[Jungle Sounds, Birds Chirping] For so long.

I just saw us growing old together.

That was what I had hoped would happen.

But he got the big head too big.

The end was his decision to hurt me the most.

The problem of Cuba right now, as most Americans see it and the reports go on with Neill McCauley next.

He was an American who fought for Castro, was given a farm in Pinar del Rio in Cuba for his services, said Mr.

McCauley.

I don't know what the United States can do as far as aiding the Cuban people, and I was certain I was determined.

I was going to I was going to do it.

It was a means to.

He felt that to help accomplish this goal of correcting injustices, I told my parents I was going to Cuba to join a revolution.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] I grew up in a different world than most of the people I went to high school with and went to college with.

I'm from South Carolina and from rural or semi-rural South Carolina.

The military was very much part of our family, and I was drawn towards the military.

We had black people who were employed by my family, and my childhood playmates were almost all nonwhite.

I knew the racism that existed there, and I participated in by omission.

I didn't object to stand up in against the racist slogans and people using bad language.

My father had to tell me that I couldn't go to the cowboy movies with Norman, my black bosom buddy, my best friend.

Inwardly, you know, I felt that when the time comes, if I have the opportunity I want to do, I want to do something about this.

He had a great confidence in himself, and he felt he could make a contribution, trying to help make Cuba a more equal place for everybody.

I knew I was going to make my way into the Cuban Revolution.

[Sound of Boat Gliding on Water] I grew up in a little town in New Hampshire.

I was Nancy, Copenhagen back in that time from North Woodstock, New Hampshire.

My daddy was a country doctor.

We were taught how to work and be responsible.

That's sort of the kind of girl I was when I entered the Citadel at the age of 17.

It was it was a good liberal arts college.

I was an honor graduate, distinguished military student.

I went to Cuba twice in 1956, right after I graduated from the Citadel.

But I didn't know what the revolution was like.

[Urban Ambiance] Everyone had some sort of a tale that we don't like.

Batista.

I was thinking maybe I wind up in Cuba working to overthrow Batista.

The situation hadn't developed at that time.

The Korean War was still going on.

This is 1952.

I was offered a regular army commission.

I wanted to do something.

I wanted to do something important.

But then the armistice was signed.

I had no prospects right then.

Intermediate prospects of going.

Going to a war.

And my family 13 Copenhagen.

Went to Acapulco, Mexico, for Christmas vacation in Acapulco.

We went to the motel.

Up comes as black Chevy or something.

Who was driving?

But Neill and he had three guys with him.

I didn't get out of the car to go look at these guys in South Carolina from South Carolina, but my family did.

They told him what beach we were going to as those guys didn't show up and we went swimming out in the bay.

And it was all just great fun.

And so that's how I met Neill.

So I was stationed in Korea for a year and a half.

He had a job in Korea, was just at the PX he was an PX officer and stuff like that.

He had no act.

It was he was post war.

I read about Fidel in the newspapers.

The stories of how the Fidelistas is in the Sierra Maestra had beaten back this massive offensive by the Batista army.

Cuba was was very much in the news and prepared myself to to go to Cuba.

I was convinced that Cuba was the place.

It didn't fizzle.

The revolution continued.

It grew.

[Jungle Sounds] I've been corresponding with this lady.

She's a teenager.

We corresponded for a year and a half while he was in Korea duty.

And then I was at University of Michigan.

He was only four years older than I was, but he just had all this knowledge and I just felt, I'll never be bored with this guy.

And by that time, I'd kind of gotten pretty interested in him.

[Dramatic Music] The March 13th attack was it was a big deal.

And the spark had been I had the spark and it flamed up that these young people had attempted to assassinate Batista.

He came back.

I got a week off.

We had sat out in Central Park in New York City on a bench.

He proposed to me that we should get married because he was already planning the Cuban adventure, and because he told me about it.

At that time, I didn't even know anything about the Cuban Revolution.

I knew Cuba existed, but I didn't know that there was a revolution going on.

I'm just a little 18 year old girl from New Hampshire at that time.

