The Roar of Military Aircraft Echoes Once Again Over Vieques, Stirring Painful Memories

At 11 a.m., José Silva sits in the shade of a tree along the boardwalk of Esperanza, a coastal community on the island municipality of Vieques, listening to the radio. Mention the reactivation of U.S. military activity, and his tone sharpens immediately.

“That noise [from the planes] is like bringing back the monster of the bombings. But they’ll never bomb here again, just so you know,” declares the octopus fisherman.

The return of military operations just 14 nautical miles away, at the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, has reopened old wounds on the Isla Nena, as locals call Vieques.

When Yamilette Meléndez, a resident of the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood who works at a food truck near the Esperanza pier, heard U.S. Army planes flying overhead a few weeks ago, her first thought was of her childhood, when she used to hide under her bed every time a military aircraft passed over her home.

“The trauma comes back,” she says softly. “It comes back because for years we lived with the sound of bombs, planes at all hours, while sleeping, at school… I thought of my children, of the anxiety. It’s something you can’t control, because I grew up with it. And I was just a girl then. Imagine how it feels for the older folks who lived through the real struggle.”

Now in her forties, Meléndez doesn’t believe the renewed military presence means economic opportunity for people in Puerto Rico’s eastern region, an idea that has gained traction in recent weeks in nearby coastal towns. On the contrary, she says, much of the rhetoric promoting the Navy’s return to Roosevelt Roads overlooks the harsh realities that have cost — and continue to cost — lives on Vieques.

“People talk about money because they don’t know what it’s like for your house to shake after the bombs drop, or to lose a sick relative because of the chemicals and everything we breathed in. They’re not coming back here,” she says about the Navy.

The roar of military aircraft, says biologist, fisherman, and activist Carlos “Prieto” Ventura, along with Andrea Malavé Bonilla, spokesperson for the Vieques Women’s Alliance, brings back memories of the six decades the U.S. Navy used the island for bombing and training exercises.

Both told the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) that since military exercises resumed in Puerto Rico on August 31, based primarily at the former Roosevelt Roads base in Ceiba, they’ve seen planes and helicopters flying over Vieques en route to the “big island”. It’s a display of military activity unseen in years, sometimes strong enough to make walls and windows shake. According to Malavé Bonilla, the aircraft occasionally flies at low altitude, making the noise and vibrations even more intense.

“They’re part of our daily lives. That’s just how it is. It can be seven in the morning or ten at night; it doesn’t matter. Even at three or four in the morning, you hear the jets, and the houses start to shake! The noise is so loud it can wake you up,” explains Malavé Bonilla.

The Federal Aviation Administration has restricted the use of airspace southeast of Ceiba from November 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026. For five months, only Department of Defense military aircraft will be allowed in that airspace for security reasons.

“The U.S. government may use lethal force against any aircraft it determines poses a security threat,” the notice warns.

Various protest camps were established in Vieques as part of the movement to remove the U.S. Navy from the island municipality. File photo from the weekly newspaper Claridad

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In May 2000, federal agents carried out mass arrests of civil disobedients in Vieques. File photo from the weekly newspaper Claridad

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Residents of Vieques, along with political, religious, and student leaders, were among those arrested in May 2000. File photo from the weekly newspaper Claridad

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Religious and civil society leaders also joined the protests. File photo from the weekly newspaper Claridad

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In this 1949 photo, soldiers demonstrate a sonic system designed to disorient the enemy with grenade explosions and tracer rounds. Photo from the El Mundo collection | University of Puerto Rico

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Soldiers of the 65th Infantry Regiment chat with Colonel C.C. Sloane during a break on the island municipality of Vieques in 1949. Photo from the El Mundo collection | University of Puerto Rico

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A soldier in Vieques demonstrates how to inflate rubber artillery. Photo from the El Mundo collection | University of Puerto Rico

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A banner denounces the U.S. Navy’s land occupation in Vieques. The photo was taken in 1967. Photo from the El Mundo collection | University of Puerto Rico

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Memories of relatives lost to cancer and other illnesses due to the effects of extensive bombing in the shooting range in Vieques, intertwine with recollections of roaring bomb blasts and jet engines.

From his balcony in the La Mina neighborhood, Víctor Meléndez recalls his aunt’s final days. “Man, toward the end, her skin would bleed; it was awful. We never knew exactly what it was, but we grew up with the bombings. Right next door lived David Sanes,” he says, referring to the Vieques security guard who died when a bomb accidentally fell near a control tower during military exercises in April 1999.

