PIN: 103164—000

Contingency Operations Series

The U.S. Military Intervention 

in Panama: Operation Just Cause

December 1989–January 1990

by

Lawrence A. Yates

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yates, Lawrence A., 1945–

 The U.S. military intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989–

January 1990 / by Lawrence A. Yates.

 pages cm. — (Contingency operations series)

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Panama—History—American Invasion, 1989—Causes. 2. Military planning—

United States. 3. Unified operations (Military science)—Case studies. 4. Panama—

Military relations—United States. 5. United States—Military relations—Panama. I. 

Title. 

 F1567.4.Y37 2013

 972.8705’3—dc23

 2013031795

First Printing

CMH Pub 55–3–1
iii

I I I

Contents

 

 Page

Foreword .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 

The Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Chapter 

 1. The Panama Crisis, June 1987–December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 Origins of the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

 The Southern Command Reacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

 Routine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

 Operation Nimrod Dancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

 The Road to Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

 2. Preparations and Adjustments, 17–19 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . 37

 Sunday, 17 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

 Monday, 18 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

 The Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

 Tuesday, 19 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

 3. Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

 Regime Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

 Task Force White: The Canal, Balboa Harbor, and Paitilla 

 Airport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

 The Rescue of Kurt Muse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

 4. Task Force Gator and the Comandancia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

 Plans and Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

 The Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

 5. Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

 Task Force Semper Fi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

 Task Force Black Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

 6. Task Force Wildcat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

 Preparations and Initial Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

 Team Track and Company C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

 Company A, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

 Company B, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

 7. Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

 Task Force Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

 Task Force Red-T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
iv

 

8. The 82d Airborne Division on D-day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

 Planning and Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

 Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

 On the Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

 The Air Assaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

 9. Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

 Plans, Preparations, and Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

 The Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

10. Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North . . . . . . . 301

 Perceptions, Planning, and Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

 Coco Solo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

 Fort Espinar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

 The Colón Bottleneck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

11. Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South . . . . . . . 331

 Preparations, Deployment, and Prewar Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

 Madden Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

 Cerro Tigre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

 Gamboa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

 Renacer Prison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

12. Loose Ends, 20 December 1989–3 January 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

 Hostages at the Marriott Hotel and Elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

 The Move into Colón . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

 Counterattack at the DNTT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

 Ma Bell and Other Operations Outside the Canal Area . . . . . . . . 384

 Apprehending the Dictator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

13. The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building, 

 December 1989–January 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

 From Blind Logic to Promote Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

 The Transition in the Field: The Troops and the People . . . . . . . . 415

 Panama City: From Ordered Chaos to the Military 

 Support Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

14. Follow-Through and Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

 A Busy Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Chapter Page
v

 Page

Tables

No. 

 1. U.S. Military Personnel in Operation Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

 2. 82d Airborne Division (Minus) Units for Task Force Pacific . . . . . 249

 3. Rules of Engagement for Cerro Tigre Sand Flea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Charts

 1. Command Relationships: Joint Task Force-Panama 

 (as of May 1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 

 2. Operation Just Cause: OPLAN 90–2 Command and 

 Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

 3. Civil-Military Operations Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

 4. Military Support Group Command Structure 

 (as of 31 March 1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

 5. Military Support Group Interactions, Access, and Influence . . . . . . . . 463

 6. Organization of the Military Support Group 

 (Effective 15 May 1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Maps

 1. Canal Area, Pacific Ocean Side, 1987–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

 2. Task Force White, Task Unit Charlie, Area of Operations, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

 3. Task Force White, Task Unit Whiskey, Area of Operations, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

 4. Task Force White, Task Unit Papa, Area of Operations, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

 5. Comandancia and Carcel Modelo, El Chorrillo District, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

 6. Task Force Gator Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . 119

 7. Task Force Semper Fi Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . . 146

 8. Task Force Black Devil Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . 154

 9. Task Force Wildcat Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . . . . 173

10. Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T Areas of Operations, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

11. Task Force Black: Pacora River Bridge Assault Plan . . . . . . . . . . . 215

12. Task Force Black: Assault on Pacora River Bridge, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

13. Task Force Red-T: Torrijos-Tocumen Complex, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
vi

14. Task Force Pacific Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . . . . . 260

15. Task Force Red-R, Rio Hato Airfield, Area of Operations, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

16. Task Force Atlantic Area of Operations, 20 December 1989 . . . . . 305

17. Task Force Atlantic Area of Operations North, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

18. Task Force Atlantic, Coco Solo, Area of Operations North, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

19. Task Force Atlantic Area of Operations South, 

 20 December 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

20. Securing Colón: Area of Operations, 20–22 December 1989 . . . . . 369

21. Panama, 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Illustrations

President George H. W. Bush with Secretary of Defense Richard 

 Cheney and General Colin Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Panama Canal’s Miraflores Locks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

President Jimmy Carter and Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrera Sign 

 the Panama Canal Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Demonstrators Bang Pots in Protest Against the Noriega Regime . . 7

A PDF Antiriot Unit Uses a Water Cannon to Put Down a 

 Street Demonstration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

General Frederick F. Woerner Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

A Marine Patrol on the Arraiján Tank Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

A Dignity Battalion Member Attacks Guillermo “Billy” Ford . . . . . . 23

Maj. Gen. Marc A. Cisneros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

General Maxwell R. Thurman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

General Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Secretary Cheney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

U.S. Southern Command Headquarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

C–141 Starlifter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Dignity Battalion Members Engage in Street Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Brig. Gen. Robin Tornow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Maj. Gen. Wayne A. Downing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Billy Ford, Guillermo Endara, and Ricardo Arias Calderón . . . . . . . . 75

Combat Rubber Raiding Craft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Rodman Naval Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Paitilla Airfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Noriega’s Disabled Learjet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Kurt Muse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

The Carcel Modelo Compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

 No. Page
vii

MH–6 Little Bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

The Little Bird That Crashed During the Muse Rescue Mission. . . . . 102

The Comandancia Compound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

AC–130 Spectre Gunship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

AH–64 Apache Helicopter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The Final Phase of the Comandancia Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

The Comandancia Headquarters After the Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

A Marine LAV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Marines Wait to Attack the PDF Headquarters in La Chorrera. . . . . 150

Marines Outside the Damaged PDF Headquarters in La Chorrera. . 152

A Marine Escorts a Panamanian Detainee Taken in Task Force 

 Semper Fi’s Area of Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Part of a Sand Table Model Used by Task Force Black Devil in 

 Preparing for Its Mission at Fort Amador. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Cars Lined Up at the Front Gate of Fort Amador. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

U.S. Troops Inspect the ZPU4 Antiaircraft Gun at Fort Amador. . . . 164

Building 9 After the Battle at Fort Amador. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Torrijos Mausoleum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Ancon Hill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Ancon DENI Station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

The DNTT Compound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

The PDF Engineering Compound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Balboa DENI Station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Albrook Air Station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

The Pacora River Bridge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Tocumen Airfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

A Ranger Manning a Roadblock at Torrijos-Tocumen Complex. . . . . 229

U.S. Troops at Torrijos-Tocumen After Dawn on 20 December. . . . . . 235

Maj. Gen. James H. Johnson Jr. at a Briefing at Tocumen Airfield. . . 239

Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Kinzer’s Promotion to Major General. . . . . . . . 240

Pope Air Force Base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Jump into Night, Torrijos Airport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

The PDF 1st Cavalry Squadron Compound at Panama Viejo. . . . . . . 262

UH–60 Black Hawk Helicopter in Panama. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

The PDF 1st Infantry Company Compound at Las Tinajitas. . . . . . . 267

Air Assault, Tinajitas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

F–117A Stealth Fighter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Lt. Gen. Peter T. Kempf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Rangers at the Entryway to Rio Hato Airfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

The Gate to Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute at Rio Hato. . . . . . . . . . 293

Outside the PDF 6th Infantry Company Headquarters, a Sign in 

 Spanish Reads “Loyalty or Death”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

A U.S. Soldier Firing a Vulcan Air Defense System at a 

 Ground Target. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Coco Solo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

 Page
viii

A PDF 8th Infantry Company Building at Fort Espinar After the 

 Firefight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Madden Dam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

AH–1 Cobra Helicopter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

The Marriott Hotel in Panama City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

M551 Sheridan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Noriega Being Placed in Custody. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Brig. Gen. Benard W. Gann. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Panamanians Providing Information to U.S. Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

The Front and Back of a Money-for-Weapons Flyer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

The Detainee Camp at the Empire Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

An Example of Material Prepared by U.S. Psychological Operations

 Personnel for Use by the Endara Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

General James J. Lindsay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Building 1 at Fort Amador Where the Military Support Group 

 Worked. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: p. 4, Jimmy Carter Library; 

pp. 5, 7, 9 (top), 53, 75, Corbis; pp. 9 (bottom), 98, Department of the Army; p. 

17, Stephen Buckley; p. 23, Ron Haviv, VII Photo; p. 39, XVIII Airborne Corps 

Historian; p. 42, U.S. Southern Command; pp. 56, 110, 413, U.S. Air Force; 

pp. 86, 156, 160, 166, 167, 171, 216, 223, 262, 267, 293, 296, 344, 360, 428, 451, 

U.S. Army Center of Military History; pp. 93, 134, 229, 235, 291, 401, 421, 

Special Operations Command, South; p. 95 (top), Panama Defense Forces; 

pp. 95 (bottom), 102, 107, U.S. Special Operations Command reconnaissance 

efforts; p. 124, Maxwell Thurman Photograph Collection, U.S. Army Military 

History Institute; p. 138, Associated Press; pp. 150, 152 (bottom), History and 

Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; pp. 186, 187, 192, 197, 

Task Force Wildcat battle book; pp. 253, 269, Army Art Collection; p. 311, 

U.S. Navy; p. 327, Margaret Liss; p. 396, Getty Images; and pp. 426, 446, U.S. 

Army psychological operations. All other illustrations are from the files of the 

Department of Defense. 

 Page
ix

Foreword

On 20 December 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, 

the invasion of Panama. With only slight exaggeration, spokespersons for the 

president and the Pentagon declared that, at or near H-hour, twenty-seven 

thousand U.S. soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen attacked twenty-seven 

targets nearly simultaneously, a triumph of planning and execution. Over the 

course of the next few days, these forces handily defeated the Panamanian 

military, toppled the brutal and corrupt dictatorship of Manuel Antonio 

Noriega, and helped return democracy and stability to the troubled isthmus. 

In the process, they brought down the curtain on a two-year crisis in U.S.-

Panamanian relations. 

During that lengthy confrontation, the U.S. Southern Command and its 

service components were still based in Panama, and two American presidents, 

Ronald W. Reagan and George H. W. Bush, relied on this military presence 

to help manage the situation and to protect and further U.S. interests in the 

country. An analytical narrative of how the United States dealt with that 

simmering crisis can be found in Dr. Lawrence A. Yates’ The U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management, June 1987–

December 1989, published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 

2008. In The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, 

December 1989–January 1990, Yates finishes the story as he reviews U.S. 

contingency planning for the possible use of armed force in Panama and then 

recounts the execution of those plans. 

This study offers a detailed account of the major combat operations that 

occurred during Just Cause and of the broader themes and issues at play. 

While it was a short operation, relatively speaking, it was also an incredibly 

complex one. The challenges to the U.S. military were clear. The planners had 

to synchronize the preparation and deployment of diverse U.S. units taking 

part in the invasion, some stationed just minutes from their targets, others 

having to fly to Panama from bases scattered across the United States. The 

forces had to strike nearly simultaneously in order to preserve a measure of 

operational surprise and keep casualties low. And, even though the Army 

provided the vast majority of combat troops, it was a joint operation, which 

further complicated the planning. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 

virtually mandated jointness in any significant military undertaking and 

had strengthened regional combatant commands to better conduct those 

operations. Southern Command was a joint command and had to determine 

the best way to task-organize the service units involved and assign each one 

a mission that would best employ its assets. Also a factor to consider was 

the nature of the endeavor. The Noriega regime was the enemy, not the 

Panamanian people, so damage to the country and injury to its populace had 

to be minimized. The United States had to structure carefully the rules of 

engagement that would allow soldiers and marines to defend themselves and 

accomplish their missions, while still protecting Panamanian civilians and, 

I I I
x

after it was over, assisting them in reforming their democratic government. All 

planners of military operations should consider the desired political results of 

any conflict, a lesson that continually seems to need relearning.

The Panama crisis and its military resolution are integral parts of America’s 

military heritage. The insights this case study affords U.S. officers and policy 

makers today merit its examination a quarter of a century later and well into 

the future. 

Washington, D.C. RICHARD W. STEWART 

31 July 2014 Chief Historian
xi

The Author

Lawrence A. Yates grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He received his 

Ph.D. in history from the University of Kansas in 1981, the same year he 

joined the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In a 24-

year career with the institute, he specialized in teaching and writing about 

U.S. interventions, contingency and stability operations, and unconventional 

warfare. In December 1989, he was in Panama during Operation Just Cause, 

the topic of this volume. Among his other publications, he is the author 

of Leavenworth Paper 15, Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican 

Republic, 1965–1966; Occasional Paper 15, The US Military’s Experience 

in Stability Operations, 1789–2005; and the companion piece to this study, 

The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and Crisis 

Management, June 1987–December 1989. He is also a coauthor of My Clan 

Against the World: U.S. and Coalition Forces in Somalia, 1992–1994, and 

coeditor of—and a contributor to—Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban 

Operations. In September 2005, Yates retired from government service. He is 

currently working on a book assessing the U.S. Army’s role in Somalia from 

December 1992 to March 1994.

I I I

xiii

Preface 

This book is the final installment of a two-volume set covering the politicomilitary crisis between the United States government and the Panamanian 

dictatorship of Manuel Antonio Noriega. The first volume examines various 

crisis-related activities of the U.S. military from the onset of tensions between 

the two countries in June 1987 to the decision of President George H. W. Bush 

to resolve the conflict by military force in December 1989. Included in that 

book’s narrative is an analysis of several issues that placed American armed 

forces in what several officers stationed in Panama dubbed the Twilight Zone: 

a limbo between war and peace in which political considerations had their 

impact not just on military decisions at the strategic level, but on actions at 

the operational and tactical levels as well. Moreover, the “battlefield” was 

nonlinear and occupied overwhelmingly by civilians, most of whom were 

not hostile to the United States. Given these unorthodox circumstances, U.S. 

combat units stationed in Panama or deployed there had to demonstrate 

restraint, not their martial prowess, as they operated under highly restrictive 

rules of engagement that some officers believed would yield the initiative to 

their adversary in any sudden recourse to open violence. In Washington, two 

American presidents indicated their desire to see Noriega deposed but failed 

to devise a timetable or a well-defined, integrated, and effective strategy for 

achieving that goal, thus contributing to the troops’ perception that the crisis 

could go on indefinitely. Only after a group of Panamanian officers tried 

and failed to overthrow the dictator in early October 1989 did U.S. officials 

conclude that the outcome they sought would almost certainly require the 

use of American military power. 

This second and concluding book in the set examines how that power 

was employed in Operation Just Cause. As covered in Chapters 1 and 

2, planning for possible combat in Panama began in early 1988, nearly 

two years before the invasion that began on 20 December 1989. As the 

reader will see, just months before Just Cause, changes in the principal 

contingency plan had returned many traditional-thinking officers to their 

comfort zone, although they were still left to grapple with such difficult 

questions as what units to select for the projected joint force and how those 

units could best be organized, equipped, and utilized to accomplish the 

plan’s objectives. Even more problematic was the fact that much of the 

fighting would take place in cities and towns, a prospect for which neither 

the U.S. Army nor Marine Corps was adequately prepared, having years 

before deemphasized the attention given to urban operations in both 

doctrine and training. Finally, while the plans discussed the inevitable 

transition from combat to stability operations and nation building, the 

procedures for a smooth changeover were not finalized during the planning 

process. The U.S. military’s involvement would be essential in helping to 

establish a stable, effective, and democratic government to fill the vacuum 

left by Noriega’s defeat. A failure to effect the transition to this phase of 

I I I
xiv

the operation risked having the combat successes of American forces go 

for naught. 

Chapters 3 through 12 examine combat operations and how twenty-seven 

thousand U.S. troops won a decisive victory over their Panamanian opponents. 

That victory, of course, was never in doubt, but the cost of it was. Fortunately, 

the professionalism of the joint U.S. forces, the sensible rules of engagement 

given to them for combat operations, the poor quality of the enemy they faced, 

and, at times, some very good luck resulted in the accomplishment of the 

mission with relatively low U.S. and Panamanian casualties and only limited 

damage to Panama’s physical infrastructure. Chapter 13 describes the rough 

transition to stability operations and nation building and the toll it took on 

troops who were not prepared to relinquish overnight their status as warriors 

in order to take on the duties of policemen, social workers, diplomats, political 

officials, and administrators. Some units performed these functions for a few 

days, some for a few weeks. In after action reports, many officers expressed the 

need for training programs to cover such activities. This and other lessons to 

come out of Just Cause are examined in Chapter 14. Many of them are still 

highly relevant for U.S. military personnel today, even with the approach this 

year of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the invasion of Panama.

With regard to the sources used in writing the two volumes, for the first 

volume, the material I drew on consisted almost exclusively of primary sources, 

especially interviews and the reports and message traffic that circulated among 

U.S. headquarters in Panama and the United States. While primary sources 

constitute the bulk of the citations in this volume, I relied more on interviews 

and after action reports than on message traffic. I had access to the logs of 

several units and organizations that participated in Just Cause, but the reliably 

of some of those logs was later called into question, often by the personnel who 

kept them. For example, one officer informed me that much of the message 

traffic received at his post during the first two days of the operation was not 

recorded formally until hours after the missives were received, a process that 

often involved guessing as to the timing and the order of their arrival. Partially 

compensating for this—but only partially—was the fact that many after 

action reports and oral history interviews reflected a headquarters’ or unit’s 

exhaustive efforts to record its activities accurately. 

There is also a point I would like to make about the convention I have 

employed in both volumes with respect to Spanish words. Normally, when a 

Spanish word requiring an accent mark is used in this book, the accent mark is 

included, thus informing the reader as to what syllable should be emphasized. 

(Accent marks in Spanish do not change a word’s pronunciation, only the 

syllabic emphasis.) I have made an exception for accented Spanish words used 

regularly in English without an accent. For example, the word río (river) in 

Spanish is spelled “rio” in this text, as in Rio Hato. Colón, on the other hand, 

has an accent mark emphasizing the second syllable. This Spanish word is 

rarely spoken in English, so a non-Spanish–speaking reader might assume 

that, absent the accent, it would be pronounced like the English word for a 

grammatical symbol or an anatomical part.

As I indicated in the first volume, I started the research on the U.S.-

Panamanian confrontation in early 1989 in response to a request made 
xv

by the U.S. Army, South/JTF-Panama commander, Brig. Gen. Bernard 

Loeffke, and his operations officer, Col. John A. “Jay” Cope. When 

General Loeffke left Panama for another assignment that summer, his 

successor, Brig. Gen. (soon promoted to Maj. Gen.) Marc A. Cisneros 

allowed me to continue my work and, during the first hours of Just Cause, 

secured my access to the JTF-South operations center at Fort Clayton. I 

remain exceptionally grateful to these three men, as well as to all those 

who, serving with them, assisted me during my first six trips to Panama. 

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Army Center of Military History expanded 

my assignment by asking me to write the Army’s official account of Just

Cause. Originally, only the first chapter in the projected volume was to 

cover the crisis leading up to the invasion; the remaining chapters would 

address the invasion itself. As I began writing that manuscript, however, 

I concluded that the U.S. military’s role in the two-year crisis deserved 

its own volume, and the Center agreed. At the time, I was spending most 

of my working hours performing unrelated duties at Fort Leavenworth’s 

Combat Studies Institute. Thanks to three of my supervisors, however, I 

was granted significant chunks of time to work on the Panama project. 

I finished a draft of the first volume on New Year’s Day 2001, and, after 

various reviews, revisions, and editing, it was published in 2008 as the first 

book in the Center’s Contingency Operations Series. By that time, I had 

retired from the institute and was under contract to the Center to write 

this, the second volume. I finished the first draft in 2010.

During nearly two and a half decades working on the Panama case 

study, I have become indebted and grateful to many people and institutions, 

all of whom I would like to thank and several of whom I need to recognize 

specifically. In addition to the three officers I have already mentioned, I would 

also like to acknowledge the official historians at the Southern Command 

and U.S. Army, South, especially Janet Len-Rios, who helped orient me 

to the situation in Panama in 1989 and guided me to various documents, 

individuals, and facilities. At the U.S. Special Operations Command at 

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, John Partin, the command’s historian, and 

archivist Gaea Lenders made essential material and their expertise available 

to me. Similar help was received from historians, archivists, and staff 

members at the Combined Arms Research Library at Fort Leavenworth; 

the Joint History Office in the Pentagon; the U.S. Army Military History 

Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the U.S. Marine Corps 

History Division, now in Quantico, Virginia. Also, two officers in the XVIII 

Airborne Corps spent a good deal of time with me, both during and after 

Just Cause. During the second and third nights of the invasion, Lt. Col. 

Timothy L. McMahon, one of the corps planners, told me in detail how the 

contingency plan for combat operations in Panama had evolved and how 

it was being executed as we spoke. Maj. David Huntoon Jr. also provided 

insights immediately after Just Cause; then, three years later, as a lieutenant 

colonel, he spent two days locating and explaining to me critical material 

kept in the corps’ files at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

Since the early 1990s, the organization furnishing me with the most support 

in this endeavor has been the aforementioned U.S. Army Center of Military 
xvi

History, now located at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. As chief historian, 

Jeffrey J. Clarke oversaw my work on most of the first volume and was the 

chief of military history during much of the work on this, the second. Chief 

Historian Richard W. Stewart arranged the contract for this volume in 2006, 

and, once I signed it, he became my boss. I could not have asked for a better one. 

He has opened doors for me, intervened on my behalf with other organizations 

and individuals, and, most of all, has been extremely understanding and 

supportive. As for documents regarding Just Cause housed at the Center, a 

number of people have assisted my collection efforts. One requires special 

mention: Robert K. Wright Jr., then chief of the Historical Resources Branch. 

Also serving as both the civilian historian and then an activated reserve officer 

for the XVIII Airborne Corps, Wright gathered information and interviewed 

Just Cause participants, material that he readily made available to me, along 

with his expertise.

In 2011, a panel was convened at the Center to review my manuscript. 

Richard Stewart chaired the meeting, while General Cisneros, John T. Fishel, 

and Andrew J. Birtle, chief of the Military Operations Branch in the Center’s 

Histories Division, submitted their critiques. I would like to thank them for 

their input, which helped in further revising my work before turning it over for 

formal editing. Fishel, I need to note, served as a reserve lieutenant colonel on 

active duty during the crisis, participated in almost all phases of the conflict 

leading up to Just Cause, and was a key player in the nation-building effort 

that began simultaneously with U.S. combat operations. He is the reigning 

expert on that phase of the U.S. military’s effort and a valuable source of 

information. 

Also on the panel as the Center’s editorial adviser was Diane Sedore Arms, 

who later edited the manuscript’s chapters. We had worked together on the 

first volume, and I was delighted when she was picked to edit the second. Her 

professionalism, her expertise, and, far from least, her patience has made this 

a more readable and accurate book. I cannot thank her enough. Others at the 

Center who were involved in the book’s production process were cartographer 

S. L. Dowdy, who prepared the excellent maps to complement the text, and 

Michael R. Gill, who collected most of the photographs and prepared the 

charts and tables and who did the highly professional layout of the text and 

the cover design. Contractor Kate Mertes prepared the index. Readers will 

quickly become aware of their talents, and I thank them all, together with Beth 

F. MacKenzie, chief of the Historical Products Branch in the Center’s Histories 

Division, who managed the final phases of this project. 

Kelly Fent assisted me in proofreading the manuscript; I found her help to 

be indispensable. In conclusion, despite the support I received from everyone I 

have acknowledged here and from many, many others, I, of course, alone bear 

complete responsibility for all interpretations and conclusions, as well as for 

any factual errors found herein.

 

Overland Park, Kansas LAWRENCE A. YATES

31 July 2014
The U.S. Military Intervention 

in Panama: Operation Just Cause

December 1989–January 1990

1

The Panama Crisis

June 1987–December 1989

Early in the afternoon of Sunday, 17 December 1989, President George H. W. Bush met with his national security advisers to discuss events in 

Panama the previous night. Fewer than twenty-four hours before, members of 

the Panama Defense Forces (PDF) had shot and killed an American Marine 

lieutenant, a passenger in a car that had sped away from a checkpoint near the 

PDF’s main headquarters in the capital, Panama City. Two witnesses to the incident, an American Navy lieutenant and his wife, had been taken into police 

custody. In the ordeal that followed, the officer’s tormentors placed a pistol to 

his head several times and repeatedly hit and kicked him; they also fondled his 

spouse, slammed her against a wall, and threatened her with rape.1 Angered by 

the excessive and unprovoked violence and concerned over the safety of other 

American citizens living in Panama, the president ordered the execution of Op1 Separate handwritten statements by the U.S. Navy lieutenant and his wife to U.S. Naval 

Investigative Service, Rodman Naval Station, Panama, 18 Dec 1989.

President Bush speaks at an Armed Forces Review and Award Ceremony, with Secretary 

Cheney at the left and General Powell at the right.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

2

eration Just Cause, the U.S. military invasion of Panama to topple the dictatorship of General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno.

Origins of the Crisis

The assault on Panama, which began in the wee hours of 20 December, 

constituted the climactic episode in a crisis between the two countries that had 

festered for almost two years.2 The historical roots of the confrontation could be 

traced even further back in time to the early years of the twentieth century when 

President Theodore Roosevelt deployed American naval vessels to the southwest 

Caribbean in a successful effort to help Panamanians secure their independence 

from Colombia. The quid pro quo Roosevelt exacted for the show of U.S. force 

took the form of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 that granted the United States the right to build, operate, and defend a canal across the isthmus of 

Panama. In addition, the treaty allowed for a strip of land ten miles wide along 

the length of the canal route (and three nautical miles into the sea on each end) 

to serve as an operating area within which the American government would 

exercise, in perpetuity, “all the rights, power, and authority . . . which the United 

States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory.”3 That 

area became the Canal Zone, bisecting Panama and, together with a provision 

2 The background to the crisis is covered in more detail in ch. 1 of Lawrence A. Yates, The 

U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management, June 1987–

December 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2008). 3 Quote from the text of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 18 November 1903. The U.S. Senate 

advised ratification of the treaty on 23 February 1904; President Roosevelt ratified the treaty on 

25 February 1904. Interestingly, no Panamanian signed the treaty. Philippe Bunau-Varilla was 

a French engineer who, having failed in earlier attempts to build a canal in Panama, convinced 

the United States to try. Instrumental in planning Panama’s independence from Colombia, he 

The Panama Canal’s Miraflores Locks
The Panama Crisis

3

in the Panamanian constitution of 1904 that relegated the country to the status 

of a U.S. protectorate, leaving little doubt of the dominant role Washington 

intended to play on the isthmus for some time to come.

From the outset, the stationing of U.S. troops in the Canal Zone and 

the influx of thousands of American citizens living there exempt from Panamanian jurisdiction fueled nationalistic resentments within the fledgling republic. After three decades, the Hull-Alfaro Treaty of 1936 (ratified by the 

United States in 1939) sought to mitigate these feelings by formally ending Panama’s protectorate status and declaring that the Canal Zone was the 

“territory of the Republic of Panama under the jurisdiction of the United 

States of America.”4 The concessions did not go far enough, as the pent-up 

discontent generated by the presence of an unconstrained foreign power in 

virtual control of the country persisted, sporadically finding release in public 

demonstrations and isolated acts of defiance. The worst of these occurred 

in January 1964, after American and Panamanian students fought when the 

latter attempted to fly their country’s flag alongside the U.S. flag in front of a 

high school in the zone. The initial scuffling quickly escalated into three days 

of full-scale rioting in which four U.S. servicemen and over twenty Panamanians died and several hundred more demonstrators were injured. In the 

aftermath of the violence, a number of high-ranking policy makers serving 

under President Lyndon B. Johnson concluded that continued adherence to 

the status quo would further undermine America’s already tarnished reputation in Latin America and call into question the credibility of Washington’s 

anti-imperialistic and prodemocratic Cold War rhetoric. Accordingly, the 

president agreed to open talks on a new canal treaty. 

Bilateral discussions to this end dragged on for over a decade before the 

negotiating parties produced an agreement in the form of two documents. 

Under the first, the Panama Canal Treaty, Panama would assume immediate 

jurisdiction over the Canal Zone but would allow a new U.S. government organization, the Panama Canal Commission, which was “supervised by a Board 

composed of nine members, five of whom shall be nationals of the United 

States of America, and four of whom shall be Panamanian nationals proposed 

by the Republic of Panama for appointment to such positions by the United 

States of America in a timely manner,” to operate, maintain, and manage the 

canal. At noon on 31 December 1999, the treaty would be terminated and 

Panama would assume full control of the waterway. The treaty also mandated 

that both countries “commit themselves to protect and defend the Panama 

Canal,” with the United States having the “primary responsibility” to do so 

for the duration of the treaty. In keeping with this provision, the U.S. military would retain control of certain installations—specified in an implementation agreement to the treaty—until the canal passed completely into Panama’s 

hands. American and Panamanian forces would occupy some other installations jointly, and still other sites would gradually be turned over to Panama 

immediately named himself the new republic’s foreign minister and negotiated the canal treaty 

with American Secretary of State John Hay. 4 Quote from Walter LaFeber, The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

4

before the treaty expired.5 The second document, the Neutrality Treaty, committed the United States and Panama to guarantee the neutrality of the canal. 

Unlike the first document, the Neutrality Treaty had no termination date. On 

7 September 1977, President Jimmy Carter of the United States and General 

Omar Torrijos Herrera, Panama’s chief of state, signed the documents. 

The following year, the charismatic and flamboyant Torrijos stepped down 

as head of government but, continuing in his post as commander of Panama’s 

National Guard, maintained his grip on political power. In the United States, 

the authoritarian nature of the general’s military-dominated regime jeopardized ratification of the new treaties, as many Americans who opposed losing 

control of the canal charged that the waterway’s security should not be left 

to a “tin-horn dictator” with friendly ties to President Fidel Castro in Cuba 

and the Communist Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. There was also opposition to the treaties in Panama, where traditional anti-American feelings 

complicated Torrijos’ efforts to secure popular support for an agreement that 

did not relinquish foreign control over the canal immediately. Yet, despite the 

rancorous rhetoric in both countries, Panamanian voters ratified the treaties 

via a plebiscite held in October 1977, while the U.S. Senate advised and consented to ratification in two separate and identical votes of 68 to 32. The treaties entered into force on 1 October 1979. At that time, the Canal Zone was 

formally abolished, and Panama took direct control of about 64 percent of the 

territory that had been contained therein. Another 18 percent of the former 

zone became the canal operating area, controlled by the Panama Canal Commission. The remainder was left under the U.S. military.6

5 Quotes from the text of the Panama Canal Treaty. The text of both treaties can be found 

in app. B of Sandra W. Meditz and Dennis M. Hanratty, eds., Panama: A Country Study

(Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1989), pp. 273–93. 6 Ibid., p. 53.

President Carter and General Torrijos sign the Panama Canal Treaty.
The Panama Crisis

5

In July 1981, Torrijos died in a plane crash. In the turmoil and uncertainty 

that followed his death, one feature of Panamanian politics remained constant: 

the influence of the national guard. In August 1983, Manuel Noriega took over 

as the organization’s new commander.7 An introvert whose pockmarked face 

garnered him the sobriquet “La Piña” (“the pineapple”), Noriega had received 

his first military commission in 1967. Torrijos, who became the national guard’s 

commander a year later, looked favorably upon the young officer and made him 

his protégé, assigning him sensitive duties and, even more critical, covering for 

his aberrant excesses that, besides drunkenness, included rape and other acts of 

sexual brutality. As Noriega advanced through the ranks, he developed skills in 

military intelligence and psychological operations, enabling him to set up a sophisticated domestic espionage network with agents planted inside a variety of 

Panamanian groups. The information he collected and his willingness to use it to 

blackmail and intimidate people in positions of power made him an increasingly 

dangerous man to cross. In 1969, Noriega’s timely assistance saved Torrijos from 

a coup attempt plotted by rival officers in the guard. Torrijos rewarded Noriega 

by making him chief of military intelligence in Panama and promoting him to 

lieutenant colonel. 

After Torrijos’ death, Noriega 

skillfully outmaneuvered his fellow 

officers within the national guard’s 

inner circle to emerge in August 

1983 as Panama’s new strongman. 

Soon thereafter, he secured passage 

of Law 20 that created the Panama 

Defense Forces. The national guard 

retained its identity but only as one 

among several entities—including 

ground, air, and naval forces and 

the police—constituting the PDF. 

As commander in chief of the new 

organization with the rank of general de fuerzas, Noriega transformed 

the PDF into a much more militarized institution than its predecessor. He also acquired under Law 20 

the responsibility for implementing 

“measures needed to guarantee the 

security of inhabitants and their 

property and the preservation of 

public order and social peace,” the 

only limitation being largely cosmetic in that he had to keep the 

7 For biographical details on Noriega up to 1985, see Frederick Kempe, Divorcing the 

Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with Noriega (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990), pp. 

38–71. This author has also incorporated observations made by Gabriel Marcella and General 

Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), The Road to War: The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 

1987–1989, draft article, 6 May 1991.

General Noriega
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

6

president of Panama informed of national security developments.8 The military’s preeminence within the government was brought home in 1984 when 

Noriega forced the resignation of Panama’s civilian president and, later in the 

year, helped engineer the fraudulent election that placed the PDF-backed (and 

U.S.-supported) candidate, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, in the presidential palace. 

Law 20 also expanded the role of the military in economic matters by 

making Panama’s ports, airports, immigration, and other revenue-generating 

enterprises part of the PDF. Also, many officers in advancing their fortunes 

looked beyond their erstwhile roles as symbolic board members of various 

companies to become themselves the owners of lucrative firms. Under Torrijos, a formidable coalition of guardsmen, students, rural campesinos, urban 

workers, and the middle class had challenged the political power of Panama’s 

white oligarchy; now, the Panama Defense Forces under Noriega began to encroach—through formal and informal means and through the use of legal and 

illegal enterprises—upon the elite’s economic livelihood.

Noriega’s actions generated opposition, but his growing reputation as a 

ruthless, even sadistic, man silenced most critics. In Panama, there would be 

no “dirty war,” no death squads roaming the country, and no long lists of 

missing people. Rather, opponents of the regime would be targeted selectively, 

individually or in small groups; harassed and intimidated; incarcerated if need 

be; sometimes tortured and sexually abused; but killed only in the most extreme cases. Word of these activities would spread, invariably embellished by 

the hyperbole of rumor and gossip. The resulting terror was almost always 

more psychological than physical. The important thing was the effect: acquiescence. One could silence opponents without killing them. 

How this ruthless behavior might affect the regime’s relationship with the 

United States seemed of no great concern to Noriega. As a collaborator with 

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. military intelligence and as a confederate in several U.S. foreign policy ventures in Latin America, the general believed that his ties to 

the administration of President Ronald W. Reagan were strong enough that 

Washington would either overlook his indiscretions in Panama or, at worst, 

give him a perfunctory slap on the wrist. It thus came as an unpleasant surprise when, in the spring of 1986, he became the target of two investigations 

by the U.S. Senate. To make matters worse, he found himself the subject of a 

front-page exposé in the New York Times detailing his alleged involvement in 

drug trafficking, money laundering, arms shipments to Communist guerrillas, the selling of restricted U.S. technology to Cuba, and the murder of Dr. 

Hugo Spadafora, a prominent critic of the regime who could not be silenced 

by intimidation. When President Barletta hinted that he would investigate 

the Spadafora affair, Noriega replaced him with Vice President Eric Arturo 

Delvalle, a move that upset some officials in Washington with whom Barletta 

was very popular.9 To Noriega’s relief, the tempest that followed proved shortlived. When the White House subsequently held a policy review on Panama, 

even the dictator’s detractors supported the decision to put the issue of his 

8 Quote from Meditz and Hanratty, eds., Panama, p. 225. 9 New York Times, 12 Jun 1986.
The Panama Crisis

7

objectionable behavior “on the shelf” until the Reagan administration’s efforts 

to overthrow the Communist Sandinista government in Nicaragua bore fruit.10

Events in Panama dashed the administration’s hopes of downplaying its 

Noriega problem. On 1 June 1987, the general cashiered an ambitious rival, 

Col. Roberto Díaz Herrera, the PDF’s chief of staff. Díaz Herrera swiftly retaliated, publicly accusing Noriega of fraud, corruption, and drug trafficking. 

He also told reporters that his former boss was responsible for the murder of 

Spadafora and, even more damning, had engineered the plane crash that killed 

Torrijos. Although evidence to support the last charge was sketchy at best, 

these allegations, coming from such a high-ranking member of the PDF leadership, rocked the country. Spontaneous demonstrations erupted throughout 

Panama City and in Colón at the northern end of the canal. Crowds waved 

white handkerchiefs and banged pots, two gestures of defiance that almost 

overnight became symbols of the internal opposition to Noriega. That opposition acquired organizational status on 10 June after leading Panamanian businessmen—some motivated by principle, others resentful of PDF encroachments on their economic turf—formed the National Civic Crusade. Several 

diverse groups including students, teachers, workers, medical organizations, 

and religious leaders proclaimed their support. When the crusade began promoting mass demonstrations, a national strike, and car caravans through the 

capital as part of its protest, the regime responded with antiriot police and 

counterdemonstrations. Panama suddenly found itself in the throes of a serious political crisis. 

Many of the public protests in Panama City took place within a few miles 

of where the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and its service components were located (Map 1). Headquartered at Quarry Heights on Ancon Hill 

overlooking the capital, the unified command managed U.S. military programs 

10 Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 169–79.

Demonstrators bang pots in protest against the Noriega regime.
Albrook

Air Station

Quarry Heights

Southern Command Headquarters

Howard Air Force Base

Rodman

Arraiján Tank Farm Naval Station

Fort Clayton

Army Base

Fort Kobbe

Rodman Ammunition

Supply Point

Fort Amador

COMANDANCIA

B A Y O F P A N A M A

Bridge of the America s

VATICAN EMBASSY

U.S. EMBASSY

Flamenco Island

MIRAFL ORES 

L OCKS

PEDRO MIGUEL

L OCKS

P A NAMÁ

F O R M E R 

P A N A M A C A N A L Z O N E

Diablo

 Heights

Balboa

Panamá

Viejo

Paitilla

PACIFIC OCEAN SIDE

C ANAL AREA 

1987–1989

0

0

4 Miles

4 Kilometers

Map 1
The Panama Crisis

9

and activities in Central and South 

America. With such a broad and 

wide-ranging mission, SOUTHCOM’s new commander in chief 

(CINCSO), General Frederick F. 

Woerner Jr., was concerned that 

the crisis in Panama might draw 

Washington’s attention—and his 

command’s resources—away from 

more important issues affecting U.S. interests in the region.11

Worse, should the United States 

somehow become involved in Panama’s domestic unrest, the fallout 

could have a negative impact on 

America’s image in Latin America 

and disrupt SOUTHCOM’s longterm relationship with the Panama 

Defense Forces, which under the 

treaties was a partner in ensuring 

the security of the canal. Woerner 

had no respect for Noriega, whom 

he considered a thug, but the PDF 

was another matter. In his opin11 At the time of the U.S.-Panama crisis and Operation Just Cause, the U.S. Army was the 

predominant service in the Southern Command. Thus, the service of U.S. military personnel 

identified in this volume will be listed only if it is not the Army.

A Panama Defense Forces (PDF) antiriot unit uses a water cannon to put down a 

street demonstration.

General Woerner 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

10

ion, the organization possessed the potential for becoming, if not a completely 

apolitical institution, a more professional one, willing to support some form 

of legitimate, nondictatorial government in Panama. Integral to this transformation was the example of military professionalism U.S. forces in the country 

provided while interacting daily with their Panamanian counterparts. The positive impact of that face-to-face relationship would likely be placed in jeopardy 

should the United States and Panama end up at loggerheads because of the 

current situation. 

There was another crisis-related issue that weighed heavily on the general: his responsibility to protect the people under his command from the violence in Panama. There were some fifty thousand American citizens living on 

Panamanian territory, especially in and around the capital, and among them 

were several thousand U.S. service personnel and their dependents. They already risked being innocent bystanders in the demonstrations rocking the 

country’s largest cities. Should the United States openly criticize or disavow 

the current regime, Noriega might respond by mounting a campaign of intentional intimidation and harassment against them. For these and other 

reasons, Woerner repeatedly emphasized his position that Panama’s internal 

problems should not be allowed to escalate into an unwanted and unnecessary U.S.-Panamanian confrontation. 

The general’s hopes that the crisis could be confined to Panama were 

not to be realized. As anti-Noriega protests continued throughout the remainder of 1987, the dictator’s countermeasures grew increasingly harsh. 

In addition to declaring a state of emergency, the regime unleashed two 

police companies with antiriot capabilities, the Dobermans and Centurions, against the demonstrators, one result being the televised spectacle of 

unarmed civilians falling victim to truncheons, water cannon, and birdshot. At the same time, as part of the effort to shore up the substantial, if 

diminishing, political support he did enjoy in Panama, Noriega resorted to 

increasingly shrill rhetoric mixing appeals to Panamanian nationalism with 

strong doses of anti-American bombast. 

The latter tactic was nothing new in Panamanian politics, and, during past 

occurrences, U.S. officials had generally accepted it for what it was, political 

theater performed primarily for the domestic audience. But this time Noriega 

overplayed his hand. Four days after the U.S. Senate passed a resolution critical of his regime, progovernment demonstrators outside the U.S. Embassy in 

Panama City threw rocks and paint-filled balloons at the building, broke windows, and damaged cars in the area. American Ambassador Arthur H. Davis 

Jr. angrily denounced the attack and recommended the suspension of economic and military assistance to Panama. The State Department agreed, arguing that economic pressure could be used to rid Panama of an unsavory dictator and the United States of a troublesome “friend.” Over the objections of 

the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, President Reagan adopted 

this position, signing legislation in December that restricted U.S. assistance to 

Panama until that country’s government could provide evidence of a meaningful transition to democracy. The sanctions hurt the Noriega dictatorship but 

also had an adverse effect on businessmen, many of whom formed the core of 

the opposition movement, and on the Panamanian people. 
The Panama Crisis

11

In early 1988, relations between the Reagan administration and the government in Panama took an even more dramatic turn for the worse. On 5 

February, two federal grand juries in Florida, one in Tampa, the other in Miami, announced their separate indictments against Noriega on charges of drug 

trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. The general denounced the 

action as illegal, condemned what he called U.S. aggression in the region, and 

had the Panama Defense Forces take even stronger measures against the regime’s domestic opposition. He also threatened to expel U.S. service personnel and their families from Panama. When President Delvalle, under pressure 

from friends among the opposition, tried to assert his independence and relieve the PDF leader of command, he, like his predecessor, was pushed aside 

by the same assembly that had elevated him. The upshot was that the indictments and Noriega’s reaction to them had the effect of transforming the crisis 

along the very lines Woerner had hoped to avoid, from a largely internal affair 

between the Panamanian dictator and the National Civic Crusade, with some 

external pressure from Washington, into a full-blown political confrontation 

between the governments of Panama and the United States.

The Southern Command Reacts

The escalation of the crisis did not lead immediately to any regimesponsored campaign to harass U.S. citizens in Panama or to threaten American 

property and the canal.12 When minor incidents and treaty violations did occur, 

the Southern Command through its Center for Treaty Affairs issued formal, 

if largely ineffectual, protests. Initially, Woerner and many of his subordinates 

regarded the marked deterioration in U.S.-Panamanian relations as a political 

storm that might soon abate without leaving in its wake irrevocable damage 

to SOUTHCOM-PDF relations. In the meantime, articles in the command’s 

newspaper, broadcasts over the SOUTHCOM television station, and a series 

of town hall meetings in which high-ranking officers answered questions 

regarding the crisis sought to allay the fears and concerns of American 

military personnel and their dependents, while helping them avoid dangerous 

locations where demonstrations were scheduled to occur. As another means 

of keeping these people out of harm’s way, the command put into effect a 

series of Personnel Movement Limitations (PMLs), ranging from Alpha, 

which allowed normal travel by military personnel and their dependents, to 

Echo, which would curtail all travel. The daily PML level was then adjusted 

to the threat posed by crisis-related developments in the streets. Yet, even as 

these measures sought to exert a calming effect, Woerner could not ignore 

the possibility of the crisis becoming more inflamed, perhaps degenerating 

to a point at which U.S. troops would find themselves facing off against antiAmerican demonstrators or, worse, the Panama Defense Forces. Despite the 

12 For the Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM’s) reaction to developments in the crisis 

and the command’s early contingency planning, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, 

June 1987–December 1989, chs. 1 and 2.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

12

seeming unlikelihood of either eventuality, the general found it only prudent 

in early 1988 to have his staff review and update its “security posture.” Among 

other things, this meant planning for a variety of military contingencies that 

might arise as a result of the crisis.

On 28 February, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) at Woerner’s request 

authorized such planning in the “crisis action mode,” and on 4 March the 

Southern Command’s Operations Directorate, or J–3, produced its first draft 

of CINCSO Elaborate Maze, an operation order (OPORD) that covered 

a wide range of possible U.S. military initiatives against Panamanian forces. 

Woerner and the Joint Chiefs examined the document and mandated some 

essential changes. The result was a plan consisting of five phases—the first 

three covering defensive operations and a troop buildup; the fourth, offensive 

combat operations; and the last, civil-military operations that would necessarily occur during and after the combat phase. Given the length and complexity 

of the plan, the Joint Chiefs in April directed that it be broken down into four 

separate operation orders: Elder Statesman (later Post Time) for defensive 

operations and, if necessary, a buildup of U.S. troops; Blue Spoon for offensive operations (the invasion plan); and Krystal Ball (later Blind Logic) 

for the civil-military phase. As a precautionary measure, the fourth operation 

order, Klondike Key, was added to cover the evacuation of American noncombatants from Panama. Together, these contingency plans constituted the 

Prayer Book. Over the next year and a half, they would undergo extensive and 

continuous revision.13

The CINCSO version of Elaborate Maze (and the Prayer Book operation orders derived from it) provided only strategic guidance for conducting 

U.S. military operations against Panamanian forces and rebuilding the country afterward. Transforming these general guidelines into highly detailed blueprints for specific actions called for the writing of supporting plans, the initial 

group of which would be developed for headquarters one echelon below the 

Southern Command. Those headquarters would have responsibility for executing the Prayer Book at the operational level while exercising control over 

units carrying out tactical missions in the field. In the case of the CINCSO 

plan for rebuilding Panama, for example, a Civil-Military Operations Task 

Force (CMOTF) would serve as the subordinate headquarters, although it 

would not be activated unless hostilities were imminent or just under way. 

Once set up, it would answer directly to the SOUTHCOM commander. In the 

meantime, writing that headquarters’ supporting plan fell to a handful of civil 

affairs officers in the Southern Command J–5 directorate, a few of whom had 

worked on the strategic, or CINCSO, version. In their efforts, they were assisted by reservists coming to Panama on 31-day tours. The document the officers produced, ultimately referred to as the CMOTF Blind Logic operation 

order, contained a systematic and comprehensive approach to nation building 

13 Elaborate Maze and later the Prayer Book plans were drafted as operation orders not 

operation plans (OPLANs). The main reason for this was because in 1988 the plans division was 

in SOUTHCOM’s J–3 shop. There was also the prospect, although considered highly unlikely 

by Woerner, that the plans would be executed soon after they were drafted. John T. Fishel, 

The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), pp. 14–15.
The Panama Crisis

13

in Panama following open hostilities in which U.S. forces would have successfully mounted offensive combat operations to topple the Noriega regime. 

The Southern Command’s contingency plan for offensive combat operations in Panama required two supporting plans, one for U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), the other for conventional U.S. forces.14 Woerner’s guidance for both documents emphasized that hostilities should be conducted in 

such a way as to minimize damage to Panama’s infrastructure, economy, and 

military organizations. To this end, the preferred scenario envisaged a series of 

surgical strikes aimed only at key PDF command, control, and communications nodes and a few troop bases in and near Panama City and Colón. The 

objective would be to bring down the Noriega regime in such a way as to “decapitate” the Panama Defense Forces but not destroy it as an institution. Special operations units deploying from the United States would be responsible 

for most of the surgical strikes, which estimates suggested would last no more 

than a few hours. At the same time, conventional forces stationed in Panama 

or deployed from outside the country would be conducting a series of largely 

defensive operations aimed at protecting U.S. installations, property, and citizens. Once the strikes ended, the special operators would turn control of their 

targets over to the conventional units, who would then play a crucial role in 

stability operations and the reconstruction of Panama. 

Having developed this concept of operations, Woerner initially directed 

one of his components, the Special Operations Command, South (SOCSOUTH), to write the supporting plan for the use of Special Operations 

Forces. When Col. Chuck Fry, the SOCSOUTH commander, informed him 

that the headquarters was too overextended throughout the region to do so, 

the general requested assistance from the U.S. Special Operations Command 

at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The commander there, General James 

J. Lindsay, deployed a small planning team to Panama in mid-March under 

Col. Joseph S. Stringham. By the end of the month, the team had completed 

its assignment, and on 24 March Woerner formally activated the Joint Special 

Operations Task Force (JSOTF) that would revise, update, and, if necessary, 

execute the SOF supporting plan for what soon would be code-named Blue

Spoon. For the remainder of the crisis, this operational-level headquarters answerable to the SOUTHCOM commander would work out of the special operations headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Conventional U.S. forces engaged in any combat operations in Panama 

would come under the operational control of another headquarters, Joint 

Task Force-Panama (JTF-Panama), which like its special operations counterpart would work directly for the SOUTHCOM commander. Long-standing 

plans for the defense of the Panama Canal called for this headquarters to 

be activated in a crisis and placed under the commanding general of U.S. 

Army, South (USARSO), the Southern Command’s Army component. In late 

14 In the original combat planning, staff officers envisaged a third task force, a U.S. Navy 

carrier battle group that would be subordinate to the SOUTHCOM commander. Because of 

interservice rivalry—despite the emphasis on jointness contained in the Goldwater-Nichols 

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986—the plan was basically stillborn, as is discussed in a bit more detail in Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 

1989, pp. 91, 155. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

14

March and early April, as the first round of supporting plans for Elaborate

Maze were being written, Woerner proved reluctant to set up the organization. 

Unlike the Joint Special Operations Task Force at Fort Bragg, JTF-Panama 

would be run out of the headquarters building at Fort Clayton, Panama, just 

a ten-minute drive from Quarry Heights. Since Clayton was located adjacent 

to Panama City, Noriega and his people would likely interpret the presence 

of the joint task force as an escalation in the crisis, a signal Woerner did not 

want to send. The general’s hesitation, however, adversely affected contingency planning in that a handful of Army staff officers at Fort Clayton, almost 

all of them lacking the joint experience and resources needed for their task, 

had to write the conventional forces’ supporting plan with scant help from 

the other services. Despite these difficulties, the officers’ efforts bore fruit on 

21 March with the completion of Commander, JTF-Panama, OPORD 1–88, 

Elaborate Maze. Soon thereafter, in early April, Woerner decided he could 

no longer put off activating JTF-Panama under Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke, 

the USARSO commanding general. As a joint task force commander, Loeffke 

now had operational control of Army, Air Force, Marine, and Special Operations components, on which he could draw for both planning and operational 

assistance (Chart 1). As with the special operations task force, JTF-Panama 

was charged with updating its supporting plans as needed and with executing 

them if required. To ensure a safe and efficient interaction between Special 

Operations Forces and conventional units should hostilities occur, both joint 

task forces coordinated the invasion plan with one another daily in the months 

that followed. In addition, JTF-Panama also received the task of revising and 

updating other supporting plans initially generated by the USARSO staff, 

namely those Prayer Book operation orders calling for defensive actions and 

the possible evacuation of civilians.15

More than the demands of contingency planning compelled Woerner to 

activate JTF-Panama. In March and April 1988, the crisis had heated up, requiring the kind of continuous oversight and hands-on involvement that the 

Southern Command, with its regional responsibilities and strategic orientation, was not configured or expected to perform. JTF-Panama, on the other 

hand, was an operational-level headquarters exercising control over a variety 

of tactical units and other multiservice assets spread throughout the canal 

area. Once activated, it would be in an ideal position to provide the sort of 

day-to-day crisis management that the proximity of events demanded. To be 

sure, General Woerner and his staff would continue to monitor the crisis and 

provide JTF-Panama with guidance they deemed appropriate (even if the joint 

task force staff often derided much of this guidance as micromanagement 

from on high). For his part, General Loeffke undertook few important initiatives without first consulting his four-star superior a few miles away.

Among its crisis management responsibilities, JTF-Panama had to absorb 

newly arrived “security enhancement” forces that had been deployed to Panama in March and April. This first buildup of American troops in the crisis 

signaled not a prelude to war but a response to several concerns: the grow15 From this point on in the text, the code names used will be those given for the operation 

orders in the Prayer Book.
Emergency Operations Center

J–1 Provost Marshal

Navy Forces Marine Forces Special Operations

Forces

Air Force Forces Army Forces

Commander, Joint Task Force (JTF)-Panama

Chief of Staff

Operational commandOperational controlCoordination

J–5 J–4 J–3 J–2 J–6

Chart 1—Command Relationships: Joint Task Force-Panama (as of May 1988)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

16

ing number of burglaries and intrusions on U.S. bases and other installations 

triggered in part by a downturn in the Panamanian economy; the increasing 

incidents of low-level but daily harassment of American military personnel 

by members of the Panama Defense Forces, especially the tránsitos, or traffic 

police; and, in Woerner’s words, the “fluid, volatile, and unpredictable” situation in Panama, especially after a handful of PDF officers had tried to depose 

Noriega on 16 March. Until a week or so before the failed coup d’état, the 

Southern Command had sought to rely on its service components, primarily USARSO, to cope with the mounting threats and uncertainty, but the expanded patrols and guard duty this entailed interfered with the ability of the 

affected units to carry out their normal duties. As a result, in mid-March the 

command requested and the Pentagon approved the deployment of additional 

forces to Panama, including a military police (MP) battalion from Fort Bragg, 

to improve security. Later that month, after the Panama Defense Forces 

roughed up and arrested a number of journalists, including some Americans, 

staying at Panama City’s Marriott Hotel, even more troops and equipment 

were deployed, consisting of additional military police, an infantry company 

of marines, and a package of aviation assets, soon called Task Force Hawk, 

from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) at Fort Ord, California. Almost all of 

the deploying forces would go under the operational control of the newly activated JTF-Panama.16

Just as the security enhancement buildup was nearing its end, the crisis 

escalated dramatically. When the Marine infantry company arrived in early 

April, its commander, Capt. Joseph P. Valore, learned that the bulk of his unit 

would take up positions guarding the Arraiján Tank Farm on the west side of 

the canal. A fuel depot with dense jungle on three sides and the Inter-American Highway on the fourth, the facility seemed particularly vulnerable to PDF 

intrusions and sabotage. Tragically, on the company’s first night patrolling the 

16 As suggested above, the security enhancement buildup occurred in two phases. On 12 March, 

the secretary of defense authorized the Joint Chiefs to direct the commander in chief, U.S. 

Atlantic Command (USCINCLANT), to deploy a Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team; 

the commander in chief, U.S. Forces Command (CINCFOR), to deploy an Army military 

police battalion from Fort Bragg, an Army Arrival/Departure Airfield Control Group, and 

an Army movement control team; the chief of staff of the Air Force to deploy an Air Force 

Airbase Ground Defense Flight and an Air Force Dog Flight; the chief of staff of the Army 

to deploy a counterintelligence detachment (Spanish language qualified); and the commander 

in chief, U.S. Special Operations Command (USCINCSOC), to deploy an Army signal 

battalion (minus). The commander in chief, Military Airlift Command (CINCMAC), would 

provide airlift support, and the commander in chief, Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC), 

would provide air refueling support. On 1 April, the Defense Department announced the 

second troop augmentation. Specifically, the units that deployed to Panama over the course 

of the following week included the 519th Military Police Battalion; the Headquarters and 

Headquarters Company, 16th Military Police Brigade; an Army reconnaissance troop; three 

Air Force base ground defense units; two Air Force security police patrol dog squads; a 

security police squadron patrol dog unit; a Marine infantry company; and a combat aviation 

company from the 7th Infantry Division (Light), which consisted of four OH–58 Kiowas, 

fifteen UH–60 Black Hawks, and seven AH–1 Cobras. Quote from Msg, Commander in 

Chief, Southern Command (CINCSO), to Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 161815Z Mar 1988, 

sub: Panama Security Enhancement.
The Panama Crisis

17

tank farm, one of its men was killed by friendly fire. The very next night, an 

intense firefight erupted between the marines and armed intruders. While the 

defenders suffered no casualties, they claimed to have seen several of their opponents fall. Loeffke removed the unit from the facility and replaced it with a 

battalion from USARSO’s 193d Infantry Brigade. The marines were debriefed 

and, soon thereafter, gave their account of events at a SOUTHCOM press 

conference. To their surprise and dismay, the command’s public affairs officer 

cast doubts on what had actually happened, particularly on whether there had 

been any intruders, much less an exchange of gunfire. The ramifications of the 

tank farm episode persisted throughout the remainder of the crisis, with senior 

officers in the Southern Command and JTF-Panama headquarters expressing 

concerns about marines being generally “trigger happy,” and with the marines 

objecting both to this lack of trust and to the subsequent promulgation of 

highly restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) regarding the use of deadly force 

at the facility. So strict were the rules, they asserted, that they no longer enjoyed the inherent right of self-defense accorded all military personnel.17

Within a week of the Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, another shooting occurred, this time in the jungle west of Howard Air Force Base, also on the west 

side of the canal, just south of the fuel depot. On the night of 20 April, three 

U.S. Army Special Forces keeping watch for armed intruders in the area detonated a claymore mine and emptied their M16 rifles at a group they believed 

to be hostile. After daybreak, a rescue column extracted the three men who, 

during their debriefing, readily admitted that the group they had encountered 

17 For additional information on the tank farm firefight, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention 

in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 66–77; Lt. Col. Nicholas E. Reynolds, Just Cause: 

Marine Operations in Panama, 1988–1990 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History and 

Museums Division, 1996), pp. 6–10. The “trigger happy” quote came from several informal 

conversations between the author and JTF-Panama officers and enlisted men. 

A Marine patrol on the Arraiján Tank Farm
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

18

had not fired on them. Their commander, Colonel Fry, commended them for 

their honesty, but the incident quickly raised issues that went beyond personal 

character. 

For one, prior to sending the three-man team into the jungle, Fry’s staff 

had asked the battalion commander of a nearby USARSO infantry unit to be 

ready to send in troops to help out if there was trouble. When the battalion commander tried to get details on the team’s mission and position, he was told he 

was not cleared to know, causing him to question the propriety of putting his 

own men at risk without understanding more about the Special Forces operation. Fry’s staff countered that disclosure of additional information would compromise operations security, thus placing a small and already vulnerable team in 

greater jeopardy. Since both sides were voicing deep-seated concerns about the 

safety of their personnel, neither headquarters felt inclined to yield. Friction between special operations and conventional forces was hardly uncommon within 

the military. In Panama, an exchange of liaison officers and an effort to achieve 

more openness at the tactical level reduced but did not eliminate the discord 

between the two groups after the 20 April episode.

A second issue raised by the incident concerned command and control. 

Once the shooting broke out west of Howard, Loeffke joined Fry in the latter’s 

tactical operations center at Howard. In Loeffke’s opinion, Fry’s men were 

engaged in finding intruders, an undertaking related directly to the crisis in 

Panama. That being the case, the team involved should have come under the 

operational control of JTF-Panama. Fry vehemently disagreed, arguing that 

his men answered only to him and that, as head of SOCSOUTH, a subunified 

command, he answered only to the commander of the unified command above 

him, meaning Woerner. Resolution of the dispute rested with Woerner, who 

sided with JTF-Panama. Yet, despite the decision and the expressed desire by 

both Loeffke and Fry to remove the friction between their headquarters, the 

working relationship between SOCSOUTH and JTF-Panama remained contentious throughout most of the crisis.18

Routine

From early February into late April 1988, the increased tensions and violent confrontations in Panama led some observers to conclude that a U.S. invasion of the country was inevitable and imminent. Woerner did not think so, 

and he proved correct. Although an effort by the Reagan administration to 

negotiate Noriega’s departure from power broke down during this period, the 

unproductive talks did not lead to an escalation of provocative moves by either 

side. The Panamanian regime had no desire to provoke the United States into 

a war, and Reagan had other more pressing regional and international issues 

with which to grapple. Accordingly, in May, the crisis settled into something 

of a routine, a status it would retain for another year. U.S.-Panamanian relations remained strained and some form of low-grade confrontation between 

18 For the shooting west of Howard Air Force Base and the issues raised by it, see Yates, 

U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 77–89.
The Panama Crisis

19

the PDF and U.S. military personnel occurred on a near daily basis. In short, 

the hostility persisted but generally at levels deemed tolerable by all involved. 

Occasionally, there would be a spike in the routine. For example, armed intruders continued to infiltrate facilities such as the Arraiján Tank Farm, presumably on PDF training exercises, occasionally exchanging shots with the marines 

or soldiers on guard duty. Only once, on Halloween night, did the shooting on 

the fuel depot approach the intensity of the April firefight. Again, there were 

no American casualties, but the incident served as a reminder of how rapidly 

the crisis might spiral out of control, despite the wishes of the two governments 

to keep it in check. During this period, the Panama Defense Forces also continued what had become a persistent campaign of harassment generally conducted at low to moderate levels. This, for the most part, included such acts as 

detaining U.S. military personnel, interfering with freedom-of-movement rights 

guaranteed U.S. officials under the canal treaty, demanding bribes for minor 

or fabricated traffic violations, and, occasionally, roughing someone up. But 

here, too, matters could occasionally escalate beyond the norm, as when several 

Panamanian policemen abducted a U.S. warrant officer, took him out on an 

isolated road, beat him, put a gun near his head, and pulled the trigger, causing the man to pass out from fear. The worst incident occurred in early March 

1989, when Panama Defense Forces stopped several buses carrying American 

children to school. As if this was not bad enough, the Panamanians had their 

guns drawn and were threatening to tow the buses away with the children still 

on board. The vehicles, to be sure, lacked licenses required by the regime in what 

SOUTHCOM regarded as another harassment tactic. But frightening American children crossed the line of good judgment and raised tensions in the crisis to a higher level. The subsequent headline in the Army Times read “Terror 

in Panama.” The Southern Command’s Center for Treaty Affairs protested the 

school bus and other incidents, but to little avail. Through Brig. Gen. Marc Cisneros, the command’s director of operations, Woerner did send the regime a 

clear message: if the PDF killed an American, the United States would respond 

with force. Whether Washington would make good on this threat, though, was 

problematic. For the remainder of Woerner’s tour of duty, this explicit criterion 

for testing America’s resolve did not materialize.19

As the crisis ebbed and flowed over the course of a year, Woerner remained 

optimistic that the situation could be resolved without bloodshed. Noriega, he 

realized, would not likely give up power voluntarily (in return for a fashionable 

life in some country from which the United States could not extradite him), 

and U.S. economic sanctions were having little negative impact on the regime 

itself. But, Woerner reasoned, a more comprehensive program of American 

pressure, one that played upon the regime’s vulnerabilities and the existing 

“fissures” within the Panama Defense Forces, might prove decisive. Such a 

program, however, required the various U.S. government departments and 

agencies with a stake in the crisis to cooperate and coordinate at the interagency level. In promoting such an integrated approach, Woerner frequently sent 

Admiral William Crowe Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a list of precise 

19 For a lengthier list of the more abusive incidents, see ibid., pp. 139–50; Army Times, 20 

Mar 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

20

recommendations for what needed to be done. For the proposals to work, the 

general always insisted, the full range of his recommendations needed to be 

accepted and orchestrated as a coherent campaign plan. It would not be effective, he explained by way of illustration, to take his list of actions ranging from 

A to Z and implement only A, L, O, and T. Yet, this piecemeal approach was 

invariably the response he received to his démarche, despite the strong support 

he received from Crowe in interagency forums. The result, in Woerner’s opinion, was a disjointed and ineffectual approach to the crisis, not a well-thoughtout and coherent strategy. The impasse dismayed him but did not prevent him 

from resubmitting his proposals whenever the occasion presented itself.20

At some point in mid-1988, observers of the situation in Panama correctly surmised that the Reagan administration was not contemplating any farreaching initiatives to resolve the crisis. Vice President George H. W. Bush was 

gearing up for a run at the presidency, which resulted in Woerner and his staff 

receiving direct and unambiguous instructions to “keep the situation as quiet 

as possible” through the election. In the mid-1970s, Bush had been director of 

the Central Intelligence Agency and, as such, had had dealings with Noriega. 

Any escalation of the situation in Panama, the vice president’s campaign managers worried, would make those dealings front-page news, hurting his chances 

at the polls in November. Woerner’s closest military and civilian advisers regarded this directive as the flagrant and improper intrusion of partisan politics 

into the daily business of a military command, even though they, too, for their 

own reasons, desired no intensification of the crisis.21 Given these circumstances, any full-scale review of possible U.S. courses of action in Panama would 

have to await a new administration. In November, Bush beat his Democratic 

challenger, Michael Dukakis, to become the president-elect. 

As the presidential campaign played itself out in the United States, planners at Quarry Heights, Fort Clayton, and Fort Bragg continued revising and 

updating the Prayer Book operation orders. Early in the planning process, 

Cisneros had developed doubts about whether JTF-Panama had the staff officers needed to work on the Blue Spoon contingency plan for a U.S. invasion, especially because the plan had begun to evolve in such a way as to give 

conventional forces under the joint task force a greater role in offensive combat operations. Cisneros confided his concerns to Woerner, and both generals 

explored the possibility of having the XVIII Airborne Corps, the country’s 

contingency corps, take over executive responsibility for further work on the 

conventional version of the Blue Spoon supporting plan. There were, however, 

at least two obstacles to such an arrangement. First, JTF-Panama, or at least 

its largest element, U.S. Army, South, would surely object to being replaced 

as the principal headquarters for planning and executing conventional operations. Second, while Woerner had no objection to having the XVIII Airborne 

Corps oversee Blue Spoon planning, he was not enthusiastic about having an 

20 For Woerner’s “fissures” approach to resolving the crisis, see Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 97–101. 21 For the impact of domestic politics in the United States on Woerner’s handling of the 

crisis in Panama, see ibid., pp. 100–101. Quote from Thomas Donnelly, Margaret Roth, and 

Caleb Baker, Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: Lexington Books, 

1991), p. 36.
The Panama Crisis

21

outside command geared to “warfighting” being given the responsibility for 

actually running combat operations in Panama. The use of force, if it became 

necessary, needed to be very selective and exercised with restraint, he believed. 

The Southern Command’s future relations with the Panama Defense Forces 

and the Panamanian people, not to mention America’s standing in Latin 

America, made such an approach imperative. In the end, Woerner finessed the 

matter, getting the Joint Staff in the Pentagon to assign the XVIII Airborne 

Corps as the executive agency for Blue Spoon planning, while keeping the 

corps guessing as to the exact point at which it would be brought in to replace 

JTF-Panama and to direct combat operations should the plan be executed. As 

expected, the USARSO staff officers in their JTF-Panama hats raised strenuous objections to the new arrangement, while the corps demanded to be placed 

in charge of any combat operations from the outset. Neither headquarters 

received satisfaction. In February 1989, in a meeting at Fort Bragg, JTF-Panama planners formally handed responsibility for the conventional Blue Spoon

supporting plan over to the corps, which was still uncertain about the role it 

would play in the event of an invasion.22

At the time of the meeting at Fort Bragg, the Bush administration had been 

in office less than a month, and the new president was having difficulty filling 

all the positions on his national security team. One effect of the delay was to 

postpone a high-level review of future U.S. options vis-à-vis the Noriega regime. 

During a speech Woerner made that February, the general mentioned the deferred debate, citing a “policy vacuum in Washington” as the reason. The word 

vacuum came in a sentence referring directly to the State Department’s need to 

fill the position of assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, vacant 

since January. But as a provocative headline in the New York Times implied, the 

general seemed to be criticizing the new president. Woerner protested to Crowe 

that this was not his intention, and he received assurances that key administration officials did not hold the remarks against him. Later, he would have reason 

to question the veracity of those assurances.23

Soon after Woerner’s speech, the president and his advisers did begin the 

long-awaited reassessment of what needed to be done about Noriega. Again, 

overtures were made to see if the dictator could be persuaded to step down, 

but the diplomatic initiative fared no better than it had the year before. That 

caused the administration to focus on what it needed to do to prepare for the 

next milestone in the crisis, 7 May, the date Panamanians were scheduled to go 

to the polls in their country’s presidential elections. In Washington and Panama, U.S. officials took for granted that Noriega would “steal” the election 

by rigging the vote. Once the dictator committed this high-handed offense, 

President Bush would have a pretext for shifting to a much tougher policy, a 

course of action he had concluded was necessary. Woerner concurred in this 

assessment, using the proposed policy change to reiterate for his new bosses 

22 On bringing the XVIII Airborne Corps into the crisis, see Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just 

Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama, February 1988–January 1990

(Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

1995), pp. 9–10. The word warfighting is a U.S. Army doctrinal term. 23 New York Times, 24 Feb 1989; Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–

December 1989, pp. 137–38.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

22

his theretofore futile appeals for a comprehensive interagency strategy. He also 

emphasized in his messages to Admiral Crowe that a tougher policy ran the 

risk of intensifying the crisis, perhaps to the point where the United States 

would have to employ military force. That was a risk, he advised, from which 

U.S. policy makers should not shrink. 

Although Woerner still desired a peaceful settlement of the crisis or at 

least a settlement that did not involve a U.S. invasion of Panama, he had never 

ruled out the use of military force, arguing only that it should be employed as 

a last resort. His tough talk during the strategy discussions in the two months 

before the Panamanian elections did not contradict his conviction that the 

best outcome to the crisis would involve a solution devised by the Panamanians themselves. But, failing that outcome, he recognized that U.S. forces in 

Panama and elsewhere had to be prepared to execute a wide range of options 

from all-out intervention to a series of less violent but nevertheless assertive 

measures. Among the latter considered in the administration’s policy review 

were initiatives to put pressure on the Panamanian regime and the Panama 

Defense Forces to take action against Noriega on their own. 

Indeed, the application of U.S. military pressure, not the exercise of armed 

force, became the centerpiece of the “get tough” strategy the president planned 

to implement after the Panamanian elections. Once Noriega had canceled or 

rigged the voting—again, a foregone conclusion in the White House—Bush 

would announce the augmentation of U.S. forces in Panama, as well as an 

accelerated movement of American military dependents living on Panamanian territory either onto U.S. bases or out of the country. While the troop 

buildup would not constitute a formal execution of the Prayer Book’s Post

Time operation order, several of the conventional forces scheduled to deploy 

could be found on that plan’s troop list. Once the units arrived in Panama and 

were placed under General Loeffke’s joint task force, they would begin a series 

of actions intended to reassert U.S. rights under the canal treaties. These and 

other operations would be carried out in such a way as to intimidate Panamanian forces while keeping them off-balance and confused. As the PDF’s morale plummeted, its officers, acting for the good of the institution, would feel 

compelled to depose their commander. Helping to apply this pressure, other 

U.S. agencies would initiate a variety of nonmilitary measures aimed at the regime, although, to Woerner’s chagrin, the piecemeal way in which they would 

do so once again fell well short of the comprehensive interagency program he 

had long advocated.24

On Sunday, 7 May, Panamanians went to the polls to elect a president and 

two vice presidents. A smattering of violence and a number of irregularities 

marred the voting process but could not detract from the central fact that the 

overwhelming majority of ballots had been cast for the regime’s opponents. 

Surprised by this outcome, Noriega annulled the election on Wednesday, but 

not until he had unleashed his so-called Dignity Battalions—namely, PDF 

members (out of uniform), regime employees and supporters, and various 

24 For the Bush administration’s review of options in the Panama crisis, as well as Woerner’s 

role in that review, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, 

pp. 150–56.
The Panama Crisis

23

thugs—against the three opposition candidates as they and their supporters 

held a victory parade. In the melee, all three candidates were injured, with photographs of vice presidential contender Guillermo “Billy” Ford, his tropical 

shirt soaked in blood, appearing in newspapers and news magazines around 

the world. (The blood was not Ford’s, it turned out, but that of his bodyguard, 

who had been fatally shot in the head, a deliberate target of assassination.) 

The injured parties took refuge where they could, while the regime arrested 

and incarcerated an estimated three hundred opposition members, some to be 

tortured as an object lesson for the others.

Operation Nimrod Dancer

On 10 May, the day following the postelection violence, President Bush, 

according to plan, recalled Ambassador Davis and announced that he was 

pulling American military dependents in Panama onto U.S. bases or out of 

the country—the operation was code-named Blade Jewel—and sending in 

additional U.S. troops as part of Operation Nimrod Dancer.

25 The main conventional units to deploy over the next two weeks were a brigade headquarters 

and a battalion from the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, another Marine 

infantry company (this one equipped with light armored vehicles, or LAVs), 

and a battalion from the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) based at Fort 

Polk, Louisiana. (Some special operations personnel also flew into Panama 

on highly classified missions.) To beef up the “light fighters” from the 7th Infantry Division, a second battalion from Fort Ord deployed for the ostensible 

25 For Operation Nimrod Dancer, the U.S. troop deployments, and the operations to reassert U.S. treaty rights in Panama, see ibid., chs. 6 and 7.

A Dignity Battalion member attacks Guillermo “Billy” Ford (left).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

24

purpose of doing a rotation in the Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) 

on the Atlantic side of the country. 

As these units came under the operational control of JTF-Panama, Loeffke 

and his staff simplified command and control arrangements by creating three 

subordinate task forces. Task Force Atlantic, under the command of Col. David R. E. Hale, the 7th Infantry Division brigade commander, operated out 

of Fort Sherman and assumed responsibility for crisis-related U.S. military 

activities on the Atlantic, or northern, side of the canal area. On the Pacific 

Ocean side, Task Force Bayonet, led by the commander of USARSO’s 193d 

Infantry Brigade, was responsible for the east bank of the canal area. The west 

bank fell under Task Force Semper Fi, commanded by a Marine colonel and 

numbering among its forces the two Marine companies that had been sent to 

Panama because of the crisis.

The arrival of the Nimrod Dancer units was monitored carefully by the 

international press. The uppermost question in the minds of reporters, as well 

as the American and Panamanian people, was whether the deployment of 

these troops was a prelude to an invasion and war. The Bush administration 

took immediate steps to dampen such speculation, mounting a public relations campaign to emphasize the troops’ primary mission spelled out in the 

president’s 10 May statement: to protect American property and personnel. 

As Bush told reporters in an impromptu press briefing, it was up to the Panamanian people and the Panama Defense Forces to deal with Noriega. After 

a few days passed without violence, the news media became convinced that 

hostilities, in fact, were not imminent. At that point, other trouble spots and 

weightier issues once again captured the headlines and dominated network 

broadcasts. 

Overlooked in the turmoil surrounding the beginning of Operation Nimrod Dancer was a simple sentence in the 10 May presidential message stating 

that the United States would “assert its treaty rights in Panama.”26 A perusal 

of the leading newspapers at the time would suggest that no one even bothered 

to ask, much less investigate, what Bush meant by these words or what actions 

he contemplated. Ironically, as events unfolded, just as the media furor over 

Nimrod Dancer was beginning to subside, the role of the U.S. military in 

Panama was about to become much more confrontational.

Throughout the crisis, the United States had charged the Panamanian regime with violating various clauses of the canal treaty as part of Noriega’s 

harassment campaign. Of these violations, one involved interfering with the 

legal movement of U.S. government vehicles on official business. The interference would often begin with the Panama Defense Forces stopping individual 

vehicles at a single location. Once several had been pulled over, they were designated a convoy, which under the terms of the treaty required a formal Panamanian escort. The contrivance was disruptive to official business, a nuisance, 

a clear example of harassment, and a treaty violation. For most of 1988, when 

Woerner was under instructions from Washington to keep the crisis from intensifying, the Southern Command could only protest such behavior. Once 

26 The full text of the president’s statement is in Department of State Bulletin 89 (July 1989): 

70–71.
The Panama Crisis

25

the Bush administration came in and seriously began to review its options in 

Panama, however, Woerner and his advisers were able to make the case that 

U.S. forces should challenge the regime on the freedom-of-movement issue. 

Bush’s national security people agreed.

The plan was to run daily convoys with an armed U.S. escort the length 

of the transisthmian highway. In accordance with the treaty, PDF officials 

would be notified of the convoy movement, but only an hour or two before it 

began. If they did not arrive with an escort, the convoy would set out anyway. 

If there was any attempt to interfere with its freedom of movement, the convoy’s escorts would resist. Just what form that resistance would take became 

the object of detailed discussions, both between the Southern Command and 

Washington, and among the troop units involved. Existing rules of engagement were reviewed and revised when necessary, and what Colonel Hale called 

rules of confrontation, which would cover actions short of the use of deadly 

force, were developed for all anticipated contingencies. What the Bush administration did not want was to have U.S. forces engaged in a shootout. Indeed, 

Admiral Crowe had informed Woerner that the troops under his command via 

JTF-Panama were to be forceful but were not to start a war. (Woerner conceded that, at that point in the crisis, this seemingly ambivalent advice made perfect sense to him.) The goal of the operation was to reassert American treaty 

rights, put pressure on the Panamanian armed forces, keep them guessing as 

to ultimate U.S. intentions, undermine their morale, and just possibly induce 

them to oust Noriega in order to ensure the PDF’s survival as an institution. 

The first freedom-of-movement operation took place in late May, with two 

convoys running simultaneously, one north to south from Fort Sherman, the 

other south to north from Fort Clayton. According to the plan, each had a 

small unit of armed escorts, and each had a formidable air armada covering 

it, to include two layers of attack helicopters, two layers of fighter aircraft, 

and an AC–130 Spectre gunship. To no one’s surprise, the Panama Defense 

Forces reacted as expected: they chose not to interfere with the movement of 

the vehicles. In the days and weeks that followed, JTF-Panama, on Woerner’s 

instructions, altered the frequency and composition of the convoys to keep 

the Panamanians off guard; Loeffke also reduced the convoys’ air cover to a 

minimum as a means of saving on fuel and maintenance costs. For their part, 

Panamanian troops and police coming into contact with the vehicles rarely 

deviated from their initial reaction of noninterference. 

In addition to the convoys, JTF-Panama mounted several other operations 

to reassert American treaty rights, such as staging a show of force to reclaim 

the Fort Espinar officers’ club, a U.S. facility on the Atlantic side that had been 

rented to the Panama Defense Forces, only to have them default on the payments. There were also a host of training exercises, all legal under the treaty, 

designed to intimidate the Panamanian military with demonstrations of American strength and firepower. During May and June, the effect of these various 

undertakings was mixed. Intelligence reports indicated that the new, tougher 

policy was taking a psychological toll on the PDF rank and file, although not 

necessarily to the degree that Washington had desired. Moreover, inherent in 

the U.S. initiatives was the risk that something could go wrong or that there 

could be a flash point in which one side or the other would open fire, thus 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

26

igniting the general hostilities that 

neither government wanted. In the 

first six weeks of Nimrod Dancer

alone, there had been a half-dozen 

near misses. In one, the PDF commander at Fort Espinar had not received accurate information from 

his chain of command about the 

number of U.S. forces that would 

arrive to take over the officers’ 

club. When a company from the 

7th Infantry Division showed up at 

the front gate, he reacted strongly, 

setting up mortars and having his 

troops man other firing positions. 

U.S. forces responded in kind. After several hours, both sides stood 

down, with lessons concerning the 

“fog and friction” and unintended 

consequences of military operations firmly lodged in their minds.27

Despite the risks involved, the 

feeling at Quarry Heights, Fort 

Clayton, and in Washington was 

that U.S. troops needed to apply even more pressure—things needed to be 

ratcheted up, according to a widely used term at the time. Within the Southern 

Command and JTF-Panama, officers held brainstorming sessions to determine what additional measures might achieve this end. The lists they compiled, once vetted by Woerner, followed the chain of command to Washington, where Bush’s national security advisers weighed the ramifications of each 

recommendation. Following these deliberations, the president on 22 July approved a national security directive, NSD-17, that set forth new guidelines for 

U.S. military forces in Panama to follow in their efforts to assert treaty rights 

and intimidate Noriega and his followers. The directive detailed four categories 

of operations differentiated from one another by the level of risk and visibility 

involved. Low-risk, low-visibility activities fell under Category I. As examples, 

NSD-17 listed publicizing the evacuation of U.S. government dependents, expanding media and psychological campaigns against the regime, and placing 

PDF members under formal escort whenever they entered a U.S. base. Lowrisk, high-visibility activities constituted Category II, which included increasing military police patrols between U.S. installations, bringing AH–64 Apache 

helicopter crews and battalion-size units to Panama for training, and practicing amphibious and combat operations at night. Category III consisted of 

medium-risk, high-visibility measures, such as the increase of armed patrols 

and reconnaissance in the vicinity of key PDF installations. The most sensitive 

27 For more details on the half-dozen near misses, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in 

Panama, June 1987–December 1989, chs. 7 and 8.

General Cisneros 
The Panama Crisis

27

and dangerous category, Category 

IV, encompassed high-risk, highvisibility operations and exercises. 

Examples included reestablishing 

U.S. access to a causeway at Fort 

Amador and reasserting U.S. control over certain facilities at Fort 

Amador, Fort Espinar, and Quarry 

Heights. Because of the risks involved, all Category III and IV proposals had to be submitted to the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff for approval at 

the interagency level or higher.28

At the time President Bush 

signed NSD-17, few of the topranking U.S. military officers in 

Panama who for months had dealt 

with the crisis on a daily basis still 

remained. In June, most had either 

retired or moved to other assignments. At Quarry Heights, both 

Woerner’s director of intelligence, 

Brig. Gen. John F. Stewart Jr., and 

the special operations commander, 

Colonel Fry, had left the country; at JTF-Panama, General Loeffke and his operations director, Col. John A. Cope Jr., had taken new assignments in Washington, and the chief of staff, Col. Arnold T. Rossi, was preparing to retire. As 

a result of these and other personnel changes, the institutional memory with 

respect to the crisis would, at the highest military levels, reside with Woerner, 

who had one more year to go in his tour as the SOUTHCOM commander, and 

with General Cisneros, who would advance from the Southern Command’s 

operations directorate to take over from Loeffke as both commanding general, U.S. Army, South, and commander, JTF-Panama. (In October, Cisneros 

would be promoted to major general.)

On 6 July 1989, this small remnant of top-level continuity was halved 

when Woerner received word that he was being relieved of his command. 

Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney refused to give Woerner a reason for 

this drastic action, although Secretary of State James A. Baker indicated 

in his memoirs that the administration did not consider the four-star general to be a team player. Woerner’s defenders correctly countered that, as 

the SOUTHCOM commander, the general had done everything asked of 

him throughout the crisis. Regardless, General Maxwell R. Thurman, who 

was just stepping down as the commanding general of the Army’s Training 

and Doctrine Command, was tapped as Woerner’s successor. As Thurman 

recalled, he received the nod not because he was a war fighter or a Latin 

American specialist, but because he knew how Washington worked. He 

28 On “ratcheting up” and NSD-17, see ibid., ch. 8; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 11–12.

General Thurman 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

28

had been vice chief of staff of the Army and had served in other Pentagon positions in which he had spent much time testifying before Congress. 

Soon after he agreed to take over from Woerner, he received a three-hour 

lecture from Admiral Crowe on the need to review U.S. strategy not just 

for Panama but for all of Latin America within the Southern Command’s 

purview and then to help thrash out a consensus in Washington for any 

required changes. To prepare for these new responsibilities, the general had 

only about two months. The change of command ceremony was scheduled 

for 30 September.29

Woerner’s departure would leave Cisneros as the general officer on the 

scene most knowledgeable about the inner workings of the crisis. Cisneros had been a loyal subordinate to Woerner and supported his boss’ belief 

that an invasion of Panama would not be in the best interests of the United 

States. But Cisneros also believed that, short of war, U.S. military forces in 

Panama could be much more aggressive in their actions to compel the regime 

to bring an end to the crisis. He thus welcomed and helped execute the wider 

range of operations—many that Woerner, too, had recommended—covered 

in NSD-17 and subsequent directives from Washington. As for the troops 

under his command and operational control, Cisneros continued the joint 

training events Loeffke had initiated under JTF-Panama, while adding a few 

twists of his own. The new measures included Sand Fleas (low-key exercises 

and operations designed, like their namesake, to irritate the PDF) and contingency readiness exercises, which would allow in-country U.S. forces to 

rehearse portions of highly classified Blue Spoon battle plans without realizing that was what they were doing. 

The Road to Just Cause

The SOUTHCOM change of command ceremony took place in Panama 

as scheduled. The next evening, the newly ensconced General Thurman received a disturbing report: a Panamanian officer, Maj. Moisés Giroldi Vega, 

commander of the PDF 4th Infantry Company, was planning a coup d’état 

against Noriega, slated to take place within twelve hours. The general was 

skeptical, thinking Giroldi might be part of a regime plot to plant rumors and 

then embarrass him when he overreacted. Reinforcing his doubts were reports 

he received that Noriega and the major were close associates, the latter having 

helped put down the March 1988 coup attempt against the dictator. Giroldi, 

Thurman learned, was also known to have conducted entrapment operations 

in the past. Cisneros was less wary and argued for a stepped-up level of readi29 For Woerner’s relief and the reactions to it, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in 

Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 223–24; James A. Baker III with Thomas M. DeFrank, 

The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s 

Sons, 1995), pp. 183–84 (including the quote); Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: 

Simon & Schuster, 1991), pp. 96–98. For Thurman’s account of his reasons for being chosen as 

Woerner’s successor and of his meeting with Crowe, see Briefing, Gen Maxwell R. Thurman at 

the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) (hereafter cited as Thurman SAMS briefing), 23 Sep 1992.
The Panama Crisis

29

ness for JTF-Panama, but Thurman approved only minimal measures. He also 

informed President Bush’s key national security advisers about these sudden 

and unexpected developments. 

As the hours passed Monday morning, the purported time for the coup 

came and passed without incident. Thurman and, thanks to him, the White 

House became further convinced that nothing was going happen. When word 

came from Giroldi’s wife that her husband had delayed action until the next 

day, the source of the information alone generated even more skepticism. Consequently, on Tuesday morning, 3 October, Bush met only briefly with his advisers to discuss possible developments in Panama. The president then left the 

Oval Office to keep his schedule for the day. Unknown to him, the coup attempt in Panama was already under way, as Giroldi’s men accosted Noriega at 

his headquarters, the Comandancia. By the time Bush and his advisers could 

meet several hours later to discuss the situation, units loyal to Noriega had 

moved against the major, freed their commander, and forced the rebels to surrender. Giroldi and several other plotters paid with their lives; the remaining 

conspirators were incarcerated, some after being tortured.

The failure of the Bush administration and the Southern Command 

to take action that would have ensured the success of the coup became a 

subject of heated debate in Washington. To some extent, the criticism of 

the president reflected partisan politics, although some Republicans in Congress openly questioned his handling of the situation. It had been, the critics 

charged, a missed opportunity. Summoned to Washington, Thurman briefed 

the president and his advisers on 16 October and then testified before Congress. The gist of the general’s assessment became a mantra in the succeeding 

weeks and months: the coup attempt was poorly planned, poorly organized, 

and poorly led; Giroldi, had he succeeded, would have been little improvement over Noriega; and for the Southern Command to have taken action in 

support of Giroldi and the “coupmongers” would have meant reacting to 

fluid and unpredictable events rather than having the United States itself determine the conditions under which it would intervene militarily. Not all who 

listened to Thurman’s explanation found it convincing. As for Bush, he had 

to endure once again the epithet hurled at him during his presidential campaign that he was a “wimp” in foreign policy, incapable of acting decisively. 

After talking with the president, Thurman thought otherwise. Upon leaving 

Washington, the general was convinced that the next major disruption in 

the Panama crisis would cause Bush to order U.S. intervention, especially if 

harm came to any American serviceman or civilian. Besides, few other options remained. The administration and the Southern Command had tried 

for months to goad the Panama Defense Forces into ousting Noriega on 

its own. Now, some Panamanian officers had tried to do just that—albeit 

for reasons not directly related to U.S. pressure—and failed. Given Giroldi’s 

brutal fate, few analysts at Quarry Heights thought it likely that any other 

coterie within the PDF would find the courage to move against the dictator 

anytime soon.30

30 For the 3 October 1989 abortive coup and its aftermath, see Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 248–63; Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator,
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

30

Once the abortive coup of 3 October increased the likelihood that American armed force would be used to resolve the crisis with Panama’s dictator, 

U.S. officers involved in planning such a contingency had to devote more 

time to reviewing and updating the pertinent operation orders. Helping to 

focus the planners’ attention, Thurman had intimated even before he became the SOUTHCOM commander that he intended to make significant 

changes to the existing invasion plan.31 In early August, as CINCSO-designate, the general had visited Fort Bragg and received briefings on the Blue

Spoon supporting plans. On that occasion, officers from special operations 

and the XVIII Airborne Corps revealed to him some of their serious reservations concerning the transition to combat operations, should Blue Spoon

be executed. Under Woerner’s long-standing guidance, U.S. forces would 

not initiate hostilities against the Noriega regime until the troop buildup 

called for in the Post Time operation order had been completed. True, a 

number of those units had arrived in Panama during Operation Nimrod

Dancer, but there was still a sizable force yet to be deployed. The problem 

was that transporting the remaining units into the country could take up to 

two weeks. This was a deliberate calculation on Woerner’s part. His strategy 

was to sacrifice one of the principles of war, surprise, in order to emphasize 

another, mass. In Woerner’s assessment, a steady and public flow of thousands of additional U.S. forces into the country, this time for the expressed 

purpose of toppling the regime, might finally compel Noriega to step down 

or the Panamanian military to remove him. The planners at Fort Bragg disagreed. In their view, a gradual buildup of the remaining Post Time forces 

would leave the initiative for action with Panamanian units, which might 

take hostages or commit other hostile acts before the incoming U.S. troops 

were ready to launch combat operations. A better Blue Spoon strategy, they 

told Thurman, would be for American forces to launch a massive surprise 

attack against their selected targets. Thurman agreed, telling those present 

that, after the change of command at Quarry Heights, he would authorize a 

new plan along those lines.

In fact, the Southern Command was already working on an alternative to 

the current Blue Spoon. The directive to do so had come from the Joint Chiefs, 

but the main impetus behind it had been Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the Joint Staff’s 

director of operations, an officer who shared the same doubts about Woerner’s 

pp. 369–97; Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 119–25. For Thurman’s account of his post-coup 

trip to Washington, see Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. Thurman used the term coupmongers. 31 For U.S. military planning from August into December 1988, see Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 263–70; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

14, 17–24; Tom Clancy with Gen Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz, Shadow Warriors: Inside the 

Special Forces (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2002), pp. 307–27; Interv, author with Brig Gen 

William Hartzog, U.S. Army, and Col Thomas A. Braaten, U.S. Marine Corps, 29 Jun 1990, 

Quarry Heights, Panama; Telephone Interv, author with Maj David Huntoon Jr., U.S. Army, 

27 Jun 1990; Intervs, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 Mar 

and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; and with G–3 Plans Section, XVIII Airborne Corps, 30 Mar 

1990, Fort Bragg. The Wright-with-Stiner interview is compiled as one interview, though it was 

conducted on four days.
The Panama Crisis

31

concept of operations as the planners at Fort Bragg. When the Joint Chiefs’ 

directive reached Quarry Heights, Woerner stayed aloof from the enterprise, allowing his new operations officer, Brig. Gen. William Hartzog, a great deal of 

latitude in formulating a response. During July and August, Hartzog drafted a 

plan code-named Banner Savior, the contents of which sought to correct perceived Blue Spoon shortcomings such as the gradual buildup of U.S. forces; the 

sacrifice of secrecy for mass; and the command and control arrangements that 

had two separate joint task forces, one for conventional units, one for Special 

Operations Forces, reporting separately and directly to the SOUTHCOM commander. As Hartzog fleshed out and continuously revised Banner Savior, he 

briefed Kelly twice and consulted with Thurman soon after the four-star’s visit 

to Fort Bragg. Upon learning that Woerner’s designated successor favored a new 

concept of operations and that the planners at Bragg knew this, Hartzog began 

to coordinate his efforts with the XVIII Airborne Corps commander, Lt. Gen. 

Carl W. Stiner, and his staff.

This coordination between Hartzog and the corps was essential, mainly 

because Stiner, after Thurman’s visit, had directed two of his planners, Lt. 

Col. Timothy L. McMahon and Maj. David Huntoon Jr., to write a new 

supporting plan based on the incoming SOUTHCOM commander’s stated 

intentions. By the time Thurman assumed command at Quarry Heights on 

30 September, the two officers had completed their draft, which the corps 

titled Joint Task Force-South (JTF-South) Operation Plan (OPLAN) 90–1. 

Much of the plan’s content duplicated what was contained in the original 

JTF-Panama Blue Spoon, including many of the listed units and targets, the 

projection of 0100 as the preferred H-hour, and the restrictive rules of engagement designed to minimize damage to Panama and its people. The major 

changes were conceptual, as the Woerner strategy entailing a gradual buildup 

of U.S. forces prior to offensive combat operations was dropped in favor of a 

sudden, swift, and all-out assault on the assigned targets. The new plan thus 

locked in place the strategic combination of surprise and mass preferred by 

the airborne corps, special operators, the Joint Staff, and Thurman. General 

Stiner was optimistic. If, in the event of hostilities, U.S. combat operations 

were launched at 0100 as planned, the heaviest of the fighting, he predicted, 

would be over by dawn. 

Shortly after the coup attempt on 3 October, Thurman convened a meeting in Panama so that he and his staff could discuss the status of the pertinent Prayer Book contingency plans. Stiner and key members of his staff 

attended, as did the JSOTF commander, Maj. Gen. Gary Luck, members of 

the JSOTF staff, and representatives from JTF-Panama. At this and a subsequent planning session, the SOUTHCOM commander reviewed the corps’ 

JTF-South OPLAN 90–1 and indicated the changes he wanted made in light 

of the failed coup. To begin with, the target list would have to be expanded to 

include PDF units that, while based on the periphery of the capital and even 

farther away, had managed to intervene on 3 October to compel Giroldi’s surrender. Revisions to the operation plan also had to reflect the relocation of 

certain PDF units and the shakeup in the organization’s top leadership that 

Noriega mandated after nearly being deposed. Thurman further directed that 

90–1 be updated to specify what U.S. forces would do in the event that dis-
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

32

gruntled PDF officers would try again to overthrow their commander. This 

unlikely possibility raised another issue. As Thurman told Hartzog, Stiner, 

and Luck, they needed to look into three different scenarios: which U.S. forces 

would be available and what they could accomplish if the war plan had to be 

executed within 2 hours, 20 hours, or 48 hours of a trigger event, such as another coup attempt.32

Besides revising the current contingency plans, Thurman used the first 

post-coup planning session at Quarry Heights to remove the ambiguity Woerner had deliberately created concerning the XVIII Airborne Corps’ operational role should hostilities break out in Panama. To the assembled group, 

Thurman formally made known that, should the president decide to use force, 

the corps’ commander and key staff officers would deploy to Panama immediately—not at some unspecified future date—and set up JTF-South as 

a war-fighting headquarters working directly under the SOUTHCOM commander. Once JTF-South was activated, it would absorb JTF-Panama’s staff 

directorates and assume operational control over U.S. forces currently under 

JTF-Panama as well as those deploying from the United States, including the 

Joint Special Operations Task Force. By putting the JSOTF under JTF-South, 

Thurman resolved the unity of command issue critics of Woerner’s plan had 

raised. General Luck did not object to the arrangement. Given Stiner’s extensive background in special operations, the JSOTF commander had no reason to believe that JTF-South would assign his troops missions that would be 

inappropriate and unsuited to their unique capabilities. As for Stiner, Thurman had informed him in August of the role he envisaged the XVIII Airborne 

Corps playing during Blue Spoon. Now, in early October, the assignment was 

official.

During the remainder of the month, SOUTHCOM, XVIII Airborne 

Corps, and JSOTF staff officers worked together to revise their respective 

combat plans. After Thurman signed the SOUTHCOM-level version on 30 

October, Hartzog, Stiner, and Luck flew to Washington to brief the final 

drafts to Thurman and Kelly, then to the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, General Colin Powell, and finally to the Joint Chiefs as a group. Because 

Army units constituted the overwhelming majority of the projected combat 

force, General Carl E. Vuono and his vice chief requested and received a separate briefing. On 3 November, the plans were approved as CINCSO OPORD 

1–90 (Blue Spoon), the Southern Command’s conceptual plan; JTF-South 

OPLAN 90–2, the XVIII Airborne Corps’ revised operational-level plan; and 

the JSOTF Blue Spoon plan. For the rest of November and into December, 

the staff officers working on each plan continued to refine and embroider their 

handiwork, holding periodic meetings in Panama and at Fort Bragg. There 

were also a series of briefings for the commanders of the U.S. Atlantic Command, the Military Airlift Command, and the Forces Command, all of whom 

had vital roles to play under Blue Spoon. In the case of the Military Airlift 

Command, the Air Force component of the Transportation Command, a one32 Once Thurman made the XVIII Airborne Corps’ 90–1 the basis for discussion and further planning, Hartzog’s work on Banner Savior came to an end. Instead, the SOUTHCOM 

operations officer began revising the existing CINCSO version of Blue Spoon to reflect both 

Thurman’s strategic guidance and the operational input of Stiner’s staff.
The Panama Crisis

33

week conference among the various planning staffs determined airlift requirements for the contingency operation. 

During this time, one of Stiner’s highest priorities was to enhance the 

weapons available to any invasion force by pre-positioning M551 Sheridan 

light tanks and Apache helicopters in Panama. Accordingly, in mid-November, four Sheridans from the 82d Airborne Division were flown into Howard 

Air Force Base in a secret night flight and then moved to a “motor pool” 

nearby, where they were kept concealed in tents during daylight. At the same 

time, six Apaches and three OH–58 Kiowa scout helicopters also arrived via 

C–5 Galaxy cargo planes, with the Apaches being kept under cover in hangars 

at Howard. As Stiner saw it, the Sheridans could be used in a direct-fire role 

against a heavy target such as the PDF’s Comandancia complex. As for the 

Apaches, they boasted a greater night-vision capability than did the AH–1 

Cobra attack helicopters already in Panama; they could also fire laser-guided 

Hellfire missiles as surgical-strike weapons.33

While the Southern Command orchestrated the planning process and intensified preparations for possible hostilities with the Panama Defense Forces, 

JTF-Panama continued its day-to-day management of the crisis. One issue 

with which it grappled in the fall of 1989 was ensuring that the units rotating 

in to replace those deployed as a continuation of Operation Nimrod Dancer

and the 1988 security enhancement received a thorough orientation as well as 

continuous updates on the situation they faced. Complicating the process, the 

fall rotations, when combined with routine personnel moves, resulted in all 

three task forces JTF-Panama had established at the outset of Nimrod Dancer receiving new commanders: Col. Michael G. Snell took over Task Force 

Bayonet; Marine Col. Charles E. Richardson, Task Force Semper Fi; and Col. 

Keith Kellogg of the 7th Infantry Division, Task Force Atlantic. 

While becoming acclimated to an environment in which neither peace nor 

war prevailed—the closest doctrinal term the Army had for describing the crisis in Panama was low-intensity conflict—the arriving troops found themselves 

immediately involved in a series of major operations, joint training events, contingency readiness exercises, Purple Storms, and Sand Fleas.34 These activities 

allowed JTF-Panama to keep pressure on the PDF; to acquaint newly arrived 

units with the urban terrain on which they might have to fight; and, as Cisneros intended, use the repetition and frequency of the exercises to lull the PDF 

into a false sense of security. As before, some of these measures were designed 

to rehearse aspects of the highly classified Blue Spoon supporting plan without the participants knowing it. Cisneros, the JTF-Panama commander, made 

sure the operations and exercises were adjusted to reflect the latest changes 

to the plan coming out of Quarry Heights, Fort Bragg, and his own operations directorate at Fort Clayton. Furthermore, by varying the rehearsals just 

slightly from the actual plan, Cisneros was having the units under his control 

33 Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 91; Capt. Kevin J. Hammond and Capt. Frank Sherman, “Sheridans in 

Panama,” Armor 99 (March-April 1990): 8. 34 For the doctrinal aspects of the crisis in Panama, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in 

Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 34–35, 112–13.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

34

establish a false footprint that might deceive the PDF into expecting one U.S. 

maneuver only to encounter something else should Blue Spoon be executed. 

Around 18 November, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the Southern 

Command learned through an informant that Colombian drug cartels intended to detonate car bombs on and near U.S. installations in Panama, presumably in retaliation for certain of the Bush administration’s antidrug activities. 