And and so this was all brand new to me.

He was making contacts, you know, right at that week when I was there.

And so I searched out the people who were running the war, their representatives in the United States.

One of my main fears is not main fear was that the revolution be over before I got there.

We went over to the New York Public Library, and we studied which state you could go to to elope without having to have a three day residency or something like that.

Turns out North Carolina.

So we flew to North Carolina, went to the courthouse, got married by judge, justice of the peace, and then he stayed on in New York City and made the rest of those contacts.

That night, in August of 1958, when I showed up at the 26th July Movement headquarters for the first time, I met the various people there, but I wanted I wanted to get to the front.

I was going to do it.

This this wasn't, you know, this wasn't bar talk, all this.

This was this was what I was going to do.

He goes off, he does his interviewing in Cuba and in New York to get himself set to Cuba.

And then he's incommunicable.

I went down to the Greyhound bus station.

Headed out of New York City on a Greyhound bus, stopped in South Carolina, and my friend drove me out to my parents home, where I said goodbye to and spent the night.

And next morning I booked on Aerovias Q flight to Havana.

[Airplane Taking Off] I was on my way.

[Soft Music] But I landed in Havana, went from the airport to the city.

The first thing I saw going into the city on the bus was posters for the presidential and congressional elections.

I was told that Batista was trying to pull off a fake election a way out, get his man elected.

But nobody believes in the election.

[Crowd Noise] I sent the telegram to the office in New York to tell them that I had arrived.

I surmised that it was.

It was probably unusual to have an American volunteer like me that they were shepherding into the into the hills.

[Soft Music] So I showed up at the appointed time to apartment of the underground coordinator for the province of Pinal del Rio, his wife and small son, about 7 or 8 years old.

I volunteered to to sleep on the floor.

[Soft Music] The arrangement was made there after a couple of days to send me to the sugar mill town of Mercedita The driver told me that at midnight Juan would come and take me into the camp of Captain Claudio.

[Soft Music] I went back home and I finished my summer in my work, and then I went back to the University of Michigan.

I ended up having to tell my parents before I went off to University of Michigan for my sophomore year, I just I said, I had to talk to you, and I went to daddy's office and I said, I, daddy, I, I think I'm pregnant, but I married.

[Jungle Sounds] It was about 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon when we arrived in Claudio's camp.

I'd expected to see a lot of middle class kids, but almost all of them, all of these boys were farm boys or workers.

Many of them had seen very few Americans in their lives.

Claudio was the commander of this outfit.

He was the first guerrilla leader in Pinar Del Rio.

Escalona commanded all of the guerrillas in the province.

[Dramatic Music, Jungle Sounds] Escalona assigned me to Claudio.

We marched that night.

It was a very difficult march for me, and I had a hard time keeping up, but I wasn't going to let down the impression they had of me as an American.

After marching with Claudio for a few days, I heard my first shots fired on October the 4th.

[Jungle Sounds, Gunfire] [Jungle Sounds, Gunfire] Oh my god, I had horrible nightmares.

Really, really nightmares.

I had the one and that was a it was a recurring one.

And that was his his head was presented to me on a platter.

[Dramatic Music] We were camped along a big wide stream rocky creek bed, and our outpost was approached by Batistiano patrol, an army patrol.

Our ambush down there opened fire on the Batistianos Of course, I was ready for action.

I thought we were going to have a fight here, but Escalona ordered a general retreat.

I told Escalona that I think we should.

We should fight.

We have good position here.

He says no, no, no, and we're not going to fight.

What I didn█t know was that Escalona was going to assault the military barracks at Las Pozes six days later.

He didn't want his position located.

This was not the information we wanted out.

This did not fit with Escalona█s plans.

[Dramatic Music] The march was very tough.

We went on some very steep terrain.

We could see our objective, the army barracks at Las Pozas.

[Dramatic Music] Las Pozas was a small military barracks.

It was manned by a platoon.

It was a platoon sized unit that is about 30 soldiers in this concrete, heavily armed, heavy wood doors and windows.

[Dramatic Music] Escalona says.

