Che
 

I do not know anything about Che, but I have seen his face on t-shirts, usually worn by movie stars and rappers, why is a part of our society enamored by him?
Robert Redford I believe just finished a movie about his motorcycle diaries, met with Castro about it.

Yeah I'm asking for a free ride.
I'll gladly pay in pushups
:D

Book answer - Che is a cult figure, the "Easy Rider", the Jack Kerouac of insurgents. He was young when the 8th SFG and Bolivian Rangers put him down, only 39. He was Castro's Ambassador at large, appearing here then there. He LOOKED like a freedom fighter. He was the rock and roll guerrilla defending the poor, the tired, the mining masses.

NDD's answer - They made a strategic mistake when they took the proof of death photos. They were worried that people would deny it was him, so they cleaned him up to take the photos. When they did it, he kind of looked (or at least a lot of people claimed) like Christ or some kind of angel. They didn't show the pics of his raggedy asthma-racked ass the way he was when the dragged him out of the jungle. Those pics only came out years later.

So that's the way people remembered him, like a saint martyred by the US imperialist oppresser and its Bolivian puppets.

The Cubans and other leftist have done everything they can to perpetuate the myth. Every cause needs its heroes.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Lesson Learned

My .02 pesos

Who can tell me what Che means and who named him that?

Who can tell me when and where he met Castro and who introduced them?

Who can tell me what one of the jobs he had when he met Castro was?

Who can name the Bolivian Ranger that, according to the story, put him down and why he was the one?

No answers for me goat?

Go ahead Jimbo.

Not yet. Give the guys a chance to look some of it up. And yes i do know most of the answers.

Ok, but they should know those by heart :D

EG was nicknamed "fuser" (El Furibundo Serna) by his best friend, fellow leprosy doctor, and travelling companion, Alberto Granado. Che means "hey you" in Argentina, and Guevara used to say that alot. He was first called 'Che' in Guatemala, I believe, by a Cuban exile named Antonio Nico Lopez (who knew Castro).

Guevara did not meet Castro until later when he was working as a doctor in Mexico The meeting took place around July 1956. They were introduced by Raul Castro, Fidels brother.

SGT Mario Teran, M-2 carbine. Rodriguez wrote about it.

Not bad pulque, I'm impressed! But he wasn't working as a Doctor, he couldn't work as a doctor because of the laws and his immigration status.

Do you know how Nico knew Fidel?

Why did Teran do the honors (according to the story)?

Sorry, I thought he worked in a hospital in mexico because there is a story in Anderson about a woman patient of his who died of asthma.

According to the story, Teran did the deed for revenge from a gunfight he had been in with the rebels.

Nico was in Guatemala after fleeing Cuba following the Mocanda barracks attacks which were organized by Fidel.

Che Guevara Quiz...
 

'Che' means "buddy" and I think it was given to him by CPT Alberto Bayo when learning about Guerilla Warfare under him. Not real sure about this one.

Che met Castro in Mexico in September 1954 through Hilda Gadea and LT. Nico Lopez

He was Catro's Minister of Industry and also held the position of President of the National Bank of Cuba.

SGT Mario Terran executed Che when a LT. Perez was unable to carry out the order himself.

Great thread:

Terry

Very good!

Ernestito was taking pics of American tourists in the streets in Mexico for change. He did work a while as a lab rat.

The story goes that they drew straws, all a little afraid of the myth. The guy that won (lost) was shaking so bad he couldn't do it and SGTO Teran stepped up and said "I'll do it."

Nico was indeed a vet of the Moncado uprising. I'm not real sure Fidel actually planned that, it may be revisionist history. Do you know what the first uprising they planned to participate in was? (It never got off the ground).

Interesting fact - Che's paternal great grandfather was Irish. His paternal grandfather was born in the US (California gold rush).

His mother's family went back to General Jose de la Serna, the last Spanish Viceroy of Peru (Marx and Engels mentioned him).

Oh, and red wasp is right, Che is kind of like buddy. They say it after words like gringos say "Uh" and Canucks say "eh". But pulque is right, is was Nico and two other Cubans, not Bayo, that gave him the name.

Had to look it up. He had wanted to invade the Dominican Republic to overthrow General Trujillo.

While I was looking it up I came across this story, which made me LOl again about a 12-yr old Castro writing to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, asking him for a dollar.

cool. thanks NDD!

-another lab rat

My question- who betrayed Che?

Solid

What do you mean betrayed?

I recently watched a documentary which suggested that Bustos didn't betray Che's whereabouts, and I was wondering if this was the case?

Solid

Solid - A deserter and a prisoner were interrogated and their testimony provided info on Guevara's location and situation. Further analysis left little doubt that the bad guys were going to try a break-out manuveur.

Since it was Bolivia why was it 8th and not 7th SFG(A)who went after Che.

Who commanded the team that trained Manchego Number 2? .

How long was the training course?

Why was the training team heavier on commo talent than demo talent.

The deserter was Mace (sp?)?
He's mentioned in Che's diaries, I'll try to find the name. Again, this is all off of a documentary, so I'm not sure of my information.