By coincidence, the bomb scare occurred at a time when Stiner and his staff 

were scheduled to be in Panama for a planning conference. Soon after being 

apprised of the alleged Colombian threat, Thurman summoned Stiner and 

told him that the potential danger and the risk of war that went with it had to 

be taken seriously. Thurman therefore decided to activate JTF-South as a precaution. He later acknowledged that the XVIII Airborne Corps did not “belong to me” and that he should have asked permission to activate a joint task 

force through his chain of command, beginning with General Powell. But, as 

he told a group of officers at Fort Leavenworth, he “did not, repeat, did not 

ask authority about that from the JCS.” “I’m not going to ask the Department 

of Defense, or the Chairman what he thinks about that because I’m liable to 

get the wrong answer, which is, ‘No.’” Powell and Secretary of Defense Cheney 

were not pleased with Thurman’s fait accompli but, given the situation, allowed it to stand. In other protective measures, Thurman ordered that concertina wire and concrete blockades be placed around U.S. bases and facilities 

and that individuals and vehicles entering these locations be fully checked by 

security guards. In the end, the informant was found to be lying—Thurman 

would later refer to the whole affair as the “bomb scam.” Still, the episode 

had allowed the XVIII Airborne Corps to acquire some valuable command 

and control experience as a joint task force headquarters operating in Panama 

under the Southern Command. One postscript to the hoax was that, to the 

inconvenience and annoyance of many U.S. military personnel, dependents, 

and employees, the concrete and wire obstacles set up during the bomb scare 

remained in place.35

In mid-December, as the U.S. forces included on Blue Spoon troop lists 

looked forward to the holiday season, they were at the same time well prepared for any escalation in the crisis. In Panama, as noted, JTF-Panama had 

put units under its control through quasi-rehearsals of the plan, while in the 

United States elements of the 82d Airborne Division, the 7th Infantry Division, U.S. Rangers, and Special Operations Forces had conducted even more 

elaborate rehearsals and field exercises geared to Blue Spoon. But now a lull 

in all this activity seemed likely. Veterans of the crisis related to newcomers 

the axiom that, in Panama, troublesome situations were always put on hold 

during the holiday season. To be sure, SOUTHCOM prognosticators referred 

to Noriega’s more erratic behavior in public as a sign that sooner or later the 

dictator would precipitate an incident that would trigger a U.S. invasion. But, 

again, the consensus was that such a provocation was not likely to occur before 

January 1990. Thurman and Cisneros did not let down their guard, but neither 

35 On the Thanksgiving bomb scare and the activation of JTF-South, see ibid., pp. 271–72; 

Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 142–44; Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 

327–28; Telephone Interv, author with Huntoon, 27 Jun 1990. Quotes from Thurman SAMS 

briefing, 23 Sep 1992. 
The Panama Crisis

35

did they discourage the host of festivities and formal parties that began to 

intrude on daily routine.

On Friday, 15 December, Noriega dampened the holiday spirit somewhat 

when he gave a major televised speech before the Panamanian national assembly, declaring himself head of government and proclaiming that Panama 

was in a state of war because of North American aggression. While the reference to war in the speech was reported in the United States with hyperbolic 

rhetoric and a sense of urgency, most observers at the Southern Command 

and JTF-Panama recognized it for what it was—more political theater. Still, 

the speech created a mood that could not help but exacerbate the crisis. It was 

in this highly charged atmosphere that, on the following night, the shooting 

incident at the PDF checkpoint occurred, which left Marine 1st Lt. Robert Paz 

dead and the Navy lieutenant and his wife brutalized. Reportedly, the latter 

incident angered President Bush more than the shooting. The following day, 

he met with his national security team for a briefing on the situation. That session, which began at 1130, followed a flurry of Sunday morning phone calls 

between General Powell and key military players involved with Blue Spoon, 

beginning with Thurman. In essence, the briefing took the form of presenting 

the invasion plan to the president and recommending that he approve its execution. Bush reviewed the plan and its ramifications carefully, asking detailed 

questions throughout. Then, convinced that the situation in Panama was only 

going to worsen and that the time had come to take decisive action, he concluded simply, “Okay, let’s go. We’re going to go.”36 The two-year crisis in U.S.-

Panamanian relations was about to be resolved by force of arms. 

36 On the meeting in which President Bush authorized execution of Blue Spoon, see 

Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 167–71.

2

Preparations and Adjustments

17–19 December 1989

Sunday, 17 December

Among U.S. service personnel in Panama, there was a good deal of speculation Sunday morning and afternoon about whether the Bush 

administration would respond militarily to the killing of Lieutenant Paz the 

night before. A number of officers, unaware of the brutal treatment meted 

out to the Navy lieutenant and his wife, ventured that nothing would come 

of the episode save another official and ineffective protest from the Southern 

Command. It had been “a bad night” in Panama City, as one U.S. officer 

lamented, but not a casus belli. 

Maj. Gen. Marc A. Cisneros was not so sure. Meeting with JTFPanama’s commanders and staff at noon that Sunday, he admitted that 

he had no indication of what Washington would do but that he could not 

imagine “nothing being done on this one.” To be prudent, the joint task force 

had to make final preparations for a war that might be just a few days away. 

Cisneros went around the table asking his commanders and staff officers 

if there were any “war stoppers.” Only some minor issues arose. He then 

expressed to those assembled in the classified forum his two major concerns: 

the potential for friendly fire and the reliability of communications in the 

field. Quickly, several officers assured him that the means existed to avoid the 

former while maximizing the latter. At one point, the general also directed 

that, while preparing for possible combat, the troops under JTF-Panama 

should outwardly appear to be conducting business as usual. To enhance 

that perception, he stated that someone needed to contact PDF Maj. 

Moisés Cortizo, one of Noriega’s confidants, and tell him that “we want to 

settle this,” thus helping to create the overall impression that “we’re trying 

to defuse this thing.” In sum, every effort needed to be made to maintain 

operations security so that, in the event of hostilities, U.S. forces would enjoy 

the element of tactical surprise.1

In Washington that afternoon, President Bush himself emphasized 

secrecy as he decided in favor of military action, scheduled to begin in three 

days on Wednesday, 20 December. Speaking forcefully to his advisers, the 

1 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama meeting, 17 Dec 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

38

president directed that only people essential to the success of the operation 

were to be informed of his decision and, then, only when it became absolutely 

necessary. This injunction remained in the thoughts of General Powell and 

General Kelly as they rode from the White House back to the Pentagon. 

Both believed that, realistically, operations security surrounding the invasion 

could be maintained through Monday, with any leaks on Tuesday coming 

too late to jeopardize the undertaking. As one measure to limit the number 

of people aware of the impending operation, Powell told Kelly that the vice 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the director of the Joint Staff need not be 

told of the president’s decision until the next day. When Kelly got back to his 

office, he took an additional precautionary step by sending home the bulk of 

his staff, keeping behind only his deputy and four junior officers, to whom he 

revealed, “We’re going to execute Blue Spoon.”2

Between 1700 and 1730 that afternoon, the two generals notified the 

commanders and operations officers whose responsibilities did require 

immediate knowledge of the president’s decision. Powell personally 

telephoned General Thurman; General Lindsay at the U.S. Special Operations 

Command; General Edwin H. Burba Jr., commander in chief, Forces 

Command; and Air Force General Hansford T. Johnson, commander of 

both the U.S. Transportation Command and the Military Airlift Command. 

Among the officers Kelly called was General Stiner. After summarizing 

2 Quote from Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 171–73. Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

28, 30. 

General Powell General Kelly
Preparations and Adjustments

39

the White House meeting for the 

airborne corps commander, Kelly 

asked him to relay the information 

to Maj. Gen. Wayne A. Downing, 

who had just taken over from 

General Luck as the commander 

of special operations forces in the 

plan. Among the responsibilities 

Downing inherited was command 

of the Joint Special Operations 

Task Force that would be 

responsible for executing many of 

the H-hour surgical strikes called 

for in the invasion plan.3

H-hour was among the critical 

pieces of information Powell and 

Kelly discussed with the officers 

they contacted on Sunday. It would 

remain 0100, the same time chosen 

nearly two years earlier in the first 

versions of the Elaborate Maze

and Blue Spoon contingency plans. 

The early hour would allow U.S. 

forces to bring their superior nightfighting capabilities into play; it would also find the international airport in 

the capital virtually closed for the night and the volume of vehicular traffic 

on the streets of the country’s two largest cities, Panama City and Colón, 

much reduced. As for D-day, Stiner, for one, was pleased to hear that, in 

keeping with a recommendation he had made to his superiors, the president 

had agreed to Wednesday. This would give the airborne commander sufficient 

opportunity “to pull the air package together” so that the military could “go 

with the total force—not piecemeal.” The time the Air Force would need to 

prepare had already been addressed early Sunday morning in a discussion 

between General Johnson at the Military Airlift Command and General 

Thurman at Quarry Heights. Johnson’s director of operations had calculated 

it would take sixty hours to marshal the crews and aircraft required for 

transporting units from the United States to Panama. When Thurman heard 

the estimate, what he later described as a “donnybrook” ensued, with him 

arguing for a shorter, 48-hour window. But, as he would later relate, “the JCS 

settled the hash and said 60.” For General Downing, the debate was largely 

irrelevant. Waiting until Wednesday worked well for his JSOTF forces, but, 

as he had told Thurman, his troops could be ready to go on Tuesday, if 

necessary. Some would be ready sooner, namely units already in Panama 

under the Special Operations Command, South, and certain other special 

3 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 172; Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Gen Carl W. 

Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. The Stiner interview is compiled as one interview, though it was conducted on four days.

General Stiner
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

40

operations personnel who would 

begin deploying from the United 

States Sunday night, as soon as 

Secretary of Defense Cheney 

authorized their departures.4

After talking with Kelly 

and phoning Downing, Stiner 

thought it best to attend a 

scheduled Christmas party 

that Sunday evening to give the 

appearance of business-as-usual. 

Afterward, though, around 

2000, he went to the plans area 

at corps headquarters where he 

met with key staff officers and 

commanders who needed to know 

immediately about the decision to 

launch combat operations. The 

group included the corps’ deputy 

commander, its chief of staff, 

and a select group of planners; 

Downing and his operations 

officer; Maj. Gen. James H. 

Johnson Jr., commanding general 

of the 82d Airborne Division, accompanied by the division’s operations 

officer; and the commanders of the 4th Psychological Operations Group 

and the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion. Conveniently, all of those present came 

from headquarters located on Fort Bragg. 

As was the case with officials in Washington, an immediate and urgent 

concern of the group gathered around Stiner was operations security. 

One question surfaced immediately: what cover story could be devised to 

explain the flurry of activity, inherent in any major combat deployment, 

that would soon engulf Fort Bragg and adjacent Pope Air Force Base? The 

82d commander suggested that corps spokespersons describe the imminent 

increase in troop and aircraft movements as an emergency deployment 

4 The first quotes on air package and the total force are from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 

2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Interv, Lt Col Steven P. Bucci with Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. 

Army (Ret.), 1999, Senior Officer Oral History Program, U.S. Army War College (USAWC)/

U.S. Army Military History Institute (USAMHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Second and third 

quotes from Interv, John Partin with Gen Maxwell R. Thurman, U.S. Army, 12 Apr 1990, Fort 

Benning, Ga. See also Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 28, 30; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 

172; Military Airlift Command (MAC), Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: An Illustrated History of 

the Military Airlift Command, 1941–1991 (Scott Air Force Base, Ill.: Office of History, Military 

Airlift Command, 1991), p. 195. Panama and the East Coast of the United States are in the 

same time zone, and, in December, the United States is on standard, not daylight savings, time. 

Thus, the time in Washington in December 1989 was the same as in Panama. Official messages 

often use Greenwich Mean Time. In such cases, 0100 (H-hour) in Panama often would have 

been expressed as 0600Z, the Z time zone being five hours ahead of Panama’s time zone, R.

Secretary Cheney
Preparations and Adjustments

41

readiness exercise. Under this cover, the prescribed steps for preparing 

the units involved—referred to in military jargon as the notificationhour, or N-hour, deployment sequence—could commence the next day, 18 

December, at 1300. Beginning at that time, additional personnel would be 

notified of the operation, the troops participating in Blue Spoon would be 

marshaled and isolated, and all involved would begin initiating standard 

operating procedures for the eighteen-hour countdown until the first planes 

carrying the 82d’s paratroopers took off for their objectives in Panama. One 

advantage of starting the N-hour sequence at 1300 was that the time fit well 

with the half-day holiday work schedule set to go into effect Monday. In 

the afternoon, fewer employees would be on post to witness the increased 

activity. Another benefit, given the checklists and timetables to be followed, 

was that the loading of many transport planes would not begin until after 

dark on the eighteenth. 

Several officers present at the meeting with Stiner were part of the 

“group of twenty” that the general had created back in mid-October. He 

had told them then to be ready to deploy to Panama on a moment’s notice; 

now, they would be among an advance party that would precede him into 

the area of operations. Consequently, part of the discussion Sunday night 

touched on what they would do after their arrival in Panama. According 

to Stiner, “They were to get down there and get the operations center fully 

operational, staffed up, prepared to receive the rest of us, and prepared to 

fulfill its role in executing the operation.” After the general adjourned the 

meeting, members of the advance group grabbed their bags, many of which 

had been packed for weeks, and, led by the corps’ chief of staff, Brig. Gen. 

Edson Scholes, departed shortly before midnight for Howard Air Force 

Base. Meanwhile, Stiner’s Panama crisis action team at Bragg established 

tactical satellite communications with the Southern Command and JTFPanama.5

In Panama that night, both of these headquarters were in the process 

of reviewing their contingency plans and refining essential communications 

arrangements. At Fort Clayton, Cisneros had not yet received formal 

notification of the decision to execute JTF-South Operation Plan 90–

2. Fortuitously, his top planner, Lt. Col. Robert Pantier, had gone to 

Quarry Heights around 2030 to help a SOUTHCOM staff officer assess 

the command and control arrangements contained in Blind Logic, the 

civil-military operation plan for a postinvasion Panama. As Pantier read 

over the plan, he concluded that it did not provide for a smooth transition 

from combat to stability operations. Instead, he later said, it represented 

a “disaster waiting to happen.” After suggesting possible ways to salvage 

parts of the plan, he prepared to leave, only to be asked to sit in on a 

5 Details of the meeting Sunday night at XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters can be found 

in After Action Report, Operation Just Cause, 20 Dec 1989–12 Jan 1990, Joint Task ForceSouth, 19 Mar 1990 [hereafter cited as JTF-South AAR], p. 3. Quote from Interv, Wright with 

Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Intervs, Wright with Maj Gen James H. Johnson Jr., U.S. 

Army, 5 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; author with Lt Col Tim McMahon, U.S. Army, 21 Dec 

1989, Fort Clayton, Panama; and with Lt Col David Huntoon Jr., U.S. Army, 7 Apr 1992, Fort 

Bragg, N.C.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

42

briefing for General Thurman that was about to begin, the topic being the 

reconnaissance and surveillance plan contained in the special operations 

version of Blue Spoon. Pantier believed that the briefing was simply part 

of the ongoing planning process of which he had been a participant since 

arriving at U.S. Army, South, the previous year. He therefore sensed nothing 

out of the ordinary when General Hartzog left the room to take a call from 

Stiner. When the meeting ended, Hartzog was still on the phone. From 

what Pantier could hear, the conversation seemed to concern one of the 

semimonthly planning sessions the Southern Command had hosted since 

October, most likely the one scheduled well in advance to begin the next 

day. Because he was responsible for arranging transportation for the officers 

arriving from Fort Bragg, Pantier waited for Hartzog to finish and then 

asked the general when Stiner and his people could be expected. Hartzog 

replied that Stiner would not come until Monday night, but that an advance 

party from the corps would land at Howard early in the morning. Pantier 

knew that a routine planning session would not necessitate the dispatch 

of an advance detachment from Fort Bragg. Execution of the JTF-South 

Operation Plan 90–2, however, would. Hartzog’s comments thus “sent up a 

flag” for the lieutenant colonel. What remaining doubts he had about what 

was transpiring quickly vanished when he was directed to tell Cisneros to 

report for a meeting with Thurman early in the morning so that the JTFPanama commander could be apprised of late-breaking developments in 

the crisis.6

As of late Sunday night, notifications of key military personnel concerning 

President Bush’s decision that afternoon had been made and preliminary 

steps had been taken within the U.S. military establishment to transform the 

6 JTF-South AAR, p. 3. Quotes from Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 

13 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama.

U.S. Southern Command headquarters
Preparations and Adjustments

43

complexities of a written contingency plan into the reality of a major combat 

operation. In two days, American troops would be fighting in Panama.

Monday, 18 December

Judged by the content of newspapers and television news broadcasts in 

the United States Monday morning, the secrecy surrounding the impending 

invasion seemed to be holding. On NBC, for example, the lead story repeated 

details of Noriega’s “declaration of war” on Friday, and the killing of 

Lieutenant Paz and the mistreatment of the Navy lieutenant and his wife 

Saturday night. Yet, the report concluded, the administration seemed to be 

“playing it cautious,” concerned perhaps that American public opinion would 

not support a strong U.S. military response, especially since some official 

pronouncements had suggested that the occupants of the car in which Paz had 

been a passenger may not have behaved prudently at the PDF checkpoint. The 

Southern Command’s own newspaper, Tropic Times, did its part to project 

a sense of calm. While containing detailed accounts of the weekend’s events 

and while citing Secretary Cheney’s statement that Noriega had “encouraged 

this kind of lawlessness,” it also quoted a U.S. official as saying the incident 

was only “coincidental” to Noriega’s “state of war” speech and that to “draw 

conclusions from the rhetoric of the last few days would be misleading at 

this time.” Echoing this sentiment, Air Force Col. Ronald T. Sconyers, the 

Southern Command’s public affairs officer, told a CNN audience that “most 

of the indications point that this is an isolated incident, but certainly a very 

tragic and needless one.”7

How long the secrecy surrounding the president’s decision would survive 

once U.S.-based units slated to take part in Blue Spoon began their N-hour 

deployment sequences on Monday remained to be seen. Further complicating 

the matter was news reaching Fort Bragg that Air Force C–141 Starlifter 

transports, slated to be loaded with heavy equipment, were going to begin 

arriving at Pope Air Force Base around noon, much sooner than Stiner 

had anticipated. The Military Airlift Command had begun assembling the 

required air armada Sunday night, right after receiving word from Powell 

about the Oval Office meeting. The time of year worked to expedite the 

process, in that most of the required aircraft were readily available thanks 

to reduced transport commitments during the holiday season. Stiner, after 

digesting this and other information, decided at a 0730 briefing to move 

N-hour forward from 1300 to 0900. Reinforcing the decision was a weather 

forecast that called for a storm front to move through North Carolina later 

in the day. If the worst predictions concerning the severity of the storm 

proved true, there would almost certainly be significant delays in launching 

any aircraft from Pope. Since the C–141s were going to arrive early, the 

anticipated delays could be offset somewhat by beginning the rigging 

7 Author’s notes, 18 Dec 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama. Quotes from Tropic Times, 18 Dec 

1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

44

and loading of the transports soon after they arrived, even if that meant 

performing these tasks in daylight.8

One scenario concerning the incoming transports, both those for heavy 

equipment and those for personnel, worried Stiner; he feared they would all 

arrive about the same time, further jeopardizing the secrecy surrounding the 

airlift while overtaxing landing and loading facilities at Pope. To ameliorate 

this possible effect, the general later recounted, 

we came up with a plan whereby we would bring in the heavy-drop and CDS 

[container delivery system] birds and load them, and launch them to Charleston [Air Force Base, South Carolina]. They would be brought in by nonairdrop qualified crews; would go to Charleston where the airdrop qualified 

crews were in [crew] rest and were receiving their briefings, and the planes 

would be topped off on fuel, and they would launch from there. At the required time, the twenty personnel birds would come into Pope, pick up the 

jumpers, and launch. The birds at Charleston would join them en route in 

order to make the TOT [time on target].

With the loaded heavy-drop transports already at Charleston, Stiner believed 

that, regardless of the weather, at least ten of the twenty projected troopcarrying planes would be able to take off from Pope in the initial launch 

scheduled for the night of the nineteenth. Even after taking the possibility 

of such a major adjustment into account, he still felt confident that enough 

8 Intervs, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, and Johnson, 5 Mar 1990; author with McMahon, 21 Dec 1989; MAC, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, p. 195.

C–141 Starlifter
Preparations and Adjustments

45

troops would drop into Panama “to do the majority of the critical tasks that 

we absolutely had to do that night,” meaning D-day.9

Having personally observed the beginning of the N-hour deployment 

sequence at Bragg and having helped make adjustments to the airflow plan, 

Stiner, together with his main party, boarded a C–20 Gulfstream aircraft in 

midafternoon and flew to Panama. At that time, the holiday work schedule, 

the cover story about a readiness exercise, and even the bad weather were all 

helping to maintain operations security. By evening, however, some network 

news broadcasts in the United States were noting an increased level of activity 

at both Bragg and Pope, although reporters on the scene were for the moment 

repeating the official explanation that what they were witnessing was a nonotice training event.10

While Stiner had been monitoring the preparations for war from his 

headquarters Monday morning, key officials and officers in the Pentagon were 

reviewing the SOUTHCOM and XVIII Airborne Corps versions of Blue

Spoon. All realized the risks entailed in the contemplated operation, and all 

could remember the Mayaguez incident of 1975, the bombing of the Marine 

barracks in Beirut in 1983, and the U.S. invasion of Grenada just a few days 

later. All three operations—even the Pentagon’s marred success in Grenada—

were regarded as failures of the military art. Secretary of Defense Cheney, 

wanting to avoid any such calamities on his watch, played an active role in 

the review process—first, to ensure that the Blue Spoon chain of command 

(of which he was the first link under the president) was short and efficient; 

second, to minimize interference from individuals and organizations outside 

the chain of command; and, third, to be able to answer any Panama-related 

military questions the president might have. Beginning Monday morning, 

pursuit of these goals led him to talk with General Powell at length, during 

which time the secretary posed a series of pointed questions. “It seemed to 

Powell,” reporter Bob Woodward later wrote, “that Cheney wanted to know 

all the details, right down to the squad level.” After the morning sessions, 

Powell called in Kelly and, in turn, subjected him to a similar interrogation, 

one purpose of which was to find and eliminate any superfluous requirements 

remaining in the plan.11

Later, both Powell and Kelly briefed Cheney on the execute order formally 

authorizing the use of military force against Noriega and his regime. The 

document contained one cosmetic but important revision from its original 

draft. In a telephone conversation with Kelly Sunday evening, General Lindsay 

of the U.S. Special Operations Command had asked almost rhetorically, “Do 

you want your grandchildren to say you were in Blue Spoon?” Kelly’s deputy 

recommended calling the operation Just Cause instead, and that was the code 

name used in the order briefed to Cheney. The secretary accepted the change. 

As will be seen, he also made several last-minute modifications to the part of 

9 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. The bracketed material in the block quotation is in the original transcript. 10 Ibid.; Author’s notes, 18 Dec 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama.

11 Quote from Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 175–76. Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

31–32.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

46

the operation plan that dealt with the employment of the Air Force’s state-ofthe-art but expensive F–117A Stealth fighters.12

At 1825 Eastern Standard Time, the Pentagon transmitted the Just Cause

execute order to participating headquarters, departments, and agencies. Upon 

receiving his copy of the message, the commander in chief, Forces Command, 

who had the doctrinal responsibility for delegating command and control 

arrangements for American units deploying from the United States, sent his own 

message to Stiner, informing him that the 82d Airborne Division, the 7th Infantry 

Division (Light), and, if necessary, the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) 

would be placed under the operational control of JTF-South, as planned.13

Although Stiner and his entourage were still in transit to Panama when 

the execute order was issued, his advance party had been in the country since 

early morning. After arriving at Howard Air Force Base, the group had gone 

to Fort Clayton and begun setting up JTF-South (Forward) in the U.S. Army, 

South, Emergency Operations Center. With operations security in mind, 

formal activation of the joint task force would await the actual deployment of 

combat units the next evening. In the meantime, the group from Fort Bragg 

worked in the operations center, attended briefings, and scrutinized the Blue

Spoon operation checklist.14

Around 1300, while one of the meetings to review the checklist was in 

progress in the Simón Bolívar conference room at Fort Clayton, reports arrived 

of another shooting incident in Panama City, this one in the Curundu area near 

Albrook Air Station. Details were sketchy, but the first accounts suggested that 

an American officer had shot a uniformed Panamanian. As more information 

became known, the U.S. Defense Department issued a statement to the effect 

that an American Army lieutenant had left a local laundry and gotten into his 

car. At that point, he was approached by a PDF traffic policeman who was 

reaching for his pistol. The Army officer drew his own pistol and fired twice. 

The Panamanian fell to the ground, then got up and fled the scene. “The extent 

of his injuries,” the statement said, “is unknown at this time.” The next day, 

a story in Tropic Times reported the incident but did not repeat the rumors 

then circulating that there was a direct connection between the shooting and 

the events of Saturday night. The article, however, did cite a White House 

statement linking the death of Lieutenant Paz that evening to “a coordinated 

wave of violence started by Panama’s weekend declaration that a state of war 

existed with the United States.” The article also noted that the twelve thousand 

U.S. troops in Panama were on a high state of alert and that they and their 

families had been told to avoid public places.15

The Tropic Times offered no insight as to why the American officer was armed 

or why one preliminary statement by the Pentagon indicated that the Panamanian

12 Quote from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 173, and see also pp. 176–77. Cole, Operation 

Just Cause, pp. 31–32. A more detailed discussion of the F–117A issue can be found in ch. 9 of 

this volume. 13 Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 32; Telephone Interv, author with Maj David Huntoon Jr., 

27 Jun 1990. 14 JTF-South AAR, p. 3; Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990.

15 Quotes from Tropic Times, 19 Dec 1989. Author’s notes, 18 Dec 1989, Fort Clayton, 

Panama.
Preparations and Adjustments

47

actually had his pistol drawn, as opposed to reaching for it. The story also seemed 

to contradict indications picked up by U.S. military intelligence in Panama that 

Noriega had told the Panama Defense Forces to avoid confrontations with U.S. 

service personnel after Saturday night’s shooting. Yet, the possibility that the 

Army lieutenant at the laundry was indeed a new victim in a regime-orchestrated 

campaign of violence could not be dismissed. To some, however, it seemed more 

likely that the American officer had gone out seeking to avenge the shooting of 

Paz, a prospect that had high-ranking officers at the Southern Command and JTFPanama livid. They had been trying to maintain a business-as-usual demeanor so 

as not to tip off the regime to any military moves the Bush administration might 

make. Now the actions of an Army lieutenant—whether justified or inexcusable—

placed the plausibility of that façade in jeopardy and risked putting the Panama 

Defense Forces members on their guard. Worse, the PDF might decide to go 

“tit for tat,” as one JTF-Panama planner put it, thus “screwing up” the invasion 

timetable by causing U.S. forces to employ their troops prematurely. Musing on 

the incident, one person recalled President Kennedy’s terse remark about the 

American U–2 pilot who flew over the Soviet Union at the height of the Cuban 

missile crisis: “There’s always some SOB who doesn’t get the word.”16

Aside from the U.S. investigators assigned to the incident, there was little 

effort after a day or so to follow up on the fate of the unfortunate or foolhardy 

Army officer (whose interrogation, it was rumored, had been severe). More 

pressing matters were at hand. On Monday evening, Stiner’s plane arrived at 

Howard. The general and the flag officers with him headed to Quarry Heights 

to meet with Thurman and others, while staff officers in the group traveled to 

Fort Clayton. In a practice adopted during the semimonthly planning visits, 

all were dressed in civilian clothes, another ploy to avoid raising the regime’s 

suspicions. 

At Fort Clayton that night, Cisneros scheduled a JTF-Panama meeting. As 

the word circulated, virtually everyone in the USARSO headquarters building 

poured into the Bolívar conference room. The general arrived over an hour 

late, around 2230, and immediately ordered the room vacated, calling back 

only his component commanders and key staff officers. He then briefed them 

on the decision to launch Operation Just Cause. Shortly after midnight, Stiner 

and others joined the group, having wrapped up their meetings at Quarry 

Heights. The assemblage was significant for at least two reasons. First, it was 

the first gathering of the war-fighting commanders and most of their staff 

since the presidential decision on Sunday. Second, to Stiner’s relief, the officers 

who would run JTF-South once it was activated were in Panama and setting 

up shop before hostilities began. 

Among the increasing number of American officials and officers aware of 

the impending invasion, there was a pervasive concern that the Panama Defense 

Forces, if tipped to what was coming, might preempt the U.S. attack by launching 

one of its own, before Just Cause forces based outside Panama were able to 

deploy. Throughout the crisis, the Southern Command, JTF-Panama, and the 

XVIII Airborne Corps had briefed a no-notice, or reactive, contingency plan, 

16 Author’s observations and conversations in Panama, 18–19 Dec 1989; Interv, author with 

Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 21 May 1991, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

48

code-named High Anxiety, that called for in-country U.S. forces to deal with 

any preemptive PDF attack until the stateside troops listed in the Post Time and 

Blue Spoon operation orders could arrive.17 In the October planning sessions, 

Thurman had also emphasized the need to know how Blue Spoon would be 

executed in response to another coup attempt or some other trigger event. 

Now on the eve of taking military action, Stiner stood ready to handle such 

unwelcome contingencies if need be, although no one relished contending with 

the increased level of confusion and uncertainty bound to accompany hostilities 

initiated on the enemy’s timetable. To the relief of all, as Monday night gave way 

to Tuesday morning, the secrecy surrounding Just Cause seemed to be holding. 

It needed to last for just under another twenty-four hours.

The Plan

When Stiner entered the Simón Bolívar conference room shortly after 

midnight on 19 December, he listened to the remainder of Cisneros’ briefing 

to JTF-Panama’s principal commanders and staff. Then, at 0045, the corps 

commander began his own hour-long briefing of the execute order, the first 

substantive sentence of which asserted that the National Command Authority 

“has authorized the execution of USCINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon)/30 

Oct 89.” There followed a statement of the military mission. 

USCINCSO will conduct joint offensive operations to neutralize the PDF 

and other combatants, as required, so as to protect US lives, property, and 

interests in Panama and to assure the full exercise of rights accorded by international law and the US-Panamanian treaties. 

More specifically, 

the purpose of these offensive operations is to ensure: continuing freedom 

of transit through the Panama Canal, freedom from PDF abuse and harassment, freedom to exercise US treaty rights and responsibilities, the removal 

of Noriega from power in Panama, the removal of Noriega’s cronies and accomplices from office, the creation of a PDF responsive to and supportive of 

an emergent democratic government of Panama [GOP], and a freely elected 

GOP which is allowed to govern.18

The execute order designated the commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command, as the supported commander. All forces would come under his operational control once they entered his area of responsibility. The list of supporting 

commanders consisted of the commanders in chief of the Forces Command, 

17 Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) (High Anxiety) to Operation Order (OPORD) 7–88 

(Blue Spoon) folder. The folder, located in the Combined Arms Research Library at Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, contains copies of the no-alert fragmentary orders from before and after 

the 3 October abortive coup. 18 Msg, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), to CINCSO et al., 182325Z Dec 1989, sub: 

EXORD [Execute Order]\USCINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon).
Preparations and Adjustments

49

Transportation Command, Special Operations Command, Atlantic Command, 

Pacific Command, Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, and special 

operations forces. Other supporting organizations included the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, 

the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Mapping Agency, and the Defense 

Communications Agency.19

The longest portion of what was a very brief message covered rules of 

engagement. In general, commanders were to “conduct all military operations 

in accordance with the laws and directives governing armed conflict.” While 

every element of the Panama Defense Forces as well as its armed supporters 

(such as the Dignity Battalions) was subject to attack, only the “minimum 

force necessary” was to be used to achieve the operation’s objectives; when 

possible, “hostile forces should be warned and given the opportunity to 

surrender.” Furthermore, because the Panamanian people were not the 

enemy, every effort would be made to prevent “injury to noncombatants,” 

damage to civilian property and public buildings, and any “disruptive 

influence” on the country’s economy. The section on rules of engagement 

concluded by saying, “The right of self-defense is never denied. These ROE 

do not restrict the right of every commander or individual to use necessary 

and appropriate force to defend himself or his unit against hostile intent or 

hostile act.” In employing the necessary level of force, U.S. troops would 

have their “normal organic weapons,” buttressed in some specific cases 

by M136 AT4 antitank weapons, AC–130 gunships, Sheridan light tanks, 

Marine light armored vehicles, Apache helicopters with Hellfire missiles, 

and .50-caliber machine guns. Field artillery could be used in a direct-fire 

mode, but indirect fire would have to be approved by higher headquarters. 

Also, with the exception of the bombs scheduled to be dropped by F–117As, 

there would be no air strikes without Stiner’s authorization. In sum, the rules 

of engagement contained some significant but not excessive limitations and 

restrictions on the circumstances in which deadly force could be used and on 

the weapons U.S. forces could employ.20

The Pentagon execute order briefed by Stiner offered little or no elaboration 

on the tasks U.S. troops and the supporting commands and agencies were to 

perform. That detailed information was contained in the Southern Command’s 

operation order, 1–90; in the JTF-South and Joint Special Operations Task 

Force supporting plans; and in the lower-echelon tactical blueprints derived 

from them.21 These documents had been pieced together over nearly two 

years under Woerner’s and Thurman’s guidance, with the input of Generals 

Powell, Kelly, Stiner, Luck, Downing, Loeffke, and Cisneros. In their final 

versions, approved by the Joint Chiefs, they reflected the XVIII Airborne 

Corps’ way of doing business. Consequently, Operation Just Cause would 

employ overwhelming military force and the element of tactical surprise to 

mount nighttime surgical strikes on over two dozen enemy targets, most of 

19 Ibid.

20 Quotes from ibid. USAWC/USAMHI Interv, Bucci with Stiner, 1999.

21 Sanitized versions of CINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon), 30 Oct 1989, and the JTFSouth Operation Plan (OPLAN) 90–2, 3 Nov 1989, have been declassified and provide the basis 

of much of the discussion that follows. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

50

which would be attacked simultaneously. Once the combat objectives had been 

achieved, several of the participating units would assist in the transition to 

stability operations aimed at rebuilding the country. For most of the combat 

troops airlifted in from the United States, especially those of the Special 

Operations Forces, the intent was to redeploy them to their home bases as soon 

as the fighting ended. Despite the magnitude and complexity of the operation, 

estimated times for actual fighting at most targets were brief, ranging from no 

more than a few hours to perhaps a day, after which the targeted PDF units 

would have been isolated or defeated. As for the complete neutralization of the 

enemy’s command, control, and communications capabilities, the JTF-South 

operation plan predicted that the mission “should be completed within three 

days following our initial assaults.”22

To a great extent, these optimistic estimates as well as the plan’s only 

moderately restrictive rules of engagement spoke to the generally low regard 

in which U.S. officers held the Panama Defense Forces and its leadership. 

Besides the well-known technological gap favoring the American military, 

intelligence reports citing low morale and discipline within the PDF’s ranks, 

the substandard training afforded many of its units, and the penchant for selfpreservation many Panamanian officers had demonstrated during the failed 

coup of 3 October further diminished the likelihood of extended hostilities. 

Noriega, to be sure, had made several changes in the Panama Defense Forces 

after the coup attempt, removing some commanders of questionable loyalty, 

promoting others who had stood by him, and relocating various units to 

make them less vulnerable to subversive influences. But through a variety 

of open and covert methods, U.S. military intelligence knew about most of 

these adjustments and was able to update assessments of the Panamanian 

forces and their order of battle. On the eve of Operation Just Cause, revised 

figures placed PDF membership at fifteen thousand, of which approximately 

thirty-five hundred were listed as combat troops organized primarily into 

two battalions, ten infantry companies, a ceremonial cavalry squadron, a 

riot control company (the Dobermans), and a special operations command 

composed of commandos and an elite unit known by its Spanish acronym 

UESAT. U.S. estimates of the wartime intentions and capabilities of these 

combat forces varied from unit to unit, with expectations that some would fight 

with determination while others would surrender to U.S. troops with minimal 

or no resistance. As for the Panamanian air force, it consisted, in general, of 

38 fixed-wing aircraft, 17 helicopters, and some air defense guns; the navy, of 

12 vessels and a naval infantry company. The vast majority of PDF members 

served in nonmilitary positions, including police and investigation officers, 

customs and conservation officials, and administrative personnel.23

22 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.

23 Briefing, 1st Corps Support Command (COSCOM), 22 Feb 1990, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Capt. Joseph M. Nemmers et al., United States Army South Staff Ride: Operation Just

Cause, 20 December 1989–31 January 1990, updated ed. (1991; repr., Fort Clayton, Panama: 

Historical Office, Headquarters, U.S. Army, South, 1998), p. 9; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 75; Interv, author with Lt Cdr Kenneth D. Pierce, U.S. Navy, 21 May 

1998, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. The strength and location of specific PDF units will be cited in 

the chapters covering the operations in which they took part.
Preparations and Adjustments

51

When preparing and disseminating the PDF order of battle, U.S. analysts 

generally included information on Noriega’s paramilitary Dignity Battalions, 

or, as American military personnel derisively called them, DigBats (a play on 

the word dingbat, meaning, among other things, “an empty-headed or silly 

person.”) Formed in 1988 ostensibly under the regime’s minister of public 

works, the Dignity Battalions dressed in civilian clothes—often in T-shirts 

with Batallón Dignidad stenciled on them—and included PDF members, 

government workers, regime supporters, the unemployed, and criminals 

and thugs. Some members joined of their free will, some participated under 

pressure, some were paid, and some owed their jobs to the dictatorship. 

Whatever the motives, when called on, this mishmash of people could swell 

the ranks of a regime-sponsored political rally or demonstration; members 

could also be used to intimidate or physically abuse Noriega’s opponents. In 

May 1989, the DigBats attracted international attention when they carried out 

their most publicized act of violence, the postelection attack on the “victory” 

march staged by the opposition candidates and their supporters. Most of the 

time, the Dignity Battalions carried sticks, hoses, and pipes with which to 

beat their victims. Given their close ties to the government, however, several 

analysts assumed that, in the event of war with the United States, they would 

likely have access to more lethal weapons. Thus, when the Just Cause execute 

order of 18 December stated that “all parts” of the Panama Defense Forces 

could be attacked by U.S. forces, the Dignity Battalions were included among 

the eligible elements. As their name implied, DigBats presumed that they 

enjoyed a quasi-military status. Yet their organization and training was never 

so structured as to provide U.S. intelligence personnel any clear idea of the 

number of Panamanians involved.24

To defeat the Panama Defense Forces and any other armed groups, to capture 

Noriega, and to begin the transformation of Panama into a true democracy, the 

U.S. invasion plan called for the employment of just over twenty-seven thousand 

troops. Nearly half of this force was already in Panama, either because the units 

were based there, as in the case of the Southern Command’s component forces, 

or because they had rotated into the country as a part of troop augmentations 

conducted over the course of the crisis, namely, the security enhancement buildup 

of early 1988 and Operation Nimrod Dancer in May 1989. The remainder of 

the invasion force would deploy from bases in the United States. The U.S. order 

of battle identified Operation Just Cause as a joint undertaking, although the 

Army represented the largest portion of the force, nearly 80 percent. Of the 

conventional troops involved, 18,587 were soldiers and 2,850 more came from 

Army units in the Special Operations Forces (Table 1). Not that service allegiance 

mattered that much to Stiner. For him, the important fact was that the Pentagon 

had given him all the troops he had requested through the Southern Command. 

There had been no haggling over numbers.25

24 Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 357–58; Msg, CJCS to CINCSO et al., 182325Z Dec 

1989, sub: EXORD [Execute Order]\USCINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon). As for the word 

dingbat, it came readily to mind for U.S. officers because it had been popularized in a 1970s 

television comedy, All in the Family. 25 The troop numbers are taken from Briefing Slides, SOUTHCOM, Operation Just Cause: 

“Rebirth of a Nation,” n.d. Stiner’s account of receiving all the troops he requested (and even 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

52

If twenty-seven thousand U.S. troops pitted against a much smaller and 

much less professional and competent enemy force amounted to overkill, it 

was meant to. The use of disproportionate force was, under Presidents Reagan 

and Bush, promulgated in the so-called Weinberger-Powell doctrine, a product 

of the Vietnam syndrome in the United States. The quagmire and eventual 

American defeat in Southeast Asia, many officers and analysts believed, 

had resulted to a large extent because U.S. policy makers had committed 

combat units piecemeal and in numbers inadequate to win the war. In future 

conflicts, therefore, once the president and key national security advisers had 

determined America’s military objectives in a situation requiring the use of 

force, the next step was to employ from the beginning the combat power 

necessary to achieve those objectives. For many advocates of this approach, 

the phrase all force necessary translated easily into overwhelming force. Why 

leave the outcome to chance?26

turning down some additional units offered to him, as he did in a conversation with the Marine 

Corps commandant) is in Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. 26 In November 1984, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger enumerated several criteria that should govern the commitment of U.S. forces to combat. His list, which became known 

as the Weinberger Doctrine, included the wholehearted commitment of troops for the purpose 

of winning. Prior to Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, General Powell reiterated 

and slightly revised the doctrine, although both versions implied the use of decisive and overwhelming force to attain specific and achievable objectives. In the first few post-Vietnam deTable 1—U.S. Military Personnel in Operation Just Cause

 Military Component Number of Personnel

Army 18,587

Navy 521

Air Force 3,133

Marine Corps 690

Special Operations, by component

Army 2,850

Navy 500

Air Force 800

Total 27,081

Source: Briefing Slides, U.S. Southern Command, Operation Just Cause, 20 Dec 1989–31 

Jan 1990, n.d.
Preparations and Adjustments

53

The command and control relationships for such a large invasion force 

incorporated the guidance Thurman had provided Stiner’s people and the 

JSOTF commander at Fort Bragg in early August and at Quarry Heights 

in October. Military operations would take place in the SOUTHCOM 

commander’s area of responsibility, and elements of the XVIII Airborne 

Corps, with its extensive experience in planning and conducting contingency 

operations, would serve as the war-fighting headquarters—Joint Task 

Force-South—with Stiner answering directly to Thurman. To ensure unity 

of command, JTF-South would assume operational control of the Joint 

Special Operations Task Force commanded by General Downing. As for 

the commander and most staff directors in JTF-Panama, they would accept 

assignments as deputies in Stiner’s headquarters, while the joint task force 

itself would not be operative so long as JTF-South remained activated. 

The organizational charts depicting this arrangement showed JTF-South at 

the top of a wiring diagram containing over a dozen task forces and component 

headquarters (Chart 2). Of these, the Joint Special Operations Task Force 

controlled several of the most elite units in the U.S. military. In contrast to 

this multiservice organization, the Air Force Forces (AFFOR) and the Naval 

Forces (NAVFOR) were component headquarters that were service specific. 

The NAVFOR commander was Rear Adm. Gerald E. Gneckow, and the naval 

forces under him (including some with special operations capabilities) were the 

same ones he controlled in his role as both the SOUTHCOM and JTF-Panama 

cades, several commentators regarded this as something new in recent American history. Yet, if 

one examines just the period of the Cold War, on at least two occasions—the U.S. interventions 

in Lebanon in 1958 and in the Dominican Republic in 1965—the United States deliberately 

employed more than enough combat power to subdue any military opposition. 

Dignity Battalion members engage in street violence.
Task Force Semper Fi Task Force Pacific Joint Special 

Operations Task Force

Task Force Bayonet Task Force Atlantic

U.S. Southern Command

Joint Task Force-South

Army Forces

Joint Civil Affairs

Task Force

Task Force Aviation Navy Forces Miscellaneous

Elements

Joint Psychological

Operations Task Force

16th Military

Police Bde

Air Force Forces Joint Intelligence

Task Force

Communications

Logistics

Chart 2—Operation Just Cause: OPLAN 90–2 Command and Control

Source: Joint Task Force-South Operation Plan 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.
Preparations and Adjustments

55

Navy component commander. They were Special Boat Unit 26, a Navy SeaAir-Land (SEAL) platoon, a Naval Security Group, the Naval Small Craft 

Instruction and Technical Training School, and Mine Division 127. That these 

units did not exactly constitute a significant U.S. naval presence in Panama 

was unimportant, given the negligible size and poor quality of the PDF navy. 

In Stiner’s judgment, the NAVFOR’s assets, especially the special boat unit 

and fast patrol boats, would be adequate for the security, reconnaissance 

and surveillance, and patrolling missions they were to conduct in support of 

conventional and special operations under JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2. 

Experience was also a factor. According to Stiner, Gneckow’s units were “very 

well trained, and had a lot of expertise operating in that area. They knew the 

Panama Canal, they knew the surrounding waters . . ., they knew how to deal 

with the Panama Canal Commission.” He could have added that they also 

had knowledge of Panama’s ports and possessed the capability to defend the 

aquatic approaches to Howard Air Force Base.27

In the case of the AFFOR, Maj. Gen. Peter T. Kempf, the Southern 

Command’s Air Force component commander and the commanding general 

of the Twelfth Air Force at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas, coordinated airlift 

and combat air requirements with Stiner during the planning process. He also 

designated Brig. Gen. Robin Tornow, commander of the Southern Air Division, 

to be the JTF-South air component commander. As such, Tornow would also 

serve as the air defense commander and the joint force air commander with 

airspace control authority. With respect to aircraft, if the U.S. Navy’s assets 

in Panama were considered just adequate for the impending invasion, the Air 

Force’s did not meet even that standard. Needed were additional AC–130 

gunships to supplement the two already in the country; a number of EF–111 

Ravens and EC–130 Volant Solos for conducting electronic warfare against 

PDF command, control, and communications targets; the two F–117As 

Cheney had authorized; the Military Airlift Command’s troop and equipment 

transports; an Airborne Warning and Control System; a C–130H Hercules 

to use as an airborne battlefield command and control center, an alternate 

command post; and various aircraft from the Tactical Air Command. Thanks 

in part to the lead time between the president’s decision and the execution of 

the operation plan, all of these planes would be available when needed for 

deployment to Panama. Also on hand, as a result of General Kempf’s efforts, 

were Strategic Air Command tankers, essential for providing in-air refueling 

for the transports and gunships en route to Panama from the United States. 

On the eve of Operation Just Cause, then, JTF-South’s reinforced Air Force 

component appeared ready to perform its airlift, air cover, close air support, 

command and control, and reconnaissance missions.28

Under the JTF-South organizational diagram, there was no Marine 

Forces component per se. During the meetings in October and early 

November, Col. Charles E. Richardson, the Marine commander under JTF27 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. Quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 

27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. For a more detailed U.S. order of battle, see An. A to JTF-South 

OPLAN, 3 Nov 1989. 28 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989; Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 

Jun 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

56

Panama, had tried to persuade Stiner to include more Marine elements, 

particularly a Marine expeditionary brigade, in the plan. The larger Marine 

contingent, Richardson contended, was needed to secure the vast area west 

of the canal and to subjugate the Panamanian forces located there. The 

1988 drafts of Elaborate Maze and Blue Spoon had made provisions for 

a Marine brigade. Should not the current plan do so as well? In the end, 

Richardson failed to convince Stiner, who turned down not just the brigade 

request but one for an additional Marine battalion as well. The general did, 

however, put an Army engineer battalion and a military police company 

under Richardson’s operational control and promised to send the colonel a 

battalion from the 82d Airborne Division (later switched to one from the 7th 

Infantry Division) within thirty-six hours of H-hour. On 18 December, when 

General Powell met with the Joint Chiefs prior to briefing President Bush, the 

Marine commandant revisited the question of adding more marines to the 

troop list, asking specifically for a Marine expeditionary unit, but he fared 

no better than Richardson. In the hours leading up to the commencement of 

Operation Just Cause, the units under Colonel Richardson did not technically 

constitute a Marine Force component; rather his task force retained the Task 

Force Semper Fi designation it had acquired as part of JTF-Panama. Its 

mission under the 90–2 operation plan was to secure various sites and areas 

along the western approaches to 

Panama City.29

On the east side of the canal, 

directly across from Richardson’s 

area of responsibility, Col. 

Michael G. Snell’s Task Force 

Bayonet faced what many planners 

considered to be the most difficult 

D-day missions: moving against 

the Comandancia, the PDF’s main 

headquarters complex, and other 

enemy units and headquarters 

in its vicinity. Snell commanded 

the 193d Infantry Brigade, the 

largest Army combat unit based 

in Panama, and, for Just Cause, 

he would retain under his control 

the unit’s two infantry battalions, 

engineer company, and field 

artillery battery. Task-organizing 

bolstered his force, as he also 

received operational control of 

the platoon of predeployed M551 

Sheridans from the 82d Airborne 

Division; the 519th Military 

29 On Task Force Semper Fi, see Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 17, 19–20. See also JTF-South 

OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989; Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990.

General Tornow 
Preparations and Adjustments

57

Police Battalion from Fort Meade, Maryland; a Marine light amphibious 

infantry platoon; and the 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry, 5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), the last two units being part of the continuing Nimrod

Dancer rotation. Around H-hour, the bulk of Task Force Bayonet would 

break off into three smaller elements: Task Force Gator, charged with the 

Comandancia mission; Task Force Wildcat, which would seize and secure 

PDF facilities in the vicinity of Quarry Heights and the Comandancia; 

and Task Force Black Devil, which would neutralize the PDF 5th Infantry 

Company at Fort Amador.30

The targets assigned to Task Force Bayonet were clustered around Ancon 

Hill, near the heart of downtown Panama City. Other PDF installations and 

forces were located farther out on the periphery of or just beyond the capital, 

but within striking distance of the Comandancia and Snell’s other objectives. 

To prevent these enemy troops from reinforcing the Ancon Hill area or 

interfering in any other way with the operations of Task Force Bayonet, a 

brigade-size element from the 82d Airborne Division was assigned to isolate 

and, if necessary, neutralize or destroy PDF units at Las Tinajitas, Fort 

Cimarrón, and Panama Viejo. According to the plan, after U.S. Rangers 

operating under the Joint Special Operations Task Force had seized and 

secured the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex in eastern Panama City, 

the paratroopers would drop onto the site, board helicopters, and launch 

air assaults on the three targets nearby. Each objective was expected to be 

secured before dawn.31

Bringing in paratroopers to deal with PDF garrisons in and near the 

capital reflected a change in the Blue Spoon plans caused by the failed 

coup. Prior to 3 October, a brigade from the 7th Infantry Division was 

to be the only major conventional unit to deploy from the United States 

to participate in D-day combat operations on the Pacific side of Panama. 

An airborne brigade was to be brought in only as a follow-on force. After 

the critical role outlying PDF garrisons played in putting down the coup 

attempt, however, Fort Cimarrón, Las Tinajitas, and Panama Viejo went 

from being secondary concerns to primary targets, the neutralization of 

which would require air assault operations. So Stiner’s planners decided to 

flip-flop the missions and scheduled arrival of the two stateside brigades. 

The logic behind the realignment was simple enough. In the same time it 

would take to land and begin unloading light fighters from the 7th Infantry 

Division flying into Torrijos-Tocumen, paratroopers from the 82d could 

airdrop, assemble, board waiting helicopters, and be en route to the three 

targeted PDF bases. The commander of the light division, Maj. Gen. 

Carmen Cavezza, was not convinced the change to the plan was necessary, 

especially given the 7th’s extensive experience in the crisis to that date, but 

he nevertheless acceded to Stiner’s reworking of the plan. As for command 

and control, once the paratroopers arrived in Panama, they would become 

part of Task Force Pacific, a headquarters that would be set up under a 

30 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 10, 13; JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 

Nov 1989. 31 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

58

general from the 82d and which, at some point in Operation Just Cause, 

would absorb Snell’s Task Force Bayonet and Richardson’s Task Force 

Semper Fi.32

The higher prioritization accorded Fort Cimarrón, Panama Viejo, and Las 

Tinajitas after the failed coup increased from two to five the number of D-day 

air assaults called for in the operation plan, raising the question of whether the 

Army had sufficient aircraft in Panama to carry out the additional missions. 

As part of the security enhancement buildup in 1988, the assets of the 193d 

Brigade’s 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, had been augmented by about a third 

of the 7th Infantry Division’s aviation equipment and personnel, designated 

under JTF-Panama as Task Force Hawk. In Stiner’s opinion, however, more 

was still needed in light of changing war plans. He therefore requested and 

received authorization for the secret deployment of Apache and Kiowa 

helicopters to Panama in November; he also reinforced the in-country aviation 

battalion and Task Force Hawk with UH–60 Black Hawk, UH–1H Huey, and 

CH–47D Chinook helicopter crews and door gunners from Fort Bragg. These 

additions of equipment and manpower, in turn, necessitated an organizational 

change. “In order to bring this whole thing together,” one corps planner later 

noted, “we felt that it would be worthwhile to create yet another subordinate 

task force, a Task Force Aviation, and designated the commander of the 7th 

ID(L) Aviation Brigade [Col. Douglas R. Terrell] as the commander.” Because 

it was the last task force added to the plan and because its elements were 

located in multiple locations, Task Force Aviation had “the biggest problem 

of getting its command and control worked out prior to the operation.” In 

the meantime, it also had to conduct a “very comprehensive training program 

to include FARP (Forward Area Rearming and Refueling Point), or refueling 

operations in the field.”33

Almost all of the task forces under JTF-South concentrated mainly on 

enemy targets in or near Panama City on the southern edge of the canal area. 

One exception was Task Force Atlantic, which had the mission of confronting 

Panamanian forces in an area extending from Cerro Tigre near Fort Clayton 

to the northern tip of the canal. As with Task Force Bayonet and Task 

Force Semper Fi, Task Force Atlantic had been activated as a JTF-Panama 

component at the beginning of Operation Nimrod Dancer. Headquartered at 

Fort Sherman, the task force commander since early October had been Col. 

Keith Kellogg, commander of the 7th Infantry Division’s 3d Brigade. In midDecember, the units under Kellogg included the 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, 

from Kellogg’s brigade; a field artillery battery; an air defense artillery battery; 

an infantry battalion from the 82d Airborne Division that was going through 

the Jungle Operations Training Center at Fort Sherman; and several smaller 

32 For the change of roles between the paratroopers and the light fighters, see Interv, author 

with Maj Harry Tomlin, U.S. Army, 22 Mar 1991, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Tomlin was a planner for the 7th Infantry Division (Light) who attended the post–3 October planning sessions at 

Fort Bragg and in Panama. See also Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 55; 

Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 74; Interv, author, Wright, and Joe D. Huddleston with Lt Gen 

Carmen Cavezza, U.S. Army, 30 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, Wash. 33 Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with 

G–3 Plans Section, XVIII Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Preparations and Adjustments

59

outfits that provided medical, engineering, maintenance, supply, military 

police, and psychological operations (PSYOP) capabilities. Responsible for 

90–2 operations in well over half of the canal area, Kellogg had a lengthy list 

of missions and targets, the latter of which included Colón, Panama’s second 

largest city; Fort Espinar, home base of the PDF’s 8th Infantry Company; 

Coco Solo; Renacer Prison; Madden Dam; and Cerro Tigre.34

Rounding out the subordinate headquarters under JTF-South was a group 

of specialized and functional commands: the 16th Military Police Brigade, 

the 1109th and 35th Signal Brigades, a joint intelligence task force, a joint 

psychological operations group, and a joint civil affairs task force. The military 

police brigade was to deploy from Fort Bragg with one of its battalions. 

Once engaged in Operation Just Cause, it would assume responsibility for 

collecting and handling prisoners and detainees; provide security for convoys 

and key facilities; and stand ready to support civil-military operations by 

helping to reestablish law and order in Panama. Of the signal brigades, the 

1109th would install, operate, and maintain JTF-South’s communications 

network, while the 35th would provide personnel and equipment in support 

of the JTF-South communications plan. The Panama-based 470th Military 

Intelligence Brigade had the mission of processing incoming information and 

supplying the product to JTF-South and its components. An officer from 

the 4th Psychological Operations Group commanded JTF-South’s PSYOP 

component with the mission of supporting U.S. combat operations in the canal 

area down to the company level through the use of such assets as loudspeaker 

teams and prerecorded broadcasts. Finally, the commander of the 96th Civil 

Affairs Battalion, the only active duty civil affairs unit in the U.S. Army, would 

run the task force whose mission contained such priorities as conducting civilmilitary operations during the combat phase of Just Cause and supporting 

“the restoration of law and order, the reestablishment of PANAMANIAN 

civil infrastructure, and the restoration of civil works and public utilities.”35

JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2 had, as Powell noted on reading a draft, 

“a lot of moving parts.” It was far too complicated and complex for either 

Thurman or Stiner to micromanage its execution. Thus, SOUTHCOM and 

corps planners, having incorporated the appropriate rules of engagement, 

gave the subordinate commanders “mission-type taskings” in the form of very 

general printed and verbal guidance. For example, Operation Plan 90–2 might 

simply state a task force’s mission as “neutralize PDF in area of operations” 

or “seize and secure PDF site.” Stiner or the planners might then provide 

some verbal elaboration on what neutralize, seize, and secure meant to them. 

After that, subordinate commanders assumed responsibility for working out 

the details of how to accomplish their missions, determining in the process 

the composition and organization of the available force, the equipment and 

weapons to be used, the routes to be taken, the tactics to be employed, and 

so forth. Once these determinations were made, the lower echelon officers 

would brief their plans back up the chain of command. Approval at higher 

34 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. For an account of Task Force Atlantic’s role in 

the pre–Just Cause portion of the crisis, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 

1987–December 1986, chs. 6–9 passim. 35 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

60

levels, even if it came from Thurman or Stiner, did not mean that work on a 

plan stopped; new intelligence, changing circumstances, and ongoing analysis 

would necessitate revisions, often up to the last minute.36

The size and nature of the projected operations necessitated a 

communications system that units from all services could use, that provided 

redundancy, and that allowed any one commander to talk to another at 

any time. The most recent U.S. contingency operation of any significance 

involving the invasion of a foreign country had been Operation Urgent Fury

in Grenada in October 1983. Initially hailed as a near-flawless victory of 

American armed forces, accounts of the venture gradually emerged disputing 

that judgment—not the victory, of course, but the ease with which it had 

been achieved. The joint operation, it turned out, had been plagued from the 

outset by command and control problems, interservice rivalry, single-service 

parochialism, and interoperability difficulties. Most of all, there had been 

abysmal failures in joint communications, with a story making the rounds—

later regarded as apocryphal—that an officer from one service had needed 

to use his own AT&T phone card and a commercial telephone on the island 

to call in fire support from another service. The problems that had afflicted 

joint forces on Grenada played a large part in the passage by Congress of the 

Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act in 1986, the 

main purpose of which was to streamline the military’s command, control, and 

communications arrangements in the joint arena and to promote interservice 

cooperation, coordination, and interoperability.37

Senior and mid-level U.S. commanders and staff involved in the Panama 

crisis were well aware of the lessons of Urgent Fury, an operation that had 

been planned in less than a week.38 They also knew that what transpired in 

Panama would be evaluated in terms of the emphasis Goldwater-Nichols 

placed on joint operations and interservice cooperation. Communications 

would come under special scrutiny, so the XVIII Airborne Corps, once it 

formally became part of the Blue Spoon planning process, began developing 

joint communications-electronic operating instructions, looking to improve 

36 Powell quoted words from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 79, and 

see also p. 80. Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Taskings quote from 

Interv, Wright with G–3 Plans Section, XVIII Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990. In this last oral history 

interview, one of the staff officers said that JTF-South’s reliance on “mission-type taskings” 

was in contrast to JTF-Panama, whose versions of Blue Spoon, in his opinion, had been highly 

detailed in the orders given the various subordinate commanders. 37 Three excellent sources on Grenada and the lessons learned in that operation are Mark 

Adkin, Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1989); Ronald H. 

Cole, Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Office of the 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997); and Edgar F. Raines Jr., The Rucksack War: U.S. 

Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2010). While the Raines volume focuses on logistics, it also contains an excellent analysis of the planning process and preparations for Urgent Fury. 38 The XVIII Airborne Corps planners who wrote OPLAN 90–2 for Panama discussed the 

impact the lessons of Urgent Fury had on them in Interv, Wright with G–3 Plans Section, 

XVIII Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990. The head of JTF-Panama’s planning division, Lt. Col. Robert 

Pantier, also told the author that, in working on Blue Spoon, he read official accounts of the 

intervention in Grenada.
Preparations and Adjustments

61

on those the corps had used earlier in the year for a joint training exercise. 

It took the XVIII Airborne Corps’ signal staff 21⁄2 weeks to finish the 

instructions (an amount of time, they noted, that might not be available in 

future contingencies). The final document, simplified to “stick in your pocket,” 

as General Stiner put it, “provided the common information necessary for 

the efficient use of all radio nets used throughout the operation.” As such, 

the instructions became a critical piece in an elaborate communications plan 

that involved equipment and support from several organizations, ranging 

from the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Communications Agency, and the National 

Security Agency at the top, downward to the communications units of the 

Southern Command; the XVIII Airborne Corps; U.S. Army, South; and the 

participating military services in general. The methods of communication 

included tactical satellites, very high frequency–frequency modulated (VHF–

FM) and high-frequency (HF) radios, the World Wide Military Command 

and Control System, secure phone systems, and the automated digital network 

(AUTODIN) data communications service. JTF-South, according to the plan, 

would make use of the Panama-based 1109th Signal Brigade’s in-country 

communications facilities to the “maximum extent possible.”39

The size and complexity of the impending contingency operation 

also demanded a comprehensive plan for ensuring that the participating 

troops, headquarters, and units received essential supplies in a timely way. 

SOUTHCOM’s service components, especially U.S. Army, South, had various 

resources already in the theater, and these, the operations plan emphasized, 

would “be used to the maximum extent.” Units deploying to Panama would 

also bring with them enough food—mainly meals, ready to eat—for three days; 

enough petroleum-oil-lubricants packages for five days; and their basic loads 

of ammunition, minus fragmentation, incendiary, and concussion grenades. 

Each service component headquarters under JTF-South was responsible for 

logistical support, primarily through its own service supply channels. As for the 

Army Forces (ARFOR), which constituted the overwhelming majority of U.S. 

units under 90–2, the XVIII Airborne Corps’ 1st Corps Support Command 

would meet the component’s combat service support and medical needs 

(especially those exceeding what USARSO could provide). In performing 

this critical mission, the support command became the executive agent for 

most of the combat service support in the theater, serving under the JTFSouth commander who, also dual-hatted as the ARFOR commander, would 

“exercise directive logistics authority to preclude unnecessary duplication 

among supporting forces.”40

Because the objectives of Operation Just Cause included the removal of 

the Noriega regime, JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2 was treated as a fourphase campaign plan. Phase I was labeled “predeployment/crisis action” and 

covered the establishment of the JTF-South command and control element, 

39 Stiner’s pocket quote and the communications facilities usage quote from Interv, Wright 

with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Interv, Wright with G–3 Plans Section, XVIII Abn 

Corps, 30 Mar 1990. Stiner’s common information quote from JTF-South AAR, Encls 1, 6; 

CINCSO OPORD 1–90, 30 Oct 1989, an. K; JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989, an. K. 40 Quotes from JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989, an. D. Briefing, 1st COSCOM, 22 

Feb 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

62

as well as preparation of American forces in Panama and the United States 

to launch offensive and defensive operations against the Panama Defense 

Forces and the regime it served. Phase II consisted of those operations, with 

the objectives of protecting American lives and property, capturing Noriega, 

and isolating or neutralizing enemy forces and their means of command and 

control. Phase III involved the transition to stability force operations that 

would feature civil-military activities and the restructuring of the Panamanian 

armed forces. Finally, combat units from the United States would redeploy 

during Phase IV.41

Going into Tuesday, 19 December, several Phase I objectives had been 

accomplished, such as the arrival in Panama of General Stiner, General 

Downing, and the JTF-South staff officers. Other parts of Phase I were still 

in progress, such as the loading aboard transport aircraft of the U.S.-based 

troops and equipment. The transition to Phase II also seemed to be proceeding 

on schedule. No one, though, expected this promising beginning to continue 

without disruption. As Stiner had cautioned at the end of one meeting in 

late October, “It won’t go exactly as planned.” As H-hour approached, his 

observation—taken as axiomatic within the military profession—would be 

borne out.42

Tuesday, 19 December

In Washington and in Panama, Tuesday was another day of meetings, 

decisions, and last-minute tweaking of the operation plan. At Fort Clayton, 

additional staff arrived, including twelve individuals from the Twelfth Air 

Force, to fill out the ranks of JTF-South, while the limited space available in the 

USARSO operations center continued to be transformed into a headquarters 

for a corps-size command and control element. Around noon, JTF-South 

issued a detailed Just Cause execution checklist for the subordinate commands, 

containing the objectives of the operation and delegating responsibilities for 

achieving them.43

In Washington, Powell tried to keep appointments he had scheduled before 

the president’s decision on Sunday in order to maintain the semblance of a 

routine working day. Then, at 1400, he and Cheney met with Bush to see if the 

president had any last-minute decisions, questions, or doubts concerning the 

invasion. Bush approved use of the F–117A fighters, and he indicated he would 

explain his decision to use armed force in Panama to the press, Congress, and 

the American public on Wednesday morning. He further stated that he would 

not postpone or cancel the invasion should the Panamanian opposition leaders 

who had claimed victory in the May presidential election balk when informed 

of the role Washington had in mind for them to play in replacing the current 

regime. At some point, apparently in this session with the secretary of defense 

41 JTF-South AAR.

42 Stiner’s remark is quoted in Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 89. 43 Interv, author with McMahon, 21 Dec 1989.
Preparations and Adjustments

63

and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the president also approved calling out 

the Defense Department’s National Media Pool and sending it to Panama.44

At 1700, Powell assembled the Joint Chiefs in his office. When Cheney 

dropped in, Marine Commandant General Alfred M. Gray Jr. reassured the 

secretary that, no matter how negative or confused the initial reports of the 

fighting that night might appear, the operation would be a success. Cheney 

was pleased to see the chiefs still involved, though they had no authority to 

command any of the units taking part in the operation. Powell, according to 

reporter Bob Woodward, was simply pleased that they “had finally stopped 

messing with the plan.” Once the group broke up, Powell successively instructed 

his staff to keep Cheney updated, learned to his dismay that some reporters in 

the news media were speculating about impending U.S. military action, called 

Thurman to wish him good luck, and went home for dinner. When he returned 

to the Pentagon, he took a nap and then joined Cheney and Kelly in the Crisis 

Situation Room at 2352, an hour before Operation Just Cause was scheduled 

to begin. Two phone lines in the room connected the three men with General 

Thurman and his staff.45

In Panama, about the time Tuesday afternoon Powell and Cheney were 

wrapping up their meeting with the president, Stiner was in the conference 

room of Building 95 at Fort Clayton conducting an update briefing for 

key staff officers and his subordinate commanders. To those assembled, 

he distributed copies of the execute order and the final version of the 

joint execution checklist. He also told the commanders that at 1800 they 

could begin informing those officers under them who had not yet been 

told about the operation, and at 2100 the troops could be informed and 

briefed. Stiner was still talking when Thurman entered the room. The 

44 The Department of Defense (DoD) media call out did not begin until Tuesday evening at 

1930, which all but ensured that the pool would not arrive in time to cover the initial fighting. 

Reporters were irate, arguing that the call out should have begun sooner and that the Pentagon 

should have alerted American reporters who were already in Panama. In January 1990, Pete 

Williams, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, asked his assistant Fred S. Hoffman 

to “research the facts surrounding the DoD National Media Pool deployment to Panama in 

conjunction with Operation Just Cause and to provide his findings and recommendations.” 

In March, those findings and recommendations were distributed to various correspondents. 

In the document, Hoffman attributed the failure to call out the Defense Department’s media 

pool earlier to an “excessive concern for secrecy” and “a secrecy-driven decision” by Cheney. 

Hoffman was also critical of Williams for not trying “to convince Cheney that the pool had to 

be launched early enough to reach Panama before the operation kicked off.” In the report itself, 

Cheney did not back away from his decision. Hoffman would later indicate that Powell shared 

Cheney’s view. Thurman apparently did not, as he is quoted by Hoffman as indicating that “we 

made a mistake by not having some of the press pool in with the 18th Airborne Corps so they 

could move with the troops.” Stiner is cited as saying such an arrangement would have been 

possible. Fred S. Hoffman, Review of Panama Pool Deployment: December 1989, Mar 1990. A 

later assessment of the report can be found in Cheryl Arvidson, “Press advocates: Cheney kept 

a tight rein on media during military conflicts,” Freedom Forum Online, http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=3869. For a succinct overview of the news media’s problems during the Panama invasion, see Pascale M. Combelles, “Operation Just Cause: 

A Military-Media Fiasco,” Military Review 75 (May-June 1995): 77–85. 45 Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 32–33. Quote from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 180, 

and see also pp. 179, 181.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

64

SOUTHCOM commander advised the group to stick to the plan but know 

when to adjust; he also revealed to many of them for the first time that 

one H-hour objective, highly classified to that point, would be the rescue 

of an American citizen who, since April, had been held prisoner in the 

Carcel Modelo, a PDF jail across the street from the Comandancia.46 After 

the briefing, the commanders headed to their respective headquarters. 

Thurman would monitor developments from the complex of rooms called 

the Tunnel at Quarry Heights, while Stiner planned to arrive at the JTFSouth operations center at Fort Clayton a couple of hours before the 

fighting began.

As the SOUTHCOM and JTF-South operations centers gradually filled 

with the officers who would monitor and direct the invasion, the units taking 

part were being briefed for the first time on what they would be facing. 

Meanwhile, transport aircraft in the United States were set to take off with 

troops or equipment aboard. At 1816, C–130s carrying a ranger battalion 

from Fort Lewis, Washington, lifted off from Lawson Army Airfield, Georgia; 

an hour later, a second ranger battalion, also on C–130s, took off from Hunter 

Army Airfield, Georgia. And an hour or so after that, the last of the C–141s 

carrying heavy-drop cargo took off from Charleston Air Force Base. In all, the 

Military Airlift Command contributed over 60 C–141s, over 20 C–130s, and 2 

C–5s to the airlift needed for the commencement of Operation Just Cause.

47

It was during the airlift that the inevitable fog (both literally and 

figuratively in this case) and friction of war began to insinuate themselves 

significantly into the transition from Phase I to Phase II of the operation plan. 

At Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, the worst ice storm in twenty years 

moved through on the nineteenth. Two battalions from the 82d Airborne 

Division’s Division Ready Brigade had to wait while their transports were 

being deiced. An hour after the scheduled departure time, only ten of the 

twenty C–141s carrying the paratroopers were able to get into the air. The 

remaining ten would not take off for another 41⁄2 hours. After consulting with 

General Johnson, the division commander, Stiner determined that the first 

wave would not wait for the second to catch up before parachuting into the 

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex in Panama City. Stiner wanted to keep “as 

closely as possible to the original timetable.” As the JTF-South operations 

officer, Col. Thomas H. Needham, later explained, “We had a very detailed 

execution checklist. Once you start adjusting times, your execution checklist 

falls out, and so, I think, that it was pretty much the staff’s position and the 

boss’s position—let’s stick with the plan.”48

If nature conspired to disrupt timetables, last-minute but not wholly 

unanticipated lapses in operations security endangered the element of tactical 

surprise U.S. forces hoped to achieve. In the United States, NBC reported on 

its television newscast Tuesday evening that C–141 transports were landing 

at Howard Air Force Base in Panama every ten minutes. On CBS, newscaster 

46 Interv, author with McMahon, 21 Dec 1989; JTF-South AAR.

47 Operation Just Cause Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of 

events]; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 33; MAC, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, p. 195. 48 Stiner quote from Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 33. Needham quote from Interv, Wright 

with Col Thomas H. Needham, U.S. Army, 6 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Preparations and Adjustments

65

Dan Rather balanced speculation that a U.S. invasion of Panama might be 

imminent with references to the Pentagon’s cover story that the troop activity 

at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base was a readiness exercise. The New 

York Times, sources indicated, also had the invasion story, but it would not 

appear until the paper’s Wednesday morning edition, well after Just Cause was 

under way. In Panama City, there was a palpable feeling of unease, a strong 

sense that something was about to happen. While Stiner was conducting his 

commanders’ briefing at Fort Clayton, a telephone call came into the USARSO 

command group. The caller had helped organize a block party for American 

students who, attending college in the United States, were back in Panama 

on Christmas vacation to visit their families and friends. The man had heard 

rumors of military activity and wondered whether or not he should cancel the 

celebration. Operations security dictated the reply he received from the Army 

major who answered the phone: there was no need to call off the festivities. The 

party was held as scheduled, with what turned out to be tragic consequences.49

Around 1700, the U.S. intelligence community began to pick up the first 

hints that some senior PDF officers knew military action against them was 

imminent, although they clearly did not know what form it would take, with 

one of Noriega’s confidants guessing there would be a snatch operation 

to seize the Panama strongman. As the evening progressed, H-hour, too, 

appeared to have been compromised. The text of one message emanating 

from the Comandancia declared: “They’re coming. The ballgame is at 

1AM. Report to your units . . . draw your weapons and prepare to fight.” 

The breaches of security troubled Thurman and Stiner, but they found 

no reason to panic. They had yet to receive any reports suggesting that 

Panamanian forces were formulating a systematic and coordinated response 

to what was about to happen. In Stiner’s opinion, enemy leaders were too 

incompetent to present an effective defense on such short notice. Besides 

that, “They didn’t know all the targets,” the general later commented, “or 

what our tactics were.”50

Still, the fact that several PDF officers knew as much as they did had to 

be taken seriously. For U.S. forces to lose the element of surprise opened 

up all sorts of dire scenarios that had haunted Blue Spoon planners for 

nearly two years. Panamanian forces had hostage lists, Thurman and Stiner 

knew, and might use the remaining time before H-hour to start rounding 

49 Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 33–34; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 180; Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 102–03. The author was present when the major at 

Fort Clayton took the call regarding the Christmas party. See also Maria Len-Rios, “Operation 

Just Cause: An Eyewitness Account,” Focal Point (Winter 1990): 10–11, 25–27, for more on the 

Christmas party. 50 First quote from Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 34. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 

181. Second quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. In this interview, Stiner attributed at least part of the compromise of operations security to the speculation 

on television newscasts in the United States. “The Panamanians watch television,” he noted. 

“Many of the Panamanian officers that were captured said they saw [the U.S. news broadcasts] 

and called each other on the telephone and discussed in great detail what they should do. I don’t 

know to what extent this influenced their motivation, but it is obvious that some took action to 

alert their troops.” 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

66

up Americans on those lists. Meanwhile, other enemy personnel—and it 

would not require a large number—might place themselves in advantageous 

locations from which they could use shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles 

known to be in the PDF inventory to shoot down transport planes carrying 

U.S. Rangers and paratroopers. The number of service personnel who 

would die in the loss of even one troop carrier would forever tarnish the 

all-but-inevitable American victory. Yet, throughout the planning process, 

no participant had been able to devise an effective countermeasure to the 

missile threat, save strategic and tactical surprise, which was now at risk. 

There was also the possibility that, with prior warning, hostile forces would 

bring Howard Air Force Base under indirect mortar fire before American 

countermortar radar and other systems could locate and neutralize the 

weapons. If the mortar rounds were accurate, the runway at Howard would 

become unusable to U.S. transport planes. Another alarming prospect 

concerned guerrilla warfare. If Noriega and enough PDF members did 

manage a coordinated reaction to the advance warnings they had received, 

they might simply head into the jungle to mount unconventional operations 

against U.S. forces and any new Panamanian government. U.S. intelligence 

collectors had uncovered plans for this course of action but believed it 

unlikely given what was perceived as the low level of professionalism and 

the dubious loyalty, dedication, and stamina of the PDF senior leadership. 

As Colonel Needham remarked of dictators in general, “You get used to 

the good life for so long that you’ve got to be pretty tough to go out into 

the jungle and survive.” He clearly did not regard Noriega or his inner 

military circle as being that tough.51

As the time for initiating combat operations neared, Stiner considered 

whether H-hour should be advanced, at least for U.S. troops based in 

Panama, given that some enemy forces knew that hostilities were imminent 

and “the message traffic . . . indicated that they were making preparations 

at certain installations.” At first, he thought about moving H-hour up by 

thirty minutes, but after talking with Downing, the JSOTF commander, he 

concluded that the most he could request was a fifteen-minute change. The 

critical factor influencing his thinking was the need to coordinate Task Force 

Gator’s attack on the PDF’s main headquarters complex, the Comandancia, 

with the assault of a special operations commando team to rescue the 

American citizen jailed across the street in the Carcel Modelo. One problem 

was that, before Task Force Gator could move to the Comandancia, located 

on the east side of the canal, it had to receive the four M551 Sheridans that 

had been secreted on the west side for the past month. For that to happen, a 

swing bridge in front of Fort Clayton had to be rotated into position over the 

canal to allow vehicular traffic, which also meant stopping ships transiting 

the waterway. JTF-South did not want to open the bridge until the last 

southbound commercial vessel had cleared the canal’s Pacific outlet. By the 

time that occurred, the earliest the Sheridans would be able to cross to the 

east side would be around 0030. Informed of this, Stiner, from his command post 

51 Intervs, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, and G–3 Plans Section, XVIII 

Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990. Quote from Interv, Wright with Needham, 6 Mar 1990.
Preparations and Adjustments

67

at Clayton, telephoned Thurman at Quarry Heights and asked that H-hour 

be changed to 0045. Thurman approved the request, informed the Pentagon 

of his decision, and, shortly after midnight, issued the order to Downing to 

begin the attack on the Comandancia and Carcel Modelo fifteen minutes 

earlier than planned.52

Downing had already sent a message to his forces letting them know that the 

enemy was aware of the impending attack and warning all special operations 

elements to be prepared to fight their way to their objectives. Around 0030, 

the U.S. military in Panama went to Defcon 1, the highest defense readiness 

condition. Thurman also implemented Personnel Movement Limitation Echo, 

which meant that, with the exception of the forces involved in the operation, 

all service personnel and their dependents were not to travel anywhere in 

Panama. (The need for such restrictive movement would soon be obvious to 

all.) By this time, a number of U.S. units were already on the move to their 

targets and sporadic shooting could be heard in the southeastern portions of 

Panama City. In effect, Operation Just Cause had begun.53

52 Quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Interv, author 

with Maj Mark Collier, U.S. Army, 24 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; Woodward, The 

Commanders, pp. 181–82; Capt. Kevin J. Hammond and Capt. Frank Sherman, “Sheridans in 

Panama,” Armor 99 (March-April 1990): 9. 53 Memo, HQ, 4th Bn (Mech), 6th Inf, for Commanding General (CG), U.S. Army Forces, 

et al., 27 Mar 1990, sub: Operation “Just Cause” After Action Report; Significant Activities, 

n.d. [from G–3 logs]; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 183. 

3

Special Operations at the Outset of 

Just Cause

Of the 27,000 U.S. military personnel who had specific combat missions during Operation Just Cause, just over 4,100—or 15 percent—were 

under the operational control of General Downing’s Joint Special Operations 

Task Force. Most of the units to which these troops belonged had been listed 

in the first Blue Spoon contingency plans written in 1988. At that time, 

planners had envisaged Special Operations Forces conducting surgical strikes 

on a limited number of critical PDF command and control nodes, securing 

those objectives in a matter of hours, and then quickly turning them over 

to conventional U.S. units. In the ensuing year and a half, particularly after 

the Nimrod Dancer buildup of U.S. conventional forces in Panama in mid1989, the four-star change of command at Quarry Heights that September, 

and Major Giroldi’s attempted coup against Noriega just days later, the plans 

changed significantly, with new targets being added and with conventional 

units acquiring responsibility for some of the H-hour missions originally 

assigned to the JSOTF. The targeting shuffle, though, in no way altered the 

central role of special operators in the event of an invasion; when they lost a 

mission to conventional troops, it was only to take on another. 

As H-hour approached, these missions included locating and apprehending 

Noriega, preventing him from leaving the country to evade capture, closing off 

the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Panama Canal, neutralizing enemy 

units at Rio Hato, seizing Panama’s Torrijos-Tocumen airfield complex, 

rescuing an American citizen the regime had imprisoned in April 1989, helping 

to isolate the battlefield in downtown Panama City, and, when necessary, 

providing support to conventional forces. 

To accomplish these missions, Downing’s joint task force was organized 

into several subordinate task forces, some of which were further subdivided into 

specific task units. Task Force Red, consisting of the 75th Ranger Regiment, 

was the largest special operations element by far. Its mission was to seize 

and secure the Torrijos-Tocumen airfield facilities, while subduing the PDF 

2d Infantry Company located there, and to neutralize the PDF 6th and 7th 

Infantry Companies at Rio Hato. A considerably smaller element, Task Force 

Black, consisted of the 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 

based in Panama, and Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

70

from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of its H-hour missions was to prevent 

the PDF’s Battalion 2000 at Fort Cimarrón from reinforcing enemy units in 

the capital. Navy SEALs, Naval Special Warfare Unit 8, and Special Boat 

Unit 26 formed Task Force White, responsible for closing off the canal and 

disabling naval vessels or aircraft that could whisk Noriega out of the country. 

Two other task forces, Blue and Green, were composed of elite special mission 

units that would seek to capture Noriega. Task Force Green had the additional 

assignment of rescuing the incarcerated American citizen. Finally, belonging to 

no one task force but present to support special operations in general were the 

112th Signal Battalion (minus), the 160th Aviation Group (minus), the 528th 

Support Battalion (minus), the 617th Aviation Detachment, and psychological 

operations and civil affairs units.1 

Regime Change

From the beginning of contingency planning in February 1988, 

commanders and staff involved in the process recognized that a U.S. invasion 

of Panama would result in the overthrow of the Noriega regime.2 Whether 

the strongman fled or was captured or killed in the process mattered little; 

thus, although compartmentalized plans existed for seizing and bringing him 

to the United States to stand trial on drug-trafficking charges, early iterations 

of Blue Spoon did not make his apprehension a specific mission. Instead, 

military planners focused not on the general’s fate but on what would follow 

him in Panama. The working assumption envisaged a democratic government 

replacing the toppled dictatorship. Estimates held that a month would be 

needed for the new regime to be installed, establish its legitimacy, and assert 

its ability to govern. During the transition, a U.S. military government headed 

by the SOUTHCOM commander would run the country. For well over a year, 

this scenario informed the thinking of staff officers writing the Blind Logic

operation order for nation building in a post-Noriega Panama.3

By late 1989, the basic premise underlying Blind Logic had been 

overtaken by events. Of these, the most important was the country’s 

presidential election in May 1989, in which Guillermo Endara, the opposition 

candidate for president, and Ricardo Arias Calderón and Guillermo “Billy” 

1 The missions and organization of the Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) are discussed in U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, 20th anniversary ed. (MacDill 

Air Force Base, Fla.: U.S. Special Operations Command, n.d.), pp. 32–44. A JSOTF order of 

battle can be found at the U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site on Operation Just

Cause (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/panama/taskorg.htm) and in Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 81–82. 2 For a more detailed account of the planning process for stability operations and nation 

building in Panama, see the appropriate sections in Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, 

June 1987–December 1989; Fishel, The Fog of Peace. 3 Early plans were also vague about the fate of the Panama Defense Forces. If reformed, 

some U.S. officers believed, the organization might support a democratic government. Only 

well into the planning process did the defeat and destruction of the Panamanian armed forces 

become an objective of U.S. combat operations.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

71

Ford, his two vice presidential running mates, won a clear victory, and which 

Noriega had promptly annulled. To a number of U.S. officers surveying the 

postelection chaos from the perspective of Quarry Heights, the logical step 

to take in the event of a U.S. invasion would be to forgo the establishment 

of a SOUTHCOM-led military government and, instead, swear in the men 

who had a legal, legitimate, and popular claim to enter the presidential palace. 

Woerner accepted this argument. He also concluded sometime in mid-1989 

that the capture of Noriega should be an explicitly stated Blue Spoon mission. 

Left at large following the overthrow of his regime, the deposed dictator 

might foment an insurgency against a U.S.-backed democratic government, 

although few analysts at the Southern Command thought that likely. A more 

credible threat was that of Noriega creating political mischief for the Endara 

administration from some hidden location in Panama or from exile abroad.4 

This appreciably revised blueprint for what the U.S. military could hope to 

accomplish politically in Panama through armed force survived the change of 

command from Woerner to Thurman. Soon thereafter, once the failed coup of 

3 October caused the new SOUTHCOM commander to believe that war with 

the Panama Defense Forces was inevitable, the “Noriega watch” went into 

effect at Quarry Heights, with “a six-person intelligence team, supplemented 

by experts from the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence 

Agency in Washington” working to keep track of the dictator’s whereabouts 

around-the-clock. At some point, Thurman requested special operations 

tracking teams to participate in the effort. General Cisneros spoke later of 

“the room,” a clearinghouse for information on the dictator’s movements. The 

data came from satellite imagery, monitored communications, and surveillance 

teams. A map in the SOUTHCOM operations center provided a visual record 

of the group’s calculation of Noriega’s whereabouts at any given moment.5

That those keeping tabs on Noriega knew where he was located about 80 

percent of the time—Stiner’s estimate—testifies to the magnitude and intensity 

of the endeavor and the skill of all involved. That the dictator could not be 

found the other 20 percent reflected the uncertainties that infuse any complex 

enterprise, made more challenging by Noriega’s deliberate attempts to elude 

his trackers and by his consummate skill at deception. Once he learned that 

there was a concerted U.S. effort to follow him, he used doubles, decoy vehicles 

and aircraft, false convoys, frequent changes of clothes, recordings of his 

voice, and other subterfuges to thwart anyone trying to determine his location 

at those times when he did not want it known. He would also frequently 

change his whereabouts in an effort to keep his adversaries guessing or simply 

4 Kevin Buckley, Panama: The Whole Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 189. 

For adding the capture of Noriega as a Blue Spoon mission, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention 

in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, p. 222. 5 Briefing, Gen Maxwell R. Thurman at the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) 

(hereafter cited as Thurman SAMS briefing), 23 Sep 1992. First and second quotes from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 104, and see also p. 105. Kempe, Divorcing 

the Dictator, p. 14; Edward M. Flanagan Jr., Battle for Panama: Inside Operation Just Cause 

(New York: Brassey’s, 1993), p. 214. Third quote from Interv with Lt Gen Marc A. Cisneros, 

U.S. Army (Ret.), 1998 (for the television program, Secrets of War). 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

72

to overload the system with information. As President Bush was told at one 

point, the general was “moving around like a Mexican jumping bean.”6

On Tuesday, 19 December, just hours before the beginning of Operation 

Just Cause, the Noriega watch map accurately showed him to be in Colón. 

Since Sunday, as analysts would later determine, the general had been receiving 

reports that an invasion was imminent, but he had dismissed them as baseless. 

Then, while in Colón Tuesday, he learned that Cuba’s intelligence service was 

reporting U.S. troop transports in the air, due to arrive over Panama in a matter 

of hours. According to some members of Noriega’s entourage, this information 

caused him to leave Colón for Panama City late that afternoon. While a decoy 

convoy of official vehicles wound its way across the transisthmian highway, 

Noriega, his driver, assistants, and bodyguards covered the same route in an 

inconspicuous white van. 

Special operations personnel tracking the general followed the convoy, 

whose route ended at the Comandancia. When a poor choice for a Noriega 

look-alike emerged from one of the cars, even a staged honor guard ceremony 

could not maintain a convincing charade. The trackers knew that their prey 

had won the cat-and-mouse game. “Where was the real one?” General Stiner 

later asked rhetorically. “We didn’t know.” The real one, in fact, arrived back 

in the capital around 2000, after which he and his companions borrowed a 

Hyundai automobile and went to one of the several small houses he maintained 

in the city for official use. From there, he made telephone calls to close friends, 

all of whom told him that the situation looked dire. To the astonishment 

of the men with him, the general still failed to realize the full extent of his 

precarious position. The United States, he claimed, was simply engaging in a 

disinformation campaign to convince him to flee the country. That Noriega 

was allegedly drinking at the time possibly clouded his judgment. Whatever 

the case, no one ordered the mobilization of the Panama Defense Forces and 

Dignity Battalions for the war that was fast approaching. In the words of one 

author, “PDF units shifted around in a disorganized way. Action seemed to 

depend on how seriously individual units took the rumors.” As for the dictator, 

he “decided that entertainment was what he needed.” 

A sergeant on his staff was ordered to pick up one of Noriega’s occasional 

girlfriends and bring her to La Siesta, a hotel near the [Tocumen] airport that 

had been converted into a PDF officers’ club. It was another of Noriega’s 

haunts. Noriega climbed into the back of a four-door Hyundai for the trip to 

the club. A Mercedes and a Toyota Land Cruiser filled out the caravan. 

Noriega was still at the Ceremi Recreation Center inside La Siesta when, 

around 0030, he heard explosions. Half an hour later, one of his bodyguards 

went outside and discovered “a sky full of paratroopers.” That shock prompted 

the general to dress and flee with his men in the Hyundai. After evading U.S. 

6 Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 333; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 105. Quote from Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, p. 11, and see also p. 

14. Before the “Noriega watch” went into effect, according to Stiner, U.S. officials only knew 

where the dictator could be located about 50 percent of the time. Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. 

with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. 
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

73

Rangers at Tocumen, they drove around the capital during the predawn hours, 

taking refuge in the houses or apartments of friends at four different locations. 

From each, Noriega would make telephone calls to military officers, friends, 

and girlfriends, seeking information and giving and receiving advice. He learned 

that his daughter and her family had sought political asylum and that, within 

hours of the invasion, the Panama Defense Forces as an organization had 

practically ceased to exist. Some associates urged him to resist the Americans, 

with Capt. Asunción Eliécer Gaitán, a close confidant and security escort, 

convincing the general to record a belligerent speech over the telephone that 

Gaitán could later broadcast on a radio station still under PDF control. Dawn 

found Noriega in an apartment, hoping that U.S. troops in the vicinity would 

not see him. Now a fugitive, he had devised no specific plan to ensure his 

escape.7 

For the U.S. commands in Panama and for the Bush administration in 

Washington, the news that Noriega had not been captured before or soon 

after H-hour sounded a sour note in what otherwise was playing out as a 

well-orchestrated military operation. Throughout the night, the U.S. forces 

charged with capturing the Panamanian strongman intensified their efforts, 

and analysts intercepted several of the dictator’s phone conversations without, 

however, being able to determine his exact location. Noriega’s known haunts 

were all targeted, but he was not in any of them. In a couple of instances, 

accurate information led the troops to residences where Noriega had taken 

refuge, but, when they arrived, they found he had already departed, if only by 

a few minutes. Also, during the night, one of Noriega’s bodyguards told the 

general that he was going to go on ahead of the group to scout new hideouts. 

Instead, he surrendered to a group of U.S. soldiers and tried to tell them where 

his boss was located, only to discover that none in the group spoke Spanish. 

By the time the bodyguard was brought to General Cisneros’ attention, the 

information was too old to be of value. As Thurman concluded later, “We had 

400 calls the first day on the whereabouts of Noriega. We chased him all over 

Hell’s half acre.”8

The failure to apprehend Noriega produced significant friction, in 

one instance between the special operations community and U.S. civilian 

intelligence agencies, and in another, between the Bush administration and the 

news media. In the first case, both General Lindsay at the Special Operations 

Command and General Downing believed that information processed by 

the civilian agencies was not reaching the special operations units quickly 

7 Stiner’s quotes and his account of Noriega’s departure from Colón are from Clancy with 

Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 333–34. According to Stiner, Noriega had been in the 

official convoy leaving Colón, but the convoy had at some point split in two, with the special operators following the decoy section that went to the Comandancia. The fuller account 

of Noriega’s movements the night of the invasion is from Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 

13–16, and Buckley, Panama, pp. 234–38 (from which all other quotes are taken). The narratives by Kempe and Buckley were pieced together from information they received from the men 

around Noriega on the night of 19–20 December. Please note that in some sources Gaitán is 

spelled Gaytán. 8 Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 185–86; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 105, 107. Quote from Interv, John Partin with Gen Maxwell R. Thurman, 12 Apr 

1990, Fort Benning, Ga. Television Interv with Cisneros, 1998.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

74

enough to be useful. As Downing 

later lamented, “The intelligence 

people are not going to tell you 

what they got until the last minute,” 

presumably in order to protect their 

sources.9

Regarding the administration 

and the media, the first official 

announcement of Operation Just

Cause came at a White House press 

conference convened at 0140 on 20 

December by Bush’s press secretary, 

M. Marlin Fitzwater. Fitzwater 

read a statement listing the 

objectives of the invasion, including 

the apprehension of Noriega. When 

a reporter asked, “Has General 

Noriega been captured yet?” the 

press secretary replied, “We don’t 

know how long it will take, but 

that is our ultimate objective. It 

has not happened at this time.” The 

choice of the word ultimate was 

perhaps unnecessary, unfortunate, 

and unwise. U.S. forces could overthrow Panama’s dictatorship—in fact, at 

the time Fitzwater was speaking, they already had—and pave the way for 

democracy in Panama without apprehending Noriega. Fitzwater’s adjective, 

however slightly, hinted otherwise.10

At 0720, President Bush addressed the country from the Oval Office, 

stating his reasons for ordering the invasion. His only reference to the fallen 

dictator was to say, “General Noriega is in hiding.” Immediately after the 

address, Cheney and Powell conducted a briefing at the Pentagon. In his 

opening statement, the secretary of defense included the acknowledgment, 

“At this point, of course General Noriega is still at large. . . . He is, at this 

point, a fugitive.” Powell followed, devoting most of his presentation to the 

U.S. units participating in Just Cause, the targets they were attacking, and the 

success of the operation to date. When he turned his attention to Noriega, he 

asserted, “We have not yet located the General. . . . But, as a practical matter, 

we have decapitated him from the dictatorship of his country and he is now a 

fugitive and will be treated as such.” Once the formal briefing ended, the two 

men entertained questions, a number of which requested further information 

on Noriega’s status. In answering, Powell indicated that “the reign of terror is 

over,” and “We’re looking for him. He’s not running anything.”11 

9 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 106. Quote from Interv, Partin with 

Maj Gen Wayne A. Downing, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Howard Air Force Base, Panama. 10 Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 184–86. 11 First Powell quote from New York Times, 21 Dec 1989. Remaining Powell quotes from 

Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 187–89. See http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_

General Downing 
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

75

The point that Powell tried to make was that the military operation was 

achieving its principal objectives, even though Panama’s dictator was still at 

large.12 In the days that followed, many reporters took a different position, 

making Noriega’s capture the litmus test for the success or failure of Operation 

Just Cause. That this view betrayed a grossly oversimplified assessment of a 

complex undertaking seemed to matter little, especially when reinforced by 

such developments as the broadcast of Noriega’s bombastic speech—the one 

Gaitán had recorded—over a Panamanian radio station on the afternoon of 

20 December. So long as the dictator was on the loose, reporters continuously 

put administration spokespersons on the defensive when discussing events in 

Panama. 

If Noriega could not be readily located, the same could not be said of 

Panama’s new leaders. Advisers to President Bush had told him that the best 

way to transform Panama from a dictatorship to a democracy was to follow 

the SOUTHCOM recommendation for replacing the general with the true 

winners of the May 1989 presidential election—Endara, Arias Calderón, and 

Ford. On the eve of Just Cause, Bush was convinced, in the words of one 

reporter, “that the point of no return would be achieved once Endara agreed 

to be sworn in as president of Panama and to request U.S. intervention.” One 

question for senior U.S. officers and officials in Panama was when to convey 

this news to Endara and the two men who were to be his vice presidents. To 

papers.php?id=1356&year=1989&month=12 for a transcript of President Bush’s address to 

the nation. 12 Concerning the issue of the relative importance of Noriega’s apprehension to the success 

of Just Cause, the author was standing within earshot of General Stiner during the first hours 

of the operation and heard the general say into a telephone something to the effect, “No, we 

don’t have him yet, but we’ve got more important things to do.” Author’s notes written several 

days after the beginning of Operation Just Cause.

(Second from the left to right) Billy Ford, Guillermo Endara, and Ricardo Arias Calderón 

lead a May 1989 election march.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

76

inform them well in advance of the invasion might compromise operations 

security, which would place the three Panamanians, not to mention the entire 

military enterprise, in jeopardy. Better the three be told of the impending 

invasion just an hour or so before it began. The next question, then, was how 

to convey the news. Initial suggestions called for U.S. Army Special Forces 

to go into Panama City and round up the three men shortly before H-hour, 

but Col. Robert C. “Jake” Jacobelly, commander of Special Operations 

Command, South, objected to the risks and recommended instead that 

Thurman or John Bushnell, the U.S. Embassy’s relatively new deputy 

chief of mission and, in the ambassador’s absence, the chargé d’affaires in 

Panama, invite the three to dinner at Howard Air Force Base the night of the 

invasion. Stiner approved Jacobelly’s plan, and, on orders from Secretary of 

State Baker, Bushnell issued the invitation. Baker also told the chargé to help 

Endara form a Panamanian government that could be operational within 

hours of the invasion. In order “to maintain the element of surprise,” the 

secretary added, Bushnell was to undertake his assignment without telling 

any of his staff at the embassy.13

Endara, Arias Calderón, and Ford accepted the invitation. Around 2030, 

Bushnell, after pledging the three to secrecy, told them that a U.S. invasion was 

imminent and asked them to consider taking over the government of Panama, 

a move the United States would support. “They’re in a state of shock . . .,” 

Bushnell reported to Baker. “They never expected we’d do this much. They’ll 

do everything they can to make this work.” “I felt like a big sledgehammer 

hit my head,” Endara recalled. Although he and his two colleagues welcomed 

the proposition, they realized that they would be assuming the leadership of 

a country “under occupation by American forces.” The reaction throughout 

Latin America, they knew, would be negative—the Bush administration also 

anticipated an adverse regional response—but the feeling was that, after 

initial protests, most governments in the hemisphere would resume normal 

diplomatic relations with Panama, few being sorry to see Noriega deposed. 

For their safety, the three men were flown by helicopter from Howard to Fort 

Clayton, where they were sworn in. At 0039, Thurman informed Washington 

that the ceremony had been completed.14

In his address to the nation on the morning of 20 December, President 

Bush declared, “The brave Panamanians elected by the people of Panama 

in the elections last May, President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents 

Calderon and Ford, have assumed the rightful leadership of their country. . . . 

The United States today recognizes the democratically elected government of 

President Endara. I will send our Ambassador back to Panama immediately.” 

13 First quote from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 182, and see also p. 170. Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 122. Second quote from Baker with DeFrank, Politics 

of Diplomacy, p. 190. 14 Third and fourth quotes from Buckley, Panama, p. 234. First and second quotes (Bushnell) 

from Baker with DeFrank, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 190. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 182. 

General Stiner, in Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 333, states that the swearing-in ceremony took place in Thurman’s office at Quarry Heights, not at Fort Clayton, with 

a Panamanian judge administering the oaths of office. After the ceremony, the three men were 

then taken to a safe house on Clayton.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

77

During the Pentagon briefing that followed, one reporter asked whether 

Endara had been sworn in on an American base. Yes, Powell responded. Thus 

surfaced the controversy that would quickly surround the circumstances under 

which the new government had been installed, confirming in the process the 

fears of Endara and the others that, initially at least, they would be regarded 

as American “puppets.”15

Task Force White: The Canal, Balboa Harbor, 

and Paitilla Airport

As elite U.S. troops were trying to locate Noriega, additional special 

operations units were engaged in various other missions. Of the naval special 

warfare elements involved, most belonged to Task Force White, whose 

operations center was located at the Rodman Naval Station on the Pacific side 

of the canal area. According to a U.S. Special Operations Command history, 

Task Force White “consisted of five SEAL platoons, three patrol boats, four 

riverine patrol boats, and two light patrol boats (22-foot Boston Whalers).” 

This force, in turn, was organized into four task units, each with a separate 

mission. Task Unit Charlie was to control the waters at the Atlantic (also 

referred to as the Caribbean) entrance to the Panama Canal, while Task Unit 

Foxtrot was to do the same at the Pacific entrance. Task Unit Whiskey was to 

destroy the Presidente Porras patrol boat in Balboa Harbor, and Task Unit 

Papa was to seize Paitilla airfield.16

Task Unit Charlie was a last-minute addition to the task force. During 

a preinvasion briefing on 19 December, Lt. Cdr. Marshall D. Daugherty 

from Naval Special Warfare Unit 8 raised the possibility of “establishing 

a task unit on the north coast” at the canal’s entrance near Colón. The 

group with Daugherty deemed the suggestion feasible, and it was strongly 

supported by Task Force Atlantic, the JTF-South component headquarters 

in the area. Daugherty received command of the hastily created task unit, 

which initially consisted of eight SEALs detached from two different SEAL 

teams, and two riverine patrol boats manned by eleven crew members from 

Special Boat Unit 26, based at Rodman. The two patrol boats began to 

transit the canal northward toward Colón at 1700. Once Daugherty reached 

the Atlantic side, he met with Col. Keith Kellogg, the Task Force Atlantic 

commander; received from him operational control of two Army landing 

crafts, mechanized (LCMs), with twelve crew members; went over Task Unit 

Charlie’s missions in direct support of Task Force Atlantic; and coordinated 

communication frequencies and call signs. The lieutenant commander then 

set up his headquarters at the Jungle Operations Training Center, close to 

the piers where the LCMs and patrol boats could be moored. In the short 

time remaining before H-hour, he briefed his subordinate commanders on 

15 Bush quote from Transcript of President George H. W. Bush’s address, 20 Dec 1989. 

Powell response from New York Times, 21 Dec 1989. Buckley, Panama, p. 234. 16 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 38. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

78

the forthcoming action, including the rules of engagement under which they 

would be operating.17

At 0040, ten minutes after the two patrol boats and the two mechanized 

landing craft had begun movement to their combat positions, shooting could 

be heard at nearby Coco Solo. By 0050, the four craft were on station at the 

mouth of Limón Bay (Map 2). As part of its mission, Task Unit Charlie was 

to shut down all commercial and enemy maritime traffic in the vicinity. To that 

end, Daugherty ordered one of the patrol boat commanders to contact the 

port authority and broadcast over the marine band channel word that “the 

Port of Colon and the Panama Canal are closed. This area has been declared 

a war zone and all maritime traffic in and out of this area is prohibited.”18 The 

announcement warned that the Americans would be patrolling the proscribed 

waters but also provided information detailing how the ships still docked in 

port might contact the U.S. gunboats. The broadcast, with timely updates, was 

repeated four times an hour.