Now you're going to have three Thompson submachine guns.

You're going to have two carbines, so many grenades, and you're going to have an Americano con cojones and the American and American with balls.

Well, I was very gratified by that.

[Jungle Sound, Music] We marched.

It started hour before dusk, and it was when it was dark on October the 10th.

[Dramatic Music] I was supposed to roll a hand grenade up against the the the sally port, the main entrance, the front door, this wooden door.

I pulled the pin on the hand grenade.

I had rolled it up against the front door and nothing happened.

I scrambled back to the the post where I where I was.

Claudio opened fire.

The fight began.

The skirmish began, [Gunshots] So the cuartel was surrounded and was taking fire from from all sides and they were firing back.

One of our men was badly wounded.

He caught a bullet right in his shoulder.

We withdrew.

I told Claudio, I hollered him over to him.

You know, you guys get out of here.

I'll cover the retreat.

I had enough ammunition.

So as they were withdrawing along the highway, I continued to shoot at the front window and the door.

I started up the the road and I turned around just to give one parting shot and my gun jammed, my carbine being jammed.

I tried to catch up with the other guys.

We were able to evacuate and evacuate Titi.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] [Jungle Sound] There were two major sugar mills in that area and these were valuable assets for the Batista government economic assets.

They were the main industry in the area.

Claudio decided that this was where we would perform our next revolutionary act.

We would ambush the patrol car somewhere along that route.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] The site we finally chose was patrolled by Batista Military Intelligence Service, one of the most feared of the dictators organizations.

[Dramatic Music] Claudio put me in charge of one of the two fire groups.

[Dramatic Music, Jungle Sounds] [Dramatic Music, Jungle Sounds] The cars came right on schedule.

[Jungle Sounds, Gunfire] Claudio fired the first shot.

My men then opened up on the first car.

Gallegos man opened up on the second car, and it was.

It was all over it.

[Dramatic Music] I think he had supreme confidence in himself.

He did do most things his way.

[Dramatic Music, Jungle Sounds] Batista forces had taken vengeance for the ambush of the patrol cars.

[Dramatic Music, Jungle Sounds] 22 rebel sympathizers.

All males were taken out of their homes and either shot, hanged or drowned.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] It was one of the worst war crimes of the war.

[Dramatic Music] I would go in between classes to go check my mail.

I got a letter from him and it had been smuggled out.

And it's on a teeny, The smallest sort of notepad spiral notepad that you can make.

And it was in this little teeny printing, and he had smuggled that out to tell me that he was coming back Thanksgiving, that he was going to arrange that and he was going to be trying to buy guns.

I told Claudio that I could get enough arms to double or triple our forces.

Everybody would be be well armed, and we could receive even more recruits.

And I would come back, give them an inventory of the arms, how much they cost, and he would raise the money, and I would return to the United States with the money necessary to purchase the arms, with the money necessary to hire a boat on the Carolina coast and transfer the arms to Cabañas Bay.

The urgency of getting the arms might not have been so much to reinforce the victories they were having over Batista, but to be able to confront rival revolutionary groups after Batista had fled.

[Gunfire, Dramatic Music] I caught the bus.

I went to the Q Airlines office in Havana.

I bought round trip ticket to Columbia, South Carolina.

I was in touch with my good friend Charlie True, who was very interested in weapons, who had a lot of weapons himself.

Charlie True was very excited about it being a participant in this thing.

[Gun Cocks, Dramatic Music] We found the largest available cache in Charlotte, North Carolina.

[Dramatic Music] I met him, of course.

He picked me up.

And so we had some time together.

And it was at that time that, of course, I told him he was going to be a daddy, and he was pretty pleased about that.

He still needed to go back to Cuba and finish this off.

He felt the end was near, and then we go down there and live happily ever after.

I didn't consciously try to impregnate my new wife but that happened.

If I'm going to join the revolution, I might get killed.

And it'd be nice to have somebody beside my parents, maybe to cry over me or make a fuss.

[Dramatic Music] [Crowd Cheering] When I got back to my guerrilla band in early December of 1958, things were quiet.

