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A UNIQUE CAPABILITY: THE 82D AIRBORNE DIVISION AND ITS MEMORY OF THE DOMINICAN INTERVENTION
Guerrero, Anthony Joshua
Guerrero, Anthony Joshua
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2023
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History
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/8502
Abstract
In 1965, the United States invaded the Dominican Republic to prevent the creation of a “second Cuba.” The invasion and subsequent occupation of the Caribbean nation maintained peace in Santo Domingo beneath the banner of a multi-national peacekeeping force representing the Organization of American States (O.A.S.) as a provisional Dominican government prepared for a democratic presidential election. Although operation Power Pack, the U.S. military name for the intervention, is one of the largest uses of armed force in U.S. – Latin American history and both military and foreign policy leaders deemed the operation a success, few members of the U.S. military seem to remember Power Pack today.The one exception to this is the U.S. Army’s 82d Airborne Division. Unlike other U.S. military branches, or other parts of the U.S. Army, which fail to remember the intervention, the 82d Airborne remembers the intervention and has gone to great lengths to celebrate and memorialize its role in Power Pack. The division’s production of a commemorative book, the construction of political and intellectual discourse buoyed by the operation’s success, and the construction and maintenance of memorials and monuments to Power Pack make it clear that the organization has made a deliberate effort to maintain a collective memory of the conflict. A fuller understanding of why the 82d has maintained these memories is key to understanding why other U.S. military organizations chose to disregard their memory of Power Pack and allows scholars to begin to assess the cost of the military’s forgetfulness.
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