Closing the canal and stopping all shipping through it was partly intended 

to keep vessels of nonbelligerent countries out of harm’s way. The action would 

also make it difficult for any Panamanian forces to enter or flee the war zone 

via the waterway. At 0130, Task Unit Charlie’s two riverine patrol boats began 

patrolling the west side of the shipping channel near Colón. Shortly after the 

patrols began, Daugherty directed the crews to go after a small craft in the area 

reported to be carrying PDF reinforcements to Coco Solo. As the patrol boats 

entered the waters where the enemy vessel had been sited, Daugherty learned 

that U.S. attack helicopters and an AC–130 gunship maneuvering overhead 

were requesting permission to open fire on what they believed to be PDF 

patrol boats they had observed. Fearing that the targets were in fact the two 

boats belonging to Task Unit Charlie, the lieutenant commander immediately 

ordered the crews to return to their initial rendezvous point. Through his chain 

of command, he also alerted the aircraft overhead that “friendly craft were 

operating in Limón Bay.” Two hours later, there was a virtual replay of the 

episode when the patrol boats received orders to find a PDF craft reported 

damaged and sinking and to put SEALs aboard to search it. By the time the 

two boats reached the pier where the enemy vessel was supposed to be, it was 

not in sight, leading to the conclusion that it had already sunk. Once again, 

Daugherty learned that friendly troops in the area, this time on land and 

armed with AT4 rockets, were preparing to engage “enemy” patrol boats they 

could see from their positions near the water. And, once again, the lieutenant 

commander ordered his craft out of the area. In his opinion, two potential 

“blue-on-blue” incidents were two too many, so he informed his superiors that 

17 Ibid., p. 31. Quote from Memo, Cdr, Task Unit (TU) Charlie, for Cdr, Task Force (TF) 

White, 31 Dec 1989, sub: After Action Report Submission. TU-Whiskey Augmentation of TUCarib: Maritime Interdiction Operations in Support of TF Atlantic, n.d., atch to AAR, TUWhiskey Operational Summary, n.d., which appears to have been written soon after the events 

it describes, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) History Office files. The account in 

the text of Task Unit Charlie’s activities in Operation Just Cause is pieced together from aforementioned sources. 18 Quote from Memo, Cdr, TU Charlie, for Cdr, TF White, 31 Dec 1989, sub: After Action 

Report Submission.
PA N A M Á

T or o P oin t B re a k wa te r

E as t B re a k wa te r

F O R M E R C A N A L Z O N E

C o c o

Solo

Nava l

Statio n

F o r t Sherma n

F r ance

F ield

Aireld

l nal channe c a

Manzanillo

Bay

LIMÓN

B A Y

C ARIBBEAN SEA

French

C

a

n

a

l

Folk River

B O Y D -R O O S E V E LT H I G H WA Y

G a t u n

R o a d

Coco Solo

Cristóbal

C O L Ó N

Rainbow City

Mount

 Hope

00

2 1 Miles

2000 1000 Meters

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK UNIT CHARLIE

T ASK FORCE WHITE

20 December 1989

Military Installation Boundary

Map 2
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

80

“no further patrols would take place within 1000 yards of [the] Coco Solo 

or Colón waterfront during hours of darkness due to the high risk of taking 

friendly fire.”19

After daybreak on the twentieth, Task Unit Charlie turned its attention to 

a German merchant ship, Asian Senator, then moored in the port of Cristóbal. 

Reports indicated that at least two dozen Panamanian troops had taken refuge 

aboard. The task unit’s two patrol boats and an LCM with Daugherty on board 

converged on the scene and took up positions that allowed them to observe 

each side of the boat and part of the pier area. Initial attempts to contact 

anyone on the Asian Senator by radio and loudspeaker failed. Meanwhile, the 

task unit spied U.S. Army special operations helicopters conducting strafing 

runs on a building at the end of the pier. When PDF elements in the building 

shot back at the helicopters, Daugherty received permission to have one of 

his patrol boats try to suppress the enemy fire, using several of the weapons 

available to the crew. This, in turn, caused whoever was in the building to open 

fire on the patrol boat, a fusillade that lasted several seconds. The episode 

ended when a rocket fired from one of the helicopters made a direct hit on the 

target. 

Just as the threat from the pier had been removed, the Panamanian troops 

who were holed up on the Asian Senator made their first appearance, with 

thirteen of them fleeing down the gangplank from the ship to the pier. One 

of the patrol boats and a SEAL detachment fired over the heads of the men, 

but to no avail. Seven more Panamanians then made a similar exit from the 

ship, after which Daugherty received orders that those of his crew who could 

see the gangplank should destroy it with gunfire. The ensuing volleys failed to 

hit the target, although rounds did strike containers aboard the Asian Senator, 

not to mention the ship’s superstructure. Daugherty then called a halt to the 

shooting, citing the probability of “considerable collateral damage” as his 

reason. Despite the errant rounds, the fusillade did have at least one positive 

effect: soon after the bombardment stopped, the ship’s captain radioed one 

of the patrol boats and requested a cease-fire, obviously unaware that, thanks 

to Daugherty, one was already in effect. The captain went on to say that a 

number of well-armed Panamanians who had come onto the Asian Senator

were ready to surrender.20

Daugherty told the ship’s captain to have the Panamanians move to the 

top of the gangplank and await further instructions. He then directed one of 

the LCMs to land five SEALs to round up the prisoners. Once on the pier, 

the SEALs established security and then approached the gangplank. As they 

did so, another group of unarmed Panamanians appeared at the end of the 

pier carrying a white flag. Daugherty tried to contact the SEALs to provide 

guidance on how to handle each group, but communications failed, and he 

ended up going ashore himself. As all this was transpiring, the SEALs found 

themselves coming under increasing small-arms fire from buildings near the 

pier. They returned fire and watched as a U.S. helicopter tried to neutralize 

one of the enemy positions, only to be hit by ground fire. (Task Unit Charlie 

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

81

was later informed that the helicopter had crashed.) At one point, Daugherty 

requested an air strike against one of the buildings, only to be told that there 

were no “air assets” available. Later, after the SEALs had placed their prisoners 

on an LCM and were in the process of loading captured PDF weapons onto 

it, enemy fire reached an “unacceptable level,” and Daugherty again made a 

request up the chain, this time for additional special operations personnel to 

help secure the area. He also informed his superiors that containers aboard 

the Asian Senator blocked his patrol boats from providing supporting fire. His 

request was again denied. Instead, he was told to finish collecting weapons 

that had been stacked on the pier and to have a SEAL element search the 

merchant ship for any remaining PDF personnel. Daugherty responded that, 

“without the availability of [the] requested support, TU Charlie was departing 

the pier area immediately to turn in the prisoners at Coco Solo.” The two 

patrol boats and LCM made the return voyage around 1430. After discharging 

thirty-six captured Panamanians, the crews resumed their blockade duties 

around Colón. The next day, the canal would reopen to shipping but under 

very strict controls.21

While Task Unit Charlie was patrolling the waters on the Atlantic side of 

the canal, Task Unit Foxtrot was performing similar missions on the Pacific 

side in the vicinity of Panama City. According to one official source, “SEALs 

in three patrol boats guarded the waters around Howard Air Force Base, 

and two riverine patrol boats covered the approaches to the Bridge of the 

Americas.” Of particular concern were three small islands near Howard where 

intelligence reports speculated that concealed enemy personnel were ideally 

situated to launch surface-to-air missiles against U.S. aircraft flying into the 

air base. To determine the accuracy of the reports, a four-man SEAL team 

launched a canoe from one of the patrol boats and landed on each of the 

islands. Their search ended “without evidence of enemy activity,” so the four 

returned to the patrol boat.22

While this was transpiring, another element from Foxtrot, an assault team 

aboard three combat rubber raiding crafts, worked its way from the Bay of 

Panama up the Rio Tapia and linked up with ground troops in the Don Bosco 

neighborhood near the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex. The mission was 

to capture Luis A. Cordoba, a former PDF intelligence chief, or at least to 

prevent his escape via a water route. At dawn, U.S. forces stormed a compound 

where Cordoba was thought to be, but the quarry was not present. After the 

area was cleared and searched, the assault team made its way back to the 

patrol boats.23

As Task Unit Foxtrot conducted maritime patrol and interdiction 

operations, largely without incident, Task Unit Whiskey was carrying out its 

reconnaissance and surveillance, maritime interdiction and containment, and 

direct action missions, the principal one of which was to blow up Noriega’s 

personal patrol boat, the Presidente Porras, docked at Pier 18 in Balboa Harbor 

(Map 3). The boat, if manned and at sea, presented a threat to U.S. missions 

21 Ibid.

22 First quote from U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 40. Second 

quote from Howard AFB [Air Force Base] Security, n.d., SOCOM History Office files. 23 Cordoba Operation, n.d., SOCOM History Office files.
Rodman Na v a l

Statio n

Albroo k

Air Station

Presidente Porras

mangrove

c a n a l c h a n n e l

c a n a l c h a n n e l

Balboa Harbor

B RIDGE OF THE AMERICA S

G a i l l a rd H i gh w a y

Pier 18

Pier 17

Pier 6

Diablo Heights

Balboa

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK UNIT WHISKE Y

T ASK FORCE WHITE

20 December 1989

0

0

500 Meters

500 Yards

Objective

ELEVATION IN ME TERS

0 50 100 and Above

Map 3
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

83

in two ways. With its automatic cannon and machine guns, it could disrupt 

operations against the Panama Defense Forces at Fort Amador, the Bridge of 

the Americas, and Paitilla airfield. It could also provide Noriega a means of 

escape. To prevent either possibility, Blue Spoon planners had earmarked the 

vessel for destruction.24

U.S. naval craft, attack helicopters, and AC–130 gunships available for 

Just Cause were capable of performing this mission, but they were committed 

to other targets. Consequently, two pairs of divers from SEAL Team 2, a 

Virginia-based unit, received the assignment to destroy the Presidente Porras. 

Use of the two pairs ensured redundancy in the event that Panamanian forces 

should neutralize one of them. The plan called for the four men to conduct a 

“combat swimmer demolition attack,” the first such attempt by Navy divers 

since World War II to destroy a surface vessel with underwater mines, in 

this case haversacks filled with C4 plastic explosives. The men would wear 

Draeger underwater breathing equipment, which was designed to leave no 

trail of air bubbles. Other elements of Task Unit Whiskey at Rodman Naval 

Station, armed with machine guns, grenade launchers, and mortars, would 

provide them fire support if needed. Reinforcing Whiskey were two riverine 

patrol boats and a SEAL squad from Task Unit Foxtrot, which would take up 

blocking positions near the east side of the canal.25

24 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 120–21. According to one Navy 

SEAL, the original plan called for seizing the patrol boat, towing it to Rodman Naval Station, 

and turning it over to the new government. After General Lindsay at the U.S. Special Operations 

Command decided that this was too risky, the revised plan called for destroying the boat. Interv, 

Partin with Cdr Patrick T. Toohey, 18 Nov 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C. 25 This account of the Balboa Harbor mission is from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, pp. 120–21; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 82–84; TU-Whiskey Operational 

Summary, n.d., and Foxtrot Plt Support of TU Whiskey Combat Swimmer Operation, n.d., 

Combat rubber raiding craft
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

84

Shortly before the operation got under way, the Task Unit Whiskey 

headquarters at Rodman received a query from the Joint Special Operations 

Task Force as to whether the unit could accommodate moving H-hour from 

0100 to 0030. That meant detonating explosive charges under the patrol boat 

thirty minutes earlier than called for in the plan. The timers for the explosives 

had already been set, though, and the divers were ready to depart. To stop and 

reset the timers would prevent the men from reaching their objective on time. 

To reset the timers on the move and in the dark was a highly risky procedure 

that could result in an accidental explosion and the death of the divers. Given 

these considerations, the task unit commander, Navy Cdr. Norman Carley, 

told his superiors that H-hour needed to remain the same. Believing he had 

made his point, Carley prepared to accompany the SEALs to their insertion 

site on the other side of the canal. 

At 2300, two raiding craft—one with Carley, the other with a 

communications man, and each carrying two divers, a coxswain, and an M60 

machine gunner—departed Rodman. Because of “unanticipated boat traffic in 

the harbor,” including some vessels with searchlights, they took a “circuitous 

route” to a line of mangrove trees north of Pier 18. En route, the boat with the 

communications equipment experienced problems with its outboard motor, 

which quit working entirely once the craft reached the mangroves. While in the 

tree line, the SEALs spied a PDF patrol boat coming at them, but it sped by 

both in SOCOM History Office files. Quote from U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 

1987–2007, p. 40. Col Frank Akers, comp., TU-Whiskey: Balboa Harbor PDF Patrol Boat 

Operation, in Operation Just Cause, The Warriors, n.d., a series of vignettes released by the 

U.S. Southern Command; F. K. Butler Jr., “Closed-circuit oxygen diving in the U.S. Navy,” 

Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine 31, no. 1 (2004): 15–17; Television program, Navy SEALs: 

Canal Zone, New Dominion Pictures, 2001. Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) Team 2 was airlifted to 

Panama from its home at the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek, Va.

Rodman Naval Station
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

85

without incident. At 2330, the raiding craft with Carley aboard maneuvered 

to an insertion point within 150 yards of Pier 18, and Diver Pair 1 entered 

the water. Carley then motored back to the disabled boat and towed it to the 

insertion point, where Diver Pair 2 slipped over the side, five minutes behind 

schedule. The commander then decided to tow the raiding craft to Rodman, 

where its motor could be changed. Both of the rubber boats would then return 

to the preplanned extraction point for the divers. As the two craft began 

transiting the canal back to the naval station, Carley learned H-hour had in 

fact been moved up fifteen minutes. He realized immediately that the change 

would leave his divers trying to reach their extraction point in the middle of 

intense combat operations, but at that moment he had no way to contact and 

warn them.26

As for the divers, after each pair arrived at Pier 18, they used the piling and 

overhead docks as cover while they maneuvered independently, “alternating 

between surface and subsurface movement,” to the position where Presidente 

Porras was moored. Diver Pair 2, despite its delay, reached the underside of 

the patrol boat first. After confirming that it was the target, they attached their 

haversack carrying the explosives to the port propeller and pulled the pins on 

the timers. Diver Pair 1 arrived three minutes later and performed the same 

operation on the starboard propeller. For each pair of divers, the procedure 

took fewer than two minutes. While Diver Pair 1 was just finishing its work, 

the boat’s engines started, raising the deadly prospect that the propeller blades 

would start rotating while both SEALs were right next to them. The two swam 

away in time, however, and both pairs of divers headed separately toward 

Pier 17. Suddenly, they experienced two intense explosions, presumably from 

grenades dropped into the water by Panamanian forces above them after the 

shooting started on shore. The SEALs surfaced and sought safety behind the 

pier’s pilings and then resumed maneuvering underwater beneath Pier 17 in 

the direction of their extraction point. Four more explosions again forced 

them to surface and seek cover. The delays caused by the protective maneuvers 

meant that the two divers were still under the piers when the haversacks they 

had attached to the patrol boat exploded at exactly 0100. “The boat reared up 

forward . . . it went straight up—the bow went up,” one of them stated later. 

The vessel sank within two minutes, as crews on other Panamanian vessels in 

the harbor began to turn on their propellers as “an anti-swimmer measure” in 

response to the blast.27

Once the divers swam from the pier area into the main channel of the 

canal, they heard overhead what sounded like a deep-draft vessel, perhaps 

an ocean-going freighter, coming straight at them. “You can’t tell under the 

water exactly where a vessel is,” one recounted, “you just hear it getting louder, 

and louder—it sounds like a freight train coming.” To save themselves, they 

descended from their normal depth of twenty feet to forty-five feet, no routine 

maneuver. As one study has observed, “The increased toxicity of the pure 

oxygen in the Draeger system in deeper water was risky.” In this instance, the 

26 TU-Whiskey Operational Summary, n.d.

27 Ibid.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

86

SEALs suffered no harmful effects from their hasty descent and the ten to 

fifteen minutes they spent at the hazardous depth.28

Meanwhile, at 0045, the two raiding craft that had returned to Rodman 

were back in Balboa Harbor, arriving ten minutes later near the extraction 

point for the divers at the southern end of Pier 6, 750 yards from the flaming 

wreckage of the Presidente Porras. As Carley and the others waited under the 

pier for the SEALs to appear, tracer rounds darting over their heads kept them 

continuously aware of the heavy fighting now taking place on the east side of 

the canal, including one intermittent firefight right above them. When Carley 

realized that the divers were well behind schedule, he sent the other rubber 

boat to the next pier over to search for them, but the craft returned without 

having made contact. Not until 0200, did Diver Pair 1 arrive, followed five 

minutes later by Diver Pair 2. Once aboard the raiding craft, the SEALs safely 

crossed the harbor back to Rodman, their mission a complete success.

Besides the Presidente Porras, there was one other means of transportation 

near Panama City that U.S. planners feared Noriega might use to flee the 

country: his Learjet maintained at Paitilla airport, a private facility for 

domestic airlines and small planes several miles up the coastline eastward from 

the heart of the capital. Another concern about Paitilla was that it might be 

used as a rallying point for PDF reinforcements flying in from outlying bases. 

U.S. forces thus needed to disable the facility’s 5,000-foot runway, destroy the 

28 Butler, “Closed-circuit oxygen diving in the U.S. Navy,” p. 17. 

Paitilla airfield, with Panama City in the background
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

87

Learjet, and deny use of the airfield to the enemy. The attempt to do so would 

prove, in terms of U.S. fatalities, the deadliest single action of Operation Just

Cause.

29

The mission fell to Task Unit Papa, the largest component of Task Force 

White. SEAL Team 4, commanded by Navy Cdr. Thomas McGrath and based 

at the Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Virginia, detailed three sixteenman SEAL platoons (Bravo, Delta, and Golf) and supporting units to Task 

Unit Papa. As with other stateside military units listed in the JTF-South war 

plans, the SEAL team had rehearsed its mission in mid-December, by chance 

just days before President Bush’s decision to invade Panama. Conducted at 

Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle, the rehearsal had not gone well, 

for while the SEALs disabled the stand-in for Noriega’s Learjet and rendered 

the practice runway unusable by blocking it with other aircraft, they incurred 

several “casualties” from men playing the defenders and experienced significant 

communication and coordination difficulties. Afterward, commanders and 

staff analyzed the problems in what were at times heated exchanges, mainly 

between McGrath and his immediate superior, Capt. John Sandoz, a Vietnam 

War veteran who was now in command of Naval Special Warfare Group 2. 

When they briefed General Lindsay, however, the SOCOM commander came 

away convinced that the rehearsal had been a success. Consequently, nothing 

was done to rectify any shortcomings in the plan. The one significant change 

that did take place occurred largely as a result of the friction between Sandoz 

and McGrath. Lacking confidence in his subordinate, Sandoz revised some 

of Task Unit Papa’s command, control, and organizational arrangements. 

McGrath would not lead the assault elements as planned but would remain 

with two patrol boats and a support group a couple of miles offshore. While 

he would still command the operation, Lt. Cdr. Patrick Toohey, his executive 

officer, would be in charge of the ground force. Sandoz, in later explaining 

his decision to leave the SEAL Team 4 commander at sea, stated somewhat 

disingenuously, “From that vantage point, McGrath could remain in constant 

communication with Toohey, the AC–130 Spectre gunship flying above, as well 

as other SEAL operations going on simultaneously in Panama.”30

Once the SEAL Team 4 platoons had been airlifted to Panama, the 

briefings they received prior to the assault indicated that any enemy resistance 

29 This account of the SEALs at Paitilla airfield is from U.S. Special Operations Command, 

History, 1987–2007, pp. 38–39; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 114–20; 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 84–86; Malcolm McConnell, Just Cause, paperback ed. (New 

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), pp. 51–78; Paitilla Operation, n.d., SOCOM History Office 

files; The SEAL assault on Patilla [sic] Airfield during Operation Just Cause, n.d., http://www.

specwarnet.net/miscinfo/patilla.htm; Orr Kelly, Brave Men, Dark Waters: The Untold Story of 

the Navy SEALs (New York: Pocket Books, 1992), pp. 1–4; Interv, Partin with Toohey, 18 Nov 

1992. 30 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 115. For the rehearsal 

problems and consequent change in command arrangements, see also Mir Bahmanyar with 

Chris Osman, SEALs: The US Navy’s Elite Fighting Force (Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 

2007), p. 82; Interv, Partin with Toohey, 18 Nov 1992; and Brian W. Reeves, “Navy SEALs: 

Theory and Reality” (Master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 1997), pp. 77–81. Most of 

Reeves’ discussion of the Paitilla operation is based on the document, Naval Special Warfare 

Command Lessons Learned, Operation Just Cause, n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

88

at Paitilla would likely come from only six to eight PDF guards who could 

be persuaded to surrender or, failing that, easily subdued. Other security 

personnel—rent-a-cops or, as McGrath was reported to have said, “Old 

men with rusty rifles”—might also be present as guards for private planes, 

including those used by drug dealers, but these civilians were not expected 

to pose a threat. “Boy scouts can do this job,” McGrath supposedly claimed, 

much to Toohey’s chagrin. Some ranking SEALs asked for an opportunity 

to reconnoiter the airfield themselves. On the advice of intelligence officers 

concerned about compromising the operation, Downing turned down the 

request, but Navy lobbying caused Thurman to reconsider his own aversion 

to last-minute surveillance forays and override the JSOTF commander. On 

Tuesday, then, a number of SEALs dressed in civilian clothes observed the 

target from the second floor of a club at the southern end of the facility and 

from a highway north of it. What they discovered generated mixed feelings. The 

three hangars on the west side of the runway, including the one for Noriega’s 

plane, did not seem to be fortified. Nor were there numerous armed guards at 

the site, possibly because the Learjet was not there. But the SEALs could not 

see inside the jet’s hangar, only the open runway and aprons over which they 

would have to advance. Armed mainly with rifles, machine guns, AT4 rockets, 

fragmentation grenades and grenade launchers, and a mortar, the attack force 

would be exposed and vulnerable to enemy fire coming from inside any of the 

hangars.31 

Despite these concerns, the plan remained basically unchanged. The three 

lightly armed SEAL platoons would land near the southern end of the airport 

and move northward up Paitilla’s runway. Golf would destroy the Learjet; 

Delta would deal with facilities on the eastern side of the field, across from the 

hangars; Bravo would bring up the rear, providing covering fire and helping 

to obstruct the runway by dragging planes and other obstacles onto it. If any 

of the platoons ran into serious resistance, an AC–130H overhead could be 

contacted by an Air Force combat control officer with the assault party to 

knock out any defensive positions the SEALs themselves could not surmount.

Sometime after dark, well in advance of H-hour, the 62-man force of three 

SEAL platoons and other personnel who would participate in the landing 

boarded fifteen combat rubber raiding craft. Launching from a beach at Fort 

Kobbe on the west side of the canal, the task unit rendezvoused with two patrol 

boats out of Rodman Naval Station, one of which had McGrath aboard, and 

were towed to a point offshore within two miles of the airport’s southern edge. 

Meanwhile, on the north side of the objective, three two-man reconnaissance 

and surveillance teams took up positions along a highway running between 

Paitilla and Panama Viejo, the latter being home to a PDF cavalry squadron. 

Once Task Unit Papa’s rubber craft were in position, two scouts swam ashore 

ahead of the ground force to reconnoiter the landing site and to place strobe 

lights at the location. The SEAL platoons did not disembark near the airfield 

until 0030. By then, Commander McGrath had received a message directing 

the assault force not to destroy certain aircraft at Paitilla. McGrath sought 

31 Quotes from Bahmanyar with Osman, SEALs, p. 85. See also Interv, Partin with Toohey, 

18 Nov 1992.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

89

clarification from the Task Force White operations center at Rodman. What 

did the term minimal damage mean? The response he received defined minimal 

damage as shooting out the planes’ tires and cutting their control wires. In 

what would become a point of controversy after the operation, he concluded 

that this applied to the Learjet, as well as to other aircraft. He then passed the 

information to Commander Toohey, who was not pleased to hear it. If his 

men were supposed to disable rather than destroy the Learjet, they would have 

to make some last-minute adjustments to their tactics; namely, they would 

have to get closer to the plane, perhaps even entering its hangar, thus putting 

themselves at greater risk.32

Once ashore, Toohey and the ground force made their way to the southern 

end of the airfield, which proved to be deserted. From their position, however, 

they could hear the shooting already taking place in and around Panama City. 

After establishing a security perimeter, Toohey set up his command post near 

the task unit’s mortar, while the three SEAL platoons began moving up the 

runway, with Bravo and Golf advancing along the west side toward the hangars, 

and Delta along the east side toward a control tower and a cantina frequented 

by the PDF guards (Map 4). As one squad was leapfrogging past another, they 

yelled at civilian watchmen and security guards they met en route to get out of 

the area. The shouting—together with the combat in Panama City—ensured 

that Task Unit Papa had lost the element of tactical surprise. Meanwhile, 

Toohey received another troublesome message, this one indicating, incorrectly, 

that Noriega had left Colón by helicopter and was heading to Paitilla. Fearing 

that the general might arrive before the SEALs had accomplished their mission, 

Toohey ordered the men to pick up the pace of their advance. This put them 

into their assault positions at approximately 0105. Of the three northernmost 

hangars at the airfield, the middle one housed the Learjet, which was clearly 

visible to the Golf Two SEAL squad that lay prone thirty yards opposite the 

structure. On Golf Two’s right and perpendicular to it, another squad, Golf 

One, provided flank protection. Together, the squads formed an L shape, with 

Golf One in line to thwart any threat from the north, and Golf Two facing the 

hangars. The view from both vantage points revealed that the Panamanian 

guards on the scene stood ready to open fire from behind oil drums, cinderblock walls, and other available cover. 

32 Interv, Partin with Cdr Thomas R. Williams, n.d., SOCOM History Office files. Williams 

was the Task Force White operations officer located at Rodman Naval Station during Just

Cause. In the interview, he confirmed the content of the “minimal damage” message that he 

received from JSOTF headquarters at Hangar 3 at Howard Air Force Base at 2030 and that he 

relayed it to McGrath. He also said that the guidance applied to only two aircraft, neither of 

them the Learjet, but that, in seeking clarification, McGrath did not raise the issue of whether 

the directive for “minimal damage” applied to Noriega’s plane. After the operation, General 

Thurman weighed in on the issue, stating emphatically that “I did not issue an order to change 

the mission.” Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 120. Toohey admitted being 

“upset” when he received McGrath’s message. Interv, Partin with Toohey, 18 Nov 1992. Years 

later, Partin told the author that pre–Just Cause briefings concerning rules of engagement for 

specific missions contained some vague and contradictory guidance, just enough to generate 

confusion on such issues as the Learjet. Telecon, author with Partin, 6 Jun 2012. 
Hangar 

Hangar with PDF Guards

Learjet Hangar with PDF Guards Control Tower

Paitilla

 Aireld

Mataznillo R

B A Y OF P A NAMA

P u n ta Paitilla

P A NAMÁ

0

0

500 Meters

500 Yards

Objective

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK UNIT PAPA

TASK FORCE WHITE

20 December 1989

Map 4
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

91

Before the SEALs could launch their assault, Toohey received yet another 

message on his radio, this one informing him that three enemy V300 Cadillac 

Gage armored reconnaissance vehicles were heading full speed toward the 

airport. If true, SEALs would be vulnerable to the vehicles’ 90-mm. cannon. 

Toohey thus had little choice but to order Golf One to move to the thoroughfare 

and take up an ambush position. What happened next is not entirely clear. As 

the squad stood up, a SEAL from Bravo platoon, which was closing on the 

hangars, apparently fired at a Panamanian guard who was taking aim at the 

line of men now plainly visible in front of him. Immediately, one or more 

enemy soldiers opened fire. The scene that followed was horrific, as bullets 

from AK47s raked the nine SEALs of Golf One. Eight men went down within 

seconds, one killed, one dying, and six more wounded, some from ricochets 

off the runway. 

Seeing the carnage to its right, Golf Two poured small-arms rounds into 

the middle and northernmost hangars. As the defenders took cover, two SEALs 

from the squad ran over to help their wounded comrades; in a second enemy 

volley, one of them was killed. Toohey then ordered his other two platoons to 

move north and reinforce Golf. Bravo, commanded by Lt. (jg) John Connors, 

arrived first and, in a 45-second fusillade, directed more fire into the first two 

hangars. Delta platoon soon joined in, and, in the ensuing firefight, any enemy 

defenders that had not yet fled were killed or wounded. But they had again 

exacted a high price, wounding two more SEALs, one critically, and killing 

Connors after he had exposed himself in an attempt to fire a grenade into 

the hangar with the Learjet. The battle at Paitilla airfield lasted little more 

than seven minutes. Three SEALs had been killed outright, another died soon 

thereafter, and eight others survived moderate to severe wounds. A captured 

Panamanian defender claimed that the men in the hangar, far from being renta-cops, were highly trained PDF special operators. The Americans, he said, 

had killed three of their number, while eight others had been wounded and 

evacuated. As for the V300 vehicles heading toward Paitilla, they ended up 

going past the airfield en route to downtown Panama City.33

At no time during the shootout did the AC–130H flying overhead engage 

the enemy. Soon after the SEALs came ashore at Paitilla, the Air Force officer 

whose job it was to coordinate with the gunship had set up his communications 

equipment at Toohey’s command post but had not been able to make contact 

with the plane. The problem continued during most of the battle, with 

communications finally being established just as the firing was tapering off. By 

then, the Spectre’s powerful and precise weapons were no longer needed. (Later 

reports speculated that the plane’s howitzer, if there had been an attempt to 

fire it, might not have been in working condition.)34

33 The SEALs killed in action at Paitilla airfield were Lt. John Connors, Chief Engineman 

Donald McFaul, Torpedoman’s Mate 2d Class Isaac Rodriguez, and Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class 

Christopher Tilghman. Connors received the Silver Star posthumously. For PDF casualties, see 

Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan 1990. 34 After the fact, a debate developed over what impact the AC–130H might have had on 

the battle at Paitilla if the ground element had been able to contact it. Some have argued that 

the gunship’s weapons would have made quick work of the PDF defenses. Others, apparently 

including the AC–130’s fire-control officer, questioned whether the Spectre would have been able 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

92

Soon after the first SEALs were hit, Toohey had sent an urgent message 

requesting medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) helicopters to extract the 

wounded. The message reached the 214th Medical Detachment at Howard 

Air Force Base at 0115. There, medics in one of two Black Hawk crews 

dedicated to the Special Operations Forces in Just Cause took off at 0130, 

arriving at Paitilla eight miles away around 0200. After ten minutes on the 

ground, during which time the eight wounded SEALs were squeezed aboard, 

the helicopter departed and flew at maximum speed to the Joint Casualty 

Collection Point at Howard, arriving there at 0225. All of the wounded 

survived the flight.35

The fact that fifteen minutes elapsed before the MEDEVAC helicopter 

departed Howard after receiving Task Unit Papa’s urgent request for help 

became another point of controversy after the operation, as did the fact 

that it took the pilots almost half an hour to fly the short distance from 

the Air Force base to Paitilla. In their defense, the pilots later stated that 

the initial message did not include coordinates for the airfield’s location, 

which they did not know, nor did it apprise them of the radio frequency 

employed by the task unit’s communications equipment. A power outage 

in the medical detachment’s operations section prevented them from 

acquiring this essential information. Once they boarded their Black Hawk, 

the dense air traffic at Howard further delayed their departure until they 

were finally told they could take off “at their own risk.” As for the length 

of the flight to the battle area, several reasons were advanced by way of 

explanation. These included the crew members’ lack of familiarity with the 

terrain around Paitilla; the lack of communications with Task Unit Papa; 

the blacked-out conditions under which they had to fly, which increased 

the risk of a collision with other friendly aircraft; and the need to fly a 

“circuitous route” over the ocean because of the combat operations taking 

place at Flamenco Island and Fort Amador. When the helicopter arrived at 

Paitilla, the pilots “landed next to a burning building and were guided in 

by a strobe light which they hoped was friendly.”36

Once the wounded were en route to Howard, the remainder of Task 

Unit Papa began setting up “a more defendable perimeter on the southeast 

side of the airfield.” A reaction platoon from Rodman arrived sometime 

to use its weapons at all, given the proximity of the SEALs to the PDF defenders in the hangars. 

For an overview of the debate, see Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 119, 

and McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 64–65, 72–73. For more information on the problem of communicating with the AC–130, see Interv, Partin with Williams, n.d.; Reeves, “Navy SEALs,” pp. 

95–96. Reeves, p. 95, indicates that, “to comply with last minute changes to the communications 

plan,” the Spectre had switched frequencies, in the process failing to notify the air controller 

with Task Unit Papa. 35 Interv, SOCOM Inspector General Team with Medical Operation—Punta Paitilla 

Airfield, 14 Feb 1990, Howard Air Force Base, Panama. Being interviewed were the two medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) pilots who flew the Paitilla mission, CWO2 Robert Eugene Lowe 

and WO1 Michael Paul Premo. 36 Ibid. For a systematic account of the medical treatment received by the wounded SEALs, 

see Lt. Cdr. James J. Mucciarone, Col. Craig H. Llewellyn, and Lt. Col. John M. Wightman, 

“Tactical Combat Casualty Care in the Assault on Punta Paitilla Airfield,” Journal of Special 

Operations Medicine 8, no.1 (Winter 2008): 106–10.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

93

after 0315, and, by 0330, Paitilla was considered secured. At dawn, “a 

patrol conducted a reconnaissance of the hangars,” while, according 

to plan, “other SEALs dragged airplanes onto the runway to block its 

use.” During the fighting, an AT4 rocket had rendered Noriega’s Learjet 

inoperable, thus accomplishing the ground force’s mission, although at a 

high price. The next day, the SEALs departed Paitilla, to be replaced by a 

ranger company.37

Both at the outset of the planning process and following the invasion, 

there were officers in the special operations community who argued that 

the mission to seize Paitilla airfield should have been assigned to a ranger 

company or battalion. For starters, the Rangers trained for such missions, 

the SEALs did not. Furthermore, SEALs were used to operating in 

small groups of from two to sixteen men, not in actions that required the 

coordinated efforts of three platoons. At one point, a SEAL officer had 

recommended three alternatives to the larger force, with each alternative 

involving only two or eight men, but Sandoz had rejected them. As one 

assessment concluded, “The middle ground was taken in the form of a 

unit too large for a clandestine strike, but not large enough to handle a 

straightforward direct action mission.” Both General Lindsay and General 

Stiner disagreed, maintaining that the assignment called for blocking a 

runway that ran along a waterline, not for seizing an airfield. That being the 

case, the use of the SEALs was appropriate. Whatever the merits of either 

side of the argument, no party to the controversy could deny that Task 

Unit Papa’s casualties “made that brief action the deadliest for the SEALs 

in the nearly thirty years since the Sea, Air, Land teams were formed.” 

They also contributed to the conclusion that among “the dozens of actions 

37 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 39. 

Noriega’s disabled Learjet
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

94

of Just Cause, the Paitilla mission may be the most controversial among 

the military,” with everything from planning, leadership, weaponry, and 

tactics being called into question.38

The Rescue of Kurt Muse

If the Paitilla mission generated the most controversy, another special 

operations undertaking, the rescue of American citizen Kurt Muse from a 

PDF prison, the Carcel Modelo, became one of the most publicized. The 

Panama Defense Forces had arrested Muse in April for “subversive” activities 

and accused him of crimes against state security, charges that, under the 

Panama Canal Treaty, did not require the Panamanian government to turn him 

over to the United States. After Muse admitted that, in advance of the May 

presidential elections in Panama, he had set up a clandestine communications 

network to jam regime-operated frequencies and broadcast his own messages 

against Noriega’s hand-picked candidates, he was placed in the Carcel Modelo, 

across the street from the main PDF headquarters, the Comandancia, in 

Panama City. Although allowed regular visits from an officer, doctor, and 

lawyer representing U.S. Forces, he had little hope for a quick release. Nor 

was his experience pleasant. As he languished for months in a crude 8-footby-12-foot cell, he witnessed, both visually and audibly, the torture of fellow 

prisoners, especially after the incarceration of opposition members during 

the postelection violence in May. He was also informed after the 3 October 

coup attempt that, should the United States invade Panama or in any way try 

to rescue him militarily, he would be shot on the spot. A guard stood watch 

outside his cell, ready to make good on the threat.39

Muse’s arrest and detention garnered more attention within the Bush 

administration than would normally have been the case. Muse belonged to a 

group of conspirators—the others having escaped after hearing of his arrest—

that at one point in its underground activities had agreed to accept support 

from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. For this reason, CIA Director 

38 First quote from Bahmanyar with Osman, SEALs, p. 84. Second quote from Kelly, Brave 

Men, Dark Waters, pp. 2–3. For Lindsay’s and Stiner’s position, the debate in general, and the 

third quote, see Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 119–20. See also The 

SEAL assault on Patilla [sic] Airfield during Operation Just Cause, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, 

27 Jan 1990; James W. Collins, “Blue and Purple: Optimizing the Command and Control of 

Forward Deployed Naval Special Warfare” (Master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College, 1997), pp. 71–74. Besides the issues raised in the text, critics also questioned the 

initial plans; the last-minute change in command and control arrangements; the tactics employed in which the one SEAL squad stood up in line, thus providing an ideal target for the PDF 

guards; and the weapons carried by the SEALs, in the sense that the M203 grenade launchers 

did not deliver enough punch to overcome a well-entrenched enemy. 39 Muse’s account of his clandestine activities and his incarceration are in Kurt Muse and 

John Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom (New York: Citadel Press, 2006). A summary of these 

events placed into the broader context of the U.S.-Panama crisis is in Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 158–61. See also Thomas B. Hunter, 

“Operation Acid Gambit: The Rescue of Kurt Muse,” http://www.specialoperations.com/

Operations/Just_Cause/Acid_Gambit/default2.html.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

95

William H. Webster reportedly “pressed [Secretary of Defense] Cheney to have 

the military draw up a rescue plan for Muse that would be ready for execution 

on short notice.” That the president, himself a former director of central 

intelligence, also expressed concern about Muse’s situation, especially after he 

received a personal letter from the prisoner smuggled out of the Carcel Modelo 

Soon after his arrest, Kurt Muse (right) appears in public, here with a Panamanian official.

The Carcel Modelo compound, with the jail at lower left
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

96

in a book, lent weight to Webster’s entreaties. As a result, staff personnel in 

special operations began planning a rescue mission that would involve one of 

the country’s most elite counterterrorist units. Code-named Acid Gambit, the 

plan could be executed if the president judged Muse’s safety to be in jeopardy. 

By the time Thurman convened a Blue Spoon planning session with Stiner 

and others in Panama after the failed coup, Acid Gambit had acquired the 

status of an “unwritten but high-priority mission from Washington.” On 16 

October, Maj. Gen. Gary Luck, then the special operations commander, gave 

a half-hour briefing to Bush on the contingency plan, using a scale model of 

the prison to cover every phase of the rescue operation in minute detail. At 

the time of the briefing, Acid Gambit was still regarded as a contingency that 

could be executed independently or as a part of Blue Spoon. But Secretary 

Cheney, among others, drew the logical conclusion that the execution of the 

rescue mission by itself, even if successful, could result in dire consequences 

because Noriega might make other American nationals living in Panama pay 

dearly for the humiliation he would suffer. As for whether the rescue mission 

should be executed simultaneously with Blue Spoon, Thurman believed that it 

should, stipulating that freeing Muse would precede the other planned actions. 

“It became clear to me,” Thurman would say, “that he’d be dead if we didn’t 

get him fast.” Thus, when Thurman, Stiner, and Luck sought the Joint Chiefs’ 

approval of JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2 in their 3 November briefings at 

the Pentagon, they presented Acid Gambit as a mission that would most likely 

be executed as an integral part of Blue Spoon.

40

 At the tactical level, only one of three squadrons within the Army’s elite 

special missions unit would be needed for the operation; which one it would 

be depended on the timing of a presidential order to execute Blue Spoon. 

Since no one knew if or when that would occur, all three squadrons visited 

Panama separately, in part to reconnoiter the prison and its surroundings and 

in part to meet with the commander and key staff officers of the mechanized 

battalion over which JTF-Panama had operational control. The coordination 

was essential because that battalion would form the core of Task Force Gator, 

a task-organized unit that, under the latest versions of Blue Spoon, would 

mount an H-hour assault against the Comandancia compound adjacent to 

the Carcel Modelo (Map 5). Of necessity, the special operation to free Muse 

would have to occur simultaneously with the attack on the PDF headquarters. 

To have the conventional attack begin before the rescue mission would cost 

the commandos the element of surprise and, more than likely, Muse his 

life. To begin Acid Gambit before the conventional attack would leave the 

commandos vulnerable to the firepower of Panamanian forces defending 

the Comandancia. For both attacks to begin at the same time and to achieve 

maximum effect, arrangements needed to be made in advance so that the two 

forces would not be working at cross purposes. But there was more involved 

than just staying out of each other’s way. If the rescue mission went badly, the 

40 First quote from Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 91, 135–39. Second quote from 

Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 314. Third quote from Interv, Partin with 

Thurman, 12 Apr 1990.
Comandancia

AO Spear

Carcel Modelo

Cemetery

Cemetery

A V E N U E A

A V E N U E B

2 7 T H S T 2 6 T H S T

2 5 T H S T

2 4 T H S T

2 3 D S T

C O M AND ANCIA AND CARCEL MODELO

EL CHORRILLO DISTRICT

20 December 1989

0

0

100 Meters

100 Yards

Map 5
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

98

commandos might require support from Task Force Gator, probably in the 

form of several M113 armored personnel carriers.41

Along with members of the commando squadrons, elements of the 160th 

Aviation Group, known as the Night Stalkers, arrived in Panama from Fort 

Campbell, Kentucky, in early October to get a better assessment of the role 

they would play in a rescue mission. The 160th had a company of MH–6 Little 

Bird helicopters that could be modified with outboard benches to hold up to 

three commandos on each side. There was also a company of AH–6 Little 

Bird gunships that could escort and provide covering fire for the troop carriers. 

Finally, the unit had Black Hawk helicopters that could be used to ferry troops, 

furnish protective fires, or conduct armed reconnaissance. Once in Panama, 

160th pilots flew training missions, sometimes with the commandos if they 

happened to be in the country, and gathered all the visual intelligence they 

could. One means of accomplishing the latter task was to board helicopters 

making routine medical flights to Gorgas Army Hospital near the Carcel 

Modelo. As one author has noted, “Medevac helos bringing ‘injured’ troops 

to the hospital were often carrying pilots and commandos scribbling furiously 

on notepads.” The deception paid off, with the resulting intelligence revealing, 

among other things, that a communications antenna on the roof of the Carcel 

Modelo would prohibit any Black Hawks from landing there. An alternative 

was to have the commandos fast-rope onto the roof, but that would leave them 

exposed to gunfire from enemy troops nearby. The responsibility for getting the 

assault force to the target therefore fell to the unarmed and smaller MH–6s. 

Once that decision was made, the Little Bird crews began “an intense training 

41 Intervs, Wright with Lt Col James W. Reed, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

with Maj Terry Freeze, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 

MH–6 Little Bird
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

99

regimen” with the commandos, “working long nights assaulting an elementary 

school at Howard that closely resembled the prison structure.”42 

In early December, the pilots, crews, and support personnel from the 160th 

returned from Panama to the United States in time to participate with other 

Special Operations Forces in the full rehearsal of the JSOTF portion of the 

Blue Spoon plan. As was the case with Task Unit Papa, the Acid Gambit

rehearsal took place at Eglin Air Force Base, where a three-story mock-up 

of the four-story Carcel Modelo had been constructed. (A four-story replica 

was not essential since the only course of action called for the assault team to 

move from the roof of the real prison downward to Muse’s cell on the second 

floor.) The specific features of the mock-up, according to one account, were 

continuously being “updated by reports from those military personnel who 

were permitted to visit Muse in his cell.”43

The plan for the rescue mission, though not complex, did require quick 

action and precise timing. Four MH–6s covered by AH–6s and Black 

Hawks would fly the commandos to the target, placing them on the roof. 

The aircraft would then fly to a concrete-covered water reservoir at Quarry 

Heights and await word to return and pick up the assault team. Meanwhile, 

as two additional AH–6s, two AC–130 gunships from the Air Force’s 1st 

Special Operations Wing, and SOF snipers engaged enemy forces in the 

area, one group of commandos would blow open a rooftop door into 

the prison and proceed downstairs to Muse’s cell. In their descent, they 

would deal with any PDF resistance by whatever means they deemed 

appropriate. Another group would stay on the roof and knock down the 

communications antenna, thus making room for a Black Hawk to land if 

needed. Once Muse was freed, his rescuers would retrace their steps back 

to the roof, board the returning MH–6s, and spirit their “precious cargo” 

to a predetermined rendezvous point.44

When, just a few days after the rehearsal, Bush ordered military action, 

the assault force and aviators returned to Panama. Folded up and loaded 

aboard C–5 Galaxy transport planes at Fort Campbell, the MH–6s, AH–

6s, and Black Hawks made the return trip as well. In Panama, on Monday 

morning, Lt. Col. James W. Reed, who as commander of the mechanized 

battalion was the Task Force Gator commander as well, met with special 

operations personnel at Howard Air Force Base to update and coordinate 

plans for the simultaneous assaults on the Comandancia and Carcel Modelo. 

As Reed knew, for the duration of the rescue mission, Task Force Gator, 

composed of conventional units, would come under the operational control 

of Downing’s Joint Special Operations Task Force. Reed’s highest priority 

would still be the battle for the Comandancia, but one consequence of 

being under Downing was the directive he received to deploy three of his 

M113 armored personnel carriers—designated Team King after the Army 

42 Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov with Lt. Col. Robert L. Johnson (Ret.), The Night 

Stalkers (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006), pp. 124–25. 43 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 145; Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night 

Stalkers, p. 125. Quote from Hunter, “Operation Acid Gambit.” 44 Hunter, “Operation Acid Gambit”; Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, 

pp. 124–59 passim.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

100

lieutenant who was in charge of them—near the Carcel Modelo in case they 

were needed to help evacuate the assault force. With that mission in mind, 

the M113s were to be positioned with their ramps down. There would only 

be a driver and vehicle commander in each, and a special operations liaison 

officer in one of the three.45

On Monday and Tuesday, when General Stiner talked with commanders 

and staff officers cleared to be briefed on the full range of Just Cause

operations, many in his audience heard for the first time about the rescue 

mission. Most paid it little heed because it did not conflict or impinge upon 

their own operational assignments and responsibilities. Some, though, did 

wonder about the wisdom of the undertaking. General Cisneros was one. In 

his view, the decision to attack the Comandancia instead of simply isolating it 

(as originally planned under General Woerner) was in part a consequence of 

the requirement to rescue Muse. While Cisneros did not oppose the mission, 

he lamented that the Comandancia operation would now require troops who 

could have been used in downtown Panama City to maintain law and order, 

prevent looting, and possibly locate Noriega. “The battle,” Cisneros said at the 

time—meaning the critical battle that would determine the long-term success 

of Just Cause—was “going to be in the city.” Furthermore, he reasoned, 

focusing on the Comandancia “because we had one American in jail” ignored 

that “we have also a lot of Americans that live downtown,” who, without 

the proper number of forces to protect them, would find their lives placed in 

jeopardy. “In fact, one of them was kidnapped and one was killed,” he later 

related, and “it was because we had nobody downtown.”46

For the Carcel Modelo assault force and the special operations pilots 

and crews who would transport and protect them, the two days leading up to 

Just Cause afforded them a last chance to go over the plans, receive updated 

intelligence briefings, and, in the case of pre-positioned snipers at Quarry 

Heights as well as several commandos walking the area in civilian clothes, 

directly observe the prison and headquarters compound adjacent to it. The 

units also reviewed their execution checklists, procedures, rules of engagement, 

and communications. As for Kurt Muse, the central character in all this, on 

the morning of 19 December, around 1100, he received a visit from Lt. Col. 

Robert Perry, the Southern Command’s treaty affairs officer and a man Muse 

had not seen since being arrested nine months earlier. The meeting took place 

in the visitors’ area of the Carcel Modelo, and several journalists, prison 

guards, and PDF officers were in close proximity. Soon after Muse and Perry 

began talking, the noise of U.S. helicopters circling the prison filled the room. 

Then, raising his voice to be heard, Perry declared dramatically, “I want you 

to know that if anything happens to you,” alluding to Noriega’s public threats 

to execute Muse, “no one will walk out of this prison alive.” The lieutenant 

45 For the C–5A airlift of the 160th’s helicopters, see Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The 

Night Stalkers, p. 126. For Reed’s meetings with special operations personnel at Howard, see 

Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; and Chapter 6 of this volume. 46 Interv, Partin with Maj Gen Marc A. Cisneros, U.S. Army, 2 Mar 1990, Fort Clayton, 

Panama.
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

101

colonel then rose, shook Muse’s hand, and left the room. The message he had 

delivered, according to Muse, had not been lost on its intended audience.47

That night, shortly before H-hour, many of the aircraft supporting U.S. 

special operations in Just Cause began assembling “into their various assault 

elements on the blacked-out runways of Howard.” When word reached them 

that H-hour had been advanced by fifteen minutes, the commandos strapped 

themselves onto the outboard benches of the MH–6s, and the air flotilla took 

off for the Carcel Modelo. The formation for the ten-minute flight included 

the four troop carriers and four AH–6s, two of which peeled off as the target 

came into sight and headed for their attack positions above the Comandancia. 

According to plan, the first two MH–6s landed on the prison roof, off-loaded 

their passengers, and took off. As the second pair of Little Birds prepared 

to land, the commandos sitting on the benches opened fire on Panamanian 

soldiers crossing a walkway between the Comandancia and the Carcel 

Modelo. The sniper team positioned at Quarry Heights also picked off targets, 

so that bullets from both sources resulted in several PDF guards being killed 

or wounded. By this time, the helicopters were under fire and the attack on the 

PDF headquarters was about to begin. Once all members of the assault team 

were on the roof, they blew open the door as planned, and several of them 

descended the stairs, making their way to Muse’s second-floor cell. On the way 

down, they encountered one PDF guard, who quickly surrendered, was flexcuffed, and left behind on the floor. When the commandos reached Muse, the 

guard outside his cell had fled and locked himself inside an office close by. As 

two of the rescue team blew the door’s lock and killed the guard, two others, 

one with a twelve-gauge shotgun, shot the lock off Muse’s cell. Once they had 

Muse in their possession, they adorned him with a Kevlar helmet and body 

armor, hustled him up to the roof, and called for the MH–6s to return. When 

the first Little Bird touched down for the pickup, Muse was stuffed inside the 

tiny craft, while six of his rescuers settled onto the benches. All this had been 

accomplished in just six minutes following the team’s landing on the prison.48

So far, the operation had proceeded exactly as planned and with no U.S. 

casualties. Muse had been rescued and, surrounded by commandos, was on 

a helicopter ready to take off from the prison’s roof. Another MH–6 with six 

commandos was also preparing to take off, and two more Little Birds were 

seconds away from landing and extracting the remainder of the assault force. 

At that precise moment, when all seemed to be going so well, the fog and 

friction of war intruded. Pre–Just Cause intelligence briefings indicated there 

were no power lines near the roof of the prison. That information turned out 

to be wrong. As the Little Bird with Muse took off under intense fire, one 

of the two pilots noticed power lines right in front of him. The other pilot 

47 Hunter, “Operation Acid Gambit”; Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, 

pp. 126–27. For Muse’s account of the meeting with Perry and Perry’s quote, see Muse and 

Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom, p. 266, and see also pp. 262–65, 267. 48 The account of the rescue mission thus far is based on the following sources: Hunter, 

“Operation Acid Gambit.” Quote from Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, 

p. 128, and see also pp. 129–31, 148–49. Muse and Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom, pp. 277–89. 

Durant and Hartov with Johnson provide a detailed account of the helicopter operations, while 

Muse and Gilstrap do the same for the rescue team’s actions.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

102

pulled up over the wires, but, because of the stress the maneuver placed on 

the overloaded craft, the helicopter quickly lost altitude. Enemy bullets did 

the rest, as the MH–6 took direct hits. Despite the pilot’s efforts to keep the 

Little Bird airborne, it crashed into the street about a block and a half from 

the prison. At almost the same time, as the second pair of MH–6s approached 

the Carcel Modelo’s roof, an enemy round pierced the window of one, severely 

wounding one of the pilots. The helicopter still managed to land, but, when it 

took off, only five, not six, commandos were on the benches. That left seven 

team members for the last Little Bird to extract, but they proved too much 

of a load. Three of the seven, including the commander of the team, jumped 

back onto the roof and, while the helicopter departed, continued to shoot at 

enemy positions around them. Fortunately for the stranded men, the rescue 

plan called for a Black Hawk to be on-call in the area, and the pilot, once 

apprised of the situation, headed for the prison. With the communications 

antenna having been removed, he was able to land the helicopter, its gunners 

firing the whole time, pick up the last three commandos, and head back to 

Howard.49

Reports that the helicopter with Muse aboard had crashed quickly 

made their way up the chain of command. When word reached Downing’s 

headquarters at Howard, “everybody just kind of sucked in a breath,” 

according to the general. “We were all just sick to our stomachs.” Several 

49 Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, pp. 150–53; Hunter, “Operation 

Acid Gambit”; Muse and Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom, pp. 292–94. In the account by Muse 

and Gilstrap, the Little Bird carrying Muse crashed solely as the result of enemy fire. In the versions presented by Hunter and by Durant and Hartov with Johnson, the unanticipated presence 

of the utility wire was a contributing factor to the crash. The authors of both accounts talked 

with the commandos and air crews who participated in the mission.

The Little Bird that crashed during the Muse rescue mission
Special Operations at the Outset of Just Cause

103

minutes later, Downing received an index card containing the names of those 

aboard the downed MH–6. “I just thought I had read the death list,” he 

revealed afterward. From Howard, the bad news worked its way up to Stiner’s 

and Thurman’s respective headquarters, with the latter informing General 

Powell in Washington. According to Bob Woodward, “Disappointment was 

written all over Powell’s face. Muse was the guy they were going to rescue for 

the President, and now his helicopter had gone down.” The assumption in 

Washington was the same as in Panama: Muse was most likely dead.50

To the contrary, there had been no fatalities at the crash site, although 

everyone, with the exception of Muse, had been injured by the impact, wounded 

by enemy fire, or both, some severely. With difficulty, the commandos who 

were mobile moved Muse to the safety of an apartment building, established 

a defensive perimeter around an abandoned jeep, and waited. So that friendly 

forces could locate the position, the team activated an infrared strobe light. 

A Black Hawk pilot flying overhead saw the light, signaled the commandos 

by “wiggling” his fuel pods, and transmitted the information back to 

headquarters. Team King, with its three M113 armored personnel carriers, 

was waiting in the vicinity for just such a development. The team leader had 

seen the Little Bird go down and, once informed of its location, moved out to 

extract its crew and passengers. Arriving about fifteen minutes after the crash, 

he got the mangled troops and Muse aboard his vehicles and headed toward 

an intermediate rendezvous point between two schools in the Balboa district 

near the Comandancia. From there, Muse and the more severely wounded 

commandos were taken by helicopter to Howard.51

As with reports of the crash, the news that Muse was alive and safe made 

its way up each link of the chain from Downing in Hangar 3 at Howard to 

Washington. “God, did we feel good,” Downing related. The report also 

changed the mood in the Pentagon, where Powell received the good news.52

Yet, exhilarating as it was, Muse’s rescue could not compensate for the SEAL 

fatalities at Paitilla. On balance, however, the H-hour missions performed by 

Special Operations Forces had all been accomplished, though not without 

cost. There was still much to do, however. By the time the canal had been 

shut down, the airfield at Paitilla secured, Noriega’s patrol boat destroyed, 

and Muse rescued, Operation Just Cause was still in its initial stages. As 

the commandos who rescued Muse left the Carcel Modelo behind them, the 

night-long battle for the Comandancia across the street, the centerpiece of the 

invasion, was still only minutes old. 

 

50 First, second, and third quotes from Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 Jan 1990. Interv, 

Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Last quote from Woodward, The Commanders, 

p. 184. 51 Platoon/Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC), “Team King,” in Nemmers, 

United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 57–58; Hunter, “Operation Acid Gambit”; Durant 

and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, pp. 153–54; Muse and Gilstrap, Six Minutes to 

Freedom, pp. 294–307. 52 Quote from Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 Jan 1990. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 185.

4

Task Force Gator and 

the Comandancia

The detonation of the entry charge that allowed the assault force on the roof of the Carcel Modelo access to Kurt Muse also served as a signal 

to launch the U.S. attack on the Comandancia. One participant called the 

battle that followed “the toughest mission in Panama.” It was certainly one of 

the most complex and involved some of the fiercest fighting.1

Plans and Preparations

Back in March and April 1988, a key sentence in the first contingency 

plans for U.S. offensive operations in Panama targeted “key PDF leadership, 

command and control facilities, military and civilian airfields, and other 

critical nodes within the Republic of Panama.”2 As the “Pentagon” of the 

Panama Defense Forces, the Comandancia clearly met the first criterion, and, 

as was the case with most offensive operations planned early in the crisis, the 

mission for isolating the facility and, if necessary, neutralizing enemy troops 

located there was assigned to Special Operations Forces, specifically U.S. 

Army Rangers. In the concept of operations that evolved over the succeeding 

months, a ranger battalion under the operational control of the Joint Special 

Operations Task Force would fly from the United States to Howard Air Force 

Base, board waiting helicopters, and launch an air assault on the Comandancia 

complex. Once the mission had been accomplished, the Rangers would turn 

over security of the site to conventional units under JTF-Panama. In terms 

of command and control, both the Joint Special Operations Task Force and 

JTF-Panama would answer directly to the commander in chief, U.S. Southern 

Command.3 

Plans for a ranger air assault on the Comandancia appeared in successive 

drafts of Blue Spoon supporting plans well into 1989. Then, following the 

1 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 134. Quote from Flanagan, Battle 

for Panama, p. 101. 2 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 042255Z Mar 1988.

3 Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. For most of 1988 and all of 1989, Pantier was the senior planner for U.S. Army, South, 

and JTF-Panama. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

106

failed coup d’état against Noriega on 3 October, a number of considerations 

caused U.S. planners to reexamine portions of the operation order that 

pertained to the Pacific Ocean side of the country. To begin with, the role that 

certain Panamanian forces had played in rescuing Noriega from his captors 

prompted a new look at what measures needed to be taken against units such 

as the 6th and 7th Infantry Companies and Battalion 2000. Also in need of 

evaluation were changes Noriega made within the Panama Defense Forces 

after his narrow escape. Some units, such as the UESAT, were relocated, 

while some of the command and control functions formerly centralized at 

the Comandancia were dispersed to other headquarters. As a clearer picture 

of the post–3 October Panamanian military began to emerge, certain Blue

Spoon objectives theretofore regarded as peripheral—Rio Hato, Las Tinajitas, 

and Fort Cimarrón, for example—acquired a much higher priority. The 

Comandancia retained its status as a priority-one target, but questions arose as 

to which U.S. force could best be employed to subdue the facility. Some officers 

argued that the ranger battalion originally designated for the mission could be 

used more productively elsewhere, while the Comandancia assignment could 

be entrusted to conventional units.

That idea was a logical extension of the Blue Spoon fragmentary order, 

code-named High Anxiety, drafted earlier in the crisis to cover a no-alert, or 

reactive, scenario in which the Panama Defense Forces moved without warning 

against U.S. units and sites. In this contingency, as stated in the 20 June 1989 

version of the order, the situation would “warrant an immediate execution” of 

Blue Spoon before forces from the United States had arrived in Panama. The 

burden of holding the line would fall on JTF-Panama, which would conduct 

“economy-of-force joint offensive operations with in-place forces to neutralize 

and ultimately disarm the PDF and any other combatants within the Panama 

City and Colón areas.” These operations, in turn, would give “sufficient time 

for augmenting forces from [the United States] to close in order to continue 

possible extended operations.” Under this and a subsequent version of High

Anxiety, U.S. Air Force elements under JTF-Panama had responsibility for 

any military action against the Comandancia. Following the coup attempt of 3 

October, however, the no-alert Comandancia mission was transferred from the 

Air Force to Task Force Bayonet, a grouping of ground forces task-organized 

under JTF-Panama and led by the commander of U.S. Army, South’s 193d 

Infantry Brigade, headquartered at Fort Clayton. According to an 11 October 

draft of High Anxiety, Task Force Bayonet shouldered the responsibility 

for isolating the PDF headquarters. If deemed necessary, the troops could be 

ordered to seize and secure the facility as well.4

Once Task Force Bayonet acquired the Comandancia mission under 

the no-notice fragmentary order, JSOTF planners saw no reason why that 

conventional headquarters could not take action against the same target 

should Blue Spoon be executed in the way the Pentagon and the Southern 

Command preferred: as a “deliberate” undertaking in which the U.S. military, 

in responding with force to a regime provocation, would have ample time to 

4 Ibid.; FRAGOs (High Anxiety) to JTF-Panama OPORD 7–88 (Blue Spoon), 20 Jun 

1989, 20 Aug 1989, and 11 Oct 1989; Briefing Slides, Blue Spoon: The Evolution of the Plan for 

Just Cause, n.d. 
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

107

marshal the necessary troops and supplies before launching a coordinated 

attack at a time determined by the White House, not the enemy. After JTFPanama and the XVIII Airborne Corps agreed to revising the unit assignments, 

the substitution of Task Force Bayonet for Special Operations Forces at the 

Comandancia appeared in the late-October revisions of the CINCSO and 

JTF-South versions of the Blue Spoon operation orders. The ranger battalion 

affected by the change quickly picked up responsibility for operations against 

Panamanian units at Rio Hato. 

The switch meant that Task Force Bayonet, under either the reactive or 

deliberate contingency, would have to isolate the Comandancia by occupying 

a number of defensive positions in the target’s vicinity. The task force might 

also have to launch a ground attack to accomplish what the Rangers had 

planned to do through an air assault: neutralize the Panamanian forces in and 

around a compound that enclosed the PDF headquarters and over a dozen 

other buildings, including troop barracks for two enemy companies. This 

more decisive action, in turn, would require a robust force in which technology 

would have to overcome what planners calculated to be a friendly-to-enemy 

troop ratio of one to one—approximately 350 U.S. soldiers to an estimated 390 

Panamanian soldiers—at the target, far short of the traditional and doctrinally 

sound three-to-one ratio of attacker to defender (or the higher four-to-one, 

even six-to-one, ratio desired in urban operations). In bringing together units 

that would maximize the assault force’s capabilities, Colonel Snell, the 193d 

Brigade commander, regarded the mechanized battalion placed under Task 

Force Bayonet during Nimrod Dancer as the logical unit to spearhead an 

operation against a fortified position in a built-up urban area. 

The Comandancia compound, with the PDF headquarters in the foreground
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

108

At the time Snell picked up the Comandancia mission, the mechanized 

battalion in Panama was the 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry, from the parent 5th 

Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. The unit had rotated 

into the country on 19 September, replacing the original Nimrod Dancer

mechanized force, the 5th Battalion, 6th Infantry, also from the 5th Division. 

The 4th Battalion deployed with its four line companies and only six dozen or 

so M113 armored personnel carriers, a shortfall that resulted in each maneuver 

platoon having only three of the vehicles instead of four. The battalion’s fifth 

company, an antitank unit, did not deploy but provided the Panama-bound 

force with three tube-launched, optically tracked, wire command-link-guided 

(TOW) missile vehicles and crews, which were attached to the battalion’s scout 

platoons. Once in Panama, the battalion headquarters, support units, and one 

of its companies moved to Camp Rousseau (later nicknamed Camp Gator) on 

the west side of the canal next to Rodman Naval Station. (The camp would also 

serve as the secret “motor pool” for the M551 Sheridans flown into Panama 

in November.) Another mechanized company from the 4th was located just 

north of Rousseau on the Army’s Empire Range, a training area. A third, 

which served as JTF-Panama’s quick reaction force, went to the east side at 

Corozal, and the fourth stood in support near Albrook Air Station. About 

once a week, the four companies changed these locations with one another.

That the 4th Battalion, as well as the battalion that had preceded it in the 

Nimrod Dancer rotation, arrived in Panama with M113s instead of newer 

Bradley fighting vehicles was no accident. The 5th Division was not scheduled 

to replace the older armored personnel carriers for another year, a timetable 

that planners for both Post Time and Blue Spoon took into account when 

drawing up their respective troop lists. The M113 was smaller than the Bradley 

but could hold more people, thus making it a more practical vehicle for 

negotiating the very narrow streets of Panama City and for evacuating civilians 

or taking troops into combat. So strongly did the planners favor deployment 

of the M113s that urgings from the Pentagon during Nimrod Dancer to have 

Bradley-equipped mechanized battalions sent to Panama met with no success.5

The suitability of the M113s to urban operations created a demand for 

mechanized units at targets other than the Comandancia. Consequently, only 

two of the 4th Battalion’s four line companies, B and D, would mount the 

attack on the PDF headquarters. Snell needed the battalion’s Company A and 

its vehicles for another mission, while Company C (minus) would serve as Task 

Force Bayonet’s reserve force. As partial compensation for withholding these 

two companies from a main attack, Snell cross-attached Company C from 

his Panama-based brigade’s 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne), to the 

Comandancia assault force. Company D also received a platoon from the 4th’s 

Company C, as well as a number of engineers for specific missions involving 

explosives. From the 82d Airborne Division, the force also acquired operational 

control over the platoon of four M551A1 Sheridan armored reconnaissance 

vehicles under wraps at Camp Rousseau. When married up with a platoon of 

5 Intervs, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Col James W. Reed, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Fort 

Clayton, Panama; with Maj Terry Freeze, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; author 

with Pantier, 13 Jun 1990; Telephone Intervs, author with 1st Lt Douglas L. Rubin, U.S. Army, 

5, 6, 11 Apr 1990.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

109

the Marines’ light armored vehicles—LAV–25s—from Task Force Semper 

Fi’s light amphibious infantry company, the Sheridans became part of “Team 

Armor,” commanded by the airborne company commander (and later his 

replacement) who had flown to Panama as part of the M551 command and 

control element. Rounding out the ground forces that would take part in the 

Comandancia operation were two platoons of military police, a platoon of 

engineers, medics, and some other personnel. Organized as Task Force Gator 

and led by the mechanized battalion commander, the major conventional 

units listed for offensive operations at the Comandancia appeared as follows 

on the eve of Operation Just Cause: Company B, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry, 

5th Infantry Division; Company D (plus), 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry, 5th 

Infantry Division; Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, 193d Infantry 

Brigade; the M551 platoon, Company C, 3d Battalion, 73d Armor, 82d 

Airborne Division; 2d Platoon, Company D, 2d Light Amphibious Infantry 

Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps; Headquarters and Headquarters Company 

(minus), 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry, 5th Infantry Division; 1st and 3d 

Platoons, 988th Military Police Company; and 1st Platoon, Company A, 7th 

Engineer Battalion.6

Between mid-October and mid-December, as the order of battle for 

Task Force Gator was being finalized, commanders and planners were also 

developing a concept of operations to replace the ranger air assault at the 

Comandancia. To facilitate the process, the mechanized battalion’s Company 

B and D commanders, Capt. Joseph D. Goss and Capt. Matthew R. Ethridge, 

respectively, were issued interim top secret clearances that would allow them 

access to the plans, and, soon thereafter, their platoon leaders received special 

permission to be brought into the deliberations as well. The same arrangement 

held true for Capt. Timothy John Flynn, the new commander of Company C, 

1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, and his platoon leaders. Throughout the process, 

officers at all levels made observations and offered suggestions, although, in 

general, the tactical commanders were restricted to selecting which of their 

platoons and squads would carry out the specific tasks contained in the 

evolving plan. The basic blueprint for the assault was in place by late October, 

with planners continuing to revise it over the next two months. In the midst of 

all this, Lt. Col. James Reed took command of the mechanized battalion on 1 

December, making him Task Force Gator’s new commander as well. 

Reed was quickly subjected to a ten-day barrage of briefings from his 

staff and company commanders to acquaint him with the complexities of the 

plan. In general terms, the newly developed concept of operations called for 

Task Force Gator, either in response to hostile actions by the Panama Defense 

Forces or as part of the deliberate execution of the Blue Spoon operation 

order, to isolate the Comandancia compound and the adjacent Carcel Modelo 

in Panama City. If Panamanian forces in the area ignored a broadcasted 

6 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, p. 47. A more detailed order of battle 

for Task Force Gator is in Memo, Lt Col James W. Reed for CG, U.S. Army Forces Command 

(FORSCOM), and Cdr, Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), 27 Mar 1990. Attached 

to the memo is the Just Cause After Action Report of the 4th Battalion (Mechanized), 6th 

Infantry. The U.S. Army, South, staff ride cited above provides a chronological timeline for each 

of the principal units in Task Force Gator, as well as a summary of the operations. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

110

entreaty to surrender, Reed was to order his forces to open fire. The Americans’ 

advantage in firepower, the planners assumed, would inflict a heavy toll on 

Panamanian defenses and defenders. Once resistance had subsided, U.S. troops 

were to enter each of the two compounds and clear the buildings therein.7

Command and control arrangements would depend on the circumstances 

under which the operation was executed. If Colonel Reed conducted the attack 

as a reactive measure under the revised no-alert High Anxiety fragmentary 

order, Task Force Gator would remain attached to Colonel Snell’s Task Force 

Bayonet, which, in turn, would remain under JTF-Panama’s operational 

control.8 If, on the other hand, the attack occurred under the deliberate Blue

Spoon plan and in conjunction with the special operations raid on the Carcel 

Modelo to rescue Kurt Muse, Gator would go under the operational control 

of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for an indeterminate time. This 

second possibility, considered the most desirable and the most likely scenario, 

meant that AH–6 attack helicopters and at least one AC–130 gunship would be 

employed over the Comandancia, thus increasing tremendously the firepower 

that U.S. commanders and planners sought to concentrate on the target. 

The deliberate scenario incorporating the Comandancia and Carcel 

Modelo missions also necessitated coordination between the mechanized 

battalion and the squadron-size special operations assault force. As noted 

7 Intervs, Wright with Col Michael G. Snell, U.S. Army, 1 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

with Capt Joseph D. Goss, U.S. Army, 13 Jan 1990, Corozal Barracks Building, Panama (draft 

transcript); with Capt Matthew R. Ethridge, U.S. Army, 10 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Capt William R. Reagan, Capt 

Robert Zebrowski, and Capt Timothy John Flynn, all U.S. Army, 21 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. 8 Draft, FRAGO (High Anxiety) to JTF-Panama OPORD 7–88 (Blue Spoon), 11 Oct 

1989.

AC–130 Spectre gunship
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

111

in the previous chapter, the rescue of Muse would fall to one of the three 

commando squadrons eligible to execute it. Prudence therefore dictated that 

officers from all three travel at various times to Panama where, working out of 

Hangar 3 at Howard Air Force Base, they could meet with Task Force Gator 

personnel—usually the commander and his operations, intelligence, and fire 

support officers—for the purpose of examining and adjusting the two sets of 

highly sensitive operation orders. During these sessions, the special operations–

conventional interaction was professional but not free from disagreement. As 

the mechanized battalion’s executive officer later explained, the revisions the 

special operations personnel made to the plan at each meeting often caused 

the battalion staff to play “a twenty questions game”: “Well, why did we do 

this, how come we did that, . . . we’ve had this for three months, why are we 

just now changing it?”9

When Reed assumed command of Task Force Gator, he was reluctant to 

urge major changes to a plan he knew had already received General Stiner’s 

blessings and perhaps General Thurman’s as well. Yet, with respect to one 

provision inserted by the special operations people, the lieutenant colonel 

listened to the objections of his subordinates and then strongly suggested 

an adjustment be made. The issue concerned the JSOTF’s insistence that, 

during the attack, a platoon from the mechanized force crash through the 

southeast gate of the Comandancia in order to set up an overwatch position, 

designated Point E, inside the compound itself. The position would certainly 

give the platoon a clearer field of fire at any vehicular movement in or out of 

the compound or on a street nearby. The problem was that an estimated one 

hundred Panamanian defenders would likely be occupying a building located 

right next to the platoon. To Captain Ethridge and the battalion staff, “It was 

kind of putting our guys out on a limb.” Reed agreed and recommended that 

the overwatch position be established outside the compound, arguing that the 

.50-caliber machine gun on an M113 was capable of firing over the wall. The 

recommendation was accepted up the chain of command.10

There was a second issue related to Point E on which Reed again asked for 

changes to the plan. The agreement to relocate the overwatch position outside 

the compound placed the mechanized platoon farther from the building in 

question but still within firing range of its Panamanian occupants. Given this 

ongoing albeit diminished threat, Reed’s staff was unhappy that the fire support 

plan it received had removed those enemy troops as targets for the AC–130s 

because of a fuel storage point located near the building. According to Reed’s 

executive officer, the planners “were afraid they would hit the fuel tanks on 

the ground there and set off a big fireball explosion, and do more collateral 

damage than they were led to believe was necessary.” Reed, on the other hand, 

wanted his men protected and requested that the building be reinstated as a 

target. The result was a compromise, in which the Air Force agreed to have the 

AC–130 use its .40-mm. guns rather than its powerful 105-mm. howitzer to fire 

on the structure.11

9 Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990.

10 Interv, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990. Quote from Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. 

Interv, Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990. 11 Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

112

Between mid-October and mid-December, while Reed and his predecessor 

were working with the special operators to formulate and refine Task Force 

Gator’s role in the event of hostilities, the ground units that would actually 

mount an attack on the Comandancia were preparing and rehearsing for the 

mission as best they could. Because the task force was already in Panama, 

it could not construct without detection the elaborate mock-ups available to 

Blue Spoon forces in the United States. Working in Gator’s favor, though, 

were the maneuvers and exercises that U.S. forces had conducted as a part of 

Operation Nimrod Dancer to assert American treaty rights in the country. 

More specifically, in the two months following the October coup attempt, JTFPanama adapted its Sand Fleas, contingency readiness exercises, and Purple 

Storms to the evolving plan as it pertained to the Comandancia. Mechanized 

units in M113s passed closer to the headquarters, in the process becoming 

familiar with the streets in the vicinity and conducting various timing and 

communications tests. There were limits on just how close to the PDF complex 

the armored personnel carriers could get, with Fourth of July Avenue, a main 

street a few blocks west of the compound—the Panamanians knew it as the 

Avenue of the Martyrs—representing a boundary that U.S. troops could not 

cross as part of their movements. To offset this restriction, the Company B 

and Company D commanders, Captains Goss and Ethridge, donned civilian 

clothes and, in their own cars, reconnoitered the streets off-limits to U.S. 

military vehicles. During their forays, they looked for routes whose use by their 

mounted soldiers would be permitted during routine exercises.12

The nonmechanized units in Task Force Gator did not enjoy this kind of 

proximity to the Comandancia. In the case of Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th 

Infantry, located adjacent to Howard Air Force Base at Fort Kobbe, Captain 

Flynn was not able to alter the routes of his Sand Fleas and readiness exercises 

without jeopardizing operations security. Prior to 3 October, his company’s 

Blue Spoon target had been Fort Amador, and the unit had conducted its 

day-to-day maneuvers in that area. To change the truck routes suddenly and 

drastically would almost certainly raise PDF suspicions. The best Flynn could 

do was to have his platoons and squads assume the order of march he intended 

to employ in the event there was an attack on the Comandancia. Even farther 

removed from the PDF headquarters than Flynn were the Marine light 

armored vehicles that would be attached to Gator if Blue Spoon were executed. 

Located with Task Force Semper Fi on the west side of the canal, they had 

no credible reason for passing anywhere near the Comandancia in the course 

of a routine Sand Flea. At a greater disadvantage, the four M551 Sheridans, 

the other half of Gator’s Team Armor, were not only on the same side of 

the canal as the LAVs, but their presence still remained a closely held secret. 

Consequently, the only movement training allowed the Sheridan crews was 

once a week between 2200 and 0200, when they took the “vehicles out of their 

concealed locations and drove them around the motor pool.” During daylight, 

the crews compensated for these security restrictions by riding in high mobility, 

multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) through the streets of Panama 

12 Intervs, Wright with Snell, 1 Jan 1990; with Goss, 13 Jan 1990; with Ethridge, 10 Jan 

1990; with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and 

Flynn, 21 Jun 1990.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

113

City, acquainting themselves with the various routes that the M551s might 

use in wartime. Although a new team commander took over on 8 December, 

both the outgoing and incoming captains, together with the Sheridan platoon 

leader and the LAV platoon leader, “conducted reconnaissance of the area of 

operation and gathered intelligence” and coordinated “routes and plans for 

link-up, frequencies and call signs.”13

In further preparation for the Comandancia mission, some Gator units 

sought to hone their skills in military operations on urbanized terrain (MOUT). 

In August, prior to deploying to Panama, each company in the 4th Battalion 

(Mechanized) had already finished a week of training in the urban operations 

layout at Fort Hood, Texas. The units had also conducted roadblock drills, 

Ethridge later related, in anticipation of “the missions that we saw mostly likely 

that we’d be performing down here.” Once in Panama, where they acquired 

the Comandancia assignment after 3 October, the battalion’s Companies B 

and D were able to rehearse the assault on a handful of occasions, employing 

a demolished housing area at Rodman Naval Station that in many respects 

resembled the layout of the real target. At the platoon and squad levels, the 

battalion also conducted live-fire exercises and “mini-mechanized gunnery” 

on the Army’s Empire Range. These activities allowed the soldiers to fire their 

weapons under control of a squad leader, even though the confined area of the 

range imposed limitations on what the units could do.14

Mixed in with the troop exercises and training were a slew of other 

measures designed to enhance a unit’s familiarity with the plan. Each Gator 

infantry company prepared a battle book to have ready for subordinate units 

in the event of war. The books contained the pertinent operation order, 

specific guidance for subordinate units, critical intelligence, and relevant maps 

and photographs. (While the maps received high praise, there was, according 

to some users, a dearth of photographs of the target area.) Officers also 

conducted jeep exercises, map exercises, and “oral rehearsals” of the plan. 

All of this created a frenetic operational tempo that left many of the troops 

frustrated. Flynn later observed that official prohibitions on various off-duty 

social activities, combined with the feeling there was no end to the crisis in 

sight, also contributed to a decline in morale as the holidays approached. The 

mechanized battalion’s executive officer, Maj. Terry Freeze, added that levels 

of frustration grew when a company rotating into the role of JTF-Panama’s 

quick reaction force was too often being sent into the field as the result of 

false alarms and unconfirmed reports. Over time, some staff officers started 

13 Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Col. Frank Akers, 

comp., “Discipline on Ancon Hill,” Operation Just Cause, The Warriors. Quotes from Capt. 

Kevin J. Hammond and Capt. Frank Sherman, “Sheridans in Panama,” Armor 99 (March-April 

1990): 8. 14 Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. Quote from Interv, 

Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990. Interv, Wright with Goss, 13 Jan 1990. Captain Flynn, whose 

Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, also engaged in live-fire training, noted that, at the 

urging of General Cisneros and Colonel Snell, “no-shoot” targets were added to the training 

to approximate better the urban environment in which combat operations might be conducted. 

Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

114

referring to “reverse Sand Fleas,” Freeze indicated, because the PDF was 

“harassing us more than we were harassing the PDF, we thought.”15

Perhaps the holidays would provide a respite. Reinforcing the conventional 

wisdom that, in Panama, crises did not heat up during festive occasions were 

intelligence reports that Panamanian forces were “taking off” for Christmas 

and New Year’s Day. Aware of this assessment, Reed decided that, once 

his Companies B and D had run a “confidence building” exercise on 14–15 

December, he would “reduce the OPTEMPO a little bit over about a weeklong period.” At that point in mid-December, he and his staff had nailed 

down the details of the Comandancia plan, having repeatedly discussed and 

run through them with the special operations people at Howard. Yet, as the 

lieutenant colonel later acknowledged, “Just the overall complexity of the plan 

was of some concern to me.” Also worrisome was the fact that, despite the 

flurry of small-unit exercises and operations by U.S. forces in Panama after the 

3 October coup attempt, the demands of the crisis, the dictates of operations 

security, and the absence of large U.S. training areas in-country combined to 

prevent Task Force Gator from coming together as a whole to rehearse its Blue

Spoon mission. Still, Reed believed the troops had earned a respite, no matter 

how brief. Before they could get it, however, the shooting at the Comandancia 

checkpoint and the death of Lieutenant Paz changed everything.16

News of the incident spread quickly through the chain of command, with 

most of the ranking U.S. officers in Panama being notified while attending 

unit and organizational Christmas parties that Saturday night. The festivities 

ended abruptly, as commanders and staff officers departed for their respective 

headquarters. For several hours, the Southern Command and JTF-Panama 

gathered as much information as they could. Air reconnaissance platforms 

were launched to determine if there were any Panamanian troop movements, 

if there was another coup attempt in progress, or if the shooting was part of 

some broader threat. At 2150, less than an hour after receiving an order to 

muster, units under Task Force Bayonet were directed to mount a contingency 

readiness exercise that, among other things, called for the two mechanized 

companies located on the west side of the canal to cross over the swing bridge 

to the east side, thus placing them in a more advantageous position should 

they have to execute their High Anxiety or Blue Spoon contingency plans. 

Colonel Snell also issued a directive for the units under his operational control 

to begin task organizing in accordance with JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2.17

Of the three infantry companies constituting the core of Task Force Gator, 

Sunday morning found the soldiers and M113s of Company D relocated from 

15 Intervs, Wright with Snell, 1 Jan 1990; with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990; 

with Goss, 13 Jan 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. Quote from 

Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. 16 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990. Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 

1990. One platoon leader in Company D noted after Just Cause the difficulties created during 

the operation by the fact that a variety of units—airborne, Rangers, marines, mechanized forces, and light infantry—had not had a chance to work together prior to the invasion. Telephone 

Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. 17 A brief chronology of the unit movements on the night of 16–17 December is in Nemmers, 

United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 47, 52; and Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and 

Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. 
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

115

Camp Rousseau across the canal to the Fort Clayton gymnasium. As for 

Company B, its rotation status as the quick reaction force on one-hour alert 

meant that it was already located on the east side of the canal at Corozal. After 

deploying to Fort Amador and then to Quarry Heights during the readiness 

exercise, the company returned to Corozal for the remainder of the day. In the 

case of Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, Captain Flynn had initially 

moved it from its barracks at Fort Kobbe across the canal into the Balboa area 

on the east bank. It was the first time an exercise had placed his unit near the 

Comandancia, prompting some of the men to speculate that their objective in 

combat might not be Fort Amador, as previous exercises had suggested. Shortly 

after his troops reached Balboa, Flynn received word to take the company to 

Fort Clayton. At some point, he also learned that, in accordance with Snell’s 

task-organizing directive, the company had gone under the operational control 

of the mechanized battalion. Flynn made contact with Captain Ethridge’s 

Company D at Clayton but later Sunday afternoon returned with his men 

to Fort Kobbe, a part of General Cisneros’ desire to give the appearance of 

business as usual. Even so, deception had its limits. Colonel Reed, for example, 

learned at a JTF-Panama meeting that the mechanized companies that had 

crossed the swing bridge were not to return to their bases but were to remain 

on the east bank of the canal indefinitely. The measure was highly visible but 

also prudent and precautionary, given the possibility of war.18 

The next day, well before dawn, Reed and his operations officer, Maj. 

James M. Donivan, were summoned to Howard Air Force Base to meet 

with the special operations personnel who would conduct the Muse rescue 

mission. Reed later recalled that this was the first indication he had that Blue

Spoon would, in fact, be executed. For the remainder of the day, the group 

updated plans for the assault on the Carcel Modelo and the deliberate attack 

on the Comandancia. Reed also received from the Joint Special Operations 

Task Force liaison personnel for the three M113s constituting Team King, 

a communications team including a satellite communications operator, and 

a combat coordination team. Meanwhile, rumors began circulating within 

the battalion that war was imminent. For Task Force Gator’s company 

commanders who, unlike their counterparts assigned to other Blue Spoon

missions, had been involved in the planning process since mid-October, the 

rumors were confirmed Monday evening, almost twenty-four hours before 

company commanders in other task forces would be told by their superiors.19

For Reed and his staff, the anxiety generated by impending combat was 

aggravated by the ambiguity surrounding command and control relationships 

in the hours leading up to hostilities. According to the deliberate attack scenario 

in Blue Spoon, Task Force Gator would be placed under the operational 

control of the special operations commander on the scene until the Muse rescue 

mission and possibly certain other SOF objectives had been accomplished. 

18 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, p. 47; Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, 

and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990; Intervs, Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990; with Goss, 13 Jan 

1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. 19 Intervs, author with Lt Col James W. Reed, U.S. Army, 29 Jan 1990, Camp Gator, 

Panama; with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, 

and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

116

All the commanders and planners involved agreed on this arrangement. What 

was not at all clear, however, was when the transfer of operational control of 

Gator from Snell’s Task Force Bayonet to Downing’s joint task force would 

take place. The mechanized battalion’s after action report listed noon on 19 

December as the time of the transfer, but that entry simply represented an 

after-the-fact convenience. At the time, no one really knew, least of all Reed. In 

the inevitable flurry of preinvasion activity on Monday and Tuesday, there was 

an extended period in which JTF-Panama and Task Force Bayonet, on the one 

hand, and Downing’s headquarters, on the other, simultaneously believed that 

Task Force Gator was working for them. Reed’s attempt to seek a definitive 

decision on the issue met with conflicting answers or genuine professions of 

ignorance.20

The confusion surrounding the issue would have been merely academic 

were it not for the fact that, during those two days, the mechanized battalion’s 

commander and staff received contradictory or competing guidance from the 

two separate chains of command. In one instance, General Cisneros, the JTFPanama commander, ordered a low-level Sand Flea exercise as another ploy 

to impart a business-as-usual façade. Downing, however, was concerned that 

the proposed troop movement would tip off enemy forces as to the coming 

hostilities. Reed found himself caught in the middle. Unable to obtain a definite 

answer as to whom he worked for, he went ahead and conducted the exercise, 

using the Sand Flea to allow his Company D to recalculate the time it would 

require to reach its H-hour line of departure from its new starting position at 

Fort Clayton.21

The uncertainty of the command arrangements continued into Tuesday, 

the day of the Sand Flea, with Reed and his staff asking, “Who are we 

listening to?” “Who’s in charge?” As Major Freeze recounted, “Colonel Snell 

would come down . . . and say, ‘Well, you need to do this, this and this.’ And 

in some cases it would conflict with what the JSOTF individuals were saying.” 

At some point on Tuesday, Reed received the information he had been seeking: 

he was working for Downing. This raised what Freeze referred to as “the other 

problem,” in that Reed now had to convince Colonel Snell “that, no, I’m 

not working for you as of this point in time, . . . so you need to quit coming 

down here and telling me what it is that you want me to do, because the task 

organization is in effect.” Overall, the confusion was a source of frustration for 

all concerned, but at no point did it seriously interfere with preparations for 

the H-hour mission. Still, as Freeze summarized, “all the time prior [to being 

told we would execute the plan], we were still being jerked around between 

whose control are we actually under.”22

Determining the command and control relationships in effect was but 

one of many issues that Task Force Gator had to address in the twenty-four 

hours preceding its attack on the Comandancia. In two early Tuesday morning 

meetings, Reed reviewed a checklist for the assault with special operations 

20 Intervs, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; Memo, Reed for 

CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. 21 Interv, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, 

p. 48.22 Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

117

personnel. Afterward, he gathered his own staff and, in the course of the 

discussion, informed his company commanders that at 0900 they could tell 

their platoon leaders that Blue Spoon would be executed and that combat 

operations were imminent. At 1300, he held another meeting, this one a 

comprehensive briefing for his staff, commanders, and other key personnel 

attached to Task Force Gator on their portion of the Blue Spoon operation 

order. Around the same time, the troops themselves were locked down and 

prohibited from making or receiving telephone calls. At 1700, platoon leaders 

formally briefed the men on the mission and informed them that H-hour 

would be 0100. In one case, this platoon-level briefing took place prematurely. 

Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, had spent most of the day in a 

gradual movement—one 21⁄2-ton truck every hour or so—from Fort Kobbe 

over the Bridge of the Americas to the elementary school in Curundu, from 

which it would move to its attack position shortly before H-hour. Around 

1600, when Captain Flynn arrived at the school after the 1300 meeting with 

Reed, one of his platoon leaders was already in the process of discussing the 

contents of the company’s battle book with his unit. Not happy at this security 

violation, Flynn told the platoon that, if the operation was canceled for any 

reason, they would have to be locked up indefinitely, in that they now knew 

the details of a top secret plan. He then accepted the fait accompli and had the 

book distributed to the other platoons as well.23 

After the soldiers and marines of Task Force Gator had received formal 

notification late Tuesday afternoon that they were about to go to war, fewer 

than eight hours remained for them to get ready. During that short time, 

platoon leaders briefed the plan, and each squad examined its specific role 

in detail. There was also a plethora of information concerning complex 

communication arrangements, detailed rules of engagement, vehicle and 

uniform identification, call signs, near and far recognition signals, challenges, 

hand signals, and running passwords to memorize. Furthermore, the troops 

had to be thoroughly hydrated for combat in a tropical climate; glint tape had 

to be affixed to helmets and vehicles so that friendly forces could be identified; 

and the M113s and other vehicles had to be checked one last time. There was 

still equipment to distribute, together with ammunition that the troops had not 

yet been issued. Against the PDF’s AK47s, rocket-propelled grenades [RPGs], 

sniper rifles, and 90-mm. cannon mounted on V300 Cadillac Gage armored 

reconnaissance vehicles, the U.S. ground force would amass .50-caliber 

and M60 machine guns, M16 and sniper rifles, hand grenades and grenade 

launchers, light antiarmor weapons [LAWs], TOW missiles, and rounds fired 

from the Sheridans and light armored vehicles. Both sides had riot control 

gas, although the Americans fervently hoped it would not be employed, since 

donning chemical masks would reduce further what would already be limited 

nighttime vision. Given all that had to be accomplished in the few hours before 

Operation Just Cause, corners were often cut. For example, even though 

Company D’s 2d Platoon would be required to breech the Comandancia wall 

with explosive charges, constraints on money and time had not allowed the 

soldiers to train with such devices in Panama. Shortly before midnight with 23 Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990; Intervs, author with 

Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

118

H-hour looming, their platoon leader hurriedly gave them a cursory overview 

of the explosives to be used.24

For some units, final preinvasion preparations on the night of the 

nineteenth also meant moving from one location to another to link up with 

troops who would accompany them to their H-hour lines of departure. Thus, 

the Team King armored personnel carriers and the military police platoons 

attached to Task Force Gator made the journey from Fort Clayton to Corozal, 

where the mechanized battalion’s Company B was situated. In the meantime, 

two platoons from Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, boarded 21⁄2-ton 

trucks at the Curundu elementary school in order to join Company D, 4th 

Battalion, 6th Infantry, at the Fort Clayton gymnasium. Special operations 

personnel made the trip to Clayton as well. The Marine LAV platoon at 

Rodman also had to link up with the Sheridan platoon at Camp Rousseau 

before Team Armor would be ready to cross to the east side of the canal. All 

these and other last-minute troop movements were completed without incident 

around 2200, but the time they required further depleted precious minutes 

that could have been used to acquaint the soldiers further with their combat 

missions, the specifics of which they had learned only a short while before.

That evening, Reed called one last meeting with his staff and troop 

commanders to give them an intelligence update; to drive home the point 

that, once they crossed their lines of departure, they needed to keep moving, 

regardless of the obstacles and opposition they encountered en route to their 

objectives; and to discuss various courses of action they might adopt should 

circumstances require them to deviate from the plan. 

The plan itself, while intricate in terms of the precise timing it required and 

the number of small-unit activities it contained, was, in conceptual terms, very 

straightforward. Basically, the target was divided into two sectors: Area A, which 

included the Carcel Modelo, and Area B, which contained the Comandancia 

compound. Reed’s Company B and the military police accompanying it would 

move from Quarry Heights across Fourth of July Avenue “to secure Area 

A and to isolate the prison area.” At the same time, his Company D would 

take a route through Balboa, then across Fourth of July Avenue to isolate the 

Comandancia and secure Area B. The troops from Panama-based Company 

C would move dismounted behind the two mechanized companies to secure an 

area of operations, labeled AO Spear, in the vicinity of a high-rise apartment 

building overlooking the Comandancia from the west. 

While the three key maneuver companies were thus engaged, the four 

Sheridans and four LAV–25s of Team Armor would be taking up positions, 

Bull I and Bull II, on Ancon Hill, looking directly down into the Comandancia 

compound (Map 6). Besides providing supporting fires, the crews were to engage 

any Cadillac Gage armored vehicles the Panamanian defenders attempted to 

deploy, either from the Comandancia or as part of a reinforcement column 

from some other PDF base in the vicinity. A military loudspeaker team would 

also set up its equipment on Ancon Hill in order to broadcast appeals for the 

Panamanian defenders in the area to surrender. To monitor these deployments 

and the subsequent battle, Reed and one of his platoons would establish the 24 On the lack of training with explosives and the problems that that created the night of 

the operation, see Telephone Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990.
G

A

C

B

P

F

E

M

N

Q

to Bridge of the Americas

Comandancia

AO Spear

Q uarr y Heights

Carcel Modelo

Southern Command

Headquarters

B

A

Y

O

F

P

A

N

A

M

A

ANC O N

HILL

Baseball

Field

Water

 tanks

Tunnel

Cemetery

M

Cemetery O R G A N R O A D

B A L B O A S TRE E T

F O U RT H O F J U L Y A V E N U E

P O E T S A V E N U E

A V E N U E A

A V E N U E B

2 7 T H S T 2 6 T H S T

A M A D O R 

A V E N U E

El Chorrill o

Balboa

P A NAMÁ

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE GAT O R

20 December 1989

0

0

400 Meters

400 Yards

Objective

Carcel Modelo Compound

Comandancia Compound

Bull I and II 

Point Positions

Roadblock

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 50 100 150 and Above

A

B

C

X

Map 6
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

120

Task Force Gator command post at Point G on the operations map, a street 

intersection that would offer him “the best vantage point” from which to 

observe the Comandancia directly, and thus “the fires into it.” Located with 

him, elements from an attached engineer platoon would run a collection 

point for Panamanian prisoners. Nearby, just to the west of Fourth of July 

Avenue, there would be an intermediate casualty collection and transfer point 

at which wounded troops could be removed from M113s employed for medical 

evacuation and put in wheeled ambulances, which would then proceed to the 

task force’s main aid station at Balboa High School. By using the intermediate 

facility, the M113s would be able to return expeditiously to the battle area to 

pick up additional casualties.25

Following Reed’s final meeting with his staff and commanders, the 

participating units continued their last-minute preparations for the coming 

battle. Right after midnight on 20 December, the news that had already 

reached higher headquarters that the Panamanian military knew about the 

attack and were taking defensive measures began circulating among the 

troops. Task Force Gator, in other words, should expect a fight en route to its 

objectives. As the implications of this development were sinking in, word also 

arrived of the advance in H-hour from 0100 to 0045. Adjusting to the changed 

time, the M113s of Company B and Team King began moving as a column 

out of a parking lot at Corozal at 0021 en route to the target area. When 

they passed the entrance to Albrook Air Station, Panamanians in a police car 

opened fire on the lead elements with automatic weapons, and a U.S. gunner 

returned fire with an M60 machine gun. The incident was inconsequential 

but had its effect on the troops. In the words of Captain Goss, Company B’s 

commander, the PDF “knew we were coming, so we were kind of expecting 

the worst at that point.” When the column reached Quarry Heights, it stopped 

for five to ten minutes, allowing the Company D column from Fort Clayton 

to reach Balboa High School. That column, its attached units, and the task 

force commander had left the fort by the front gate at 0033. When it arrived 

at the high school, it, too, paused briefly to synchronize times with Company 

B. Company C (minus), meanwhile, had followed Company D out of Clayton. 

When it reached the vicinity of the high school, the soldiers climbed out of 

the deuce-and-a-half trucks, which, unlike the M113s, offered little protection 

from hostile fire. After some initial confusion, the platoons fell in line for the 

foot march ahead of them. Team Armor made up the rear of Gator’s advance. 

The Sheridans and LAVs had departed Camp Gator for the swing bridge at 

0027, the crews thankful in the knowledge that the bridge, located across from 

Fort Clayton, had opened in time to obviate taking the backup route over the 

Bridge of the Americas, which the Panamanians had reportedly blocked.26

25 The overview of the plan of attack and the quotes are from Interv, Wright with Reed, 6 

Jan 1990. 26 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 48, 53, 57–59, 60b; Memo, Reed for 

CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. Quote from Interv, Wright with Goss, 13 Jan 

1990. Intervs, Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 

21 Jun 1990. Company C, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, also fell in behind the Company D column. The unit was part of Task Force Wildcat and had missions near the Task Force Gator line 
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

121

Minutes after staging and coordinating, the three main maneuver elements 

moved out toward their respective lines of departure. The Company B column 

crossed its line at 0045. The Company D column, with 1st Lt. Douglas L. 

Rubin’s 2d Platoon in the lead, met armed resistance before reaching its line 

when Panamanians in three cars trying to block the intersection of Fourth of 

July Avenue and Avenue A opened fire with AK47 assault rifles. The platoon 

returned fire with its .50-caliber machine guns and, after crushing one of the 

vehicles under an M113’s tracks, moved through the intersection at 0044. A 

minute later, the soldiers of Company C heard a series of explosions as the 

AC–130s over the Comandancia began their attack. The troops, themselves, 

took some AK47 fire from a water tower and wood line in Balboa as they 

walked to the corner of Morgan Avenue and Balboa Street and began to 

negotiate the hill separating them from AO Spear. As they reached the crest of 

the hill, they looked in awe upon the fiery sight below them. The battle for the 

Comandancia was under way.27 

The Attack

As Panamanian riflemen and snipers on the perimeter of the Comandancia 

began firing on the advancing U.S. mechanized and dismounted infantry 

companies, the PDF headquarters itself came under intense fire from the air. 

Just before H-hour, two AH–6 attack helicopters flew by the sixteen-story highrise building west of the Comandancia checking for snipers. Because the rules 

of engagement for Operation Just Cause emphasized the use of minimum 

force and then only when an unmistakably hostile target presented itself, the 

helicopters’ crews made no attempt to engage Panamanian forces they could 

see inside the building but did use their miniguns to drive enemy snipers off 

the rooftops. Both Little Birds then turned to attack the Comandancia with 

2.75-inch rockets. In the process, one of the helicopters was hit by hostile fire 

and began falling to the ground. The two-man crew, Capt. George Kunkel and 

CW3 Fred Horsley, spied an open spot below them and managed to guide the 

craft to a hard landing. The AH–6 burst into flames, but both men were able 

to exit safely. Whatever relief they experienced for having survived the crash 

dissipated when they realized they had come down within the Comandancia 

compound. They immediately tried to contact friendly forces via their PRC–90 

radios, but, failing that, they moved along a nearby wall, using various buildings 

in the compound for cover. More than the threat of enemy fire alarmed them. 

Knowing that the AC–130 attack on the compound was imminent, they began 

looking for a secure position from which to survive the coming inferno.28

of departure. For the duration of the movement to its area of operations, however, Company C 

was placed under Gator’s operational control. See Chapter 6. 27 Telephone Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990; Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, 

and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 48, 53, 60b; Memo, 

Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. 28 Col. Frank Akers, comp., “A Night in the Comandancia,” Operation Just Cause, The 

Warriors; Interv, author with Maj Charles G. McMillan, U.S. Air Force, 31 May 1995, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. McMillan was a pilot in one of the two AC–130s over the Comandancia 

during the U.S. attack.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

122

The crew of the other Little Bird, not realizing that Kunkel and Horsley 

had crashed, cleared the two AC–130s circling overhead to begin firing. For 

the first time in combat, the gunships used a new tactic, called Top Hat, in 

which one flew at a higher altitude and in a smaller circle than the one below 

it, a configuration ideally suited to allowing two Spectres to bring all their 

firepower to bear on a small, highly concentrated target. At thirty seconds 

after H-hour, the higher plane started firing its 105-mm. howitzer at the two 

enemy barracks in the compound. Joining in, the lower gunship began to level 

a devastating fusillade at its targets. After several minutes, the first AC–130 

prepared to leave the airspace of the Comandancia to assist Special Operations 

Forces elsewhere in the search for Noriega. If Panama’s dictator was discovered 

trying to escape in his private jet at Paitilla, the Spectre crew was supposed to 

interdict him. Noriega would be given a chance to turn back and surrender, 

but, if he ignored the appeal, the crew had orders to shoot down his plane. As 

the AC–130 was on the verge of departing the Comandancia area, however, 

the pilot received word from the assault force at the Carcel Modelo that it was 

taking fire from across the street. He responded by having his gunners rake the 

PDF headquarters building with the plane’s 40-mm. Bofors gun, after which 

the gunship left the scene to perform its other missions. 

The second AC–130 stayed behind to provide close air support for the 

ground assault, firing its 105-mm. howitzer into the main headquarters 

building. A videotape of the assault taken from the plane’s camera showed 

a series of rapid explosions, as volumes of smoke and debris ascended into 

the night sky. At ground level, the AC–130 onslaught produced the fiery sight 

witnessed by the U.S. troops en route to their objectives. In reality, though, 

the attack on the three-story headquarters building wreaked havoc on the top 

floor only, leaving defenses on the lower two floors largely intact. The howitzer 

rounds, it turned out, were not designed to penetrate reinforced concrete—

they would go through the unreinforced roof but not the floors of the building. 

Even so, the Spectre preparation fires, while not reducing the target to rubble, 

caused much damage within the compound and served to suppress the fire of 

enemy soldiers situated therein.29 

The main problem facing Task Force Gator in attempting to surround 

the Carcel Modelo and Comandancia was fire coming not from the two 

compounds, but from the scores of defenders who had vacated the premises 

well before H-hour to set up roadblocks, strongpoints, and sniper positions in 

the streets and within the buildings along the principal avenues the American 

forces needed to negotiate before they could set up their own series of blocking 

points. As Reed recollected, the PDF had done a professional job in ensuring 

that each roadblock or defensive position called for in the operation plan 

was well covered by machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK47s. 