Claudio, the commander of the band, had received the order to take no offensive action.

For me, it was a time to wait until they can round up the money to buy the to send me back to the United States to buy the arms.

I was waiting for that authorization to go to Escalona█s camp and make my pitch for the arms.

There was a feeling that things were coming to an head within a matter of weeks, maybe, maybe a couple of months.

So sometime during that winter that the revolution would be won.

But at the end of December, the offensive was launched by Che Guevara around Santa Clara and Las Villas province.

[Fire Crackling] We, of course, were glued to our radio for for news of the developments in Santa Clara.

The 1st of January.

I woke up about 6:00 in the morning and I turned on the radio.

The announcer said, you know, the AP wire indicates that President of Cuba has fled, perhaps to the Dominican Republic.

Batista is gone, Batista has left.

El Hombre Se Fue The man is gone.

We had a little celebration.

and we tuned in to Radio Rebelde and it was broadcasting the news was confirmed that our troops are preparing to enter Santiago, that Santa Clara is surrounded, that the Batistianos have suffered a tremendous defeat there.

And we expect the fall of Santa Clara within hours after the whole thing was over.

That was New Year's Eve.

He wanted me to come down right then and there.

I said, no, I was going to finish my semester there and do it then.

And so that's what we arranged.

We went to Pinar Del Rio to reinforce(Escalona) him with my heavy machine gun, and he said, you go as a lieutenant.

So you know, now was an officer.

Rested up that night.

I was able to call my wife and use a telephone.

I got kind of stimulated by it all too, just from you know, of course, all I knew was what he told me.

In a way, it was romanticizing, but there was also he convinced me that it was a valid, bona fide purpose.

I don't know, I don't want to like to say that he was.

[Soft Music] [Soft Music] Not glorifying himself, you know, but I didn't see it that way.

[Soft Music] How I felt at that time, I didn't see it at that time.

[Dramatic Music] Escalona said he was going to Havana and asked me if I would like to go go with him.

We left for Havana on the morning of January 6th.

Now, at this time, Fidel was making his way from central Cuba towards Havana.

The revolution from, as we saw it, was always Fidel's revolution, and that these other people, although they helped, they hadn't really, really joined us and integrated their forces.

With the 26th of July.

The Directorio Revolucionario had two strong points.

Some went to the university and others took over the presidential palace.

We drove to the university to take a look at the Directorio Revolucionario what they were doing there.

They did not challenge us.

We just walked around, got our eyes fulled, and then we drove to La Cabaña to see Che Guevara.

El Che had taken control of La Cabaña fortress.

We had some difficulty getting in to see Che The sidewalk leading to the building was lined about a block and a half with women, women and girls they were lined up to meet El Che.

El Che was in his office.

He had a soldier out in front inviting the people to come in two at a time.

Mother and daughter, a mother and two daughters.

Just small groups at a time to greet Che We of course, shoved our way to the to the front of the line.

Somehow the ladies who were right in front of the desk got got pushed out to door, and then several girls tried to come in right behind us.

The screaming, giggling, yelling, Che!

Che!

All of us were smoking cigars, but the room was really getting unbearable.

The smoke was really was really thick in there.

Che started coughing.

He went to open the windows, let smoke out.

He soon as he opened 3 or 4 girls tried to climb through.

Che managed to push them back and close the windows.

And so we said, we'll see you later.

We were going back to Pinar Del Rio.

[Dramatic Music] I finished my semester at University of Michigan, and so it seems to me it was mid-January.

Sometime around then, I was on a small plane and had come out, I guess, out of Key West.

I was just sitting on that plane wondering what next.

Of course, I'm pretty pregnant by then and out strides this guy long strides this guy in 26 De Julio uniform and it was Neill in uniform.

And of course, that's the first time I saw him in all that gun on his pistol on his side and all that kind of stuff.

[Dramatic Music] He just he just was grinning from ear to ear, and I just felt like a princess.

And I was treated like one, not only by him, but everybody else.

And by that time, Neill was a big hero to everybody down there too.