Since August, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to deploy military forces to combat drug trafficking, allegedly. Through an executive order, he designated drug cartels as “terrorists” and launched a military offensive in the Caribbean involving 4,500 troops. The United States has expanded this operation to the Pacific. According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Trump now calls Secretary of War, at least 15 boats allegedly transporting drugs have been shot down as of October 29, and at least 61 people have reportedly been killed in these attacks.

After several weeks of military presence in the Caribbean and strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats, Trump sent a memorandum to Congress declaring that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Trump has defended the legality of these attacks, which Colombian President Gustavo Petro has described as murders and which Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned as extrajudicial executions for killing people accused of being traffickers without due process. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also denounced the actions. The U.S. has not provided evidence that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs.

“People should not be killed for using, trafficking, or selling drugs,” said Ravina Shamsadani, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, after Trump announced the first lethal strike on a supposed drug boat in September.

Trump, who justifies the military attacks by labeling cartels as terrorist organizations, has not obtained a formal Declaration of War from Congress. Tensions have escalated with the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest warship, and the arrival of the USS Gravely in the waters off the coast of Venezuela, near Trinidad and Tobago.

Vieques community leaders see history repeating itself. Among residents, many believe the current mobilization is just the beginning of a new wave U.S. Navy operation that will not be temporary, but rather a prolonged military presence on both Vieques and Puerto Rico.

“That [the sound of military aircraft] hasn’t been heard in a long time. The perception here is that they’re looking for an excuse to come back and stay, using the argument of terrorism tied to drug trafficking,” says Ventura. He’s convinced that, as in the past century, the U.S. government will persuade Puerto Rico’s leaders to reactivate military bases in exchange for federal funds, contracts, and the promise of economic growth driven by companies linked to the defense industry.

Touring the Isla Nena in the third week of October, no visible military activity can be seen on the streets, unlike at the Roosevelt Roads base in Ceiba, where troops have reportedly made infrastructure improvements to the airport and now occupy part of the runway for daily air maneuvers.

Érica Boulogne, from the collective Somos Más Que 100 x 35, and Judith Conde, from the Vieques Women’s Alliance, told the digital outlet Todas that the resumption of military exercises in Puerto Rico has reopened deep wounds within the Vieques community. They said they received the government’s announcement with a mix of anger and pain. However, they had already noticed the presence of military personnel working at the Vieques airport long before.

“Before the official announcement, we were already seeing the National Guard around here with trucks on the roads, operating heavy machinery, supposedly for airport improvements. And at that moment, I realized how long the Navy had been in Vieques. At times, we had normalized the noise, the sight of their trucks on the roads, and the low-flying planes… We kind of got used to it because it’s what we’d seen since we were kids,” said Boulogne.

Walking through the streets of Vieques, residents told the CPI that military personnel had cleared land near the airport runway and removed vegetation along Route 200, just a few yards from Playa Medalla.

“They cleared the area with machinery, but beyond that, I haven’t really seen much else. You can definitely hear the flights and the noise, but there aren’t any visible troops around like in Ceiba,” said local transporter Carlos Piña Sanes, cousin of David Sanes.

Boulogne told the CPI that unconsciously, as a defense mechanism, the people of Vieques “blocked out” the memory of the military presence and what it represented, which allowed them to go on with their lives “as if [the military] didn’t exist.” It was only after the bombings stopped and the silence settled over the island that people began to question how they had managed to live through it for so long. Now, more than two decades after that silence, hearing aircraft again feels unbearable.

“Hearing those planes again, sometimes you don’t even see them, but the noise feels like they’re landing on your roof, it’s infuriating, it’s outrageous. A strange kind of anger. And then you ask yourself, ‘Why do we have to go through this again?’ It’s reliving things we had already started to heal from. It’s awful,” she says.

Inside his rum distillery, Crab Island, Vieques native Iván Torres cuts open dry coconuts. The sweet smell of molasses fills the air, sparking conversation. “Here we make Vieques rum from scratch, with sacrifices you wouldn’t even imagine,” he says, sweating and catching his breath.