Even with the American advantage in firepower, he anticipated that his task 

force would suffer around three dozen fatalities. It certainly helped that his 

troops knew in advance where many of the enemy obstacles were located, 

thanks largely to the reports of special operations personnel observing the 

29 Intervs, author with McMillan, 31 May 1995; Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; Thomas B. 

Hunter, “Operation Acid Gambit: The Rescue of Kurt Muse,” at http://www.specialoperations.

com/Operations/Just_Cause/Acid_Gambit/default2.html.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

123

Comandancia throughout the day from positions on Ancon Hill. But the 

intelligence, while accurate, was not comprehensive; it could not cover what 

the observers could not see. Also, knowing what to expect and where to expect 

it did not preclude a fierce battle. As each U.S. maneuver company crossed its 

line of departure, the soldiers immediately encountered heavy resistance.30 

In Area A, the northern sector of the battlefield, the column of armored 

personnel carriers from Captain Goss’ Company B moved down Fourth of 

July toward Avenue B, a maneuver that meant exposing the vehicles’ flanks to 

the high volume of sniper and small-arms fire from defenders in the buildings 

along the route. As a countermeasure, the drivers increased their speed, up to 

thirty or thirty-five miles per hour—“those 113s were just howling,” recalled 

one observer. When the column made a left turn onto Avenue B at those high 

speeds, though, it literally ran into a roadblock that the special operations 

observers on Ancon Hill had not been able to see. The obstacle consisted of 

two dump trucks stretched across the street, and the first M113 in the Company 

B column could not avoid hitting one of them. While the next three personnel 

carriers stopped or swerved to miss ramming the first one, the vehicles that 

followed collided in a chain reaction, putting one M113 out of action and 

causing one passenger to break his ribs when he was propelled forward from 

the rear into the crew’s compartment. The scene reminded Captain Goss of 

“a California freeway smashup.” As soon as the column stopped, it received 

concentrated AK47 and automatic weapons fire, together with some RPGs, 

from the buildings and apartments nearby, especially from a multistoried 

building at the intersection of Fourth of July Avenue and Avenue B. Goss’ 

men began returning fire and, in the captain’s judgment, gained fire superiority 

within a matter of minutes. The pileup of M113s, in this respect, actually worked 

to the Americans’ advantage, for, although it created the kill zone the enemy 

wanted, it also, in Goss’ words, “helped because we had so much firepower in 

that small area and we were able to suppress every window that they had in 

[the large building].” After a couple of minutes, the shooting began to subside, 

but the column remained stalled at the roadblock. It had been a well-planned 

but poorly executed ambush because of the poor marksmanship of the enemy, 

who persisted in shooting high. Still, surviving this initial encounter had been 

costly for the Americans: Company B received its first fatality, Cpl. Ivan Perez, 

an M113 commander killed while trying to provide suppressing fire with his 

.50-caliber machine gun.31

The advance of Captain Ethridge’s Company D fared only slightly better. 

After crossing Fourth of July Avenue and moving down Avenue A, the armored 

column needed to turn right onto 26th Street. As was the case with Company 

B, the lead element encountered dump trucks blocking the route at the point 

where 27th and 26th Streets intersected. In this instance, the 2d Platoon’s 

M113s were able to circumvent the obstacles by driving partly on the sidewalk. 

But as they sped down 26th Street, they experienced what Lieutenant Rubin 

termed the Gauntlet, where machine gun and AK47 fire and a few RPGs fell 

30 Interv, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990.

31 First quote from Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. Other quotes from Interv, Wright 

with Goss, 13 Jan 1990. Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 145–46. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

124

on the column from the sixteen-story high-rise in AO Spear and from the twoand three-story buildings on each side of the street. The second M113 in line 

was struck by an RPG, but the angle was bad and the round did not penetrate 

the vehicle. Rubin, himself, was hit by a bullet in the shoulder, but, with his 

adrenaline flowing from the sounds of combat and the “Star Wars” images of 

green and red tracers all around him, he did not immediately realize he was 

wounded. His main concern was to keep moving and reach his objective, Point 

E. Behind him, the 2d Platoon from the mechanized battalion’s Company 

C—the platoon attached to Company D as reinforcement—followed in his 

wake, with Company D’s own 3d Platoon after that. In the meantime, Ethridge 

pulled out of the formation and, with his 1st Platoon and engineers in tow, 

headed to set up his command post near Point G.

After turning left onto Poets Avenue (Avenida de los Poetas), Rubin’s 

platoon reached Point Q, in the process exchanging fire with the crews of two 

PDF 75-mm. recoilless rifles positioned farther down the avenue. His M113s 

then crashed through a chain-link fence and moved toward Point E, where, in 

a brief engagement, the men killed four Panamanian defenders. Meanwhile, 

the 3d Platoon, after pausing at Point P during the first round of AC–130 

preparation fires on the Comandancia, moved with two squads into its 

positions at Point F. For its part, the 2d Platoon from Company C prepared 

to maneuver to its objective, Point M, near the baseball field just east of the 

compound.32

As the mechanized platoons under Ethridge were running the Gauntlet 

on 26th Street, the men of Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, were 

working their way along 27th Street—and down alleyways—toward AO 

Spear. As they fought past each building on their route, they, like Companies B 32 Interv, Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990. Quote from Telephone Interv, author with 

Rubin, 6 Apr 1990. Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990.

M113 armored personnel carrier in position near the Comandancia compound
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

125

and D, received heavy fire, especially from the sixteen-story high-rise. Captain 

Flynn briefly pulled his men back and called for fire support, only to be told to 

keep moving and return fire. Being on foot, the light infantry found its ability 

to comply with the directive restricted by the number of civilians crossing 

through its ranks, mainly refugees trying to flee the fighting that had suddenly 

engulfed the poor neighborhoods of El Chorrillo, the district in which the 

Comandancia was situated. As one account related the scene, “The main avenue 

was a flood of fear, streaming with Panamanians, most of them barefoot and 

crying.” Also a problem was the fact that most of the PDF defenders had 

shed their uniforms for civilian attire, thus making it difficult for U.S. forces 

to determine who exactly was shooting at them. Despite these impediments, 

the company managed to occupy its objective around the high-rise apartment 

building shortly after 0100, using whatever cover it could, including a ditch 

running parallel to the main street, to conceal the troops’ movements and 

positions from the snipers above them. Once in place, Flynn’s men awaited the 

engineers who were to provide them the explosives and expertise for blowing a 

hole in the Comandancia’s west wall.33

Meanwhile, Company B’s efforts to break through or bypass the roadblock 

on Avenue B finally paid off. For one thing, the Team King M113s and the 3d 

Platoon simply pulled out of the column and headed for Avenue A, an alternate 

route to their objectives. Captain Goss thought about sending the rest of the 

company after them, but when his troops’ fire superiority forced a lull in the 

fighting, he decided instead “to bust through where we were and continue on 

with the normal plan,” rather than risk further confusion and possible friendly 

fire by rerouting the remaining two platoons. In front of him, an armored 

personnel carrier rammed one of the dump trucks four times in a futile attempt 

to move it. Then, in an effort to tow the obstacle out of the column’s path, two 

soldiers dismounted from an M113 and attached a hook and cable to the tenton truck. The vehicle barely budged, but what small movement there was 

created just enough space between the dump truck and the building next it to 

allow the American vehicles through. A lieutenant in the first M113 proceeded 

to bypass the obstacle, scraping both truck and building in the process. The 

second track contained the body of Corporal Perez, so it pulled back and 

ultimately made its way back to Quarry Heights to deliver his remains there. 

With some difficulty and several minutes after the first personnel carrier had 

successfully negotiated the barrier, Goss’ 1st Platoon finally slipped past the 

dump truck. Goss himself followed and then the 2d Platoon. After a brief 

mix-up concerning the correct location of the 1st Platoon’s final positions, 

all the units in the Company B column arrived at their objectives. The troops 

unloaded wire and other material and set up roadblocks, while Goss radioed 

Reed and told him that Area A surrounding the Carcel Modelo compound 

was secured. The time was 0145.34

33 Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Nemmers, United States 

Army South Staff Ride, pp. 60b, 60d. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 147.

34 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 145–46; Memo, Reed for CG, 

FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990; Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. Quote from 

Interv, Wright with Goss, 13 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

126

Once his men were in place, Goss had them dismount and take up positions 

that would prevent any Panamanian defenders from escaping the ring closing 

around them. To this end, he also sent several squads into the cemetery across 

from the Carcel Modelo. The problem, again, was that most of the Panamanian 

forces were fighting in civilian clothes—Reed could not remember seeing many 

uniformed enemy soldiers at all—while members of the Dignity Battalions 

present were, in many cases, civilians to begin with. Thus, whenever a defender 

determined that the time had come to put down his weapon and steal away, he 

had little to do but mingle with the throngs of innocent civilians trying to flee 

both the fighting and the fires that were beginning to spread in the area. Since 

there was no effective and expeditious way to separate the fighters from the 

noncombatants, U.S. troops allowed most unarmed persons in civilian clothes 

attempting to leave the area to do so. The Americans could only hope that they 

would be able to round up the departing enemy combatants in the days ahead. 

As for those hostiles who did surrender or who were caught, they were taken 

to a prisoner-of-war collection area near Point G and turned over to engineers 

not otherwise involved in the fighting; from Point G, they were escorted to 

Albrook Air Station for processing.35

At the time Company B was moving to secure its positions in Area A, 

Company D was still encountering problems in Area B. This was particularly 

true for the 2d Platoon after it reached Point E. Lieutenant Rubin and his men 

had just exited the platoon’s three M113s and were advancing to place explosive 

charges near the southeast corner of the wall surrounding the Comandancia 

when they were hit with about twenty rounds of indirect fire. Of the three 

M113s in the platoon, the first in line, in which Rubin was riding, was disabled, 

while the second burst into flames. Miraculously, no soldiers were killed, but 

several were wounded. Rubin got the most serious casualties into the third 

M113, which was still intact, and sent them to the medical aid station in the 

rear. Then, he, the remaining wounded, and those who were unscathed pulled 

back to a seawall near them, leaving behind the damaged and the burnt-out 

M113s. When Rubin reported his casualties to Captain Ethridge, the company 

commander contacted the 2d Platoon, Company C, and stopped its advance 

toward Point M, ordering the men instead to set up a “support by fire position” 

to cover Rubin’s platoon, which was “pretty strung out.”36

Meanwhile, Rubin and his men headed back toward Fourth of July Avenue, 

regrouped, and then moved forward again, this time behind the seawall, 

determined to retrieve the one possibly operable M113 they had abandoned 

at Point E. What was left of the platoon crossed a road near the personnel 

carrier shortly before 0200, at which time a second barrage of indirect fire 

engulfed them. Soon thereafter, a medical M113 arrived, and Rubin was able to 

evacuate all of the wounded. With the remaining five members of his platoon, 

he retrieved the damaged personnel carrier and drove it to Point M, where it 

stayed the rest of the night, providing security. At some point, the 2d Platoon, 

Company C, arrived, took up its assigned positions, and began clearing the 

35 Intervs, Wright with Goss, 13 Jan 1990; with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 

1990.36 Telephone Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. First quoted words from Interv, Wright 

with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990. Second quoted words from Interv, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. 
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

127

area around Point N. The platoon leader also detached one of his squads to 

reinforce Rubin’s depleted ranks.37

The two instances of indirect fire had devastated 2d Platoon, Company 

D. During the first episode, Rubin had assumed that the shelling came from 

enemy mortars or RPGs and reported this up his chain of command, through 

Ethridge to Reed. When Reed heard the news, he directed his antimortar 

radar crews to locate the weapons responsible. Some men in the 2d Platoon, 

however, were not so sure they had been the object of enemy mortars, thinking 

instead that the lethal fire might have come from the AC–130 that was still 

circling overhead to provide air cover for the task force. The second attack 

pretty much removed any doubt about the source: it was the 40-mm. gun of 

the Spectre gunship. The aircraft used television and infrared sensor systems to 

locate and identify targets on the ground, and, during the fighting around the 

Comandancia, the sensor operators switched back and forth between the two 

systems, depending on the degree to which the smoke and debris emanating 

from the battlefield below obscured their view. After one switch over, the 

sensors picked up a target, Rubin’s three M113s, that, given reports the Spectre 

crew was receiving from ground communication elements, were believed to 

be enemy V300 Cadillac Gage vehicles. The result was friendly fire. After the 

second attack on the target, the Spectre crew received word to cease firing over 

Points Q, M, and E, but by then the damage had been done.38

With Company B still receiving sporadic fire in Area A, and with Company 

D still facing heavy fighting in Area B, Reed decided to bolster the firepower 

available to Goss and Ethridge by providing each of them one LAV and one 

Sheridan from Team Armor. In part, the decision was driven by his desire to 

get some use out of a unit that had yet to fire a single round in the battle. There 

were several reasons for this inaction, although Reed only became aware of 

some of them in the days to follow. To begin with, the team had been divided 

into two groups, each with two Sheridans and two LAVs. Both groups were 

to occupy positions on Ancon Hill overlooking the Comandancia area, with 

one group going to Bull I and the other, below it, to Bull II. The difficulties 

started prior to H-hour when Panama Canal Commission regulations forced 

the team to cross the swing bridge one vehicle at a time, with the subsequent 

delay causing the column to reach its positions on Ancon Hill only after the 

battle had begun. By the time the crews were ready to engage the enemy, smoke 

and flames obscured their view of the target, making friendly fire a distinct 

possibility given the Sheridan’s lack of a nighttime acquisition and fire control 

system. “We didn’t fire because we couldn’t see the Comandancia clearly, and 

we didn’t want to cause collateral damage,” one gunner later related. Further 

complicating the situation, the four vehicles at Bull I were positioned behind 

three mammoth trees. Engineers at the site were supposed to blow down the 

obstacles but managed to fell only one. With Reed’s decision to reinforce 

Companies B and D, at least half of Team Armor would participate in the 

street fighting that night. In Reed’s words, “It was clear to me that those guys 

37 Telephone Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990.

38 Ibid.; Intervs, author with McMillan, 31 May 1995; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 150–52; Nemmers, United States Army 

South Staff Ride, p. 49.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

128

just weren’t doing much for us up in that position, so I decided that I’d bring 

them down.”39

Reed was not certain that Company B really needed a LAV and Sheridan, 

but he knew that Company D did. When Ethridge received word that the two 

vehicles were heading to his position, he directed them to Point E, where he 

knew Rubin’s platoon was in trouble. Moments later, Rubin saw them coming 

toward him and, not realizing they were for his use, moved to commandeer 

them. “Now I’m truly combined arms,” he thought. In the hour or so that 

followed, he had the Sheridan fire two 152-mm. rounds at the Comandancia 

wall and then ram a hole in it. Leaving the LAV and its marines to hold Point 

E, he moved to the baseball diamond, where he acquired some additional 

M113s from the Company C platoon and sent them toward another end of 

the field. There he left the tracks in a defensive position and returned to his 

own men, whom he had dropped off at Point M. The next task was to build 

a sandbagged defensive position between Points M and E, which Rubin used 

as his command center. With that accomplished, all of Area B was deemed 

secured around 0330.40

Either shortly before or right after Rubin’s platoon received friendly fire for 

the second time, there was one of several pauses in the AC–130’s bombardment 

of the Comandancia. Inside the compound, the two downed AH–6 pilots 

decided the time had come to depart the enemy’s enclave and make their way 

to friendly lines. Winding their way through a maze of buildings, Kunkel 

and Horsley reached the outer wall and were preparing to scale it when a 

Panamanian soldier, his hands raised, stepped out from behind some bushes 

and surrendered to them. His comrades, he explained, were either dead or had 

fled. Kunkel then threw his flak jacket over the concertina wire on top of the 

wall and climbed over it, dropping into the street below. Shouting the running 

password, “Bulldog”—or, as some recollect, words that sounded more like 

a string of profanity—he made contact with American troops and returned 

for Horsley and the prisoner. The three were escorted to Ethridge’s position, 

where the Panamanian was taken to the prisoner-of-war site and Kunkel and 

Horsley found haven in the back of the company commander’s M113, their 

ordeal finally over.41

During the remainder of the night, Companies B and D would engage 

in sporadic fighting, with Goss’ men in one instance using their .50-caliber 

machine guns to repel a V300 Cadillac Gage coming toward them. In the 

sequence of events since H-hour, Company B had first experienced the 

heaviest fighting; then Company D had come under an onslaught of enemy 

and friendly fire. Finally, around the time Ethridge’s platoons were establishing 

their positions and isolating the Comandancia in Area B, it became Company 

C, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry’s turn to take the brunt of enemy resistance. 

Spread out around the high-rise in AO Spear, the men waited while the squad 

of engineers who had arrived in an M113 set a 40-pound cratering charge 

39 First quote from Akers, “Discipline on Ancon Hill.” Second quote from Interv, Wright 

with Reed, 6 Jan 1990. Intervs, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990. 40 Interv, Wright with Ethridge, 10 Jan 1990. Quote from Telephone Interv, author with 

Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. Hammond and Sherman, “Sheridans in Panama,” p. 10. 41 Akers, “A Night in the Comandancia”; Interv, author with McMillan, 31 May 1995.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

129

against the Comandancia’s west wall. Flynn was supposed to give the order to 

set off the charge, but the engineer’s squad leader blew it prematurely. Flynn 

then radioed Reed that his soldiers were ready to move inside the compound. 

Reed told the captain to hold his position. Flynn repeatedly tried to get Reed to 

reverse the decision, but to no avail. The battalion commander’s intention was 

to have troops clear the buildings in the compound only after they had been 

reduced to rubble. Given the ineffectual performance of Team Armor and the 

nonpenetrating rounds of the AC–130s, that had not happened. Under the 

circumstances, clearing operations would have to wait until daylight.42

That left most of Company C’s men outside the wall with their “butts 

out in the wind,” to use Flynn’s phrasing, receiving small-arms and automatic 

weapons fire from the high-rise and other buildings. The soldiers sought cover, 

hugged the sides of buildings, and traded shots with the defenders, firing 

grenades from M203 launchers when an enemy sniper position could be clearly 

identified. The Panamanians also had grenades, and one thrown from the highrise knocked an American soldier unconscious and severely wounded another. 

As the fighting continued, civilians streamed out of the apartment building. To 

prevent armed PDF and Dignity Battalion members from mingling with the 

throng and escaping, U.S. troops positioned at the doors ordered adult males 

to leave the building wearing only pants and shoes. After four hours of this, 

Flynn told his men shortly after dawn that they would probably remain in the 

area for a while and to clear nearby buildings that would provide them better 

cover. During the process, enemy grenades took an additional toll, killing two 

Americans, Sgt. Michael DeBlois and Pfc. Troy Coats, and wounding several 

others. It had been a very rough morning for Company C.43 

Flynn later received another explanation for why he was not allowed to 

move his men inside the wall after it had been breached. The compound’s 

southern end, he was told, had not been secured because U.S. special 

operations forces had taken some of Task Force Gator’s M113s to go hunting 

for Noriega in Panama City. This was a dubious assessment. The difficulty 

in sealing off the compound stemmed mainly from the friendly fire episodes. 

But it was true that, while Company D was still struggling to isolate the 

Comandancia, General Downing had called on Reed to provide him with 

six M113s to be deployed to the U.S. Embassy in Panama City. Reed readily 

complied, taking Team King’s three vehicles and three more, each with a 

driver and commander, from Company B. Captain Goss further supported 

the excursion with two squads from his 3d Platoon. Since intelligence reports 

indicated that the column could meet resistance along the ten-minute trip to 

the embassy, Reed also provided two LAVs and a Sheridan from Team Armor 

for additional security. The vehicles moved out under the leadership of the 

mechanized battalion’s operations officer, Major Donivan. Reed expected they 

would be returned to him within a few hours. To his surprise, the next time 

he saw them was several days later. Labeled Team Donivan and nicknamed 

42 Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 

Jun 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 152–53. 43 Quote from Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 152; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride,

pp. 60b, 60d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

130

“Panzergruppen,” the column first secured the U.S. Embassy, rescuing some 

employees in the process, and then joined the search for Noriega around 

Panama City. Following that, it spent several days engaged in a number of 

special operations and security missions.44

About two hours after parting with the M113s, LAVs, and Sheridan, Reed’s 

task force went back under the operational control of Task Force Bayonet and 

its commander, Colonel Snell. A couple of hours after that, the units remaining 

as part of Task Force Gator began preparations for the final assault on the 

Comandancia. They were not prepared, however, for the torrent of refugees 

that confronted them. Throughout the night, several hundred Panamanians had 

fled the area, to get away from both the fighting and the fires spreading through 

the shantytown that constituted the adjacent neighborhood. After dawn, the 

hundreds increased rapidly to thousands, as flames engulfed virtually all of 

El Chorrillo. The source of the conflagration was not immediately known but 

initially was assumed to have been stray rounds igniting the highly flammable 

materials used in the construction of many of the neighborhood’s houses. Later 

reports indicated that the most damaging blazes had been deliberately set by 

the Panama Defense Forces and Dignity Battalion members in retaliation 

for El Chorrillo’s failure to support Noriega’s candidates in the May 1989 

presidential election. Whatever the cause, the fires left U.S. troops surrounding 

the Comandancia wondering how to handle the unexpected influx of so many 

civilians into their lines. As Reed later observed, “I frankly don’t think we 

had anticipated as well as we probably should have the extent of the refugee 

evacuation problem and the impact that would have on military operations.”45

It was not that the refugee issue had been ignored during the planning 

phase. Blind Logic, the Southern Command’s operation order for the 

reconstruction of Panama in the wake of a U.S. invasion, contained an annex 

with information on the handling of refugees and the proposed locations for 

several refugee centers. But no one had anticipated the execution of Blue

Spoon during the holiday season in December. At midmonth, Blind Logic

was thus bouncing back and forth between Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton 

to determine whether the Southern Command or U.S. Army, South, would 

be in charge of implementing the plan should the occasion arise. In the 

process, officers reviewing the document identified several gaps that needed 

to be filled with more detailed planning. That requirement became urgent 

once President Bush made the decision to take military action in Panama. 

44 Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; with Goss, 13 Jan 1990; John Partin with Maj Gen 

Wayne A. Downing, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Howard Air Force Base, Panama; Memo, Reed 

for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990; Hammond and Sherman, “Sheridans in 

Panama,” p. 10. 45 JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR, JTF-South, p. 4; Memo, Reed for CG, 

FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990; Interv, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990. Quote from 

Interv, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990. Interv, author with Capt Eric Fatzinger, U.S. Army, 4 Oct 

1990, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. For the cause of the fire, the author had a conversation with an 

officer who had been in the Southern Command intelligence directorate. The officer had photographs taken from Ancon Hill that showed the fires starting and spreading. He also indicated 

that interviews with residents of the neighborhood revealed that enemy forces had started the 

fires. Colonel Reed also mentioned in the 29 January interview that fires started by ordnance 

would not have become so intense so quickly.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

131

Thus, on Tuesday, 19 December, the acting U.S. Army, South, chief of staff 

directed Col. William J. Connolly, USARSO’s deputy chief of staff for 

resource management, to go to Quarry Heights to help fix the Blind Logic

operation order. Once Connolly and others began working on the plan, 

they decided to focus on the refugee issue, assuming that it would be one of 

the first problems with which the military would have to cope as the result 

of combat operations. From a work station in the Tunnel at the Southern 

Command headquarters, Connolly wrestled with the issue all Tuesday night. 

Little did he realize that his presence, his work, and his physical proximity 

to General Thurman would ensure that, when the refugee issue surfaced, he 

would find himself in the forefront of dealing with it.46

His new duties were not long in coming. As several thousand Panamanians 

made their way through Task Force Gator’s area of operations, Colonel 

Reed gathered some Spanish-speaking U.S. soldiers to intercept them and 

direct them to Balboa High School nearby. Military police positioned at two 

roadblocks near Fourth of July Avenue did the same. At the school, Reed had 

established a battalion administration and logistics center to support him. As 

part of that role, the facility also served as his medical aid station. When the 

refugees started to arrive, the medical platoon leader and noncommissioned 

officers at the site responded by setting up what would become the U.S. Army, 

South, Refugee Center. The medical staff, while continuing to treat wounded 

U.S. soldiers, began ministering to injured Panamanians as well. Someone 

sent word to Fort Clayton of what was transpiring, which led to Maj. Les 

Knoblock, an Army psychological operations officer, being dispatched to the 

scene. Knoblock, in turn, contacted Connolly, who also made his way to the 

school, a short distance from the Tunnel at Quarry Heights.47

At some point during the day, the number of refugees at the high school 

approached ten thousand, a figure far in excess of what Blind Logic planners 

had estimated. Chaos prevailed as all involved realized that the ad hoc center 

was not set up to handle the variety of problems, both immediate and looming, 

caused by this unexpected horde of humanity. There was no organization. 

There were no ground rules in place. There was either a shortage or a complete 

lack of urgently needed goods and supplies. The school and its athletic field 

quickly filled to capacity, with those crowded together finding themselves 

confronted with backed up toilets and an insufficient food supply. Aggravating 

the situation, mothers, children, and old people were intermingling with drug 

dealers, armed criminals, and PDF members who had shed their uniforms. 

Establishing order and security in the midst of the bedlam would not be easy. 

46 Intervs, author with Col William J. Connolly, 29 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Dolores De Mena with Connolly, 20 Feb 1991, Fort Clayton, Panama. The latter oral history 

interview is one in a series conducted by U.S. Army, South’s command historians before and 

after Operation Just Cause. Under command historian Dolores De Mena, the interviews were 

transcribed and made available to the U.S. military. 47 Intervs, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; author with Lt 

Col Les Knoblock, U.S. Army, 25 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; with Connolly, 29 Jan 1990. 

In the last cited interview, Connolly mentioned that some refugees thought that the center was 

being set up at the elementary school in Balboa and went there. Finding no one to help them, 

they broke into the school, not to loot but to find a place just to get out of harm’s way. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

132

The fact that most U.S. troops were committed to combat operations and thus 

unavailable to assist on the first day did not help matters.48

Back at the Comandancia, the disruption created by the refugees did 

not deflect attention from the most pressing matter at hand: securing all of 

the battlefield. Snell and Reed met after dawn to discuss the next steps to be 

taken. Both the prison and the headquarters compounds remained isolated, 

but there were holes in Company B’s northern cordon as a result of the loss 

of the six M113s and two squads to Downing. Snell decided to bring in 

the Task Force Bayonet reserve force—a company headquarters and two 

platoons from Company C, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry (Mechanized)—

to fill the gaps. Furthermore, knowing that General Stiner wanted the 

operation around the Comandancia wrapped up as soon as possible, Snell 

and Reed determined that clearing the PDF headquarters, the largest 

building in the main compound, could best be performed by U.S. Rangers, 

who had trained for such an operation. Company C, 1st Battalion, 508th 

Infantry, would clear the remaining buildings. As a result of this decision, 

Reed received operational control of Company C, 3d Battalion, 75th 

Ranger Regiment, a reinforced unit commanded by Capt. Al Dochnal. The 

Rangers received word of their new assignment while en route to Howard 

Air Force Base after having secured the main terminal at Omar Torrijos 

International Airport.49

While waiting for the ranger company to arrive, U.S. troops around 

the Comandancia strengthened their positions. Medical teams, meanwhile, 

picked up wounded soldiers who could not make it to the ambulance 

exchange site near Point G and collected the remains of the dead 

Panamanian defenders they could reach. As the fires in El Chorrillo raged 

out of control, some of the residents began to loot the stores that remained 

standing, taking food, televisions, liquor, and other items. Elements of 

Task Force Gator tried to discourage the looters or keep them at bay, but 

there was little that could be done to stop the lawless behavior while the 

American troops continued to receive small-arms and sniper fire. As one 

countermeasure to the continuing resistance, vehicles from what remained 

of Team Armor reoccupied Ancon Hill and, with daylight restoring their 

line of sight, began firing rounds into the Comandancia whenever a target 

could be positively identified. U.S. snipers also inflicted casualties among 

the remaining Panamanian defenders.50

Around midmorning, about forty PDF members emerged from the Carcel 

Modelo compound and surrendered to the only remaining squad of Company 

B’s 3d Platoon. Once these prisoners of war were cuffed and led off to the 

collection point, between a hundred and two hundred men who had been 

incarcerated in the prison emerged. Kept separated from their jail keepers, 

48 Interv, author with Connolly, 29 Jan 1990.

49 JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR, JTF-South; Intervs, Wright with Snell, 1 Jan 

1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

155–56. For the ranger operation at Torrijos International Airport, see Chapter 7. 50 Intervs, Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 

21 Jun 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 155–57; Nemmers, United 

States Army South Staff Ride, p. 59. 
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

133

they, too, were taken to the prisoner center to be sorted out. Once everyone 

had left the facility, Captain Goss’ men entered the arms room and began 

removing weapons, which were put onto a truck and taken out of the area. 

Shortly before noon, the Carcel Modelo compound was considered secured.51

The Rangers arrived soon thereafter and began coordinating clearing 

operations for the Comandancia complex with the task force commander and 

the Task Force Gator units that would be working inside the compound with 

them. The final assault was set to begin at 1500, to be preceded by preparation 

fires from the remnants of Team Armor and two Apache attack helicopters. 

In order to have more supporting fires for the impending operation, the 

Rangers also placed one of their squads on top of a gymnasium overlooking 

the Comandancia. The plan was to wait for the preparation fires and then 

have the Rangers enter the headquarters, while Company C tended to the 

other buildings. At the same time, one ranger platoon would recheck the 

Carcel Modelo.52

The Team Armor elements started shelling the compound at 1445, with the 

LAVs firing 25-mm. rounds through Comandancia windows with remarkable 

precision, and the Sheridans placing rounds from their 152-mm. gun-launchers 

near where the building’s arms room was reportedly located. One round fell 

dead on target, resulting in a fire that, in Reed’s opinion, probably helped to 

clear the headquarters of any remaining defenders. The two Apaches were 

late in arriving, not appearing on the scene until 1545. They quickly began 

their attack, firing Hellfire missiles and 2.75-inch rockets at the headquarters 

51 Interv, Wright with Goss, 13 Jan 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride,

p. 54.52 JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR, JTF-South; Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 

1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 158.

AH–64 Apache helicopter
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

134

building, the latter causing some collateral damage, including the wounding of 

an American soldier outside the compound.53

Once the Apaches had finished their work, the ranger company (minus) 

and Captain Flynn’s Company C began clearing operations shortly before 

1600. Some of the Rangers had, in fact, rehearsed the mission over the past 

year, when, prior to the 3 October failed coup, the Comandancia had been 

considered one of their targets. Thus, although Reed tried to get them to 

enter the compound from the side, they walked straight through the main 

gate on Avenue A as had been rehearsed. The choice turned out to make 

little difference. Using assorted weapons including grenades, LAWs, and their 

assault rifles and employing rules of engagement that allowed them to shoot 

first at any hostile target they identified, the Rangers reached the headquarters 

building without incident and began the laborious process of clearing each 

floor, room by room. Except for the bodies of several Panamanian defenders, 

the building was empty.54 

Meanwhile, Captain Flynn’s men, still in AO Spear, had fired two 90-mm. 

recoilless rifle rounds for “psychological effect” into the hole they had blown 

in the west wall earlier in the operation, several hours before dawn. His troops 

also fired or lobbed a few grenades in as well. Then they entered the compound 

and began clearing the assorted buildings. Company C’s operation was still 

in progress when the Rangers finished their portion of the task, thus placing 

Reed under some pressure to send them to their next assignment, something 

53 JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR, JTF-South; Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 

1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Wright with Freeze, 6 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 157. 54 Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990, and author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 158–59.

The final phase of the Comandancia battle
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

135

he would not do until Flynn’s men were ready to relieve them. Flynn felt the 

pressure in the form of a directive to expedite the clearing process, a prospect 

that made him uneasy, especially since his soldiers would probably spend the 

night in the compound, potential targets for any undetected defenders. The 

captain successfully stalled for time, and after his men had wrapped up the 

operation to his satisfaction, he joined Captain Dochnal to inspect the whole 

compound. In the process, a remaining defender emerged with a .38-caliber 

pistol in hand. After a U.S. soldier shot and killed the man, the compound 

stood ready to be pronounced secured.55

For the Task Force Gator units that would move inside the two compounds 

that night and for those that continued to man roadblocks and other positions 

outside, sniper fire would persist as a problem into the next day. But the battle 

of the Comandancia was essentially over by Wednesday evening. For the 

Americans, casualties included three killed—a figure remarkably lower than 

Reed had anticipated in the close and deadly confines of urban combat—

and thirty-four wounded. The number of Panamanian defenders killed and 

wounded could not—and still cannot—be accurately stated because most 

fought in civilian clothes in an area in which a number of innocent bystanders 

were also killed and wounded. It is clear, however, that the defenders suffered 

casualties well in excess of those they inflicted on the U.S. troops. In this 

particular case, the advantage had not gone, as doctrine would have it, to the 

defender enjoying a one-to-one ratio in troop strength. The American troops, 

together with the weapons they employed, simply constituted the better force. 

Reed wondered, though, at what price the inevitable U.S. victory would have 

been purchased had the Panama Defense Forces been a more professional 

military organization. “Had we fought a more disciplined, better-trained 

force,” he mused, “the fighting would have been a good deal more intense, it 

would have gone on longer, and we would have taken a lot more casualties.”56

Soon after Task Force Gator’s success on D-day, Colonel Reed and others 

took stock of what they had learned from the experience.57 To begin with, the 

task force commander praised the weeks, in some cases months, of training and 

rehearsals the troops had conducted in preparation for going to war in Panama. 

He similarly touted the suitability of mechanized infantry for fighting in cities, 

although doctrine at the time for urban combat favored light infantry for street 

fighting, thus providing little information geared specifically to mechanized 

units. The mechanized battalion’s after action report called for the Army to 

“develop and refine” such doctrinal guidance, as well as to analyze the way 

mechanized and light infantry might interact in urban combat. Reed was not 

altogether pleased with the way his battalion had been task-organized and, at 

one point, parceled out piecemeal to other task forces. As one platoon leader in 

the 4th Battalion (Mechanized) observed, the dispersal of Task Force Gator’s 

assets paid little attention to the system in place for meeting the requirements 

of a mechanized unit’s logistics. Breaking up the battalion also deprived Reed 

55 Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 159–60. 56 Interv, author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990.

57 The lessons discussed in the following section pertain exclusively, or nearly so, to Task 

Force Gator. Broader lessons will be discussed at the end of this book.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

136

of the scout platoon he needed for reconnaissance. In summarizing the “lesson 

learned,” the battalion’s after action report stated, “When cross-attaching 

heavy forces to light forces, task organizing below company level adversely 

affects the ability of heavy companies to sustain themselves.” 

Reed did single out for special praise the performance of the M113 

armored personnel carrier. Blue Spoon planners had been right in believing 

that the vehicle would be well suited to the narrow streets of Panama City. 

But the .50-caliber machine gun mounted on each of the infantry carriers had 

proved an even greater asset, a godsend even, when confronting sniper and 

small-arms fire from high-rise buildings. The .50-caliber could fire at much 

higher angles than the turret cannon of the Bradley fighting vehicle that was 

replacing the M113. Furthermore, while the .50-caliber provided cover to the 

M113’s front, an M60 machine gunner and riflemen inside could cover the 

flanks, something that would not have been possible in a Bradley traversing its 

turret gun. In short, the battalion’s after action report recommended that the 

U.S. Army retain the M113 “in war reserve stocks for use in a low intensity 

conflict or MOUT environment.” In one cautionary note, however, Lieutenant 

Rubin, alluding to the more protective armor of the Bradley, observed that a 

direct RPG hit on any one of the M113s in column along the narrow streets 

near the Comandancia would not only have put the vehicle out of action but 

would have blocked the M113s behind it as well.58

Regarding the other major weapons used to furnish fire support for Task 

Force Gator, the after action report gave high marks to the accuracy of the 

AC–130s, the Sheridans, and the LAVs, while noting the inability of the latter 

two to fire when their nighttime line of sight was obstructed by smoke and 

debris. The report termed the Spectre gunship “the most effective means of 

fire support in the MOUT environment,” although Reed and certainly Rubin 

could testify to its inability under certain conditions to determine enemy from 

friendly targets. One group of weapons that was positioned near Albrook Air 

Station, ready to be employed as fire support for Task Force Gator, was not 

used: the battalion’s 107-mm. mortars. As the after action report summarized, 

“Given concerns over collateral damage and troop safety . . . it was understood 

that they would only be used if all other fire assets were not available.” The 

report recommended retaining the mortar as an urban-combat weapon 

because of the immediate support it could provide, if needed.59

As with many commanders in combat, Reed believed that the intelligence 

he needed before and during the battle, while generally “adequate,” was “not 

consistently collected and disseminated to lower echelons.” One example he 

cited afterward was the failure to discover the dump trucks blocking Company 

B’s route until Captain Goss’ lead M113 had literally run into one of them. That 

situation, in turn, uncovered another shortcoming: the task force lacked a combat 

engineer vehicle (CEV) with which to remove formidable roadblocks. Such a 

58 Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Reed, 29 Jan 1990; Telephone Interv, 

author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. Quotes from Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, 

CALL, 27 Mar 1990. JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR, JTF-South. 59 Quotes from Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. JTFPanama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to AAR JTF-South; Intervs, Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author 

with Reed, 29 Jan 1990.
Task Force Gator and the Comandancia

137

vehicle, the after action report contended, could have used its blade to force 

the dump trucks aside, thus allowing the column to maintain its momentum. 

Furthermore, “the 165mm shape charge from the CEV’s main gun would have 

been very effective breaching several walls that required Engineers to breach 

while exposed to hostile fire.”60

There were shortages in manpower as well. The two platoons from the 

988th Military Police Company, although having arrived in Panama just days 

before Just Cause, provided enough personnel to man the roadblocks they set 

up on Fourth of July Avenue but not enough to handle the mass of refugees that 

began to appear soon after the operation at the Comandancia commenced and 

that turned into a flood of people after dawn. The mechanized battalion’s after 

action report cited the necessity to “plan for—and allocate forces for—control 

of civilian refugees.” To that recommendation, Colonel Connolly added from 

firsthand experience the need in the planning phase for some group to rehearse 

the roles and missions required to run a refugee camp. Besides wishing they had 

more military police participating in the operation, many officers also said they 

could have used more snipers, mainly for use against enemy snipers. The report 

recommended that one sniper be included in each infantry platoon, although 

some platoon leaders such as Rubin called for more. The report suggested 

that the rules of engagement for the snipers who were on the scene might have 

been too restrictive, limiting their effectiveness in protecting friendly units who 

found their positions exposed to hostile fire.61

On the topic of command, control, and communications, Reed reiterated 

that the time and circumstances determining the transfer of operational control 

of Task Force Gator from the 193d Brigade to the Joint Special Operations 

Task Force had never been clearly identified, even after the transfer took 

place just one day before Just Cause. Moreover, the timing of the transfer 

of the task force back to Colonel Snell’s brigade was determined while the 

Comandancia battle was still being fought. “This never resulted in a major 

adverse operational impact,” the report conceded, although it did cause Reed 

a good deal of frustration and “created the potential for adverse operational 

consequences to occur.” Similarly, once Gator had been “chopped” back to 

Task Force Bayonet, Reed found himself unable to communicate with the six 

M113s, two LAVs, and the Sheridan of Team Donivan that he had turned over 

to the special operations commander, nor with an AC–130 that was supposed 

to come under the battalion’s fire support officer. Again, the impact in both 

instances was mostly one of frustration.62

For many in Task Force Gator, the overwhelming lesson was the experience 

itself. The after action report praised the “judgment, aggressiveness, and initiative 

of junior leaders” in “a fight that was played out largely at squad and platoon 

level.” While addressing the human element in the battle, this conclusion did 

not capture, nor did it try, the emotions and actions triggered by the sights and 

sounds of combat in a built-up, congested, dark, frenetic, and confusing arena. 

60 Quotes from Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. Telephone 

Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. 61 Quotes from Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990. Telephone 

Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990; Interv, author with Connolly, 29 Jan 1990. 62 Memo, Reed for CG, FORSCOM, and Cdr, CALL, 27 Mar 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

138

This was a setting in which enemy forces could deliver large volumes of fire from 

unseen locations overlooking the battleground, in which innocent civilians were 

intermingled with Panamanian defenders, and in which friendly units were packed 

together tightly in such a way as to make several incidents of friendly fire virtually 

inevitable. One officer tried to describe the horror that engulfed him when his 

M113 ran over an automobile in the confusion and uncertainty of the opening 

assault, and he realized that innocent civilians were inside the car. And while most 

soldiers maintained fire discipline called for in the strict rules of engagement, there 

were those who simply sprayed bullets indiscriminately into suspected enemy 

positions inside homes and apartment buildings. Lieutenant Rubin, in describing 

the critical impressions he took away from the fight, talked about how under fire 

it was the simplest things that worked. Soldiers remembered running passwords 

but not more complicated means of oral and visual communication, such as hand 

signals. Moreover, when being shot at, the troops would not do anything that 

might obstruct their vision, such as donning night-vision goggles, or even sighting 

their rifles before firing. In his opinion, the principal attribute required of junior 

leaders was the ability to assess and adapt. He, himself, had demonstrated that 

ability in doing what was necessary to accomplish his mission at Point E.63

In the days after 20 December, the Task Force Gator units taking part in 

the battle for the Comandancia would pursue a variety of follow-on missions. 

For a short time, however, they were able to take advantage of the brief yet 

dangerous respite their efforts had earned them. As they rested in and around 

the Comandancia, they received news on the progress of other critical battles 

throughout the country. 

63 Quotes from ibid.; Telephone Interv, author with Rubin, 5 Apr 1990. Other officers discussed some of the more negative aspects of combat around the Comandancia only on the 

condition of anonymity. 

The Comandancia headquarters after the battle
5

Task Force Semper Fi and 

Task Force Black Devil

I

n the hours before Task Force Gator launched its attack against the 

Comandancia, its commander considered all the things that could go 

wrong. Among those uppermost in his mind was the prospect of the Panama 

Defense Forces sending reinforcements to defend its main headquarters. Given 

the undesirable one-to-one ratio of attacker to defender that Colonel Reed already 

faced, his troops could find themselves in a very precarious situation should 

additional enemy units arrive on the scene. “I had no ability within my own 

resources to fight the deep battle,” Reed readily admitted.1 Moreover, he had no 

reserve to commit; that force was controlled by Task Force Bayonet and consisted 

of just one mechanized infantry company (minus). Whether the reserve would be 

available if needed or, if available, adequate to defeat a major enemy counterattack 

was problematic. Gator’s superior firepower would give Reed some advantage 

should enemy reinforcements appear: the Sheridans and LAVs—or at least what 

was left of them after Team Donivan departed—could dispatch any reasonable 

number of V150 Cadillac Gage armored cars and V300 armored reconnaissance 

vehicles. But superior weaponry alone might not be able to repel a large and welldisciplined force such as Battalion 2000, which could reach the Comandancia from 

Fort Cimarrón in just over an hour. There were several other PDF troop bases and 

units even closer than that, including the 5th Infantry Company at Fort Amador, 

within sight of Task Force Gator’s area of operations. If these forces were not as 

formidable as Battalion 2000, they could still create a disruption serious enough 

to prolong the battle and increase the casualty figures among combatants and 

civilian bystanders alike. Given these possibilities, Blue Spoon planners repeatedly 

considered steps that would prevent enemy units in and around Panama City from 

joining the battle to defend or reclaim their headquarters. 

Shortly after the fighting in Just Cause had come to an end, one observer 

suggested to a group of staff officers from the XVIII Airborne Corps that, on a map, 

those preventive measures resembled the geometric pattern of a circular shooting 

target. At the bulls-eye was the Comandancia, the enemy’s critical command and 

control node, surrounded by a series of concentric rings, each containing hostile 

elements that could influence the Comandancia battle. One of the staff officers 

1 Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Col James W. Reed, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Fort 

Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

140

replied, “I don’t know if it was as deliberate as that,” although he acknowledged 

the importance of the Comandancia as a target and “a commensurate need” to 

“take out or neutralize” PDF installations nearby, especially those in which troops 

were garrisoned.2 

The concept of concentric rings, even though an after-the-fact construct, still 

serves as a useful framework for visualizing U.S. combat operations in Panama 

City and the surrounding areas. The configuration would have the Comandancia 

located at the center; the first ring containing Fort Amador, enemy facilities on 

Ancon Hill, the Bridge of the Americas, and the west bank of the canal; the 

second ring including PDF garrisons at Las Tinajitas and Panama Viejo; the 

third ring covering the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex and Fort Cimarrón; 

and the outermost ring pulling in the two infantry companies billeted at Rio 

Hato, nearly forty miles from the capital. Within the first ring, most of the 

targets listed were the responsibility of Task Force Semper Fi and units in Task 

Force Bayonet not committed to the Comandancia mission. 

Task Force Semper Fi 

On the eve of Just Cause, Task Force Semper Fi was the Marine Forces 

component of JTF-Panama, responsible for overseeing and executing crisisrelated U.S. military activities on the west bank of the Panama Canal in the 

southern half of the country. Headquartered at Rodman Naval Station, the two 

largest combat elements under its control were a Marine infantry rifle company, 

the latest one to rotate in as a continuation of the security enhancement troop 

buildup started in 1988, and a light amphibious company, part of the Nimrod

Dancer unit rotations.3 The latter brought with it light armored vehicles that, 

ideally suited for operations in the waters of the Panama Canal and the land 

bordering it, helped to transform Semper Fi “from a reinforced security force 

into a maneuver force.” Bearing 25-mm. Bushmaster chain guns and 7.62-mm. 

machine guns, the LAVs could also be intimidating, an image the Southern 

Command and JTF-Panama often sought to project when conducting 

contingency readiness exercises, Sand Fleas, and Purple Storms.4

2 Quotes from Interv, Wright with G–3 Plans Section, XVIII Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990, Fort 

Bragg, N.C. While interviewing Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner, the JTF-South commander, Robert 

Wright observed, “It appears to me that it was essentially a concentric circles type of tactical 

plan. Is that correct?” Stiner replied, “Yes. Well, in a way. The main criterion that we used was—

dates back to the 3 October coup. We watched the units that influenced that [counterattack]—

what they did. And then we took a look at the other units that could influence the Panama 

Canal and that could threaten the safety of the US civilians there (we had almost 15,000 US 

civilians that we had to protect). And then we had to ‘get’ Noriega, neutralize the Panamanian 

command and control; we had to control the minds of the people, so we had to take or override 

or disable certain radio and TV stations. So that dictated what the target list would be.” Interv, 

Wright with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. 3 Of 17 light armored vehicles (LAVs), 14 were light assault LAV–25s; 2 were logistics variants, 

or LAV–Ls; and 1 was a command and control variant, or LAV–C2. Col. Robert P. Mauskapf and 

Maj. Earl W. Powers, “LAVs in Action,” Marine Corps Gazette 74 (September 1990): 51. 4 For the use of LAVs in JTF-Panama exercises and operations and the quote, see the 

Marine Corps’ official history of the Panama crisis, Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 15, and also pp. 
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

141

In command of Task Force Semper Fi was Col. Charles E. Richardson, who 

had arrived in Panama in September 1989. He came at what was in some ways a 

propitious time. For well over a year, there had been significant friction between 

the commander and staff of JTF-Panama, on the one hand, and their Marine 

Forces component, on the other. The firefight on the Arraiján Tank Farm in 

April 1988 and subsequent developments had led General Loeffke and his people 

to question whether combat-oriented marines with their warrior ethos possessed 

the discipline and savvy to deal with the subtleties and nuances of a politicomilitary crisis. The marines, for their part, protested having their professional 

competency questioned and charged JTF-Panama with promulgating restrictive 

rules of engagement that abridged the Leathernecks’ inherent right of selfdefense.5

 By the time Richardson arrived, however, the bureaucratic battles 

caused by these two opposing perspectives had begun to subside. Loeffke and his 

staff were gone, the tank farm had ceased to be a major concern once Nimrod

Dancer began, and Cisneros as the new JTF-Panama commander was inclined 

to allow the marines more leeway, especially after NSD-17 went into effect. Thus, 

looking back at the period between his becoming the Task Force Semper Fi 

commander on 17 September and the eve of Operation Just Cause, Richardson 

could speak of the rapport that existed between him and his immediate superiors 

on what had theretofore been divisive issues. Not that the colonel found his new 

command free from problems. The portion of the canal’s west bank for which he 

bore responsibility contained no major Panamanian combat units. As a result, 

the Marine task force often stood at a disadvantage vis-à-vis other JTF-Panama 

components in the recurring competition for manpower and materiel.6

16–18, as well as Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” pp. 51–54; and Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, p. 234. 5 For a detailed account of the incidents on the Arraiján Tank Farm and the friction between the JTF-Panama headquarters and its Marine Force component, see Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 66–77, 118–27. 6 Interv, author with Col Charles E. Richardson, U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), 25 Jan 1990, 

Rodman Naval Station, Panama.

A Marine light armored vehicle (LAV) on patrol in Panama prior to Just Cause
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

142

Richardson’s concern over Task Force Semper Fi’s assets grew after the failed 

coup of 3 October resulted in significant changes in the Blue Spoon operation 

order. As the XVIII Airborne Corps reworked the plan, Semper Fi received more 

missions that significantly expanded its projected wartime area of operations on 

the west bank. To acquire the increase in manpower deemed necessary to cover 

the additional missions and terrain, Richardson, his operations officer Lt. Col. 

Michael J. Franks, and the Marine liaison officer with JTF-Panama and the 

XVIII Airborne Corps, Maj. Brod N. Madrigan, appealed to Stiner to deploy 

more Marine units. The general refused, offering instead to place a battalion of 

the 82d Airborne Division—later changed to a battalion from the 7th Infantry 

Division (Light)—under the Marine task force’s operational control within two 

days after the beginning of hostilities. Stiner’s planners also approved a similar 

arrangement for the 534th Military Police Company and the 536th Engineer 

Battalion, although both of these units were to come under Richardson’s 

operational control at or before H-hour.7

As a result of these decisions in the weeks preceding Just Cause, the order 

of battle for Task Force Semper Fi at H-hour included the following forces: 

an infantry rifle company, a light amphibious infantry company, a Brigade 

Service Support Group detachment, a Marine Corps Security Force CompanyPanama detachment, a Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team (FAST) platoon, a 

military police company, and an engineer battalion.8

During October, the two infantry companies forming the core of Task 

Force Semper Fi’s fighting capabilities underwent unit rotations. On 8 

October, Company K, 3d Battalion, 6th Marines, took over as Task Force 

Semper Fi’s infantry rifle company, while Company D, 2d Light Amphibious 

Infantry Battalion, 2d Marine Division, arrived later in the month with 

seventeen LAVs. A few weeks later, twelve of the light armored vehicles and 

crews were employed in Operation Rough Rider, an excursion into several 

populated areas west of Howard Air Force Base that, before it was over, turned 

confrontational. Designed to familiarize Company D with the towns of Nuevo 

Emperador, Nuevo Guararé, Vista Alegre, and Arraiján, the operation also 

included an Army psychological operations detachment, two U.S. treaty affairs 

officers, and a helicopter for aerial observation. During the approach to Vista 

Alegre, the assembled force encountered a roadblock on Thatcher Highway 

surrounded by a crowd of mostly hostile Panamanians. Following a heated 

but futile attempt to negotiate a way through the obstacles, Company D’s 

commander, Capt. Gerald H. Gaskins, requested and received headquarters’ 

permission to breach the roadblock with his LAVs. As the vehicles moved 

forward, one demonstrator was knocked to the ground, after which others in 

the startled crowd began beating on the vehicles. As Gaskins’ men quickly put 

the crowd behind them and proceeded back to Rodman Naval Station, they 

had to breach a second roadblock and, following that, persuade a farmer who 

had single-handedly set up a third to remove his pickup truck from the road. 

When it was over, Rough Rider had proved an instructive initiation to the 

7 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 17. 8 The list of units is from JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

143

crisis for Company D and, for Task Force Semper Fi as a whole, a source of 

several tactical lessons in crowd control and the art of removing roadblocks.9

In general, Richardson found the Sand Fleas, contingency readiness exercises, 

and Purple Storms to be of tremendous value. Through these, the recently arrived 

forces under his command gained a working knowledge of the west bank’s terrain, 

its road networks, its towns and cities, as well as the people who lived in them, 

to include the location of ranking political and administrative officials in the 

Noriega regime who would have to be apprehended in the event of hostilities. The 

exercises and operations also gave the troops an idea of the tactics the Panama 

Defense Forces and Dignity Battalions would use against them. Most important, 

perhaps, was the information, including human intelligence, the marines were able 

to acquire and process as they increased the database that ideally would enable 

Task Force Semper Fi to achieve its objectives more proficiently and with fewer 

casualties in the event of war.10 

Following the 3 October coup attempt, as the likelihood increased of a 

U.S.-Panamanian military confrontation and as JTF-Panama exercises and 

operations like Rough Rider began more and more to approximate Blue

Spoon rehearsals, this interaction between intelligence collection and activities 

in the field became even more crucial, as described in the Marine’s official 

history of the crisis. 

Marine counterintelligence operatives and interrogator-translators continued 

to collect data on potential threats and targets of all kinds, including specific 

buildings and individual defense force personalities. . . . With that knowledge 

in hand, they were able to conduct realistic planning exercises and prepare for 

operations against a range of potential targets. As part of the process, operations officers drafted sets of orders, written for both offensive and defensive 

scenarios, which were distributed to all companies.11

Other means the marines used to prepare for hostilities included map 

exercises, sand table exercises, and live-fire demonstrations. In addition, company 

commanders briefed their troops weekly on developments in the crisis and the 

effect those might have on the wartime missions the Marine task force might 

receive. Aside from the antiterrorist platoon, few of the Marine units had extensive 

training in urban operations, especially room clearing, although Company D tried 

to gain what experience it could on the limited facilities available to it at Rodman. 

Ever aware of the manpower shortage he could anticipate on D-day, Richardson, 

in a measure reminiscent of General Loeffke’s approach to JTF-Panama units early 

in the crisis, prepared his administrative and combat service support personnel for 

combat. “They practiced basic combat skills and virtually fired their weapons day 

and night until he was satisfied with their proficiency.”12

Except for a handful of officers, none of the marines knew precisely what 

they would be directed to do should war come. Richardson, as a participant in the 

planning process, was aware that his missions and objectives had pretty much been 

9 Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 18, 43; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” pp. 53–54. 10 Interv, author with Richardson, 25 Jan 1990.

11 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 18. 12 Quote from ibid., pp. 18–19. Interv, author with Richardson, 25 Jan 1990. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

144

finalized by the end of October. In general, Task Force Semper Fi’s role under the 

deliberate Blue Spoon scenario was to conduct defensive and offensive operations 

to secure the area west of Panama City and the canal. (See Map 7.) Defensive 

operations included establishing external security for Howard Air Force Base, 

Fort Kobbe, and the Rodman Naval Station (“organic assets” at those facilities 

would provide internal security), perimeter security at the Arraiján Tank Farm 

and the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point just north of it, and roadblocks at 

the Bridge of the Americas and other transit points on the west bank. Offensive 

operations involved seizing the Directorate of Traffic and Transportation (the 

Spanish acronym DNTT) Station 2; the PDF substation and the regime’s political 

headquarters in Arraiján; PDF stations and substations in Veracruz, Rio Potrero, 

Vista Alegre, and Nuevo Emperador; a Dignity Battalion training facility; a port 

facility; and a radio tower. A key objective common to several of these operations 

(and certainly one consonant with the concentric circle model) was to “block 

the western approach to Panama City to prevent Panama Defense Forces . . . 

reinforcement.”13

As the holiday season encroached on the crisis in Panama, the marines welcomed 

the brief respite afforded by the decreased operational tempo for U.S. forces. Then, 

on Saturday night, 16 December, word circulated that Panamanian guards had 

shot and killed an American officer at a checkpoint near the Comandancia. Given 

the comparatively small number of Marine officers in Panama, few Leathernecks 

were prepared for the news that it was one of their own who had died. Richardson 

later described the sadness that descended over his headquarters. At some point, 

JTF-Panama directed him to place his forces on a higher state of alert, although, 

unlike several of the units under Task Force Bayonet, Task Force Semper Fi forces 

remained in place that night.14

Over the next three days, Richardson attended JTF-Panama and JTF-South 

meetings, learning from General Cisneros Monday night that President Bush had 

decided to execute the Blue Spoon operation order. Faithful to the guidelines 

disseminated by General Stiner the next day, Richardson did not reveal this 

information even to his principal staff officers until 1800 Tuesday evening, the 

authorized time. Before then, though, he did tell them that Lieutenant Paz had 

not died in vain and asked them to review Task Force Semper Fi’s operation plan 

to “get the cobwebs out.” He also instructed them to go over their ammunition 

requirements and other needs and to “start prestaging” various assets for any 

contingencies or exercises that might be conducted. In assigning these tasks, 

Richardson knew that he was signaling his staff that something significant was 

likely to happen.15

For Marine units at Rodman Naval Station, Tuesday, 19 December, became 

“a maintenance and logistics day,” with platoon leaders being told that their 

place of duty was the maintenance ramp, where they were to work on essential 

13 The list of missions and the quotes are from JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to After 

Action Report, Operation Just Cause, 20 Dec 1989–12 Jan 1990, JTF-South, 19 Mar 1990 

(hereafter cited as JTF-South AAR), an. D. Task Force Semper Fi’s missions and targets can 

also be found in JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. 14 Interv, author with Richardson, 25 Jan 1990.

15 Quotes from ibid. Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 20; Maj Brod N. Madrigan, How I Spent the 

Holidays, unpublished article, n.d.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

145

equipment as though “their lives depended on it.” The task was completed by 

1800. As for Major Madrigan, his duties as liaison officer with JTF-South took 

him to a series of meetings at Fort Clayton with the XVIII Airborne Corps staff, 

General Thurman, and the JTF-South commanders and staff. Madrigan later 

noted how many loose ends were tied up at these last-minute sessions, even as new 

problems arose. Illustrative of the latter, Task Force Semper Fi found itself fighting 

to retain the engineer and military police units Stiner had promised would come 

under Richardson’s operational control by H-hour. Madrigan’s efforts to this end 

were only partly successful. At 2230, just two and a half hours before the start of 

Operation Just Cause, General Downing’s Joint Special Operations Task Force 

took one of the military police platoons in question. The JTF-South operations 

officer present during the switch commented that the marines were being hung out 

to dry. When Madrigan informed Richardson, the colonel simply saw the move as 

another manpower setback that amplified the uncertainty already surrounding his 

plans for the impending fight.16 

Task Force Semper Fi unit commanders briefed their troops on Just Cause

at 2100 Tuesday, going over the orders and missions they were about to execute. 

Richardson briefed the operation as well that night, emphasizing the use of 

minimal force, the need to avoid unnecessary destruction of historical sites and 

public works, and the fact that the Panamanian people were not the enemy. 

Following this, the commanders, staffs, and troops made their final preparations 

for combat.17

Operations began shortly before H-hour when reports reached Rodman around 

0040 that a number of enemy V300 armored vehicles were in the area, presumably 

en route to Panama City. Captain Gaskins, the Company D commander, ordered 

his troops to establish their assigned blocking positions. Ten minutes later, thirteen 

LAVs carrying his 1st and 3d Platoons, seventeen marines from the antiterrorist 

team, and a scout platoon (which brought with it 14 squad automatic weapons 

[SAWs], 4 shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapons, and 10 rifle grenade 

launchers) began their movement along Thatcher Highway from Rodman toward 

Arraiján. Accompanying them was a U.S. Army psychological operations team 

in an unarmored HMMWV. As the column approached DNTT Station 2, one of 

Semper Fi’s objectives, the troops received fire, a prelude to the marines’ first and 

deadliest battle of Just Cause.

18

The mission of seizing the DNTT facility and neutralizing any defenders 

belonged to 3d Platoon, the lead element in the Company D column.19 As the 

remainder of the convoy continued toward Arraiján, three of the platoon’s 

LAVs made a left turn into the transportation directorate’s driveway and 

crashed through the outer gate. As the vehicles approached the building, 

16 First quoted words from Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 20. Second quoted words from 

Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” p. 54. Madrigan, How I Spent the Holidays; Interv, 

author with Richardson, 25 Jan 1990. 17 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 22. 18 Ibid.; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” p. 57; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 185. As noted in Chapter 4, Gaskins’ 2d Platoon with its four LAVs 

had been “chopped” to Task Force Gator. 19 This brief account of Marine operations at the DNTT Station 2 is from Reynolds, Just 

Cause, pp. 22–23; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” p. 57; and Maj. Brod N. Madrigan, 

USMC, “The Attack on the DNTT Station,” Marine Corps Gazette 74 (April 1990): 9–10. 
Nuevo Emperador

Río Potrero

Vista Alegre

La Chorrera

I N T ER- A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

Nuevo

Arraiján

Nuevo

 Guararé

El Arado

Map 7
G U L F O F P A N A M Á

Fort

Clayton

Fort Kobbe

Albrook

Air Station

Howard Air Force

Base

Rodman Ammunition Supply Point

Empire Range

Arrijan Tank Farm

Farfan (USN)

Rodman Naval

Arraiján Station

Veracruz

mud

mud

mud

mud

G A I L L A R D

H I G H W A Y

T H A TC H ER H I G H WA Y

M ir aores Bridge ( re volving)

Bridge of the Ameri c as

Diablo

 Heights

Balboa

Cocolí

Farfan

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE SEMPER FI

20 December 1989

0

0

1 2 Miles

1 2 Kilometers

Objective

Roadblock
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

148

Marine gunners fired the M60 coaxial machine gun mounted on each LAV to 

suppress fire from the defenders. (To minimize collateral damage and to avoid 

destroying PDF radio equipment that the marines could use to monitor enemy 

transmissions once the station was taken, the LAVs’ 25-mm. guns were not 

employed.) Two of the three vehicles moved to within a short distance of the 

building so that eight scouts could dismount and seek cover in its entranceway. 

Once Sgt. Thomas P. Bernius and Cpl. Garreth C. Isaak breached the door with 

buckshot from their rifle grenade launchers, the scouts entered the DNTT and 

began exchanging fire with a handful of Panamanians inside. Outgunned, the 

defenders moved down a central corridor away from the action. The marines 

followed and, with their rifles and SAWs, began to clear each room along the 

hallway. Corporal Isaak was the first marine to enter the final room and was 

hit by several bullets. The reaction of his comrades was immediate. After they 

sprayed the room with automatic weapons fire, Sergeant Bernius ordered one 

of the men to toss in a fragmentation grenade, even though Task Force Semper 

Fi had been told not to use such devices for room-clearing purposes. With the 

shooting of Corporal Isaak, as one writer later noted, the “Marines learned 

a costly mistake by interpreting what judicial application of force means. It 

would not be repeated.”20 

After clearing the last room, the marines took Isaak from the building to have 

him airlifted to the rear, although it seemed to all that he was dead. Minutes later, 

one of the makeshift units of administrators, cooks, armorers, and mechanics that 

Colonel Richardson had cobbled together as an operational force arrived to relieve 

the 3d Platoon, and the scouts departed to rejoin the column heading for Arraiján. 

As the small and inexperienced relief force attempted to occupy the DNTT, the 

men were surprised to find one defender still alive, wounded but ready to resist. 

Once the defiant soldier had been killed, the station was pronounced secured. The 

operation had left one marine dead—the only marine killed in Operation Just

Cause—and one wounded. In addition to the dead Panamanian, three defenders 

had been wounded and three taken prisoner.21

The initial assault on DNTT Station 2 had taken about ten minutes. Soon 

afterward, the scouts in the 3d Platoon’s light armored vehicles caught up with 

the main column, only to find that it had been stopped on Thatcher Highway 

outside of Arraiján by a roadblock of two gasoline tank trucks covered by an 

undetermined number of enemy gunmen. Captain Gaskins kept his vehicles, 

especially the unarmored HMMWVs, at a safe distance, outside the range of any 

rocket-propelled grenades the defenders might have. He also sent scouts forward 

to reconnoiter the situation. When they returned, they reported there were ten 

to twenty enemy personnel in the area, at which time Gaskins established an 

overwatch position with 360-degree security. As the standoff approached fifty 

minutes, the captain realized he could not remain stationary. He thus had no 

choice but to fire on the gas trucks, regardless of the inferno that might result. 

With approval from the Task Force Semper Fi headquarters, he ordered the LAVs 

to use their 25-mm. guns. To his relief, the trucks turned out to be empty, and once 

20 Madrigan, How I Spent the Holidays.

21 Ibid.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

149

the marines destroyed them, the defenders fled. The Company D column then 

resumed its movement into Arraiján.22

There were two principal targets in the town: a PDF substation and the local 

headquarters of one of Noriega’s top political supporters, Rigoberto Paredes. At 

the substation, scouts used only the weapons they carried in attempting to breach 

the two-story building and the wall that surrounded it. When their efforts failed, 

they pulled back and let the LAVs’ 25-mm. guns create the openings for them. A 

Marine FAST close-quarters battle team then entered the building and exchanged 

fire with the defenders, all of whom fled after offering only token resistance. Not 

wanting to risk another fatality in the process of entering rooms they had to clear, 

the team again used fragmentation grenades to accomplish the task. This prudent 

approach had an unintended consequence, for the building caught fire and burned 

to the ground. At the next target, the political headquarters, the scouts again could 

not force an entry through iron bars bolted into place, so the antiterrorist team 

used its shotguns to destroy the locks. They then employed the psychological 

operations team to broadcast a message in Spanish, urging any defenders inside 

to surrender. When no one responded, the marines threw a stun grenade inside 

the one-story edifice, after which a dazed Panamanian emerged. The team moved 

inside the headquarters, where it cleared the building without incident, taking five 

prisoners in the process. When more defenders found hiding in a nearby trailer 

surrendered, the detainees in custody numbered over seventeen, all of whom had 

to be taken back to Rodman for interrogation. (Most of them, it turned out, were 

members of Noriega’s paramilitary Dignity Battalions.)23

Once the targets were secured, elements of Company D blocked off all the 

ground approaches to and from Arraiján. Twice, cars packed with Panamanian 

military personnel tried to run the roadblocks but were stopped when the 

marines opened fire. In one of the cars, the driver was killed and some of the 

passengers wounded. A marine was also seriously wounded and transferred to 

the DNTT building, which had become the company aid station. Throughout 

the night, rumors circulated that the Dignity Battalions were planning an attack 

on the Marine positions, but, aside from the two unsuccessful attempts to run 

the roadblocks, the night passed uneventfully. Shortly after dawn, the marines 

began searching the homes of key Noriega supporters in Arraiján but found the 

residences vacated.24

While Company D, the antiterrorist team, and the psychological operations 

personnel were conducting operations along the highway from Rodman to 

Arraiján, other marines were performing security missions throughout the Task 

Force Semper Fi area of operations.25 Between the Arraiján Tank Farm and the 

town of Arraiján, elements from the in-country Marine security force, assisted 

by U.S. Army engineers, used heavy earth-moving equipment to block Thatcher 

Highway. At the same time, a task force of about twenty-five marines and Army 

engineers employed almost identical methods to assert their control over the Bridge 

22 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 23; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” p. 57. 23 Ibid.; Interv, author with Richardson, 25 Jan 1990.

24 Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” p. 57; Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 24. 25 The following two paragraphs are from Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 24; 1st Lt. Kenneth 

M. DeTreux, “Infantry in Low-Intensity Conflict: Observations From Operation Just Cause,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 74 (September 1990): 64–65.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

150

of the Americas minutes after H-hour. As the fighting in the capital intensified, 

hundreds, then thousands, of refugees fled the city westward over the bridge; no 

Panamanian military units, however, sought to enter the city by moving eastward 

over the structure.

At the Arraiján Tank Farm, security force marines relieved Company K from 

its defensive positions, thereby freeing the unit’s 1st and 3d Platoons to begin 

squad-size patrols in the jungle west of Howard Air Force Base, a critical area 

and one with which the company was very familiar thanks to the exercises and 

operations mounted by JTF-Panama after 3 October. With thirteen thousand 

U.S. troops scheduled to fly into Howard during the course of the invasion, 

providing security around the air base was an essential requirement. While the 

success of American arms in Just Cause was a virtual certainty, only one or two 

Panamanian soldiers armed with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in the 

vicinity of Howard could make it a costly victory. The intensive patrols mounted 

by the bulk of Company K hoped to prevent such an occurrence. Meanwhile, the 

company’s 2d Platoon moved to secure the town of Veracruz and the PDF station 

located there. Anticipating a tough fight, the marines instead found evidence—a 

half-eaten meal, for example—that the building had been hastily abandoned. 

The platoon consequently pulled back to the outskirts of the town, established 

blocking positions, and began patrolling the area. 

On Wednesday morning, 20 December, Task Force Semper Fi, having 

accomplished its H-hour missions, received an unexpected order to seize and 

secure the PDF 10th Military Zone headquarters in La Chorrera, a city of eighty 

thousand, outside the western edge of the marines’ original area of operations. 

Richardson passed the mission to Company D and the FAST marines attached to 

it, with Gaskins and his command moving out along the Inter-American Highway 

around 1530. Fifteen minutes later, the column ran into an enemy roadblock, 

Marines wait to attack the PDF headquarters in La Chorrera.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

151

this one composed of buses and small-arms fire from defenders placed among 

the vehicles and on a hill nearby. Gaskins saw no reason to stop this time and 

ordered the lead LAVs to advance while firing their main guns. The shock effect 

was immediate, as the bus drivers drove off, followed on foot by enemy gunmen 

in the area.26

In the meantime, the pilot of an OH–58 hovering over Company D flew off 

to reconnoiter the block-long compound of four buildings and a six-foot-high 

wall that constituted the PDF 10th Military Zone headquarters. Under fire from 

the ground, he observed what appeared to be a formidable defensive position that 

could inflict significant casualties on Gaskins’ convoy. He thus radioed back to 

Rodman, requesting close air support. Task Force Semper Fi, in turn, passed the 

request to officers at JTF-South who had the authority to approve or deny the use 

of close air support in a built-up area. The request was denied. At that point, Major 

Madrigan, located in the JTF-South operations center at Fort Clayton, personally 

took the request to General Stiner’s operations officer, Col. Thomas H. Needham, 

who approved the air attack on the condition that it did not violate the rules of 

engagement for air support. Madrigan returned to the officers who had originally 

denied the request only to have them do so again, despite Needham’s intercession. 

Undeterred, the major next went to Stiner himself, who quickly approved the 

mission. Still, Air Force Brig. Gen. Robin Tornow, Madrigan’s next interlocutor, 

questioned the wisdom of the attack because of the collateral damage it might 

cause. Of his exchange with the general, Madrigan later wrote, “I forcefully told 

him that the mission was essential and that Marine lives were at stake and that 

he had better approve it because LtGen Stiner had.” Tornow relented, and about 

an hour later, an OA–37 Dragonfly marked the target, after which two Virginia 

National Guard A–7 Corsairs flew in for the attack, strafing the target with their 

20-mm. cannon. The pinpoint accuracy of the close air support was confirmed 

later with the discovery that none of the civilian homes near the headquarters had 

been damaged.27

As soon as the A–7s departed, Company D’s light armored vehicles entered 

the compound firing their Bushmaster chain guns. With the exception of a few 

snipers, the defenders fled, leaving the scouts and FAST marines to search the 

buildings and to seize documents and weapons. With those tasks accomplished 

and the headquarters building on fire, the marines pulled out of the compound 

and headed back to Arraiján. Colonel Richardson’s concerns during the planning 

process about manpower shortages now came into play. As Madrigan observed, 

“The lack of available forces precluded us from maintaining a presence in La 

Chorrera.” Richardson would acquire that capability only later, after he had 

assumed operational control of the units the XVIII Airborne Corps planners had 

promised he would receive a day or two after the invasion began.28

In assessing Task Force Semper Fi’s performance on the first day 

of Just Cause, Richardson later praised the manner in which his light 

armored vehicles, the antiterrorist team, and the psychological operations 

26 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 25. 27 Ibid., p. 26; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” pp. 57–58. Quote from Madrigan, 

How I Spent the Holidays. 28 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 25; Mauskapf and Powers, “LAVs in Action,” pp. 57–58. Quote 

from Madrigan, How I Spent the Holidays.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

152

team had worked together as “a versatile and potent force, particularly for 

offensive operations.” The interaction of these elements had “saved many 

lives on both sides,” and the example the integrated force set deserved 

further conceptual consideration by the Marine Corps. Less gratifying, in 

his assessment, was the hour-long delay in getting close air support at La 

A marine escorts one of many Panamanian detainees taken in Task Force Semper Fi’s area 

of operations.

Marines of Company D, 2d Light Amphibious Infantry Battalion, outside the damaged PDF 

headquarters in La Chorrera
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

153

Chorrera, despite the fact that the mission had been approved by General 

Stiner.29 Still, in looking over what they had accomplished by the early 

evening of 20 December, members of the task force had reason to feel 

satisfied: they had effectively executed their principal mission by securing 

the west bank of the canal on the Pacific Ocean side of the country. The 

resistance they had encountered in the process had been dispatched, 

although at the price of one Marine fatality.

Task Force Black Devil

The marines and Army engineers manning the roadblock at the western 

end of the Bridge of the Americas had a clear view of the battles on the east 

bank of the canal, including the one at Fort Amador, where U.S. troops were 

engaging Panamanian forces sporadically in close-quarters fighting. Of the 

onlookers, many, if not most, understood how important U.S. control of the 

fort was for a speedy and decisive outcome to Operation Just Cause (Map 8).

To begin with, the installation was in the first concentric ring around the 

Comandancia, with the PDF 5th Infantry Company being billeted there. Not 

only would the company be just minutes from Task Force Gator’s operations at 

the main PDF headquarters, and thus a threat to intervene in that battle, but, 

on the fort itself, the troops’ barracks were located just across a golf course 

from a row of houses in which U.S. military personnel and their families lived. 

If 5th Company infantrymen chose to avoid the firestorm that was engulfing 

the Comandancia—a conflagration that was easily seen from practically any 

point on Fort Amador—they could still demonstrate their patriotism and 

loyalty to Noriega by wreaking havoc on the defenseless residences just yards 

away or by seizing civilian hostages. Such a possibility had to be taken seriously, 

given two facts. First, after the 3 October coup attempt, the 5th Company had 

constructed new defensive positions from which rifle and machine gun fire 

could be aimed directly at the American housing area. Second, well before Just

Cause, U.S. military intelligence had learned of Noriega’s plans, code-named 

Genesis and Exodus, to resort to hostage taking and guerrilla warfare in the 

event of war with the United States. In addition to these concerns over what 

the 5th Company (and a small number of Panamanian naval infantry troops 

located on the same grounds) might do, Fort Amador also claimed the attention 

of American planners because it lay along the route the PDF’s UESAT forces 

would have to take into Panama City from their training areas on four islands 

at the end of a causeway extending from the peninsula on which the fort was 

situated.30

Given its importance, Fort Amador had been an Elaborate Maze, then 

Blue Spoon, objective since the beginning of contingency planning in early 

1988. From the outset, securing the installation had been a task relegated to 

conventional forces under JTF-Panama, although, during the nearly two years 

of planning that followed, different units had been assigned the mission. On 

29 JTF-Panama Input, 4 Feb 1990, to JTF-South AAR, an. D.

30 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 164–65.
ditch

ditch

B A Y OF P ANAMA

FORT AMADOR

Quarry Heights

Objec tive Piña

Objec tive Cor tizo

AO Spear

Comandancia

Carcel Modelo

Chapel

U.S. Housing

Torrijos Memorial

Quarters 20

U.S. Naval Buildings

O cers’ Club

Back Gate

Yacht Club

PDF Headquar ters

Gymnasium

Building 1

Main Gate

A M A D O R 

A V E N U E

C A U S E WA Y

P O E T S A V E N U E

B A L B O A S T RE E T

tanks

tanks

Water 

 tanks

Balboa

El Chorrill o

P A NAMÁ

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE BLA CK DEVIL

20 December 1989

0

0

500 Meters

500 Yards

Objective

Roadblock

ELEVATION IN ME TERS

0 50 100 150 and Above

Map 8
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

155

the eve of Just Cause, the responsibility resided with a force task-organized 

around the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne), at Fort Kobbe. Under 

Task Force Bayonet’s operational control, the group would conduct an 

infiltration and, at H-hour, mount an air assault into Fort Amador. 

Since July 1989, Lt. Col. Billy Ray Fitzgerald had commanded the airborne 

battalion. In his previous assignment, Fitzgerald had served in U.S. Army, 

South’s operations shop. As with most other USARSO staff officers, he was 

“dual-hatted” in the corresponding JTF-Panama directorate as well, where he 

had become acquainted with the Blue Spoon operation order for conventional 

forces. Moreover, by the time he assumed command of the 1st Battalion, 

JTF-Panama had been conducting freedom of movement and other Nimrod

Dancer exercises, training events, and operations for almost two months. 

Air assault exercises into Fort Amador had become an integral part of these 

maneuvers, which, besides asserting U.S. treaty rights in Panama, accustomed 

PDF infantrymen on the scene to the sight of troop-carrying American 

helicopters landing within sight of 5th Company’s barracks. To keep the 

Panamanians from knowing exactly what would happen in an actual combat 

assault, the helicopters employed deception, rarely if ever setting down in the 

landing zones identified in the contingency war plans. After the failed coup 

of 3 October, the practice air assaults, as with so many other JTF-Panama 

activities in the field, increasingly became formal rehearsals for the real thing.

In common with most other units slated for combat in Blue Spoon, 

Fitzgerald’s 1st Battalion supplemented its rehearsals with map and sand 

table exercises—the precision of the Fort Amador table model at battalion 

headquarters was impressive—intelligence updates, tactical exercises without 

troops (TEWTs), room-clearing training using rolled up socks as grenades, 

live-fire exercises, weekly briefings as to how current events might affect the 

unit’s likely wartime missions, and the compilation of detailed battle books. 

Opportunities for direct observation also abounded. The 29th Military 

Intelligence Battalion in Panama had three observation and listening posts 

on the Amador peninsula from which intelligence personnel could acquire 

information on the number of Panamanian troops based there, as well as 

on their comings and goings, daily activities, and morale. The 29th also had 

the capability of monitoring messages the 5th Company commander, Maj. 

Moisés Cortizo, received from his superiors. U.S. military policemen and their 

PDF counterparts manned guard stations at the gates to Fort Amador, thus 

affording the MPs a vantage point from which to observe troop and vehicular 

movements, engage the Panamanian guards in conversation, and pick up 

assorted facts, rumors, and gossip. And, of course, there were the U.S. military 

officers who lived on Amador with their families—this included the USARSO 

commander, whose house was near the southern end of the fort near the officers’ 

club. And if the 5th Company had a clear view of the American houses across 

from its base, nothing prevented the inhabitants of those homes from looking 

back or from using a game of golf or a casual stroll around the installation’s 

grounds to gain an even closer glimpse at 5th Company activities. As the 1st 

Battalion, 508th Infantry, made its final preparations for Just Cause, it had 

an abundance of information concerning PDF weapons, troop locations, and 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

156

even intentions. In one of the final messages Fitzgerald would receive from the 

29th before H-hour, he learned that the task force going into Fort Amador 

under his command might be facing slightly over five hundred armed enemy 

troops.31

That task force was named Black Devil and, in the JTF-South Operation 

Plan 90–2, its mission read, “Seize and secure FT AMADOR. Isolate, 

neutralize, and/or destroy PDF units at FT AMADOR.”32 In contrast to this 

simple statement, the tasks required to accomplish the mission were numerous 

and complex. Task Force Black Devil had to defeat the 5th Company before 

it and other enemy elements at Amador could move to reinforce Panamanian 

defenders at the Comandancia. This meant, among other things, clearing and 

31 Ibid., pp. 161–62, 165, 167, 168; Intervs, author with Lt Col Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. 

Army, 27 Jan 1990, Fort Kobbe, Panama; with Capt William R. Reagan, Capt Robert Zebrowski, 

and Capt Timothy John Flynn, all U.S. Army, 21 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; Wright with 

Col Michael G. Snell, U.S. Army, 1 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 32 Quote from JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. The 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, was 

known as the Red Devils, but since the 82d Airborne Division was slated to field a battalion with 

an identical nickname, the task force led by Colonel Fitzgerald’s battalion became Task Force 

Black Devil during Just Cause. CD-ROM, Operation Just Cause: Task Force Bayonet, Dec 

1989–Jan 1990 (XVIII Airborne Corps, June 2000). The CD-ROM, which contains interviews 

and other material on the invasion, was issued by the XVIII Airborne Corps historian.

Part of a sand table model used by Task Force Black Devil in preparing for its mission at Fort 

Amador. The row of red-roofed structures on the right is mostly PDF buildings; the row on the 

left is American housing. (North is at the bottom of the photo.)
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

157

securing the row of 5th Company buildings and other PDF facilities; closing 

the front gate to the fort, with U.S. military policemen capturing or killing 

any Panamanian guards on duty; sealing off the causeway connecting the 

peninsula with the island-based UESAT forces (themselves a target of U.S. 

Special Operations Forces); and handling enemy wounded and prisoners. 

Additionally, Black Devil had to protect the American housing area on post 

and, if possible, evacuate the inhabitants before H-hour to avoid a hostage 

situation and civilian casualties. 

To accomplish these and other tasks, Fitzgerald had available to him two 

of his airborne infantry companies, A and B (with C, the third, scheduled to 

become part of Task Force Gator prior to H-hour). Each company had its 

rifle platoons, weapons platoon, fire support teams, and medics. The battalion 

headquarters company contributed snipers, scouts, mortar men, and antitank 

missile crews, with the headquarters company commander, according to one 

account, controlling three elements. “One was a makeshift combination . . . 

consisting of the scout platoon and a platoon equipped with TOW antitank 

missiles, the result being two scout/antitank platoons,” with the arrangement 

giving the scouts greater mobility. The second was the headquarters mortar 

platoon, and the third was “a scout detachment of eight M113s” and two 

improved TOW vehicles taken from Colonel Reed’s mechanized battalion and 

attached to Black Devil. Rounding out the task force, Fitzgerald received a 

squad from the 193d Infantry Brigade’s 59th Engineer Company; a towed 

105-mm. howitzer from Battery D, 320th Field Artillery (the crew that 

accompanied the artillery piece had conducted live-fire exercises with the 1st 

Battalion, employing the howitzer in a direct-fire mode); and, as a last-minute 

attachment, a military police platoon. Three AH–1 Cobra attack helicopters 

and an OH–58 were available to support the air assault, and an AC–130 could 

be called if necessary.33

The Task Force Black Devil plan, briefed up the Blue Spoon/90–2 chain 

of command, called for a phased operation. The first phase would have the 

two scout-antitank platoons close off Fort Amador’s main gates—the front 

entrance in the Balboa district and the rear gate by the causeway at the 

southeastern tip of the fort. The headquarters mortar platoon would then go 

house to house on the American side of the fort, alerting the civilian residents 

and offering to take them to safety. The second phase would be the air assault, 

with the lead element, Company B, arriving on six UH–60 Black Hawk 

helicopters and securing the southern end of the fort. Company A would 

follow behind on eight Black Hawks and secure the northern end, including 

33 Quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 166. See also Intervs, 

Wright with 7th Howitzer Section, Battery D, 320th Field Arty, 9 Jan 1990, Fort Kobbe, Panama; 

Sgt Dan Wagner with M Sgt Christopher Hinman, U.S. Army, 18 Oct 1990, Fort Sherman, 

Panama; Wright with Reed, 6 Jan 1990; author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990. Concerning the 

last-minute attachment of the military police platoon to Black Devil, the platoon leader knew 

next to nothing about the impending operation. Consequently, battalion officers tried to forcefeed him the information he needed, so much of it, in fact, that a company commander later 

quipped, “We tried to get him to take a drink of water from a fire hydrant.” Intervs, author with 

Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Capt Joseph M. Nemmers with Maj Robert Pote 

and Capt Ted W. Mauzey, both U.S. Army, 18 Oct 1990, Fort Sherman, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

158

the American housing area and some U.S. naval buildings; if required, the 

company could also seize and clear a PDF housing area in its sector, dubbed 

Objective Cortizo after the 5th Company commander. Broadcast teams would 

offer Panamanian troops a chance to surrender. If they refused, their various 

facilities and defensive positions—labeled Objective Piña—located along a 

north-south axis on the western side of the fort would be softened up, starting 

with .50-caliber machine guns and, if resistance continued, escalating to M60 

machine guns, 90-mm. recoilless rifle fire, and antitank rounds. The 105-mm. 

howitzer would be used to blow large holes in the buildings, presumably 

traumatizing the inhabitants while providing openings through which U.S. 

forces could enter. The 1st Battalion’s Company B would lead the assault, 

capturing the PDF motor pool and other structures clustered near it at the 

southern extreme of Piña and then moving northward up a row of numbered 

5th Company buildings parallel to the canal. Once the fort was pronounced 

secured, Task Force Black Devil would begin its follow-on missions.34

The event that set this plan in motion, the shooting of Lieutenant Paz, 

occurred while Fitzgerald, like many other Army officers, was attending 

USARSO’s Christmas formal at the U.S. officers’ club on Fort Amador. His 

immediate superior, Colonel Snell, told him to put his quick-reaction company 

on heightened alert, a status that the whole battalion assumed as the evening 

wore on. As part of the precautionary measures directed by JTF-Panama 

later that night, the mechanized platoon slated to come under Fitzgerald’s 

operational control deployed to Fort Amador. Over the next three days leading 

up to the invasion, the platoon would remain there, its M113s concealed 

among the golf carts in the course’s caddie shack. The military police platoon 

that would be attached to Task Force Black Devil was also present at the fort, 

carrying out its normal duties.35

On Monday, 18 December, Snell told Fitzgerald to be sure that his units 

were prepared “if something were to occur.” On Tuesday, around noon, the 

colonel informed him, “This is it,” a message Fitzgerald passed on informally 

to his company commanders an hour later. (The formal notifications and 

briefings for Task Force Black Devil took place as directed by General Stiner—

at 1800 for the commanders, 2100 for the troops.) On both days, Fitzgerald met 

with the company commanders who would participate in the Amador mission, 

going over different scenarios and anticipating the orders they might receive 

if Blue Spoon were executed. Once Fitzgerald learned that the operation had 

been approved, he made arrangements, starting mid-Tuesday afternoon, to 

insert the headquarters’ scout-antitank and mortar platoons onto Amador, 

where they conducted routine security operations to keep from tipping off 

the Panamanians about what was to come. Later that night, the soldiers of 

Companies A and B received their briefings and began their final preparations 

for the air assault. As they were doing so, Fitzgerald and some of his staff left 

Fort Kobbe, crossed the Bridge of the Americas, and entered Fort Amador 

34 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 166; Intervs, author with Fitzgerald, 

27 Jan 1990; with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Nemmers with Pote and Mauzey, 

18 Oct 1990. 35 Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff 

Ride, p. 38; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 169. 
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

159

around 2200, heading for the task force command post in the basement of 

Quarters 20. At some point prior to H-hour, he was joined by General Cisneros 

and his entourage, who would remain at Amador through much of the night.36

One problem that arose during Black Devil’s preparatory activities 

concerned ammunition, which most of the task force’s troops drew from 

the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point north of Howard Air Force Base 

and the Arraiján Tank Farm. To Fitzgerald’s consternation, the process of 

distributing the ammunition accorded no priority to infantry about to go 

into combat. Equally perplexing, he doubted whether his men really needed 

the TOW and AT4 rounds being issued to them. “TOW Weapon systems,” 

he maintained, were not needed for his low-intensity mission, while LAWs 

could cause the same damage as AT4s and were much less cumbersome for 

airborne and dismounted infantry to carry. “If you talk with our soldiers,” 

he later stated, “they’ll tell you, ‘Give us the 90mms [recoilless rifles] or the 

LAWs.’” Once the ammunition was issued, couriers from the headquarters 

company under Capt. John Hort had to deliver rounds and weapons to the 

scout-antitank and mortar platoons already in position at Amador. The 

trucks transporting the grenades, rockets, and machine gun rounds, however, 

did not begin arriving until 2100. For the next two and a half hours they 

entered the fort in a clearly visible supply line with some of the ammunition 

crates wide open. Remarkably, the sight occasioned no reaction from the 

Panamanian police and soldiers looking on.37

If the problems with ammunition bothered Fitzgerald, other developments 

did little to improve his disposition. Over a half hour before his air assault 

was scheduled to begin, he and others could hear shots being fired from the 

vicinity of the Balboa district, just north of Amador. Equally troubling, he 

learned that at least a couple dozen uniformed and armed Panamanians 

were boarding a bus behind one of the PDF buildings at the fort. Whether 

they were planning to head for the Comandancia or just trying to escape the 

coming battle, Fitzgerald had no way of knowing. What he did know was that 

he could not let the men depart. After conferring with Snell and Cisneros, 

with the latter being in direct contact with the JTF-South operations center at 

Fort Clayton, Fitzgerald at 0025 ordered Captain Hort to have the two crossattached scout-antitank platoons set up prefabricated barriers to close down 

Amador’s front and back gates.38

The platoon responsible for blocking the front gate, Team Recon, was 

still unloading ammunition trucks when it received Fitzgerald’s order. 

Consequently, the scouts and TOW personnel did not arrive at the gate until 

after 0032, just in time to help two military policemen at the guard station 

36 Quotes from Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990. See also Interv, Nemmers with 

Pote and Mauzey, 18 Oct 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 37, 39; 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 111. 37 Fitzgerald’s frustrations over the ammunition issues are from Interv, author with 

Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990. Quotes from Interv, Capt John Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990, 

Fort Clayton, Panama. The story of the trucks carrying the ammunition is from Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 169. 38 Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 169–70.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

160

subdue their Panamanian counterparts. A minute or so later, as the scouts 

were stringing concertina wire, the bus carrying the two dozen armed men 

came speeding straight at the Americans, its headlights turned off. Four 

snipers protecting the scouts opened fire on the bus, after which its passengers, 

their weapons sticking through the windows, returned the fire. Team Recon 

joined the fight, which ended only a few seconds later after the driver received 

a fatal wound. The bus careened through the front gate out of control, hit and 

“beheaded” a fire hydrant, and then smashed into a tree about three hundred 

yards farther on. By that time, it was no longer visible to the U.S. soldiers 

at the gate, even through night-vision goggles and the TOW’s thermal sights. 

Sometime later it became obvious that the survivors had fled, leaving their 

weapons, equipment, and uniforms behind. There had been no U.S. casualties 

during the fight, but shots from the bus killed a PDF guard whom the scouts 

had just placed in custody.39

Within minutes of the bus episode, a sedan with six armed Panamanians 

inside also tried to run the roadblock at the front gate, which had just been 

strengthened by positioning three HMMWVs there as obstacles. Again, a 

shootout ensued, with the driver of the car being killed almost immediately. 

The vehicle then crashed into one of the HMMWVs, nearly severing the leg of 

39 Intervs, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Wagner with Hinman, 18 Oct 1990; Nemmers, 

United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 37–38; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 170–71; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 114.

Three cars (right) are lined up at the front gate of Fort Amador.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

161

one of the passengers. Two of the remaining occupants continued to fire, and 

U.S. troops replied with their M16s. When the shooting stopped, three of the 

Panamanians were dead, including the one with the lacerated leg; the other 

three were soon in custody.40

Word that Team TOW had secured the back gate to the causeway without 

incident came as good news but did not alter the fact that, with the firefights at 

the front gate, Task Force Black Devil had lost the element of surprise. Driving 

home this point, the battle at the Comandancia began minutes thereafter, 

with the fighting there taking place in full view of the fort across the bay. 

With hostilities clearly under way, Task Force Black Devil’s headquarters and 

headquarters company and the families in the American housing areas were 

now at risk and would remain so until the two companies of airborne infantry 

arrived via helicopters from Fort Kobbe. Knowing this, Fitzgerald had been 

trying since the shooting started to get higher headquarters to authorize an 

earlier time for the air assault, but his pleas were in vain. Further changes in 

the timing of the plan, JTF-South officers at Fort Clayton reasoned, would 

only increase the possibility of friendly fire incidents or midair collisions in 

the densely packed airspace over what amounted to a very small portion of 

southwestern Panama City. The Black Hawks would take off on schedule at 

0047, and the airborne assault would begin at 0100, as planned.41

 One change to the Task Force Black Devil plan that Fitzgerald authorized 

on his own as a result of the early commencement of combat operations in 

and around Fort Amador concerned the American families residing on the 

installation. The plan had originally called for the mortar platoon of the 

headquarters company to knock on the back door of each home facing the 

5th Company and evacuate the inhabitants. With exchanges of gunfire taking 

place at the fort for over thirty minutes prior to H-hour and with errant rounds 

and ricochets from the Comandancia fight landing inside the fort, Fitzgerald 

and his staff, according to the battalion’s executive officer, “made the decision 

on the spot that it was not safe to bring civilians out of their quarters and into 

that fire.” Other considerations affecting the decision included the possibility 

that, in a last, brutal act of defiance, enemy troops might deliberately target 

any exposed group of American civilians or that the UESAT units on the 

nearby islands to the south might, if they fired their mortars at the fort, kill 

or wound noncombatants huddled in the open. Hence, when soldiers from the 

mortar platoon began their door-to-door trek in the housing areas, they did 

offer to evacuate the residents who wanted to leave but discouraged this course 

of action by pointing out the great risks involved. It would be better, they 

advised, to move to the rear of the concrete-reinforced homes, away from the 

fighting that was almost certainly going to get much worse. Only in the U.S. 

40 Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff 

Ride, pp. 37–38; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 171–72; Flanagan, Battle 

for Panama, pp. 114–15. 41 Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 172–73.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

162

Navy housing area, which Fitzgerald knew would be directly in the line of fire, 

did his soldiers insist on evacuating the Americans living there.42

An enemy attack at Fort Amador prior to H-hour never materialized. 

Meanwhile, at Fort Kobbe, Capt. Robert Zebrowski, the commander of 

Company B, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, and Capt. William R. Reagan, the 

Company A commander, loaded their men and supplies onto Black Hawks 

manned by crews from the 7th Infantry Division. The seats had been removed 

from the helicopters to get more troops aboard—up to seventeen per aircraft, 

as opposed to the normal eleven or twelve—as well as their heavy rucksacks, 

several crammed with up to three times a soldier’s basic load. Some of the 

helicopters also carried cumbersome antitank rounds and crates of hand 

grenades, although Zebrowski refused to load the Dragon rockets offered 

him on the grounds that the company did not have the sights needed to fire 

them. As for the four men who would man the task force’s 105-mm. howitzer, 

they were scheduled to fly to the objective in the second wave, which would 

include the artillery piece slung under one of the Black Hawks. On schedule at 

0047, the pilots began lifting off, aware that fierce fighting was already under 

way at several locations in Panama City. According to plan, the Black Hawks 

transporting Company B took the lead, followed by those with Company A. 

The flight route was circuitous, with the blacked-out helicopters flying very 

low out over the canal and Bay of Panama to avoid detection and antiaircraft 

fire by UESAT and any other hostile units in the vicinity of Fort Amador.43

As the Black Hawks approached their landing zones in the fort, many of the 

soldiers aboard could see the explosions, fire, and smoke at the Comandancia. 

More unsettling, they could also see tracer rounds coming straight at them. 

Some of the rounds were being fired by enemy forces on Fort Amador; others 

were stray ordnance or ricochets from the Comandancia, where, depending 

on “the angle of the dangle,” as Reagan phrased it, rounds fired by U.S. forces 

skipped off enemy targets and ended up across that narrow section of the 

Bay of Panama separating the fort from the southernmost portion of Panama 

City. To Zebrowski, this had been a major flaw in the plan for Company B. 

The landing zone for his men was a wide ditch behind the row of American 

houses, out of sight of the 5th Company barracks but fully exposed to the 

Comandancia and within range of the weapons being employed there. Now, 

his worst fears seemed about to be realized as the pilots informed him and 

Reagan that the landing zones were “hot.” Besides the danger to the troops, 

the situation dictated that the Black Hawks not linger for more than several 

seconds while the men aboard dismounted. As Reagan described the scene, the 

Black Hawks landed, rolled for about ten feet, and then took off. If you had 

not gotten out of the helicopters at that point, it was too late. Some soldiers 

had to jump eight to ten feet to the ground in making their exit. At least a 

couple of men were left stranded on board. While several of the Black Hawks 

42 Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990. Quote from Interv, Nemmers with Pote and 

Mauzey, 18 Oct 1990. 43 Intervs, Nemmers with Pote and Mauzey, 18 Oct 1990; author with Reagan, Zebrowski, 

and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Wright with 7th Howitzer Section, Battery D, 320th Field Arty, 9 Jan 

1990.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

163

were hit by the ground fire, none suffered serious damage. Nor were there any 

casualties among the crews and the troops who had been crowded inside.44

As soon as the first wave of Black Hawks departed, Zebrowski moved 

Company B into position at the southern end of Fort Amador. One infantry 

platoon established itself behind the row of houses that included General 

Cisneros’; a second platoon took up positions by American housing near the 

Amador chapel. Both platoons had a clear view of the PDF motor pool and 

the buildings next to it. Zebrowski’s third infantry platoon gathered in an 

assembly area by the officers’ club, while the weapons platoon set up a prisoner 

collection point in the club’s parking lot and prepared the unit’s recoilless rifles 

for firing. With Company B on the ground, the headquarters company’s Team 

TOW, which a half-hour earlier had closed the back gate, was free to move 

out onto the causeway where it had orders to search three buildings next to 

the fort, the so-called witches’ houses, where Noriega was rumored to lodge 

his unorthodox consultants on the spiritual and supernatural. The clearing 

process would take over an hour.45

Company A followed Company B into Fort Amador. Captain Reagan 

quickly established contact with Fitzgerald and then moved his three infantry 

platoons into position at the northern end of the fort, with one of the platoons 

linking up with the scouts at the front gate. The maneuver proceeded without 

incident, although some U.S. military police, unaware that one of Reagan’s 

platoons was heading into their area, came close to opening fire on the unit. 

Once in place, Company B held its positions until shortly before dawn, 

providing flank security while closely monitoring the situation.46

As Reagan and Zebrowski oversaw the disposition of their troops, the 

pilot and copilot of the OH–58 Kiowa helicopter, which, together with three 

AH–1 Cobras, had accompanied the troop carriers in the air assault, observed 

from above. At one point, they received a radio message directing them to 

pinpoint the location of an enemy ZPU4 antiaircraft gun that, before the 

assault, intelligence officers had reported as being hidden somewhere behind 

the row of 5th Company buildings. As the Kiowa’s pilot, Capt. Timothy Jones 

from the 7th Infantry Division, flew toward the area suspected of concealing 

the weapon, the helicopter came under heavy ground fire, was hit, and crashed 

into the canal. Jones freed himself from the wreckage but was unable to find his 

copilot, CWO2 Andrew P. Porter, who, it was later discovered, had drowned. 

Over the next half hour, Jones tried to swim to shore, only to hear a group of 

men speaking Spanish once he managed to reach land. Slipping back into the 

water, he swam south until he arrived in the vicinity of the U.S. officers’ club. 

Once again coming ashore, he encountered another group of Spanish-speaking 

44 Quote from Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. Nemmers, 

United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 39–43; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 172–74; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 111–12. 45 Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990; Nemmers, United States 

Army South Staff Ride, pp. 38–39, 43. 46 Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. In this interview, Reagan 

attributed the near miss by the military police to the fact that they had been brought into the 

operation at the last minute and were not fully aware of all the details of Task Force Black 

Devil’s plan. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

164

men, this time shouting at him. Thinking he had run into more Panamanian 

soldiers, he scurried back into the water. The troops, in fact, were from the 

scout-antitank platoon near the causeway, speaking Spanish because they 

were certain Jones was an enemy soldier. Then Jones heard the men speaking 

in English, so he called out, “Don’t shoot, I’m American.” Unfortunately, he 

did not provide the proper password when challenged, and the ranking U.S. 

officer on the scene ordered warning shots fired. Frightened and angry, Jones 

unleashed a torrent of expletives that managed to convince the men he was 

who he said he was. His ordeal had come to an end.47

Around 0200, while Company A held its positions at the northern end of 

the fort, Company B began to move on its targets at the southern end. Unable 

to hear the PSYOP appeals being broadcast from the task force command 

post, Zebrowski’s 2d Platoon used its own bullhorns to demand the surrender 

of anyone inside the PDF motor pool, the unit’s first objective. Four mechanics 

complied. Meanwhile, from his operations center, Fitzgerald extended the 

twenty minutes he had planned to allow for the battalion’s psychological 

47 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 174–76. There was 

some speculation that the OH–58C had been shot down by ground fire from the Comandancia, 

but Zebrowski, for one, believed that the helicopter’s position behind the PDF barracks, out 

of sight and range of the PDF headquarters, made that an unlikely possibility. Probably, Jones 

and Porter had been hit by ground fire from Panamanian soldiers at Fort Amador. See Interv, 

author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. One official log contained the following entry: “200218 OH–58 Down in the Canal Vic Ft Amador Pilot Swam Ashore. Co-Pilot 

Unknown.” This would support the pilot’s account, which placed the crash within the first thirty 

minutes after H-hour.

After the battle, U.S. troops inspect the ZPU4 antiaircraft gun at Fort Amador.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

165

operations to sixty-two minutes, mainly because the people with Cisneros 

were telling the general that they had Major Cortizo on the telephone and 

that the 5th Company commander wanted to surrender, a development that 

could dramatically reduce the prospects for further violence. Fitzgerald also 

hoped he could coax the cooks in Building 5, the PDF mess hall, to capitulate. 