[Dramatic Music] Escalona insisted that we stay in upstairs room in his commander's mansion.

He had plenty of room.

We drove from Havana to Pinar Del Rio out to Escalona█s place.

[Dramatic Music] But we stopped at some of the cuarteles.

There had been a skirmish or some kind of action, or he had compadres there or something like that.

So they all apparently knew he was coming or we were coming and they came running out.

[Dramatic Music] So I had my movie camera at the time, and I took pictures where there were the bullet marks and the cuarteles and stuff, and these guys coming out, and they reenacted a little bit of the particular attack that they did on that.

And this was the first time I had ever seen men embracing each other.

[Dramatic Music] After January the 8th, we continued to work for the revolution, consolidate the revolution in Pinar Del Rio.

And one of the main business was to take care of the war criminals.

Escalona.

He said, Americano, I want you to choose your best marksman and form a firing squad and shoot those people who have committed these crimes.

He knew I was upset about the executions, about the killing.

The trials were held.

The first trials were held.

In the first group were the people who perpetrated the Cabañas massacre.

Those who had gone around rounding up the 22 men and boys and killing them.

After we had attacked and destroyed the two patrol cars, I said I'd be glad to train marksmen, but.

I shouldn't.

I think a Cuban should take charge of the firing squad, but I have a vivid memory, and I'm thinking of it right now.

It's in my face of what the scene was at that time.

The crowds around the people are in front of that building where all these trials were happening, and then the executions behind there and so forth.

And in those movies that I have, all the crowds that were there and little kids on the swings and all that kind of stuff, we, we ladies were trying to divert ourselves from what was happening in that building.

[Dramatic Music] I turned over the firing squad to Pepito.

People were looking on civilians, men, women and children.

And Pepito said, Americano, look, why don't you join?

You join us on the firing squad?

And I said, no, it's not my business here.

And he said, well, you know, you're a good marksman.

So, you know, it would be the merciful thing to do, you know, if they group misses and we needed at least one other person on the firing squad.

And so I consented.

Okay.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] I had tried to train Pepito in the commands how to give the commands.

Ready, aim, fire!

And you've got to give the command crisply so that everybody would fire at the same time.

Pepito couldn't do it, he slurred the command.

You could see the rifles that were shaking.

They were waving, and the guns went off bam!

bam!

bam!

bam!

by God, apparently not.

A bullet hit the guy.

He was left standing right there, just standing.

Just looking at looking at the looking at the firing squad.

I walked out and called atencion!

And the guys suddenly, you know, they snapped.

They did.

They snapped the attention in my voice.

Preparen!

Apunten!

Fuego!

And they came together.

Ready, aim, fire.

This time.

You know, they did the job.

[Gunshots, Dramatic Music] So I put the pistol to his temple and gave him the shot.

And he he stopped twitching.

[Dramatic Music] That upset him greatly.

And now, remembering that, it upsets me too, because he was so upset about that.

[Raining, Ambient Sounds] That was a rainy day.

I remembered that, and we just waited forever, like to a Fidel to finally arrive.

And he did and stuff.

And then everybody congregated around him.

And so we all just waited outside.

It wasn't until January the 17th that he came to Pinar Del Rio.

Fidel drove up to Escalona█s house and Escalona was waiting to meet meet him with his officers, including me.

And Escalona says, welcome Fidel and Fidel.

And he comes over to see Fidel.

Fidel embraces him.

He introduced Fidel to 3 or 4 people.

This is the Americano.

This is my Americano, and he's the one who's training the firing squad.

Training the firing squads!

He grabbed me to give me a hug.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] But I lived out at the at the base Escalona█s base there in Pinar for those three months after when I came down in January until I got sick.

The doctor that was tending me at that time, he was really concerned I was going to lose the baby, and so he advised.

Plus the baby was getting so big that that I leave.

So we left in late March.

I stayed up with my folks in New Hampshire until the baby was born in May.

Then we went back in July.

I was told that Fidel said, tell the Americano that he can have whatever land he wants.

That was part of the revolution, the reform agraria.