Torres served time in prison for civil disobedience during the Vieques struggle against the U.S. Navy. His brother and mother were also jailed. Not long after the military left, his mother died of cancer. “And now you hear they’re back at the base in Ceiba, and that noise from the planes… It all comes rushing back, man. The struggle, the fights, the frustrations… It’s this mix of anger and helplessness. Because now we talk about it, but we forget that our obsession with ideologies made us lose sight of what mattered most, our sense of community,” he says.

Torres said the damage caused by the military in Vieques is beyond repair. “But before we point fingers outward, we need to look at ourselves from within. And there are efforts, because yes, there are. What I mean is, those efforts have to put Vieques first, the people here who are trapped in their homes with mental health struggles, the elderly living alone, the communities that emerge because need drives people to occupy land and abandoned buildings. They live without water or electricity. Hundreds of families,” he explains.

In an interview with the media outlet Todas, Judith Conde recounted how the military, and the logic of occupation, have treated, and continue to treat, women’s bodies as extensions of the territory itself.

“Some of the soldiers who were recently working at the airport approached local businesses and several people, asking if there were sex workers in Vieques. It’s one of the most brutal forms of violence… women’s bodies are seen as part of the occupied land,” she said.

Military Presence on the Southern Coast

In Arroyo, a municipality on Puerto Rico’s southern coast, military exercises have taken place at El Faro Beach, according to Edra Díaz Santiago, a municipal legislator from the Puerto Rican Independence Party. While some residents have shown no opposition to the military presence, echoing the public narrative that the soldiers are “here to protect the island” and even bringing them food, others are alarmed.

“So far, they’ve come in by sea without notifying us,” Díaz Santiago said, explaining that during the exercises, the military blocks the road leading to the beach, just past the residential area.

Unlike some Arroyo residents who welcome the soldiers, people living in the nearby communities of San Felipe and Miramar, the ones closest to the training zone, have voiced concerns about loud explosions and the risk of an accident.

“There are a lot of elderly people there who fear for their safety because of the detonations during the exercises. They tell me, ‘What if what happened in Vieques happens here?’” said Arroyo resident Miriam Gallardo González.

Gallardo González was referring to the 1999 death of Vieques security guard David Sanes, whose killing reignited the decades-long movement to expel the U.S. Navy from the island, where its beaches and surrounding waters had long served as a war zone. That civilian campaign united nearly all of Puerto Rico’s political, civic, and religious sectors. The U.S. Navy finally withdrew from Vieques on May 1, 2003, but left behind a toxic legacy that still endures. In 1975, the same military branch had pulled out of the neighboring island of Culebra, after using it as a bombing range for nearly 40 years.

“Two people came up to me and said the explosions and detonations were extremely loud. Another told me they saw a fire after a blast in the ocean,” Díaz Santiago added.

“I realized what was happening the first day I felt the helicopters flying over my house. At one point there were five of them, flying so low I could see the people inside. I was shocked!” recalls Vonmaris Rivera, a resident of the Miramar neighborhood.

The official X account of the U.S. Marine Corps’ 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit also shows military exercises taking place at Camp Santiago in Salinas, including live-fire drills on the shooting range and in the waters off Puerto Rico’s southern coast.

Military vessels have also been spotted at the port of Ponce in the island’s southwest and at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in San Juan. Reaper drones operated by the U.S. Army have been seen on the runway of Rafael Hernández Airport in Aguadilla, on the northwest coast.

Puerto Rico Functions as an Aircraft Carrier

According to two Republican Party sources familiar with internal discussions, who requested anonymity, military leaders have long considered expanding the U.S. presence in Puerto Rico. The idea, discussed during both Trump’s first presidency in 2017 and under the Biden administration, extended beyond Roosevelt Roads to include other bases across the island, although no formal plan was developed. At one point, Washington officials even discussed reopening the Roosevelt Roads hospital, but the proposal stalled.

“This was inevitable, and the situation with Venezuela sped it up. Puerto Rico is the aircraft carrier for that operation; it’s regained the strategic importance it had during World War II and the Cold War,” one of the sources explained.

The source added that the Trump administration’s strategy is to project power, this time in the Caribbean, to reassert territorial dominance amid growing influence from other global powers, particularly China, in a region the United States had largely neglected. Another source said that the use of the Ceiba base ensures the U.S. military maintains control over the only maritime route to the mainland deep enough for warships, in the event of armed conflict.

“There’s going to be a military operation in Venezuela. When? No one knows, that’s above our level. But everyone believes something is going to happen. Once the operation enters its most intense phase, it could force the closure of the base’s gates, requiring coordination with the local government to maintain civilian use of the airport and ferry services to the island municipalities,” the second source said.