Knowing that they had been told American soldiers would kill them if they 

gave up, he reasoned that “if I could get that first group to come out with their 

hands up and show that we weren’t going to massacre them, there was a very 

good possibility that there were others that would follow.” When none of these 

initiatives paid off, Company B’s 1st and 3d Platoons began their preparatory 

fires on three PDF buildings, using an antitank rocket followed by .50-caliber 

machine guns. When Zebrowski received word to start clearing operations, 

a squad from the 2d Platoon used grenades to enter two structures near the 

motor pool. When the men encountered no resistance, they began securing the 

buildings, eschewing the further use of grenades as they went room to room. 

At some point, operations stopped for about an hour because of reports that a 

U.S. military policeman was “lost” somewhere on Amador. Once the missing 

person was found, Company B returned to its task.48

Before Fitzgerald ordered the main attack on the 5th Company 

headquarters and the row of PDF buildings along the fort’s western edge, 

he wanted to be sure that the ZPU4 and two V300s, the largest and most 

sophisticated weapons in the enemy’s inventory at Amador, had been knocked 

out of action. Accordingly, he directed the two Cobras still flying over the fort 

to locate the targets, after which he had his Air Force liaison officer request 

that the on-call AC–130 destroy them. The Spectre arrived around 0430, but its 

crew initially refused to fire into the congested area below, even when told that 

Task Force Black Devil could actually see the two V300s. After some heated 

exchanges, the gunship did engage the vehicles, claiming that one of them 

had been reduced to a burning hulk of twisted metal. Satisfied that the threat 

posed by these weapons had been eliminated, Fitzgerald ordered Company B 

to begin the main attack, starting with Building 9 at the southernmost end of 

the long row. Not until later did the colonel learn that all three AC–130 targets 

were still intact, virtually untouched by the Spectre’s rounds. As his executive 

officer, Maj. Robert Pote, summarized the episode, the AC–130 crew had been 

“uncooperative.” “We were under more danger from the Spectre gunship,” he 

went on to say, “than [from] the enemy.” Another battalion staff officer was 

more succinct in describing the AC–130: “It was worthless.”49

Shortly before dawn, the headquarters company provided more preparation 

fires while Zebrowski’s 1st Platoon, which had been in its assembly area at the 

officers’ club, readied to clear its assigned half of Objective Piña, Buildings 9, 

8, and 7 as viewed from the south. The general pattern was for each building to 

be raked by .50-caliber and M60 machine guns and then hit with two AT4 highexplosive, antitank rounds and one round from the 105-mm. howitzer used in a 

48 First quote from Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990. Second quoted word from 

Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. Nemmers, United States Army 

South Staff Ride, pp. 41–44. 49 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 41–42; Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 

27 Jan 1990. Quotes from Interv, Nemmers with Pote and Mauzey, 18 Oct 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

166

direct-fire mode. Other weapons and explosives, such as bangalore torpedoes, 

the 90-mm. recoilless rifles, and C4 charges, were to be used as required. As 

gunners began directing this formidable array of firepower at each target, 

they managed to hold collateral damage to a minimum, an achievement that 

became a point of pride, especially in connection with one symbolic structure, 

the mausoleum of former Panamanian leader, General Omar Torrijos, located 

in front of the main PDF barracks. SOUTHCOM and JTF-South officers 

feared that damaging the monument could have a negative impact on the large 

number of Panamanians who still considered the general a hero. After Fort 

Amador was pronounced secured later in the day, the monument was found to 

be virtually unscathed, with only a slight, almost imperceptible chip on one of 

its bricks. More important, Company B had avoided any friendly fire incidents. 

In one close call, though, the .50-caliber machine gunners aiming at Building 

9 had to stop their preparatory fires when ricochets from the weapons began 

landing dangerously close to one Company B platoon in its assault position.50

Starting at 0607 and for three hours thereafter, Company B’s 1st Platoon 

moved in sequence into Buildings 9, 8, and 7. The troops methodically searched 

the rooms inside, took some prisoners, and seized a variety of weapons. Despite 

the sighting of several armed Panamanian troops in the area, the attackers 

quickly realized that the number of defenders in no way approached the 

estimated five hundred plus—admittedly a maximum, worst-case projection—

50 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 41–44; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 179; Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990.

Building 9 after the battle at Fort Amador
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

167

Fitzgerald had been told to expect. The morning’s operations proceeded without 

incident. Thanks to some timely adjustments made by Captain Reagan, the 

same could be said of Company A’s progress in Objective Cortizo. Reagan had 

not anticipated having to clear the PDF housing area near his positions, nor 

was he pleased when he received the mission. “What am I supposed to do with 

these civilians? Just stroll up to their door and say, ‘I’d like to come through your 

house now?’” Eventually, he formulated a plan that began with a psychological 

operations team broadcasting instructions for anyone still in the residences to 

show themselves to the U.S. forces outside. Following these broadcasts, members 

of his 3d Platoon entered the houses, while the 2d Platoon assumed an overwatch 

position. During the course of the searches, the troops discovered the makings 

of a bomb in Major Cortizo’s home and a few weapons in other dwellings. But 

neither Cortizo nor any other enemy personnel were to be found. According 

to Panamanian civilians in the area, the 5th Company commander had fled an 

hour or two before the arrival of the American troops. This account was verified 

later by a PDF medic, the only commissioned Panamanian officer to be found 

at Fort Amador. Left to defend the fort in the absence of their superiors were a 

number of enlisted men, some under the threat of death from noncommissioned 

officers who stayed behind with them, others motivated by a sense of personal, 

national, and organizational honor.51

51 Quote from Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. Intervs, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Wright with Snell, 1 Jan 1990; Nemmers, United States Army 

South Staff Ride, pp. 39–41.

Torrijos mausoleum
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

168

By early afternoon, Task Force Black Devil seemed close to completing its 

mission with few casualties and little resistance. At Objective Cortizo, Reagan’s 

men continued to inspect the PDF housing area without incident. From his 

position there, the captain could see the progress being made by Zebrowski’s 

platoons and thought with relief that at least his own men would not have to 

get involved in “that mess” of going through the 5th Company buildings room 

by room. At that moment, Company B’s 3d Platoon was in the process of 

securing Building 4, the PDF headquarters. There was some apprehension on 

the part of the senior officers present that the men might be letting down their 

guard. If there was a sense of complacency, it ended abruptly when a couple of 

defenders fired an antitank round at Colonel Snell and Colonel Fitzgerald as 

they inspected the V300s the AC–130 had failed to destroy. Neither officer was 

injured. Soon after that, Reagan’s 1st Platoon got into a firefight that spilled 

over into Company B’s positions as well, even as Zebrowski’s men were also 

receiving fire from a nearby gymnasium. The enemy troops soon slipped away, 

presumably into the Amador yacht club, but Fitzgerald had seen enough. 

After ordering Zebrowski to pull his men back, he directed Reagan to have 

Company A attack the PDF buildings from the north, starting with the threestory structure, Building 1, to be followed by the gym next door to it. Reagan’s 

men had now become part of the mess the captain had hoped to avoid.52

At 1500, Company A moved through Building 1 and then the gym, taking 

its time to search the numerous rooms, many of them locked. During all this, 

Fitzgerald found himself under enormous pressure from higher headquarters 

to speed up the operation, so that his troops would be available to begin followon missions. He passed this sentiment along to the two infantry company 

commanders but refused to order them to hurry. Only when Reagan informed 

him that Company A wanted to go after any remaining defenders in the yacht 

club did Fitzgerald, on orders from Cisneros, say no. Reagan, while later 

admitting to being “pissed” at Fitzgerald’s negative response to his request, 

was told that he would be allowed to enter the club the next day. With the other 

buildings already cleared and the American housing area well protected, Fort 

Amador was pronounced secured at 1800 on Wednesday, 20 December. The 

Americans had suffered 2 fatalities and 6 wounded during the operation; the 

PDF had 6 confirmed fatalities and 4 wounded, while 141 were taken prisoner. 

Fitzgerald’s men had also captured a substantial number of weapons.53

The Task Force Black Devil after action reports contained a number 

of observations and recommendations, among them the need for better 

cooperation and coordination with the Air Force, for adequate time before 

an operation to engage in troop-leading preparations, and for better ways to 

handle prisoners and detainees. There was also a good deal written on how the 

90-mm. recoilless rifle had proved a superb weapon for low-intensity conflict 

in an urban setting and how, instead of being phased out of the Army’s 

52 Quoted words from Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. 

Interv, author with Fitzgerald, 27 Jan 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, 

pp. 180–81. 53 Quoted word from Interv, author with Reagan, Zebrowski, and Flynn, 21 Jun 1990. The 

figures are from Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 44–45.
Task Force Semper Fi and Task Force Black Devil

169

inventory, it should be ranked ahead of the cumbersome Dragons and AT4s 

as the weapon of choice for certain operations.54

One observation did not make it into the official reports. During the 

Fort Amador operation, firefights and explosions from antitank weapons, 

howitzer shells, and (however ineffectual) rounds from an AC–130 occurred 

right in front of houses that the families of American service personnel had 

not had time to vacate. Once the fighting started, spouses and children found 

what safety they could in their own dwellings—in closets, under beds, and in 

bathtubs—and then prayed for the best, while fearing the worst. As the wife 

of one U.S. Army, South, officer related, “I was certain I was going to die.” 

Her two sources of consolation: foot-thick concrete walls and, at some point, 

a telephone. Once Amador was secure, fear gave way to anger and, in several 

cases, marital discord, as some civilians who had heard a cannon being fired 

in what amounted to their front yards refused to talk to their spouses, whom 

they blamed for knowingly putting them at risk. Rationalizations claiming 

operations security did little to assuage the bitterness. The most disturbing 

aspect of this friction, according to several observers, was that the Southern 

Command, JTF-Panama, and JTF-South had not anticipated the problem; 

they therefore failed to provide the needed professional counseling as soon as 

possible after the fighting had stopped.55 

On the positive side for U.S. forces, the enemy at Fort Amador, a vital target 

within the first concentric ring around the Comandancia, had been defeated 

in a battle far short of the bloodbath anticipated in the worst-case scenarios. 

The west bank of the canal area was also inside that ring, and it, too, had been 

secured with low casualty figures for both friendly and enemy forces, thanks 

to the efforts of Task Force Semper Fi. As for the third target area within 

the ring, Ancon Hill, that was the responsibility of Task Force Wildcat. The 

outcome there would follow the pattern set at Amador and on the west bank.

54 A number of Task Force Black Devil’s observations can be found in Nemmers, United 

States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 44–45. See also Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 163. 

55 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 163. The problem of 

marital discord following the fight at Fort Amador (and attacks at other locations near where 

American families lived) was brought to the author’s attention by a former USARSO/JTFPanama staff officer. 

6

Task Force Wildcat

From almost any location in Panama City, one could see Ancon Hill rising up over six hundred feet, bordered on the west by the canal and 

in the south by the Bay of Panama. Atop the hill was a large but tattered 

Panamanian flag. It had been new when Panama’s government raised it there 

as a symbol of sovereignty on 1 October 1979, the day much—but not all—of 

the hill transferred from American to Panamanian control as a consequence of 

the canal treaties. Looking down on the northeastern slope, an observer could 

see Gorgas Army Hospital near the base of the hill. On the reverse slope and 

somewhat higher up were two man-made terraces known as Quarry Heights, 

home to the U.S. Southern Command.1 From this location overlooking the 

capital, U.S. military personnel enjoyed a beautiful panorama of the city and a 

1 On 1 October 1979, some areas of Quarry Heights were included in the portions of Ancon 

Hill transferred to the government of Panama. As a result of the change, one of SOUTHCOM’s 

two main gates was moved from the foot of the hill farther up the slope. Under the treaty, the 

Southern Command, itself, was not required to turn over its facilities until 31 December 1999. 

In fact, the headquarters relocated from Panama to Miami, Florida, in September 1997.

Ancon Hill (right) as seen from the vicinity of Fort Clayton, the location of JTF-South’s 

operations center
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

172

utilitarian line of sight into PDF facilities such as the Comandancia. The latter 

had proved valuable during the 3 October failed coup, when SOUTHCOM 

personnel had gained some insight as to what was transpiring simply by going 

outside and peering down into Noriega’s headquarters. 

If being located at Quarry Heights offered the unified command 

certain advantages during the crisis with Panama’s dictatorship, these 

could possibly be supplanted by certain vulnerabilities in the event of war. 

There were, for example, no large U.S. combat units stationed on Ancon 

Hill, while Panamanian infantry companies at the Comandancia and Fort 

Amador were within quick striking distance of the SOUTHCOM complex. 

Additionally, there were several PDF facilities ringing Ancon Hill. Although 

the policemen and military engineers who manned those sites were not 

trained for combat, that fact alone would not preclude their initiating 

any number of disruptive activities that could threaten noncombatants, 

SOUTHCOM installations, and U.S. military operations in the vicinity. 

In response to these potential threats, the JTF-South Operation Plan 90–2 

for deliberate U.S. offensive operations in Panama, as well as the series 

of High Anxiety fragmentary orders covering a no-notice attack by the 

PDF, directed Task Force Bayonet to “secure QUARRY HEIGHTS and 

GORGAS HOSPITAL,” “control and demilitarize the area between FT 

CLAYTON and FT AMADOR,” and “secure the ANCON HILL and 

BALBOA areas of PANAMA CITY.”2

Colonel Snell, as Task Force Bayonet’s commander on the eve of Just

Cause, passed almost all of these missions to Task Force Wildcat, a subordinate 

command he had task-organized around the 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, 193d 

Infantry Brigade, headquartered at Fort Clayton and commanded by Lt. Col. 

William Huff III. Besides the battalion’s three infantry companies—A, B, and 

C—Huff would have operational control over Company A—dubbed Team 

Track—from Colonel Reed’s mechanized battalion. In addition, Wildcat’s 

headquarters and headquarters company included an antitank platoon, a 

scout platoon, a mortar platoon, and combat service support elements. Also 

attached to the task force was a platoon of military police.3 

On battle maps, Huff’s principal targets were in a sector labeled 

Area of Operations Antietam (Map 9). Beginning at the southwest base 

of Ancon Hill and moving clockwise, the battalion’s Company B was 

responsible for the entire Balboa district, including the PDF’s Balboa 

National Investigation Department (DENI) station that was located along 

Task Force Gator’s route to the Comandancia and a portion of the route 

taken by Task Force Black Devil’s ground elements into Fort Amador. 

North of that, Company C was assigned the main DNTT building and 

the Ancon DENI station, the latter situated at a critical intersection where 

two main avenues merged into the eastern edge of Gaillard Highway as 

2 FRAGOs (High Anxiety) to JTF-Panama OPORD 7–88 (Blue Spoon), 20 Jun 1989, 20 

Aug 1989, and 11 Oct 1989. Quotes from JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989, but are contained virtually word for word in the High Anxiety fragmentary orders. 3 The task-organization for Task Force Wildcat is an Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple

Crush.
to Bridge of the Americas

to Fort Clayton

to Fort Clayton Quarry

 Heights

Albrook Air Statio n LOA

#15

#16

#17

#8

#18

Comandancia

Carcel Modelo

Balboa

DENI

Ancon DENI

PDF Engineer

Compound

DNT T

Panama Canal

Commission Administration

Building

G orgas Army

Hospital

Complex

Palace of Justice

Marine Control

Center

PCC substation

Balboa

Elementar y

School

Balboa High

School

Curundú

Schools

St. Mar y ’s

Pier 18

AO Spear

A N C O N

HILL

S OSA

HILL

Baseball Field

G a i l l a rd H i gh w ay

G a i l l a rd H i g h w a y

Ro o s e v e l t A v e

A v e n i d a A n c o n

G o r g a s A v e

B a l b o a S t r e e t

Cu r u n d ú Ro a d

L a B o c a Ro a d

F o u r t h o f J u l y A v e

C u rund ú

Balboa

Albroo k

Diablo

Heights

P A NAMÁ

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE WILDC A T

20 December 1989

0

0

500 1000 Meters

500 1000 Yards

Objective

Roadblock

ELEVATION IN METERS

0 50 100 150 and Above

Map 9
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

174

it ran alongside the northeast base of the hill. Company A was given 

responsibility for the PDF engineer compound farther off to the northeast, 

mainly because the company commander, Capt. William C. Flynt III, lived 

near the target and knew the terrain. For its part, the mechanized company 

attached to Wildcat was to set up five roadblocks at key intersections on 

the eastern edge of Antietam to isolate the battlefield and block any PDF 

reinforcements—either from the Ancon Hill area or from Las Tinajitas, 

Panama Viejo, and Fort Cimarrón—that might attempt to join in the 

fighting at the Comandancia. Finally, the military police were assigned 

to secure Gorgas Army Hospital, while an infantry platoon would do the 

same for the Panama Canal Commission (PCC) administration building 

and several power and communications facilities on the hill itself.

Preparations and Initial Movements

Prior to assuming command of the 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, in June 

1988, Huff had been in the SOUTHCOM Policy, Strategy, and Programs (J–5) 

Directorate. As a result of both assignments, he had been well positioned to 

witness the evolution of the crisis, for a year at the strategic and operational 

levels, then a year and a half at the tactical level. Because part of this 

experience involved the Prayer Book, he had participated in a simulation 

of the initial Blue Spoon operation orders while at Quarry Heights, briefing 

General Woerner on projections for battlefield and collateral damage, and he 

had helped analyze plans for the follow-on civil-military operations. After he 

took command of the 5th Battalion at U.S. Army, South, he continued to 

be involved in the planning process once Blue Spoon was passed down for 

battalion-level scrutiny in August 1988. Fleshing out the contingency plan for 

combat accelerated during Operation Nimrod Dancer following the arrival 

in May 1989 of the mechanized battalion from Fort Polk and the decision 

to place one of that battalion’s companies under Huff’s operational control 

in the event of war. By the time planners were making their final revisions 

to Blue Spoon in the weeks after the 3 October coup attempt, Task Force 

Wildcat’s targets had been clearly identified and the tactics for dealing with 

them formulated and, as much as practicable, rehearsed. 

The “trickiest part” of the plan, according to Colonel Snell, was if defensive 

operations detailed in the High Anxiety fragmentary orders and in Phases I 

and II of the JTF-South operation order preceded offensive operations. In 

that case, the mechanized battalion would initially occupy defensive positions 

to secure Quarry Heights and Balboa. Once combat operations began, the 

mechanized companies assigned to Task Force Gator and the Comandancia 

mission would have to vacate these positions, which soon thereafter would 

be reoccupied by Task Force Wildcat as it set up to attack its targets around 

Ancon Hill. Snell was concerned that complications during the changeover 

might impede the launching of Gator’s attack on the Comandancia or leave 

American citizens and U.S. facilities on Ancon unprotected for an unspecified 

interval. This apprehension subsided only after he and Huff learned that they 

would not be executing the defensive phases of Blue Spoon. On a lighter note, 
Task Force Wildcat

175

at some point during the planning process, the operations assigned to Huff’s 

task force acquired the code name Pineapple Crush, a play on the derisive 

nickname—La Piña—Noriega had acquired because of his pockmarked face.4

To increase the readiness of the troops to execute their assigned missions, 

Huff’s battalion received training similar to that of other Panama-based and 

Nimrod Dancer units operating in the country. Since May, the 5th Battalion had 

been conducting its share of Purple Storm, Sand Flea, contingency readiness 

exercises, and other operations, several of which had taken Huff’s troops into 

the Ancon area. For the most part, the maneuvers had proved uneventful. 

After the 3 October failed coup, the training and other preparations in which 

Huff’s soldiers participated intensified. There were more security missions and 

show-of-force operations to run, many of them tantamount to Blue Spoon

rehearsals, as was the case with other JTF-Panama forces. As part of the 

accelerated training program, the 5th Battalion used the Empire Range on 

the west side of the canal to improve its ability to conduct military operations 

on urbanized terrain. As one staff officer recalled, “We actually constructed 

wooden buildings, and we conducted live-fire raids, clearing room by room, 

until every soldier knew exactly what he needed to do for MOUT operations.” 

Another officer, one of Huff’s company commanders, praised the “extensive 

and realistic MOUT live fires including the bounding of fire teams, squads, and 

platoons.” The simple “SOPs developed during these live fires were followed 

by the men and leaders,” he added in the wake of Just Cause. While the limited 

training area did not permit calling in close air support and indirect fire and 

while not all the ground maneuver elements had the opportunity to hone their 

MOUT skills at night, the program did allow “the live fire employment of 

almost every weapon system.” The result was that each of the units acquired 

the status of trained at the end of the course.5 

Since Task Force Wildcat units executing Blue Spoon would be scattered 

throughout the Balboa and Ancon districts on terrain featuring a large hill 

and several built-up urban areas, Huff, his staff, and commanders had to pay 

special attention to communications. Beginning in October, the battalion’s 

4 For Huff’s involvement with Blue Spoon planning and his and Snell’s concerns about the 

plan, see Intervs, author with Col William H. Huff III, U.S. Army, 29 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, 

Panama; Robert K. Wright Jr. with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. Quoted words from Interv, Wright with Col Michael G. 

Snell, U.S. Army, 1 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. See also Task Force Wildcat’s version of 

the Blue Spoon operation order, OPLAN 90–1 (Pineapple Crush), 17 Oct 1989, for a description 

of Phases I through IV operations. In Wright’s lengthy and invaluable interview with Task Force 

Wildcat personnel, the officers on the battalion staff joining Colonel Huff were the executive 

officer, Maj. Carter Thomas; the operations officer, Maj. James Woods; the intelligence officer, 

1st Lt. Kevin Huggens; the S–4, Capt. Robert Colon; the adjutant, 1st Lt. Robert E. Vikander; 

Chaplain (Capt.) William E. Knight; and Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Eric L. Haney. Also present were 

Capt. Robert W. Jones Jr., the commander, Headquarters and Headquarters Company; Capt. 

Mark Conley, commander, Company B; and Capt. Donald S. Currie, commander, Company C. 5 First quote from Interv, Capt Joseph Nemmers with Capt Robert E. Vikander, 5th Bn, 

87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 16 Oct 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. Last quote from AAR, Task Force 

Wildcat, and second and third quotes from AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, both Encls to Memo, 

Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat 

Operation Pineapple Crush.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

176

communications officer started reconnoitering the task force’s projected 

target areas to determine what locations would best allow Huff and his 

subordinates to stay in contact with each other and with higher headquarters, 

meaning Snell’s Task Force Bayonet. In a related measure, the officer and 

others also established several brigade and battalion retransmission stations. 

To test the results, Wildcat units employed the officer’s recommendations 

and arrangements during Sand Flea exercises, in the process confirming or 

modifying where Blue Spoon company and task force command posts could 

best be located.6

Besides urban combat training, communications planning, and ongoing 

exercises, the lengthy list of activities constituting the 5th Battalion’s Blue

Spoon preparations between early October and mid-December also included 

the creation of detailed unit battle books; a variety of live-fire exercises geared 

to each echelon; briefings up the chain from company commanders to their 

battalion and brigade superiors; a battalion-level war game that approximated 

the plan; a jeep exercise and a “van mounted TEWT with commanders”; 

“several alerts, marshalling, and deploying exercises”; map exercises; and a 

number of “walk-thrus” and “talk-thrus.” Not on the list of formal activities 

was the simple function of just being conscious of one’s daily environment. As 

one sergeant in the battalion recalled, “You know, you drive by this place every 

morning that you know is going to be a target, on the way to work. You just 

pass the same place every day. . . . Although [an] actual rehearsal wasn’t done, 

we almost did it every day. No problem taking a look at this stuff.”7

In the opinion of Huff and his subordinates, the battalion was ready to 

perform its Blue Spoon/90–2 combat missions. The soldiers had been well 

trained and morale was high, the latter in part due to the prospect at long last of 

putting a stop to the intimidation and coercion leveled at them by the Noriega 

regime. Since 3 October, U.S. military personnel had experienced increased 

levels of police harassment, verbal abuse and obscene gestures, and, in general, 

a more belligerent environment. The troops were “tired of all this,” according 

to one staff officer, and wanted a chance to respond. As a noncommissioned 

officer put it, “So when this thing finally started to kick off, everybody was 

pretty happy just to get it going. Everybody was up for it. Let’s just do it and 

get it over with, so we can get back to some kind of normal life around here.” 

Helping to keep morale high were intelligence reports indicating that most 

Panamanian units would not fight and that a U.S. victory was foreordained.8

6 Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990.

7 The list of preparatory activities and the first through fourth quotes are from AAR, Task 

Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: 

After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 

1990. Last quote from Interv, Sgt Daniel C. Wagner and Dolores De Mena with Sfc Gerald 

Stewart, U.S. Army, 16 Oct 1990, U.S. Army, South, Panama. 8 For the morale issue and the first quote, see Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990. 

Second quote from Interv, Wagner and De Mena with Stewart, 16 Oct 1990. Interv, Wagner 

with 2d Lt Paul H. Fredenburgh and 1st Lt Robert M. Mundell, both U.S. Army, 18 Oct 1990, 

Fort Davis, Panama; AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 
Task Force Wildcat

177

As with so many other Army officers in Panama, Huff was enjoying 

himself at the USARSO Christmas formal when he received word about the 

Paz shooting. Right after Cisneros canceled the remainder of the celebration, 

the colonel went to his headquarters on Fort Clayton. As an alert went out to 

all JTF-Panama units, Huff activated his battalion’s tactical operations center 

and awaited further developments. For the next three days, the battalion was 

confined to the fort. On Monday, once Colonel Snell learned of the impending 

operation, he called in his battalion commanders and, mindful that they were 

not to be officially informed until the next day, wrote on a piece of paper, 

“We’re going to war.” According to Huff, Snell then shredded the note.9

On Tuesday at the authorized time, Huff disclosed the secret to his 

company commanders, telling them to inform their platoon leaders at 1800 

that evening. As was the case in other units, some officers later complained 

that company commanders and platoon leaders would have been better able 

to conduct a final round of reconnaissance and surveillance and to prepare 

their troops for battle had they been given a 24-hour heads-up rather than 

only a few hours’ notice before Just Cause was scheduled to begin. Supporting 

this point was the plight of several company-grade officers, who in trying to 

use what precious minutes they had before 1800 to write the operation orders 

they would distribute to their soldiers, were often interrupted to attend critical 

meetings and tend to other tasks, thus delaying completion of the orders. 

This, in turn, meant that the troops would have even less time to receive the 

necessary briefings and complete their preparation checklists. Serving to 

complicate matters further was the realization that the joint communicationselectronics operating instructions provided by the XVIII Airborne Corps 

contained several duplicate frequencies that, once identified, had to be altered 

at the last minute.10 

Although morale remained high as H-hour approached, a “real serious 

atmosphere” pervaded the barracks. The troops had to attend briefings, acquire 

ammunition and essential equipment, and review and discuss procedures and 

numerous other details. Having trained in urban operations, the men knew how 

complicated and potentially deadly clearing buildings could be. Yet they also 

knew that the professionalism and firepower they would bring to the coming 

battle far outweighed anything their adversary possessed. With between 650 

and 700 troops in the 5th Battalion, riflemen would begin the operation with 

their M16s and about 240 rounds per soldier. Each squad would have two or 

more LAWs, and grenades were handed out to squad and team leaders. Each 

9 Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990.

10 Intervs, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990; Wagner with Fredenburgh and Mundell, 

18 Oct 1990; Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990; Nemmers with Capt Stephen A. Smith, U.S. Army, 18 Oct 1990, Fort Davis, Panama; 

AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Commenting after 

Just Cause in the interview with Wright on the communications-electronics operating instructions (CEOI) problem, Huff gave an illustrative example: “The CEOI that we thought was all 

going to be set up for this thing then got dicked up as we got new frequencies. . . . We found that 

the battalion command [frequency] was the same as some MP platoon [frequency]—unbelievable screw-ups at the last minute.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

178

combat company in the task force would have a sniper team using the M24 

sniper system. Also in the task force’s inventory were .50-caliber machine guns 

mounted on M113s and other vehicles, M60 machine guns, 90-mm. recoilless 

rifles, AT4 portable antitank weapons, M203 grenade launchers, and TOW 

II antitank missiles. Each company from the 5th Battalion had two 60-mm. 

mortars, while the battalion’s four 81-mm. mortars would be infiltrated onto 

the athletic field at Albrook Air Station to provide on-call fire support. Finally, 

Huff could request artillery and close air support if he believed a situation 

required such assistance.11

During the morning and afternoon of the nineteenth, the colonel and his 

principal staff officers joined other task force commanders and their staffs at 

the various meetings and briefings held throughout the day. Then, at 1800, 

Huff helped brief platoon leaders on their roles in the upcoming conflict. 

After he had finished speaking to one group, Cisneros arrived, himself making 

the rounds from unit to unit and talking to officers on the brotherhood of 

war. A few hours later, Huff visited each company in Task Force Wildcat, 

including Company A from the mechanized battalion, seeing as many soldiers 

as possible, reviewing their missions with them, and, in general, helping to keep 

morale high. During the course of what he later called his Patton speech, he 

also reminded the troops of the long-term consequences of the action in which 

they were soon to be engaged, a point that Snell had emphasized to him and 

Task Force Bayonet’s other commanders. Once the enemy was defeated, Huff 

stated emphatically, there would be the nation-building phase, the Panama 

Defense Forces would be reconstructed in one form or another, and the U.S. 

military would continue to be stationed in Panama well into the 1990s. “We’re 

going to have to pat these guys on the back and say, ‘All is forgiven,’ after 

we do this thing,” he told the troops, instructing them on the importance of 

treating prisoners and the enemy dead with respect and leaving Panamanian 

flags flying.12

Shortly after the talks and briefings, elements of Task Force Wildcat began 

their initial movements. At 2200, the mortar platoon boarded HMMWVs and, 

with its 81-mm. mortars and ammunition aboard, left Fort Clayton by the back 

gate and made its way into Albrook Air Station next door, stopping briefly 

while the platoon leader and a reconnaissance party checked out the primary 

mortar firing position on the facility’s baseball field. Given that the platoon 

was on a fenced-in U.S. installation with Air Force policemen to guard and, if 

necessary, defend the athletic field, the site selected for the mortars seemed safe 

enough. The only problem the platoon encountered once it arrived related to 

operations security: the mortar crews could not properly adjust the base plates 

11 Quote from Interv, Wagner with Fredenburgh and Mundell, 18 Oct 1990. Intervs, 

Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990; with Smith, 18 Oct 1990; AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl 

to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, 

TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 12 Quote from Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990. Intervs, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 

Oct 1990; Capt John Hollins with Huff, 20 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama.
Task Force Wildcat

179

of their weapons without firing registration rounds, something that was out of 

the question.13

About thirty minutes later, two platoons from the 5th Battalion’s Company 

A—nicknamed the “Jaguars”—also departed Fort Clayton to rendezvous with 

the company’s third infantry platoon, which was conducting roving patrols in 

the Curundu housing area. Having been responsible for security in Curundu 

for a couple of months, Company A was familiar with the area, which allowed 

its officers to pick a guardhouse located there as an ideal assembly point if 

needed. By moving in staggered intervals on single trucks, the troops en route 

to the point late on 19 December sought to convince any observer who had 

become familiar with the unit’s routine movements in the area that they were 

engaged in changing the guard or bringing in supplies. Once all the trucks 

arrived and the company assembled, the guardhouse provided superb cover for 

the soldiers and vehicles. Captain Flynt, the company commander, “thought 

the troops were entirely too noisy off loading the trucks” but found the issue 

to be “academic” in that “the trucks were much louder than the soldiers.” It 

would have been better, he realized, had the transport stopped “about 500 

meters away down the road,” allowing the troops to walk to the guardhouse. 

In any case, he concluded that the commotion had not jeopardized tactical 

surprise. As for those troops who now had up to a two-hour wait before 

moving to their attack positions, the time passed uneventfully, with plenty in 

the way of additional preparations to keep them busy.14

As H-hour approached, Huff wanted up-to-the-minute intelligence on the 

targets in Task Force Wildcat’s area of operations, as well as the status of the 

roadways leading into it. The scout platoon of his headquarters company had 

surveillance assets, while the company’s antitank platoon had transportation. 

Sometime between midnight and 0030, the two units left through the back gate 

at Fort Clayton to reconnoiter the Ancon-Balboa area. So as not to attract 

unwanted attention, the soldiers wore soft caps and placed their weapons on 

the floor boards of their vehicles. At first, the reconnaissance was routine, 

with the scouts reporting that the route to the PDF engineering compound 

was clear, although the compound itself was blacked out, the entrances were 

blocked by vehicles, and armed men in civilian clothes could be seen in firing 

positions. Almost identical reports described conditions at the transportation 

building and the Ancon DENI. The scouts proceeded to Gorgas Army 

Hospital, reported on the situation there, then retraced their route back to the 

blacked-out Ancon DENI station, where a group of ten men dressed in civilian 

clothes and armed with AK47s “zeroed in on the convoy” just as the vehicles 

approached a stoplight that had turned red. The platoon leader considered 

13 Intervs, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 

Jan 1990; Nemmers with Smith, 18 Oct 1990; Dolores De Mena with Spec William Anthony 

Martin, U.S. Army, 27 Sep 1991, Fort Clayton, Panama; AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to 

Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF 

Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 14 Quotes from AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 

Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

180

running the light but then decided to “play it cool,” as though his presence was 

“normal business.” To his relief, the armed men held their fire.15

Within a few minutes of passing the Ancon DENI, a sense of déjà vu 

swept the reconnaissance group as armed men approached the convoy while it 

waited at a second stoplight. “Light changes thank God!” the platoon leader 

later recorded in his unit’s chronology. The feeling of relief, once again, was 

short-lived. Right after the light changed, the scout and the antitank platoons 

became distressingly aware of U.S. military police “rousting” the Pier 18 area 

of Balboa Harbor, arresting PDF administration personnel at the location. 

Although the policemen secured the area, their actions were premature, part 

of a misunderstanding rooted in the attempts by JTF-South to change H-hour. 

The ensuing ruckus caught the attention of Panamanian forces around the 

harbor and piers, the area Wildcat’s reconnaissance group was just entering. 

PDF and Dignity Battalion members in the vicinity began locking and loading 

their weapons and pointing them at the Americans, who tried to appear calm. 

Then, believing that their “cover was blown,” they prepared to “run the 

gauntlet” but were spared that ordeal when the armed Panamanians chose not 

to open fire. Several minutes later, right after the battle for the Comandancia 

commenced, the scouts concluded their patrol and proceeded immediately 

to their assembly areas, where they sought cover from the heavy indirect fire 

passing over their heads. Later, they would move onto Ancon Hill to provide 

security for Huff’s jump tactical operations center and to serve as the task 

force’s only reserve. From Huff’s perspective, the reconnaissance mission had 

been a huge success. The reports relayed by the platoons contained what he 

considered to be the most valuable intelligence he received prior to hostilities. 

But he also realized, as one officer later observed, that the whole effort “could 

have gone very bad very quickly.”16

As Huff scrutinized the information he was receiving from the scout and 

antitank platoons, Task Force Wildcat units still located at Fort Clayton began 

moving to their assembly areas. At 0040, Company A from the mechanized 

battalion left Clayton by the back gate and headed to the Curundu Elementary 

15 Intervs, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 

Jan 1990; author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990. Quoted words from AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl 

to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, 

TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just

Cause, 1990. Colonel Huff and his subordinates video-recorded the VHS tape shortly after Just

Cause. The recording features statements from Huff, his company commanders, and their platoon leaders and noncommissioned officers, as well as video footage of the targets and a brief 

narrative on how each was neutralized. 16 First through fourth quoted words from AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 

5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat 

Operation Pineapple Crush. While the Task Force Wildcat tactical operations center remained 

at Huff’s battalion headquarters on Fort Clayton, his mobile or “jump” tactical operations 

center allowed him to go to Ancon Hill where he could direct the task force’s actions from a 

better vantage point. For brevity in the remainder of this chapter, the term operations center will 

refer to the jump tactical operations center. Last quote from Lawrence A. Yates, “Operation 

JUST CAUSE in Panama City, December 1989,” in Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban 

Operations, ed. William G. Robertson and Lawrence A. Yates (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. 

Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2003), p. 348.
Task Force Wildcat

181

School, a location that would put the troops in position, once the shooting 

started, to move quickly down Curundu Road and past the PDF engineer 

compound before the battle there got under way. They would then maneuver to 

set up the five roadblocks assigned to them on the stretch of Gaillard Highway 

beginning north of the Ancon DENI and veering south to Fourth of July 

Avenue. As Company A departed Clayton, Task Force Wildcat’s Company 

C and a platoon from Company B left by the front gate, turning onto the 

segment of Gaillard Highway running past the fort. For movement purposes 

only, these units headed south in the wake of Task Force Gator, briefly coming 

under the operational control of Colonel Reed. Minutes later, the situation, 

according to Huff, “turned to s——t.” At 0045, Wildcat units began to hear 

mortar fire and other explosions and to see tracer rounds in the vicinity of 

the harbor and the Comandancia. Similar to the reconnaissance group, the 

troops leaving Clayton and those still preparing for departure realized that 

within minutes they would encounter PDF and Dignity Battalion elements in 

the Ancon-Balboa area that would have had time to prepare for the arrival of 

U.S. forces.17

With Operation Just Cause now officially under way, Snell quickly radioed 

Huff, telling him to “go ahead and jump.” The remaining troop trucks of 

Company B immediately moved out Clayton’s front gate onto Gaillard, 

with four military police vehicles, Huff’s operations center composed of two 

HMMWVs, and a support platoon from Company C behind them. At this 

point, all the main elements of Task Force Wildcat were en route to their lines 

of departure, with Company A and the Team Track mechanized company 

traveling toward the area of operations via Curundu Road, Company C and 

the Company B platoon following in the wake of Task Force Gator, and the 

column led by Huff’s Company B (minus) bringing up the rear. As the troops 

of Company C drove past Albrook Air Station, they noticed three PDF police 

cars. If there were tránsitos inside, they chose not to open fire, and the company 

convoy proceeded to Ancon Hill.18

When Company B attempted to move through the same area, an intense 

firefight erupted. Armed Panamanians inside a bus also traveling south down 

Gaillard Highway, but in the northbound lane, opened fire on the column 

parallel to them and then tried to maneuver the vehicle into the southbound 

lane in such a way as to block Company B’s progress. The occupants of one or 

two of the PDF police cars in the vicinity also joined in the shootout. Unable 

to avoid an engagement, U.S. troops at the head of the column returned fire. 

Soon thereafter, Air Force security police at Albrook, believing that they were 

under attack, began shooting as well. Behind Company B, the military police 

17 Quoted words from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. AARs, Task Force Wildcat, and Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, both Encls to 

Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF 

Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 29–32. 

For information on Task Force Gator, see Chapter 4. 18 Quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990. AARs, Task Force Wildcat, and Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, both Encls to Memo, 

Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat 

Operation Pineapple Crush.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

182

and the men in Huff’s HMMWVs found themselves coming under intense 

fire, with no idea if it was the enemy or the Air Force police shooting at 

them. According to Huff, the firefight could have been disastrous save for the 

fact that the bullets flying into his column’s “kill zone” seemed to be hitting 

everything—rifle butts, stocks, and sites; swivels; squad automatic weapons; 

equipment; and the vehicles—except the soldiers themselves, three of whom 

were wounded. He used terms such as “unbelievable” and “miraculous” to 

describe the phenomenon in which “people just escape[d] with their lives by 

flukes.” The ambush came to an abrupt end when Company B pushed past the 

bus, which went off the highway and crashed. Three of the men inside were 

killed, either during the fighting or in the crash. Although there had been no 

U.S. fatalities in the convoy, a Department of Defense Dependent Schools 

schoolteacher, Gertrude Kandi Helin, was caught in the sudden crossfire and 

killed outside the gate at Albrook, her death being the first reported American 

civilian casualty of Just Cause.

19

Toward the end of Huff’s column, the battalion support platoon heard the 

shooting and pulled off to the side of the highway to assess the situation. With 

tracer rounds flying about, the platoon leader, 1st Lt. Robert M. Mundell, 

expressed some concerns about entering Albrook, where the plan called for 

him to establish a first aid station and facilities for resupplying Task Force 

Wildcat with water, fuel, and ammunition. He was “apprehensive” because 

“we did not know that the Air Force understood what our friendly signs were 

and we didn’t understand what their friendly signs were.” His anxiety might 

have increased had he known that, in the shootout just yards ahead of him, the 

U.S. convoy suspected friendly fire from the air station as the source of some 

of the rounds impacting around it. The support platoon finally began moving 

again, with Mundell’s worst fears being allayed after his men entered Albrook 

without incident.20

The remainder of the column continued to its objectives, with Huff’s 

operations center making its way up Ancon Hill to a clearing just below Quarry 

Heights and above the PCC administration building. As Huff approached the 

position, he could see that it was being shelled by mortars, although by the 

time he arrived, the firing had subsided. With him were the 5th Battalion’s 

operations officer, its fire support officer, an air liaison officer, a communications 

officer, two radio telephone operators, and the battalion sergeant major. From 

this select location, Huff could keep in contact with higher headquarters and 

with the four scattered companies constituting the bulk of his task force. He 

also could easily visit each company’s area of operations if he required more 

information or believed his presence to be necessary.21

19 Quoted words and quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th 

Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 

26–28; AARs, Task Force Wildcat, and Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, both Encls to Memo, Cdr, 5th 

Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation 

Pineapple Crush. 20 Quote from Interv, Wagner with Fredenburgh and Mundell, 18 Oct 1990. AAR, Task 

Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: 

After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 21 Intervs, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990; Nemmers with Smith, 18 Oct 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

183

Around and below him, these units were preparing to carry out their 

assignments—the mechanized company, to install roadblocks; the three rifle 

companies, to isolate four hard targets and two large neighborhoods. At each 

of the targets, the tactics to be used mirrored those employed at most Just

Cause objectives. A heavy broadcast team would issue appeals for Panamanian 

defenders to surrender, accompanied by warnings of dire consequences should 

the entreaties be ignored. Against any enemy forces choosing to resist, U.S. 

units would conduct what was termed a carefully orchestrated firepower 

demonstration designed to convey the devastating effects of their weapons. 

Following the demonstration, there would be a new round of surrender 

broadcasts. Only if alternating the carrot and the stick became an exercise in 

futility would American troops actually launch an attack to seize an objective. 

The proximity of civilian residences to targets in the Ancon-Balboa districts 

dictated such a patient approach, as did the long-term considerations, including 

nation building, that Huff had earlier voiced to his troops. Also, as Snell later 

remarked, “We did not want to kill unnecessarily a lot of soldiers because we 

knew the PDF were there to put bread on the table, and many, we suspected, 

were not strong supporters of Noriega.”22 

Team Track and Company C

Around the northern and eastern slopes of Ancon Hill were three of Task 

Force Wildcat’s hard targets: the PDF engineer compound, the DNTT building 

housing the PDF’s main tránsito and transportation headquarters, and the 

Ancon DENI station. Company C, 5th Battalion, bore responsibility for fixing 

and, on order, neutralizing the latter two targets. If necessary, the company 

commander, Capt. Donald S. Currie, could request assistance from Company 

A, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry—Team Track—whose principal mission was to 

isolate the battlefield, both at the Comandancia and around Ancon Hill, by 

establishing five roadblocks on Currie’s right flank. 

Having moved from Fort Clayton into the Curundu area twenty minutes 

earlier, Team Track crossed its line of departure at 0100 and started heading 

down Curundu Road on a route that would take the M113s past the PDF 

engineer compound and the DNTT on their right flank to the intersection 

with that segment of Gaillard Highway running around the northeastern 

base of Ancon Hill. The foray would not go unopposed. Just seconds into the 

column’s movement, three or four Panamanians lying in ambush opened fire 

with machine guns. The team’s 2d and 3d Platoons were best positioned to 

return fire, while the entire convoy accelerated to twenty-five miles per hour. A 

second ambush occurred as Company A passed the front gate of the engineer 

compound. Again, only two or three enemy personnel were involved, and, as 

a few minutes before, U.S. troops returned fire without stopping. When the 

vehicles reached Gaillard Highway, they made a left turn and proceeded east 

22 Ibid. Firepower demonstration was the term employed by U.S. commanders in Just Cause

to describe the employment of various weapons to show their destructive effects, not so much 

to inflict casualties, but to intimidate enemy defenders at several locations into surrendering. 

Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 153.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

184

past the Ancon DENI station and then south to positions where the 1st Platoon 

would erect the first two roadblocks—numbers 8 and 18—at the intersection 

of Gorgas Avenue and Fourth of July Avenue. The 2d Platoon at some point 

would turn back north and establish roadblock number 17 at the intersection 

of Gaillard and Calle 9 de Enero. The 3d Platoon would set up the last two 

roadblocks (numbers 16 and 15) at two intersections along Gaillard right next 

to the Ancon DENI, but only after the 1st Platoon from the 5th Battalion’s 

Company C had seized the station. Similarly, the mechanized company 

commander, Capt. Isadore Bowers Jr., could not set up his command post 

at the Palace of Justice while the DENI station next door was still in enemy 

hands. Huff later observed without elaboration that making the completion of 

Team Track’s mission contingent on seizing the Ancon DENI was “probably 

a screwed-up tactical plan.” Yet, given the layout of the objectives, the road 

network around them, and the Comandancia’s location to the southeast, an 

alternative plan had not readily presented itself.23

As soon as the lead elements of Bowers’ mechanized company reached 

the southernmost point on their route, two Panamanians with AK47s started 

firing at the troops from a three-story building. According to the unit’s after 

action report, elements from the headquarters and from the 2d and 3d Platoons 

“pounded the area with M16s, M60s, and 50 cal fire.” The two men stopped 

shooting, and the mechanized 1st Platoon, with the help of engineers from 

Huff’s battalion, prepared to set up roadblocks 8 and 18. Before they could 

get started, though, someone detected movement in a window over the nearby 

Ancon Inn. Bowers responded to the potential threat by directing his troops 

to remain in their M113s until the location of any additional enemy snipers 

had been identified. Although a scan of the floors and rooftops of adjacent 

buildings revealed nothing, the captain decided to keep the company moving 

along Gorgas Avenue to a point closer to the U.S. Army hospital complex. He 

then sent the 1st Platoon back to set up roadblocks 8 and 18 and to occupy the 

area around them. Meanwhile, a few blocks to the north, at Calle 9 de Enero, 

the 2d Platoon set up roadblock 17. At 0137, Captain Bowers reported that the 

three roadblocks were in place. Meanwhile, the 3d Platoon awaited word of 

developments at the Ancon DENI. Once the units responsible for seizing the 

station reported it was secured, the platoon would retrace its movements along 

the march route, cross Phase Line Red that separated Task Force Wildcat’s 

infantry and mechanized companies, and establish the final two roadblocks 

behind the facility. If needed, the soldiers of the 3d Platoon could also serve as 

reinforcements in the DENI operation.24

Across Phase Line Red, while Team Track was defending its position and 

setting up checkpoints, the 1st Platoon of Captain Currie’s Company C had 

been making its way from the northwest to the northeast side of Ancon Hill. 

23 AAR, Co A, 4th Bn, 6th Inf (Mech), Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Quote 

from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990. Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990. 24 Quote from AAR, Co A, 4th Bn, 6th Inf (Mech), Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple

Crush. Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 31–33.
Task Force Wildcat

185

Moving across Avenida Ancon from the vicinity of the canal commission 

administration building, the infantrymen arrived at a position from which 

they could get out of their trucks and approach the DENI station from the 

south. As with the company’s other platoons, the 1st had an antitank team and 

a medic attached to it. In addition, it had a forward observer, a sniper team 

from the headquarters company, and an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer. Given 

its attack positions on the northeast slope of the hill, the 1st Platoon was the 

farthest removed from the Company C command post near the PCC building 

and was thus well beyond Captain Currie’s line of sight. Currie would have to 

rely on radio transmissions to keep him abreast of developments at the Ancon 

DENI. Yet, when he initially tried to contact the platoon, he discovered to his 

dismay that he had lost communications with the unit. For almost an hour, he 

tried unsuccessfully to radio the platoon leader.25

When Currie finally reestablished contact with his 1st Platoon, he learned 

that, as soon as the troops had arrived in the vicinity of the Ancon DENI, 

they had come under what he later described as “a heavy volume of fire, 

probably the heaviest of the first day.” The news came as something of a 

surprise because intelligence reports available to Huff and his subordinates 

had indicated most PDF units, including the special police at the DENI, would 

not fight. Whether that assumption was incorrect or whether some other, more 

motivated Panamanian force was in control of the station seemed a moot 

point at the moment. Of greater consequence to the 1st Platoon leader was 

the fact that just two of his three squads were in their assigned positions when 

the shooting commenced. Consequently, instead of surrounding the station, 

he could only cover it from three directions, with one squad located to the 

south of the DENI, and the other having maneuvered to higher ground on 

the east side. The west side, in effect, was blocked by the whole of Task Force 

Wildcat, just by being located on Ancon Hill, but positions on the north side 

were still unoccupied. Seven or eight defenders, realizing that they would be 

safer elsewhere and seeing no threat north of them, took advantage of the 

situation by exiting the station on that side and crossing Gaillard Highway into 

a business area, from which they began firing at the Americans. The company 

snipers Currie had placed with the 1st Platoon responded, killing up to seven 

men during the night. Before any other defenders could leave the station, the 

third squad finally arrived and moved into position, using a bus and tractortrailer it brought with it to block the northern escape route.26 

Since the platoon was still under heavy fire from defenders in the station, 

the 1st Platoon leader turned to Captain Currie for support, prompting Currie 

to radio Bowers at his Team Track command post and request execution of a 

contingency plan that the two had worked out in advance. The arrangement 

called for the mechanized unit to send one or two of its armored personnel 

25 AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Interv, Wright 

with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 26 AARs, Task Force Wildcat, and Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 

87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation 

Pineapple Crush. Quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

186

carriers to join the fight at the Ancon DENI. In an area where mortars could 

not be employed because of the target’s proximity to civilian residences, the 

M113’s mounted .50-caliber machine gun could be used to devastating effect 

in any firepower demonstration and would augment the 1st Platoon’s LAWs 

and formidable 90-mm. recoilless rifles. Bowers readily agreed to Currie’s 

request and dispatched one armored personnel carrier to the scene. It took 

over thirty minutes for the linkup to occur, during which time Currie asked 

the Task Force Wildcat operations center to telephone the Ancon DENI with 

a demand to surrender. Several minutes later, he was informed that no one 

inside the station had picked up the phone. When the M113 eventually arrived, 

its crew members learned that they could not immediately engage the enemy. 

In front of their position, troops from the 1st Platoon’s 3d Squad who had 

been located north of the station were moving to the higher ground to the 

east. Given the potential for friendly fire, the M113 remained stationary and 

its gunner refrained from shooting until the squad in motion had completed 

its maneuver. Meanwhile, Currie, thinking that the delays at the Ancon DENI 

might portend a “loss of momentum” on the part of the 1st Platoon, sent his 

executive officer to “energize” the unit.27

During this period, when the platoon was making its last-minute 

adjustments prior to employing more than small arms against the DENI 

station, Task Force Wildcat suffered its only fatality, the result of an exchange 

of gunfire in the vicinity of the mechanized company’s 2d Platoon, which was 

manning the number 17 roadblock position. Following three single shots from 

27 AAR, Co A, 4th Bn, 6th Inf (Mech), and quoted words from AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, both Encls to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After 

Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Nemmers, United States Army South 

Staff Ride, pp. 29–33; Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.

Ancon DENI station
Task Force Wildcat

187

a high-powered rifle fired from the fifth floor of a nearby building, bursts from 

two AK47s raked the platoon’s M113 directly below. The bullets wounded 

two U.S. soldiers and killed another, Pfc. Kenneth D. Scott. Muzzle flashes 

from the weapons gave away the snipers’ positions, and the platoon pounded 

them with a variety of munitions. In short order, the three U.S. casualties were 

evacuated to Gorgas Army Hospital just a very short distance away, while the 

2d Platoon moved across Gaillard Highway to a more secure position from 

which to guard the roadblock.28 

Back at the Ancon DENI station, Team Track’s M113 was finally able 

to begin its firepower demonstration, shooting 1,200 .50-caliber rounds into 

the target in two bursts of 600 rounds each. Twenty minutes later, Company 

C’s 1st Platoon joined in, using a 90-mm. recoilless rifle against the building’s 

entrance. By 0330, the platoon was ready to assault the objective and clear 

the station room by room, with elements of the 3d Platoon from Captain 

Bowers’ mechanized company establishing a “support by fire” position 

outside, then moving onto Gaillard Highway to set up the company’s last 

two roadblocks, numbers 15 and 16. By 0445, the operation was over and the 

Ancon DENI cleared without incident, thus neutralizing one of Company 

C’s two hard targets.29

Efforts to subdue the other, the DNTT, were still in progress, and, as had 

been the case with the Ancon DENI, the rifle units involved—Company C’s 2d 

28 AAR, Co A, 4th Bn, 6th Inf (Mech), Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 29 AAR, Co A, 4th Bn, 6th Inf (Mech), and quoted words from AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, both Encls to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After 

Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Nemmers, United States Army South 

Staff Ride, pp. 29–33; Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.

The DNTT compound
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

188

and 3d Platoons—had come under enemy fire from the outset of the operation. 

The first to arrive at the target was the 2d Platoon, having turned off Gaillard 

Highway onto the road leading up to the PCC administration building, and 

then proceeding along Roosevelt Avenue, which ran parallel to Gaillard but 

at a higher elevation, to a release point just southwest of the target. As soon 

as the first vehicle stopped, it and those behind it encountered automatic 

weapons fire from the nearby Explansa building, causing the troops to vacate 

their trucks in disarray. “I’ve never seen people de-truck so quickly in my 

life,” Captain Currie later exclaimed. “I mean there was stuff everywhere, and 

people were just jumping over one another; going over the cab.” The platoon 

leader, 2d Lt. Paul H. Fredenburgh, called the scene “a chaotic mess in the 

road on the ground.” “Thank God the bullets were high and no one got hit,” 

he added. Arriving just minutes later, soldiers in the 3d Platoon positioned 

their vehicles right next to the Explansa building, exited, and returned fire. 

The threat from that location subsided but, in quick succession, both platoons 

received fire from a bunker and guard shack on the PDF side of Albrook Air 

Station. Again, the 3d Platoon, this time employing its 90-mm. recoilless rifle, 

silenced the shooters. In the meantime, the remainder of the lengthy Company 

C convoy moved into an area west of the administration building. The task 

force’s antitank team and two roadblock personnel provided security for the 

company positions by covering the Gaillard Highway approaches and by 

setting up a roadblock on Roosevelt Avenue to prevent any hostile force from 

advancing from the rear.30

Once the initial shooting stopped, Fredenburgh prepared to deploy his 

men to two fixed positions across from the DNTT and just south of Gaillard. 

He would lead part of his platoon into a lengthy ditch or gutter about a 

hundred fifty to two hundred yards from the building near railroad tracks 

running parallel to the highway, while the remainder of the unit would occupy 

a position farther down the ditch on his right flank. As the troops began to 

move, however, they once again came under fire, this time from inside the 

transportation headquarters. According to Fredenburgh, “That’s when the 

soldiers got scared. When the real bullets were fired at them and cracking over 

their heads, that’s when I saw fear in the faces of my soldiers.” To keep the 

troops moving into their positions required, in his words, “a little kicking in 

the ass,” but, after about five minutes, “the initial shock was over,” as the troops 

calmed down and began to carry out their platoon’s portion of the plan.31

With the soldiers in the 2d Platoon facing the front of the DNTT, the 

3d Platoon moved into position next to a group of buildings from which it 

could make a flanking attack from the west to clear the target. Before that, 

though, the platoon would wait for the cycle of surrender appeals and 

firepower demonstrations intended to persuade the defenders to give up and 

avoid bloodshed. The process, which would take over four hours, began as 

30 Currie quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Fredenburgh quotes from Interv, Wagner with Fredenburgh and 

Mundell, 18 Oct 1990. Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990; AAR, 

Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, 

sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 31 Interv, Wagner with Fredenburgh and Mundell, 18 Oct 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

189

soon as both platoons were in position. In issuing the first “verbal warning,” 

the attached heavy broadcast team told whoever was inside the transportation 

building that they had five minutes to come out. If they did so, they would 

not be harmed; if they disregarded the ultimatum, they would be fired 

on. In the absence of a public address system, the team used bullhorns to 

broadcast the message, the result being that a number of defenders, as U.S. 

officers learned later, could not hear it. Once the five minutes passed without 

compliance, Captain Currie ordered the 2d Platoon to begin its first firepower 

demonstration, which was limited to small arms (M60s, M16s, and squad 

automatic weapons). Soon thereafter, a second surrender appeal was made, 

again without positive results, followed by a second firepower demonstration, 

this time with 90-mm. recoilless rifles, LAWs, and small arms. One hour into 

the standoff, Currie requested that the 5th Battalion operations center at Fort 

Clayton contact the defenders directly by telephoning the DNTT to deliver 

the warnings. The call was placed, but whoever answered the phone hung up.32

When PSYOP broadcasts failed to achieve the desired response, Currie 

concentrated on intensifying the firepower demonstrations. At one point, 

an AC–130 became available, and he gave it directions for firing down into 

the DNTT. The first marking round hit near the target, and Currie provided 

information for adjusting the fire. But the second round went even farther 

astray, exploding in one of the buildings around which his 3d Platoon had 

assembled. “We’re very lucky that nobody was killed in that one,” he later 

commented. He also noted that “despite glint tape and light signals which 

I used, Spectre seemed to have a difficult time locating the target and the 

friendlies.” After-the-fact explanations for the near disaster tended to focus 

on the communications setup in effect at the time of the AC–130’s arrival 

over the DNTT. One problem, according to a 5th Battalion staff officer, 

was that there was no ground liaison officer aboard the gunship, someone 

familiar enough with the array of structures in the area of operations to 

help the Spectre’s gunners identify the proper targets. There was, to be sure, 

an Air Force ground liaison officer at Huff’s operations center, but the 

communications equipment connecting him with the aircraft was not working 

properly. Furthermore, in the opinion of the 5th Battalion fire support officer, 

Capt. Stephen A. Smith, proximity—or the lack thereof—was a problem, in 

that Currie’s command post and Huff’s operations center where Smith was 

positioned were not collocated. Also, because the noncommissioned officer 

serving as Currie’s own Air Force liaison for fire support was at that moment 

with the antitank platoon, Smith, who in his own words “should have been 

controlling aircraft for [Currie’s] fire support NCO,” was not even in touch 

with that individual. That left Currie providing directions to the gunship, 

said Smith, “in a manner that was not exactly correct. It was confusing. . . .

You cannot give a left-right, add-drop correction as you do [with] artillery 

and mortar fire.” The noncommissioned Air Force liaison officer, Smith 

32 Quoted words from AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple

Crush. Intervs, Wagner with Fredenburgh and Mundell, 18 Oct 1990; Wright with Huff and 

Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990; Videocassette tape, 5th of the 

87th After Action Just Cause, 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

190

argued, should have been located with the company commander. By the time 

Currie was able to contact the man and get him to the company command 

post for better coordination, the Spectre, which had been flying overhead 

for about five minutes, had been pulled off to perform another mission—a 

development that Currie, having just witnessed a near tragedy, found little 

cause to regret.33

Having had no success with the AC–130, Currie around 0245, turned 

for support to the battalion’s 81-mm. mortar platoon located in the Albrook 

Air Station baseball diamond. Members of the unit were busy digging and 

fortifying their mortar pits, filling sandbags that would protect them from 

random PDF mortar rounds that occasionally landed in the area surrounding 

the athletic field. Currie had to wait for higher headquarters to authorize 

employment of the mortars, but, once that occurred, the platoon at Albrook 

fired a couple of spotter rounds. After Currie communicated the adjustments 

needed to hit the target, twelve more were fired for effect. These rounds, in 

the captain’s opinion, “did a fairly decent job on the eastern section of the 

objective,” so he asked the platoon to shift its fire in order to hit the western 

side. But when the second barrage came in, the rounds landed farther to the 

east, not west, in an area between the company’s 1st and 2d Platoons. After 

checking to be sure that the explosions had not caused any friendly casualties, 

Currie decided to dispense with further support from the 81-mm. mortars. For 

the next firepower demonstration against the DNTT, he turned instead to the 

60-mm. mortar section attached to Company C. A spotter round from one of 

the two mortars landed far from the target mainly because the weapons’ base 

plates had not been settled. Adjustments were made, after which three rounds 

fired for effect scored direct hits inside the transportation building.34

Currie next contacted Captain Bowers and, impressed by the M113’s 

performance at the Ancon DENI, requested an armored personnel carrier 

to execute the last firepower demonstration prior to an infantry assault on 

the DNTT. Currie had to wait over an hour for the vehicle to arrive. In 

the meantime, he ordered his 3d Platoon into its attack position, a move 

that took it from the vicinity of the Explansa building to a large furniture 

warehouse across the street. By this time, the target had gone cold; no 

hostile fire was coming from the transportation headquarters, although 

U.S. troops could see movement inside the building. At one point during 

33 First quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Second quote from AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, 

Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat 

Operation Pineapple Crush. Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990. Remaining quotes 

from Interv, Nemmers with Smith, 18 Oct 1990. 34 Intervs, De Mena with Martin, 27 Sep 1991; author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990. Currie quote 

from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990. AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. In the mortar 

platoon’s contribution to the Task Force Wildcat after action report, the platoon leader listed as 

a lesson learned the fact that “throughout the operation, my FDC [Fire Direction Center] did 

not receive one correct call for fire.” See AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 

87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

191

the night, an automobile with two people inside had tried to enter the 

parking lot in front of the target, but the defenders’ own barricades slowed 

its movement, allowing U.S. forces to fire on it, killing the driver and 

wounding his passenger. Sometime after that, U.S. troops severely wounded 

a motorcycle rider trying to enter the parking lot. Currie later noted with 

irony how the defensive barricades at the entrances to the DNTT actually 

worked to Company C’s benefit by keeping the defenders from escaping 

and reinforcements from entering.35

The M113 Currie requested arrived around 0430. Once it reached its 

firing position in front of the DNTT, Currie climbed on top, and, with his 

hand on the .50-caliber machine gunner, “we basically raked the objective 

from right to left or east to west about four or five times,” in the process 

expending hundreds of rounds of ammunition. When the preparatory fire 

stopped, the 3d Platoon began its attack around 0512. Thinking that the 

defenders expected to be hit from the south, the platoon instead breached a 

fence on the building’s west side and cleared a small building en route to the 

main headquarters. In the process, the soldiers suffered two casualties, one 

hit in the knee from a friendly fire ricochet, the other suffering a severe hand 

cut from a piece of glass. With the outer building secured, the platoon moved 

on to the DNTT.36

Currie likened the front facade of the main building to a triangle. “It’s got 

single floors on the sides, then it goes up to two floors and then three floors at the 

top.” Doctrine directed that the edifice should be cleared from the top down, but 

the 3d Platoon had no means to get to the roof. The troops therefore advanced 

from the bottom floors upward. Initially, they encountered no resistance and 

managed to clear about a quarter of the building without incident. Then, three 

or more snipers who were concealed inside opened fire, pinning the men down 

and halting their progress. For twenty minutes, the platoon leader tried to 

determine the source of the shots, but, in the dark and complex interior of the 

large building, that proved impossible. Outside, Currie guessed that the snipers 

had to be on the east side of the structure and, knowing the 3d Platoon had not 

advanced that far, ordered a recoilless rifle round fired into that area. “We didn’t 

hear any more snipers,” he recounted. Soon thereafter, three men in sniper gear 

surrendered in the parking lot.37

The 3d Platoon secured the DNTT around 0800 after methodically 

searching what Currie likened to a “bee’s nest” with “so many little catacombs.” 

Colonel Huff made reference to the movie Aliens, a science-fiction thriller, 

when discussing the sensory experience the troops shared during the clearing 

35 AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Interv, Wright 

with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 36 AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Quote from 

Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 37 Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior 

Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to 

Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF 

Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

192

process. Electrical power to the building had been cut, so the lights were out. 

Using flashlights, the soldiers could see steam escaping from pipes, and they 

could hear the hissing, an eerie sound in the near dark, compounded by the 

noise of various heavy objects crashing to the floor in the battered building. 

As the platoon moved from hallway to hallway, the flashlights cast bizarre 

shadows. The cumulative effect of all this was a dark, hot, and surreal ambience 

that elevated one’s sense of fear, which, in turn, made the troops even more 

cautious, causing them to slow down. The men were determined to be safe 

but thorough, as they shone their flashlights into corners, down hallways, 

and around doorways to see if the light would draw fire. When it did, they 

answered by lobbing grenades toward the source, waiting, and then resuming 

their movement once the sniping stopped. After three hours of this activity, 

Currie observed that the men were, understandably, “completely exhausted.”38

According to plan, once the DNTT had been secured, the 2d Platoon 

began clearing two small buildings nearby, finishing the task around 0900. 

The remainder of the day was spent improving defenses around the complex, 

seizing and securing an air traffic control building and a radio station in 

the area, and examining official papers and other material discovered while 

clearing the target. The troops took turns being search teams and security 

teams, with the former turning up large sums of money (nearly a half-million 

dollars, according to one account), weapons caches, and, in Currie’s words, “a 

veritable motherload of intelligence information from video tapes, to safes, to 

confidential and secret documents.” U.S. troops at the Ancon DENI had made 

38 Parts of this paragraph are taken almost verbatim from Yates, “Operation JUST CAUSE 

in Panama City,” pp. 350–51. See also Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990, for the reference to 

Aliens. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 

The PDF engineering compound
Task Force Wildcat

193

similar discoveries, with the addition of drugs, “sex-oriented objects,” and the 

accoutrements of an illegal passport and immigration operation. Huff visited 

each site to evaluate the findings and determine how to handle the material. At 

the same time, he was concerned about the linkup that would occur between 

Company C and Company A once the latter finished its mission at the PDF 

engineer compound, just north of the DNTT and northwest of the Ancon 

DENI. To eliminate the chances of friendly fire occurring as the two units 

and the mechanized company converged, Huff instituted certain fire control 

measures that “worked very well.”39 By that time, two of Task Force Wildcat’s 

hard targets had been secured, and 5th Battalion’s Company A was on the 

verge of securing a third. 

Company A, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry 

The headquarters for a PDF engineer battalion was in a compound 

containing fourteen main buildings of various sizes, including two large 

aircraft hangars. Consequently, as Huff was quick to point out concerning 

Task Force Wildcat’s mission, “A Company was probably the most detailed 

clearing operation of the three companies, because [it] had the longest—the 

engineer compound was very, very large, a couple of football fields.” Captain 

Flynt, the Company A commander, offered a more precise measurement: 

1,100 yards long and 550 yards wide. Because, in Huff’s words, “we owned 

Curundu,” a residential area overlooking the complex from the north, Flynt 

possessed highly detailed maps and photographs of the objective, as well 

as intelligence obtained from around-the-clock observation (and from 

coordination with the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade). Curundu also 

offered Company A a relatively secure assembly area and, farther south past 

the junior high school, positions from which two of the company’s platoons 

could launch their attacks to clear most of the compound’s buildings should 

the broadcast appeals to surrender fail.40

Flynt’s concept of the operation was straightforward. His 1st Platoon, 

reinforced by M60 machine guns and two 90-mm. recoilless rifle teams, 

would move into an overwatch position east of the compound. Meanwhile, 

the 2d and 3d Platoons would take up positions to the north. The 2d 

Platoon, at the northwest corner of the complex, would also be able to bring 

under direct fire an airfield west of the buildings, a facility also covered by 

the task force’s mortars at Albrook. Flynt had no units at the southern end 

of the compound; there he would rely on Company C’s DNTT and DENI 

operations across the company phase line to seal off potential escape routes 

39 First quote from AAR, Co C, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple

Crush. Second quote from Interv, Nemmers with Smith, 18 Oct 1990. Interv, Wagner with 

Fredenburgh and Mundell, 18 Oct 1990. Last quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior 

Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 40 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

194

for any defenders. As his concept statement succinctly directed, “Nobody 

leaves or enters the engineer complex.”41

Around 0040, Flynt ordered the three rifle platoons to begin moving 

out of the Curundu assembly area. “I modified the time as I saw fit,” he 

later reported, “due in part to my eagerness to ‘get on with it,’ and also [due 

to] new calculations of estimated travel time to the attack positions.” The 

initial movement did not go smoothly, with personnel from the different 

platoons intermingling, but, as Flynt observed, “the soldiers knew at night 

who their squad leader was and there were no lost soldiers.” Almost as 

soon as the troops left the assembly area, they came under small-arms 

and sniper fire, but not with sufficient volume or accuracy to disrupt their 

advance. To the east of the compound, in the overwatch position, the 1st 

Platoon leader placed two squads up front, each with two M60 machine 

guns, and his third squad in the rear for security. At the northwest corner 

of the compound, in front of a stretch of cuna grass, the 2d Platoon leader 

sent one squad at a time to its assigned position, placing an M60 machine 

gun between his 1st and 2d Squads. The 3d Platoon also moved without 

incident into its attack position.42

At this point in the operation and for the next four hours, the mission 

was only to fix the engineer compound. For some soldiers, most of this time 

was spent in a prone position near the objective. For others, the period was 

more eventful. On three separate occasions, automobiles trying to enter the 

compound were stopped by the 1st Platoon’s accurate and deadly machine 

gun fire. (As was the case at the DNTT, barriers around the buildings meant 

to keep attackers out also obstructed entry to individuals trying to assist the 

defenders.) As soon as Flynt’s men were in position, the process of alternating 

surrender appeals with firepower demonstrations began. In Company A’s 

sector, the loudspeaker broadcasts informed the defenders that they were 

surrounded and urged them to give up. Once an appeal had been made, a fiveminute countdown began, after which, if there had been no response, the 1st 

Platoon opened fire on selected buildings. The first broadcast, indeed, failed 

to produce any prisoners, and the platoon’s first firepower demonstration 

included a hundred rounds from each of the M60s and a 90-mm. recoilless 

rifle round fired into the engineer battalion’s headquarters building. A second 

broadcast also proved unsuccessful, and another firepower demonstration 

ensued.43

Soon afterward, Flynt, like Currie, sought to intensify the demonstrations 

by calling in additional firepower. But this proved difficult. He was aware of 

41 AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Quote from 

Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, p. 24, and see also p. 25. 42 Nemmers, United States Army South Staff Ride, p. 22. Quotes from AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 

87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After 

Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th 

After Action Just Cause, 1990. 43 AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Videocassette 

tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

195

Company C’s misfortunes in communicating with the AC–130 gunship, so 

he ruled out that option. He knew that demands were “not heavy” for fire 

support from the 81-mm. mortars at Albrook, but Huff told him that those 

tubes had not been entirely accurate in supporting Company C’s actions 

earlier at the DNTT. “Due to the proximity of my soldiers to the desired 

impact area,” Flynt explained, “I didn’t feel confident in calling in the 81mm 

mortars on a non-registered TRP [target reference point].” He also expressed 

disappointment that there were no attack helicopters he could summon, 

especially since in his opinion the engineer battalion was “particularly suited 

to accommodating the splash effects” of an attack helicopter’s guns. “In the 

final analysis,” he later observed, “the only fire support asset that worked for 

Co A was the organic 60mm mortar section.” One of the section’s members 

monitored both the company command communications network and the 

company mortar network, which was essential to imparting “the tactical 

situation as it unfolded, increasing [the section’s] understanding of why fire 

missions were called for.” Given this setup, Flynt chose to employ fires from 

the mortars just before he issued orders to his three rifle platoons to begin 

seizing and clearing the compound’s fourteen buildings.44

The first of those orders went to the 2d Platoon between 0530 and 0600, 

directing it to seize what had been designated on Company A’s photographs 

and maps as Building 1, in the northwest corner of the complex. With the 1st 

Platoon laying down suppressing fire, the 3d Squad, 2d Platoon, moved into a 

long ditch or gutter, headed south in it to the target, then entered and cleared 

the building. The platoon’s other two rifle squads followed behind, joining up 

with the 3d Squad to lay down suppressive fire for the 3d Platoon as it moved 

out to seize Buildings 2 and 3 on the northeast corner of the compound. 

For the first of these, the 3d Platoon leader had one squad make the assault, 

while keeping two squads in support and a fourth squad composed of nine 

engineers in reserve. Preparatory fires employing an AT4 projectile, a LAW 

rocket (to knock the door to the building off its hinges), and M16 and M203 

rounds against guard posts in the vicinity lasted a little over a minute prior 

to the attack, which began when the designated squad “lined up on the door” 

and a team leader threw several fragmentary grenades inside. The troops then 

cleared the building, after which they moved without significant opposition 

into Building 3, the PDF engineer battalion headquarters, finding seventy to 

eighty weapons inside, along with a large amount of ammunition. With the 

headquarters building secured, the 2d Platoon received orders to seize the 

first of the large hangars, labeled on the maps as Building 4.45

This pattern of attack continued into the early daylight hours. Flynt 

described the tactic as “leapfrogging” his platoons, “always keeping 

the platoon that just finished clearing a building in reserve, resting and 

redistributing ammunition” and other supplies received throughout the 

operation from the company’s supply trains at Curundu and the task force 

44 AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 45 Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990. In this videotape, each 

rifle platoon leader provides a narrative overview of the actions his platoon took during the 

night of 20 December.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

196

support platoon at Albrook. “This way,” he explained, “there was always a 

rested, prepared platoon for the next mission.”46

During the 2d Platoon’s sweep of the Building 4 hangar, the troops 

uncovered a major arms cache consisting of grenades, several hundred 

AK47s, LAWs, Uzi submachine guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, 

and other ordnance. They also took three prisoners, followed by twelve more 

who arrived from Building 5, the adjacent hangar, with their hands raised. 

In accordance with standard procedures in effect for Task Force Wildcat, 

the fifteen men were processed and then moved to the prisoner-of-war site 

at Albrook. Before being sent back, they were questioned as to any useful 

information they might impart. Most interrogations revealed little of value, 

but, in one exception, that of a wounded and cooperative lieutenant, Flynt 

learned that there were around seventy engineers left in the compound, along 

with an unspecified number of infantry, perhaps special operations troops, 

from one or more PDF combat units.47

Up to the time when the 2d Platoon secured Building 4 and 3d Platoon 

cleared Building 5, 1st Platoon’s role had been to lay down suppressive fire. 

Then, once the second hangar had been taken, the platoon leader received 

orders to seize Buildings 6 and 7, with suppressive fire being provided by the 

2d Platoon. In keeping with the leapfrog tactic, once those two building were 

secured, the 2d Platoon moved through them to advance on Buildings 9 and 

10. The last building to be cleared was number 14, again the work of the 2d 

Platoon. The entire attack had taken several hours mainly because of the size 

of the objective but also because, at some locations, resistance was significant, 

if not particularly heavy. As Huff observed, 

It seemed like people would not give up. They would literally wait till [U.S. 

troops] came into the building, and then spring up, either with their hands up 

or, in one case, with a rifle in his hands, not particularly to shoot at anybody, 

but I don’t know what they were thinking of. One guy kept hopping around 

like a rabbit; hid underneath a wood pile like a rabbit, and they had to take 

the plywood out to drag this guy out. Just scared; thought he was going to die; 

did not want to particularly fight, but wanted to hide. And that’s the way a lot 

of these guys were—hard to talk them out.48

Despite the resistance, the number of defenders, and the dangers inherent 

in seizing and securing fourteen buildings of various sizes and configurations, 

Company A suffered no casualties on 20 December. After Building 14 was 

cleared, some troops continued to move south to the company’s limit of 

advance, while others shifted north and took up defensive positions. At 1240, 

46 AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. 47 AAR, Co A, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Videocassette 

tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990; Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers 

of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 48 Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990. Quote from Interv, 

Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

197

Captain Flynt reported up his chain of command that the PDF engineer 

compound, the largest of Task Force Wildcat’s four hard targets, was secured.49

Company B, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry

If Company A, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, drew the largest of the targets, 

Company B—the “Jungle Cats”—confronted the busiest. The Balboa district 

in the southern portion of Task Force Wildcat’s Antietam area of operations 

had in previous decades been the unofficial capital of the Canal Zone and a 

thriving commercial and residential area. In the north, the district ran from 

the Panama Canal Commission administration building and housing in the 

east to Cerro Sosa in the west. In the southwest, Balboa came up against the 

western edge of El Chorrillo, which contained the Comandancia and Carcel 

Modelo. Of special concern to U.S. planners looking at their maps prior to the 

invasion was the Balboa DENI complex, home of the only significant PDF 

element in the district, a police agency. Although a small organization, it was 

located directly along the route Task Force Gator would take to the PDF main 

headquarters. The station thus became another of the hard targets Huff’s 

troops had to seize. Numerous other critical sites in the area had to be secured 

as well, to include the Balboa Heights PCC housing area, a PCC electrical 

49 Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990; Interv, Wright with 

Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990; AAR, Co A, 5th 

Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After 

Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush.

Balboa DENI station
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

198

substation, a water pump station, the canal commission’s telephone exchange, 

a Marine Control Center, and certain facilities on Cerro Sosa.50

The plan that Company B’s commander, Capt. Mark Conley, carried 

with him into the district on 20 December called for his executive officer and 

1st Platoon to occupy positions at the Balboa Elementary School, below the 

canal commission’s administration building on its southwest side, while the 3d 

Platoon would move to the commission’s electrical substation at the intersection 

of Balboa Street and Roosevelt Avenue. An antitank section attached to the 

platoon would initially close off a potential enemy escape route by securing a 

roadblock position to the west on La Boca Road, an avenue running right by the 

DENI station on one side and by St. Mary’s Church, the parking lot of which 

contained Conley’s command post and a support element, on the other side. 

The command post overlooked the DENI station from the northwest, while 

the three squads in the 2d Platoon would fix the complex from positions to its 

northeast, southeast, and southwest. Because two of these locations would be 

close to Gaillard Highway, the 2d Platoon would move from Fort Clayton into 

Balboa, with Company C under the operational control of Task Force Gator, 

a means of orchestrating the two units’ deployment in such a way as not to 

interfere with the mechanized convoy heading for the Comandancia. After the 

platoon entered Balboa, however, it would link up with the rest of Company B 

and operational control would revert back to Task Force Wildcat.51

As the situation developed on 20 December, the advance of Company B 

(minus) down Gaillard was disrupted only slightly, the cause being the brief 

firefight with the occupants of the bus and police cars in front of Albrook Air 

Station and, soon thereafter, some fire the company received, easily suppressed, 

from the vicinity of the PDF engineer compound. Rushing through the 

ambushes, most squads and other elements from the company’s three rifle 

platoons arrived at their positions pretty much on schedule. The same was not 

true of the maneuver group that included Conley, his headquarters, the 1st 

Squad from the 2d Platoon, and a support element consisting of the 2d Platoon 

sergeant armed with a 90-mm. recoilless rifle. As they approached the parking 

lot at St. Mary’s, they again came under enemy fire, this time from an estimated 

three or four snipers who were shooting into the 2d Platoon’s positions. The 

shots were not accurate, but, with rounds ricocheting about, Conley and the 

other troops got out of their trucks and decided to low-crawl to the designated 

command post area, a movement that, in Conley’s words, “took us a long 

time.” Once he arrived, the captain tried to radio Huff’s command post but 

experienced “a little bit of a commo problem.” By this time, about 0140, the 2d 

50 Brief descriptions of the Balboa district were at http://www.moon.com/planner/panama/

mustsees/balboa.html and http://www.greatestcities.com/Central_America/Panama/Balboa_

city.html. The list of sites in Balboa that planners specifically identified for U.S. protection during Operation Just Cause is in AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 

87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation 

Pineapple Crush. See also Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 51 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Interv, Wright 

with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

199

Platoon’s other squads were already in place. Its 3d Squad was located at the 

Christian Science reading room near the front of the larger of the two main 

buildings in the DENI complex. Upon arriving at the position, the troops took 

fire from the building, prompting the squad leader to order “a couple rounds” 

fired in return. As this was going on, the 2d Squad with a 90-mm. recoilless 

rifle assumed its positions at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) 

building on the DENI’s right flank. Finally, as the platoon sergeant’s support 

element took its position near Captain Conley on the hill overlooking the 

DENI, the 1st Squad completed the platoon’s encirclement of the complex by 

moving to the Marco Polo restaurant southwest and to the rear of the station. 

By this time, around 0200, all elements of Company B were either engaged in 

their assigned missions or making last-minute preparations to do so.52

For the 1st Platoon, the mission translated into having soldiers block the 

entrance to the Panama Canal Commission housing area with a tractor-trailer, 

using one squad armed with antiarmor weapons and a 90-mm. recoilless rifle 

to guard the roadblock and another squad to conduct roving foot patrols 

through the rows of houses in search of any enemy groups or individuals 

who might have taken refuge there. Unknown to the men on patrol, twenty to 

thirty PDF personnel, upon hearing the premature firing from Pier 18 around 

1230, had already discarded their weapons, shed their uniforms, and fled into 

the housing area. Although there would be no contact with them that night, 

several in the group would be captured later, during daylight hours. As for the 

remainder of the 1st Platoon, one squad guarded the platoon command post 

at the elementary school and secured the commission’s telephone exchange 

and water pump station, while another group of soldiers helped set up the 

Company B prisoner-of-war collection point.53

The mission for the 3d Platoon involved employing one squad to secure 

the Marine Control Center containing computers that monitored traffic in 

the canal; another squad to protect the electrical substation that provided 

power to the Balboa, Diablo, Los Rios, and Corozal districts; and a security 

element to guard a microwave relay repeater station atop Cerro Sosa. In none 

of these assignments did the troops encounter any serious problems. The 

same could not be said of the attached antitank section covering the La Boca 

roadblock. Shortly after the checkpoint was set up, a car containing two people 

approached and failed to slow down. The troops opened fire, killing the driver, 

Richard A. Paul, who turned out to be a college student on his way home 

from the block party held for American college students returning to Panama 

52 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Nemmers, 

United States Army South Staff Ride, p. 26; Videocassette tape, 5th of the 87th After Action 

Just Cause, 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 53 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Videocassette 

tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990; Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers 

of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

200

over the Christmas holidays to visit their parents. The passenger, while injured, 

survived the tragic incident.54 

As for the 2d Platoon, the troops, having fixed the Balboa DENI, prepared 

to neutralize the complex, following the same procedure that elements of 

Companies A and C were employing at their respective hard targets: the 

combination of surrender appeals and firepower demonstrations. After an 

attempt to contact any defenders inside the station by telephone failed to elicit 

a response, the scripted broadcasts, initially made with a bullhorn, began at 

0208 from the 1st Squad’s position at the Marco Polo restaurant. Defenders 

were told they had five minutes to surrender or face the consequences of U.S. 

firepower. At the end of the five minutes, another appeal was made, giving the 

defenders fifteen seconds to come out. When no one appeared, the 2d Squad 

at the YMCA fired its M60 machine guns and three 90-mm. rounds at the 

main building. In this and subsequent firepower demonstrations, the plan 

was to reduce the risk of friendly fire and collateral damage by aiming the 

small arms at the windows and doors and the larger weapons—the recoilless 

rifles and AT4s—at the building’s superstructure. When the first firepower 

demonstration produced the same results as the surrender appeals, the process 

was repeated, again with the broadcasts going unheeded (or, possibly, unheard 

given the use of only a bullhorn). The second firepower demonstration was 

more intense, with all positions firing their M249 squad automatic weapons, 

M60s, AT4s, and recoilless rifles at the objective. (Two to three LAWs were 

also fired at two automobiles parked in front of the main building.) When no 

one surrendered, Conley requested support from the heavy broadcast team 

then located with Company A. The task force acceded to the request, although 

Maj. James Woods, the operations officer, believed it to be “a moot point by 

that time, because we realized nobody was really coming out because of the 

HB team.” While waiting for the team to arrive, the 2d Platoon conducted a 

third firepower demonstration. After that, shortly before 0300, Conley received 

word to have the platoon seize and clear the two DENI buildings. Just before 

the assault began, the newly arrived heavy broadcast team, in Conley’s words, 

“gave the last loud blast of ‘surrender or die.’”55

To prevent one squad from firing into another during the assault, one of 

Conley’s lieutenants decided that it would be best to link up two of the squads 

to “lay down a base of fire and go in.” The linkup took time and perhaps gave 

the defenders an opportunity to escape. Conley could not be sure if they fled 

54 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Videocassette 

tape, 5th of the 87th After Action Just Cause, 1990; Intervs, Wright with Huff and Senior 

Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990; author with Maria Len-Rios, 29 

Nov 1991, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Maria Len-Rios, “Operation Just Cause: An Eyewitness 

Account,” Focal Point (Winter 1990): 10–11, 25–27. In the interview with Huff and his commanders and staff, the colonel said that an autopsy of the student revealed alcohol in the blood, 

suggesting that he may not have been fully aware of the situation that cost him his life. For more 

information related to the block party incident, see Chapter 2. 55 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. Quotes 

from Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

201

just before the attack or during the firepower demonstrations. “I guess they 

just jumped over the fence or whatever else,” he mused afterward. With the two 

main buildings empty, the clearing process, thorough as it was, took almost 

two hours. By 0500, the 2d Platoon had set up a security perimeter around 

the complex, and the fight for the DENI appeared to be over. Colonel Huff 

decided to take a look, but, when he arrived and entered the main building, 

he quickly became aware that there were still snipers in the area. As one of 

his staff recalled, “So, we had to reclear [the building] during the night.” In 

the process, what registered most in that officer’s mind was the large number 

of rooms—“I don’t think we realized just how many there were”—in which 

the enemy could easily hide without detection. “For one company to clear 

all that is just unbelievable,” he recounted. Still, by dawn, another of Task 

Force Wildcat’s hard targets, the Balboa DENI, appeared to be under U.S. 

control. Daylight, however, would bring additional challenges for the soldiers 

of Company B.56

Two episodes occurred almost simultaneously. At 0730, troops in the 

2d Platoon security perimeter began to receive sniper fire. In response, two 

soldiers, a specialist and a first sergeant, moved toward the source of the 

shooting and killed the sniper. Meanwhile, reports from the 1st Platoon sector 

described hundreds of refugees arriving at the elementary school seeking 

shelter, food, and assistance. These were the same people who had flooded 

Task Force Gator’s area of operations earlier in response to the uncontrolled 

fire in El Chorrillo. Company B soldiers at the school set up a treatment center 

in an effort to help in any way they could, but the numbers soon overwhelmed 

them. Whereas Conley, in notifying Huff of the problem, first reported about 

400 refugees in the area, he was soon reporting 1,000 and then 3,000. By 1000, 

the estimate was 5,000 and still climbing. The figures, according to Huff, “just 

went up exponentially.” The lieutenant colonel sent the scout platoon that 

was providing security at his command post to the school to look into the 

situation, which he soon learned was rapidly getting out of control. Without 

food to distribute and without the facilities to determine who needed medical 

treatment and who did not, or which people were friendly and which were 

PDF or Dignity Battalion members, troops from the 1st Platoon did what they 

could but soon moved the ad hoc aid center over to the high school next to 

them, a larger facility. After breaking into the gymnasium and depositing the 

refugees there and on the adjacent athletic field, the troops turned responsibility 

for their well being over to USARSO’s Maj. Les Knoblock. “We washed our 

hands of that business as quickly as we could and got out of there,” Huff 

observed, while lamenting that USARSO’s plan to handle refugees was not 

“formulated to the degree that we had hoped.”57 In the days to come, he would 

56 AAR, Co B, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush. First three 

quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 

5 Jan 1990. Last two quotes from Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990. 57 Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and 

Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. On the fire in El Chorrillo, the 

initial phase of the refugee problem, and Major Knoblock’s role in running the Balboa High 

School refugee center, see Chapter 4.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

202

discover that extricating his men from the refugee business was not as easy as 

it first seemed. 

Compounding the confusion created by the east-to-west movement of an 

unexpectedly large number of refugees was the countermovement after dawn 

of several hundred people released from the prisoner-of-war center at Albrook. 

A number of enemy prisoners had been taken during the night but so, too, 

had a number of suspicious-looking civilians or just innocent bystanders. In 

general, U.S. troops had adhered to a cautious approach: if Panamanian males 

of military age were apprehended and could not prove they were not PDF 

or Dignity Battalion members, they were taken to the prisoner center. With 

daylight, a hasty determination was made as to who really needed to be kept 

in custody. Many of the rest were released, most moving west-to-east into Task 

Force Wildcat’s area of operations. Captain Conley noted that the numbers 

involved were “pennies” compared to the traffic created by the refugees, but 

the intrusion nonetheless disrupted Company B’s operations.58

Before things began to quiet down for Company B, the troops of the 2d 

Platoon manning the perimeter around the cleared DENI complex had to 

contend with a fire in the main building. Around 0900, a pungent odor gave 

away the fire’s existence, but no one sent to determine its location could find 

it despite gagging on the smell. The men engaged in the search prudently 

called off their effort after someone suggested that, if there were a gas leak 

in the building, an explosion might be imminent. The inability to find the fire 

did not prevent speculation on what caused it. Of the two main explanations 

put forward, one held that, during the firepower demonstration, a 90-

mm. round might have gone under the building’s roof and lodged in the 

wooden superstructure; the second contended that U.S. rounds might have 

hit an electrical box inside the building. On the scene that morning, Conley 

concluded the latter when he radioed for help, indicating that “we can’t 

fight electrical fires.” “It’s not real bad,” he continued. “If we can get the fire 

department in here right now, we’ll be able to save this room.” A lieutenant 

in the battalion operations center at Fort Clayton called the Corozal fire 

station and, surprisingly, found a crew on duty. When he asked the firemen 

to go to Balboa, however, the answer was not so surprising: “Hell, no. We 

aren’t going anywhere. . . . You all fight the fire!” By the time word reached 

1st Lt. Kevin Huggens from the 5th Battalion intelligence shop that the 

Corozal fire trucks were not coming, flames could be seen engulfing the 

roof of the DENI. Huggens and others recognized the value of the building 

for intelligence purposes, so he joined Conley in urging the troops to find a 

manned fire department in Balboa and escort whoever was on duty to the 

scene of what was turning into a conflagration. After some time passed, a 

Panamanian fire truck actually arrived. The six-man crew belonged to the 

civilian wing of the Panama Defense Forces. Two of the men tried in vain to 

put out the fire; the other four set about looting whatever they could lay their 

58 Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990; Yates, “Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama City,” p. 351.
Task Force Wildcat

203

hands on. In the end, the 2d Platoon simply watched the building burn top to 

bottom, with only its scorched outer walls left standing.59

There was a footnote to the operation at the Balboa DENI. In front of the 

main building was a large, makeshift, thatch-roofed structure that sheltered 

a life-size Nativity scene. While the DENI itself had been subjected to three 

firepower demonstrations and the main building had burned down, the display 

remained unscathed. As Huff said later, “The last communication to occur 

was not to hurt the Nativity scene, . . . and the goat with it.” In discussing the 

outcome with an interviewer, General Stiner agreed that the untouched status 

of the scene stood as a tribute to the “measured application of force” by U.S. 

troops.60

By 1300, a partial calm had descended over the Balboa district. As with 

all of Task Force Wildcat, Company B would have snipers, fleeing PDF and 

Dignity Battalion members, prisoners, looters, arms caches, refugees, security, 

and other issues with which to contend, but, for the remainder of the day, 

many of the troops could rest, replenish their supplies, and await follow-on 

missions.

On 20 December, each element in Task Force Wildcat performed tasks 

unique to its mission. Yet, in taking stock of the overall experience, Huff, 

his commanders, his staff, and his troops found that certain experiences 

were common throughout the Antietam area of operations. To begin with, 

most units at the company level and below had problems with their tactical 

communications. Leaders often found it difficult to call in fire support, while 

units, once separated by built-up structures or after entering buildings, found 

it nearly impossible to talk to one another or their superiors via handheld 

radios. In contrast, at higher headquarters, communications between brigade 

and battalion, and battalion and company were generally good, with the 

retransmission systems set up in advance of hostilities being properly located 

and functioning well.61

As was the case with Task Force Black Devil, almost all the commanders 

in Task Force Wildcat from Huff to squad leaders praised the 90-mm. 

recoilless rifle as a weapon ideally suited to urban combat, both because of its 

accuracy and because of the effects of its impact. Huff added that the weapon 

was loud and thus preferable to AT4s and LAWs in subjecting the enemy to 

psychological stress in the confined spaces of the rooms, hallways, attics, and 

closets so prevalent in urban combat. Like his Task Force Gator counterpart, 

however, he was skeptical of the AC–130’s utility over a congested urban area 

in which friendly forces were often just yards away from the enemy, especially 

59 Quotes from Interv, Wagner and De Mena with Stewart, 16 Oct 1990. Intervs, Wright 

with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990; author with 

Huff, 29 Jan 1990. In the Company B after action report, Captain Conley states that he was the 

one who ordered one of his platoons to go find a fire truck and crew. This does not rule out the 

possibility that Huggens did so as well. 60 First quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 

193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Second quote from Wright with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar 

and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. In his interview with Wright, Huff noted that at the Balboa 

DENI there were also “literally, houses feet away that didn’t take a single round.” 61 Intervs, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990; author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

204

if the gunship did not have a liaison officer aboard intimately familiar with the 

targets on the ground. As an alternative to the Spectre, at least two of Huff’s 

company commanders found they could enhance the intensity and accuracy 

of their firepower by calling on the 60-mm. mortars available to them.62

At the hard targets Task Force Wildcat was directed to neutralize, a 

common pattern emerged where the Panamanians chose to resist. For starters, 

the defenders were not always the enemy units Huff and his commanders 

expected to encounter. For example, the colonel later noted that he had seen no 

policemen at the DENI stations in Ancon and Balboa. Rather, infantrymen, 

usually with UESAT officers giving them orders, manned the sites. As Wildcat 

units began to neutralize these targets and take prisoners, they would ask the 

men why they had not surrendered after the PSYOP broadcasts and firepower 

demonstrations. The answers across the board were similar. First, the defenders 

in some cases either had not heard the surrender appeals or believed—often 

after having been told by their officers—that U.S. troops would kill them if 

they tried to give themselves up. Second, several officers themselves threatened 

to kill anyone who tried to surrender. After the firepower demonstrations, 

however, most of the officers fled, making it easier for those who remained 

behind to give up the fight. Finally, Task Force Wildcat encountered many 

Panamanian military personnel who fought simply from a sense of national 

honor.63

Perhaps the observation most common to the officers and troops of Task 

Force Wildcat was their universal praise for the training they had received in 

urban operations two or three months prior to Just Cause. City fighting was 

something few if any of them had experienced before, and, as they discovered in 

the early hours of 20 December, the phenomenon was complex and contained 

its own variety of risks and dangers. It could also be unnerving, especially 

at night. Given all that, the training the troops had received beginning in 

October had been invaluable and had helped ensure a favorable outcome 

at a very low cost in lives and destruction; by midday on the twentieth, the 

task force reported only one soldier killed and a handful wounded. But those 

who praised the training also recognized that the low casualty rate was also 

the result of the U.S. preponderance of firepower and, more important, the 

fact that the Panama Defense Forces and Dignity Battalions simply did not 

constitute a first-rate military opponent. Had they been better disciplined, well 

armed, and determined to fight for every square foot of the positions they held 

during the first hours of Just Cause, the overall outcome—their defeat—would 

have been the same, but, undoubtedly, the U.S. victory would have come at a 

considerably higher price.64

By midday on 20 December, enemy forces and installations in the first ring 

of targets surrounding the Comandancia bulls-eye had been neutralized by 

62 Yates, “Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama City,” p. 352. 

63 Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990.64 AAR, Task Force Wildcat, Encl to Memo, Cdr, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, for Cdr, 193d Inf Bde, 5 

Jan 1990, sub: After Action Report, TF Wildcat Operation Pineapple Crush; Nemmers, United 

States Army South Staff Ride, pp. 22–25; Interv, Nemmers with Smith, 18 Oct 1990.
Task Force Wildcat

205

U.S. forces already in Panama at H-hour. Targets in the second ring, to include 

PDF units and facilities at Panama Viejo, Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón, 

were the responsibility of the 82d Airborne Division, due to arrive from Fort 

Bragg. But before the paratroopers could execute their portion of the plan, the 

airport complex at Torrijos-Tocumen, itself a second-ring target, needed to be 

seized. That was one of the missions of Task Force Red-T.

7

Task Force Black 

and Task Force Red-T

While several task forces—Gator, Semper Fi, Wildcat, Black Devil, and White—neutralized enemy targets in the immediate area of the 

Panama Canal, other units directed their attention to the third concentric 

ring of objectives surrounding the Comandancia. These targets included 

PDF elements at Panama Viejo, Fort Cimarrón, and Las Tinajitas; the 

television tower on Cerro Azul and the bridge over the Pacora River; and the 

Torrijos-Tocumen airfield complex. As called for in JTF South’s Operation 

Plan 90–2, the U.S. Special Forces constituting Task Force Black would seize 

the television tower and perform reconnaissance and surveillance operations 

at Fort Cimarrón, Las Tinajitas, and the Pacora River bridge. (The 470th 

Military Intelligence Brigade was responsible for observing Panama Viejo.) 

As for Torrijos-Tocumen, U.S. Rangers of Task Force Red-T would launch 

an assault at H-hour and, after securing the airfields, make immediate 

preparations for the arrival of a combat brigade from the 82d Airborne 

Division (Map 10). The paratroopers, for their part, would drop onto the 

captured facility, board waiting helicopters, and launch air assaults against 

the three PDF garrisons under surveillance. If all went well, the attacks at 

Panama Viejo, Fort Cimarrón, and Las Tinajitas would take place at night 

and require only a few hours to achieve a successful outcome.1

Task Force Black

Task Force Black would be led by the commander, Special Operations 

Command, South, who at the time of Just Cause was Col. Jake Jacobelly. His 

operations center would be in a hangar at Albrook Air Station, which would 

also house the headquarters element of the 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces 

Group (Airborne). The battalion, which was stationed in Panama, made up 

the operational core of the task force, with reinforcements from the 7th’s 

Company A, 1st Battalion, based (as was the group) at Fort Bragg. Aviation 

support for Task Force Black would consist of MH–60 Black Hawks from 

the 617th Special Operations Aviation Detachment; UH–60s from U.S. Army, 

1 Briefing Slides, Blue Spoon: The Evolution of the Plan for Just Cause, n.d.
Las Tinajitas

Cerro Azul

 Television Tower

Oma

I nternat

Mi

Temple

mud

mud

Pedregal

San Joaquín

Ciudad Radial

Don Bosco

Tocúmen

San Antonio

San Isidro

San Fernando

San Miguelito

Panamá Viejo

P A NAMÁ

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TASK FORCE RED - T

TASK FORCE BLA C K

AREAS OF OPERATIONS

AND

20 December 1989

0

0

3 Miles

3000 Meters

TF Black Objective

TF Red-T Objective

Map 10
Pacora River

B A Y OF P A N AMA

For t Cimarrón

Pacora River Bridge

ar Torrijos

tional Airpor t

Tocumen

litar y Aireld

mud

mud

mud

Cabuya

Pacora

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

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U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

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South’s 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, 193d Infantry Brigade; and Air Force 

AC–130s from the 1st Special Operations Wing.2

Lt. Col. Roy R. Trumbull commanded the 3d Battalion, the combat power 

of which centered on eighteen twelve-man A-Teams. The small size of the 

team dictated the kinds of missions it could perform: reconnaissance and 

surveillance; ambushes, raids, sabotage, and other kinds of surgical strikes 

and small-scale offensive actions; and foreign internal defense. Anything more, 

especially direct combat against a large, disciplined conventional force, entailed 

unacceptable risks or was just plain suicidal. Conventional-oriented planners, 

however, generally unfamiliar with an A-Team’s capabilities but aware that 

there were a dozen available in a Special Forces battalion, occasionally assigned 

them too many missions or ones that were extremely inappropriate. To avoid 

overcommitment and misuse of the Special Forces, Jacobelly and his staff put 

in long hours to screen, analyze, and discuss each tasking. As Trumbull noted 

in December, “We have not had a day off since the 3rd of October,” the failed 

coup against Noriega. Despite these efforts, Jacobelly knew to his dismay that 

during the weeks leading up to Just Cause planners had parceled out too 

many targets, over a dozen, to Task Force Black.3

After SOCSOUTH remonstrations about its limited resources and the 

dangers of this overload, some of these missions would be dropped. Even so, 

on the day President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, seven still remained 

for the Green Berets to carry out: finding and furnishing security for Guillermo 

Endara, Ricardo Arias Calderón, and Billy Ford, the three men who would 

head the new Panamanian government; seizing Panama’s main television 

2 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, 20th anniversary ed. (MacDill 

Air Force Base, Fla.: U.S. Special Operations Command, n.d.), pp. 41–42; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 76. 3 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 122. Quote from Interv, John Partin 

with Lt Col Roy R. Trumbull, Maj Kevin M. Higgins, Capt Charles T. Cleveland, Cmd Sgt 

Maj Robedeaux, and Capt Bailey, all U.S. Army, 28 Feb 1990, Panama; Interv, Partin with Col 

Robert C. Jacobelly, U.S. Army, 26 Feb 1990, Panama.

Albrook Air Station
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

211

tower at Cerro Azul north of the capital; and providing reconnaissance and 

surveillance at Fort Cimarrón, Las Tinajitas, and the Pacora River bridge. 