So Neill got on a horse and went out and Pinar Del Rio and roamed around and found what he thought would be a suitable property to do a tomato farm.

And we ended up it was prearranged, pretty little house.

So that's where we lived.

I was very happy.

It was really, really nice.

[Dramatic Music] There's a lovely Guajiro family right next door, and they just took over and took care of me and, you know, helped me learn all the things I needed to do, you know, with the new baby and stuff.

And, and so we spent a lot of time out there.

She got me Panchita the Pancha to come over about a 17 or 18 year old girl.

And so she would come over.

And so she became another great friend.

I'd go to town with this baby and and oh my God, I was just everybody come out and say hello.

[Music] Friends would come by and visit with us.

It was just a lot of fun.

And then of course, I had the car and I could drive and I'd take Neill to work.

[Music] [Music] When Fidel started nationalizing things, Neill didn't like any of that, and he became a little bit worried about that.

But he just thought, well, maybe it'll just stop.

But it kept getting worse and worse.

[Dramatic Music] The increasing nationalization and appropriations of properties and obviously free enterprise was not going to be was being killed.

And that was the beginning of the destruction of the dream.

I was an American citizen, of course, when I was a volunteer in Fidel's army, under the law, I could have been deprived of my American citizenship if I served in the Army.

After the United States had recognized the revolutionary government I had handed into my resignation, I was ready to leave.

I can't say with accuracy when it was the breaking point where Neill says, we have to go.

We had to finesse our way out.

Neill began to make plans about how we'd get out.

He told me that we had to be very careful about what we were telling people that when we were going to be leaving.

So we told people that we were going out and that we would come back because he was concerned that he might be arrested, because he didn't approve of everything that was going on down there, because things were starting to happen.

People were being stopped and doing stuff like that.

Then we flew out.

And never came back.

[Dramatic Music] When we came out, we ended up back in Miami and it was sort of like a what next?

Neill had to completely shift gears, and he decided to go to the University of Texas, and he got his doctorate.

I was able to write about it.

I was able to write about the military experience of other people having the insight from that experience.

It was just an evolving thing that he had this experience from going from US military to this revolution and this combat experience, and then the Vietnam War, all that stuff.

And the United States didn't know a thing about guerrilla warfare.

And then he was hired by the University of Florida.

The US government was after him, you know, for a while and really keeping an eye on his movement.

He volunteered his services to help the US government with all this stuff and everything.

But they didn't trust him.

He really wanted to be part of whatever happened in Cuba after Fidel died.

They ignored him.

He was afraid things might happen.

Bad things might happen in Cuba.

If he went back.

He just wasn't sure how he'd be treated if he went back to Cuba.

And he didn't want to get his friends in trouble either.

Then he became a little more self-confident, and he was just really annoyed about it and about the no travel ban.

And then he got down and I'm going.

[Music] Neill was a hero to Cuba.

But after the whole thing was over, his participation had been eliminated from official museums and stuff like that.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] Everything we did seemed to evolve from the Cuban experience.

[Dramatic Music] He was also very diligent in his research.

I think, about pursuing his other publications.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] We bought this land.

We found out the builder, he started building the house here and we loved it.

[Ambient Sound] [Ambient Sound] This this house represents the life that we had.

We had a great life here.

And the kids had I think they had a great life.

It represents all those things that that I treasure.

[Music] We did it together.

I don't know, for so long.

I just saw us growing old together and going hand in hand off into the sunset.

You know, that was what I had hoped would happen and stuff.

But he got the big head too big.

Things started happening within the marriage that were not ideal.

My discovery of his other life, some of his behavior.

Became not desirable, and I couldn't understand that.

I tried my best to make it fix it.

He still would declare that I was the love of his life.

But he told me quite bluntly several times he said, I deserve a private life.

This other behavior broke his rules.

We tried to raise the kids to be honorable, integrity, honest, productive citizens.

And unfortunately, he somehow felt that this that he could deviate from that too much ego to me and the big head and he just too self-important.

But he had been my hero.

[Music] I finally got up the courage to stand up to it or try to stand up to it.

