the Marine Corps, said he had first set foot in Cuba as a young U.S. Marine reporting for duty.
“I was stationed at the (U.S.) Embassy,” said 78-year-old Tracy, who now lives in Jacksonville, N.C. “Just guarding the building, primarily at night, but during the day, we were there to control the crowd.”
In August 1960, Tracy, along with several other Marines, was sent to Cuba as embassy security guards. Tracy said the U.S. Embassy in Havana, the nation’s capital, was a busy office with thousands of Cubans lined outside its gates each day, trying to get visas.
Tracy said he ultimately fell in love with the country and spent many nights exploring and experiencing the city of Havana.
“It was a great duty station,” he said. “We couldn’t travel too far but the hotels and the gambling … We could walk into a hotel, and it was all run by Americans out of Las Vegas, I guess, and they didn’t care if we lost a couple of hundred dollars. Just as long as we were sitting at the table.
“You could go to the hotels and watch the big shows, the glamorous things,” he said. “It was cheap. You go out and spend more than $10 in town, you were having a good time.”
But in January 1961, just six short months after the Marines’ arrival in Cuba, the U.S. government ended diplomatic relations with Cuba, and all personnel attached to the embassy were required to leave the country immediately, Tracy said.
“This was Jan. 2,” he said. “They gave us 48 hours, so we proceed to burn, destroy every classified document we had and packed up and got ready to leave.”
Before the Americans’ departure from Cuba, Tracy said he and two other Marines were also tasked with the historic act of lowering the Stars and Stripes from the flag pole.
“On the fifth (of January), the deputy chief of missions said, ‘Marines, take down the flag for the last time,’” he said.
Tracy describes the act on that day as emotional and risky.
“We had about 1,000 people milling around the embassy looking for visas,” he said. “They knew we were leaving. They were holding up U.S. Army discharges. They were holding up pictures in the States and all that.
“The only thing I really worried about was we had these tall buildings and somebody could have disrupted that ceremony, no problem at all, and that wouldn’t have been very nice.”
But the Marines did not come in harm’s way, and the next day, Tracy said he found himself on a coal ferry sailing to Key West, Fla., back to the United States.
It wasn’t until 1977 that the United States allowed U.S. personnel into Cuba again.
On Dec. 17, 2014, 53 years after Tracy’s departure, President Barack Obama announced his intentions of normalizing relations with the island nation. The decision could mean lifting the trade embargo for Cuba and easing travel for Americans wanting to visit the country.
Tracy, who treated the announcement as good news, said it was about time.
“It’s the greatest thing in the world,” he said. “I can just see tourist ships going into Cuba, cruise ships and airlines. Everybody traveling back and forth freely.
“People in Cuba being able to get things,” he said. “You never hear anything anymore about Cuba. Not being in Africa anymore, the Cuban army, all that good stuff— they just don’t have it. And the Castros, I think, are ready to hang it up.”
With tensions between the United States and Cuba finally easing, Tracy said he looks forward to visiting Havana with the Marines who lowered the flag with him at the embassy site more than 50 years ago.
“We’re going to talk over getting back to Cuba and putting a flag back up together,” he said. “It won’t be the first flag that goes up, but it will be a flag.”
For Tracy, the visit will also be a chance for him to relive fond memories of the island he will never forget.
“I will go back to Havana, Cuba, in a minute,” he said. “I just want to get down there and take a look around. Bring back memories and stuff.
“It was wonderful,” he added. “It is wonderful. I can’t imagine it changing that much. The people love life — they enjoy everything. There’s something, some reason to celebrate, to have a party, to get together.”
©2015 The (Jacksonville, N.C.) Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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