(Each of the three politicians and the three reconnaissance locations were 

regarded as separate tasks.) Even with this pared down list, Jacobelly felt 

uneasy, mainly about sending his men into Panama City to round up the 

opposition leaders, dubbed The Three Musketeers, in the midst of what could 

be heavy fighting. When the plan changed at the last minute—just as the 

Green Berets were preparing to perform “habeas grabbis,” as one U.S. officer 

quipped—the SOCSOUTH commander was greatly relieved. The switch by 

higher authorities to the ruse of inviting the three Panamanian leaders to 

dinner at Howard Air Force Base not only obviated the highly risky security 

mission but allowed Jacobelly to reassign the troops freed from it to the Task 

Force Black reserve.4

The day before The-Three-Musketeers assignment was reallocated, there 

had already been a significant change to Task Force Black’s orders, this one 

affecting what the Special Forces would do at the Pacora River bridge, about 

twenty miles northeast of Albrook Air Station. Originally, four Green Berets 

were to be transported to the objective in a helicopter, where, once on the 

ground, they would conduct reconnaissance and surveillance. Specifically, 

they were to look for any Battalion 2000 units from Fort Cimarrón, about 71⁄2 

miles farther east, heading toward the bridge en route to the Torrijos-Tocumen 

complex or downtown Panama City. With approximately two hundred soldiers, 

at least twelve mortars, and nine V300 Cadillac Gage light armored vehicles 

mounting 90-mm. cannon, Battalion 2000 constituted the PDF’s largest and 

most formidable fighting force. U.S. military intelligence knew that Noriega 

had relocated some of its units to the Comandancia and Panama Viejo, but, 

even so, whatever remained of the battalion at Fort Cimarrón could disrupt 

American combat operations in the capital if allowed to leave the base and 

cross the Pacora River. To prevent this possibility, the Green Berets watching 

the bridge were to radio Task Force Black’s operation center if they spotted 

Battalion 2000 forces on the move. Jacobelly’s staff would pass the information 

to JTF-South, which presumably would dispatch an AC–130 or U.S. Rangers 

to deal with the threat.5

Concerned about the ramifications of a Battalion 2000 breakout, especially 

if it was attempted before the Rangers were finished with their H-hour missions 

at Torrijos-Tocumen, Blue Spoon planners belatedly decided on an alternative 

to the four-man reconnaissance team. In its place, a larger group of Special 

Forces would fly from Albrook to the bridge in helicopters, land, and seize the 

structure. On Monday afternoon, 18 December, Jacobelly received confirmation 

of the new mission, which he entrusted to Maj. Kevin M. Higgins, commander 

of Company A, 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group. That evening Higgins 

4 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 122. Quote from Interv, Partin 

with Trumbull et al., 28 Feb 1990. For details concerning the dinner invitation to the three 

Panamanian leaders, see also Chapter 3 of this book. 5 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 124; Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th 

Special Forces Group (Airborne) (SFG [Abn]), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, 

The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989; Interv, Partin with Trumbull et al., 

28 Feb 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

212

worked with Trumbull and the battalion operations officer to devise a tactical 

plan. There were only two Black Hawks available for the insertion, which 

limited the participants to sixteen, eight on each specially rigged helicopter. 

The number was deemed adequate, however, because an AC–130 would be 

overhead from the outset to help engage any PDF column approaching the 

bridge. Furthermore, the revised mission did not require much additional 

military intelligence: the photography, maps, and information gathered for the 

four-man team could be used by the larger force. Shortly before midnight, the 

company’s operation order for an air assault on the Pacora River bridge was 

ready for dissemination. The next morning, Higgins briefed it up his chain of 

command for his superiors’ approval.6 

As Jacobelly, his staff, and commanders coped with last-minute adjustments, 

the soldiers of Task Force Black, like their conventional colleagues under JTFSouth, spent most of Tuesday receiving a variety of briefings, going over their 

orders and execution checklists, marshaling their equipment, and preparing 

themselves for a fight. One of the first elements to move to its H-hour position 

was the four-man team assigned to carry out reconnaissance and surveillance 

at Las Tinajitas, an area in northeast Panama City that was home to the PDF’s 

1st Infantry Company. Within its weapons inventory, the 1st possessed 120-mm. 

mortars that could hit Torrijos-Tocumen, Fort Clayton, Quarry Heights, and 

even Howard Air Force Base. For that reason alone, Las Tinajitas demanded 

careful observation from H-hour until the paratroopers who were charged with 

seizing it arrived. The mission sounded straightforward enough but, in fact, 

posed a significant problem: the difficulty of inserting the surveillance team 

into a position that would afford the four men a good view of the installation. 

In the words of General Stiner, the 1st Company barracks at Las Tinajitas 

was within “an area of suburbs, surrounded by suburbs, that were reported 

to be [the] most loyal of all throughout Panama to Noriega.” Any helicopter 

carrying the Green Berets into the area would likely be spotted and reported. 

Not only would the observation team be placed in jeopardy, but the element of 

surprise for the whole of Operation Just Cause could be compromised. With 

so much at stake in even this very small undertaking, the decision was made 

to have the four men walk most of the ten miles from Albrook Air Station to 

Las Tinajitas.7

Traversing the approach route by foot required an early 1800 departure 

from Albrook, a time when most of the other Task Force Black members 

were still attending briefings and checking their gear. The first leg of the trek 

was eased by the use of four rental vehicles—three cars and a truck—that 

delivered each team member to a rendezvous point in the vicinity of Albrook’s 

back gate. From there, the group moved out on foot in what turned out to 

be a difficult hike through unexpectedly rugged terrain and jungle. Soon the 

four men realized that they would not arrive at Las Tinajitas by H-hour. In 

fact, they arrived an hour and a half late. The delay, at first, seemed a moot 

6 Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, 

The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989. 7 Quote from Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 

Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 76; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 123; Interv, Partin with Trumbull et al., 28 Feb 1990.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

213

point. Once they began their surveillance, they witnessed no enemy activity. 

The quiet was broken only later, shortly before dawn, when the enemy fired 

two mortar rounds from a concealed position near the barracks (the rounds 

exploded near Stiner’s operations center in the USARSO headquarters at Fort 

Clayton). Attempts to locate the mortar through the use of two AN/TPQ–36 

counterbattery radars set up around Howard Air Force Base initially proved 

unsuccessful because, after firing, the mortar crew had placed the weapon on 

a flatbed truck and moved. No more rounds would be fired from Las Tinajitas 

that night. Once the Special Forces team ascertained this, it had little to do but 

wait for the arrival—hours behind schedule, as it would later learn—of the 82d 

Airborne Division assault force.8

While the Las Tinajitas team was pushing its way through the jungle prior 

to H-hour, another four-man Special Forces team from the 3d Battalion’s 

Company B departed Albrook on a Black Hawk around 2100 en route to a 

reconnaissance and surveillance position situated some three miles from Fort 

Cimarrón. Unlike the team whose assignment to watch the Pacora River bridge 

had been canceled with the decision to seize the structure, this group’s task 

remained essential. Located about midway between the fort and the bridge, 

the four men would occupy an ideal vantage point for the early detection 

of Battalion 2000 troop movements, information which they would relay to 

Task Force Black headquarters. They could have done so, that is, had their 

communications equipment been working. A malfunctioning radio meant that 

Jacobelly would not receive up-to-the-minute information from these Special 

Forces troops on the scene; he would only be able to provide Higgins sporadic 

reports about Battalion 2000 from less well-situated sources.9

Higgins’ Company A was the principal attack force for taking the bridge. 

Earlier in the day, after receiving approval from his superiors for the operation 

order he had helped write for the new “direct action” mission, he informed 

several of the participants, including the helicopter pilots, one of whom 

recommended that “the team pre-load equipment during daylight to save 

time and cut down on confusion.” Higgins agreed. Other meetings followed, 

including an intelligence update that incorporated an infrared videotape of 

Fort Cimarrón and the Pacora River bridge. Higgins found the visuals “useful 

in developing a mental picture of our actions at the objective.” At 2000, he 

briefed his entire team on the mission and an hour later went over the execution 

checklist. At 2315, the group assembled for its final equipment inspection.10

Just minutes before midnight, Higgins received word of two significant 

changes to the plan. The first came as welcome news: an additional helicopter 

would be available to transport the troops. In total, there would now be a 

8 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 123–24; Interv, Partin with 

Trumbull et al., 28 Feb 1990; U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 41. 

Mortar rounds, usually fired two at a time, continued to hit Fort Clayton intermittently in the 

early morning hours of 20 December. According to one U.S. officer in Stiner’s operations center, 

the counterbattery radars finally located the weapons, and an AC–130 destroyed them. Interv, 

author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 21 May 1991, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 9 Interv, Partin with Jacobelly, 26 Feb 1990. 

10 Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, 

The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

214

UH–60 Black Hawk from 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, and two MH–60 

Black Hawks from the 617th Special Operations Aviation Detachment. (Both 

aviation units were based in Panama, the former as part of USARSO, the 

latter as part of SOCSOUTH.) The change necessitated some hasty alterations 

in what would go aboard each helicopter, but the mission executive officer 

“quickly reorganized the load plan in a logical manner before launch time.” 

Most important, Higgins’ assault force had just grown from sixteen to twentyfour men.11

The second piece of news was disturbing. At 0013, just as the two MH–60s 

landed alongside the UH–60 already at the Albrook helipad, Lt. Col. David 

Wilderman, the mission’s operations officer, told Higgins that H-hour for Just

Cause had been advanced fifteen minutes. The reason, Wilderman said, was 

that intelligence reports indicated “a column of vehicles (unknown type and 

quantity) had departed the Cimarrón Cuartel heading toward Panama City.” 

“It was imperative,” Higgins was told, that “the team cut the column off at the 

Pacora River Bridge.” After the major informed his men of the new H-hour, 

the twenty-four Green Berets raced to board the waiting transports whose 

deafening noise, in Higgins’ words, “created an unsettling atmosphere.” As the 

three helicopters lifted off, they became targets for a few enemy soldiers in the 

vicinity who had been sporadically peppering areas of the air station for five 

minutes with small-arms fire. The helicopters took some hits, none serious. 

The troops on board sustained no casualties.12

Once airborne, a hurried conversation between Higgins and the pilot of 

his helicopter, CWO John Estep, a special operations Night Stalker, led to a 

further modification to the plan. As approved earlier that day, the blueprint 

for seizing the bridge had the Special Forces conducting an air insertion at the 

northeast end of the structure, on the Fort Cimarrón side of the riverbank. 

From there, the men would split into five smaller groups. The largest of these, 

Team X, consisted of ten men who would set up an ambush position near the 

landing zone (Map 11). Their weapons included 6 AT4 antitank rockets, 3 light 

antitank weapons, and 2 squad automatic weapons. Three men constituting 

Team Y would provide security to the east. Because this team would be the 

farthest out on the perimeter around the bridge, an Air Force technical sergeant 

would go with it to keep the AC–130 overhead informed as to where the “limit 

of friendly troops” was located. Four men composing Team Z would move 

westward across the bridge and, with concertina wire and chemlites, set up a 

barrier across the highway to prevent civilian traffic from crossing. Another 

four men, Team U, would cover Team Z’s movement and serve as a quick 

reaction force (QRF). Finally, Team W would provide command, control, and 

communications as a three-man headquarters element.13

When Higgins quickly described the proposed plan to Estep, the chief 

warrant officer indicated that he considered an air insertion at the planned 

landing zone unsafe. The designated area on the northeast side of the bridge 

was too small, the terrain too uneven, and power lines too numerous for three 

11 Ibid.

12 Quotes from ibid. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 124–25. 13 Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, 

The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

215

helicopters to set down safely. Better, he said, to relocate the landing zone 

to the southwest side of the bridge. Higgins, while reluctant to authorize yet 

another last-minute change, recognized the logic of Estep’s advice. As the 

major explained the next day, “I went with his recommendation realizing that 

it would be easier for us to adapt to this change than to try to recover from a 

slow, unsafe [infiltration] with a PDF column bearing down on us.” In some 

ways, the new landing zone made good tactical sense as well. It would allow 

Higgins’ men more time to establish their positions while the vehicles from 

Fort Cimarrón approached; it also placed the riverbed between the Americans 

and the enemy force, making the bridge a chokepoint and the PDF column an 

inviting target for the AC–130.14

Estep passed word of the new landing zone to the other helicopter crews, 

while Higgins informed the men with him. Time was now the critical factor. The 

assault force had to reach the bridge as soon as possible in case the intelligence 

14 Quote from ibid. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 125–26; 

Comments, John Partin, on draft of this chapter, 13 Apr 2012.

Pacora River

Team U

Team W

Team X

Team Y

Landing

Zone

Team Z

PACORA RIVER BRIDGE

ASSAULT PLAN

TASK FORCE BLA C K

Based on a sketch by Major Higgins

Map 11
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

216

concerning Battalion 2000 elements on the move was accurate. Even if the 

reports were false, the beginning of combat operations in Panama City would 

alert the enemy battalion to a U.S. invasion, conceivably prompting units at 

Fort Cimarrón to take offensive countermeasures. Estep knew of Higgins’ 

concern, yet the pilot could not guarantee a timely arrival on target. To the 

contrary, given the change in H-hour and the estimated 25-minute flying time 

to the Pacora River landing zone, he quickly calculated that the helicopters 

had little chance of getting there at or before 0045. To shave a few minutes 

off the flying time, Estep decided to modify the route, flying straight to the 

objective rather than in a zigzag pattern. This initiative, according to Higgins, 

“was a calculated risk . . . because [Estep] knew that all flight plans were closely 

pre-planned to avoid mid-air collisions that could potentially occur during 

the scheduled H-Hour massive airborne operations and helo insertions.” 

Moreover, there was “also the potential for confusion” since the pilots from 

the 228th in one of the other helicopters “did not habitually work Special 

Operations with the 617 AVN unit.” Fortunately, as Higgins noted, the 228th 

pilots “responded admirably.”15

As a result of Estep’s initiative, the three helicopters carrying Higgins’ 

men approached the Pacora River bridge right at 0045, the revised H-hour. 

Limited visibility made positive identification of the objective difficult, but 

15 Quotes from Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct 

Action #03A, The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989. Although the 

special operations pilots and the conventional pilots had not worked together, pilots in the 

617th Special Operations Aviation Detachment had been “paired” together for six to eight 

weeks prior to the invasion. “They planned, briefed, and flew together continually,” the Task 

Force Black after action report stated. “Crews were able to build on each pilot’s strengths and 

eliminate weaknesses.” Memo, Col Robert C. Jacobelly, Cdr, Task Force Black, for Cdr, XVIII 

Abn Corps, n.d., sub: Joint After-Action Report for TF Black’s Execution of OPORD 1–90, 

Operation Just Cause.

The Pacora River bridge
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

217

PDF vehicles already heading toward the structure with their headlights on 

lit up the area enough for Estep to orient himself as the helicopters flew over 

the enemy column. Higgins estimated that the enemy procession was about a 

hundred yards from the bridge and just under four hundred fifty yards from the 

new landing zone. The site was “clearly a hot LZ,” he observed. The question 

was whether the approaching convoy possessed the kind of weapons “capable 

of blowing the [helicopter] formation out of the sky.” Estep had the authority 

to abort the mission, and Higgins would have supported the decision, but the 

Night Stalker instead yelled, “We’re going in, we’re going in!” Under enormous 

pressure caused by the poor visibility and the PDF presence and despite a 

barbed-wire fence that suddenly appeared right in the middle of the landing 

zone, Estep and the other pilots put their Black Hawks down exactly at the 

infiltration site, unloaded the troops, and took off in what to Higgins “seemed 

like a millisecond.” From that point on, the major knew, “The ball was in our 

court.”16

Higgins’ principal concerns at the moment were that the Battalion 2000 

column would reach the bridge before his men had positioned themselves and 

the AC–130 had arrived overhead. He also worried that the enemy vehicles, 

which he could hear but not plainly see, might be armored personnel carriers 

armed with .50-caliber machine guns, a weapon capable of decimating his small 

force.17 The first of these fears was partially dissipated once the equipmentladen Green Berets made their way up a steep 35-foot embankment, and Team 

X set up its ambush position. The PDF column turned out to be trucks, not 

armored personnel carriers, and, as it approached from the east, one member 

of Team X moved to the center of the road at the western end of the bridge 

and, “looking head-on into the headlights of the lead vehicle,” fired the first 

round of the battle, a LAW, at the oncoming target. The rocket missed but 

forced the column to halt for a moment. When it resumed its movement, 

Higgins worried that the vehicles, which he still could not see clearly, might 

have enough armor to deflect the AT4 and LAW rounds. A Special Forces 

captain fired another LAW at the lead vehicle, causing the PDF column to halt 

again. Quickly, a third Green Beret positioned himself in front of the enemy 

vehicles and fired an AT4. Other members of the team then opened up with a 

SAW and 40-mm. grenades. 

At that point, Higgins decided the time had come to bring the AC–130 

into the fight. The gunship had just arrived on station and was ready to open 

fire. The question was whether it could do so without hitting the Special Forces. 

Higgins conferred with the Air Force technical sergeant attached to Team Y and 

16 Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, 

The Seizure of the Pacora River Bridge, 20 December 1989. 17 Jacobelly later estimated that Higgins’ group had only about a minute on the ground 

before the PDF column reached the bridge. Interv, Partin with Jacobelly, 26 Feb 1990. The account of the Pacora River bridge battle that follows is primarily from Memo for Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th 

SFG (Abn), 21 Dec 1989, sub: Mission Direct Action #03A, The Seizure of the Pacora River 

Bridge, 20 December 1989. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes are from the memo. Several other accounts are also based on this document, but include additional information as well. These 

include Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 128–30; U.S. Special Operations 

Command, History, 1987–2007, pp. 41–42; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 77–80. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

218

in communication with the gunship, only to be told that the margin of safety was 

very narrow. Both men agreed, however, that employment of the Spectre was “the 

only method open to us to effectively engage and neutralize the column.” As the 

Air Force sergeant requested fire support from above, Higgins made sure that 

his men were on the south side of the road at the western end of the bridge, as 

called for in the plan they had amended after boarding their helicopters (Map 

12). Seconds later, the AC–130 fired its first burst with what Higgins described 

as “devastating accuracy.” Immediately thereafter, a Special Forces sergeant 

launched another AT4 at the column, prompting one of the captains with Higgins 

to suggest that the ground force conserve its antitank weapons. Higgins concurred. 

“It was prudent,” he recalled, “to let the AC–130 take over.” But the decision led 

to what the major described later as the tensest moment of the evening. To begin 

with, there was the realization that a stray round from the Spectre could have 

tragic consequences. A half-hour barrage from the gunship, however, remained 

as accurate as the first burst. Still, notwithstanding the damage inflicted by the 

AC–130, Higgins had to assume that most Panamanian soldiers in the column 

had already dismounted their vehicles and were probably trying to flank his very 

Pacora River

Team U

Team W

Team X

Team Y

Landing

Zone

Team Z

PDF Convoy

ASSAULT ON PACORA RIVER BRIDGE

TASK FORCE BLA C K

20 December 1989

Based on a sketch by Major Higgins

Map 12
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

219

vulnerable position, especially from the rear, which was entirely exposed. Fueling 

this concern, the AC–130 crew reported enemy troop movement in the riverbed 

near the bridge, clearly a flanking maneuver. As a countermeasure, Team U, the 

group’s quick reaction force, began lobbing grenades from M203 launchers into 

the riverbed. The Spectre also pounded the area. 

As the skirmish continued, a second column of three vehicles approached 

the Special Forces’ positions from the west. Higgins assumed that it was the 

enemy, but he could not be sure. To “give them the benefit of the doubt,” he had 

members of Team Z fire several warning shots. He then received reports from the 

AC–130 that the advancing troops were dismounting their vehicles and moving 

into elephant grass near the road. The news convinced the Green Berets that the 

force was hostile, and they opened up with their SAWs and grenade launchers, 

firing several hundred rounds. Confronted with PDF elements moving on him 

from two directions, Higgins readily granted the combat controller’s request to 

call in another Spectre. The aircraft, diverted from Torrijos-Tocumen, arrived 

overhead about ten minutes later. The combined firepower of the two planes 

proved overwhelming, causing the Panamanians on the western approach to the 

bridge to climb back aboard their transportation and flee the area.18

Through all of this, there had yet to be any direct head-on enemy assault 

from the eastern approach. To thwart such a move, two Special Forces sergeants 

crawled toward the southeast corner of the bridge to set up a claymore mine. 

Before they could complete their maneuver, they saw three armed Panamanian 

soldiers walking toward them. One of the sergeants fired at the three with his 

M16, killing one and wounding two. One of the wounded men jumped off 

the bridge into the water fifty feet below. The other climbed down the bridge 

and lodged himself underneath, where he briefly remained until noise from his 

movements gave away his position. The two sergeants thinking a possible PDF 

assault force was responsible for the sounds threw a few hand grenades under 

the structure. Their concussion caused the wounded Panamanian to fall thirtyfive feet onto the riverbed, the impact of the landing breaking both of his legs.

Following this incident, the situation “stabilized somewhat,” according to 

Higgins, so he contacted Jacobelly’s operations center to inquire about sending 

the Task Force Black reserve to the scene. The task force’s hangar at Albrook, 

it turned out, had also been the target of enemy fire, although only briefly. 

The time of the shooting was never firmly established, although most reports 

had it occurring at 0030 or soon thereafter. By that time, Higgins’ group had 

already departed Albrook, after itself coming under fire. Most likely, the 

Panamanians engaged in the running firefight with soldiers from Task Forces 

Gator and Wildcat in the vicinity of the air station were the source of the shots 

into Jacobelly’s operations center. Whatever the time and source, the people 

working with the colonel in the hangar found themselves diving for cover. In 

the process, Jacobelly’s briefing board fell over on him, possibly saving his life 

when a .50-caliber bullet whistled through his hair. A U.S. squad providing 

18 Jacobelly’s recollection regarding the second AC–130 differs from that of Higgins. 

According to the Task Force Black commander, the second Spectre was dispatched because the 

first was running low on fuel. For several minutes the two gunships provided fire support for 

the ground force, and then the first departed for refueling. Interv, Partin with Jacobelly, 26 Feb 

1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

220

perimeter security at the hangar returned fire, and the Panamanians quickly 

departed. There were no serious U.S. casualties.19 

Once Higgins contacted Jacobelly during the lull in the fighting at the 

bridge, the two agreed to defer a decision about sending a relief force until the 

situation there became clearer. The arrival of a friendly unit in an area still not 

secured posed too many risks, including friendly fire, and Higgins, unsure of 

enemy troop dispositions on the east side of the river, did not want “to expose 

the QRF to a hostile LZ.” Only around 0530 did Jacobelly think the time right 

to dispatch reinforcements, at which point his headquarters asked Higgins if 

he still wanted them. Higgins said he did, but not until after some of his men 

had had a chance to reconnoiter the east side of the river. Before he could 

initiate that action, though, he received word that the relief force, a 44-man 

element commanded by Maj. Gilberto Perez, was on its way. 

The reinforcements arrived shortly after 0600. As Major Perez positioned 

his men along the southeastern riverbank, Team U from Higgins’ force forded 

the Pacora just over three hundred yards north of the bridge and set up a 

security position. The relief force then maneuvered “to sweep and secure the 

far side.” In the process, one of Higgins’ men heard cries for help from the 

wounded PDF soldier who had fallen from underneath the bridge. The man 

had lost a considerable amount of blood, had a bullet in his femur, and was in 

excruciating pain from his two broken legs. Despite the severity of his injuries, 

the Green Berets were able to stabilize him. When able to speak, he told his 

captors that the bulk of Battalion 2000 had left Fort Cimarrón and crossed the 

Pacora River at 2200, three hours before Higgins had arrived. The column the 

Special Forces had confronted at the bridge was the “trail party.” Where the 

earlier and larger PDF force had ended up was anybody’s guess at that point.

Later that morning, one of Higgins’ teams established a control point on 

the west side of the river and captured three enemy soldiers fleeing Panama City, 

“perhaps in hopes of reconstituting at Cimarrón.” In the sweep Major Perez’s 

men conducted on the other side of the objective, they found several uniformed 

Panamanians hiding in farmhouses. By noon, when elements of the 82d Airborne 

Division began their belated assault on the fort, the Special Forces troops at 

the river had compiled statistics that reflected their accomplishment. Confirmed 

enemy casualties numbered four killed and one wounded in the battle. Seventeen 

more Panamanians had been taken prisoner. A large number of weapons had 

been seized, including machine guns, recoilless rifles, mortars, grenade launchers, 

gas grenades (confirming Higgins’ suspicions that the Panamanians had the 

capability to use chemical weapons against his force), and various small arms. 

Four 21⁄2-ton trucks and a pickup truck that were in the column heading toward 

the bridge from the fort were also in American hands.

19 The shooting incident at Jacobelly’s operations center at Albrook Air Station is also recounted in Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 125. The authors place the time 

of the shooting nearly one hour before Jacobelly’s estimate, 0110, when Higgins’ men would 

have still been boarding their Black Hawks. Interv, Partin with Jacobelly, 26 Feb 1990. For official accounts by several of the officers involved in providing security for the Task Force Black 

hangar, see Memo, Maj David E. McCracken, through Cdr, 3d Bn, 7th SFG (Abn), for Cdr, 

Task Force Black, 25 Dec 1989, sub: Hangar 450 Firefight—20 Dec 89. Times for the shooting 

range from 0030 to 0115. 
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

221

After coordinating with Jacobelly’s operations center, Higgins’ men and 

the PDF prisoners boarded two CH–53 Sea Stallion helicopters and two Black 

Hawks for the flight back to Albrook Air Station. They arrived there at 1800, 

and, following a team debriefing, their mission formally ended. Of the three 

Task Force Black missions aimed at PDF units and fortifications, this had 

easily been the most difficult and the most dangerous. It had also been highly 

successful. 

The fourth Task Force Black mission, the seizure of the television tower 

at Cerro Azul, called for a Special Forces element to disable the tower’s 

transmitting capability temporarily, thus rendering it useless as a propaganda 

vehicle for Noriega and his followers. On order, the Green Berets would restore 

transmissions for “exploitation” by U.S. psychological operations forces. 

Operational Detachment Alpha 785, commanded by Capt. John M. Custer, 

would carry out the mission. Once augmented by technical experts, Custer’s 

team numbered eighteen men. At 0050, five minutes after the revised H-hour, 

the team arrived at the objective northeast of the capital, fast-roped to the 

ground, and, after the PDF guards fled, took control of Panama’s Channel 2 

television complex. The technicians with the team then disabled the station. 

Up to that point, the mission had gone exactly as planned. Any celebration, 

however, was muted by two concerns. The first was the realization that radio 

stations controlled by the regime were still broadcasting Noriega’s recorded 

messages to the population at large. The second, “poor PSYOP coordination 

and implementation,” delayed any U.S. use of the television transmitter for four 

days and caused Jacobelly to claim in his after action report that the “PSYOPS 

campaign for Operation Just Cause was poorly executed/implemented.”20

Jacobelly’s report contained other observations on D-day operations. There 

was, for example, praise for the support provided Task Force Black by the Defense 

Mapping Agency element located at Albrook and for the various intelligence 

products received from JTF-Panama, particularly the imagery that the Special 

Forces required in large quantities. In contrast, the report criticized the dearth 

of “push intelligence”—intelligence that is provided to the user not as the result 

of a formal request but on the grounds that it may be useful—once the invasion 

began. With respect to the task force’s reconnaissance and surveillance teams, 

Jacobelly indicated that, during the planning phase, “no specific information 

requirements, except the location of Noriega for some, were specified,” thus 

limiting a team’s “effectiveness as an intelligence collection asset.” On the 

subject of communications, the report called for Special Operations Command, 

South, to have “an organic in-theater communications support element” that 

would supersede having to rely on quick reaction teams from the Fort Bragg–

based 112th Signal Battalion—teams that required nine hours to deploy, thus 

negating “the 112th’s utility to SOCSOUTH in a time sensitive environment 

which requires the establishment of immediate communication.” Jacobelly also 

submitted another communications lesson: the need for standardized Special 

Operations Forces joint communications-electronics operating instructions. 

20 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 42. Quotes from Memo, 

Jacobelly for Cdr, XVIII Abn Corps, n.d., sub: Joint After-Action Report for TF Black’s 

Execution of OPORD 1–90, Operation Just Cause. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

222

The communications-electronics instructions execute order issued less than a 

day before H-hour did not support specific missions, he charged. With respect 

to the operation orders for those missions, Jacobelly noted that the Joint 

Special Operations Task Force and Task Force Black had written some draft 

orders—possibly referring to the new Pacora River bridge order—before 

coordinating with the SOUTHCOM commander and JTF-South. As a result, 

“mission conflictions occurred and some support taskings/requirements were 

not understood.” “Only a few hours prior to H-hour was TF Black able to 

deconflict missions and arrange/lock-in supporting assets.” The lesson learned 

was that “publishing subordinate unit orders without orders from higher 

causes conflictions in mission planning and could result in mission delays or 

failure.”21 

Task Force Red-T

Three of Task Force Black’s H-hour missions involved keeping track of 

PDF units in the vicinity of Panama City, primarily to ensure that they did not 

attempt to reinforce their colleagues fighting at the Comandancia. In the case 

of Battalion 2000, planners had an additional concern: that a well-armed force 

from Fort Cimarrón would descend on the Torrijos-Tocumen airfield complex 

where U.S. Rangers would be attempting to seize and secure two key runways 

and the buildings next to them. One of the two facilities, the Tocumen airfield, 

largely served military aircraft. The Torrijos International Airport adjacent 

to it was Panama’s main hub for commercial flights. With Panama City ten 

miles to the southwest of the complex and Fort Cimarrón sixteen miles to 

the northeast, Torrijos-Tocumen was closer to Battalion 2000 than the PDF 

headquarters. 

For several reasons, U.S. staff officers and commanders had targeted both 

airports from the outset of Elaborate Maze and Blue Spoon contingency 

planning, and, unlike some of the original objectives identified in 1988, the 

complex had only increased in importance as the crisis evolved. To begin, 

there was the need to prevent Noriega from fleeing the country in the event 

of hostilities. Although the dictator’s private jet was at Paitilla, there were 

numerous aircraft at Torrijos-Tocumen capable of whisking him to a friendly 

country, such as Cuba, from which he might orchestrate opposition to any 

Panamanian government coming to power after the collapse of his regime. 

A second reason for seizing the complex was to prevent the enemy from 

using it as a staging area for intervening in the battles downtown. PDF units 

flying from Rio Hato to Panama City during the October coup attempt had 

done just that, the result being Noriega’s rescue and continuation in power. 

Battalion 2000 and the infantry companies at Rio Hato were the most likely 

units to use Torrijos-Tocumen as a staging area during a U.S. invasion, but 

other PDF garrisons could not be discounted, especially the Panamanian 

air force squadron and the 2d Infantry Company stationed on the premises. 

21 Memo, Jacobelly for Cdr, XVIII Abn Corps, n.d., sub: Joint After-Action Report for TF 

Black’s Execution of OPORD 1–90, Operation Just Cause. 
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

223

The air force element at Tocumen consisted of an estimated one hundred fifty 

personnel, mainly pilots, security officers, and maintenance crews, and up to 

thirteen fixed-wing aircraft and twenty-one Huey helicopters. The infantry 

company of around two hundred soldiers was barracked within six hundred 

yards of the Tocumen airstrip and constituted the greater threat, partly because 

the company included in its arsenal at least one, possibly two (later confirmed), 

Soviet-built ZPU4 air defense guns.22

Another compelling reason for a U.S. H-hour assault on Torrijos-Tocumen 

stemmed from the need for a secure airfield besides Howard from which 

planned follow-on operations could be mounted and on which additional 

troops and supplies could be landed. Operation Plan 90–2 called for a brigade 

of the 82d Airborne Division to begin air assaults against Panama Viejo, Fort 

Cimarrón, and Las Tinajitas within an hour or so after the commencement 

of Just Cause. Several hours later, at least one brigade from the 7th Infantry 

Division from Fort Ord would be arriving in Panama. The transports carrying 

the light fighters could always land at Howard, but during the planning process 

the question arose concerning what would happen if that runway became 

inoperable, either from enemy mortar and sniper fire (to which the facility 

was extremely vulnerable) or from an overcrowding of friendly aircraft using 

the base. Maj. Gen. William A. Roosma, the XVIII Airborne Corps’ deputy 

commanding general, was worried that the initial plans relied too heavily on 

Howard—putting “all their eggs in one basket”—for bringing in supplies and 

reinforcements. What about Torrijos-Tocumen? he asked. “Have you thought 

22 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, pp. 33–34; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 188–89; Gordon L. Rottman and Ron Volstad, Panama 1989–

90 (London: Osprey Publishing, 1991), pp. 11–12. 

Tocumen airfield
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

224

of using that?” A few months after Just Cause, General Stiner reflected, “The 

reason for taking Torrijos-Tocumen was [that] we needed another base upon 

which we could build up combat power very rapidly. The only other base we 

had was Howard, and there was the possibility that it could be interdicted.” 

Revising the original plans to accommodate troop carriers and supply aircraft 

required only a minimal effort, given that Torrijos-Tocumen was already on 

the list of H-hour targets.23

From the beginning of the planning process, seizing and securing the 

complex had been tasked as a mission for U.S. Rangers, specialists in executing 

such operations. The rangers’ headquarters was the 75th Ranger Regiment, 

located at Fort Benning, Georgia. At the time of Just Cause, the regiment 

consisted of three combat battalions and was commanded by Col. William F. 

“Buck” Kernan. From mid-1987 to late 1988, Kernan had been commander 

of the 1st Ranger Battalion, located at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, 

and he had worked on the early contingency plans for Torrijos-Tocumen. 

As regimental commander, he saw that the target remained assigned to his 

old battalion, now commanded by Lt. Col. Robert W. Wagner. Reinforcing 

Wagner in the assault would be Capt. Alfred E. Dochnal’s Company C from 

the ranger regiment’s 3d Battalion; loudspeaker teams and other assets already 

in Panama from the 4th Psychological Operations Group, headquartered at 

Fort Bragg; a civil affairs team from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, also in 

Panama from Bragg; two AH–6 attack helicopters from the 160th Aviation 

Group; and Air Force combat controllers, pararescuemen, and an AC–130 

Spectre from the 1st Special Operations Wing.24

In his short time as the JSOTF commander, General Downing had made 

a number of decisions affecting the Torrijos-Tocumen mission, including the 

type of transports the Rangers would use in flying from Hunter Airfield to the 

objective. According to Stiner, the U.S. Military Airlift Command had C–141 

Starlifters and C–130 Hercules available for the Rangers, but not enough 

of either aircraft to use only one type for both ranger missions, TorrijosTocumen and Rio Hato. Downing, therefore, decided to request C–141s for 

the 1st Battalion at the airfield complex. C–130s would follow carrying the 3d 

Battalion’s Company C. The Hercules would also be used at Rio Hato. His 

logic was simple enough. The Starlifter was a much larger transport than the 

Hercules, and more Rangers would be dropping onto Torrijos-Tocumen than 

at Rio Hato. Moreover, the drop zone at Torrijos-Tocumen was longer, mainly 

because of the end-to-end layout of the military and commercial runways. 

Thus, even though a C–141 would need more time than a C–130 to airdrop its 

passengers, the descending Rangers still stood a good chance of landing on 

target. The C–130s, in turn, were well suited to the shorter drop zone at Rio 

Hato. 

23 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 34; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 188–90. First and second quotes from Interv, Wright with Maj 

Gen William A. Roosma, U.S. Army, 15 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. Third quote from Interv, 

Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Interv, author with Pantier, 21 May 1991. 24 Briefing Slides, Blue Spoon: The Evolution of the Plan for Just Cause; U.S. Special 

Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, pp. 33–34; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 190; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 157.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

225

For the Rangers assigned the Torrijos-Tocumen mission, they, like other 

U.S.-based troops named on the Blue Spoon force list, rehearsed aspects 

of the operation on several occasions. Of two major dress rehearsals they 

conducted, the “second round” occurred in mid-December at Duke Army 

Airfield at Hurlburt Field, Florida, just days before President Bush ordered 

the U.S. invasion of Panama. Detailed mock-ups added to the realism of the 

rehearsal, as did the employment of fire support from an AC–130 and two 

AH–6s. The Rangers performed well, although among the regimental after 

action comments was an expression of regret that some security elements 

“earmarked to participate in the operation” did not take part in the practice 

runs, to the detriment of “team building” efforts.25

Once notified of the president’s decision, Colonel Wagner and his 

battalion in Georgia went through pretty much the same procedures as the 

U.S. forces stationed in Panama, with one exception. He had to be prepared 

to launch his battalion and augmentation units by late afternoon Tuesday, 

given the seven-hour flight to Panama. Captain Dochnal’s Company C from 

the 3d Battalion flew into Hunter from Fort Benning on Monday morning, 

and a command team from regimental headquarters led by the 75th’s deputy 

commander, Lt. Col. Henry L. T. Koren Jr., arrived the next day by bus. Much 

of Monday and Tuesday was filled with coordination meetings, which went 

“flawlessly” in Dochnal’s opinion, although one complaint recorded later 

was that the late arrival of execution checklists for the mission made some 

of the required coordination more difficult than it should have been. Those 

attending the meetings also went over the operation orders. According to one 

source, Wagner and his staff studied maps and photographs of their target, 

poured over the intelligence data available to them, and discussed the plan of 

attack, which they briefed to Colonel Kernan and General Downing. Next to 

be informed were company commanders, who, “in turn, briefed their platoons 

in painstaking detail, including troop-leading procedures.” Squad leaders also 

received their guidance. In Dochnal’s company, for example, squad leaders 

were handed maps of their individual objectives, with orders to come up with 

workable small-unit assault plans for each target.26

By midafternoon Tuesday, most of the Rangers had received word that 

the enterprise on which they were about to embark was no exercise. Any 

25 Intervs, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990; author with Brig Gen William 

Hartzog, U.S. Army, and Col Thomas A. Braaten, U.S. Marine Corps, 29 Jun 1990, Quarry 

Heights, Panama; author with Pantier, 13 Jun 1990; Telephone Interv, author with Maj David 

Huntoon Jr., 27 Jun 1990; Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, p. 136; 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 194. Quotes from After Action Review 

Comments, Command and Control Teams, 75th Ranger Rgt, n.d. 26 Handwritten notes, Purpose: To provide information on C 3/75 [Co C, 3d Bn, 75th Ranger 

Rgt] actions at Torrijos International, n.d. (but apparently written in late December 1989 or 

January 1990 and attached to HQ, 75th Ranger Rgt, 26 Jan 1990, sub: Historical Information 

for Commander 44th Historical Detachment). Quotes from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 158. 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 194, 196; Handwritten notes, 1st Ranger Bn 

S–3 section, n.d., which state, “Execution check lists were late getting to the chain of command. 

This made our check list late.” The notes went on to say, “To get the most out of the X-list we must 

have the time to take our list and the list from higher and get together with the chain of command 

and TOC elements and conduct a talk through rehearsal and war game session.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

226

lingering doubts were quashed with the distribution of live ammunition—they 

were going into combat. “I was nervous,” one Ranger simply said, expressing 

the feelings of most of the others. Remaining preparations and the weather, 

however, did not allow time for brooding. The rangers’ preboarding activities 

included practicing jump procedures in “the skeleton of a C–130 that sits near 

the airfield.” Then, they had to wait in an ice storm that pelted the southeast 

United States throughout the day and evening of 19 December. Although the 

same storm would have a decidedly negative impact on the deployment of the 

82d Airborne Division at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, there were no 

delays at Hunter Army Airfield, only soaked, cold, and miserable Rangers. 

A draft of the 1st Battalion’s after action report addressed the issue with the 

observation that “during deployment preparation 1/75 Rangers experienced 

cold weather in conjunction with a harsh and long lasting rain.” “Deploying 

into a hostile environment is difficult enough,” the report continued, “without 

further hindering our force by subjecting them to cold wet weather with no 

chance to escape except by finally deploying. . . . Why should pre-jump etc have 

to be conducted outdoors in inclement weather?” For future operations, the 

battalion’s operations directorate recommended that “a large shelter be built 

where the task force can chute up and conduct rehearsals and briefbacks.”27

The same draft report went on to commend the Rangers for taking 

with them only “the equipment necessary to complete the mission.” Even 

so, some of the planes were overcrowded in that they had to accommodate 

more passengers than was normally the rule—for example, seventy, not sixty, 

Rangers were crammed into each of the four C–130s transporting Captain 

Dochnal’s company. Colonel Wagner’s 1st Battalion required seven C–141s for 

the troops and five more for equipment and supplies. The ranger air armada 

began taking off from Hunter on schedule at 1900 on the nineteenth, with the 

C–141 troop transports in the lead, followed by the equipment transports, and 

Company C’s four C–130s. Two of the latter aircraft included a nine-man team 

from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, that, once on the ground in Panama, would 

have the responsibility of setting up a forward arming and refueling point near 

the Torrijos-Tocumen runways for use by the two AH–6 Little Bird light attack 

helicopters assigned to the mission. As the Rangers departing Hunter began 

their flight, most tried to sleep. Few combat plans, they knew, are executed 

flawlessly. The extent of the deviations they would experience played on their 

imaginations.28

In determining how the airborne assault would unfold, the tactical planners 

considered the three main threats the Rangers would face at Torrijos-Tocumen 

(Map 13). At the top of the list was the 2d Infantry Company, the PDF unit on 

the scene most likely to offer determined resistance. The Panamanian air force 

squadron came next but was not expected to fight with any enthusiasm, if at 

all. Finally, there would probably be three or four dozen security personnel 

27 First and second quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 196–

97. Remaining quotes from Handwritten notes, 1st Ranger Bn S–3 section, n.d. On the 82d 

Airborne Division’s deployment difficulties, see Chapter 8. 28 Quote from Handwritten notes, 1st Ranger Bn S–3 section, n.d. Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 194, 197; Durant and Hartov with Johnson, The Night Stalkers, 

pp. 135–37.
to Fort Cimarrón

to Panamá

mud

Objec tive Bear

Objec tive Hawk

Objec tive Tiger

Objec tive Pig

Omar Torrijos

I nternational Airport

Tocumen

Military Air eld

Tocumen

Cabuya

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

TORRIJOS-TOCUMEN COMPLEX

TASK FORCE RED - T

20 December 1989

0

0

1 Mile

500 1000 Meters

Objective

Map 13
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

228

in the main terminal at Torrijos International Airport who would have to be 

subdued.29 The U.S. attack would begin precisely at H-hour with an AC–130 

Spectre and two AH–6 Little Birds bringing under heavy fire the 2d Infantry 

Company barracks, labeled Objective Pig, and adjacent sites. Three minutes 

later, the Rangers would parachute into the complex. The 1st Battalion would 

focus on the Tocumen military airfield, with Company A seizing the air force 

headquarters, Objective Tiger, and Company C moving against what was left 

of the infantry company barracks, securing the center of the airfield, and 

seizing the field’s control tower. As for Company B, it would secure the airfield’s 

perimeter, set up roadblocks around the facility, and begin preparing the 

Tocumen runway for aircraft carrying the light fighters, scheduled to arrive at 

0800. Also located on the premises of the complex was the Ceremi Recreation 

Center, Objective Hawk, thought to be an armory for the paramilitary Dignity 

Battalions. Unknown to the assault force (or any other U.S. personnel), this 

was the building Noriega was in when the attack began.

While the 1st Battalion was eliminating resistance and securing Tocumen, 

the four platoons of Company C from the 3d Ranger Battalion would 

concentrate on the commercial facility at the southern end of the complex. 

The goal was to cordon the main terminal, Objective Bear, keeping inside the 

security personnel and any late-night patrons of the 24-hour duty-free shops. 

The last commercial flight into Torrijos International on 19 December was 

scheduled to arrive before 2300, plenty of time for the passengers to get their 

luggage and clear customs. One of the reasons for picking 0100 as H-hour had 

been to ensure a nearly empty terminal.

That expectation evaporated while the Rangers were in midflight. Word 

radioed from Panama informed Colonel Koren that a Brazilian airliner was 

making a late landing at Torrijos International. At 0100, the 376 passengers 

would still be inside the terminal building. This news followed on the heels 

of very alarming messages to the effect that operations security had broken 

down, and the Panama Defense Forces knew an invasion was imminent. To 

the Rangers, the loss of surprise likely meant greater enemy resistance, not 

to mention ample time for the defenders at Torrijos-Tocumen to prepare the 

shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) they were rumored to have. The 

low-flying C–141s and C–130s would be vulnerable to a SAMs crew possessing 

even marginal training.30

Despite Stiner’s decision to advance H-hour by fifteen minutes for the 

U.S. attacks at the Comandancia and some other targets, the air assault at 

Torrijos-Tocumen stayed on schedule. Precisely at 0100, the AC–130 opened 

fire with its 105-mm. howitzer and 40-mm. Bofors cannon on the infantry 

company barracks. Once that building collapsed, the Spectre destroyed one of 

the airfield’s two ZPU4 air defense guns, a Dignity Battalion car, and three of 

four machine gun positions. Meanwhile, as an estimated thirty Panamanians 

29 This description of the plan for the air assault on Torrijos-Tocumen is from Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 190, 192–94. After Just Cause, a Panamanian officer conducted a “hot wash” at Fort Clayton in which he told the assembled U.S. personnel that, 

had the defenders possessed more sophisticated weapons, they could have “played havoc” with 

Rangers parachuting onto the facility. Hot Wash, 19 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 30 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 197–98.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

229

tried to shoot them down, the AH–6 Little Birds strafed the control tower, the 

Tocumen terminal building, and two guard posts. The intense fire from the 

gunship and the helicopters killed several of the enemy and caused others to flee, 

including a group of around forty air force pilots and quite a few members of 

the infantry company who had remained in the area. (Many of their colleagues 

had already gone to the surrounding hills once word of U.S. troop movements 

had first reached Tocumen thirty minutes earlier.) Despite the devastation, the 

helicopters had failed to disable the facility’s radar, but, that notwithstanding, 

the three-minute preparatory fire had served its purpose.31

At 0103, over seven hundred Rangers began to parachute onto the target. 

Just hours before, they had been freezing in a cold, blustery rain and ice storm; 

now, as they jumped out the doors of their transport planes, a blast of hot, 

humid tropical air welcomed them to Panama. To minimize the time in the air 

where they would be helplessly exposed to hostile fire, they jumped from five 

hundred feet, rather than from the usual seven hundred fifty feet or higher. The 

risk here was that a parachute might not open in time to slow a soldier’s descent 

adequately, or, if it did not open at all, there would be no time to open the 

reserve. (The draft after action report on the operation, in fact, recommended 

dispensing completely with the reserve parachute in drops planned for five 

hundred feet.) The low-level drop resulted in over a dozen impact injuries, as 

Rangers suffered broken legs, fractures, and torn ligaments.32

The troop transport planes almost without exception dropped the Rangers 

right on target. (The last C–130 with Captain Dochnal and a portion of 

Company C aboard was blown slightly off course, so that most of the group 

31 Ibid., p. 189; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 159–60; Handwritten notes, Purpose: To 

provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d. 32 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 198–99; Handwritten notes, 1st 

Ranger Bn S–3 section, n.d.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 158.

A Ranger manning a roadblock at Torrijos-Tocumen complex
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

230

dropped into tall elephant grass about a hundred yards from the Torrijos 

runway.) Once the Rangers shed their parachutes and equipment harnesses, 

donned their rucksacks, and readied their weapons, they moved toward their 

designated assembly areas. The 1st Battalion command element gathered on the 

Tocumen runway, somewhere near the center of the complex, as the battalion’s 

three infantry companies headed for their objectives. At the northern end, 

Company A advanced on Objective Tiger, where the Rangers quickly subdued 

twenty airmen who had chosen to stay behind in one of the hangars. Also falling 

into the company’s hands was “virtually the entire Panamanian Air Force on the 

ground.” Simultaneously, from the middle of the runway, Company C headed 

toward Objective Pig. The structure lay in ruins, and there was no one, living 

or dead, inside. From concealed positions near the wreckage, though, several 

Panamanian riflemen fired into the group, only to have the rangers’ return fire 

claim one fatality. Several of the others surrendered. Company C also received 

heavy sniper fire as it tried to surround the Tocumen control tower. In the 

exchange of shots that ensued, Pfc. James William Markwell, a medic, was 

killed, the ranger battalion’s only fatality that night.33

While the Rangers of Companies A and C, 1st Battalion, were engaging 

PDF defenders, Company B was providing perimeter security through means 

that included the hasty establishment of a number of blocking positions. 

Minutes after the barricades went into place, several Panamanian vehicles 

approached heading toward the airfield’s exits. Warning shots persuaded most 

drivers to turn back, although the Rangers had to shoot the tires of one car 

to get it to stop. The driver of another car ignored the warning shots and 

escaped. Ironically, a passenger in the only vehicle to get away was Noriega, 

fleeing the Ceremi Recreation Center.34

After suffering one fatality and a small number of wounded and injured, 

the Rangers at Tocumen had secured the military airfield shortly after 0200. 

The operation, while not uncontested, had been fairly straightforward and, 

in its essentials, mimicked the rehearsals. The same could not be said for the 

ranger mission at Torrijos International Airport, where Captain Dochnal’s 

Company C, 3d Battalion, encountered a number of problems. The most 

serious of these arose from factors inherent in urban warfare—the presence 

of multistoried, complex buildings and large numbers of civilians. Others 

derived from the friction of war, such as the errant landing of the captain 

and many with him in the five- to twelve-feet-high elephant grass west of the 

commercial airport’s runway. “This slowed assembly,” a report later noted with 

unintentional understatement, as thirty minutes passed before Dochnal could 

reach the rendezvous point. His situation could have been worse. A few of his 

men had landed north of the grass in a large ditch that contained a tidal pool 

and were not extricated until later that morning by U.S. soldiers searching for 

some lost equipment.35

33 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 199–200. Quote from U.S. Special 

Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 34. 34 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 200; U.S. Special Operations 

Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 34. 35 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 203. Quote from Handwritten notes, 

Purpose: To provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

231

As Dochnal finally exited the tall grass, the bulk of Company C was 

already on the move and encountering enemy resistance at some objectives. 

North of Torrijos International, the 3d Platoon moved toward the terminal 

building but stopped first to converge on a fire station along the route. Before 

the Rangers could reach the building, a fire truck burst forth from one of the 

station’s doors. As the vehicle gained speed, a ranger squad leader told one 

of his men to fire several warning shots in front of it. The truck immediately 

returned to the fire station. The driver fled to the rear of the building, where 

he joined a group of his colleagues “screaming obscenities at the American 

troops.” The U.S. squad leader rejected one suggestion to use a hand grenade 

to coax the firemen out. Instead, he employed an interpreter who persuaded 

fifteen Panamanians inside to surrender.36

While the 3d Platoon was thus occupied, the 1st and 2d Platoons moved 

toward the airport terminal from the south. The main part of the building was 

three stories high. Extending from it were two long concourses, one on the 

north side, the other on the south, each two stories high with a circular waiting 

area at the end, where the arrival and departure gates were located. The 1st 

Platoon was to take and hold the main entrance to the terminal, but first it had 

to secure a nearby restaurant in which a number of people in civilian clothes 

could be seen. Were they employees of the establishment or Panamanian 

defenders in mufti? In the absence of hostile fire, the platoon’s 1st Squad 

scaled a chain-link fence, approached the eatery, and had a Spanish-speaking 

Ranger try to reassure those inside. After he convinced the occupants they 

would not be harmed, they unlocked the front door and turned themselves 

over to the troops. The eighteen were flexcuffed until their exact status could 

be ascertained. The 1st Squad then cleared the building, while the platoon’s 3d 

Squad took up security positions around it.37

In the meantime, 1st Platoon’s 2d Squad cut through two chain-link fences 

and continued its advance toward the Torrijos terminal. The squad reached 

the objective just as a gun jeep sent by the ranger battalion at Tocumen arrived 

in support. With the vehicle situated to provide covering fire, the 2d Squad 

cleared a guardhouse near the terminal entrance, finding two enemy soldiers 

who had been killed in the AH–6s’ preparatory fires. While the clearing 

operation was under way, the 3d Squad moved from the restaurant to the west 

side of Torrijos International, where it set up an “observation/battle position 

to overwatch the terminal and parking lot.”38

The 3d Platoon, after it secured the fire station, advanced to the terminal 

to establish its segment of the cordon around the building. As the platoon 

approached the objective, two Panamanian soldiers opened fire from inside 

the end of the north concourse, shooting through and shattering the glass 

that enclosed the waiting area. Most of the Rangers dove for cover, but four 

members of one squad—Sgt. David Reeves, Spec. Michael Eubanks, and Pfc. 

36 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 205–06. Handwritten 

notes, Purpose: To provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d. 37 Handwritten notes, Actions of 1st Pltn, C Co., at Omar Torrijos Intern’l Airport, n.d. 

These notes were with the other handwritten notes attached to HQ, 75th Ranger Rgt, 26 Jan 

1990, sub: Historical Information for Commander 44th Historical Detachment. 38 Ibid.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

232

William Kelly, with Pfc. Farber in trail—were able to scale the maintenance 

stairway into the terminal. Others in the squad followed. Inside, they saw the 

two shooters heading into a women’s restroom. Reeves approached the facility, 

pulled the pin on a grenade, and opened the bathroom door. To his chagrin, 

he found himself staring at another door. With no time to open it as well, 

he flung the grenade down the empty concourse, where the explosion ripped 

a hole in the floor and shattered more windows. When Reeves and Farber 

charged through the second door, one of the enemy soldiers shot Reeves three 

times with an AK47 at point-blank range, the bullets hitting his shoulder and 

collarbone. Farber tried to return the fire, but his weapon malfunctioned. 

With Reeves lying on the floor seriously wounded, his assailants moved 

to the rear of the large restroom, and Farber used the lull to slip back outside 

the door and report the situation. Next, Eubanks, Kelly, and Sgt. Thorland 

entered the darkened restroom unchallenged and began to pull Reeves out. 

As they were dragging him, one of the Panamanians opened fire again, hitting 

Kelly twice in his Kevlar helmet. With his adrenaline pumping and focused 

on the task at hand, Kelly did not even feel the impact, and he and Eubanks 

finished extracting Reeves, who then received first aid. Eubanks, with Kelly 

behind him, went back into the restroom, preparing the way with a hand 

grenade. The two defenders saw the projectile and dodged the blast by seeking 

shelter in two stalls. Once Eubanks located them, he tried to engage them with 

his squad automatic weapon, but it jammed. The noise gave away his position, 

and one of the Panamanians fired three shots at him with a pistol. All three 

bullets missed, and Eubanks hastily exited the room. 

The two Rangers began the next assault with another grenade, followed by 

small-arms fire as they fought their way back into the bathroom. At one point, 

the shooting stopped, and Eubanks tried to talk the two into surrendering. 

The Panamanians responded with curses, but, when one of them exposed too 

much of his upper body in an attempt to hurl another obscenity, Eubanks 

shot him in the neck. The man was not dead, and the minutes that followed 

witnessed hand-to-hand combat between the two pairs of adversaries. When it 

was over, one of the Panamanians was dead from a gunshot to the head. The 

other had been thrown out of the second-story window onto the tarmac below, 

where he was killed by a Ranger with an M60 machine gun. The restroom 

fight, according to one account, lasted five minutes.39

The task of clearing and securing the whole terminal fell to the 2d Platoon, 

which moved up from its positions to the south of the building and waited 

for the go ahead to enter. Before the Rangers received the order, they came 

under mortar fire, prompting them to move into the terminal without official 

permission simply as a matter of self-preservation. Once inside, the platoon’s 

1st Squad headed upstairs to the third floor, where it immediately came under 

hostile fire. The enemy soldiers then ran into the floor’s security room and, 

using furniture and other flammable material, started a fire in order to burn 

39 This account of the battle in the concourse bathroom is based on Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 206–09; Handwritten notes, Purpose: To provide information 

on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d., and 3rd Plt. Outline. For slightly different accounts of the fight, see Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 163; U.S. Special Operations Command, 

History, 1987–2007, p. 35.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

233

documents. The Rangers moved to the room and exchanged shots with the 

defenders inside. A metal door limited the effectiveness of small arms from 

both sides, so the Rangers used a grenade to blow an opening at the bottom 

of the door, through which they then tossed another grenade and killed five 

Panamanians. It also contributed to the intensity of the fire, which the Rangers 

tried to put out once they gained entry to the room. Although their frantic 

efforts met with no success, the blaze itself set off the room’s sprinkler system, 

which contained the fire. The Rangers then cleared the remainder of the third 

floor without incident.40 

Below them, the 2d Platoon’s 3d Squad arrived on the first floor of the 

terminal after having searched an Eastern Airlines commercial jet and the 

bottom floor of the southern concourse. The squad had found no enemy or 

civilians in either place. Once in the terminal, one team went to the right, 

another to the left. “All the doors we checked were locked,” one of the team 

leaders reported later, “and we were told not to bust or blow them down.” 

The reason for the caution soon became apparent. In the building’s baggage 

area, behind a set of unlocked double doors, the team discovered Panamanian 

soldiers, who opened fire in the dark room. The team leader was about to 

return fire when “a woman started screaming in English not to shoot.” He 

quickly went back through the double doors and informed the squad leader 

of an apparent hostage situation. From there, word went up to the platoon 

leader, company commander (Dochnal), and the ranking officer on the scene 

(Koren). Dochnal made his way to the terminal, where his 2d Platoon leader 

gave him a hurried account of the situation, including the willingness of the 

airport’s security manager, who declared himself to be pro-American and antiNoriega, to help. Dochnal accepted the offer but also called in “our Spanish 

speakers as a backup to ensure this guy wasn’t double crossing us.”41

The squad leader then told the team leader, another soldier, the security 

manager, and the Spanish-speaking Rangers to remain in the baggage area 

and negotiate with the soldiers holding the civilians. The remainder of the 

squad resumed clearing and securing the first floor of the terminal. At the 

hostage scene, the security manager tried to persuade the Panamanian soldiers 

to surrender, but they refused, threatening to kill the civilians if the Rangers 

attempted any rescue by force. At some point in the talks, the team leader 

concluded that the hostages included at least two American women and a 

40 Handwritten notes, Purpose: To provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos 

International, n.d.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 161; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, pp. 209–10. 41 This account of the hostage situation at the Torrijos International Airport terminal 

building is primarily based on the following: last quote from Handwritten notes, Purpose: To 

provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d. (this section of the notes, 

at least, was written by Dochnal, as he refers to himself in the first person); first and second 

quotes from Handwritten notes, no title (written by the team leader who first encountered and 

reported the hostage situation), n.d. (also included with HQ, 75th Ranger Rgt, 26 Jan 1990, 

sub: Historical Information for Commander 44th Historical Detachment). Filling out the reconstruction of events are versions of the episode found in Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 

161–62; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 210–12; U.S. Special Operations 

Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 35. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

234

baby. After several more verbal exchanges, the security manager drew some 

conclusions of his own, one of which he shared with the team leader: there 

were only two Panamanian soldiers behind the doors. He asked whether 

the team leader could slip inside and “take out the PDF guys.”42 The team 

leader answered that he probably could and maneuvered into a darkened area 

between two glass doors. From this vantage point, he could make out three 

of the enemy—thereby discounting the security manager’s hunch—in a small 

room beyond the door in front of him but could not see any of the hostages. 

He thus refrained from shooting. Then, as he was preparing to crawl forward 

into the room, lights above him came on, forcing him to retreat back outside 

the first set of double doors. 

As talks with the enemy troops dragged on for over two hours, 

Dochnal provided on-the-scene guidance, reinforcements were brought in, 

uniformed U.S. civil affairs and psychological operations personnel added 

their skills to the negotiations, and Koren’s command post at Tocumen 

began considering a “surgical strike” to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, a 

group of Rangers managed to break into a room next to where the hostages 

were being held. In the process, one of the Rangers jumped over a conveyor 

belt, landing right on top of a PDF soldier. Alerted by the commotion to 

the presence of American troops next door, the other Panamanians opened 

fire. With that, Dochnal vented his frustration. “If you don’t come out,” he 

shouted once the shooting stopped, “I’m just going to kill you! You’ve got 

five minutes to come out or I’m just going to kill you!” The hostage-takers 

required only three minutes to reach a decision. They emerged through 

the door, surrendered their weapons, and dropped to the floor in a prone 

position. As it turned out, there were eight Panamanians and a Cuban with 

a diplomatic card. The hostages also came out, were examined, and taken 

to safety. The affair ended at 0500.43

In the nearly four hours the Rangers took to clear and secure the terminal 

building at Torrijos International, they, like their counterparts in the Gator 

and Wildcat task forces, had to cope with the unexpected presence of far 

more civilians than the Blue Spoon planners had anticipated. The situations 

at the Comandancia and in Balboa were worse, of course, with thousands 

of refugees passing through American lines during combat operations, but 

that fact, had they known it, would have been of little solace to the Rangers 

at Torrijos who, in looking for enemy soldiers, were initially finding dozens, 

then several hundred civilians in their way. Captain Dochnal, according 

to one account, was “dismayed.” “I ran downstairs, and I’m getting more 

reports, ‘Hey sir, we just found another 50 [civilians] in this area’ and all 

42 Handwritten notes, no title (written by the team leader who first encountered and reported the hostage situation), n.d. 43 Most of this paragraph, including the quotes, is from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 211–12. U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 

35, also notes the rangers’ threat “to come in shooting.” As for the number of hostages being held, accounts differ. The team leader later wrote that there were two American women, 

a Panamanian woman, and a baby. The Special Operations Command history says there were 

two American girls. The Donnelly, Roth, and Baker book indicates there were one American 

woman and a baby.
Task Force Black and Task Force Red-T

235

of a sudden it’s 150, 200, then it’s 300. And I’m going upstairs, saying holy 

s——t. We’re taking people out from behind the baggage counter and all 

over the airport. There were no reports of any civilians getting killed, but 

they were scattered to the four winds.” When discovered, civilians were 

escorted to an assembly area set up in a parking lot and loading area near 

the airport entrance. There they could receive medical treatment, food, and 

reassurances.44

During the night, while the Rangers were carrying out their missions, 

paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division had dropped onto TorrijosTocumen. At 0700, the division’s commander, Maj. Gen. James H. Johnson 

Jr., assumed responsibility for the Torrijos terminal area. This allowed 

Dochnal’s 1st Platoon to turn over the 398 civilians in its care to the 82d’s 

820th Military Police Company, together with all prisoners and weapons 

that had been captured. Later that morning, General Johnson took 

operational control of the 1st Ranger Battalion, while Dochnal’s Company 

C from the 3d Ranger Battalion was sent into Panama City to help clear 

the Comandancia compound. 

In the fighting at Torrijos-Tocumen, the Rangers had accomplished their 

missions at a cost to themselves of one fatality and eight wounded. While 

thirteen of the enemy had been killed in the attack and fifty-four taken 

prisoner, the number of PDF wounded remained unknown. By daylight on 

44 Dochnal quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 211. Handwritten 

notes, Purpose: To provide information on C 3/75 actions at Torrijos International, n.d. 

U.S. troops at Torrijos-Tocumen after dawn on 20 December. In the background is the secured 

Torrijos International Airport terminal.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

236

20 December, the airfield complex had been seized and secured and thus 

could be used as a staging area for the follow-on airborne brigade to launch 

its planned air assaults against the three major enemy objectives remaining 

in the Panama City area: Panama Viejo, Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón.45

45 The casualty figures are from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 212–

13. On clearing the Comandancia compound, see Chapter 4.
8

The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

By the time soldiers from the 82d Airborne Division began their parachute drop onto the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex, all but three of the 

principal D-day targets in proximity to the fighting in downtown Panama City 

had been engaged. The exceptions—Panama Viejo, Fort Cimarrón, and Las 

Tinajitas—had been assigned to the 82d’s 1st Brigade, which was supposed to 

launch its nighttime attacks at those locations soon after hitting the ground. 

The drop was scheduled to take place at 0145, forty-five minutes after the 

Rangers were to have started securing the airfields’ facilities. When abysmal 

weather in North Carolina delayed the armada of troop transports, the ripple 

effect spread through subsequent phases of the operation. Most significantly, 

the brigade’s three air assaults would not begin until well after sunrise, thus 

magnifying the risks involved, a reality not lost on the commander and staff 

of JTF-South or on the paratroopers who had the mission. 

Planning and Preparations

The parachute drop on Torrijos-Tocumen was the first combat jump the 

82d Airborne Division had made since World War II, a milestone XVIII 

Airborne Corps planners attributed to plain common sense. The mission of 

attacking Panama Viejo, Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón was going to be 

“one of the most challenging . . . military operations” because the troops 

conducting it would have to be flown from the United States, to assemble once 

on the ground in what promised to be a “hot” combat zone, to board waiting 

helicopters at the scene, and to take off to assault three separate targets—all of 

this presumably with “no breathing space.” Since paratroopers jumping from 

planes would reach the ground and be able to assemble faster than soldiers 

landing in transports, an airdrop seemed an obvious course of action for the 

units assigned the mission. That, however, meant significant revisions to a 

long-standing version of the Blue Spoon operation order.1

1 The milestones noted were taken from the 82d Airborne Division’s official Web site at 

http://www.bragg.army.mil/82DV/History.htm. Quotes from Interv, author, Robert K. Wright 

Jr., and Joe D. Huddleston with Lt Gen Carmen Cavezza, U.S. Army, 30 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, 

Wash. As for Panama being the first combat drop for the 82d since World War II, paratroopers 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

238

The earliest versions of the plan drafted in 1988 did not include Panama 

Viejo, Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón among the high-priority H-hour 

objectives. Rather, the three were listed as on-order targets, to be attacked if 

necessary by a force taken from the 7th Infantry Division (Light), a unit whose 

previous experience with operations in Central America and frequent interaction 

with the Southern Command made it a logical choice for the assignment. A 

series of developments—the designation of the XVIII Airborne Corps as the 

executive planning agency for the Panama crisis, Thurman’s assumption of 

command at Quarry Heights on 30 September 1989, the failed coup three days 

later, and approval of a new Blue Spoon concept of operations—changed all 

that. The three PDF bases became high-priority targets, the neutralization of 

which would fall to paratroopers from the 82d. The light fighters from the 7th, 

with the exception of the brigade headquarters and one battalion already in 

Panama as a result of Operation Nimrod Dancer, relinquished their H-hour 

missions and, exchanging places with the 82d, became a follow-on force.2

Both divisions could trace their lineages back to World War I, both had 

experience in Latin America, and, in the 1980s, both came under the operational 

command and control of the XVIII Airborne Corps, the Army’s contingency 

corps. Yet, despite this comparable background, after the switch in Blue

Spoon roles was formally announced at one of Thurman’s planning sessions 

in Panama, a number of officers privy to the decision expressed displeasure, 

complaining of an “airborne mafia” at Fort Bragg, with its “godfather” now 

in residence at Quarry Heights. As General Kelly in the Pentagon observed, 

“A lot of people went around saying, ‘Well, you know Max is an old airborne 

guy and Carl Stiner can’t spell anything but airborne.’” Kelly dismissed the 

complaints, going on to explain, “The fact is, we could get an airborne division 

on the ground in ten minutes or we could get an airlanded brigade in a day and 

a half.” At Fort Ord, Maj. Gen. Carmen Cavezza, the commanding general 

of the 7th Infantry Division, later stated that he had accepted the decision, 

even though there “was no reason given except that the plan called for quick, 

decisive involvement.” “Once General Thurman came in and made General 

Stiner his war fighter,” Cavezza continued, “there was no doubt in my mind 

that that was going to be that way. I didn’t have any problems with it. If they 

left the plan as originally drafted I think it would have worked as well. I’m 

not going to say it would have worked better; I don’t know that. But I think it 

would have worked as well.”3

from the division did participate in the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and 

in the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 but in both cases airlanded in the area of operations. 2 On the early and revised plans concerning the 82d Airborne Division, see Briefing Slides, 

Blue Spoon: The Evolution of the Plan for Just Cause, n.d.; Interv, Wright with G–3 Plans 

Section, XVIII Abn Corps, 30 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Telephone Interv, author with Maj 

David Huntoon Jr., 27 Jun 1990. 3 Kelly’s quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 89. Cavezza’s 

quotes from Interv, author, Wright, and Huddleston with Cavezza, 30 Apr 1992. The ties between two key planners—Maj. David Huntoon of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Maj. William 

Caldwell of the 82d—epitomized the close working relationship between the corps and the division in Blue Spoon planning. The two officers had been classmates in the School of Advanced 

Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth. At Fort Bragg, according to Caldwell, each time Huntoon 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

239

Maj. Gen. James H. Johnson Jr., the 82d’s commander since October 1988, 

was briefed on the new missions Stiner’s staff envisaged for his paratroopers 

just prior to the first of Thurman’s postcoup planning meetings in Panama. As 

a consequence, according to Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Kinzer, the assistant division 

commander for operations, “We started planning in earnest,” an undertaking 

that involved staff officers from the 82d’s intelligence, operations, and logistics 

shops. Before leaving for the initial session at Quarry Heights, Johnson and 

his staff looked closely at what was then Operation Plan 90–1 and “developed 

implementing plans and began to look at concepts for employment, the troop 

list, the mission analysis of the targets, . . . the battle tasks that would be 

associated with our involvement.” They employed the “backward planning 

sequence,” first determining how they wanted to launch the air assaults from 

Torrijos-Tocumen and then working back from that to ascertain the best 

way to arrange the airdrop there so that a brigade of paratroopers and their 

equipment “could be assembled and quickly moved to pickup zones (PZs) on 

the taxiway to the west of the main runway at Torrijos.”4

In Panama, Johnson and his staff learned more details of the plan, which, 

once back at Bragg and in subsequent trips to Thurman’s headquarters, they 

continued to refine. One critical issue revolved around the number of aircraft 

needed to carry an airborne brigade and its equipment to the drop site at 

Torrijos-Tocumen in a single formation, or serial, rather than piecemeal over 

the period of a day or so that a brigade from the 7th Infantry Division would 

“went somewhere with the corps commander he’d come back and back brief me in detail.” The 

friendship “really made the planning effort smooth,” Caldwell concluded. Interv, Col Kevin 

Benson (Ret.) with Lt Gen William Caldwell, U.S. Army, 27 Apr 2009, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 4 First quote from Interv, Dolores De Mena with Brig Gen Joseph W. Kinzer, U.S. Army, 20 

Apr 1992, Fort Clayton, Panama. Remaining quotes from Interv, Wright with Maj Gen James 

H. Johnson Jr., U.S. Army, 5 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.

General Johnson (center) at a briefing at Tocumen airfield on 20 December
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

240

have required. The deploying unit from the 82d would be the Division Ready 

Brigade, a unit held in the highest state of preparedness at Fort Bragg, relieved 

of routine demands on its schedule and capable of lifting off from adjacent Pope 

Air Force Base within eighteen hours of receiving an alert. The ready brigade 

assignment rotated among the division’s three combat brigades on a six-week 

cycle, so without knowing when Blue Spoon might be executed—although 

the best guess was that would happen sometime in January—no one could say 

which brigade would carry out the mission. Planners, however, estimated the 

minimum number of transports needed to deploy the bulk of any one of the 

three units at forty-eight C–141s. Because the Air Force had only 110 aircraft 

designated for use in conventional operations, there was some concern that the 

Military Airlift Command might not be able to meet the minimal requirement. 

To resolve the matter, Stiner at some point conferred with the military airlift 

commander, who pledged to have the forty-eight planes available within sixty 

hours of receiving notification. This was welcome news but did not address 

another problem: without at least fifty-two C–141s, a brigade from the 82d 

would have to leave behind all or part of certain organic assets, such as field 

artillery. Also, in a related issue, the summary of one planning session flatly 

stated, “Aerial refuel will be tough, if not impossible.”5

Johnson and his staff also used the trips to Panama to reconnoiter the 

assigned targets and the Torrijos-Tocumen complex. As the 82d’s chief of 

plans, Maj. William Caldwell, recalled, “At night, a Blackhawk would come 

and pick us up and we’d go to various points around the country.” One of the 

group’s priorities was to identify landing zones for troop-carrying helicopters 

at each of the three objectives. The concept was straightforward enough: “We 

were trying to select landing zones that were out of direct fire range of the 

5 Intervs, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990; author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 

13 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, and 21 May 1991, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Quote from 

Memo for J–3, 20 Oct 1989, sub: Major Points from XVIII Planning Meeting.

Joseph Kinzer at his later promotion from brigadier general to major general
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

241

targets, to get the troops on the ground. And then the notion was that we 

would seal off, isolate the objective, and commence to try to neutralize, if 

necessary destroy—whatever it took to get them to surrender.” On the ground 

in Panama, the actual selection process proved difficult. The PDF base at Las 

Tinajitas was “up on a high ground,” which made it “a tough objective to 

get to.” Panama Viejo, on the other hand, was near downtown Panama City 

and had “very constrained areas to get into.” Only the Fort Cimarrón landing 

zones met the criteria without complications. As for the proposed drop zone 

at Torrijos-Tocumen, Johnson received “pretty good imagery” from satellite 

photographs. He also flew near the airfield complex in a helicopter but “never 

got a good look” at it. Operations security dictated that the “fly-bys” take 

place “at a distance of 2,000, 3,000 meters or more, flying away from it” so as 

not to “hover over anything” in such a manner that would “give away what we 

were looking at.” From the photographs and air reconnaissance, the general 

developed concerns about the “tall elephant grass and swamp” to the east of 

the Torrijos-Tocumen runways. If the paratroopers landed in that terrain, 

the results would be unfortunate, but hardly catastrophic. The men, he was 

confident, would extricate themselves in a timely manner—“we can deal with 

anything,” he later asserted. But if the equipment landed in the swamp, it could 

get stuck. Worse, as he would discover, it could also disappear.6

Besides examining and selecting landing zones, Johnson and his people 

worked with the air mission commander in planning more details of the 

82d’s air assaults on the three objectives. Receiving special emphasis were 

the procedures to be followed at the pickup zones—the points at which the 

paratroopers taking part in the attacks would board the helicopters waiting at 

Torrijos-Tocumen—and the flight routes the aircraft would take once airborne. 

After several coordination sessions in Panama, the air mission commander, 

together with the commanders of various other aviation elements, visited 

Fort Bragg to fine-tune the arrangements. Ranger officers cleared to see the 

plan made that pilgrimage as well. Their participation was crucial because 

Johnson’s men would have to link up with ranger units securing an airhead 

at Torrijos-Tocumen, possibly while combat operations were still in progress. 

Furthermore, some units from the 82d would be moving to Las Tinajitas, 

Panama Viejo, and Fort Cimarrón not by helicopter but via ground transport 

and might require a ranger escort. According to Johnson, “We did the necessary 

coordination and liaison with Rangers to help facilitate the rapid movement 

of ground convoys.”7

Under Operation Plan 90–2, the commander of the 82d Airborne Division 

was listed as the leader of Task Force Pacific, another component of JTFSouth. The task force was responsible for over twenty assignments, key among 

them being a forced entry at Torrijos-Tocumen at H plus 45 minutes to reinforce 

the Rangers if required; assumption of control over the airport complex; air 

assaults to “isolate, neutralize, and/or destroy” Panamanian Defense Forces 

at Fort Cimarrón, Panama Viejo, and Las Tinajitas; and a linkup with, and 

relief of, Special Operations Forces at Cerro Azul, Paitilla airfield, and other 

6 First quote from Interv, Benson with Caldwell, 27 Apr 2009. Remaining quotes from 

Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. 7 Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

242

locations as needed. Other critical duties included the placement of one 

infantry company in reserve to conduct on-order air assaults, engagement 

of PDF reinforcements trying to enter the division’s area of operations or to 

reach Panama City, and preparations to secure and hold other targets and 

relieve other forces as required.8

In the task organization appendix of the operation plan, the order of 

battle for Task Force Pacific in the deployment phase consisted of one airborne 

brigade, with nine loudspeaker teams from the 4th Psychological Operations 

Group attached to it. At some point after the commanding general of the 82d 

was on the ground, the JSOTF units at Torrijos-Tocumen, together with Task 

Forces Bayonet and Semper Fi, would come under his operational control. Not 

itemized in the plan was exactly what the airborne brigade would bring with it; 

Johnson would have to determine that, based in part on the actual number of 

C–141s the Air Force could provide and in part on what was required to execute 

the assigned missions. After considering several alternatives, he requested that 

the brigade deploy as a task force with “its normal slice of artillery, engineer, 

air defense, military police, signal and so on.” That he would receive approval 

for this configuration was by no means a foregone conclusion. Stiner’s 

headquarters saw no need for the 82d to take field artillery pieces into Panama. 

Given that the plan called for most of the fighting to take place in or around 

built-up, populated areas, the rules of engagement and various restrictions 

designed to minimize collateral damage all but excluded the use of indirect 

fire weapons other than mortars. Johnson understood and accepted these 

constraints, yet did not like to deploy for combat without his artillery—“You 

never know what you’re going to go into”—so he set aside Stiner’s “initial 

guidance” and authorized the deployment of four M102 105-mm. howitzer 

tubes. “We took the capability of split battery,” he said later in explaining his 

decision, “and intended to use it out to the east at Fort Cimarron if necessary” 

where it would be “less likely to induce collateral damage.” There was never 

any intention, he emphasized, to use it in or near Panama City.9

Johnson also decided that his principal combat missions in Panama 

required the deploying brigade to take more than its normal complement of 

M551 Sheridan light armored reconnaissance vehicles. Besides the platoon 

of four M551s that had deployed secretly in November and would be used 

at the Comandancia, Johnson wanted eight more of the tanks to protect the 

troops and equipment that would be moving in ground convoys to support the 

82d’s missions. He also authorized seventy-eight HMMWVs for employment 

as troop carriers, TOW transports, convoy escorts, and command-and-control 

vehicles. Of the HMMWVs designed to mount the TOWs, several would be 

outfitted instead with .50-caliber machine guns, a configuration with which 

the division had experimented successfully before Just Cause. The 82d’s 180 

TOWs were “great in the Middle East” and for other contingencies, Johnson 

knew, “but not necessarily of any value in built-up areas or in the Central or 

South American or Caribbean Basin type of scenario.” Better to have a more 

practical weapon in those situations, and, while the Army’s M60 machine gun 

8 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.

9 Ibid. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

243

could be mounted on an HMMWV, the .50-caliber had “a lot more breakdown 

capability, blow-down of buildings, more accurate, more destructive.” By 

December 1989, the number of .50-caliber machine guns in a battalion had 

increased from five to around thirteen (the goal being twenty).10

The day the Joint Chiefs approved Operation Plan 90–2, they also 

authorized rehearsals for the units likely to be involved in its execution. The 

highly elaborate practice runs arranged for the Special Operations Forces 

based in the United States occurred mainly in the southeastern part of the 

country at a cost of what Stiner estimated as $3 million. In Panama, U.S. 

forces conducted rehearsals as part of their routine contingency readiness 

exercises, joint Purple Storm exercises, and Sand Flea maneuvers. For the 

82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg provided a readily available rehearsal site. 

There, the Division Ready Brigade was already scheduled to conduct one of 

its emergency deployment readiness exercises (EDRE) in late November, codenamed Operation Black Knight. With some changes, the exercise became a 

brigade battle task rehearsal using “a 100% replica of the operation we would 

execute in Panama” and closely resembling what the revised Blue Spoon plan 

contemplated for the paratroopers. Only personnel with top secret clearances 

and a need to know—which included the ranger liaison officers in attendance—

understood the full implications of what was taking place.11

During Black Knight, 2,100 paratroopers from the Division Ready 

Brigade jumped onto the fort’s Sicily drop zone, where “a set-up that somewhat 

replicated the Torrijos-Tocumen” complex had been created, including the 

roads the ground convoys would use. The Air Force had made twenty C–141 

troop transports available for the jump, the exact number that Johnson would 

have during Operation Just Cause, but not the additional craft needed to drop 

the brigade’s heavy equipment during the rehearsal. To compensate for the 

shortage, much of the equipment was pre-positioned on the ground. Once the 

paratroopers had landed, those participating in the air assaults assembled, 

moved to their pick-up zones, and boarded waiting Black Hawk helicopters 

from the division’s aviation brigade. Those that would travel overland in 

HMMWVs with the Sheridan escorts de-rigged the vehicles and equipment 

and prepared to move out.12

10 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Corps Historian’s Personal Notes 

Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. The several pages of typed notes were written by Robert K. Wright Jr. and can be found on the U.S. Army Center of Military History Web 

site at http://www.history.army.mil/documents/panama/notes.htm. 11 Quote from Interv, Benson with Caldwell, 27 Apr 2009. Intervs, Wright with Johnson, 

5 Mar 1990, and with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort 

Bragg, N.C. 12 Intervs, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990; with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990; De 

Mena with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992. Quote from Interv, Wright with Col Thomas H. Needham, U.S. 

Army, 6 Mar 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. In discussing the rehearsal in his 5 March 1990 interview, 

Johnson noted that, as with any “normal” training event, the seats in the Black Hawks were 

not removed. “The only seats-out training we did rehearse, though, [was] static,” he continued. 

“[We rehearsed] load training with seats out of the Blackhawk a number of times with those 

units that were in mission status. We had to do static load training with seats out so that our 

soldiers were accustomed to that. We are not allowed in peacetime to train, however, with seats 

out. Therefore, we didn’t in rehearsal. Could I have requested to do that rehearsal? Maybe. But 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

244

Although rehearsal sites for Las Tinajitas, Panama Viejo, and Fort 

Cimarrón were more difficult to replicate than the Torrijos-Tocumen landing 

zones, division planners could at least acquaint the troops with the kind of 

terrain and weaponry they would face if deployed for combat operations 

in Panama. Thus, the site representing Fort Cimarrón featured an “enemy” 

equipped with armored vehicles, while the Las Tinajitas simulation conducted 

in Bragg’s Northern Training Area emphasized the enemy’s heavy mortar 

capability. Since the division’s third objective, Panama Viejo, was located near 

downtown Panama City, the fort’s urban operations training site provided 

a realistic environment, including the presence of civilian bystanders. “We 

wanted to expose our soldiers to what they’d be running into there, a lot of 

noncombatants,” Johnson explained.13

The 82d’s rehearsal went “pretty darn well,” according to reports received 

by the operations officer at the XVIII Airborne Corps, so well, in fact, that 

Stiner’s staff made “no adjustments” to the plan. Stiner voiced one concern, 

however, but it stemmed from the practice runs taking place in Panama for 

the air assaults, not at Fort Bragg. U.S. Army, South’s aviation battalion—

the 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation—was not only “down in strength” but, in 

the general’s estimate, was “not proficient for doing night operations” with 

night-vision goggles. Because that battalion would participate in five of the 

anticipated nighttime air assaults, including those involving the 82d Airborne 

Division, efforts were made to raise the unit’s “level of proficiency.” Among 

other arrangements, this meant sending Black Hawk, Huey, and Chinook 

crews from Fort Bragg to Panama, together with door gunners from the 82d, 

to participate in “a very comprehensive training program” with the battalion.14

Unlike the corps, Johnson’s people did make some modifications to the 

plan based on issues they had identified. The first problem they had to tackle, 

one detected before the rehearsal, concerned the Division Ready Brigade. The 

3d Brigade held that status in late November but would relinquish it to the 1st 

Brigade soon thereafter. In all probability, the unit that had actually practiced 

the mission at Bragg was not likely to be the one to execute it. Yet, given the 

expense of a rehearsal and the demand such an event generated for resources—

some, such as aircraft, beyond the corps’ or division’s control—there was no 

practicable way for the 1st Brigade (or the 2d Brigade, for that matter, which 

would follow the 1st as the ready brigade) to stage a comparable exercise. 

Thus, as the 3d Brigade prepared for Operation Black Knight, Stiner and 

Johnson conferred on how to handle the problem, with the corps commander 

instructing his subordinate “to include his leadership, down to battalion level 

from the next brigade to assume the Division Ready Brigade mission, which 

was the 1st Brigade. And to put them in as controllers or something so they 

could see every aspect of it.” Johnson needed no convincing, and the outcome 

proved highly satisfactory. “We used the 1st Brigade to evaluate the 3d Brigade 

during the conduct of their EDRE,” he observed, after which officers from both 

I did not want to, did not want to make it look like we were rehearsing an OPLAN [operations 

plan] because I didn’t want to ‘blow’ the operation.” The brackets are in the original transcript. 13 Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990.

14 First and second quoted words from Interv, Wright with Needham, 6 Mar 1990. 

Remaining quotes from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

245

units had to “brainstorm” issues raised during the rehearsal, incorporating the 

agreed-upon solutions into the division’s tactical plan.15

In mid-December, the changeover in the Division Ready Brigade from 

the 3d to the 1st Brigade took place. By that time, the 82d’s participation in 

the planning sessions both in Panama and in the United States, together with 

the dress rehearsal at the Sicily drop zone, had reassured Johnson and those 

of his officers familiar with the division’s potential missions in Panama that 

the paratroopers were well prepared to accomplish what would be required of 

them in the event of hostilities. Late on 16 December, that prospect seemed all 

the more likely, as news of the death of Lieutenant Paz reached Fort Bragg.

Deployment

Realizing what the tragic news could portend, Johnson had his chief of 

staff, Col. George Crocker, gather the division’s senior staff officers for a 

midnight meeting. Johnson used the session to bring the group up-to-date 

on what had happened in Panama earlier that night. So far as the officers 

knew, the National Command Authority had not yet had time to assess and 

determine its response to the incident, but, according to General Kinzer, the 

officers present began “considering the options. . . . We just kind of reviewed 

the bidding in terms of our mission and role in a Just Cause–type operation.” 

The meeting lasted under an hour, with Johnson saying he would keep them 

abreast of further developments.16

Sunday evening, after receiving the telephone call from General Kelly 

in Washington informing him that the president had approved the invasion, 

Stiner contacted Johnson, who was attending the Winter Formal of the 82d’s 

aviation brigade, and told him to report to a meeting in the airborne corps’ 

planning area at 2200. When Johnson and his operations officer, Lt. Col. Dan 

McNeill, arrived, most of the other participants had already gathered. This 

was the meeting at which Johnson suggested using an emergency deployment 

readiness exercise as the cover story for the troop and aircraft activity that 

would be taking place at Bragg and Pope within a matter of hours. Among 

the several advantages offered by this subterfuge, one concerned the news 

media. Stiner knew that, in the wake of the shooting in Panama, there was no 

15 First quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Remaining 

quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. As Johnson made clear in his interview 

with Robert K. Wright, the continuous changeover in the Division Ready Brigade affected the 

82d’s planning process as well as the rehearsal. Specifically, once Stiner’s planners tapped the 

division for D-day combat operations, the 2d Brigade commander, Col. Jack Hamilton, and his 

staff wrote the initial operation plan. When the 3d Brigade became the Division Ready Brigade, 

its commander, Col. Glynn Walter Hale, and his people “developed a more comprehensive plan 

for the employment of the brigade and its assets and resources, based on the airlift that we had 

requested, what we would be able to take with us.” Hale also accompanied Johnson to at least 

two of the planning sessions in Panama, something that Hamilton had not had the opportunity 

to do. On Hale’s second trip, he was accompanied by Col. Jack Nix, the 1st Brigade commander, 

who, as events turned out, would execute the mission. 16 Interv, De Mena with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

246

way of stopping speculation about U.S. military intervention, but Johnson’s 

suggestion at least held out some hope for minimizing rumors until the last 

minute.17

The next morning, at 0600, Johnson met with General Kinzer and Colonel 

Crocker, telling them, “The president made the decision to execute. We will put 

the plan in motion for planning and rehearsal.” He also informed them about 

the cover story. As was the case during Stiner’s briefing, operations security 

dominated the discussion, with Johnson concerned “about creating a signature 

and compromising the exercise.”18 Yet, as they all knew, the twin nemeses of fog 

and friction would weigh in at some point. What they perhaps did not realize at 

that early stage of their preparations, those factors were already making their 

presence felt and would continue to do so with a vengeance. An indication of 

one immediate disruption to the timetable came with the premature arrival 

that morning of the C–141s from the Military Airlift Command and the 

adverse effect this had on the 82d’s N-hour sequence. There were also forecasts 

predicting extremely bad weather to take into account.19

At 0900 Monday, the XVIII Airborne Corps operations officer, Col. Thomas 

H. Needham, formally transmitted to Colonel McNeill, his counterpart in the 

82d Airborne Division, an order to execute Operation Plan 90–2. At that time, 

Johnson called his principal staff and brigade commanders together “to tell 

them that this was a real-world operation, not to be discussed with anyone, 

that we would be running an EDRE to cover the operation, that we would 

brief our troops at battalion level and below once we got into the marshaling 

area.” Until then, such as at an 1100 briefing required by the N-hour alert 

sequence, Johnson “used the same scenario as the one that we ran in the 

rehearsal to be executed here at Fort Bragg, just your normal EDRE, and just 

treated it as a normal training and readiness exercise using the troop list; that 

which was to be rigged, and that way we got the rigging started, and that way 

we got the troops down in the marshaling area isolated, so that we could then 

brief them and begin the troop-leading procedures and rehearsals, the issue of 

ammunition and MCI [mission contingency items], pre-jump training, and all 

the rest that goes into a real-world deployment.” Among the officers attending 

the briefings was Col. Jack P. Nix Jr., who, as commander of the 1st Brigade, 

had just days before seen his unit assume the role of Division Ready Brigade.20

At some point during this avalanche of information Monday morning, 

General Kinzer learned that he would lead the division advance party to 

Panama that afternoon. His entourage of about thirteen officers (including 

the division’s provost marshal), noncommissioned officers, and enlisted 

17 See Chapter 2 in this volume for more details on the Sunday evening meeting at Fort 

Bragg. See also Intervs, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990; with Johnson, 5 

Mar 1990; Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of 

events]; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. 18 First quote from Interv, De Mena with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992. Second quote from Interv, 

Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. 19 For the C–141 issue and the weather forecasts, see Chapter 2 of this volume.

20 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Interv, De Mena with Kinzer, 20 

Apr 1992; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d.; 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 58–59.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

247

men would not constitute the full “package” for the assault command post 

that Johnson would need. The group did include enough people, once they 

arrived at Howard Air Force Base, moved to Fort Clayton, and linked up 

with a few of the division’s staff members who had preceded them, to begin 

setting up a tactical operations center in Building 200, the headquarters of 

U.S. Army, South’s 193d Infantry Brigade. The arrangement made sense 

given the plan, once the division’s ready brigade and command, control, and 

communications elements arrived on the scene, to have Task Force Bayonet 

come under Johnson’s operational control in his role as commander of Task 

Force Pacific.21

As the advance party prepared for its departure, Johnson was focused on the 

airlift operations. Despite last-minute adjustments to the 82d’s readiness posture 

to accommodate the revised airflow schedule, the potential for operational 

friction remained. This became apparent when the twenty-eight C–141s slated 

to pick up the ready brigade’s heavy equipment and three container delivery 

planes arrived at Pope during the course of Monday afternoon. In a departure 

from normal procedure, all of the heavy-drop aircraft had been configured in 

advance to accept any cargo. The only problem was that the equipment was still 

not ready for immediate loading, much to the chagrin of the planes’ crews. In 

21 According to Kinzer, he arrived at Howard with General Stiner the evening of the eighteenth. At the air base, all the general officers received a briefing from General Hartzog, the 

SOUTHCOM operations officer, after which Stiner and General Thurman “issued final planning guidance, and some additional options were discussed, details of the plan updated, latest 

intelligence information was disseminated.” After this 45-minute session, another briefing took 

place at Fort Clayton, which did not end until 0200 the next morning (see Chapter 2). Interv, 

De Mena with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the 

Operation [Just Cause], n.d. Quote from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990.

Pope Air Force Base
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

248

planning sessions with the airborne headquarters at Fort Bragg, the Air Force, it 

seems, had received the impression that the division would have at least twentyfive loads—enough to fill five Starlifters—pre-rigged and ready to put aboard 

the aircraft soon after the parties involved had been notified that they would 

execute the Panama mission. The anticipated twenty-five loads were not ready, 

however, in part because of the early arrival of the C–141s and in part because 

the recent handoff of Division Ready Brigade responsibilities from the 3d to 

the 1st Brigade had not allowed time for the pre-rigging. Once begun, rigging 

the artillery, Sheridans, various vehicles, ammunition, and supplies proceeded 

apace, although the steady progress was not without some hitches. As Johnson 

later lamented, “We did not cover ourselves in glory in some of the rigging areas, 

particularly in the upload of the Sheridan tanks with live ammunition.” In one 

piece of good news, the forecasted bad weather held off throughout the day, 

allowing the thirty-one C–141s to depart Pope with the heavy-equipment loads 

between 2030 on 18 December and 0845 the next morning.22 

In the midst of these departures, the twenty C–141s that would transport 

the paratroopers to Panama began to arrive at Pope, with the first touching 

down at 2115 Monday and the last at 0300 Tuesday. By that time, Colonel Nix 

was well into the process of assembling the assault force. He had begun soon 

after being notified of the readiness exercise by having two of his 1st Brigade’s 

battalions, the 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 504th, make 

the two-mile journey by cargo trucks and trailers from their barracks on Fort 

Bragg to the personnel holding area at Pope Air Force Base. Because the six 

Quonset huts and three canvas-covered buildings in the holding area could 

only accommodate the two battalions, the brigade’s third infantry battalion 

had to stage at the corps marshaling area nearby. Normally, this would have 

been the 3d Battalion of the 504th, but that unit was already deployed in 

Panama at the Jungle Operations Training Center on the Atlantic side of the 

canal area, where it would come under the operational control of Task Force 

Atlantic. Johnson and Nix thus tapped the 4th Battalion, 325th Infantry, to 

bring the 1st Brigade up to strength. (That battalion, as it turned out, had a 

company conducting exercises in the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort 

Polk, so Company A, 3d Battalion, 505th Infantry, was attached to round out 

the 325th.) These three airborne infantry battalions would provide the nucleus 

of the 82d’s combat force, with each being assigned one of the principal 

objectives targeted for air assaults. Augmenting the force would be two field 

artillery batteries and a conglomeration of armor, engineer, maintenance, 

medical, supply, intelligence, signal, and military police units (Table 2).23 

22 Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. 

Quote from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Monday night, while some of the heavydrop C–141s were still being loaded at Pope Air Force Base, other Starlifters arrived from 

Charleston Air Force Base, picked up a number of HMMWVs, and flew them to Howard Air 

Force Base in Panama, returning to Charleston early Tuesday morning. Houston Myers, A 

First Lieutenant Navigator’s Experience in Panama (Student paper, U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.) Lieutenant Myers was a navigator on one of 

the C–141s that flew to Howard. 23 An overview of activities at the personnel holding area at Pope can be found in Flanagan, 

Battle for Panama, pp. 59–60. The order of battle for the 82d Airborne Division (minus) is taken 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

249

The paratroopers assembled in the holding area as the rigging of the heavy 

equipment was still in progress. Throughout the remainder of Monday and 

well into the next day, they went through the process of drawing ammunition, 

from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990; and History Office, XVIII Airborne Corps and 

JTF-South, Operation Just Cause: Task Organization of Joint Task Force South, at http://

www.history.army.mil/documents/panama/taskorg.htm.

Table 2—82d Airborne Division (Minus) Units for 

Task Force Pacific

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 82d 

Airborne Division (minus) 

1st Brigade, 82d Airborne Division (plus) 

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 82d 

 Airborne Division

1st Battalion, 504th Infantry 

2d Battalion, 504th Infantry 

4th Battalion, 325th Infantry (minus) (plus) 

 Company A, 3d Battalion, 505th Infantry 

Battery A, 3d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery (minus) 

Battery A, 3d Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery (minus) 

Company C, 3d Battalion, 73d Armor (minus) 

Company A, 307th Engineer Battalion 

Company A, 782d Maintenance Battalion 

Company B, 307th Medical Battalion 

Company A, 407th Supply and Service Battalion 

Company A, 313th Military Intelligence Battalion 

Company B, 82d Signal Battalion (minus) 

82d Military Police Company (minus) 

Source: History Office, XVIII Airborne Corps and JTF-South, Operation Just Cause: 

Task Organization of Joint Task Force South, at http://www.history.army.mil/documents/

panama/taskorg.htm.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

250

together with the gear and equipment they had not brought with them from 

their barracks. Because they would be going from a cold U.S. winter into 

the tropical heat, Johnson and his staff decided the troops would deploy 

“light”; they would not be overloaded. Flak jackets, water wings, grenades, 

claymore mines, and light antitank weapons were not issued. In addition, 

each paratrooper received less than a basic load for his individual weapon, 

while mortar and crew-served ammunition was also cut back. None of these 

items were likely to be needed at Torrijos-Tocumen, a ranger objective, so, 

in Johnson’s words, they could be “dropped [in] by bulk to be issued later.” 

The troops also had some time to put personal affairs in order, just in case 

they were actually going into combat, something they would not learn until 

just prior to boarding the transports. Most of the men would have liked to 

make a telephone call home to talk with their parents or families, but, as they 

knew, operations security prohibited any contact with the outside world, even 

during an exercise, once the troops were “locked down” in the holding area. 

They could, however, receive briefings on the “readiness exercise”; they could 

also zero in their personal weapons in facilities designated for that purpose. 

Then, at 1700 Tuesday afternoon, the time came to begin boarding the C–141s, 

which were waiting nearby at the Green Ramp. In a departure from normal 

procedure, the paratroopers received their parachutes at their aircraft when 

they went aboard via the rear ramp to begin their descent into the belly of the 

plane. Once situated, they waited, crowded together elbow to elbow, for the 

sound of the plane’s engines, which would signal an imminent takeoff. The 

wait, as it turned out, was a lengthy one.24

The “potpourri” of thoughts that raced erratically through one officer’s 

mind as he huddled aboard the transport probably reflected those of his 

companions. Initially, there was the fact, now known, that this would be a 

combat mission, and the officer tried to recall details from the briefing charts 

and acetated maps that he had viewed before boarding. Those images kept 

being replaced, though, by the faces of his family, friends, and coworkers. 

Doubts surfaced in his mind as to whether he had taken care of all the personal, 

family, and financial matters that are part of the preboarding routine. He 

mentally gave his one-year-old son a hug but then returned to the issue at 

hand, thinking of how this would be his first combat jump. In the swirl of 

contradictory emotions surrounding that essential fact, at one moment he 

considered himself lucky; at another, he acknowledged, “This is not fun.” 

There was one recurring image he found impossible to suppress: “the vision of 

a burning C–141 with paratroopers scrambling to get out.” The Panamanian 

military, he knew, had effective air defense weapons. At some point, he nodded 

off and then awakened. His “mental gyrations continued on and on.”25

Of his concerns, there was one shared by all U.S. officers around the country 

and in Panama awaiting the deployment of the 82d Airborne Division units: 

the weather. As Generals Stiner and Kinzer began setting up their operations 

centers at Fort Clayton; as General Powell and Kelly prepared to monitor 

24 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 59–60. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 

Mar 1990. Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. 25 Victor M. Rosello (then a major in the 82d Airborne Division), An MI Paratrooper’s 

Memory of Operation Just Cause, n.d.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

251

events from the Pentagon; as General Johnson and Colonel Nix stepped aboard 

the first and second C–141s in line; as the pilots and crews at Charleston and 

Pope went through their flight checklists; and as the paratroopers huddled 

aboard the Starlifters waiting for takeoff—all were grimly aware, directly or 

indirectly, that the predicted ice storm, the severest one in that part of the 

country in twenty years, had hit the southeastern coast of the United States. 

What impact the storm would have on Just Cause deployments was an open 

question. In Stiner’s operations center at Clayton, the senior Air Force officer 

on the scene, Brig. Gen. Robin Tornow, promised that his service would not 

let the command group down. He exuded confidence, in contrast to several of 

the other officers present who appeared less sanguine. At the behest of Colonel 

Needham, a piece a butcher paper on which the stateside departure of each 

C–141 could be recorded was taped to a door in the room.26

At Charleston Air Force Base, the crews who would fly the heavy-load 

and container delivery planes received their principal briefing at 1700. When 

the time came for questions, most centered on the enemy threat, which was 

reported to include surface-to-air missiles and medium antiaircraft defense 

weapons. In the estimate of the briefing officers, the airmen could expect to 

lose one or two planes to enemy action. While absorbing that disconcerting 

news, the crews were driven through the winter storm to their waiting aircraft, 

which Charleston maintenance crews began de-icing. According to one crew 

member, the process proceeded quickly and smoothly, in part because of the 

professionalism of the maintenance crews and in part because the Air Force 

base shared runways with a commercial airport that contributed its de-icing 

trucks and equipment to the effort. As a result, the Charleston contingent of 

C–141s experienced no major delays in getting airborne.27

That, however, did not mean that they were on schedule. Around 2000, the 

Starlifters began departing Charleston. Because of the ice storm and the heavy 

equipment on the planes, the takeoff interval between each aircraft was increased 

from twenty to thirty seconds. While this deviation from the norm seemed virtually 

imperceptible to the participating crews, the cumulative effect on all thirty-one 

aircraft was to prolong the time required to join in formation and to reach their 

high-level cruise altitude. Then, when word reached the crews that H-hour had 

been advanced by fifteen minutes, they realized just how far behind schedule they 

were. “In fact,” one navigator wrote later, “we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it 

all up, so we flew balls to the wall to do the best we could.” The result was “a very 

high fuel flow burn rate” that made midair refueling seem imperative. According 

to the same airman, “We were briefed there would be tankers all over the place 

after we conducted the airdrop,” but, the young lieutenant admitted, “my faith in 

tanker reliability had already been tainted at this short point in my career.” Added 

to these concerns were problems with the station-keeping equipment (SKE)—that 

is, the use of radio channels to keep the transports in formation during inclement 

weather. Because of an SKE malfunction in the storm, the last C–141 missed 

a number of commands, including “the command to descend from a mid-level 

26 General Tornow’s comment was overheard by the author, who was admitted as an observer to the corps’ operations center at Fort Clayton several hours before Operation Just Cause

began. 27 Myers, A First Lieutenant Navigator’s Experience in Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

252

altitude to the low-level structure.” Despite these troubles, the formation remained 

on course, if not on time.28

The impact of the ice storm was worse at Pope Air Force Base, where twentydegree temperatures ensured that any precipitation would quickly become 

drizzle, ice, and sleet. On the Green Ramp, the troops were covered with ice as 

they waited in rain jackets to board the C–141 personnel transports. Given the 

adverse conditions, “somebody made the decision that we would rig aboard the 

aircraft,” a lieutenant colonel in one of the lead planes recalled. “That was a wise 

decision. . . . It got the troops out of the weather and it protected the parachutes. 