Started that process of a separation.

[Dramatic Music] The end was his decision to hurt me the most that particular day, that he had access to the house, and he was supposed to be out by five and I came home to change.

His car was still there and it wasn't supposed to be there, and ended up calling the cops because he was a restraining order on him.

[Dramatic Music] And so, detective came and two ladies.

Miss Macaulay, please sit down.

Something to tell you.

And I'd seen the two ladders up against the tree.

That's unusual, but.

And he said, Mr.

Macaulay to tell you, Mr.

Macaulay is deceased, and [Music] I asked if he shot himself and all his guns had already been confiscated and everything, so he would have had to do something.

But and he said, no, ma'am.

And I said, yes.

He hung himself.

[Dramatic Music] [Dramatic Music] I don't know what my life could have been otherwise, but this is what it is, what it was.

And so I'm proud of what we accomplished.

[Dramatic Music] That is was the central experience in my life.

[Dramatic Music] [Film Reel Turning] [Film Reel Turning] Oh, this is my roommate, Carolyn Haffner.

She's going to see me off for Cuba from New York.

Of course.

[Film Reel Turning] [Film Reel Turning] I was the first one off the plane, and I was escorted off the plane and out strides this guy, and it was Neill at the airport and he had permission to come.

My wife came to join me.

Escalona let me have an Opel station wagon that belonged to the Army to go and meet her.

I picked up a bit the airport.

We spent the night.

First night in Havana.

[Film Reel Turning] This is on the ground with the Hotel Nacional.

[Film Reel Turning] This is Havana Libre Hotel.

Now the Havana Libre was on the Hilton on the left.

The tallest building in Malecon.

And the hotel Nacional the monument of the Maine on the left.

[Film Reel Turning] Oh, we went and he had a car all lined up, and he introduced me to a bunch of people that were there and stuff, and he just, he just was grinning from ear to ear.

And so then we drove from Havana to Pinar Del Rio, but we stopped along the way.

At some of the Cuartels, Las Pozas El Cuartel he had, they had either had there had been a skirmish or some kind of action, or he had compadres there or something like that.

And so they all apparently knew he was coming, or we were coming and they came running out.

[Film Reel Turning] Is showing me sort of reenactment of this activity, this attack on the cuartel that they had here.

[Film Reel Turning] [Film Reel Turning] Pinar Del Rio city, Downtown.

That's José Marti Street.

Marti, avenida Marti.

[Film Reel Turning] Outside the regimental headquarters.

[Film Reel Turning] Headquarters building.

And there goes Neill with his ou They're going out for their daily exercise.

At least two of those vehicles had no mufflers on them.

So I could hear them coming long before I could see them.

[Film Reel Turning] I went out one day while they did the exercises, so I could get some pictures of this training session.

That's Neill on the tank.

[Ambient Sounds] This is the regimental headquarters.

[Helicopter Landing] Raul Castro coming in.

That's Escalona comandante.

[Helicopter] That's Neill.

[Ambient Sound] [Ambient Sound] There's Fidel.

[Crowd Noise] [Film Reel Turning] [Film Reel Turning] I remember right.

All these people are congregated around there having the trials there already.

[Film Reel Turning] I think that's what's going on.

Neill did talk to me a little bit about the participation in the executions.

He was very upset about all of that, and I was there on base when a lot of this stuff was going on, and I was kind of upset.

It makes me kind of tremble inside now, even thinking about it, because I just hated for it to be happening.

But he had convinced me that these people were despicable and had done some very, very atrocious things to very innocent people.

[Film Reel Turning] [Ambient Sound] I was very happy.

It was really, really nice, just really a lot of fun, you know?

I was treated like a celebrity, I guess, and that was just they were just so sweet.

[Ambient Sound] My wife had been become very friendly with several of the wives and girlfriends of my compañeros.

[Birds Chirping] We kind of walked down there and there was a nice citrus grove in the back.

So take the kid out back with me and and walk around with the, with the thing, and friends would come by and visit with us.

[Ambient Sound] [Music]