Solid

At the time wasn't the 8th based out of Panama and had SA as its AO? That period of SF history escapes me at the moment.

You mean the teams don't always take more commo guys? :D

goat,
You started this, get in here.

You are right about it being 8th's A/O.


It was lead by Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton. Maj Shelton had been in Laos, Japan, Korea, Germany and the Dominican Republic as well as Panama. During his 20 year career he had been awarded the Silver Star for heroism and the Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

Major Shelton was the one who developed the training course.
It was 19 weeks long -
6 weeks of Basic Infantry Training then 3 of Advanced Infantry Training
3 weeks of Basic Unit Training followed by 5 of Advanced Unit Training
Ending with a two week training exercise.


I'm going to leave it up to you guys to decide why commo skills might be more important on that particular op than combat engineer skills.

there were 2 communication guys, and 4 radio operators

In Killing Pablo (by Mark Bowden), a lot of emphasis is placed on the work of radio operators in intercepting and triangulating the position of radio communications.
I have NO idea if this was necessary when hunting Che et al., but I figured it might be applicable and therefore worth mentioning.

Or, a more simple explanation- the groups needed to stay in contact when in the bush, and therefore needed more expert commo guys to keep them hooked up. Or more commo men to train up the indigenous forces while others go out with combat patrols?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the jungle is possibly the worst place to try establishing commo from, maybe this is a reason for having more commos down there?

Just tossing ideas out there...

Solid

I think you might be on to something there. If the jungle hampers communication than more rto's might be needed to set up a relay system in order for the most forward positions to 'bounce back' commo to HQ?

Now CRad, you know good and well that O4 didn't write that training plan. Team Sergeants write training plans, SGMs review training plans, and O4s sign off on training plans.:D

Commo in the jungle is usually difficult due to the terrain; mountians tend to make FM commo very difficult since FM is line of sight and mountains interfere with that. Long haul HF shots become difficult when a "take off" angle is needed to make the long shot. For commo under 300 miles a Near Verticle Incidence Skywave (NVIS) antenna can be used or you can simply make one with an inverted-V and a counterpoise.

Just guessing here, but they probably also set up some type of Base Station in country for the patrols to talk to. Message traffic was routed from that Base at the FOB/ AOB and then sent on to higher in Panama. They may have also split the team and needed more commo guys to cover the different "slices" that went out.

Commo back then was made using a hand-cranked generator, but I'm told that's what the XO/ CO were for. :D

The worst place that I've ever heard of making commo was the desert with rocky terrain. Something about the minerals in the rocks creating "dead zones." Usually, the drier the soil, the harder it is to make commo.

I didn't say he wrote I said he developed it. ;)

My guess is the Tm Sgt, SGM Oliverio Gomez, wrote that up after talking to his team and asking what they it would take to get the job done.

Does anybody know how major a role Che played during the Bay of Pigs and why?

How about during the Missile Crisis?


Does anybody know who he secretly met with during his trip to address the UN?

Nobody likes my questions?

Still digging.

EG did not play a major fighting role at Playa Giron, though he was wounded by an accidental gun discharge. Politically, he did precipitate the invasion by 1) creating so many exiles (eg Felix Rodriguez who had a grudge) 2) openly embracing the USSR and China 3) Nationalizing U.S. businesses (without compensation) 4) the implicit threat of exporting revolution to South America. He later sent a message to JFK regarding bay of pigs, thanking him for strengthening the revolution.

Secret meeting? I'd guess Malcolm X.

That's right, he dropped his pistol and it ND'd him in the cheek. He was in the hospital.

Part of the reason he didn't play a bigger role in the Missile Crisis is because he wasn't really in favor of having the missiles there. Also, the Russions were mad at him for supporting the Chinese.

Castro was actually estimated to be the more radical of the two initially. That assessment was off.

He met with Minnesota Senator McCarthy.

If you can spell Colombia and Israel, you can spell 'Russians' too :D The Russians may have been mad at him, but they had their own reasons for getting the missiles into cuba. Why do you say he wasn't in favor? I thought he set up and announced the deal.

Its an interesting exercise to think about how Castro's revolution would have manifested w/o Guevara. The thing is, Che wasn't political like Castro, politics was only one of the tools he used for his objectives, so he was more free to be radical.

I spelled Russians like a Cajun! LOL

Che was very loyal to Castro. He almost always toed Castro's line, even when he didn't agree with the situation. You're right, the Russians had their own reasons for wanting the missiles there. There's actually quite a bit of contention as to how it actually happened and why. Nikita appears to have made the decision almost alone. The Cubans claim they were their as a statement for the good of the socialist countries, but not to protect Cuba from invasion.

I agree with your assessment as to his being apolitical allowed him to be more radical. His best supporter appears to have been Raul, which is cause for concern if Fidel dies.

Yes, the missiles were the Rooskions idea. I'm starting to see, though, how it wasn't the threat of the Soviets that was the basis of the terrible relation between U.S. and Cuba.

Ok, so given that Raul is more radical than Fidel, how is it a cause for concern for Cubans? Are you refering to a prolonged period of economic isolation, or something else?