. . . I remember when we got on . . . somebody had heated up the aircraft. . . . 

And I thought ‘bless you.’” As the soldiers boarded with their heavy rucksacks 

and other gear, they could see the icicles forming on the planes’ tails and were 

aware of the hurried efforts by airmen from the 317th Tactical Airlift Wing and 

Combat Support Group to de-ice each Starlifter. At first, only four trucks or 

so were available for the procedure, but the number doubled as the situation 

continued to worsen. When some of the aircraft had to be de-iced a second and 

even a third time, General Johnson and others realized that the planes would not 

take off on schedule. Johnson conferred with the air mission commander, who 

was with him on the lead aircraft, and told him, “Let’s get going with what we’ve 

got.” The C–141s would lift off as they were able, with those delayed the longest 

having to “catch up as best they can.” Following this decision, eight Starlifters, 

not quite half of the troop-carrying serial, began taking off from Pope at 2130, 

almost an hour behind schedule. As for the remainder, some would not leave the 

ground for another three hours. In hindsight, Johnson conceded that “legally, I 

don’t know if they should have taken off. It was a safety thing.”29

In the lead C–141, Johnson had the communications he needed, including 

a tactical satellite link that enabled him to talk with Colonel Nix’s C–141; with 

General Roosma, Stiner’s deputy, aboard a C–130 Airborne Command and 

Control Center; and with General Stiner in Panama. Once Johnson realized 

that what was supposed to be a single-column formation of C–141s carrying his 

paratroopers to Panama was actually going to be up to five separate clusters, 

he contacted Stiner and recommended that the 82d’s airdrop over TorrijosTocumen, already behind schedule, be delayed further until the Starlifters in 

the subsequent serials could catch up with the first, thus allowing the troops 

to jump simultaneously as planned. Stiner considered the request but, wanting 

to keep “as closely as possible to the original timetable,” decided against it. 

“Proceed with what you’ve got,” were his instructions to Johnson. As the JTFSouth operations officer, Colonel Needham, later explained, “We had a very 

28 Quotes from ibid. Myers contends that the official time listed for the beginning of the 

takeoffs from Charleston was incorrect. He may have been referring to the time of 2030 listed 

in two official chronologies that appeared after Just Cause, thirty minutes later than the time 

he recorded. Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology 

of events]; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. 29 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 201–02. Third, fourth, and fifth 

quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. First and second quotes from Interv, 

Wright and Maj Dennis Levin with 3d Bn, 319th Field Arty, 8 Feb 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; 

Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of events]; 

Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

253

detailed execution checklist. Once you start adjusting times, your execution 

checklist falls out, and so, I think, that it was pretty much the staff’s position 

and the boss’s position—let’s stick with the plan.”30

The heavy-load and container Starlifters arrived in Panama’s sky fifteen 

minutes ahead of the first eight troop carriers. Flying at a low level, the planes 

made their approach to Torrijos-Tocumen. The leading edge of the runway 

served as the “point of impact” for the drop; any equipment hitting the ground 

before that would end up in the mud. The first green light came on around 0158, 

with the last plane discharging its load seven minutes later. The formation then 

broke into smaller groups and gained altitude, with the crews looking for the 

promised refueling tankers only to find that there were none in sight. Cockpit 

gauges registering low fuel levels made for a nervous return trip, with many of 

the planes being forced to land at Air Force bases in Florida, instead of flying 

directly back to Charleston. Only later did the crews learn that the heavyequipment drop had not gone well.31

The plan called for the equipment to be dropped into an area that ran from a 

line just east of, and parallel to, the runways at Torrijos-Tocumen out to a perimeter 

fence about fifty yards away. By confining the loads and their parachutes to that 

drop zone, the facilities’ runways would be kept unobstructed for follow-on aircraft 

scheduled to land at Torrijos-Tocumen after daylight and for planes that might have 

to divert there if Howard Air Force Base became disabled or overcrowded. Also, 

as General Johnson observed, “we had helicopters coming in, twenty of them, 

blades turning, and we didn’t want the chutes to get caught in that.” The ground 

30 First and second quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Last quote from 

Interv, Wright with Needham, 6 Mar 1990. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 

202; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 33. 31 Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d.; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes 

Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d.; Myers, A First Lieutenant Navigator’s 

Experience in Panama.

Jump into Night, Torrijos Airport, by Al Sprague, 1990
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

254

in the drop zone was hard and mostly flat, ideally suited to receive the impact 

of rigged heavy equipment. Beyond the perimeter fence, however, elephant grass 

and swampy areas dominated the terrain. When the C–141s out of Charleston 

reached the objective, they were flying low over an area that was still very dark. 

It was “like flying into a black hole,” one of the pilots remarked. What Johnson 

may not have realized was that the Air Force standard for a successful drop was 

being able to place the cargo within 325 yards of the drop zone. That meant that 

some of the equipment, perhaps up to 40 percent of it, landed “long,” meaning 

to the north of the airfields or in the grassy and swampy areas outside the fence 

to the east. This included two of the eight Sheridans and numerous HMMWVs 

and trucks. Compounding the problem, mechanical difficulties aboard one of the 

transports caused one HMMWV to be released well beyond the drop zone. Worse, 

two containers were not dropped at all. The dispersion of the equipment made it 

highly likely that, once the late-arriving paratroopers were on the ground, there 

would be even further delays in launching the air assaults against Panama Viejo, 

Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón.32

This likelihood became a certainty when the paratroopers experienced 

the same dispersion as the equipment. The troop jump began once the first 

serial of C–141s arrived over Torrijos-Tocumen at 0211, just minutes after the 

formation from Charleston had finished the heavy drop. As the first man at 

the door of the first plane, Johnson “noted that we were already . . . way off 

to the east and already significantly beyond the southern end of the runway, 

so I went right away.” Others followed, experiencing as had the Rangers who 

had jumped over an hour before the blast of tropical air, like “a sauna,” that 

greeted them as soon as they exited the planes into the moonlit night. Once 

clear of their transports, they could see the outlines of the airfield buildings 

below. The tracers and fires they saw and the shooting they heard indicated 

that the Rangers had not yet overcome enemy resistance. Torrijos-Tocumen 

was still “hot.” To the paratroopers’ immediate relief, they realized that the 

airfields’ defenders were not employing air defense weapons. The nightmare 

conjured up by that prospect abated, in some cases to be replaced by another, 

32 Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of 

events]. First and second quotes from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Last quoted 

word from Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], 

n.d.; Myers, A First Lieutenant Navigator’s Experience in Panama. According to one account, 

some of the Rangers and paratroopers present at Torrijos-Tocumen believed that the dispersion 

of the equipment could be attributed to the heavy-drop C–141s flying too low and in a diagonal 

route over the airfields. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 202. According to 

Johnson in his 5 March 1990 interview, in the days leading up to Operation Just Cause, he had 

requested that, if the Air Force crews “were going to err,” that they “err on the side of flying 

closer to the runway, not away from the runway.” Afterward, he expressed his belief that “they 

erred flying away from the runway because of a concern they had about leaving equipment and 

having equipment laying on the runway, which would have rendered the runway unusable.” In an 

interview after Just Cause, Col. James M. Galyen, the air mission commander, indicated that all 

the heavy loads except for one HMMWV landed in the drop zone, an assessment possibly made 

on the basis of the Air Force’s standard for a successful drop. Portions of the Galyen interview 

are included in MFR, Lt Col Dunbar, Twenty-First Air Force, to Maj David Huntoon, XVIII 

Abn Corps, 24 Jul 1990, sub: Request for Information, 998 HMMWV Malfunction During 

Operation Just Cause. 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

255

depending to a large extent on where one landed—on the drop zone or in the 

swamp and elephant grass. The results of the first serial were mixed.33

The same was true of the jumps that followed at 0351, 0400, and 0451. 

The final group from the 82d did not arrive until 0517, just before dawn, 

mainly because the seven Starlifters they were in had to make three passes 

over Torrijos-Tocumen—which required an aerial refueling between the 

second and third passes—before the troops received the green light. In all 

of the jumps, a significant portion of the paratroopers—again, up to an 

estimated 40 percent—landed north or well to the east of their landing 

zones. The Air Force air mission commander attributed much of the 

inaccuracy to the fact that the men had been told there would be no “red 

light” to stop the jump process; they were to continue exiting the aircraft, 

even if the planes had already flown past the landing zones. Hours would 

pass before many of the last soldiers to jump would work their way through 

the swamp and grass to their assembly areas. En route, they generally 

encountered fellow paratroopers, as well as an occasional enemy soldier or 

two fleeing the battle. (In cases involving encounters of the latter kind, the 

paratroopers generally held their fire unless the Panamanians posed a direct 

threat.) The troops who reached the perimeter fence used it to maneuver 

to a place where, lacking bolt cutters but using their rucksacks as ladders, 

they could scale the barrier somewhere near their assembly points. Despite 

these miscues and difficulties, 2,179 soldiers from the 82d had arrived in the 

combat zone by 0530 and were preparing to execute their assigned missions.34

On the Ground

While descending over Torrijos-Tocumen during the first wave’s jump, 

General Johnson could see heavy equipment “considerably to the right of 

the runway.” He himself landed in the elephant grass but inside the perimeter 

fence, a fact that allowed him to reach the runway soon after he had shed his 

parachute and harness. Not every paratrooper was so fortunate. Some landed 

outside the fence. Some landed on the designated drop zone but suffered foot 

and leg injuries from the concrete surface. (In all, there were an estimated 

thirty-seven minor injuries, including broken toes and legs, sprained ankles, 

and pulled back muscles.) One military intelligence officer during the jump 

could not lower his 85-pound rucksack, the weight of which caused his 

33 Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of 

events]. First quote from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Corps Historian’s Personal 

Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. Second quote from Rosello, An 

MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause. Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 173. 

According to the 82d’s provost marshal’s report, “During the parachute assault, the PDF did 

not use any air defense weapons. The ZPU–4s reportedly at the airfield were not utilized.” Rpt, 

Lt Col David L. Patton, Provost Marshal, 82d Abn Div, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990. 34 Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d.; 

Interv, Wright and Levin with 3d Bn, 319th Field Arty, 8 Feb 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 214–15; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 164–65. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

256

parachute to “oscillate,” which in turn caused his head, fortunately covered by 

a Kevlar helmet, to hit hard on the runway.35

Regardless of where a paratrooper landed at Torrijos-Tocumen, the first 

order of business was to reach the assembly point assigned to his unit. Moving 

from south to north, the southwest end of the runway was the assembly point 

for the 2d Battalion, 504th Infantry; the area just north of that toward the 

center of the runway was for the 1st Battalion, 504th; then came the division 

assault command post; and finally at the northeast end, the 4th Battalion, 

325th Infantry. General Johnson, after making his way out of the grass with a 

Signal Corps captain he had “picked up . . . along the way,” was the first soldier 

from the 82d to reach the runway. As other paratroopers began to arrive—

some after moving through ranger units still engaged in combat operations at 

Tocumen—the general turned his attention to pulling his assault command 

post together. Within an hour, he estimated, it was operational. Behind a 

security perimeter established by a small detachment of military police, he had 

his operations and intelligence personnel and the radio operators that enabled 

him to talk directly to General Stiner and to begin sending reports. Other men 

arrived to round out the group, after which Johnson moved the command 

post into the Eastern Airlines maintenance building near the main terminal at 

Torrijos International Airport, “our new Division Headquarters home away 

from home.”36

While Johnson and his staff got situated, the three platoons of the military 

police company that had jumped in the first wave with the general headed 

to their assigned areas. For the 1st Platoon, that meant splitting into three 

squads, with each one going to a different infantry battalion assembly area to 

participate in the planned air assaults. Elements of the 2d Platoon continued 

to provide security for the assault command post, while other military police 

set out to secure the airport and to find the transportation they would need to 

perform their “area security and battlefield circulation control missions.” No 

vehicles had been dropped for the military police by the C–141s, and, because 

of competing airlift priorities for follow-on troops and equipment, none were 

expected for several days. Knowing this in advance, the 82d’s provost marshal 

had devised a “fix”; he trained certain personnel to “procure” the necessary 

vehicles, which essentially meant hot-wiring any civilian cars or vans in the 

area. While some of the military police in the 2d Platoon were applying these 

newly acquired skills, the 4th Platoon moved to the main terminal at Torrijos 

to provide security, to guard the terminal’s shopping mall whose duty-free 

shops were still open but unsupervised, and, most important, to take control 

of the prisoners and civilians the Rangers had assembled. This last assignment 

35 First quote from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Second quote from Rosello, 

An MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause. The injury estimate can be found 

in MFR, Dunbar for Huntoon, 24 Jul 1990, sub: Request for Information, 998 HMMWV 

Malfunction During Operation Just Cause. 36 First quote from Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. Second quote from Rosello, 

An MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause. Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 

15 Mar 1990.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

257

became what in retrospect was described as “clearly the most challenging task” 

the military police company faced at the airfields.37

That challenge emanated from the unexpectedly large numbers of airline 

passengers and airport employees gathered in the terminal and from the fact 

that several enemy soldiers had shed their uniforms and were mingling with the 

civilians. Separating the former from the latter meant interrogating everyone, 

up to four hundred people. A seven-man counterintelligence and prisoner-ofwar interrogation team, which had been task-organized to the military police 

company’s 4th Platoon, did not have nearly enough personnel to carry out the 

assignment, so civil affairs teams attached to ranger units and two squads from 

the military police company’s 2d Platoon provided needed assistance. Even 

then, the process lasted all day and into the following night, with the strain 

visible on the faces of the questioners and their subjects. To mitigate the stress, 

the intelligence personnel and military police permitted “liberal use of the 

airport bathroom facilities” and handed out “plenty of MREs [meals, ready 

to eat].” Enemy soldiers identified during the interrogations were removed 

from the larger assemblage and taken to the prisoner collection point. As for 

the civilians, some did not appreciate having been placed in such danger, not 

to mention having their holiday travel plans disrupted. Others accepted the 

inevitable with good grace. One U.S. officer, for example, was touched when a 

Nicaraguan woman told him that, when she returned to her country, “I will tell 

my story to the Sandinista government. I will tell them that their descriptions 

of the US Army as a bunch of blood-thirsty killers is false. We have been 

treated with utmost courtesy the entire time here. Thank you.” This gratitude 

and the display of respect that accompanied it reportedly mollified many other 

resentful and disgruntled civilians caught up in the ordeal.38

Downstairs from the interrogation area in the terminal, medics from the 

82d set up what was supposed to be a temporary dispensary but which, over 

the next few days, became a “fully functioning field hospital.” During the 

dispensary’s operation, two Panamanian babies would be born, and military 

personnel and civilians could be treated for a variety of ailments. One officer 

recalled the incongruous sight of one of his men grimacing from receiving a 

gamma globulin shot in his backside, while just ten yards away a pregnant 

woman was receiving a pelvic examination.39

As paratroopers began replacing the Rangers in the main terminal, in the 

Eastern Airlines building next door, Johnson was acquainting himself with 

the military situation on the ground in and around Panama City. As soon as 

he had operable communications, he talked with the JTF-South operations 

center and with his division’s tactical command post in Building 200 at Fort 

Clayton. At the latter location, General Kinzer had been closely monitoring 

the activities of Task Force Bayonet in Panama City and Task Force Semper 

Fi on the west side of the canal. Although both groups were slated to come 

under the operational control of Johnson’s Task Force Pacific once the 

division commander had established his headquarters at Torrijos-Tocumen, 

37 Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990. 38 Ibid. Quotes from Rosello, An MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause. 39 Rosello, An MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

258

Kinzer was having second thoughts about the arrangement. As the general 

later explained, “It just appeared to me not to be prudent to change command 

relationships as the battle was ongoing.” Both task forces had “real fights” on 

their hands and both were faring very well. “If we were to change [the existing] 

relationship and plug it into the 82nd Division, and had everybody change 

their lines of commo,” he continued, “I felt it would be counterproductive 

and confusing.” Even before Johnson’s arrival in-country, Kinzer conveyed 

his assessment to Colonel Needham in the JTF-South operations center and 

convinced him that the command arrangements for Task Forces Bayonet and 

Semper Fi should not change. Needham passed the request to Stiner, who 

agreed, thus settling the issue. When Johnson arrived and was informed of 

Kinzer’s recommendation, he readily concurred. For the next few days, the 

two task forces in question would continue to work directly for the JTF-South 

commander. Such was not the case with the Rangers at Torrijos-Tocumen, 

however. According to plan, they came under Johnson’s operational control 

once the objective was pronounced secured. The formal time for the change in 

the command relationship was recorded as 1100 on the twentieth.40

Throughout the predawn hours, while the remaining four C–141 serials 

dropped the rest of the 1st Brigade and supporting units, several paratroopers 

on the ground, especially those in the armor and artillery elements that would 

move to the division’s three objectives in overland convoys, received orders to 

find the heavy equipment that had fallen beyond the designated drop zones. 

Each of the packages had been rigged for a night drop, which meant that they 

had chemical lights and other devices that would enable soldiers to locate them. 

“The problem,” according to one paratrooper, “was the grass was so high, and 

unless we happened to run—physically run—into the platform, we would not 

know it was there.” Some loads proved readily retrievable. Others took hours 

to find. Of the eight Sheridans dropped around 0200, the first one was not 

found until 0600. Another had been disabled in the drop, and a third was 

discovered stuck in swampy mud so thick and deep that the vehicle could not 

be extracted and had to be destroyed. As for the four M102 105-mm. howitzers 

dropped that morning, not one had been retrieved at the time the artillerymen 

from Battery A, 3d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery, began to assemble on the 

runway. In fact, the first piece, once recovered, was not ready to fire until 0800; 

a second piece by 0915. (These were the only two tubes that would deploy with 

the Fort Cimarrón convoy later that morning.) Finally, of the nearly eighty 

HMMWVs dropped, most were found to be in usable condition. One that 

had landed upside down could not be employed on D-day, while another was 

simply lost, with one report claiming that it had been dropped in the ocean. 

(Seven months later, Kuna Indians would discover the vehicle in the swamps 

and report it to USARSO’s 193d Brigade; the vehicle was extracted with all its 

weapons—except four AT4 rockets—and equipment inside.)41

40 Quotes from Interv, De Mena with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992. Interv, author with Brig Gen 

Joseph W. Kinzer, U.S. Army, 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 41 Quotes from Interv, Wright and Levin with 3d Bn, 319th Field Arty, 8 Feb 1990. 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 203; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes 

Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. Information on the discovery of the missing 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

259

While the search for the heavy equipment was under way but before all the 

paratroopers had dropped into Torrijos-Tocumen, General Johnson concluded 

that the 2d Battalion, 504th, had assembled enough manpower on the runway 

around 0400 to proceed with its air assault mission at Panama Viejo. But when 

he called Stiner and requested the necessary airlift, including a commandand-control helicopter, he learned that the aircraft were not available. Also 

conveyed to him was a concern about bringing in the required Black Hawk 

helicopters while two to three serials of troop transports were still en route 

from Pope. So Johnson waited while more and more of his soldiers and their 

equipment reached their assembly points. By dawn, the last of the paratroopers 

had jumped, and he could survey the status of each unit “just by looking up 

and down the runway.” Both the 1st and 2d Battalions had assembled about 80 

percent of their personnel and equipment and were ready to move out. More 

time passed, though, before the Black Hawks, the air mission commander, 

and Colonel Nix, the brigade commander, were ready to begin. As feared, 

the unfortunate combination of the ice storm and the errant equipment and 

personnel drops meant that all three air assaults would occur during daylight.42

The Air Assaults

The 82d’s air assaults did not launch simultaneously, but in a sequence 

determined by the priority given to each of the targets (Map 14). During most 

of the planning process, Fort Cimarrón occupied first place on the list thanks 

to the presence there of the mechanized, motorized, and armored Battalion 

2000. After the attempted coup of 3 October and the relocation of part of 

the PDF’s better-armed and -equipped UESAT to the military garrison at 

Panama Viejo, the home of the PDF 1st Cavalry Squadron, that location on 

the Bay of Panama replaced Fort Cimarrón at the top of the list. In fact, with 

the concurrent movement of several Battalion 2000 units to the Comandancia 

after the failed coup, the fort fell to last place. On the morning of 20 December, 

therefore, the 82d’s targets, from first to last in priority, were Panama Viejo, 

Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón. Around 0630, Colonel Nix’s 2d Battalion 

was ready to take off for the first of the three.43

The plan was elementary in concept. Two of the battalion’s companies, A 

and C, would be airlifted onto two landing zones, Bobcat and Lion. The first 

was a strip of grass north of the PDF barracks and training center; the second 

on the shoreline to the target’s south. Intelligence estimates indicated that, as 

the paratroopers arrived, they would be confronted by up to 250 Panamanians 

(180 from the cavalry squadron, 70 from UESAT), armed with small arms, 

sniper weapons, rockets, explosives, two V300s, and a ZPU4 antiaircraft 

platform. Once the U.S. soldiers were on the ground, according to Lt. Col. 

Harry B. Axson, the battalion commander, they would surround the garrison 

and employ a psychological operations loudspeaker team to persuade the 

enemy to surrender. In the meantime, Axson’s Company D would be heading 

HMMWV can be found in one of the attachments to MFR, Dunbar for Huntoon, 24 Jul 1990, 

sub: Request for Information, 998 HMMWV Malfunction During Operation Just Cause. 42 Interv, Wright with Johnson, 5 Mar 1990.

43 Ibid.
Las Tinajitas

PDF Garrison

Cerro Azul

 Television Tower

Om

Interna

Mili

Temple

mud

mud

Pedregal

San Joaquín

Ciudad Radial

Don Bosco

Tocúmen

San Antonio

San Isidro

San Fernando

San Miguelito

Panamá Viejo

P ANAMÁ

I N T E R - A M ER I C A N H I G H WA Y

1

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE P A CIFIC

20 December 1989

0

0

3 Miles

3000 Meters

Objective

Map 14
Pacora River

B A Y OF P A N AMA

Fort Cimarrón

Pacora River Bridge

mar Torrijos

ational Airport

Tocumen

itary Air eld

mud

mud

mud

Cabuya

Pacora

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H WA Y

1
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

262

to the objective in a ground convoy consisting of four .50-caliber mounted 

HMMWVs, the remainder of the battalion’s mortar platoon, two Sheridans, 

a command-and-control HMMWV, and a cargo HMMWV. Once the convoy 

linked up with the air assault element, the attacking force would have ample 

firepower to defeat the enemy if the surrender appeals had gone unheeded.44

Across the canal, on the Empire Range, the Black Hawks that would fly the 

battalion’s two companies to their landing zones were awaiting word to pick up 

the troops. Several of the helicopters belonging to the Pacific-side contingent 

of Task Force Aviation had participated in the air assault at Fort Amador and 

had refueled at the range, the crews thankful they had made it thus far without 

being hit. Other crews at the range would be flying their first mission in Just

Cause. All were apprehensive that, in the fast-approaching operation, enemy 

antiaircraft fire would become more intense and more accurate than had been 

experienced to that point. These fears escalated when word arrived that the 

82d had been delayed and that air assaults scheduled for nighttime would now 

take place after dawn. As one flight platoon leader put it, “finding out that we 

were going to be doing this at daylight right away increased the ‘pucker factor’ 

so to speak because I knew we’d be sitting ducks.”45

44 “The Day Of Bronze Stars,” in Soldiers in Panama: Stories of Operation Just Cause

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Department of the Army, 1990), p. 

22; Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990; Briefing Slides, Committed PDF Forces, 

n.d.; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 217; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 

176–77. 45 Quote from Interv, Wright with 1st Lt Lisa M. Kutschera, U.S. Army, 8 Jan 1990, Fort 

Kobbe, Panama. Interv, Wright with Lt Col Douglas I. Smith, U.S. Army, 12 Jan 1990, Fort 

Kobbe, Panama.

The PDF 1st Cavalry Squadron compound at Panama Viejo. After seizing the compound, the 

paratroopers used the ruins next to it as their tactical operations center.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

263

When the first group of Black Hawks finally took off and arrived at 

Torrijos-Tocumen to pick up as many troops as possible from the 2d Battalion 

and attached elements, several portents added to this uneasiness. For starters, 

as the lead helicopters flew in, their rotor wash caused discarded parachutes 

lying by the runway to start floating in the air, compelling the crews in the 

following craft to engage in some split-second maneuvering to dodge the 

debris and keep it from getting tangled in their blades. Once on the ground, 

loading soldiers and equipment took longer than expected, largely because 

only nine of the required twenty-one Black Hawks had arrived and because 

the troops were lined up to take their seats on the helicopters, as they had 

practiced during exercises at Fort Bragg, only to discover that, for going into 

combat, the seats had been removed. “It took them a while to get rearranged 

and get themselves and all the gear on to the aircraft,” one pilot recalled. In 

the process, anywhere from twenty to thirty paratroopers, instead of the usual 

eleven, found themselves crammed together on a single aircraft.46

The ten-minute flight from the pickup zone to the two landing zones 

at Panama Viejo was uneventful save for the shared awareness aboard the 

helicopters that the defenders would be able to see the Black Hawks coming. 

Just how many enemy soldiers would actually be at their posts and prepared 

to fight was anyone’s guess and another source of anxiety. Unknown to the 

2d Battalion, about half the garrison at Panama Viejo had donned civilian 

clothes and, around 2300, had headed north and out of the area with their 

weapons. About fifteen to twenty Panamanians remained in the barracks, 

while many more occupied civilian homes in the vicinity. Nix’s paratroopers 

46 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Kutschera, 8 Jan 1990. Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 

176.

UH–60 Black Hawk helicopter in Panama
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

264

would not be facing the large force they were anticipating. Those enemy 

combatants who had not fled, however, were well armed. They were also well 

positioned in that the proximity of the 1st Cavalry Squadron compound to 

Panama City had greatly narrowed the 82d’s selection of landing zones near 

the target—in General Johnson’s words, the choice was less than “a piece 

of cake.” Though the paratroopers approaching Panama Viejo did not fully 

realize just how precarious the location of the two landing zones was, most of 

them still experienced a strong sense of foreboding that things were about to 

get “hairy.”47

The fears proved warranted, but only partly because of the resistance 

mounted by the Panamanians. Around 0700, as the paratroopers reached their 

landing zones, all the helicopters came under small-arms fire, but this turned 

out not to be the paratroopers’ principal problem. At Bobcat, the landing zone 

consisted of grass growing well above the head of the soldiers, a condition 

not detected during pre–Just Cause overhead reconnaissance flights, usually 

conducted at night with the aid of night-vision goggles. Once in the grass, 

the paratroopers lost sight of one another; moreover, they found it impossible 

to determine the positions of enemy troops firing at them. The situation was 

even worse at Landing Zone Lion. By the time the assault got under way, the 

tide from the Bay of Panama had ebbed. From the air, the mud flats revealed 

by the receding water appeared hard and flat. When the men of Company A 

dropped with their gear from the Black Hawks, many found themselves up to 

their chests and armpits in a dark ooze that seemed to suck them in. As the 

men struggled, one Black Hawk remained behind, hovering low over the mud 

flats while crew members tried to pull the soldiers onto solid ground.48

During the time U.S. forces at both landing zones were under fire, the 

defenders did not open up with a .50-caliber machine gun they had on the 

barracks roof, or with the ZPU4 antiaircraft weapon near the beach. (Some 

paratroopers at Bobcat later claimed that they had heard the ZPU fire three 

rounds before jamming.) If either weapon had been employed, the result would 

have been a “nightmare” or “bloodbath.” The small-arms fire was intense, 

yet even when a PDF position was detected, the rules of engagement often 

precluded bringing it under fire. There were simply too many civilians in the 

area, many of whom had gathered outside to view the American attack. The 

constraints on returning enemy fire if innocent bystanders might be harmed 

extended as well to the Cobra and two Apache attack helicopters flying 

overwatch positions above Panama Viejo. While cursing the civilian presence 

that initially seemed to aid the defenders, however unintentionally, the troops 

and helicopter crews soon had reason to be grateful, as many of the onlookers 

formed human chains, using their hands and ropes to extract the immobile 

paratroopers at Landing Zone Lion from the mire.49

47 Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with 

Johnson, 5 Mar 1990. 48 “The Day Of Bronze Stars,” in Soldiers in Panama, p. 23; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, 

pp. 178–79; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 217, 219. 49 First quoted word from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 178. Second quoted word from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 219. Lieutenant Kutschera elaborated on 

the rules of engagement for the aviators. “We weren’t supposed to return the fire unless we could 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

265

While the drama at Bobcat and Lion was unfolding, the Black Hawks 

had returned to Torrijos-Tocumen to pick up another load of paratroopers—

soldiers, the crews believed, who were waiting to launch against Las Tinajitas. 

Instead, the pilots received word that Colonel Nix wanted the remainder of 

the 2d Battalion air assault force, meaning the rest of Companies A and C, 

the mortar platoon, and now some elements from Company B as well, taken 

to Panama Viejo first. The news was received with little enthusiasm. For the 

returning Black Hawk crews, it meant retracing their route to two hot landing 

zones. “It would give everybody that missed us the first time a second chance,” 

one pilot observed sardonically. Indeed, after depositing the troops during the 

second lift, three of the Black Hawks were hit. When the helicopters returned 

to Tocumen, the air mission commander ordered them shut down and checked 

out for damage. The brief respite before those that were still able to fly took off 

again would be used by the paratroopers, who one pilot described as “rather 

disorganized at that point,” to improve their “PZ posture.”50

After the second and third troop lifts to Panama Viejo, there were five 

hundred U.S. soldiers at the objective, enough to defeat any Panamanian 

force in the vicinity. Moreover, the paratroopers at Bobcat had managed to 

advance from their landing zone after one of the sergeants in Company C 

finally located an isolated enemy position and, through the use of a grenade 

launcher and directed machine gun fire, neutralized what had been a source of 

heavy and continuous fire. That notwithstanding, there was still a good deal of 

confusion, especially when elements of Company B landed at Lion instead of 

their intended landing zone, Bobcat, thus splitting the unit and commingling 

it with Companies A and C. In time, Colonel Axson sorted out the commandand-control problems, and the three companies began maneuvering against the 

PDF compound, pausing at times to exchange fire with groups of determined 

defenders. Once Company A gained a foothold in the PDF headquarters 

building and Company B had caused enemy troops within the barracks area 

to flee into civilian neighborhoods nearby, Company C could begin clearing 

the remaining buildings.51

While 2d Battalion’s paratroopers were engaging the enemy at Panama 

Viejo, the unit’s ground convoy of HMMWVs and Sheridans that had started 

out from Torrijos-Tocumen at 0910 ran into a roadblock near a bridge. Two 

burned-out cars stopped the column’s movement, while an estimated forty 

Panamanians armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades 

opened fire from a building close by, forcing the U.S. troops to dismount their 

definitely identify who it was, if it was any hostile fire [coming] our way, and shoot only as much 

as it took to suppress that fire. Because they did tell us that after this was all over with, we’re 

going to try and convince the good, honest members of P.D.F. to back the new government, the 

elected [Endara] government, and that by us just continuing to hammer them was going to make 

that a lot more difficult. So it was kind of a difficult situation for us in not wanting to hurt any 

innocent civilians, not wanting to hurt anybody that wasn’t hurting us, but still having to protect 

our own lives and aircraft.” Interv, Wright with Kutschera, 8 Jan 1990. 50 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 179. Quotes from Interv, Wright with Kutschera, 8 Jan 

1990.51 “The Day Of Bronze Stars,” Soldiers in Panama, pp. 22–23; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, 

p. 179.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

266

vehicles. A platoon from Company D removed the roadblock, but, during 

the firefight, an enemy machine gun in the building claimed the life of Spec. 

Alejandro J. Manrique-Lozano. The platoon leader responded by destroying 

the machine gun with a LAW, after which his men entered the building. In 

the room-to-room fighting required to clear the premises, eleven Panamanians 

were killed. Two others were killed behind the structure. Shooting near the 

bridge continued, however, with the remaining defenders being routed only 

after reinforcements consisting of forty men and an additional Sheridan arrived 

from Torrijos-Tocumen. Once the firing subsided, the Company D commander 

ordered his men back in the HMMWVs, but, instead of proceeding to Panama 

Viejo, the convoy received orders to return to the airport complex, where it 

linked up with the convoy from the 1st Battalion getting ready to set out for 

Las Tinajitas.52

At 1140, Colonel Axson reported the Panama Viejo garrison under the 

control of American troops, who had captured eight of the enemy. Real and 

potential threats to U.S. forces, however, were still in evidence. There was, 

for starters, the group of armed PDF soldiers from the cavalry squadron 

who arrived at their headquarters Wednesday morning apparently oblivious 

to the fact that the United States had invaded their country. Outnumbered 

and incredulous, most offered no resistance before surrendering. More 

serious were the intermittent sniper and mortar rounds, as well as the driveby shootings directed at American positions throughout the day. In most 

cases, the drive-bys proved little more than suicide missions, as U.S. forces 

successfully repulsed nine of them, usually with well-aimed and deadly smallarms volleys. In a slightly more imposing show of PDF resistance, an armored 

V300 headed directly for an American position but was disabled by a soldier 

standing in its path with an antitank rocket. Later, the two Apaches flying 

above Panama Viejo in overwatch positions made their own contribution 

to disarming the enemy by destroying a “miniature motor pool” composed 

of two trucks and two V300s, all camouflaged. By Wednesday evening, the 

battalion’s perimeter at Panama Viejo was well established, and the area was 

generally quiet.53

As Axson’s men were clearing Panama Viejo during the afternoon and 

evening of the twentieth, word spread among them about the deadly situation 

the brigade’s 1st Battalion had encountered in its efforts to subdue the PDF 

1st Infantry Company at Las Tinajitas, the second target on the 82d’s priority 

list. That air assault mission had begun sometime after 0800 with the first of 

three troop lifts that employed some of the same Black Hawks that had carried 

52 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 181–82; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded 

During the Operation [Just Cause], n.d. 53 “The Day Of Bronze Stars,” Soldiers in Panama, p. 23; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, 

pp. 181–82; Corps Historian’s Personal Notes Recorded During the Operation [Just Cause], 

n.d.; Operation Just Cause: Significant Activities, n.d. [XVIII Abn Corps chronology of 

events]. Quote from Maj Michael L. Hedegaard, Task Force Wolf in Operation Just Cause: 

First AH–64 Apache Helicopters in Combat (Student paper, U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 2 Mar 2001). Major Hedegaard’s paper draws on his own experiences 

together with interviews he conducted with eight participants in aviation operations during 

Operation Just Cause.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

267

the 2d Battalion to Panama Viejo.54 Before the morning was over, the fighting 

at Las Tinajitas would take the lives of two more paratroopers. A much larger 

number of U.S. airmen and soldiers would be wounded in the battle.

What made the 184-man PDF 1st Infantry Company a high-priority target 

in Operation Just Cause was the unit’s mortar inventory, especially the 81-

mm. medium mortars and 120-mm. heavy mortars capable of disrupting U.S. 

activities at numerous locations, including Howard Air Force Base, TorrijosTocumen, Fort Clayton, and Quarry Heights. The mission of the 82d’s 1st 

Battalion, 504th Infantry, therefore, was to “isolate, neutralize, and/or destroy” 

the enemy company.55 Obstacles to achieving this objective included the 

inaccessible location of the company’s concrete garrison near the top of a high 

hill surrounded at the base by ring upon ring of civilian shanties, particularly 

in the poor, pro-Noriega San Miguelito neighborhood. As at Panama Viejo, 

the presence of the housing areas negated the use of indirect preparatory fires 

against the target, restricted the landing zones that the Black Hawks could 

54 Sources differ as to the exact time the Las Tinajitas airlift began, although all have it 

starting between 0800 and 0830. 55 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.

The PDF 1st Infantry Company compound at Las Tinajitas, with a residential area below to 

the left.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

268

use, and limited the ability of door gunners and soldiers to return fire against 

suspected enemy positions. 

With these complications in mind, the 1st Battalion commander, Lt. Col. 

Renard Marable, sought to implement a plan whereby his troops would be 

taken by Black Hawks to two landing zones. The bulk of the force would land 

at Landing Zone Leopard, located in a ravine about 750 yards south of the 

garrisoned hill. One company would then fix the PDF compound from the 

front, as the battalion’s other infantry companies maneuvered to outflank it. 

Meanwhile, a single helicopter would proceed farther west to Landing Zone 

Jaguar, dropping a machine gun element on a ridge near another hill on which 

the PDF was suspected of using a religious temple as a mortar site. The task 

of the machine gunners was to eliminate the mortar emplacement and provide 

covering fire for the main attack. Overhead, Kiowa, Cobra, and Apache 

helicopters would provide assistance as needed.56

The actual operation, in the understatement of one participant, “turned 

out to be just a tad different” from the basic plan. The first of three troop 

lifts out of Torrijos-Tocumen—with each lift employing six Black Hawks—

made its way to Panama City, then turned northward toward Las Tinajitas. 

Throughout the ten-minute flight, two Cobras provided an escort. Meanwhile, 

a scout-gun team of two Apaches and a Kiowa flew over San Miguelito and 

Las Tinajitas from the northwest. Neither the troop carriers nor the attack 

helicopters encountered enemy fire. Indeed, a paratrooper aboard one of the 

Black Hawks looked down on the early morning skyline of Panama City 

and the water sparkling in the sun and thought, “Wow, that’s a pretty sight.” 

Given the beautiful panorama, the smoke rising from certain battle sites in 

and near the city seemed “weird” to him. Other passengers with a view of the 

city recalled seeing Panamanians waving at them. The deceptive calm then 

gave way to chaos as the Apaches and the Kiowa flew back over the houses 

of San Miguelito and came under fire from a machine gun position concealed 

on a hilltop—apparently at the temple suspected of harboring the mortar 

position—just northwest of the residential neighborhood. The Kiowa took 

the first hits as it flew lower than a hundred feet over the gun emplacement. 

Both Apaches in the team suffered a similar fate. None of the scout-gun team 

was shot down but damage to the Kiowa and one Apache forced them to 

return to Howard Air Force Base. As they departed the area, an attack team 

of additional Apaches arrived on the scene and began looking for the weapon 

that had caused so much havoc. Requiring a specific military target in their 

sights before they could open fire, the crew of the lead AH–64 finally spotted 

the uniformed PDF machine gun crew and, with permission from the task force 

commander at Howard, opened up with bursts from their 30-mm. cannon, 

followed by a 2.75-inch rocket. The machine gun position was destroyed, with 

ten of the eleven Panamanians manning the position killed.57

56 Interv, Wright with Capt Dave Taylor Jr., U.S. Army, 21 May 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 192–93; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

222–23. 57 Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990. Quotes from Interv, Wright with 

Taylor, 21 May 1990. Interv, Wright with Kutschera, 8 Jan 1990; Hedegaard, Task Force Wolf 

in Operation Just Cause.
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

269

Soon thereafter, as the Black Hawks entered the same airspace in what 

one pilot would call the “hottest” of the 82d’s landing zones, the paratrooper 

who had minutes before been marveling at the skyscrapers of Panama City 

began hearing sounds like popcorn popping, “you know, the tic-tic-tic-tic 

thing.” The sounds, he quickly realized, were AK47 rounds “bouncing off 

our helicopter.” In several instances, the fire was accurate and effective, 

as crew members and infantrymen received wounds from bullets coming 

through the floor, prompting numerous after action comments about the 

need to outfit assault helicopters with Kevlar floor blankets. The worst 

injury occurred aboard the lead Black Hawk, where the officer in charge 

of the formation, Capt. Thomas Muir, had been shot in the head and was 

bleeding profusely. When word of his wound was radioed to the other 

pilots, one, 1st Lt. Lisa M. Kutschera, “realized in my gut” what before 

she had known only “in my head that ‘yeah we can get killed doing this.’ 

But that was when it really, really hit me that . . . yeah, we can die out 

here.” Some Black Hawks, unable to land, hovered over Landing Zone 

Leopard, causing some paratroopers vacating the aircraft to jump from 

a height of thirty feet into eight-foot-high grass. In the haste to exit the 

helicopters and find safety on the ground, several troops inadvertently left 

their gear behind. The Black Hawks then pulled away, having to do a steep 

climb to avoid power lines strung over two hundred feet above the ground 

and across the designated departure routes. “We couldn’t really fly under 

them because there was another set of wires—shorter wires—underneath 

them,” Kutschera later related. “So we basically had to climb and make a 

good target out of ourselves to get out of there.” The two Cobra escorts 

would follow suit, but not before they fired a half-dozen 2.75-inch rockets 

into the hilltop garrison, helping to suppress the steady volume of enemy 

Air Assault, Tinajitas, by Al Sprague, 1990
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

270

fire. The Black Hawk with Captain Muir flew to Howard Air Force Base, 

where, after medical treatment, the officer survived his near-fatal wound. 

The other crews returned to Torrijos-Tocumen to examine their aircraft, 

several of which had been hit. When the damage was not so extensive as to 

prohibit flying, the pilots began preparing for further missions.58

Back at Landing Zone Leopard, the battalion had suffered its first fatality, 

Pfc. Martin D. Denson, who had been shot while exiting a Black Hawk. Seriously 

wounded, he was then hit by mortar fragments and later died. Enemy mortar 

and automatic weapons fire from the PDF garrison and from civilian buildings 

around the landing zone kept the other paratroopers pinned down, even as they 

tried to maneuver to a location from which they could get their bearings. The 

Panamanian defenders “had our number,” one soldier was convinced, and were 

prevented from inflicting heavier casualties only by the actions of the Apaches 

and Cobras, which “suppressed those guys long enough for us to get in alive.” 

Once all three companies were on the ground, they began working their way up 

a hill near the target, moving as quickly as they could through the unexpectedly 

steep and difficult terrain, thus forcing the PDF mortar crews to adjust their 

weapons continuously. The original plan for fixing and flanking the Las 

Tinajitas garrison gave way to one in which each company just did what it could 

to reach high ground. In the process, a second U.S. soldier at Las Tinajitas, Pfc. 

Jerry Scott Daves, received a fatal wound. While a medic was treating him on 

the hillside for a gunshot to the head, a mortar round went off next to them, 

killing Daves and wounding the medic. Rescue helicopters arriving to evacuate 

the wounded had to be waved off because of the heavy volume of enemy fire. 

After an exhausting climb, the Americans took a hilltop across from the PDF 

garrison. Two hours later, when they reached the garrison itself, the defenders 

had fled. At 1433, Colonel Marable declared the area secured, although, as at 

Panama Viejo, sniper fire continued for the remainder of the day.59

When the fighting at Las Tinajitas and Panama Viejo was later analyzed, 

several obvious similarities emerged. Perhaps the principal one had to do 

with the vulnerability of the helicopters during a daylight airborne assault. 

Too many Black Hawks had been shot up, although none had been shot 

down. No crew members had been killed, but a number had suffered wounds, 

as had several of the troops aboard. The attack helicopters had fared no 

better. Designed for night fighting, both overwatch Apaches at Las Tinajitas 

had been struck by machine gun fire as they flew close to enemy positions 

58 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 223–25. First quoted word from 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 193, and see also pp. 192, 194. Second and third quotes from 

Interv, Wright with Taylor, 21 May 1990. Remaining quotes from Interv, Wright with Kutschera, 

8 Jan 1990. Flanagan writes that a SOUTHCOM spokesperson later stated that two of the 

Black Hawks flown into the hot landing zones at Las Tinajitas were piloted and commanded 

by female aviators. Flanagan further observes that the 7th Infantry Division’s aviation brigade 

had twenty females, four of whom were pilots (p. 195). On a related note, Task Force Wildcat’s 

Capt. Linda Bray received widespread attention for commanding her MP company in a combat 

assault. 59 Quotes from Interv, Wright with Taylor, 21 May 1990. Rpt, Patton, Operation Just

Cause, 15 Mar 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 225–26; Flanagan, 

Battle for Panama, p. 194. 
The 82d Airborne Division on D-day

271

after dawn. The Kiowa, too, had been hit. As for the troops, they initially 

found themselves helpless to suppress enemy fire, either while en route to 

their objectives or after they were on the ground in landing zones that in 

daylight were well known to the enemy and, save for the tall grass, offered 

little concealment. Also, in both operations, the tropical heat, especially in 

the sunlight, played a detrimental role. At least a half dozen of the seventeen 

nonfatal U.S. infantry casualties at Las Tinajitas resulted from heat 

exhaustion or heat stroke. According to one account, “In spite of the superb 

physical condition of the paratroopers, a number of them fell victim to heat 

exhaustion during the attack up the hill, so steep that the paratroopers often 

fell to their hands and knees to climb through the thick and tall elephant 

grass. Heat, lack of water, and fatigue slowed the troops.”60 Finally, there 

seemed to be a consensus that, had the PDF defensive effort at Panama Viejo 

and Las Tinajitas been more determined and more professional, American 

casualties would have been much higher, and success in each of the operations 

might have taken much longer to achieve. 

Compared to Panama Viejo and Las Tinajitas, the air assault of the 4th 

Battalion, 325th Infantry, into Fort Cimarrón seemed almost anticlimactic. 

The first airlift did not even leave Torrijos-Tocumen until 1205 on 20 December. 

Six helicopters took Company A into Landing Zone Cougar west of the fort, 

and six took Company B into Landing Zone Tiger to the south. A second 

airlift brought the remaining paratroopers to the two landing zones, neither 

of which received enemy fire. Indeed, the fort was empty. What units had been 

there before H-hour had fled to the north, made their way to Panama City, or 

taken casualties in the battle at the Pacora River bridge.61

With the successful execution of the three air assaults on Panama Viejo, 

Las Tinajitas, and Fort Cimarrón, all PDF units in the Panama City area had 

been neutralized. By the evening of 20 December, a number of enemy personnel 

who had not surrendered continued to harass U.S. military positions around 

the capital, and some of Nix’s troops were called into the city to deal with a 

hostage situation at the Marriott Hotel. But the bulk of Noriega’s military and 

Dignity Battalions had scattered, hoping to elude capture until the situation 

stabilized and their future status became clearer. The PDF had ceased to exist 

as an organized entity. The centerpiece of the fighting in and around Panama 

City, the Comandancia, had fallen without any significant body of PDF 

reinforcements reaching the scene. The plan to isolate the PDF headquarters 

had worked, thanks to the efforts of soldiers, sailors, marines, aviators, and 

special operations forces executing their attacks on over a dozen targets in and 

around the city. There was also no repeat of 3 October, when during the coup 

attempt against Noriega, PDF units from Rio Hato had flown to his rescue. A 

battalion of U.S. Rangers had made sure of that. 

60 For the heat problem, see Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 225–26. 

Quote from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 194–95. Operation Just Cause took place a little 

over six years after the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. During the latter operation, the heavy 

loads carried by U.S. soldiers had also led to numerous cases of heat exhaustion. While the subject received much attention at the time, the problem had not been remedied, despite Johnson’s 

intention to go in “light” as a means of making his troops somewhat less vulnerable to the heat. 61 Rpt, Patton, Operation Just Cause, 15 Mar 1990.

9

Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

I

n using the concentric circle template to describe U.S. combat operations 

on the Pacific side of Panama during the first day of Operation Just

Cause, the Comandancia was the bull’s-eye, while the first three rings contained 

enemy units based in and near downtown Panama City, close enough to the 

PDF headquarters to interfere in the fighting there if they chose to do so. 

The fourth and final ring, however, targeted the PDF’s 6th Infantry Company 

(Mechanized) and 7th Infantry Company (known as macho de monte), both 

based at Rio Hato, a bit over sixty miles southwest of the capital.1 The 

rationale for linking these distant units to the Comandancia harkened back 

to the October coup attempt, when troops flown to the capital from Rio Hato 

played a decisive role in defeating the rebel forces and maintaining Noriega 

in power. To prevent a similar maneuver during Just Cause, the two infantry 

companies at Rio Hato would have to be neutralized. 

Plans, Preparations, and Deployment

In the Elaborate Maze and Blue Spoon contingency plans written between 

March 1988 and October 1989, the list of D-day objectives that would likely 

involve combat operations between U.S. and Panamanian forces targeted hostile 

units and command, control, and communications centers in the vicinity of 

Panama City and Colón. Special Forces would place PDF units at Rio Hato 

under surveillance, and JTF-Panama would stand ready to launch an attack 

if necessary. Most planners assumed, however, that the seizure of enemy bases 

that far from the capital would occur in the course of follow-on or on-order 

missions. When, after 3 October, the PDF 6th and 7th Companies became a 

primary H-hour target, U.S. Rangers previously assigned to the Comandancia 

mission found themselves charged instead with conducting an airborne assault 

to “seize Rio Hato airfield and eliminate PDF resistance in sector.” As part of 

the proposed operation, U.S. Navy SEALs would search nearby beach houses 

belonging to Noriega and frequented by his cronies.2

1 Macho de monte, often translated as “mountain men,” was in fact a Spanish-language 

nickname for a Baird’s tapir, a jungle animal the elite PDF company had adopted as its mascot. 2 The mission statement for the Rangers is from Briefing Slides, 75th Ranger Rgt, Operation 

Just Cause, n.d. In the Southern Command Blue Spoon operation order dated 30 October 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

274

Of the numerous hard targets at Rio Hato, the most prominent was 

a commercial-military airfield with its 1.5-mile runway laid out south to 

northwest. The southern end of the facility was about a thousand yards inland 

from the Gulf of Panama, with dense jungle covering the land approach from 

that direction. The barracks and headquarters for both PDF companies were 

located just west of the jungle and southwest of the runway; also in the area 

were the 6th Company’s motor pool; a communications center; an engineer 

platoon and motor pool; the Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute, a training school 

for noncommissioned officers; and a medical dispensary. South of the runway 

and jungle were the beach houses, while slightly north of the runway’s midpoint 

was the Inter-American Highway, which ran east to west and bisected the 

airstrip. Northwest of that was an ammunition supply point.3

Because Noriega had relocated some elements of the 6th and 7th 

Companies to bases in and around Panama City after the coup attempt, U.S. 

intelligence estimates of the number of armed defenders the Rangers would 

encounter at Rio Hato varied from three hundred to five hundred, including 

up to fifty engineers. Not included in these numbers were two hundred fifty 

cadets believed to be at the noncommissioned officer school, the assumption 

being that, lacking weapons, they were unlikely to join the fight. In contrast, 

both PDF infantry companies had well-stocked arsenals. The macho de monte

reportedly possessed 2 .50-caliber machine guns, 9 bazookas, 2 recoilless rifles, 

a couple hundred rocket-propelled grenades, 20 mortars, and 15 motorcycles. 

The mortars and motorcycles could enable the 7th Company to disperse and 

then bring indirect fire onto the attacking force; they could also shell the 

airfield, thereby disrupting the landing of U.S. aircraft scheduled to arrive 

after the initial fighting abated. 

According to one account, the arsenal of the 6th Company was “even 

more formidable.” In addition to machine guns, RPGs, recoilless rifles, and 

mortars, it also included three V300 and over a dozen V150 Cadillac Gage 

armored vehicles and three or more ZPU4 antiaircraft weapons, only one 

of which U.S. military intelligence could account for going into December. 

Furthermore, the SOUTHCOM intelligence directorate could not confirm 

rumors that Panamanian troops at Rio Hato possessed Soviet-built surfaceto-air missiles. Such missiles and the ZPU4s were capable of knocking ranger 

transport planes out of the sky, while each four-barreled antiaircraft gun 

could wreak havoc among American soldiers parachuting onto the airfield, 

the only practical drop zone for the objective. Planners hoped that darkness 

and surprise would minimize this enemy advantage; even so, the casualty 

estimate for friendly forces was frightening, with some figures ranging as high 

as 30 percent. Because of the role both PDF companies had played in rescuing 

Noriega on 3 October, Blue Spoon planners also assumed that the soldiers 

1989, the Rangers were tasked to “neutralize the PDF,” and, specifically, to “seize and secure” 

the Rio Hato airfield. CINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon), 30 Oct 1989. 3 The list of hard targets at Rio Hato is in Briefing Slides, 75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just

Cause, n.d.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 141; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 336.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

275

were still loyal to the dictator and would likely mount a spirited defense of 

their positions.4

Given these considerations, Colonel Kernan, the commander of the 75th 

Ranger Regiment, assigned the Rio Hato mission to his 2d and 3d Battalions 

(minus). Taken together, they formed the fighting core of Task Force Red-R. 

The concept of operations called for both units to fly from the United States 

to Panama, where, at H-hour, numerous aircraft—AC–130s, AH–6s, AH–64s, 

and F–117As—would pound enemy targets for three minutes, after which the 

Rangers would begin their drop (Map 15). Once on the ground, Companies 

A and B of the 2d Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. Alan Maestas, would 

seize the 6th and 7th Companies’ barracks. The battalion’s Company C would 

form a reserve force. Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Joseph F. Hunt’s 3d Battalion, minus 

the company taking part in the Torrijos-Tocumen operation, would isolate 

the airfield; seize the camp headquarters, the communications center, and the 

motor pool; maneuver to sever the Inter-American Highway; and secure the 

ammunition storage area. The fighting would probably be intense but not 

prolonged. Despite the anticipated resistance, planners expected the Rangers 

to secure the airfield within an hour, allowing follow-on U.S. aircraft carrying 

personnel and equipment to begin landing.5

Rounding out Task Force Red-R, each of the two ranger battalions had 

a subordinate task force organized around it. In the case of the 2d Battalion, 

this included a broadcast team from the 4th Psychological Operations Group, 

whereas the 3d Battalion had two such teams, civil affairs personnel from 

the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, and an Air Force combat control team for 

preparing the airfield and directing the landings of follow-on U.S. aircraft. 

For command and control, Colonel Kernan would accompany the Rio Hato 

contingent of Rangers and, with a small headquarters component, monitor 

events on the ground while reporting to the JSOTF commander, General 

Downing. Included in the elements attached to his regimental headquarters 

were an AC–130, a number of special operations aircraft, another Air Force 

combat control team, and personnel from a joint medical augmentation unit.6

Once the Rangers received the Rio Hato mission, the 2d and 3d Battalions 

began drawing up plans and making other preparations. These included a 

series of exercises geared to the objective and culminating in the “first-ever 

regimental-level” rehearsal in mid-December in Florida. Also involved in the 

4 Estimates of the strength of the Panama Defense Forces at Rio Hato are in Briefing Slides, 

Committed PDF Forces, n.d.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 142; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 338; McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 86–87. According to Lt. Gen. Carl 

W. Stiner, the JTF-South commander, “These 6th and 7th Companies demonstrated in the 3 

October coup that they probably had the highest degree of loyalty and readiness of any that we 

saw react to that.” Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 

Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. 5 Briefing Slides, 75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just Cause, n.d., describe the basic concept of 

operations. Additional details are found in Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 141; Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 339–40; Jerry L. Thigpen, The Praetorian STARShip: The 

Untold Story of the Combat Talon (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 2001), 

p. 321. 6 Briefing Slides, 75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just Cause, n.d.
1

PDF NCO

Academy

6th Inf Co. 

7th Inf Co.

GULF OF P A N AMÁ

Aireld

Noriega’s Beach Houses

I N T E R - A M E R I C A N H I G H W A Y

Santa Clara

TASK FORCE RED - R

Objective

0

0

1000Meters

1000 Yards

AREA OF OPERATIONS

RÍO HAT O AIRFIELD

20 December 1989

Map 15
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

277

practice run were an armada of Air Force troop and equipment transports and 

other Special Operations Forces, necessitating a series of coordination visits, 

the employment of a complex communications setup, and the exchange of 

liaison officers among the participating units and headquarters. Battalion-level 

rehearsals preceded the big event by three days, after which the 2d Battalion at 

Fort Lewis flew to Lawson Army Airfield at Fort Benning. 

The 2d and 3d Battalions were then cross-loaded on their transport aircraft. 

They would be parachuting into Hurlburt Field on the Florida panhandle, 

where the Air Force stations most of its special operations aircraft, for their 

assault. Waiting for them at Hurlburt were two companies of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), who were to play the part of the PDF, including 

the areas where they would be positioned around the airfield. The Rangers’ 

task was to secure the airfield within thirty minutes and then receive airlanded 

reinforcements.7

With only one exception, the mockup awaiting the Rangers was extremely 

accurate, and the code names of specific objectives mimicked the terms used 

in the actual contingency plan. The airborne companies from the 101st “gave 

no quarter,” according to one account, but the Rangers still managed to 

accomplish their primary tasks within the required thirty-minute time limit. 

Generals Lindsay and Stiner observed the rehearsal, which both characterized 

as successful. Lindsay went so far as to declare “it was as fine an example of 

an airfield seizure as he had seen.” At the other end of the chain, at least one 

private in a ranger weapons squad offered another assessment: “The dry runs 

we had in Florida benefited Head Quarters [sic] and the brass more than it 

did the platoons or squads.” Another Ranger offered a more detailed critique. 

“During this exercise,” he wrote several years later, “we did something that I 

had never seen before; each of the 13 chalks of C–130s came from a different 

direction as to confuse the enemy, and hopefully negate the known ADA [air 

defense artillery] threat. Well, from my point of view, this didn’t work very well 

because it added more chaos to the already difficult task of assembly.”8

Whatever the feelings of the participants, the eight days of rehearsals 

ended with all three ranger battalions returning to their home bases by 

Saturday, 16 December. Many of the troops were given some time off to enjoy 

the holiday season and lost little time in joining the weekend’s round of parties 

and celebrations. Others simply sought to spend some quiet time with their 

families or to do some traveling. Whatever one did to relax from the strains 

and stresses of the previous week, the respite would be short-lived. Within 

7 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 329. 8 While the regimental rehearsal is mentioned in numerous sources, the narrative in this 

chapter, including all quotes but the last two, is mostly based on the succinct account in ibid., 

pp. 329–31. Last two quotes are from material written by Rangers who participated in the Rio 

Hato operations and posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. See also Joint After 

Action Report, Operation Just Cause, U.S. Southern Command, 14 Feb 1991. Briefing Slides, 

75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just Cause, n.d., say that the Rangers rehearsed the operation 

plan on 9–16 December. This included three days of battalion-level rehearsals, followed by the 

regimental-level exercise.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

278

twenty-four hours of Lieutenant Paz being killed, the Rangers in the 2d and 

3d Battalions found themselves again being placed on a state of alert.9

Kernan was the first to be notified over a secure telephone line at his 

Fort Benning home Sunday night. He, in turn, contacted his three battalion 

commanders and called together his battle staff. Officers from the 3d Battalion 

based at Benning met with company commanders Sunday night in a “special 

room for reading and discussing operational plans.” When the formal warning 

order arrived, the staff made copies and, after receiving permission four hours 

later, disseminated them down to platoon level. This allowed the company 

commanders and their platoon leaders to review their specific targets and 

individual assignments and to finalize the detailed tactical plan. Around 

midnight, the officers finished tweaking their company-level and platoon-level 

operation orders. As several of the men tried to get some sleep, they realized 

that, despite the night’s frenetic activity, they were not going anywhere for at 

least another two days.10

At Fort Lewis, the 2d Battalion’s activities mirrored those of the 3d, 

although with the three-hour time difference between the coasts, they occurred 

earlier in the evening. Moreover, as Colonel Maestas had his staff begin 

recalling all personnel, he knew his battalion would have to return to Fort 

Benning by the next day. In both locations, Rangers returned to their barracks, 

most after only a day’s reunion with spouses, families, and friends. 

By Monday morning, most of the key staff and commanders had learned 

that they were not being assembled for another exercise. Many of the rank 

and file had figured that much out as well, despite the efforts of some officers 

to preserve operations security by portraying the alert as a continuation of 

the previous week’s rehearsal or as a separate readiness exercise unrelated 

to Panama. (One intelligence officer, after telling Rangers at Fort Lewis that 

they were going on an exercise to seize and secure an airfield at Fort Bliss, 

Texas, actually passed out maps of that facility to support his deception; few 

recipients took the ploy seriously.) Sunday’s news broadcasts prominently 

reported Lieutenant Paz’s death as the lead story, usually accompanied by 

reports of the detention of the U.S. Navy lieutenant and his wife and the 

brutal treatment to which they had been subjected. Even though President 

Bush had made no public response, speculation circulated that this time the 

Noriega regime had gone too far. For the Fort Lewis Rangers, the sight of 

materiel being readied for the airlift to Benning offered further evidence of 

what was coming. Not only was there more equipment than usually required 

for an exercise, but pallets containing ammunition suggested a real mission. 

The same could be said about the kinds of weapons in view, such as the M21 

antitank mines, which now appeared with other ammunition crammed into 

the vehicles to be flown to Benning and then to Panama.11

9 The summary of postrehearsal activities is from ranger material on http://www.suasponte.

com/m_riohato.htm. 10 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 134. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 324, and see also pp. 323, 325–38. 11 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 Jan 1990. Material taken from firsthand accounts of ranger 

experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

279

On Monday, the Rangers at Fort Lewis traveled to nearby McChord Air 

Force Base and, that afternoon, boarded C–141s for their flight to Georgia. 

That night, they arrived at their remote marshaling base at Lawson Army 

Airfield, where they set up a tent city in the inclement weather that prevailed 

throughout the southeastern United States. The rain that had accompanied 

their departure from Washington, one Ranger joked, seemed to have followed 

them. Once accommodations for the night had been pitched, Maestas called 

his men together and formally told them that they would be mounting an 

airborne assault on Rio Hato. After going over the principal mission-related 

tasks as he knew them to be at that moment, he released the battalion in hopes 

that the men could get some sleep before the issue of updated operation orders 

and ammunition began early on the eighteenth.12

As the Rangers headed back to their tents, they did not realize that most 

other U.S. troops taking part in Just Cause, namely those stationed at Fort 

Bragg and in Panama, would have another day’s wait before being informed 

that they would be going into combat. The rangers’ advance notification was 

not exactly an unqualified blessing for either the officers or the men of the 

2d and 3d Battalions. If it allowed them more time to go over the plans and 

maps, to learn their specific tasks, and to outfit themselves for the flight and 

fight ahead, it also allowed them more time to think and to dwell on personal 

and professional matters and the dangers awaiting them. Among the former 

concerns, there was one Ranger who, leaving his expectant wife, knew that his 

first child would be born while he was in Panama. Another regretted that he 

and his wife had been arguing when he received the alert; now the contentious 

point, whatever it was, might fester until his return, if he did return. And 

another thought about the plans he and his wife had made for their first 

wedding anniversary, just a couple of days away. 

When thoughts turned from personal affairs to the mission at hand, one 

sentiment common to all was apprehension. Commanders and enlisted men 

confessed to being scared. As with the paratroopers from the 82d, many 

worried about the enemy’s ability to shoot down U.S. troop transports or to 

kill individual Rangers as they parachuted to the ground, helpless to defend 

themselves. While planners had estimated significant ranger casualties at Rio 

Hato, their figures came nowhere near the exaggerated 70 percent alleged in 

rumors now spreading among the anxious soldiers. To minimize casualties, the 

Rangers would jump at five hundred feet above the objective, but such combat 

jumps entailed their own risks. If a parachute failed, there would be little time 

to employ a reserve chute (thus little reason to wear one). Other malfunctions 

could mean a hard landing that could inflict lasting physical damage or at least 

leave one vulnerable to enemy fire or incapable of fulfilling an assigned role.13

Thoughts like these lingered in many rangers’ minds as they engaged in 

routine preparations before boarding the troop transports headed for Panama 

later Tuesday afternoon. Along with checking their weapons, equipment, 

12 Ibid.

13 The personal thoughts of several Rangers between the alert notification and their actual 

deployment are from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, especially pp. 137–39; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, especially pp. 323–33; firsthand accounts of ranger experiences 

posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

280

and gear, the men drew the ammunition they needed. To their surprise, they 

found that they could obtain almost anything they wanted and in amounts 

that vastly exceeded normal exercise loads. “It was like an ammo super store,” 

one Ranger remembered. Another compared the experience to being in “a big 

candy store.” Most Rangers filled their rucksacks with anything they could get 

their hands on, but mostly extra M16 magazines and grenades. A few took a 

more practical approach, taking only what they thought they would actually 

use. As one soldier later stated with macabre logic, if the fight at Rio Hato was 

going to be so intense as to require “that much ammo, there are going to be 

enough dead Rangers around that there’ll be ammo all over the place. It’s not 

the Battle of the Bulge.”14

Also to consider was how much ammunition an individual could realistically 

carry. By the time some of the soldiers finished stuffing extra magazines, 

grenades, and other items into their rucksacks, the containers weighed near 

or over a hundred pounds. One Ranger noted that his rucksack was so heavy 

that he could only move it through the C–130 he boarded with two hands. 

Another’s was so overweight that he had to have two jumpmasters carry it 

to the plane. An overloaded rucksack could also cause problems during the 

jump, not to mention the difficulties of carrying it around in Panama’s tropical 

heat.15

Tuesday afternoon, both battalions prepared to board the waiting C–130s. 

That they would not fly to Rio Hato in C–141s like those available to the 1st 

Battalion going into Torrijos-Tocumen harkened back to General Downing’s 

determination that the Starlifters were better suited to the longer drop zone at 

the Panama City objective. As a result, the Rangers going into Rio Hato had 

to cram themselves into the smaller and slower Hercules.16 Before boarding, 

however, there were some last-minute formalities that had to be observed, as 

the troops, wrapped in wool blankets, stood in the cold, rain, “slosh and mud,” 

fortified to some extent by coffee, soup, and cocoa provided by the ranger 

support element. Colonel Kernan and the regimental sergeant major walked 

through the assembly area, with the ranger commander stopping whenever he 

could to deliver a confidence-building talk to the troops. One Ranger simply 

remembered that Kernan gave “some kind of hoo-ah speech, [and] I think the 

RGMT Chaplain mumbled something.” Others recalled the colonel’s remarks 

as “inspirational” and “great for morale,” especially since they knew Kernan 

would be jumping with them.17

Another preboarding procedure involved receiving an update on the 

operation plan and the latest intelligence. As platoon leaders briefed the 

material, some seemed clearly upset about something. The source of their 

displeasure soon became apparent: the aerial fire support they had been 

told to expect just prior to the ranger airborne assault had included F–117A 

14 First and second quotes from firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://

www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. Last quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 332. 15 Ibid.

16 Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. 

17 Material and quotes from firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.

suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. See also Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 333.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

281

Stealth fighters dropping two 2,000-pound bombs on the PDF reservation at 

Rio Hato. The resulting destruction was likely to be devastating to the enemy, 

leaving few in any condition to mount an effective defense. Now, however, on 

the eve of the operation, unit commanders received word that the bombs would 

not be dropped. Confused and frustrated, the Rangers had one question: why? 

To one platoon leader, the answer was obvious, although he refrained from 

voicing it at the time: the decision was the result of “rotten politics.”18

In actuality, the 2,000-pound bombs would be dropped but near, not on, 

the enemy barracks. And the platoon leader was partly right. The decision, if 

not rotten, had indeed been political, made by the highest-ranking civilian and 

military personnel in the Pentagon and approved by the president. It was also 

one of the most controversial decisions surrounding Operation Just Cause on 

two counts: the use of the F–117s in the first place and the determination not 

to bomb the target directly. 

Discussion surrounding the decisions had been lengthy and at times heated. 

Once Rio Hato became a primary target, U.S. planners devised a plan of 

attack that, from the outset, sought to minimize the threat to exposed Rangers 

dropping onto the airfield. What concerned General Stiner as much as the 

ZPU4 air defense systems was the “small arms fire in mass” the two PDF 

companies could train on the Rangers as they descended onto the objective. 

One means to prevent the Panamanian forces from mounting a deadly defense 

was to subject them to a massive aerial barrage just prior to the ranger assault. 

In the SOUTHCOM and JTF-South versions of the operation plan approved 

by the Joint Chiefs in early November, the preassault fires were assigned to 

18 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 135.

F–117A Stealth fighter (photo taken one year after Operation Just Cause)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

282

General Kempf 

attack helicopters, AC–130 gunships, and 

F–117A fighters. A week later, when Powell 

and Pentagon operations officers briefed 

the secretary of defense on the plan, 

Cheney was skeptical about the inclusion 

of the Stealth fighters, each of which cost 

$100 million and none of which had yet 

been used in combat. Employing such an 

expensive and highly technological asset 

against the Panamanian military might 

appear as though the Air Force was just 

manufacturing an opportunity to see 

how the plane would perform on a real 

but low-risk, even “trivial” mission. Thus 

Cheney’s query of Powell and the others, 

“Why the hell do you want to use the 

117?”19

Powell’s answer was simple and 

direct: General Stiner, with the backing 

of General Downing and Colonel 

Kernan, had requested the fighters. To 

minimize ranger casualties at Rio Hato, 

they wanted an aircraft from the Air 

Force that could deliver accurate fire with 

“maximum shock effect.” Apache helicopters could meet these requirements, 

but the two AH–64s available for action at Rio Hato were to be used against 

the ZPU4s and other targets. Stiner considered using F–111 fighters with 

750-pound bombs to create the desired psychological impact, but Lt. Gen. 

Peter T. Kempf, the Twelfth Air Force commander whose planes would be 

used in Just Cause, recommended his service’s new F–117As because they 

were more accurate. Equipped for precise targeting and designed to penetrate 

enemy radar undetected, the Stealth fighters could deliver a devastating 

payload on an unsuspecting foe. Stiner expressed concern that the Stealth was 

still a secret weapon, but Kempf responded that “for something as critical as 

this, it could probably be brought out.” There was more to Kempf’s offer: a 

choice as to whether the planes would drop 500-pound bombs or 2,000-pound 

bombs. Stiner decided in favor of the latter, not because of their size but 

because of their accuracy: 

The reason for recommending the 2,000-pounder over the 500[-pounder] is 

because of the accuracy it has because of higher technology in the guidance 

fins. Whereas the 500-pounder does not have that. So the Air Force came 

back with that. They sent a squadron commander and his operations officer 

to see me—I was in Panama at that particular time—and he laid out for me 

19 First quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Cole, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 31. Second quoted word from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 143. Last quote 

from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 140.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

283

the accuracy data of I believe it was eighty-three 2,000-pound bombs that had 

been dropped versus something like a couple of hundred or maybe 250 of the 

500-pound bombs. It was very clear to me that the 2,000-pound had the best 

record, and so that’s what we elected to go with.20

After listening to Powell, Cheney kept the F–117As in Blue Spoon, at least for 

the time being. Two of the fighters would be needed for Rio Hato: one for the 

PDF 6th Company, one for the 7th Company. Four others, operating in two 

pairs, would be used elsewhere: one pair at Noriega’s ranch at La Escondida 

in northern Panama, the other pair at the dictator’s beach house at Boquete in 

the westernmost part of the country.21

Although Stiner’s proposed use of the F–117As had the support of 

Downing and Kernan, the three “violently disagreed” over just where at Rio 

Hato the two planes should drop their bombs, with Stiner arguing that the 

2,000-pound bombs should fall close to—but not on—the enemy compounds, 

and Downing and Kernan arguing for direct hits. Driving Stiner’s thinking was 

the guidance he had received from the National Command Authority—and 

which was reflected in the rules of engagement—to keep enemy casualties to a 

minimum. A high death toll could antagonize even anti-Noriega Panamanians 

and undermine the nation-building and stability operations that would 

inevitably follow the fighting and the change in government. In an interview 

after Just Cause, Stiner candidly discussed his concerns. The “last thing we 

wanted,” he told a reporter, “was a Beirut Barracks situation on our hands.” 

Such a slaughter, he reiterated, would have stiffened PDF resistance throughout 

Panama and left a lasting bitterness, resulting both in increased U.S. casualties 

during the combat phase and delays in reconstructing the country afterward. 

What Stiner proposed, therefore, was using the 2,000-pound bombs as 

humongous “stun grenades.” Assuming the U.S. surprise attack would catch 

the PDF infantrymen at Rio Hato in their barracks, the bombs’ powerful 

explosions about 150 yards away would so confuse and disorient the enemy 

troops as to preclude their mounting an effective defense. The dazed soldiers 

might even give up when U.S. psychological operations teams broadcast their 

surrender appeals. In this scenario, the highly touted accuracy of the Stealth 

fighters would be a critical factor in placing the bombs where they could have 

the greatest impact in neutralizing the two infantry companies without causing 

an undesirable level of casualties.22

Downing, like Stiner, registered his concern over the havoc the PDF 

companies could wreak with their small arms and machine guns during the 

ranger descent. “They had something like fifteen armored cars there with 

.50-calibers on them,” he cautioned. “They could have set them up on that 

20 First and third quotes from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. 

Second quote from Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 325. 21 Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 325; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 

140; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 31–32. 22 Interv, John Partin with Maj Gen Wayne A. Downing, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Howard 

Air Force Base, Panama. First quote from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 142. Second quote 

from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Last quote from Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 340–41. Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 31.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

284

airfield and that would really have gone bad for us.” Kernan shared this 

concern. “We were going to take a lot of casualties if these people were able 

to marshal their forces as quickly as they had already proven they could.” 

His preference was to eliminate this worst-case scenario by destroying the two 

PDF compounds. He and Downing lobbied for this approach without success 

in the month and a half leading up to Just Cause. On the eve of battle, the 

operation plan continued to call for the offset bombing option.23

On Monday, 18 December, the day after President Bush decided to 

invade Panama, Secretary Cheney conducted another review of the Blue

Spoon operation order with Powell and others, asking detailed questions and 

again revisiting the need for the F–117As. Powell reiterated Stiner’s position 

and then contacted Thurman in Panama for his views. The SOUTHCOM 

commander later recounted his position: “If we could give [the defenders] 

the biggest compression shock of their lives, they would quit fighting. . . . 

The most accurate weapon system delivery in the United States Air Force is 

a 117 with a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb . . . so why not use it?” In light 

of Thurman’s “strong argument,” the secretary decided to leave that mission 

intact. But neither Cheney nor Powell thought the fighters necessary for the La 

Escondida and Boquete missions, so they scratched the aerial attacks planned 

for both locations. After the meeting, Powell called in General Kelly, the Joint 

Staff’s operations officer, and began grilling him on the plan—sometimes in 

a “confrontational way,” Kelly remembered with some irritation. When the 

discussion turned to the F–117As, the J–3 cited “weapons effects experts” 

as predicting that the bombs were not likely to cause much damage. Stiner, 

however, was not convinced, contacting Kelly at the last minute to warn that, 

if the bombs landed too close to the PDF barracks, they might do more 

damage than the experts anticipated. Powell had reached a similar conclusion 

and ordered the bombs to be dropped 200 yards away from one compound 

and 250 yards from the other. The next day, Tuesday, less than twenty-four 

hours before Just Cause was scheduled to begin, the president approved these 

decisions, saying of the F–117A, “If that’s the best plane, use it.” On another 

matter related to Rio Hato, the latest intelligence indicated that Noriega was 

not going to be in the beach house near the airfield, so the Navy SEAL mission 

was canceled and the seizure of the beach house transferred to the Ranger 

company slated to be the Task Force Red-R reserve during the first phases of 

the assault.24

23 Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 Jan 1990. Downing quotes from Flanagan, Battle for 

Panama, p. 142. Kernan quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 340–

41. 24 First quote from Briefing, Gen Maxwell R. Thurman at SAMS, 23 Sep 1992. Second 

quote from Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 31–32. Remaining quotes from Woodward, The 

Commanders, pp. 176–77. One handwritten submission for the ranger regiment’s after action 

report claimed that the “decision to bomb or not bomb 6th & 7th Company barracks and the 

beach house at Rio Hato was bandied about until H-Hour, both in tactical terms and the political implications. . . . Once the SEALs fell out adjustment to AH–6 plan had to be made and 

plans for the employment of AH–64 Apaches coordinated.” The lesson learned was that “we 

must be flexible enough to react to those decisions and aggressive enough to rework the fire sup-
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

285

Whatever negative feelings the Rangers expressed to their chain of 

command in reaction to word that the Rio Hato barracks would not be 

bombed, there was little time to brood over the decision. The plan for the 

airborne assault had to be studied one more time, the rules of engagement 

reiterated, and the mission-essential task list reviewed. As one platoon leader 

related, the rules of engagement emphasized the minimum use of force and the 

avoidance of collateral damage, but, with no large groups of civilians located 

near the Rio Hato facilities, the rules were not as restrictive as they were for 

other units taking part in Just Cause. As for the task list, he noted that it 

focused solely on how to engage the enemy force in combat operations. (To 

his later regret, it contained nothing about the stability operations that might 

follow.) Time ultimately forced an end to these final preparations, and the 

troops began drawing their parachutes and rigging in the ceaseless rain. When 

they finished, they took their overweight rucksacks and boarded the warm but 

humid C–130s where, crammed together, they attempted to get some rest. The 

ones who could not sleep tried their best not to dwell on the unknown that 

awaited them. Most were unsuccessful.25

At 1800 on the nineteenth, the aircraft began taking off from Lawson 

Army Airfield for their seven-hour flight to Panama. The C–130 airstream 

consisted of thirteen troop-carrying transports and two planes carrying the 

rangers’ heavy equipment. Also in the air were the two F–117A Stealth fighters 

(which took off from the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada) and the KC–10A 

aircraft needed to refuel them. Timing was critical. If the Rangers arrived over 

the target before the F–117As dropped their bombs, the consequences could 

be bloody. En route, however, an even greater concern surfaced when Colonel 

Kernan, like other U.S. officers that night, received word that the operation 

had been compromised: the Panamanians knew an invasion was imminent. 

From the additional intelligence updates radioed to the colonel’s C–130, 

Kernan learned that U.S. commanders had changed H-hour at some targets 

to 0045 and that the PDF commander of the 7th Company, besides alerting 

his counterpart in the 6th Company of the inbound American forces, had 

ordered his men to block the airfield runway with vehicles. The rangers’ plan 

assumed enemy troops would be sleeping when the Stealth fighters dropped 

their bombs. What would happen if, after being notified about the impending 

attack, the 6th and 7th Companies had left their barracks, dispersed, and set 

up a formidable defense around the airfield? It was a chilling prospect.26

The Attack

At 0100, the F–117As arrived over Rio Hato precisely on time. Each 

carried a 2,000-pound Mark 84 bomb with a delayed fuse so that the bomb, 

port plans to support the maneuver in light of those decisions.” Lessons Learned Worksheet, 

75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just Cause, n.d., sub: Fire Support. 25 Firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_rio

hato.htm; Presentation, Capt David Haight, author’s History of Modern Warfare course, n.d. 

[early to mid-1990s], U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 26 Chronology, 75th Ranger Rgt, n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

286

in General Stiner’s words, “would go into the ground, and that would shield 

a great majority of the blast, but it would throw up a lot of dirt and debris, 

and create the kind of commotion and diversion that we wanted.” The first 

pilot was to drop his Mark 84 near the 7th Infantry Company’s barracks, but 

a combination of high winds and possibly incorrect or confusing targeting 

information resulted in the bomb landing near the 6th Company barracks 

instead. The second pilot used the first plane to orient his attack, causing his 

bomb to fall over three hundred yards away from the target. Even so, both 

Kernan and Stiner later expressed satisfaction with the 117s’ performance. 

Although prior knowledge of the U.S. invasion had caused most Panamanian 

forces at Rio Hato to leave their barracks and take up defensive positions 

around the airfield, the blast from the two bombs still caused a certain amount 

of confusion, prompting some of the enemy to discard their weapons and flee. 

Overhead, as the approaching Rangers prepared for their combat jump, they 

could hear the explosions through the open doors of the C–130s. Cheers went 

up, as did morale.27

The Rangers may have heard noises of other attack aircraft as well. In the 

minutes between the bomb drop and the troop jump, a Spectre gunship, four 

Little Birds, and two Apaches opened fire on targets in and around the Rio 

Hato runway. A ranger liaison officer aboard the Spectre had briefed the crew, 

setting the “priority for target engagement.” The helicopter personnel had also 

received advance word on what weapon systems to hit. The fusillade lasted 

only ninety seconds but proved both psychologically and physically effective, 

with at least one—perhaps two—of three ZPU4 antiaircraft platforms and a 

number of smaller defensive positions being destroyed.28

As the C–130s carrying the Rangers approached the drop zone, the 

preparatory fires stopped, with the helicopters and Spectre remaining on station 

to identify and engage any enemy formations or weapons that challenged the 

assault force. Meanwhile, in the troop transports, the green lights came on, and 

27 Quote from Interv, Wright with Stiner, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990. Cole, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 38–39; U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, 20th anniversary 

ed. (MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.: U.S. Special Operations Command, n.d.), p. 36; F–117A: 

Operation Just Cause (Panama), at http://www.f-117a.com/Panama.html; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 340. In April 1990, the F–117As became the object of controversy when the Pentagon disclosed that what Secretary Cheney had described as a “pinpoint 

accuracy” attack had been anything but that. On 10 April, Cheney ordered an inquiry into “why 

the Air Force failed to inform him that one of its Stealth fighters missed its target during the 

Panama invasion.” Three months later, an official report was released to the press, charging that 

a high-ranking Air Force general had failed to pass the information of the F–117As’ performance to the secretary. A smaller controversy also surrounded where the bombs were supposed 

to be dropped in the first place. General Stiner said he ordered them dropped 165 yards from 

each of the PDF barracks. General Powell said he believed they were to be dropped 275 yards 

away, and the Air Force said it ordered the pilots to drop them about 55 yards from each target. 

Quote from New York Times, 11 Apr 1990, and see also 4 Apr 1990, 2 Jul 1990. Boston Globe, 

3 Jul 1990. 28 Quote from HHC 3/75 Narrative on Operation Just Cause, n.d. Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 341; U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, 

p. 36. The following narrative of the battle for Rio Hato owes much to Duty Officer’s Log, 7th 

Ranger Rgt, Rio Hato, 20 Dec 1989.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

287

the Rangers with their unwieldy rucksacks headed for the exit. As most waited 

their turn, they could hear “ticking,” the sounds of bullets striking the aircraft. 

(Eleven of the thirteen troop carriers and both heavy equipment transports 

took hits from ground fire.)29 Questions and concerns multiplied. How many 

PDF gunners were there? What would be the volume of enemy fire during the 

twelve-second descent to the ground? How accurate would it be? Would I land 

near the runway, on flat ground but exposed; or would I land in the tall grass 

nearby; in a tree or power line; on a fence, building, or garden; or, worst of 

all, in the Gulf of Panama? Another fear factor was the drop from only five 

hundred feet. If a parachute failed to function properly, there would be almost 

no time to take corrective action. 

Enemy ground fire, in fact, turned out to be extensive and intense 

during the jump, something Stiner later attributed to the operation being 

compromised. As the first to jump, the Rangers from the 2d Battalion exited 

over the southern end of the airfield. As they floated to the ground, they could 

see enemy tracer rounds zipping past them. The 3d Battalion encountered the 

same sight as its members descended toward the northern end of the runway. 

At least one Ranger was wounded in midair. There was nothing they could 

do to stop the bullets, so they tried to concentrate on where they would land 

and how quickly they could shed their parachutes and arm themselves. The 

plight of Colonel Kernan did not set a promising example. As he neared the 

ground, his parachute became entangled in some power lines near the airfield. 

He freed himself just as the chute caught fire, shorting out electricity in the 

area around him. The resulting darkness helped obscure Rangers still in the 

air from Panamanian fire but also made it more difficult for them to calculate 

their landing site. As for Kernan, once freed from the wires his drop to earth 

turned out to be only six inches. “Lightest landing at Rio Hato,” he would 

quip.30

Others survived similar harrowing predicaments. One Ranger specialist, for 

example, tried to exit his C–130 carrying a 90-mm. recoilless rifle in a weapons 

container never tested as “jump worthy.” When he moved forward toward the 

plane’s open side door, the container failed to clear it, causing him to bounce 

back into the troops lined up behind him. He then exited sideways, but in such a 

way as to descend “inverted” toward the drop zone, with the remaining Rangers 

pouring out behind him in a “tight group.” Like Kernan, the specialist was lucky 

enough to land safely. Thirty-six other Rangers were not so fortunate. As in 

the parachute jumps at Torrijos-Tocumen, there would be bruised or broken 

feet, heels, ankles, legs, and arms. Some of the injured tried to carry on; others 

29 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 36; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 342. 30 New York Times, 27 Feb 1990. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 344, and see also p. 342. Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 145. The New York Times 

article, which quoted Stiner extensively, noted that the general’s account of the intense shootout at Rio Hato “varied sharply from the Pentagon’s initial after-action reports. The Pentagon 

spokesman, Pete Williams, said in late December that the Rangers were not fired on as they 

parachuted into Rio Hato because the defenders had been stunned by two 2,000-pound bombs 

dropped by Stealth F–117 fighter-bombers.” Rangers who in 1983 had jumped into enemy fire 

in Grenada said that the shooting was much more intense at Rio Hato. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

288

could not and had to make their way or be carried to the medics for treatment. 

The worst case was Pfc. Patrick McElrath, who broke his back on hitting the 

ground. When a medic reached him, McElrath could not feel his legs. Further 

examination would reveal that he had severed his spinal cord. Heavy rucksacks 

also caused some Rangers to land hard or to hit their heads upon landing, in one 

instance knocking a soldier unconscious. Another Ranger recalled that upon 

hitting the drop zone, “my ruck was so heavy I had to roll into it on the ground 

then roll up into my feet, it was all I could do to move forward.” In a related 

experience, a Ranger recounted, “My ruck weighed 100 pounds and I landed on 

the tarmac and hit my elbow pretty hard on the asphalt. I got out my gun, laid 

behind the ruck which was full of 10 lbs of C-4, 4 grenades, 400 rounds or so of 

5.56mm and a claymore. Why am I using this for cover? Am I stupid or what?” 

Despite these difficulties and the unceasing hostile fire, no Rangers were killed 

by enemy bullets during the jump. One, however, Pfc. John M. Price, died when 

his static line broke. He was found, according to one account, with “his reserve 

parachute open on his lap, a victim of the low jump altitude. There is no time for 

a reserve parachute when people were landing.”31

On the ground, the Rangers confronted a potent, but chaotic and 

disjointed defense, seemingly devoid of organization and leadership. PDF 

armored vehicles and trucks, often with their headlights flashing off and on, 

sped back and forth the length of the runway and the roads running parallel 

to it, the occupants firing wildly and mostly inaccurately at the ranger drop 

zones and the grass and jungle next to them. Other enemy soldiers manned 

positions on and around the airfield and aimed small-arms fire into the same 

areas. As feared, the 6th and 7th Companies had not only left their barracks, 

but those soldiers who had not fled the area seemed determined to fight, at 

least until the Americans could mass their forces. What this meant for the 

Rangers was that many of them would find themselves in a firefight well before 

they could assemble and launch attacks on their assigned targets. In some 

cases, an individual Ranger who had just touched down confronted several 

enemy soldiers or vehicles. In other cases, a Ranger making his way to his 

assembly area would pick up one, two, three, or four of his comrades en route, 

form an ad hoc fire team, and engage PDF defenders in lethal skirmishes. As 

Kernan later described these initial contacts with enemy soldiers, “They were 

everywhere. . . . It was a 360-degree firefight. They were places where we hoped 

they would not be.” As another Ranger put it, “There were little fire fights all 

over the airfield.” In all this confusion, the Spectre gunship flying overhead, 

with its crew systematically selecting and firing on targets of opportunity, 

seemed a godsend.32

31 First, second, and third quoted words from Handwritten accounts, 3d Squad, Co A, 3d 

Bn, 75th Ranger Rgt, n.d. Sixth and seventh quotes from firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. Fifth quote from www.combatre

form2.com/combatjump.htm. Almost immediately after the battle at Rio Hato, a story circulated that a Ranger standing in the doorway of a C–130 preparing to jump had been shot in 

the head and killed. The story later proved false, although one Ranger was apparently wounded 

while still inside his aircraft. U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 36. 32 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 146. First quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 348. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 Jan 1990, p. 1; Mir Bahmanyar, 
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

289

For S. Sgt. David DeBaere of the 2d Battalion, contact with the enemy 

came before he reached the ground. Jumping at the southern end of the 

airfield, he drifted into the jungle area at the edge of the runway. There, 

his parachute caught on a tree, leaving him dangling helplessly just five feet 

over a PDF bunker containing at least one enemy soldier firing his weapon. 

When DeBaere tried to climb down the tree, a branch snapped. Alerted by 

the sound, the Panamanian looked upward and let loose a burst from his 

automatic rifle through the thatched roof covering the bunker. The bullets 

missed DeBaere, who responded by dropping a fragmentation grenade 

through the roof. He encountered no further fire as he touched ground at the 

base of the tree.33

S. Sgt. Louis Olivera, a jumpmaster like DeBaere, was not so fortunate. He, 

too, landed in a tree, but, after managing to get to the ground without incident, 

his luck changed. As he made his way to the west edge of the airfield, enemy 

fire forced him to take cover in a ditch. He jumped in without looking first and 

immediately felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and chest. There were at least two 

enemy soldiers from the 7th Company in the ditch with him, and they had shot 

him twice before he was even aware of their presence. As they stripped him of 

his patches, one of the men shot him in the head at point-blank range with a 

pistol. They then wrapped a black bandana reading “macho de monte” around 

his rifle and left him for dead. Around 0600, Olivera regained consciousness 

and, although bleeding profusely, was able to radio for help. One of the medics 

who responded described the wounded Ranger as having “two sucking chest 

wounds, and I could see about one inch into his skull. A bullet had penetrated 

his helmet and stopped in his forehead. He was barely alive.” The Kevlar 

helmet, in fact, had slowed down the bullet enough to prevent it from entering 

the brain. Olivera recovered, and his comrades absorbed the lesson, “Kevlar 

helmets are great.”34

S. Sgt. Richard J. Hoerner likewise had a terrifying, life-threatening 

experience. A victim of poor timing, Hoerner landed in the middle of a road. 

Looking up, he saw a PDF truck speeding directly toward him. Once the 

occupants saw him, they opened up with “full automatic AK-47 fire.” Hoerner 

rolled out of the way of the oncoming vehicle, but the truck drove through his 

still-inflated parachute, which got tangled in the transport’s drive shaft. “The 

vehicle was going so fast,” Hoerner recalled, “it slammed me to my back and 

started to drag me down the road, going north toward the cadet barracks.” 

After about a hundred feet, he was able to cut himself free from his parachute. 

The truck sped off, leaving him literarily in its dust. He then retraced the 

route of his ordeal to pick up his helmet, weapon, and the rest of the gear 

Shadow Warriors: A History of the US Army Rangers (Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2005), 

pp. 128–29. Second quote from firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.

suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. 33 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 Jan 1990, p. 1. 34 The account of Olivera’s ordeal is from ibid. Quote describing Olivera’s condition from 

firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. 

Last quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 347–48.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

290

from which he had been so abruptly separated. After that, he headed for his 

assembly area.35

Soon after Hoerner hit the drop zone, 1st Sgt. Joseph L. Mattison from 

the 3d Battalion also touched down and, like Hoerner, encountered a PDF 

truck. The defenders inside were firing their weapons but not directly at the 

sergeant, which gave him time to grab his LAW. As the vehicle stopped near 

him, he fired the antitank weapon, knocking his target out of commission. 

Soon thereafter, Mattison was joined by a staff sergeant, who also had a light 

antiarmor weapon. Mattison instructed the man to prepare his LAW, just as 

a second enemy vehicle approached. In quick succession, the second vehicle 

“smashed into the rear of the truck” that had just been destroyed, Mattison 

opened fire with his M16, the staff sergeant fired his LAW but missed, and the 

second vehicle sped away. Hours later, after dawn, Mattison returned to the 

site to inspect the truck he had put out of action. Although he did not realize 

it at the time, the damaged vehicle was the same one responsible for Sergeant 

Hoerner’s harrowing experience.36

As Rangers trying to find their assembly points coped with confusion 

and diverse dangers, one enemy position stood out as disproportionately 

threatening: a .50-caliber machine gun and its crew ensconced atop a twostory stone archway and tower that served as a gatehouse to the airfield. On 

the rangers’ battle maps for Rio Hato, the structure was Objective Green, a 

location where a team from the 3d Battalion’s Company A was to rendezvous 

and launch its operations. First to arrive were S. Sgt. Wayne Newberry and 1st 

Lt. Loren Ramos, who had landed in tall grass just over a hundred yards from 

the objective. Under fire, they began crawling through the grass toward the 

tower, pausing occasionally to empty an M16 magazine or two at the enemy. 

Not until they drew much closer to the gate could they see the machine gun, 

which was creating havoc across the airfield. Fortunately for Newberry and 

Ramos, a wall that provided cover for the gun prevented its barrel from being 

depressed enough to hit either of them.

As both men reached the archway, two other Rangers joined them. 

Together, the four-man team mounted an attack, their initial action being to 

throw grenades into the structure’s entrance on the ground floor. Next, Ramos 

and Newberry moved onto a road running past the entrance but were almost 

run down by a V150 speeding by them. All four Rangers opened fire on the 

vehicle, but it continued on unscathed, making a turn onto the Inter-American 

Highway. Refocusing their attention on the machine gun nest, the Rangers 

lobbed in another grenade, only to have an enemy soldier inside respond with 

one of his own. Five minutes later, two defenders tried to escape, perhaps 

thinking that their grenade had done its work. Their mistake proved fatal, as 

the Rangers shot and killed both men. According to Newberry, “They just 

dropped and ran. . . . But they didn’t make it.” In clearing the gatehouse room 

by room, the team came across the machine gun, still hot from being fired. 

35 Handwritten accounts, 3d Squad, Co A, 3d Bn, 75th Ranger Rgt, n.d. Quotes from 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 146. Emphasis in the first quote is in the original. 36 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 148; Handwritten statement, 1st Sgt Joseph L. Mattison, 

2 Jan 1990.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

291

Both Ramos and Newberry later received the Bronze Star for removing this 

major impediment to the ranger plan of attack.37

Like the gateway, the airfield’s control tower was another critical objective, 

and it came under attack soon after the Rangers hit the ground. One specialist in 

particular, after engaging an enemy vehicle with his squad automatic weapon, 

moved toward the tower, where he discovered another Ranger entangled in 

concertina wire and under fire from the tower’s main room overlooking the 

airfield. In the specialist’s own words, “I shot up the top floor and quickly got 

him out of the wire.” The specialist then chanced upon an ad hoc ranger fire 

team composed of three sergeants and a specialist who had maneuvered to 

the tower in order to secure it. After shooting the lock off the entrance, the 

men entered and discovered a stairway leading to the top of the structure. 

From above, a Panamanian defender began shouting at them in a mix of 

Spanish and English. The team responded with entreaties and threats, after 

which the lone defender determined it was in his best interest to surrender. The 

Rangers then ascended the stairs, stopping to clear each level before reaching 

the control room at the top. There, one of the sergeants broke out the largest 

of the windows and placed three chem lights in the frame as a signal that the 

facility was in U.S. hands.38

In other action near the gateway and the control tower, elements from 

Company A, 3d Battalion, fanned out north of the Inter-American Highway 

to “screen the Americans from possible counterattacks.” In this maneuver, 

they employed six motorcycles that had been dropped by the two C–130s 

37 The bulk of this account of the assault on the gatehouse and the quote are from Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 344–46. See also Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 

149; U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 37. 38 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 146–47.

Rangers at the entryway to Rio Hato airfield after capturing a .50-caliber machine gun
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

292

carrying heavy equipment for the assault. Also in the drop were four jeeps, 

which elements from the battalion’s Company B used to establish blocking 

positions on the east side of the airfield near the highway. From these 

positions, the Rangers could interdict military and civilian traffic along the 

major thoroughfare, engaging the former and forcing the latter to turn back, 

sometimes with the assistance of a few warning shots.39

Within an hour after the beginning of the Ranger airborne assault, PDF 

resistance on the airfield began to subside. This allowed most of Company B, 

3d Battalion, to begin removing obstacles from the runway in preparation for 

the scheduled landing of U.S. planes carrying additional soldiers and supplies. 

The Panamanians had employed barrels and barbed wire to block the landing 

path, but the largest obstacles were two trucks that had been driven onto the 

runway and then had their tires deflated. There were also obstructions the 

Rangers themselves had created, namely hundreds of abandoned parachutes 

that littered the premises and would have to be policed up. Kernan had originally 

hoped to have the airfield ready by H plus 35 minutes to receive incoming 

planes, but the intensity of the initial PDF resistance and the time needed to 

clear away the obstacles added an hour to that estimate. One consequence of 

the delay was that the Little Bird helicopters used in support of the ranger 

assault were beginning to run low on fuel and ammunition. A team assigned to 

set up a forward area rearming and refueling point had parachuted in with the 

Rangers, but their equipment, dropped by a heavy-lift C–130, failed to work. 

The helicopters would have to wait until backup equipment arrived on two 

MC–130 Combat Talons, scheduled to be among the first five planes to land at 

Rio Hato. Around 0215, the AH–6s began setting down on beaches to the east 

of the objective until they could refuel and rearm.40

The first Combat Talon landed around 0230 and, after disgorging the 

follow-on Ranger force, gun-jeeps, and other vehicles, taxied to the southeastern 

end of the field to set up the rearming and refueling point. A second Talon 

followed suit. When it arrived at the refueling site, 

the lead Talon already had deployed the fuel hose and had set up a fuel pumping system that was connected to the aircraft’s single-point refueling manifold. All available crew members were cleared off headsets to assist the two 

ranger munitions specialists in transporting the 180-pound rocket containers 

approximately 100 yards to the helicopter refueling and rearming point. As 

soon as the FARP was operational (approximately 15 minutes), [A]H–6 helicopter gunships began arriving for fuel and ammo servicing. 

While the refueling point was being established, the three other incoming 

planes—each a special operations low-level C–130E—landed. Two unloaded 

their cargo of troops and equipment. The third “was reconfigured internally to 

a medevac [medical evacuation] configuration and remained in position ready 

to extract wounded personnel from the airfield.”41

39 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 37. 40 Ibid.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 144; Thigpen, The Praetorian STARShip, p. 327. 41 Thigpen, The Praetorian STARShip, p. 328.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

293

The rearming and refueling points were not the only functional 

elements becoming operational on the battlefield. Command, control, and 

communications facilities were being set up at various locations. Within the 

3d Battalion’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company were the “supply 

personnel, cooks, S–5 personnel, and Spanish linguists” who constituted the 

enemy prisoner-of-war (EPW) team. This diverse group moved around the 

airfield from one secure area to another, finally organizing a control point at 

which they processed over two hundred prisoners. Also present were medical 

personnel who would establish the battalion’s casualty collection point run by 

the battalion surgeon and headquarters company first sergeant.42

As the reinforcement and resupply planes landed at Rio Hato, U.S. forces 

began coming together to carry out their planned attacks. The fight to secure 

the airfield had taken longer than expected, over an hour, as many Rangers had 

experienced difficulty negotiating the elephant grass in the dark, while others, 

relying on their own initiative and skills, had jerry-rigged ad hoc fire teams to 

deal with the tenacious enemy resistance. The resulting delays, however, did 

not necessarily indicate an unfavorable situation. To the contrary, the presence 

of a sizable number of PDF forces at the airfield, combined with the large 

numbers of uniformed Panamanians seen fleeing the scene, could mean that 

few hostile elements remained in the company compounds and other targets 

listed in the Task Force Red-R battle plans. 

Once a sufficient number of troops from the two ranger battalions had 

gathered at their assigned assembly areas, the units were finally able to begin 

moving to their primary objectives. For elements of Company A, 2d Battalion, 

that meant clearing and securing the Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute, the 

noncommissioned officer training school in the vicinity of both the PDF 6th 

Company and 7th Company compounds. The assault began with a fire team 

42 HHC 3/75 Narrative on Operation Just Cause, n.d.

The gate to Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute at Rio Hato
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

294

from one ranger platoon breaching a chain-link fence and moving up to a 

communications building near the school. At the entryway to the building, the 

group stopped and threw a grenade into the main room, with the explosion 

temporarily knocking out power. After determining the target was “cold,” the 

platoon leader received word to continue to the training center itself.43

Although the school was supposed to be unoccupied, the Rangers had come 

under fire from that general location, so in the words of the company commander, 

“We proceeded against it with fairly good caution.” As a fire team approached 

the training center, it saw several individuals “running through the courtyard 

and going into doors.” Once in position outside the institute, the team called 

three times for anyone inside to surrender. When there was no response, the men 

began the clearing process. A Ranger threw a grenade into the first room he 

came upon, after which the team sprayed the area with small-arms fire. To their 

surprise, a number of men, all cadets at the school, came “flying up” from under 

their bunks, their hands in the air. The grenade had wounded eight in the room, 

but “quick thinking & reaction prevented [the] students from getting killed.” 

Finding one cadet who spoke English, the Rangers followed him to other rooms 

occupied by the students. At each, he assured his classmates that, if they gave 

up, they would not be shot. In all, 167 unarmed cadets surrendered. Escorted 

into the school’s courtyard, all were searched and the wounded received medical 

treatment. They were then transported to the prisoner collection point in groups 

of twenty-five. Just before the school was pronounced secured, an armed PDF 

instructor who had fled into the jungle also surrendered.44

Near to Company A, about sixty Rangers from the 2d Battalion’s 

Company B departed their assembly area around 0230 to clear the PDF 7th 

Company compound, labeled Objective Cat. The group was at 60 percent 

strength, a cause for some concern, but, to await additional troops would have 

meant further delay, so the men moved out. If the macho de monte succumbed 

without much resistance, Company B would continue to the PDF 6th 

Company compound and clear it as well. If the 7th Company put up a fight, 

2d Battalion’s Company C, the reserve force, would assume responsibility for 

subduing the 6th Company. 