The current level of U.S. military presence and naval activity in the region hasn’t been seen since 1983, during the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada, according to political science professor Jorge Schmidt Nieto.

He notes that this military buildup, which could ultimately lead to direct intervention in Venezuela, should not be underestimated. By deploying F-35 fighter jets to the Roosevelt Roads base in Ceiba, Schmidt Nieto says, the U.S. military is effectively using Puerto Rico as a strategically positioned aircraft carrier within flight range of Venezuela.

The F-35s are the most advanced fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal and among those of its allies. They use artificial intelligence, can refuel midair without landing, evade radar detection, and are equipped with sophisticated sensor technology.

“With the F-35s stationed here, Puerto Rico is being used as a sort of aircraft carrier. We’re only about 550 miles from Caracas. These planes have more than twice that range, plus the ability to refuel in flight,” Schmidt Nieto explains, adding that such military technology puts Venezuela, whose air force relies on aging F-16s, at a significant disadvantage.

On October 3, the U.S. Southern Command published, for the first time, images on its X account showing F-35s in Puerto Rico armed with bombs. Just hours later, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the destruction of another boat in the Caribbean, an operation that appeared to use F-35 strike technology. The day before that attack, Venezuela’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, had accused the U.S. of military harassment after detecting the presence of those fighter jets near the country’s coast.

“All indications are that this naval force deployed in the Caribbean isn’t intended for an invasion, but rather for what they call a ‘surgical strike,’ possibly targeting a Venezuelan air base, or even the presidential palace,” Schmidt Nieto added.

More than a fight against drug cartels, the real motivation behind the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, he argues, is to destabilize Nicolás Maduro’s government, boost Trump’s appeal among Hispanic voters ahead of the midterm elections, and curb China’s growing influence in an oil-rich region.

The Military Never Really Left

For Alejandro Torres Rivera, former president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association and analyst of international political affairs, the U.S. Navy’s 2003 withdrawal from Vieques did not mark the end of the American military presence in Puerto Rico.

“The idea that the U.S. military is no longer present in Puerto Rico is a myth. They never left, they merely scaled back their presence, or the intensity of it, for a time in their colony,” he argues. Torres Rivera says it was only logical that, with a new military operation underway in Caribbean waters, the United States would move to reuse facilities it has maintained on the island, potentially for years or even indefinitely.

Puerto Rico, he adds, has never ceased to be a military stronghold because of its geographic position, serving as the gateway to the Panama Canal from the western Atlantic, or what is known as the Caribbean Sea.

Puerto Rico’s location places it closest to the maritime routes that connect South America to the United States, and it serves as the nearest strategic access point from the Atlantic Ocean to the Panama Canal, Torres Rivera explains.

“If you turn a map upside down and look from north to south, you can see clear coordination between Guantánamo, in Cuba, and Puerto Rico’s eastern tip to close off the Caribbean. That allows for control, protection, and defense of the direct maritime route passing through the Panama Canal,” he adds.

Torres Rivera agrees with Professor Schmidt Nieto that the joint military maneuvers between the U.S. National Guard and Marine Corps in Puerto Rico, the renewed use of facilities in Ceiba, Aguadilla, and Carolina, and the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to the island are all part of operations targeting Venezuela.

He believes the U.S. naval movement could be aimed at providing support in the event of an internal uprising in Venezuela, or even at establishing a beachhead, taking control of a specific territory to install a provisional government there.

“This reactivation of Puerto Rican territory for military purposes also suggests the possible deployment of Puerto Rican Army Reserve and National Guard troops in a potential conflict, likely serving as auxiliary combat and occupation forces,” he says.

Torres Rivera notes that the U.S. Army Reserve in Puerto Rico comprises roughly 4,500 personnel. At the same time, the Puerto Rico National Guard, which includes both Army and Air Force units, adds approximately 10,000 more soldiers.

In addition to Puerto Rico, the government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has authorized the entry of U.S. naval vessels into its waters as part of the regional operations. Guyana is embroiled in a territorial dispute with Venezuela over the Essequibo region, a 160,000-square-kilometer area rich in oil, gas, and minerals.

Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the most recent United Nations General Assembly. Ali expressed his government’s support for the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, a stance also shared by the government of Trinidad and Tobago.

This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.