To gain access to Objective Cat, the Rangers of Company B had to 

walk with their heavy rucksacks for thirty minutes through approximately 

two hundred yards of unexpectedly thick jungle, negotiate an eight-foothigh chain-link fence, and “use demolition charges to blow holes in the wall 

surrounding the compound.” That done, they advanced on the PDF buildings 

with one platoon taking the left side of the barracks, another the right. A 

weapons squad was to provide fire support from four M60 machine guns and 

a sniper, but three of the four machine gun crews were forced to drop out en 

route to the compound, and, according to one participant, there was initially 

no covering fire from the unit’s remaining M60 machine gun. The four M60s, 

he observed, had “either burned in or did not work.” Some point after the 

attack began, however, the remaining M60 and the sniper were able to provide 

43 Handwritten notes, Sgt Darren Smith [2d Plt, Co A, 3d Bn], 1 Jan 1990. 

44 All quotes except first from ibid. First quote from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 149–

50. U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 37; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 349. 
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

295

effective suppressive fire, while AH–6s peppered the back of the compound 

from the air. 

In maneuvering against the barracks, the same Ranger noted that “MOUT 

training was no good. In training you are supposed to enter from the top. How 

would you do that?” With no way to get to the rooftops safely, the attackers 

accepted the reality of the situation: clearing the structures would take place 

from the bottom up—an adjustment that other U.S. forces in Panama had to 

make as well. A squad entered the first building in the compound, a two-story 

structure, by throwing grenades through the front door and then firing threeround bursts to clear each room. The Rangers found no enemy soldiers. The 

two platoons employed similar tactics for each succeeding barracks, as they 

leapfrogged squads from building to building. From a roofed shed near the 

last building, a defender fired at the advancing Americans, but, dazed and 

bleeding from his nose and ears—probably from the concussive effects of 

the Americans’ weapons—he offered no resistance once two Rangers kicked 

down the door and confronted him. After that, around 0430, the compound 

was reported cleared, and the Rangers established a defensive perimeter while 

preparing to attack the 6th Company compound. Up to that point, there had 

been no friendly fatalities and the enemy had not put up much of a defense. 

One Ranger, though, while not disappointed with the relative ease with which 

the operation had been completed, was unhappy on another count. “We were 

led to believe that over 400 elite Panamanians would be here—that’s what 

Regimental Intel said. Now I was really pissed because they had scared the 

s——t out of me earlier.”45

Near the 7th Company compound was a complex containing a motor pool 

and fuel tanks. While Company A was focused on the school, and Company 

B was concentrating on the macho de monte barracks, an ad hoc team of three 

Rangers who had run into each other after the parachute drop decided to 

move against the smaller cluster of buildings. Two of the soldiers were from 

the 3d Battalion, the third from the 2d. “The reason we opted to attempt [the 

takedown],” one of them later explained, “was due to the fact a secondary 

objective was to block any armor movement north from 6th and 7th company 

[area of operations] to reinforce drop zone or escape.” They quickly devised a 

plan to move first toward a fuel tank northeast of the motor pool and to use 

grenades to destroy a row of vehicles parked near the container. Before the 

three men could implement their plan, however, they were joined by six more 

Rangers, including a platoon leader who took charge of the operation. To 

avoid secondary explosions from the vehicles’ gas tanks, he rejected the idea of 

the grenade attack. That notwithstanding, the men still managed to secure the 

vehicles “without incident.” One Ranger then entered the motor pool, where 

he shot and killed an armed Panamanian trying to exit from the other end of 

the building. There was no further shooting at the site, although from their 

new location, the men spied two additional buildings, one to the south, the 

45 First quote from U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, pp. 36–37. 

Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 150, 155. Last quote from firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. Remaining quotes and firsthand account of a Ranger who took part in clearing the compound from Bahmanyar, Shadow 

Warriors, pp. 128–30. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

296

Outside the PDF 6th Infantry Company headquarters, a sign in Spanish reads “Loyalty or Death.”

other to the west. Preparatory fire on both buildings included M203 highexplosive rounds, with a LAW also being employed against the building to 

the west. A fire team then used grenades and small arms to clear the southern 

building, taking one prisoner in the process. The team used the same tactics to 

secure the building to the west but found no Panamanians inside. Meanwhile, 

the Rangers remaining in the motor pool began to set up “a defense vehicular 

ambush” site.46

At 0400, even before Objective Cat was officially cleared, Company B 

moved out from its perimeter around the macho de monte barracks to begin 

securing the 6th Company compound, Objective Lion. Again there was a walk 

through the jungle, this time about fifty yards, before reaching the target, after 

which the assault began. As the ranger squads started the systematic clearing of 

each building in Lion, some came under enemy fire from Panamanians sitting 

in ambush positions around the compound. Overcoming this opposition, 

the Rangers completed their task, after which they formed a “wagon wheel” 

defensive perimeter. Only then did many of them learn that one of their 

number, Spec. Philip Lear, had been killed, and another, a Sergeant Howard, 

severely wounded. The news hit hard, triggering a mixture of emotions. One 

Ranger remarked later, “In retrospect I think that if they had dropped the 

bomb on the barracks Lear would not have gotten killed. It pisses me off to 

this day.” Another was walking when “six feet away I saw SSG Howard on the 

ground, shot through the chest, and Lear dead. It didn’t really hit me right 

away but then—damn—tunnel vision—this can’t be happening!” Still another 

Ranger, after viewing Lear’s body later in the day, lamented, “He was gone 

forever,” and then remembered how “just days before I helped Lear tow his 

car with my Ford Bronco. He was with his fiancé that day, I remember how 

kind she seemed and how they appeared to adore one another. That was all 

46 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 151–52. 
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

297

over now.” In the midst of this sad news, the battalion commander reported to 

Colonel Kernan at 0628 that Objective Lion was secured.47

Knowing that many Panamanian defenders—perhaps up to three 

hundred—had fled the area of operations, elements of the 2d Battalion moved 

during daylight into the town of Rio Hato, where the families of many of the 

PDF troops lived. The Americans assumed that most males of military age in 

the vicinity were enemy soldiers. With that in mind, according to one Ranger, 

“We rounded up all males between 14 and 80, kicked in doors, flex-cuffed 

individuals and took them to [battalion headquarters] or Regimental HQ—

they were handling all EPWs.”48

Company B’s success in clearing both PDF company compounds at Rio 

Hato meant that Company C, 2d Battalion, was no longer needed as a reserve 

force; it was free to move along the coastline to seize Noriega’s beach house 

and neighboring guest houses. The operation took place early on the morning 

of the twentieth, with the Rangers expecting serious resistance. Even so, they 

were under strict orders not to destroy the houses. Thus, as a first order of 

business, the company established observation and supporting positions on 

the high ground overlooking the objective. When Company C actually began 

to advance toward the houses, the men came under only brief and ineffective 

fire from a small group of Noriega’s bodyguards, who fled soon thereafter 

(to be picked up at a ranger blocking position in the vicinity). At dawn, the 

3d Platoon, in the words of one Ranger, “got to clear the nicest of all the 

mansions,” but only after using a LAW—“a large key,” he said with a smile—

to blow open the steel front doors. As the soldiers cleared the rooms inside 

without incident, they found the kitchen where “there was food still hot on the 

stove and beer that was just opened.” There was also a “conference room [that] 

had shelves of movies and documentaries. It was a big room, the kind you 

would find in a big business.” Once the beach and guest houses were secured, 

elements from the company established a perimeter along the high ground. 

The men had suffered no casualties and had captured no enemy soldiers.49

Meanwhile, north of the Inter-American Highway, Rangers were trying 

to overcome the last pockets of PDF defenders. The Panamanians were 

conducting a systematic withdrawal, “fighting from building to building 

through a small built-up area.” During one engagement, U.S. forces called 

for aerial fire support. Two AH–6s soon arrived and opened up on the targets 

they had been given. The pilots did not realize that, in a flanking maneuver, 

a group of Rangers had advanced into a tree line near the targets. When one 

of the pilots saw the Rangers’ movement, he was convinced they were enemy 

47 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 37; Bahmanyar, Shadow 

Warriors, p. 130; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 155. Quotes from firsthand accounts of ranger 

experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. 48 U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, p. 37. Quote from Bahmanyar, 

Shadow Warriors, p. 130. 49 On not destroying the beach houses, see Daily Staff Jnl, HHC, 75th Ranger Rgt, 20 Dec 

1989. First and second quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 349. 

Third and fourth quotes from and firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://

www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

298

forces and fired on them. Four were wounded and two—S. Sgt. Larry Barnard 

and Pfc. Roy Brown Jr.—were killed.50

By midmorning on 20 December, the Rangers at Rio Hato had 

accomplished their principal missions. The airfield was in friendly hands, and 

U.S. aircraft were landing with reinforcements and much needed supplies. The 

most prominent PDF units and facilities in the vicinity had been overwhelmed. 

As was the case in other battle zones throughout Panama, the Ranger 2d 

and 3d Battalions continued to receive sporadic mortar and small-arms fire 

throughout the day, but enemy forces could no longer mount any organized 

and significant resistance. 

As the day passed, individual ranger units sought access to the supplies that 

were now on the ground, a process impeded by the fact that few vehicles capable 

of transporting water, food, and other commodities had been dropped from 

the heavy-equipment C–130s at H-hour. Trucks arrived on later transports, 

but, until then, the Rangers at Rio Hato, like their counterparts at TorrijosTocumen, relied on their own initiatives to make distribution. In one case, 

two sergeants from the 2d Battalion’s Company A presented their executive 

officer with an air-conditioned Mazda RX–7 they had found; the lieutenant 

used the car to carry filled canteens to Rangers in desperate need of water in 

the tropical heat. A red station wagon that could only move in reverse was also 

“commandeered” to ease the transportation burden. While these and other 

Rangers coped with the resupply problem, still others received orders to find 

equipment that had been lost during the initial drop or to recover parachutes 

and help clean up the airfield’s runway. Policing the battlefield took some 

time. “There was plenty of damage. Cars were charred and anti aircraft guns 

lay blown apart.” In a grimmer task, medics and those assisting them drove 

around in “a beat up jeep with the chaplain and body bags,” collecting the 

enemy dead. “Bodies, bodies everywhere,” one Ranger recalled. “I felt empty 

coping with the loss.” The chaplain would give dead Panamanians their last 

rites before they were placed in the body bags, which were then put on the hood 

of the jeep and taken to a consolidation point. In all, thirty-four defenders 

were known to have been killed; the number of wounded was unknown. Three 

hundred and sixty-two prisoners, along with forty-three civilian detainees, had 

been turned over to the prisoner collection point for processing. As for the 

Rangers, they had suffered four deaths, two from friendly fire, and twentyseven men wounded in action. Increasing the casualty figures were the three 

dozen injuries they had sustained during the parachute jump.51

With Panamanian military installations in and around Panama City and 

Rio Hato under American control, the Panama Defense Forces could no 

longer mount an effective counterattack against U.S. troops on the Pacific side 

of the canal. There were, to be sure, isolated PDF units headquartered outside 

50 Quote from U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, pp. 37–38. The 

names of the Rangers killed in the friendly fire incident are from Bahmanyar, Shadow Warriors, 

p. 138. 51 The material on supply issues is from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 154–55. The account of policing the battlefield and the quotes are from the firsthand accounts of ranger experiences posted on http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm. The casualty and prisoner-of-war 

numbers are from Briefing Slides, 75th Ranger Rgt, Operation Just Cause, n.d.
Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato

299

the canal area as far away as David in the west and Darién Province in the 

east. But these garrisons contained no major combat units and were slated to 

be subdued in follow-on operations. Thus, by midday on 20 December, U.S. 

forces had completed their priority missions on one side of Panama. While 

they had been doing so, Task Force Atlantic was attempting to duplicate the 

feat on the other side of the country. 

10

Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of 

Operations North

Given the priority assigned to the mission of removing the leadership of the Panama Defense Forces and neutralizing the organization’s 

most potentially dangerous elements, the preponderance of Just Cause

D-day operations targeted the numerous enemy units and installations on 

the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. Several task forces had engaged in 

this effort, and in most cases they had accomplished their missions before 

the end of the first day, a feat attributed to extensive planning, detailed and 

realistic rehearsals, the use of decisive force, some element of surprise, the 

professionalism of the U.S. military, and the mismatch between American 

forces and their Panamanian adversary. The result was that enemy 

resistance on the Panama City side of the country had been defeated or 

isolated without an inordinate number of casualties (friendly, enemy, or 

civilian) or amount of damage to the capital city.

In contrast, combat troops responsible for operations on the Atlantic 

side of the country belonged to only one task force, Task Force Atlantic, 

an organization initially established under JTF-Panama during Operation 

Nimrod Dancer. Headquartered at Fort Sherman, a U.S. installation 

situated on the west side of Limón Bay across from the city of Colón, the 

task force had fifteen Just Cause missions, including nine H-hour targets. 

As if this did not present enough difficulties, General Stiner had labeled 

Task Force Atlantic an economy of force: superior firepower would have 

to compensate for what was at best a one-to-one friendly-to-enemy troop 

ratio, well below the desired ratio of three to one, if not four to one or even 

five to one, of attacker to defender. Alluding to the mandated limits on the 

number of combat personnel available to him, the task force commander 

told his subordinates shortly before H-hour, “You know, you guys are on 

your own; we’ve got no reserve. . . . I can’t help you if you get in trouble. 

You’ve got to fight this one through on your own. I’ve got me and my S3 

with a rifle, and that’s the reserve of the task force.”1

1 Quotes from Interv, author with Brig Gen Keith Kellogg and Lt Col Gregory Gardner, 

both U.S. Army, 9 Apr 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C. Intervs, author with Gardner, U.S. Army, 7 Apr 

1992, Fort Bragg; with Lt Col Johnny Brooks, U.S. Army, 11 May 1993, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans. Both Brooks and Gardner refer to the economy-of-force status.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

302

Perceptions, Planning, and Preparations

The speaker was Col. Keith Kellogg, commander of the 3d Brigade, 7th 

Infantry Division (Light). He had arrived in Panama in mid-October, part of 

the scheduled rotation in which he replaced Col. David R. E. Hale, the 7th’s 1st 

Brigade commander, as the head of Task Force Atlantic. Significantly, in view of 

what would occur during Just Cause, Kellogg perceived the situation in Panama 

very differently from his predecessor. Whereas both men were experienced and 

regarded themselves as “warriors,” Hale was more contemplative and readily 

understood that political considerations inherent in the crisis would at times trump 

traditional military thinking and necessitate some constraints on the actions of 

his troops. In contrast, the more orthodox Kellogg was seen as “likely to shoot 

from the hip and sort it out later.” As he later reminisced, “I thought that we were 

too restrictive because you’re asking your young soldiers to do too much thinking 

instead of being soldiers, and I thought you could make it much more black 

and white and take the onus away from their having to make real hard decisions. 

That’s my job.” Shortly after arriving in Panama, the colonel met with General 

Thurman and came away reassured that “we weren’t going to take any crap from 

the Panamanians” and that the SOUTHCOM commander “wasn’t afraid to get 

into a nose-to-nose, hard-ass confrontation with them,” even if it meant a shooting 

incident that might trigger a war. Based on the four-star’s guidance, Kellogg was 

determined to place Task Force Atlantic on a war footing as a prelude to what he 

saw as the “disaster waiting to happen.” In brief, he anticipated adopting “a much 

more aggressive approach to doing business down here as a task force.”2

In the weeks that followed, Kellogg’s task force “turned up the heat quite a bit” 

on the Panama Defense Forces through the zealous implementation of Sand Fleas 

and contingency readiness exercises. Yet, while the colonel believed this approach 

to be in keeping with Thurman’s intentions, his immediate superior was another 

general, Marc A. Cisneros, the JTF-Panama commander. At first, Kellogg did 

not see this arrangement as cause for concern. Cisneros, as the SOUTHCOM 

operations officer under General Woerner, had been known to favor a tougher 

stance in dealing with the Panama Defense Forces than his boss had thought 

prudent. Moreover, once in command at Fort Clayton, Cisneros had moved 

quickly to introduce several measures designed to put additional pressure on the 

Panamanian military. Yet, there were limits to how far even he was willing to go, 

and Kellogg, he soon concluded, was too often inclined to cross those boundaries. 

The colonel and his staff for their part came to perceive Cisneros as someone 

who “would kind of talk a good game, but when you actually stopped somebody 

[the Panamanian military], he was on that line in a heartbeat saying, ‘Kellogg, 

2 Quote describing Kellogg’s persona from Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993. All 

other quotes from Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. Although Kellogg and 

Hale had little face-to-face time in mid-October while conducting the Task Force Atlantic transition, the two colonels and their staffs had met in Panama for about three days in August to discuss the upcoming handoff. Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992. In discussions about the 

personality differences and leadership styles of Hale and Kellogg, at least two officers who knew 

each of the colonels well (Brooks and Gardner) concluded that Hale was best suited for working under Woerner and Loeffke and that Kellogg was more attuned to Thurman’s approach. As 

Gardner observed, “Of the two of them, the right guy was in the right place at the right time.”
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

303

what are you doing over there. . . . You’re getting out of control,’ and that kind of 

thing.” In one such case, Cisneros had ordered Kellogg to dismantle a roadblock 

the colonel had set up on his own authority to control traffic on a main avenue 

near Coco Solo following a drive-by shooting in the area. In another, Cisneros 

had rejected a proposal from Fort Sherman to have Task Force Atlantic elements 

conduct a night assault exercise onto Fort Amador on the Pacific side of the canal 

area. “That’s out of your area,” the general is reported to have told his subordinate 

commander. 

As a result of these and other such cautions, Kellogg and his staff came to regard 

Cisneros as a “political general” like Woerner and Loeffke, someone who did not 

want “to make waves.” For his part, Cisneros developed very strong reservations 

about the ability of Kellogg and those around him to recognize the nuances of 

the current crisis and, should hostilities come, to keep from overreacting in such 

a way as to cause unnecessary casualties and physical damage. Still, despite the 

general’s wariness and his attempts on occasion to rein in the Task Force Atlantic 

commander, in the weeks preceding Just Cause Kellogg generally enjoyed a high 

degree of autonomy in his day-to-day operations, in part because of his location 

on the other side of the isthmus, well removed from Fort Clayton.3

While U.S. troops on the Atlantic side carried out their various assignments, 

Kellogg and his immediate subordinates found themselves caught up in another 

critical activity. Their arrival in mid-October ensured that they would be deeply 

involved in the planning effort that Thurman had accelerated immediately after 

the failed coup. Back in 1988, both Kellogg, then the 7th Infantry Division’s 

operations officer, and Lt. Col. Gregory Gardner, who was now the colonel’s 

operations officer in Task Force Atlantic, had been involved in the early planning 

directed by Woerner, and both had been instrumental in determining what role 

their division would play, initially under Elaborate Maze, then under two of its 

successors, the Post Time and Blue Spoon operation orders in the Prayer Book. 

At the time, the 7th was the only U.S.-based division “to support the plans with all 

three brigades,” a commitment that meant it would be designated JTF-Panama’s 

Army Forces component. By September 1988, the division’s set of contingency 

plans for the Panama crisis had reached a “steady state,” in Gardner’s words, as he 

moved into his next assignment, the S–3 position with the 3d Brigade, the unit that 

had come under Kellogg’s command the previous month.4

A year later, as Kellogg and Gardner settled in at Fort Sherman, they 

learned that the “old plan was out.”5 Thurman had named General Stiner his 

war fighter, and planners at the XVIII Airborne Corps, by bringing in the 82d 

3 On the pre–Just Cause relationship between Kellogg and Cisneros, see Interv, author with 

Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992; Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992, which contains the 

quotes. In his interview, Gardner, who was Kellogg’s operations officer, conceded that Cisneros’ 

views of the crisis were probably right but that Task Force Atlantic under Kellogg simply had 

its “warfighting focus.” 4 On Kellogg’s and Gardner’s participation in contingency planning during 1988, see Interv, 

author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992; Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992, which 

contains the second quote; Interv, author with Maj Harry Tomlin, U.S. Army, 22 Mar 1991, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. First quote from 7th Infantry Division (Light) Input, Overview: Planning 

and Pre–Just Cause Deployment, to JTF-Panama AAR, Operation Just Cause, 3 Feb 1990. 5 Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

304

Airborne Division for H-hour combat operations, had effectively relegated 

the two light-fighter brigades still in the United States to follow-on missions. 

Furthermore, Stiner’s JTF-South, not the 7th Infantry Division, would be 

dual-hatted as the Army Forces component in the event of war. What this 

meant for Kellogg was that he and his subordinates would have to help revise 

the contingency plans for those units under the control of the one brigade 

headquarters from the 7th that would be in Panama at the outset of hostilities, 

Task Force Atlantic. 

Kellogg had only one week to complete the initial revisions, presumably so 

that the Southern Command and the XVIII Airborne Corps could incorporate 

them into CINCSO Operation Order 1–90 and JTF-South OPLAN 90–2 that 

would be presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in early November. Kellogg met 

this deadline, which culminated in a briefing he gave to Stiner. Following that, 

work on updating the plan continued throughout November and into midDecember, with the colonel meeting frequently with his headquarters staff, as 

well as with the commanders and staff officers of the security enhancement 

battalion under his control and of whatever battalion was currently rotating 

through the Jungle Operations Training Center. At the time Kellogg arrived in 

Panama, the 7th Infantry Division’s 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, commanded 

by Lt. Col. Jeff Rock, was the security battalion, with its headquarters at Fort 

Davis. For the next month, Rock’s people added missions and refined the ones 

already assigned to them under Blue Spoon and 90–2. Then, at the end of 

the third week in November, the battalion redeployed to the United States, 

to be replaced by another 7th Infantry Division unit, the 4th Battalion, 17th 

Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Johnny Brooks. Brooks’ battalion had just 

come out of the jungle training center where, like those units that had preceded 

it during Nimrod Dancer and those that would follow it prior to Operation 

Just Cause, it had maintained a “formal command relationship” with Task 

Force Atlantic for the purpose of contingency planning.6

As plans neared their final form, the JTF-South Operations Plan 90–2 

listed several tasks for U.S. forces under Kellogg. These included neutralizing 

the Panama Defense Forces and capturing arms caches in the Task Force 

Atlantic area of operations; seizing and securing Fort Espinar, Coco Solo, 

and Renacer Prison; securing Madden Dam; isolating, neutralizing, and, if 

necessary, destroying enemy elements at Cerro Tigre and Gamboa and being 

prepared to do the same to the PDF military regional headquarters in Colón; 

protecting American lives and facilities; and preventing enemy reinforcements 

from moving into or out of the area of operations (Map 16).7

As these tasks were refined, necessary adjustments were made to Task 

Force Atlantic’s Sand Fleas, contingency readiness exercises, and Purple 

Storms, bringing each closer in line with a specific wartime mission. For 

example, after the JOTC battalion received the Blue Spoon responsibility for 

taking Gamboa, the unit began conducting more Sand Fleas in that area, in the 

process gathering additional intelligence on the objective, especially through 

6 Ibid. Quote from Briefing, Lt Col Johnny Brooks, 29 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, Wash.

7 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. A summary of the Task Force Atlantic mission 

statement is also in 7th Infantry Division Input, Purpose, to JTF-Panama AAR, 3 Feb 1990.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

305

contact with friendly Panamanians living there. (One operation, a simulated 

air assault on the potential target, met with PDF attempts to obstruct it, which 

caused the U.S. battalion commander to have his soldiers fix bayonets after 

which the Panamanians moved aside.)8

For some targets, acquiring the desired intelligence proved difficult. 

Colón was such a case: legal issues pertaining to Panamanian sovereignty 

prohibited positioning U.S. forces where they could observe several objectives 

in and around the city. Also, restrictions on U.S. troop movements near an 

ammunition dump in the vicinity of Cerro Tigre limited intelligence gathering 

at that target. The isolation of Renacer Prison created additional problems. 

While Brooks’ battalion was in the Jungle Operations Training Center, the 

lieutenant colonel acquired blueprints for the prison and, on a few occasions, 

8 Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992; Intervs, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992; 

with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992; with Brooks, 11 May 1993. In his briefing at Fort Lewis, Brooks 

emphasized that, during the period from mid-October through mid-December, U.S. forces under Task Force Atlantic engaged in many live-fire exercises and carried ammunition with them 

everywhere they went, resulting in an increase in the troops’ confidence.

Fort Sherman

Fort Clayton

Empire

Range

Cerro Tigre

Fort Davis

CocoSolo

Naval

Station

France Field

Fort Espinar

Gamboa

Colón

Coco Solo

Renacer Prison

Madden Dam

Madden

Lake

Caribb ean S e a

Gatun

Lake

Rio Chagres

canal channel

C A N A L

Z O N E

P A N A M A

Z O N E

C A N A L

P A N A M A

F O R M E R

F O R M E R

G AT U N LO C K S

G AT UM

D AM

Gatún Nueva

Providencia

Puerto Pilón

Paraíso

Cristóbal

Chilibré

El Limón

B O Y D - R O O S E V E LT H I G H WA Y

AREA OF OPERATIONS

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

20 December 1989

Objective

0

0

6 Miles

6 Kilometers

Map 16
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

306

flew as close to it as he could. Not until ten days before Just Cause, however, 

were elements from the JOTC battalion, now from the 82d Airborne Division, 

able to walk the terrain near the facility, thanks to the fact that Kellogg’s 

staff had begun plotting “green to green” routes for Task Force Atlantic 

exercises (meaning that U.S. troops, as allowed under the canal treaty, could 

move through sovereign Panamanian territory if it lay across the most direct 

route from one treaty “area of coordination”—in which American forces 

were allowed—to another). The Sand Flea near the prison and a videotape 

of the maneuver made by a Navy SEAL team provided some very useful, if 

belated information. In sum on the eve of Just Cause, Kellogg had adequate 

intelligence on most but not all of the objectives for which he was responsible.9

In addition to linking exercises to a particular unit’s contingency mission, 

planners also divided the Task Force Atlantic area of operations into two parts, 

AO North and AO South. In the former, the security enhancement battalion would 

be the principal U.S. combat force. Its main objectives included Coco Solo, Fort 

Espinar, Colón, France Field (a last-minute addition), and the transisthmian BoydRoosevelt Highway. The JOTC battalion would be the principal combat force in 

AO South, with the unit’s main missions including Madden Dam, Gamboa, Cerro 

Tigre, and Renacer Prison. Other units, including a battalion cobbled together 

from the cadre in the jungle training center, would execute critical operations and 

provide essential support both north and south. In addition, Battery B from the 2d 

Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery, would provide Vulcan light antiaircraft guns 

armed with 20-mm. Gatling cannon capable of firing 1,000 or 3,000 rounds per 

minute, “the most firepower we had,” according to Brooks. As of mid-December, 

the Task Force Atlantic order of battle consisted of the following forces: 

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Brigade, 7th Infantry Division 

4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division 

 Company C, 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry (plus) 

3d Battalion, 504th Infantry, 82d Airborne Division 

Cadre, Jungle Operations Training Center 

7th Military Police Company 

Battery B, 7th Battalion, 15th Field Artillery 

Battery B, 2d Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery 

Company C, 13th Engineer Battalion 

Company C, 7th Medical Battalion 

Company C, 707th Maintenance Battalion 

Company C, 7th Supply and Transportation Battalion 

3d Platoon, Company B, 127th Signal Battalion10

9 Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992; Intervs, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992; 

with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992; with Brooks, 11 May 1993. The terms green to green and area of coordination are derived from sections of the canal treaty pertaining to Panamanian sovereignty, 

the interaction of U.S. and Panamanian armed forces, and the legal restrictions applicable to 

both militaries. 10 Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992. Quote from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 236–37. The task organization of JTFSouth, including Task Force Atlantic, is at http://www.history.army.mil/documents/panama/

taskorg.htm.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

307

On the night Lieutenant Paz was killed, Colonel Kellogg, on his own 

authority, put these forces on alert, had ammunition issued to them, and had 

them secure certain sites. He then notified General Cisneros, who accepted the fait 

accompli. “So we kind of got ahead of the whole game on our own,” Kellogg later 

acknowledged. Units gathered at the assembly points for their assault missions, 

with the only unit out of place being the company slated to block access to and 

from Colón. The problem was partially remedied by putting the unit on trucks and 

driving the men from Fort Sherman to Fort Davis, thus locating them on the east 

side of the canal just south of the city. By Sunday morning, Task Force Atlantic 

was ready to go to war, only to have Cisneros tell Kellogg and the other JTFPanama commanders to have their troops adopt more “normal” behavior as a 

means of lulling Panamanians into believing that the United States was not going 

to retaliate militarily for the death of the marine. For the remainder of Sunday and 

throughout the next day, Kellogg had his men engage in routine activities, even 

while remaining in positions dictated by their contingency plans.11

By Sunday evening, Kellogg had learned that elements of the 7th Infantry 

Division at Fort Ord “were moving.” That news and the arrival of XVIII 

Airborne Corps personnel Monday convinced him that he would be ordered to 

execute Task Force Atlantic’s portion of OPLAN 90–2. Later that night, in the 

JTF-Panama meeting with Cisneros at Fort Clayton, the information Kellogg 

received confirmed his conjecture. Shortly before the meeting convened, the 

colonel sat on a table outside the Simón Bolívar conference room rubbing his 

hands together. It was a long-standing habit of his, but, to the casual observer, 

the image was of a man eager to settle the crisis in Panama once and for all.12

11 Quotes from Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. Intervs, author 

with Brooks, 11 May 1993; with Maj Christopher J. Rizzo, U.S. Army, 15 May 1997, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. 12 Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. The author was the uninitiated 

observer. Over three years later, during the interview with Johnny Brooks, the lieutenant coloA U.S. soldier firing a Vulcan air defense system at a ground target
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

308

After the meeting, Kellogg contacted Maj. Gen. Carmen Cavezza, his 

division commander at Fort Ord, to inform him of the impending invasion, 

only to be told that Stiner had already telephoned the general with the news. 

Kellogg then placed a secure telephone call to Col. Linwood Burney, the 2d 

Brigade commander at Ord, asking that Burney assign one of his companies 

to help Task Force Atlantic “finish the job” with respect to its D-day missions. 

Burney not only agreed to the request but dispatched one of his best units, which 

arrived in the country Wednesday morning. Following the phone conversation 

and some other business at Clayton, Kellogg flew back the length of the canal 

to Fort Sherman, arriving at 0400 Tuesday. Knowing that he would not be 

getting much sleep for some time to come, he allowed himself the luxury of not 

being awakened until 1000.13

The remainder of the day was taken up with meetings and a host of lastminute preparations. After again flying to Fort Clayton, this time for the 

conference at 1600 with Generals Thurman and Stiner, Kellogg returned to 

the Atlantic side and assembled his battalion and company commanders at 

1830. “Gentlemen,” he began, “we have an H-hour, and that H-hour is at 0100, 

20 December.” Reacting to the announcement, one company commander 

remembered thinking, “That’s tonight! That’s six hours from now!” In the 

course of the briefing, Kellogg covered in detail the rules of engagement Stiner 

had distributed, and he emphasized the role that the professionalism of the 

U.S. military, together with Task Force Atlantic’s firepower, would play in 

compensating for the doctrinally inauspicious one-to-one ratio between the 

attacking U.S. forces and the defending Panamanians. The room was tense, 

although Kellogg could later reminisce, “The joke was ‘We’re going to knock 

on the door with an AT4.’” He also relayed to the group Thurman’s sentiment 

that, if any civilians were killed in the fighting to come, the operation would be 

considered a failure.14

Following the meeting, the colonel’s field commanders returned to 

their headquarters with only a few hours to brief their subordinates, issue 

the necessary operation orders, procure whatever ammunition had yet to 

be distributed along with other essential items such as glint tape, conduct 

inspections, and in general prepare the soldiers for battles only a few hours 

away. There were also the usual personal matters many of the troops tried 

to squeeze in, such as writing letters or making videotapes to be sent to their 

families. Then, having done all they could in the time allotted, the units 

involved began departing for their assault positions. Each soldier, according 

to one platoon leader, 

nel, in emphasizing a point he was making about Kellogg, rubbed his hands together the way 

the colonel had the night of 18 December. Brooks went on to say that, while the habit certainly 

reflected Kellogg’s assertiveness, one should not read too much into it. 13 Ibid.

14 Last quote from ibid. Remaining quotes from Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. 

Evan A. Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo Panama 1989,” Infantry 90 (January-April 2000). 

The article by Huelfer, who served as a platoon leader in Company C, 4th Battalion, 17th 

Infantry, is a highly detailed account of the company’s activities at Coco Solo and can be found 

on several Internet sites. 
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

309

carried a basic load of 210 rounds in seven magazines for his individual 

weapon, plus two or more hand grenades. Some carried additional rounds for 

machine guns, demolition materials, or antitank rockets. Nobody seemed to 

mind toting extra ordnance. Every soldier wore a protective vest and kevlar 

helmet and carried at least four quarts of water. Leaders also had night vision 

devices, binoculars, radios, and flashlights. Altogether, the typical combat 

load exceeded 50 pounds without even counting the rucksack.15

After briefing his own troops at 2100, Capt. Christopher J. Rizzo, the 

4th Battalion’s Company C commander, had the additional task of orienting 

a platoon that would be attached to him from the airborne battalion at the 

Jungle Operations Training Center. The platoon would assist in the attack on 

the PDF naval infantry company at Coco Solo, Rizzo’s primary mission at 

H-hour. He had briefed the paratroopers the night before, but now he had to 

provide them with ammunition, teach them how to fire the AT4s without being 

injured from the missiles’ backblast, and get them into position. (Despite the 

captain’s warnings, two of the paratroopers suffered backblast burns during 

the actual operation.) The fact that the platoon did not arrive at its assembly 

point until shortly before midnight compressed the time Rizzo could spend 

with the men. Further complicating matters for him, eight American families 

living in a housing area across from his objective had to be evacuated and 

moved to safer residences nearby, a process that began shortly after midnight. 

The procedure of going door-to-door posed some risk to operations security. 

As Rizzo’s immediate superior Colonel Brooks worried, “Somebody turns a 

light on, then you go to the next house and somebody turns a light on, and you 

go to the next house.” To his relief, the PDF infantrymen did not detect the 

evacuation in progress. At least they did not let on if they did.16

By 0030, the various elements of Task Force Atlantic were either on the 

move toward their assault positions or, if already there, in the process of 

setting up their larger weapons and getting into their tactical formations. At 

Fort Sherman, Kellogg had assembled a “roving team” that included himself, 

Gardner, a sergeant major, the brigade’s intelligence officer, a fire support officer, 

a liaison officer, an operations sergeant, and, for protection, two military police 

vehicles. Once Just Cause kicked off, Kellogg would leave two captains in charge 

of the tactical operations center at Sherman while he took his team to observe the 

assault on Renacer Prison in AO South, returning to AO North at dawn. In the 

latter area of operations, Brooks oversaw the final disposition of his forces. In a 

move to demonstrate the sense of trust he held in his company commanders, he 

sent out several field grade officers from his staff and from the JOTC battalion’s 

staff to be with the units under his control that had H-hour objectives (Map 17).

The officers’ purpose was not to micromanage the tactical operations but simply 

to provide Brooks with information from the front, thus obviating the usual 

practice of his having to be in frequent and direct communication with company 

15 Quote from Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.” “Conquest At Coco Solo,” in Soldiers 

in Panama: Stories of Operation Just Cause (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Public 

Affairs, Department of the Army, 1990), p. 26. 16 Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. Quote from Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 

1993. “Conquest At Coco Solo,” p. 26.
P A N A M Á

F O R M E R

C A N A L Z O N E

E as t B re a k wa te r

The Bottleneck

C o co Solo Na v a l

Station

F o r t Davi s

F o r t Espina r

F r ance

F iel d

PDF NCO

Academy

PDF Naval

Inf Facility

8th Inf Co. Headquarters

Gatun

Lake

French Canal

c a nal channe l

LIMÓN

B A Y

Coco Solo

Hospital

Coco Solo

B O Y D - R O O S E V E LT H I G H WA Y

B O L I V A R H I G H WA Y

Rainbow City

Cristóbal

C O L Ó N

Margarita

Mount

 Hope

AREA OF OPERATIONS NORTH

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

20 December 1989

0

0

1 2 Miles

500 1000 2000 Meters

Objective

Roadblock

Map 17
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

311

commanders, who in his opinion should be left alone as much as possible to 

conduct their missions. As he described his feelings on the issue, “what they 

don’t need is for me to be screaming and yelling at them on the radio.” As for 

Brooks himself, he would set up his field headquarters at Coco Solo, arguably 

the most dangerous H-hour mission in AO North.17

As with the other task force commanders in Just Cause, Kellogg was aware 

by the evening of the nineteenth that the operation had been compromised. Yet, 

as was the case with most other JTF-South components, the 0100 H-hour for 

Task Force Atlantic remained unchanged. That seemed to pose no problem for 

Kellogg’s troops as they entered their final hour of preparations. The colonel 

had talked with his commanders about what would happen if something went 

wrong prior to H-hour, but although some units were having to scramble more 

than others to reach or prepare their final assault positions, on the whole the 

scheduled deployments seemed to be proceeding well. Then, about twenty 

minutes before 0100, a gunshot could be clearly heard from the vicinity of 

Coco Solo. The war on the Atlantic side had begun, suddenly and prematurely.

Coco Solo

Coco Solo, a former U.S. Navy base, is located east of the Colón 

peninsula, a half mile across Manzanillo Bay. In December 1989, near the 

shoreline running north to south, there were two large, almost identical, threestory buildings, each with three wings. Behind them, along the bay, were a 

large parking lot and a dock area. In part, the complex was a “joint” military 

facility, with U.S. troops stationed in the northern building and in a gymnasium 

adjacent to it, and the PDF’s 1st Naval Infantry Company—also known as a 

17 First quoted words from Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992. Second quote from 

Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993.

Coco Solo
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

312

marine company—in the southern building, only two hundred yards away.18 As 

if that were not complicated enough, the northern structure also served as an 

American junior and senior high school, while the PDF building contained a 

Chinese restaurant and, in its northern and southern wings, a garment factory. 

At the southern tip of the PDF facility was a Soviet Lada car factory, across 

from which was the housing area mentioned earlier. Roads ran in front of the 

two main buildings, behind them, and between them (Map 18). 

In late November, when Brook’s 4th Battalion had moved out of the Jungle 

Operations Training Center to become the security battalion at Fort Sherman, 

Captain Rizzo had learned that in the event of hostilities his company would 

have the mission of neutralizing the marine company at Coco Solo and any 

patrol boats and other enemy craft docked in the bay behind the headquarters 

building. In response, Rizzo had moved the troops of Company C into an 

unused wing of the American high school. At the same time, his predecessor 

as company commander gave him the Coco Solo battle book, together with 

some valuable information and guidance that helped Rizzo begin drafting a 

tactical plan for accomplishing the mission. A week later, the captain gave his 

superiors the first of three briefings on the course of action he and his staff 

had developed.19

The concept of operations relied on Company C’s three infantry platoons; 

the attached platoon of paratroopers from Company C, 3d Battalion, 504th 

Infantry, from the jungle school; two squads from the 7th Infantry Division’s 

2d Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery, each with a 20-mm. Vulcan; a 

platoon from the 549th Military Police Company at Fort Davis; and a signal 

detachment from the 127th Signal Battalion. Before H-hour, these units would 

move into their assigned positions. Rizzo’s 1st Platoon would cover the dock 

area and be responsible for seizing any PDF boats present at the onset of the 

fighting. The 3d Platoon would take up a blocking position to the south of the 

naval infantry company headquarters and in front of the southern housing 

area. The military police would establish four checkpoints at key approaches 

to the complex, while one of the two Vulcan squads would cover the northern 

flank, including a second housing area and the waterways leading out of the 

18 The term joint is in quotation marks because, in U.S. military doctrine in 1989 (and of 

this writing), it applied to the interaction of two or more American services, with the term combined—today multinational—used to denote the interaction of U.S. forces with foreign forces. 

In the context of the Panama Canal treaties, the term joint meant the interaction of U.S. and 

Panamanian forces. 19 Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. In his briefing at Fort Lewis, Washington, in 

1992, Colonel Brooks stated that the original mission had called for the PDF patrol boats to 

be destroyed. Feeling that, in light of the restoration effort that would follow combat operations in Panama, it might be better to capture the boats, he raised the issue with Kellogg, who 

agreed. The wording in the mission was therefore changed to neutralize. Briefing, Brooks, 29 

Apr 1992. As for the guidance Rizzo received for preparing his plan, Huelfer indicates that 

Brooks, the captain’s immediate superior, had “five major concerns regarding operations at 

Coco Solo”: “He could not allow the boats to escape with their firepower intact. He had to 

protect U.S. citizens in the area. He had to minimize collateral damage to private property. He 

had to prevent small groups of armed PDF soldiers from escaping the initial battle. He had 

to prevent the PDF from using their heavy machineguns to influence the battle.” See Huelfer, 

“The Battle for Coco Solo.”
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

313

bay. Finally, the paratroopers accompanied by the other Vulcan squad would 

take up firing positions about a hundred yards from the front of the main PDF 

building, while soldiers in Rizzo’s 2d Platoon prepared to enter the north wing 

of the headquarters via the third floor and then work their way down to enemy 

positions on the lower levels. The 2d Platoon would not move, however, until 

P A N A M A

F O R M E R C A N A L Z O N E

C o c o

Solo

Nava l

Statio n

F r ance

F i eld

PDF Naval Inf Facility

1st Naval Inf Co.

Headquarters

Manzanillo

Bay

Cristóbal High School

Gym

Garment

 Fac tory

Garment

 Fac tory

Lada Car Fac tory

Housing

Housing

Lada Car

Parking Lot

PDF Barracks

C O L Ó N

Coco Solo

AREA OF OPERATIONS NORTH

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

C OC O SOLO

20 December 1989

Objective

Roadblock

Fence

0

0

500 Meters

500 Yards

Map 18
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

314

the Panamanians had been given a chance to surrender. As an incentive for 

the defenders to do so, the U.S. troops in front of the building would open fire 

at 0100 with the Vulcan, a combination of AT4 and LAW antitank weapons, 

M60 machine guns, and a variety of small arms. The barrage would be 

intense but brief, after which a loudspeaker team would broadcast a surrender 

demand. If the enemy rejected the appeal, the cycle of firing and broadcasts 

would be repeated. Only if the second attempt proved futile would the building 

be breached.20

If the PDF marines did not capitulate after the displays of U.S. firepower, 

Kellogg and his subordinates anticipated intense combat. “We thought this 

would be one of our tough fights,” the colonel recalled, “because the naval 

infantry company had been openly aggressive during the entire time we were 

down there.” The aggressive posture to which he referred ranged from a daily 

ritual of obscene gestures and verbal abuse to the actual pointing of weapons 

at U.S. soldiers. What Kellogg did not say was that, in the course of Sand Fleas 

geared to rehearsing the plan, Rizzo was having one of his platoons take up 

positions in front of the marine company headquarters two to three times a 

week. For twenty minutes, the men would lie there with their weapons, then 

leave. On occasion, the Company C commander would also “roll the Vulcan 

out” and position it in such a way as “to augment the infantry platoon’s 

intimidating posture. At first, these demonstrations unsettled the PDF soldiers 

but after a while only served to lull them into a false sense of security.” In 

short, both sides in Coco Solo were acting aggressively; the crisis had reached 

the point where such behavior was no longer considered unusual.21

Even so, going into mid-December, Company C still lacked a good deal 

of information concerning its potential opponent. The order of battle Task 

Force Atlantic possessed for the naval infantry company estimated a unit of 

up to two hundred men, the same number of troops that Rizzo would have to 

pit against them. (The company actually carried 130 men on its rolls.) There 

was, however, no updated intelligence as to how many marines were present, 

nor was it known for sure where their living quarters were located in the PDF 

building. Through the Sand Fleas and other exercises, Brooks and Rizzo tried 

to acquire some of this needed information. Company C’s platoon leaders 

also ate regularly at the Chinese restaurant located in the PDF building, 

simultaneously dining and observing. Unfortunately, in light of subsequent 

events, they did not realize that a large Chinese family was living on the 

20 Rizzo’s plan is covered in Intervs, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997; with Brooks, 11 May 

1993; Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992; “Conquest At Coco Solo,” p. 25; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 242–43. According to Huelfer in “The Battle for Coco Solo,” 

an AC–130 was scheduled to be overhead to provide Company C additional fire support, but it 

did not arrive until “it was too late to be useful.” The company’s mortar section also proved of 

limited use because of rules of engagement prohibiting indirect fire without the brigade commander’s authorization. 21 First quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 243. “Conquest At 

Coco Solo,” p. 25. Second quote from Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. Third quote from 

Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.” In his interview, Rizzo also noted that his 2d Platoon used 

the school in which it was quartered to rehearse the clearing operations it might have to conduct 

in the near identical PDF building to the south.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

315

premises. In another undertaking just two days before Just Cause, a SEAL 

team in the area accompanied by some of Rizzo’s people sailed by Coco Solo, 

taking photographs that revealed the location of the naval infantry company’s 

living quarters.22

All this paid off once Rizzo received word that the operation plan would 

be executed. Shortly past midnight on 20 December, after he had accompanied 

the platoon from the 82d Airborne Division to its position in front of the PDF 

company headquarters, he returned to his command post in the courtyard at 

the school and contacted his other platoon leaders to make sure they were in 

place. He also passed along the units’ various call signs to the 4th Battalion 

operations officer at Brooks’ command post in the gymnasium and was going 

through several final checks when, unexpectedly, a round went off behind 

him. As he recalled, the shot “stirred things up in the naval infantry company 

headquarters,” as several Panamanians ran out the back door of the building 

and headed for the docked patrol boats. With H-hour still over a quarter hour 

away, the key questions of the moment concerned not only what had happened 

but what to do about it.23

Years later, the whole episode and its ramifications would remain shrouded 

in controversy. What was clear within minutes after the shot was fired, however, 

was that a U.S. military policeman, Sfc. Charlie Gray, had shot and killed a 

Panamanian in the vicinity of the Coco Solo complex. Gray was the platoon 

sergeant of the 549th Military Police Company’s 3d Platoon. About thirty 

minutes before H-hour, he was in the process of leading four other military 

policemen to a position—the last of the four MP checkpoints called for in 

Rizzo’s plan—from which they could seal off one of the entrances to the PDF 

headquarters. Near the location was a wooded area, and, as Gray and the 

others approached, they came across a group of Panamanians. According to 

Gray’s own account, the men had a radio and were “giving away our position.” 

The sergeant informed his platoon leader of the situation and, in return, 

purportedly received an order “to take that position and to silence that radio 

at all costs.” As the other military policemen provided cover, Gray approached 

a guard shack in which a man wearing a PDF uniform and holding a Motorola 

radio was standing. When Gray ordered him to surrender, the man instead 

tried to grab the sergeant’s M16 rifle. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, at the 

conclusion of which Gray shot and killed the individual. According to the 

sergeant, the victim was in the process of unholstering and cocking a revolver. 

Soon thereafter, the other Panamanians in the wooded area emerged with their 

hands raised.24

To have the H-hour attacks in AO North compromised by over a quarter 

hour created no small degree of consternation at Brooks’ command post, 

where word of the shooting was radioed back to Kellogg. In the days that 

followed, both officers and a number of their subordinates voiced the opinion 

that the incident could have been avoided. They attributed its occurrence to 

several causes, beginning with the military policemen involved. Kellogg later 

22 Intervs, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997; with Brooks, 11 May 1993.

23 Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997.

24 Gray’s account is from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 240–41.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

316

characterized them as USARSO “traffic cops”; in his opinion, they lacked the 

experience and skills necessary for wartime operations. Had a combat-trained 

military police unit from the 7th Infantry Division been present instead, he 

clearly implied, the incident would not have taken place.

Reinforcing this point, Kellogg, Gardner, and Rizzo cited previous tension 

between elements of Brooks’ battalion and the Panama-based military police. 

The colonel and his S–3 went further, identifying Gray specifically as a “loose 

cannon” whose “flaky” behavior had caused problems for Task Force Atlantic 

in at least two episodes prior to Just Cause. As for the encounter with the 

Panamanians in the wooded area, Kellogg’s view was that Gray should not 

have been there. According to one staff officer, Gray “didn’t have an order. He 

didn’t have a mission to take anything down, simply to block.” Another officer 

went so far as to label the shooting a murder, although a criminal investigation 

conducted by the Army found no grounds on which to bring charges against 

the first sergeant. Beyond dispute, however, was the fact that the shooting “had 

certainly jeopardized the entire operation tactically,” since together “with the 

recently slain PDF soldier, surprise became the second casualty of the night.” 

For this reason, Brooks recounted, “things got moving rather expeditiously.”25

When Brooks’ operations officer radioed Kellogg about the incident, the 

colonel was in a helicopter observing preparations for the U.S. assault on 

Renacer Prison in AO South. Particularly troubling was the news relayed to 

him about the PDF marines, who, following the premature shot, were trying to 

escape via the military boats in the dock area. The craft sported 20-mm. chain 

guns and .50-caliber machine guns, weapons capable of wreaking havoc on 

Company C and other U.S. forces should the enemy be allowed to board the 

boats unchallenged. To prevent this, Captain Rizzo was urgently requesting 

permission through Brooks to begin the operation, despite what Kellogg had 

stated emphatically earlier that evening: H-hour would stand at 0100 regardless 

of what might happen before then. Unequivocal as that declaration had seemed 

at the time, it did not survive Gray’s actions and Brooks’ subsequent entreaty, 

“We’ve got to do it now!” Kellogg did not hesitate to reverse himself. Without 

informing JTF-South in advance, he quickly authorized an immediate attack, 

even though he and his battalion commander knew that other Task Force 

Atlantic forces in AO North were still en route to their assault positions.26

As soon as Rizzo received permission to open fire, he turned to the gunner 

on the Vulcan positioned in front of the PDF company headquarters and 

tapped him on the shoulder. When the first 20-mm. round hit the target, the 

explosion provided the cue for the U.S. forces in front of the building to begin 

firing with their AT4s, LAWs, M60s, and various small arms. The barrage 

initially peppered the top floor of the building and then worked its way down. 

In the process, the Vulcan fired about eleven hundred rounds, the paratroopers 

25 For Task Force Atlantic’s perspective on the shooting incident and the fourth quote, see 

ibid. Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. First quote from Interv, author with Kellogg and 

Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. Second and third quoted words from Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 

1992. Sixth quote from Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.” Last quote from Briefing, Brooks, 

29 Apr 1992. 26 Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. Quote from Briefing, Brooks, 29 

Apr 1992. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 245. 
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

317

nearly sixty antitank rockets. Then, according to plan, the shooting stopped, 

and a loudspeaker team broadcast its first appeal for the PDF defenders to 

surrender. Brooks had thought the shock of the Vulcan and antitank weapons 

would result in a quick capitulation, but, much to his surprise, “There was 

absolutely no response,” save some scattered and poorly aimed gunfire from 

within the building. So the second barrage began, as Brooks thought to 

himself, “I really don’t want to do this.” (Two years later, Brooks would learn 

that many of the Panamanian defenders were in the back of the building where 

they could not hear the U.S. broadcasts.)27

While most of what one officer called the “deafening roar” of battle 

emanated from U.S. positions in front of the naval infantry company 

headquarters, the “main fight” at Coco Solo, according to Rizzo, took place 

in the dock area behind the building. Rizzo’s 1st Platoon was responsible for 

that sector, and, around 2330, ten to fifteen minutes before the shooting began, 

soldiers in the unit had begun infiltrating into the adjacent Lada parking lot. 

Separating the parking lot and the docks was a chain-link fence. Once the 

platoon had assembled, the men split into two elements: a small support group 

led by the platoon sergeant and a larger assault team of eighteen men headed 

by the platoon leader. The plan called for the support group to seize and secure 

a boathouse on the other side of the fence, in the northeast corner of the 

docks, and, next to it, a PDF barracks. From these positions, the sergeant and 

his men could provide covering fire for the assault element as it worked its 

way single-file in a duck crawl along a seawall on the western edge of the lot. 

The twelve-inch-wide seawall ended where it intersected with the chain-link 

fence, with the fence running slightly past the wall and into the bay. Once the 

assault force had swung around the end of the fence, the men would be on 

the dock and in a position to capture the nine PDF boats that were moored 

there. Prebattle estimates predicted the presence of no more than a half-dozen 

defenders who would have to be dealt with quickly given the relative lack of 

cover available to any U.S. soldier on the south side of the fence.28

Sgt. Rick Mowatt was near the front of the assault force that began 

maneuvering along the seawall. He had not yet reached the fence when, 

following the shot fired by Sergeant Gray, he heard the motors on several boats 

start up and saw several Panamanians leaving the naval infantry company 

building through its back door. Mowatt hurried to get the men behind him 

around the fence and onto the dock. Once there, however, they had to wait 

four or five minutes until the details of their situation were communicated 

up the chain of command to Kellogg and until the colonel’s permission to 

open fire was relayed back down the chain to them. During that time, they 

were completely exposed except for the cover afforded by a landing craft and 

the dry dock constructed of railroad ties to which it was moored. While the 

men marked time, two large PDF gunboats began moving southward from 

27 Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. Quotes from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. 

Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.” 28 First quoted words from Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.” Second quoted words from 

Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

243, 245.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

318

the docks into the bay, away from the 1st Platoon and beyond the range of its 

weapons.29

Once the platoon received permission to engage the enemy, the support 

group blew a hole in the fence that separated it from the small PDF barracks, 

advanced on the structure, and, when there was no response to an appeal to 

surrender, tossed grenades inside what turned out to be an empty building. In 

the boathouse next door, two Panamanians were killed when grenades from 

the support group set off a butane gas explosion. Two other defenders took 

cover under trucks on the dock and then directed small-arms fire against the 

attackers. Their resistance and the increasing volume of enemy fire coming 

from the remaining PDF patrol boats caused the 1st Platoon leader, 1st Lt. 

Walter Burke, to order Mowatt forward with one member of his team to 

employ their LAWs against the Panamanians. Joining Mowatt and his partner 

were two men from the platoon’s antitank section who also brought several 

LAWs with them. The first rocket they fired hit a mast on one of the boats, 

but at the cost of revealing the small group’s vulnerable position. Thus, as 

Mowatt prepared to follow up with a second LAW, the Panamanians brought 

the four men under withering automatic weapons fire, hitting two, one in the 

thigh, the other in the hand and ankle. Despite the casualties, Burke, Mowatt 

and his partner, a radio man, an M60 machine gunner, the two wounded men, 

and the medic attending them managed to stake out a forward position about 

ten yards south of the landing craft that the remainder of the assault force 

was continuing to use for cover. In both positions, the soldiers composing 1st 

Platoon’s main element found themselves outgunned, under heavy enemy fire, 

and, because of a problem with their radio, out of touch with Captain Rizzo 

for about fifteen minutes. 

The ensuing firefight lasted over an hour. Once Rizzo became aware of 

the 1st Platoon’s predicament, he ordered the Vulcan that was situated on 

the northern flank of the battle area to move down and into a position from 

which it could fire on the PDF gunboats. Meanwhile, on the dock, Burke 

sought to get his men dispersed and moving toward the enemy, something 

many of the young soldiers were reluctant to do given the volume of hostile 

fire. The platoon’s noncommissioned officers decided to set the example and 

crept forward, prompting many of the men to follow them. Their movement, 

however, was tentative, except for Mowatt, who moved out in front of the 

advancing troops and fired four antitank missiles at the enemy positions, hitting 

two boats and unmistakably seeing two of the enemy fall. This suppressive 

fire allowed those behind him to advance farther, although their maneuvering 

only accelerated after the relocated Vulcan and two M60 machine guns began 

pouring rounds onto PDF positions. In the process, the tactical advantage 

shifted to the Americans; indeed, according to one account, “The additional 

firepower had all but silenced resistance on the docks and allowed 1st Platoon 

to close onto its objective.” By that time, the Panamanians had begun to run 

short of ammunition, and U.S. troops had seized two boats. When a Spanishspeaking American soldier gave the remaining defenders an ultimatum to 

29 According to Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo,” one of the two vessels that escaped was 

later destroyed by an AC–130 gunship.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

319

surrender in thirty seconds, they did so, to 1st Platoon’s surprise and relief. 

One source concluded that, in all, “about twenty-five PDF had taken part in 

the fight—several times as many as the soldiers were told to expect.” Twelve 

marines surrendered on the dock; others were captured hiding in buildings 

nearby. Mowatt, who later received a Bronze Star, attributed 1st Platoon’s 

success to luck and the unheralded but heroic actions of the men who were 

with him.30

In the battle for the dock area, the opening exchange of shots between the 

1st Platoon and the Panamanians trying to escape occurred shortly before the 

Vulcan positioned on the other side of the naval infantry company headquarters 

fired its first round. Rizzo’s 2d Platoon, assigned the task of breaching the 

main PDF building, later corroborated this. “You hear these little potshots, 

then you hear the [M]60s, and then the Vulcan,” said one of the unit’s fire team 

leaders. The sounds of the premature battle raised the level of anxiety as the 

2d Platoon hustled out of the gymnasium, where it had been preparing for 

its part in the assault, and into the noise and surreal sights—it “was just like 

a light show out there”—caused by the massive firepower demonstration the 

Vulcan, the paratroopers, and Company C’s 3d Platoon had unleashed on the 

enemy. Before the men crossed the eighty yards from the gym to the northern 

wing of their objective, the platoon’s 1st Squad leader tossed a smoke grenade 

to obscure his soldiers’ movement. The smoke provided concealment but also 

attracted enemy fire. Even so, with PDF tracer rounds seemingly everywhere, 

visible even through the smoke, the entire platoon made it safely through a 

door by the Chinese restaurant and to a staircase just inside the naval infantry 

company headquarters.31 

The platoon worked its way by squads up the stairs to the second floor of 

the north wing where, without a blueprint showing the location of rooms that 

would have to be cleared, the troops began searching for enemy defenders. As 

a private in the 2d Squad approached one area, a Chinese woman opened a 

door, saw the soldier with his camouflage face paint and ragpot helmet, and 

fainted. What the private and his comrades quickly discovered was a threeroom complex that served as living quarters for seventeen Chinese. After 

ascertaining that the residents were unarmed, members of the 3d Squad 

removed them to a safer area and stood guard over them.32 Meanwhile, the 

other two squads moved up to the third floor of the north wing and then 

30 The most detailed account of the 1st Platoon’s actions at Coco Solo is in Huelfer, “The 

Battle for Coco Solo,” which contains the first quote; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 253, which contains the second quote, and see also pp. 245–46, 248–49. Huelfer also 

notes that, once the 1st Platoon’s advance on the PDF positions gained momentum, the Vulcan 

rounds came within the “danger close” range to U.S. troops, causing the platoon executive officer to run over to the Vulcan crew and order it to stop shooting. 31 Unless otherwise noted, this account of the actions of the 2d Platoon is based on 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 246, which contains the first quote, and 

see also pp. 247, 249–53; Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo,” which contains the second quote. 32 At some point, the Chinese were removed from the building and relocated across the 

street in the housing area that had been vacated. To gain access to the empty houses, Brooks 

ordered a few of his men to “kick some doors down.” The next day, the facility engineer for 

Panama on the Atlantic side protested both the damage to the doors and Brooks’ decision to 

allow the Chinese to live inside, however temporarily. Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

320

maneuvered toward the main area of the building, the one that housed the 

Panamanian company. Arriving there, the plan next called for them to work 

their way back down to the second floor and, after clearing it, to the first. 

The troops first had to gain access to the main wing through a locked steel 

door surrounded by bolts of fabric from the building’s garment factory. To 

accomplish this, a private put a three-pound charge of C4 plastic explosives 

on the door. It was a mistake. “He screwed up,” Brooks conceded. “He used 

too big a charge.” The subsequent explosion not only blew the door open, but 

also set the fabric ablaze, a fire that quickly spread to the rafters and began 

to burn out of control. The 3d Squad had to be pulled out of the clearing 

operation to fight the flames, while the smoke and the fumes made several 

soldiers nauseous. As for the private who set the charge, Brooks would later 

smile and say, “We made him a sergeant a year later.”33

After spending only the couple of minutes needed to clear the third floor 

of the building’s main section, the two squads from 2d Platoon still committed 

to the fight prepared their descent to the second floor by rolling a few grenades 

down the stairs to eliminate or discourage any enemy personnel on that level. 

The troops then negotiated the stairs, reaching the next floor below without 

incident. In clearing each room on the second floor, they used the standard 

procedure of first throwing in a fragmentation grenade, then firing a burst 

from an M16 rifle. The sweep produced no significant results, since by that 

time, all the PDF defenders were gathered together on the first floor.

What followed, with both sides offering different accounts, reflected the 

fog and friction inherent in most combat operations. According to several 

U.S. soldiers who took up positions by the main stairway leading to the first 

floor, one or more Panamanians below were yelling up at them. Darkness 

and smoke prevented individuals on either side from seeing their adversaries, 

while the distance that separated the two forces, together with the noise of 

the battle outside and of soldiers inside moving and shouting to one another, 

made what was being said almost impossible to decipher. To some of the 

Spanish-speaking troops on the American side, the words coming from below 

sounded like taunts and demands for a U.S. surrender; others believed that the 

defenders were themselves trying to give up. Another possibility was that the 

shouting contained a mixture of defiant epithets and desperate appeals. Not 

being certain as to the Panamanians’ intentions, the 2d Platoon leader, 2d Lt. 

Daniel K. Kirk, was unwilling to put his men at risk. He instead ordered one of 

his squad leaders to throw a grenade down the stairs. Other grenades followed 

before the U.S. soldiers moved down the stairway to confront an enemy that 

they knew was waiting for them. 

The battle the 2d Platoon anticipated did not take place. Rather, in a rear 

area of the first floor, they found the PDF company commander, Capt. Amadis 

Jimenez, and about twenty-three of his men waiting to surrender. In fact, 

Jimenez later related, without adequate weapons to defend his marines from 

what he regarded as an unnecessarily excessive American onslaught, he had 

been trying to give up for some time. But his shouts to the “very nervous” U.S. 

servicemen upstairs, both in Spanish and in English, had been acknowledged 

33 Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

321

with grenades, the explosions from which had wounded several in his company. 

The Americans, he added, had also thrown grenades out the back windows of 

the building to discourage the Panamanians cornered below from trying to 

escape over the dock area, as some had done earlier. Now that U.S. forces had 

taken positions just down the hallway from Jimenez, the captain’s efforts to 

negotiate a surrender entailed additional risks. Through a translator, Lieutenant 

Kirk told Jimenez to lead his men out the back door. The captain agreed, but 

when he set foot outside, someone tossed a grenade in his direction, fragments 

from which hit one of his men in the eye. The Panamanians scurried back into 

the building, and Jimenez heatedly asked the translator, “Why do you ask me 

to surrender and then throw grenades at me?” In reply he received an apology 

and an explanation that the U.S. troops were indeed nervous. Again, Jimenez 

was directed to leave the building with his men, and again he complied. Some 

further confusion ensued, but Kirk was finally able to complete the surrender. 

The naval infantry company building was considered secured by 0240, a time 

much later than Brooks had anticipated. In the course of the operation, the 2d 

Platoon took fifteen prisoners, while suffering no casualties.34

While the 1st Platoon was fighting on the dock and the 2d Platoon was 

clearing the marine headquarters, Captain Rizzo’s 3d Platoon was busy in 

its flanking positions to the south. The platoon participated in the initial 

firepower demonstration against the PDF company, but only for about one 

minute before the platoon leader told the men to stop shooting. “I was sure 

there were no more targets in our sector by that time,” he later explained, “and 

I was concerned about the many civilians in our area.” Some of those civilians 

surfaced around 0330, when U.S. troops heard voices in a V-shaped factory 

across the street. A Spanish-speaking soldier investigated and found eleven 

workers, whom he was able to coax into leaving their hiding place. Later, after 

dawn, the platoon’s 2d Squad searched the building and the Lada factory next 

to it. In the latter, the men found three PDF members who had donned civilian 

shirts. The three surrendered immediately.35

As the fighting in Coco Solo tapered off, the fire in the naval infantry 

company building still needed to be extinguished. Once the Chinese residents 

and Captain Jimenez and his men had been escorted out of the building and 

the rooms cleared, the platoon from the 82d Airborne Division was told to 

take over the efforts to put out the blaze, which by that time had destroyed 

much of the third floor. As the paratroopers emptied one fire extinguisher 

after another, they could not stop the flames from spreading to all three wings 

and all three floors. About an hour after dawn, a fire truck from the vicinity of 

Colón arrived, but it was too late to be effective, especially after the roof of the 

building collapsed. In this instance, the attempt to avoid collateral property 

damage had failed, in contrast to the success of the mission itself. By 0700, 

when U.S. interrogators arrived to question the prisoners, Company C had 

34 Quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 251–52. Brooks’ feeling that the process of clearing the building had taken more time than he had anticipated comes 

from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. Captain Jimenez’s account of what transpired at the PDF 

company headquarters is from Interv, Dolores De Mena with Capt Amadis Jimenez, 13 Nov 

1991, Fort Clayton, Panama. 35 Huelfer, “The Battle for Coco Solo.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

322

captured twenty-seven PDF troops, killed nearly a dozen (and perhaps more 

on the two vessels that had escaped), and wounded many others. Sixty-five 

civilians had been detained, but all were released by noon. In the course of 

the battle, there had been no U.S. fatalities and only a handful of wounded 

soldiers. The preparation, discipline, and firepower of the American troops 

had made the victory possible, as had the failure of the defenders to bring 

some of their heavy weapons, especially mounted machine guns, into play. 

Fort Espinar

Two miles south of Coco Solo, between the Boyd-Roosevelt Highway 

and Gatun Lake, was Fort Espinar. Until the 1980s, it had been Fort Gulick, 

an American base that was home to the Army’s School of the Americas, a 

training facility for U.S. and Latin American military and police personnel. 

Under the canal treaties, the fort was renamed and transformed into a shared 

U.S.-Panamanian installation, with the Panama Defense Forces billeting its 

8th Infantry Company on the premises. In 1984, the School of the Americas 

was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, and the building it had occupied turned 

into a PDF academy for noncommissioned officers. By early 1989, U.S. 

military units had vacated the post, leaving behind various facilities, including 

an American housing area for dependents, a school, and a commissary.

With the execution of Operation Nimrod Dancer in May 1989 and the 

consequent creation of the Task Force Atlantic headquarters at Fort Sherman, 

a decision was made to station one of the companies from the 7th Infantry 

Division’s security enhancement battalion on Fort Espinar. While the canal 

treaties allowed for such an arrangement, a breakdown in coordination led to 

a confrontation and near firefight on 18 May between the PDF 8th Company 

and the camouflaged and well-armed light fighters as the latter approached 

the fort’s main gate. After several tense hours, the situation was defused. Once 

ensconced in the former U.S. officers’ club at Espinar, the company commander 

followed orders received through his chain of command to begin reasserting 

American treaty rights in Panama, including the reoccupation of a building 

on the premises that the United States had leased to the Panamanians but on 

which the Panama Defense Forces had stopped paying rent.36 

The movement of the U.S. infantry company onto Espinar in May and the 

reoccupation of the leased building in September bracketed Colonel Hale’s 

tenure as the Task Force Atlantic commander. When Colonel Kellogg replaced 

Hale in mid-October, the combined impact of the new commander’s more 

aggressive style and the increased tensions following the failed coup against 

Noriega was felt throughout Task Force Atlantic’s area of responsibility. 

With respect to Fort Espinar, one immediate change Kellogg insisted on 

was to forgo any personal contact with the 8th Company commander. Hale 

had maintained contact with the Panamanian officer, often speaking with 

36 For an account of U.S. military activities on Fort Espinar during Operation Nimrod

Dancer, see Yates, U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, pp. 188–89, 

235–36.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

323

him personally. Kellogg broke the connection with a man he regarded as the 

enemy. As Gardner phrased the new arrangement, the colonel’s “attitude was 

basically, ‘Screw you, Jack.’”37

In mid-November, with the handoff of the Task Force Atlantic security 

enhancement force to Brooks’ 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, the unit’s Company 

A, commanded by Capt. Michael F. Beech, moved onto Espinar. As with Captain 

Rizzo at Coco Solo, Beech inherited and updated his predecessor’s contingency 

plans for the fort, the principal missions of which consisted of neutralizing 

the 8th Company and the noncommissioned officer academy. Because some 

of the barracks for the U.S. and Panamanian companies were located only 

218 yards apart, Beech’s troops were able to study their adversary very closely 

through the use of binoculars and videotapes. The fact that U.S. intelligence 

had wiretapped the PDF headquarters also proved invaluable in acquiring 

information essential to the planning process. One vital piece of intelligence 

concerned the 8th Company commander, Maj. Luis Guardia; the officer was 

perceived as a professional soldier who required professional conduct from his 

men as well. If hostilities broke out, Brooks and Beech feared, U.S. forces at 

Fort Espinar would be in for “a difficult fight.” From well-fortified defensive 

positions, the one hundred fifty to two hundred Panamanians estimated to be 

in Guardia’s company could inflict serious casualties on an attacking force.38

To ensure that the outcome of a fight would be favorable, Company A 

fine-tuned its contingency plan so that, in keeping with Kellogg’s guidance, the 

firepower and skills of American troops would overwhelm the enemy in such 

a way as to minimize casualties on both sides, protect civilians living in the 

housing area, and limit physical damage to property. More specifically, the plan 

called for the 3d Platoon from the 7th Infantry Division’s 7th Military Police 

Company to seal off the installation. Company A’s 2d and 3d Platoons, billeted 

just a block and a half from the 8th Company, would neutralize the unit, the 

bulk of which was housed in two large, multistory buildings surrounded by a 

chain-link fence built atop a two-foot-high brick wall and with dense jungle 

outside the perimeter to the east. The company’s 1st Platoon would provide fire 

support, as would an M60 machine gun team, the company’s antitank section, 

and a Vulcan crew. As for the noncommissioned officer academy at the other 

end of the fort, a composite platoon of about twenty-nine paratroopers from the 

Headquarters Company of the 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry—“cooks, clerks, 

you name it,” as Brooks would describe the hodgepodge—had the mission 

of neutralizing what was thought to be a platoon-size force at the school. 

The students, U.S. planners believed, did not pose a serious threat, but, if left 

unchecked, they would be in a position to disrupt the main operation against 

the infantry company. Furthermore, as Capt. Matthew Halder, commander 

of the Headquarters Company, observed, “They could easily get a hostage 

situation going,” given the number of Americans living in the housing area on 

post. As with the paratroopers employed at Coco Solo, the makeshift platoon 

37 Interv, author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992.

38 Quote from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 260; Department of the Army (DA) Field Manual (FM) 7–10, The Infantry Rifle 

Company, December 1990, ch. 2.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

324

responsible for the academy would be transported by truck to Fort Espinar 

from the Jungle Operations Training Center.39

Again, as was the case with U.S. units throughout Panama, as the plan 

neared its final form, the Sand Fleas, Purple Storms, and contingency readiness 

exercises for Company A were tailored more and more to the wartime mission. 

Squad leaders, even though they would not be informed of the exact plan 

until just hours before Just Cause, repeatedly led their troops on patrols 

over the routes they would most likely be using in the event of hostilities. 

Checkpoints they established near the commissary and an elementary school, 

as well as patrols in the housing area, allowed soldiers assigned those sectors 

to become familiar with the surroundings. As for the Vulcan crew from the 

2d Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery, every night the men positioned the 

mounted weapon “on a baseball field in plain view of the PDF company 

headquarters.” Also, around Thanksgiving, Company A began to reconnoiter 

the routes it would take through the jungle to get to its assault position near 

the two main 8th Company buildings. According to the wiretap intercepts, all 

of these maneuvers were having the desired effect of lulling the Panamanians 

into a false sense of security: “The Americans are at it again. They’re doing 

this just to harass us,” were the kinds of statements that frequently appeared 

on the transcripts provided Kellogg. Or as one PDF officer put it, “People 

would always cry, ‘The wolf is coming,’ but the wolf never came.” Only on 

one occasion, about a week before Just Cause when the Panamanians began 

placing several barriers near Company A’s assault position, were Kellogg and 

everyone down the chain to Beech and his staff worried that the contingency 

plan had been compromised. They would not find out until much later that the 

PDF actions were solely a response to the U.S. exercises, nothing else.40

The night Lieutenant Paz was killed, Captain Beech, like other commanders 

in Task Force Atlantic, placed his company on alert, only to stand down the 

next day, on orders passed to Colonel Kellogg by JTF-Panama. Then, on 

Tuesday, the captain climbed into a van with Brooks, Rizzo, and the Company 

B commander and headed to Fort Sherman to hear Kellogg’s announcement 

that Operation Just Cause would begin in a matter of hours. When the colonel 

finished his talk, Beech returned to Fort Espinar to prepare his soldiers, 

briefing them at 2100 at the officers’ club. After further preparations, the three 

platoons of Company A moved to a building closer to the PDF 8th Company. 

39 First quote from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. Second quote from Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 261, and see also p. 262. DA FM 7–10, The Infantry Rifle 

Company, December 1990, ch. 2. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker raise again the subject of the “mutual disdain” that had developed between the military police of USARSO’s 549th Military 

Police Company and the military police from the 7th Infantry Division. Concerning plans for 

executing the contingency mission on Fort Espinar, the USARSO military police were originally 

slated to seal off the installation, only to have Task Force Atlantic planners replace them with 

the 7th’s military police because the Panama-based personnel were “considered too close for 

comfort to the Panamanians they would have to fight,” in that “they patrolled together with 

PDF troops.” 40 Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. All but last quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 260, and see also p. 261. Last quote from Interv, De Mena with Jimenez, 

13 Nov 1991.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

325

From there, the two platoons that would approach the objective through the 

jungle departed under Beech’s personal leadership to begin their two-hour trek 

along a trail they had dubbed Route Stampede. 

Meanwhile, the Vulcan team waited at the officers’ club for word to advance 

to its firing position on the baseball field, some seven minutes away. Around 

2300, the composite platoon of paratroopers arrived at the club, also to wait 

in the darkness before moving out. The platoon and Captain Halder departed 

just before 0040, carrying a .50-caliber machine gun and tripod en route to an 

assault position across from the noncommissioned officer academy. Within 

minutes of leaving the club, the men heard the Vulcan firing at Coco Solo, 

an indication that something had almost certainly gone wrong. Picking up 

the pace of their advance, they moved through the post’s housing area and 

reached Gulick Lodge, the three-story building from which they would engage 

the Panamanian students, all assumed to be senior noncommissioned officers. 

At this moment, while Halder was attempting to get the platoon’s three squads 

and the .50-caliber machine in position near the academy, one of his men took 

it on himself to open fire on the building. Though the act was unauthorized, 

the defenders responded in kind, and a ten-minute firefight ensued, well before 

H-hour.41

The shooting at Coco Solo and, closer to their position, at the PDF 

academy caught the two Company A platoons moving through the jungle 

toward the 8th Company compound far short of their assault positions. Given 

the priority of their mission, the men began sprinting over the remainder of 

Route Stampede, a risky move given the dark and the precarious terrain. As one 

soldier recalled, “We had to stay, like, right behind the guy in front of us just 

so you could know where you’re going.” When they finally emerged from the 

jungle, they realized they had missed their objective by at least a hundred yards. 

They went back into the densely wooded area, made the needed adjustment, 

and then waited a few minutes until 0100, the original H-hour. To their relief, 

the elements providing fire support—mainly the Vulcan—had not yet opened 

up on the PDF buildings. Thus, despite the chaos at the noncommissioned 

officer academy a short distance away, Company A would begin its attack on 

the 8th Company on schedule.42 

The men in the assault force did not realize at the time just how tenuous 

the restraint shown by the soldiers assigned to provide supporting fires had 

been. With Captain Beech accompanying the 2d and 3d Platoons and with his 

decision to “leave the senior NCOs with their rifle platoons,” control of the 

fire support elements had fallen, not to the first sergeant as planned, but to 1st 

Lt. Daniel E. Evans, Company A’s executive officer. His task was to employ 

suppressive fires as needed to prevent Panamanian forces from exiting the 8th 

Company buildings into their prepared combat positions and to protect the 

assault force as it breached the chain-link fence and maneuvered against the 

enemy. To these ends, Evans had moved his people and their weapons into 

position well before H-hour, but once the battle at the academy began, he 

came under intense pressure from the fire support elements, especially from 

41 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 262–63. 42 Ibid., pp. 263–64.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

326

the Vulcan team, to authorize them to begin shooting. The lieutenant resisted. 

From his vantage point, he could see that the Panamanian infantrymen inside 

the two buildings were not deploying for combat. Furthermore, given the 

darkness, the defenders probably did not even know the Americans were in 

place to attack them. Unless either or both of those conditions changed, there 

was no reason to second-guess Captain Beech’s clearly stated intent to launch 

the attack at H-hour. So Evans held firm. The first Vulcan round did not hit its 

target, a guard shack inside the fenced area, until the precise time designated 

in the plan.43

Once the Vulcan began firing, the barrage that followed was comparable 

to the one leveled at the Coco Solo naval infantry company. AT4s and LAWs 

quickly joined in, as did the M60 machine gun and various small arms. Said 

one member of the 1st Platoon, the PDF headquarters building closest to his 

position soon resembled “Swiss cheese.” Yet, intense as the shooting was, the 

defenders managed to return the fire with small arms and rocket-propelled 

grenades, one of which accounted for the only U.S. casualty at the site—a 

sergeant who was wounded. The support element’s suppressive fire served its 

purpose, though, as the assault platoons were able to climb a steep slope to the 

PDF compound and breach the fence with a bangalore torpedo. They then 

waited for the scheduled cease-fire call from the U.S. side, to be followed by 

a psychological operations team issuing a surrender message. The broadcast, 

as it turned out, had an immediate and positive effect: the defenders had been 

outgunned, had fired back almost blindly, had taken casualties, and were 

ready to call it quits. Major Guardia, whom Brooks and Beech feared would 

mount a spirited defense, had fled to Colón well before H-hour. The forty or 

so soldiers left behind under the command of a first sergeant had a formidable 

arsenal at their disposal, but as Lieutenant Evans observed, “It looked like 

they were ready to fight but they changed their minds,” probably the result of 

the firepower demonstration featuring what Brooks called “the magnificent 

Vulcan.” After the surrender, the assault platoons cleared the two buildings, 

while the prisoners were taken to the fort’s front entrance secured by the 7th 

Infantry Division military police and then removed through the back gate.44

The battle at the academy had gone as well as the other task force missions. 

The platoon of paratroopers had used antitank weapons against the defending 

force, compelling thirty-five noncommissioned officers to surrender before 

the fight was an hour old. U.S. troops then waited until dawn, when all three 

infantry platoons from Company A arrived. Having just finished clearing the 

43 Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. Quote and additional material on the fight are from 

Daniel E. Evans, Actions at Fort Espinar, Republic of Panama, 20 December 1989, n.d., 

copy at http://www.benning.army.mil/library/content/Virtual/Donovanpapers/other/STUP5/

EvansDaniel%20E.%20CPT.pdf. DA FM 7–10, The Infantry Rifle Company, December 1990, 

ch. 2. In a vignette designed to demonstrate the “utility of the commander’s intent,” the field 

manual uses the example of Evans’ “proper decision” to withhold fire until 0100. 44 Last quote from Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992. Other quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 265, and see also p. 264. In contrast to Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, who place the number of prisoners from the 8th Company at “about 40,” DA FM 7–10, 

The Infantry Rifle Company, December 1990, ch. 2, states that eighty-four enemy soldiers surrendered after the short fight.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

327

8th Company buildings, the company began to do the same at the school, aware 

that there might be holdouts in some of the rooms. The Americans broke into 

three-man teams, using grenades when necessary to ensure that a room was 

safe. In the process, a procedural blunder proved costly when nine light fighters 

found themselves together in the same room, and one of them threw a grenade 

through an opening into what he thought was an adjacent room. The grenade 

hit a wall and bounced back amid the tightly bunched men, with fragments 

from the explosion wounding everyone present, six seriously.45 

News of the casualties, the most suffered in any one incident involving 

Brooks’ battalion, dampened spirits in what had otherwise been a successful, 

if far from perfect, operation. Around 0500, Beech radioed Brooks to report 

that Company A and the units attached to it had accomplished their mission. 

Both the PDF 8th Company infantrymen and the academy students had 

been neutralized. Beech then sent troops into the American housing area 

to check on the residents. As Brooks later related, the “Americans stayed 

in their quarters. . . . It must have been frightening because the Vulcan was 

blowing up right next to their houses. The fighting was going on right there, 

and explosions. . . . The backblast of the AT-4s and the percussion caused 

by the Vulcans knocked the glass out in the housing the people lived in 

that we had moved them out of.”46 The situation was similar to that at Fort 

Amador, where the battle against the PDF 5th Company had taken place 

in the front yards of some of the American dependents living on post. In 

45 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 266–67; Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 

1992; Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993. 46 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 266–67. Quote from Interv, author 

with Brooks, 11 May 1993.

A PDF 8th Infantry Company building at Fort Espinar after the firefight
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

328

both cases, there would be lasting psychological repercussions for many of 

the families involved.

The Colón Bottleneck

By dawn on 20 December, most of Task Force Atlantic’s D-day objectives 

in AO North had been accomplished, with the two targets considered the most 

dangerous—Coco Solo and Fort Espinar—well under control. Two lesser 

missions had been completed as well. At H-hour, U.S. forces had seized France 

Field, an airfield southeast of Coco Solo, while, even farther south, other 

soldiers from the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, 

17th Infantry, had positioned four school buses across a wide bridge to stop 

traffic along the Boyd-Roosevelt Highway. At the latter location, another 

platoon of paratroopers, this one from Company D, 3d Battalion, 504th 

Infantry, provided additional firepower to keep enemy reinforcements from 

reaching Colón and to help cover Army engineers as they reinforced the 

roadblock with concertina wire and 55-gallon drums. While the engineers were 

hurrying to complete their task, Panamanian policemen arrived in a van and 

tried to talk their way through the roadblock, to no avail. At the time, there 

were only eight paratroopers on the scene, and they were concerned that the 

men in the van would radio for reinforcements to help outflank the school 

buses and other barriers. The Americans therefore told the police that, if they 

did not leave the area, they would be killed. Despite the death threats and 

some warning shots fired by the paratroopers, the Panamanians returned to 

their vehicle but remained where they were. Soon thereafter, two police cars 

“came racing down the sides of the road, and they had their high lights on 

and they were flashing their lights on and off.” At that point the Americans 

opened fire in earnest, disabling the van and one of the cars and killing three 

of the policemen. An hour later, after the full airborne platoon had arrived, 

the paratroopers engaged a squad-size PDF element that was approaching 

the buses, again inflicting casualties. After that, the situation at the roadblock 

quieted down.47 

There was one other AO North objective, the primary one: Colón. Task 

Force Atlantic was charged with securing the bottleneck leading into and out of 

the built-up area and neutralizing specific targets inside the city itself.48 Company 

B from the 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, drew the mission but, because of legal 

prohibitions on the movement of U.S. troops in Colón, the unit had not had the 

opportunity to conduct anything approximating an on-site rehearsal—no Sand 

Fleas, Purple Storms, or contingency readiness exercises in the city. There were 

photographs, of course, and a map, and troops from the company had been able 

to conduct an exercise in an area within sight of their objective. Still, most of 

47 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 254–55. Quote from Interv, Robert 

K. Wright Jr. with 2d Plt, Co D, 3d Bn, 504th Inf, 31 Dec 1989, Madden Dam, Panama; Michael 

Ryan, C-645 essay [on securing France Field] (Student paper, U.S. Command and General Staff 

College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.). 48 Unless otherwise noted, this account of the Colón bottleneck is based on Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 254–59; Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations North

329

the company, commanded by Capt. Doug Thorp, had not seen the actual target 

prior to D-day. That night, to make matters worse, the initial elements of the 

assault force were in five-ton trucks en route from Fort Davis to the bottleneck 

when the shooting at Coco Solo began. By the time the column reached Colón, 

the PDF defenders were ready. As soon as light fighters from Thorp’s 2d and 

3d Platoons dismounted, they found themselves under fire. Tall elephant grass 

in the area obscured enemy positions, while the lights of the city illuminated 

Company B’s presence all too well. As the two sides discharged their weapons at 

one another, Spec. William Gibbs from the 3d Platoon was killed, the battalion’s 

only fatality that night. Another U.S. soldier was wounded. 

As the shooting continued, the company’s 1st Platoon and a squad of 

engineers managed to establish a roadblock at the bottleneck, using school 

buses and concertina, much as the paratroopers had done on the BoydRoosevelt Highway. A platoon of military police from the 549th Military Police 

Company guarded the position from HMMWVs mounted with M60 machine 

guns and a 21⁄2-ton truck with a .50-caliber machine gun. Meanwhile, the 2d 

and 3d Platoons seized objectives on the east and west flanks of the roadblock. 

Once they established their positions, they began shooting out streetlights 

within range. Around 0230, a Panamanian bus tried to run the roadblock, 

and the 3d Platoon received authorization to shoot at only its tires. The order 

proved providential, as the vehicle was full of civilians, including babies and 

children, many of whom would have certainly been killed or wounded had the 

soldiers tried to destroy the bus. 

Further shooting occurred when U.S. troops fired on two PDF boats that 

approached their positions from Manzanillo Bay. Enemy snipers in the area also 

proved a menace throughout the night. In response, Captain Thorp requested 

that Task Force Atlantic’s artillery employ illumination rounds to light up the 

area presumed to conceal the shooters. Antisniper teams also helped bring the 

threat under control. By 0500, the bottleneck was secured. Twelve of the enemy 

were known to have been killed or wounded, but there had also been casualties 

among the numerous civilians who had tried to flee the fighting. With Panama’s 

second largest city isolated by Company B’s blocking positions, OPLAN 90–2 

called for Kellogg’s task force to be “prepared to isolate, neutralize, and/or 

destroy PDF military region headquarters in COLON” and to protect other 

facilities there.49 For Task Force Atlantic, this translated into entering the city 

on D-day, and the command’s plans reflected this assumption. All that was 

needed was word from JTF-South to proceed. But on 20 December, the word 

never came. In fact, the opposite happened. Kellogg received an order not 

to go into the city. For reasons that were not immediately clear, the planned 

sweep of Colón had been put on hold.

49 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.

11

Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of 

Operations South

While Lt. Col. Johnny Brooks’ 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, and the units attached to it were engaging their targets in the northern part of Task 

Force Atlantic’s area of operations, the bulk of the 82d Airborne Division’s 3d 

Battalion, 504th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Lynn D. Moore, was playing 

the lead role in D-day missions throughout the southern portion. In the ten days 

leading up to Just Cause, the battalion was still in the midst of a three-week rotation 

in USARSO’s Jungle Operations Training Center. Since the school’s founding in 

1968, a variety of light infantry, airborne, ranger, and Marine battalions had found 

themselves subjected to rigorous, sometimes dangerous, courses in survival skills, 

land navigation, and jungle warfare.1 The school accommodated one battalion 

at a time, with the schedule of training dates for specific units being determined 

months in advance. With the execution of Operation Nimrod Dancer, the 

battalions entering the facility not only confronted the challenging course but 

also acquired, under the operational control of Task Force Atlantic, a number 

of highly classified responsibilities related to the crisis. These included planning 

for contingency exercises and possible Blue Spoon wartime operations; executing 

the contingency exercises and incorporating the feedback from them into further 

iterations of the war plans; and, in the event of hostilities, carrying out combat 

missions. All this generated no small amount of suspense when a battalion began 

its jungle training and its commander and staff learned, many for the first time, 

of their additional assignments. If war came, would it be while their battalion was 

at the school? On 19 December, as word of the impending conflict made its way 

down through the ranks of U.S. troop units, the suspense ended. 

Preparations, Deployment, and Prewar Activities

That the 3d Battalion found itself in the Jungle Operations Training Center 

on that date was something of a fluke. Originally, Moore’s men were not 

1 The jungle facility could, in fact, trace its history back to a provisional headquarters that 

in 1951 laid the groundwork for the Army’s Jungle Training School at Fort Sherman. The training center was established after the Department of the Army directed U.S. Army, Caribbean, to 

take on the mission of “keeping the art of jungle warfare alive in the Army.” For a brief overview of the JOTC, see http://www.forum.militaryltd.com/jungle-warfare/m475-jungle-warfare.

htm.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

332

scheduled to receive jungle training in Panama until February. But, in October, 

Col. Jack P. Nix Jr. took command of the 82d’s 1st Brigade, the 3d Battalion’s 

immediate higher headquarters. After looking over the congested training 

requirements for the units under him, the colonel made some adjustments, in 

one instance plugging the 3d into a gap created by a Marine battalion that had 

dropped out of the mid-December JOTC rotation. Among the paratroopers 

affected by the decision, news that they would be spending the Christmas and 

New Year’s holidays in rough tropical terrain evoked little enthusiasm.2

In November, Moore flew to Panama to survey accommodations for his 

men at Fort Sherman and, more important, to obtain information on the 

battalion’s crisis-related responsibilities, about which he had only a general 

notion based on what he had learned from another airborne battalion that 

had engaged in contingency planning while in Panama. With respect to the 

site survey, he quickly realized that the presence at Sherman of Task Force 

Atlantic’s headquarters and a company from the command’s security battalion 

would limit the number of troops and equipment he could deploy from his own 

unit. There simply were not enough billets and available space at the fort to 

accommodate Nimrod Dancer personnel and a full-strength JOTC battalion 

simultaneously. 

Even more discouraging for Moore was the stone wall he hit while talking 

to Colonel Kellogg’s people about the contingency role the 3d Battalion would 

play. When he asked them about existing plans and battalion-level missions, 

he was informed that all of that “was too highly classified for us to know.” 

Thus, the missions “were withheld at the brigade level.” When Moore returned 

to Fort Bragg, he assembled his key commanders and staff officers and told 

them, “We have never been closer to going to war,” and “there is a great deal 

of planning going on right now at the highest levels.” This came as a revelation 

to most in the group, who had no indication that there were any crisis-related 

missions attached to the jungle-training rotation. As one company executive 

officer later wrote, “Even the least experienced among us began to suspect that 

our holiday trip might include some activities not regularly scheduled for units 

deploying to Jungle Warfare School.”3

With details of the combat missions 3d Battalion might have to 

execute in Panama squirreled away in unobtainable, compartmentalized 

plans, Moore and his staff tried to determine what would be appropriate 

predeployment preparations for the paratroopers—preparations relevant 

both to the Panama crisis and to possible contingencies elsewhere in the 

world. They concluded that some level of training in military operations on 

urbanized terrain would be useful. Valuable, too, would be company-level 

“movement to contact” exercises, designed, as one source explained, “to 

gain or regain contact with the enemy and develop the situation in order to 

conduct either a hasty or deliberate attack.” At the platoon and company 

levels, Moore’s staff scheduled night live-fire attacks. Various exercises at 

2 Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Col Lynn D. Moore, U.S. Army, 29 May 1990, Fort 

Bragg, N.C. 3 First and second quotes from ibid. Remaining quotes from Clarence E. Briggs III, 

Operation Just Cause, Panama, December 1989: A Soldier’s Eyewitness Account (Harrisburg, 

Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1990), p. 8. 
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

333

Bragg were also to incorporate medical evacuation procedures, “an often 

neglected part of training.”4

In hindsight, Moore would contend that, “just by chance,” the prePanama training had been right on target, but not flawless. The one 

problem cited most often pertained to room-clearing procedures. Existing 

Army doctrine, as found in Field Manual 90–10–1, An Infantryman’s 

Guide to Urban Combat, provided useful information on the best taskorganization and movement techniques to use but was not precise on the 

“backblast area required for antitank weapons used for breaching walls 

and doors.” In a related issue, realism at the MOUT site had suffered when 

the Rangers responsible for overseeing the battalion’s training there would 

not allow the use of fragmentation grenades in the live-fire exercises. As a 

result, soldiers went to Panama assuming that “ceilings, walls, and floors, 

usually constructed of wood or plaster, would keep the fragments from 

exiting the room in which the explosion occurred.” In Just Cause, some 

of the paratroopers would discover the error of this assumption firsthand. 

Similarly, they would learn during combat that, in clearing operations, the 

suppressive fire from an attack unit’s automatic weapons, when directed 

into a room in which a grenade had just exploded, could not be accurately 

pinpointed, thus posing a risk to friendly soldiers entering the room 

immediately after the blast.5

As the 3d Battalion trained at Bragg, Moore and others had to decide which 

elements of the unit would actually deploy to Panama. As the colonel later told 

an interviewer, “Normally the entire Fort Sherman facility is dedicated to the 

[JOTC] battalion that’s down there.”6 Since the presence of Nimrod Dancer

units had altered that arrangement, making it impossible to accommodate an 

additional battalion and its equipment in the remaining space, determining 

who and what to take from the 3d Battalion became a priority issue. Further 

complicating the selection process was news that the Air Force would only 

have one C–141 and one KC–10 Extender available to transport the soldiers 

and equipment from Pope Air Force Base to Panama.

Starting from the position that “we really had to go heavy with infantry 

force,” meaning his three rifle companies, Moore then sorted out who else 

would be required. In the shuffle, several officers on his battalion staff would 

be left behind, as would the psychological operations personnel who normally 

4 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 8–9. 5 DA FM 90–10–1, An Infantryman’s Guide to Urban Combat, September 1982. First quote 

from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Second quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, 

p. 11. Remaining quotes from Operations, nos. 9 and 10, in After Action Review, Operation Just

Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d. Regarding the problems with the use of fragmentary grenades when clearing rooms, the after action review recommended that future military training 

for urban operations demonstrate the effect of grenade fragments on various construction materials, that fragmentary grenades in combat be used when only enemy forces were known to be 

in a room, and that units’ “basic loads should include a number of stun or concussion grenades” 

for room clearing. As for suppressive fire with automatic weapons employed in room-clearing 

tasks, the review recommended that the weapons could be more accurately employed if fired in 

a semiautomatic mode. 6 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

334

would have deployed. In contrast, a squad of riggers made the cut because 

its expertise was essential in support of the battalion’s airborne undertakings. 

Other deploying “slices” included his antitank company, a squad of air defense 

personnel, some military police, some personnel from the 3d Battalion, 319th 

Field Artillery (but no artillerymen or howitzers), and, in terms of firepower, 

all of the line companies’ individual and crew-served weapons, including 

M16 rifles, M203 grenade launchers, M249 squad automatic weapons, M60 

and .50-caliber machine guns, six sniper systems, and 60-mm. and 81-mm. 

mortars. The availability of the KC–10 transport also allowed Moore to take 

four HMMWVs with him.7 

The battalion began deploying to Panama on Saturday, 9 December, and 

finished Monday evening after the last of the unit’s 633 officers and soldiers, 

along with their equipment, arrived at Fort Sherman. Given the limited 

availability of Air Force transports, the first two flights of personnel out of 

Pope were aboard commercial L–1011 TriStar airliners, which flew to Howard 

Air Force Base. As one of the officers on the lead flight noted, “Instead of 

jumpmasters and safeties screaming commands and passing out barf bags 

and earplugs, we had stewardesses serving us food and drink while the movie 

‘Batman’ played on the screen.” The trip from Howard across the isthmus to 

Fort Sherman was not nearly so pleasant, given the combination of tropical 

heat and uncomfortable buses. Meanwhile, back at Pope, the remainder of the 

battalion crammed aboard the available C–141. On Sunday, after several hours 

in the crowded, smelly, noisy, and stewardless aircraft, the men parachuted 

onto Fort Sherman.8 

Operations security dictated that key personnel in the 3d Battalion 

did not arrive together. Thus, when Moore received his first briefing from 

the Task Force Atlantic staff immediately after he reached Fort Sherman, 

he was accompanied by only his operations officer and two company 

commanders; the other staff members and troops were still en route. As 

Moore tried to digest the crisis-related information denied to him during 

his November visit, he and the small group with him realized that, as a 

priority, jungle training was going to fall well behind the need to update 

the battalion’s portion of OPLAN 90–2 and to conduct and evaluate 

contingency readiness exercises and Sand Fleas. This realization, in turn, 

caused some second-guessing about those elements of the battalion that, 

of necessity, had been left behind at Fort Bragg. Contingency planning 

alone would require the presence of several staff officers who had not made 

the trip, while Moore’s soldiers, should they find themselves in combat, 

would not have with them resources they would need for transportation, 

communication, and other critical battlefield functions. Fortunately for the 

battalion, Colonel Kellogg’s headquarters, having worked closely with the 

three JOTC battalions that had preceded Moore’s, had already designed 

procedures for facilitating this latest transition. For many, even most, of 

the shortages plaguing Moore in personnel, administrative support, and 

7 Ibid.

8 Operations Summary and Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation 

Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 12–13.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

335

equipment, Task Force Atlantic stood ready to step in and compensate for 

the deficiencies.9

Moore described the battalion’s first week in Panama as one of “almost 

continuous planning,” as his staff tried to balance revising the contingency 

plan and organizing contingency readiness exercises mandated by JTFPanama. Of necessity, updating the combat plan received the highest priority, 

with Kellogg’s brigade staff “cheerfully” providing “material, information, 

and assistance,” as well as use of the task force’s planning area, which was 

larger and in other ways superior to that reserved for the battalion. As 

Moore’s officers studied the plan they inherited, pouring over the target 

folders prepared by Kellogg’s intelligence section, the main problem they 

identified was having to take what had been written for the light infantry 

and Marine battalions that had recently gone through the jungle training 

center, retain the essence of those arrangements, and then tailor them for 

the quite different organization of an airborne battalion. For starters, 

Moore’s battalion had an antitank unit, Company D, that the light infantry 

and Marine battalions lacked. As the colonel observed, “Our TOE [table 

of organization and equipment] would not support what the Marine TOE 

might.” Besides the organizational differences, an airborne battalion also 

had several different weapons, the .50-caliber machine gun being the most 

obvious. The existing plan made no provision for .50-caliber ammunition and, 

since the battalion had left behind at Fort Bragg much of what it might need 

in an actual fight, the paratroopers would have only two thousand rounds 

available to them for combat operations. According to the 3d Battalion after 

action review, “the lack of .50 caliber ammunition remained a problem.” In 

contrast, adjustments made in the plan to incorporate the airborne’s antitank 

company had a positive effect, according to Moore, because they “freed up 

more of my infantry for the more infantry-intensive targets.”10

As the planners worked around the clock modifying the operation plan, they 

also had to prepare orders for the battalion’s first company-level contingency 

readiness exercise scheduled for Tuesday night, 12 December. On Saturday, 

when Moore first learned of the exercise and its objective, Madden Dam, he had 

only his Company B and Company D commanders with him. The latter drew 

the assignment. If 90–2 were actually executed while the 3d Battalion was in the 

jungle course, the antitank company was slated to release one of its platoons to 

Colonel Brooks’ force in and around Colón. The company therefore would not 

have its full wartime complement of troops. Since securing Madden Dam and its 

hydroelectric plant would require fewer men than some of the other Task Force 

Atlantic targets, Company D (minus) became the logical choice for that D-day 

mission and thus for conducting contingency readiness exercises near the facility. 

The unit received its formal orders for the exercise Sunday night, briefed and 

rehearsed the mission on Monday, and marched to the site Tuesday. The men 

encountered no trouble en route and returned to Fort Sherman later that day. 

9 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990; Operations, nos. 1 and 2, in After Action Review, 

Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d. 10 All quotes except the second to the last are from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. 

Second to last quote from Operations, no. 3, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d 

Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

336

Despite the uneventful excursion, one fact, apparent to all, was that exercises 

mandated by JTF-Panama were “not a walk in the woods”—the troops went 

out carrying live ammunition and loaded weapons.11

During the briefing Saturday at which the Company D commander learned 

that Madden Dam was both his rehearsal and wartime objective, his Company 

B colleague, by virtue of being the only infantry company commander present 

at the time, was able to choose which one of the remaining missions he wanted. 

To Moore’s satisfaction, the captain picked Cerro Tigre, a key PDF logistical 

base and the largest, most complex target on the list. Since an exercise aimed 

at that objective was not scheduled until Wednesday, the soldiers of Company 

B had time Tuesday to log in a full day of jungle training: highlights included 

briefings on poisonous frogs and other indigenous species that could kill them, 

as well as instructions on how to construct temporary shelters, or hooches. On 

Wednesday morning, 13 December, the troops trained in guerrilla tactics, then 

turned their attention to the Cerro Tigre exercise, the formal order for which 

they had received fewer than twenty-four hours before.12

The Sand Flea was not very complex but did entail certain risks.13 The 

company would embark on naval LCMs, move southward through the 

Panama Canal to a point near Cerro Tigre, conduct an amphibious landing, 

and secure a friendly signal station and power plant near the PDF logistical 

base. Having accomplished this, the men would then walk to a golf course just 

south of the target to be extracted by helicopter. The paratroopers would be 

maneuvering in clear view of Panamanian guards and other PDF personnel 

in the area. Moreover, the mission statement, besides calling for the assertion 

of U.S. rights and the rehearsal of “a portion of the TF Atlantic contingency 

plan,” also wanted the paratroopers to “elicit a response from the PDF.” 

The “underlying implication” of this extremely vague directive was open to 

interpretation. In the opinion of Company B’s officers and staff, it meant 

nothing less than “to get shot at first by the PDF.” While the staff officers at 

Fort Clayton responsible for writing the statement probably had something 

less lethal in mind, their inexact handiwork generated “a frank and fruitful 

discussion” among the participants in the Sand Flea. Because the paratroopers 

would be carrying live ammunition, they conducted a careful review of the 

rules of engagement under which they would be operating. 

Commanded by Capt. Bryan Dyer, the airborne troops had been trained 

as warriors to fight and win on a conventional battlefield. As with many such 

U.S. units rotating into and out of Panama during 1988 and 1989, the men 

of Company B initially reacted to the political considerations of the politicomilitary crisis with uncertainty, some apprehension, and no small degree of 

11 Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 

504th Inf, n.d. Quote from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. 12 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 18–20, 24; 

Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d. 13 Unless otherwise noted, the following account of the Cerro Tigre exercise and the quotes 

are from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 24–39. Some sources refer to the exercise as a contingency readiness exercise, others as a Sand Flea. In many cases, the line separating the two was 

hazy, and the terminology employed less than precise.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

337

discontent.14 This was especially true of the rules of engagement they received 

on their arrival (Table 3). As 1st Lt. Clarence E. Briggs III, Company B’s 

executive officer, phrased the problem, “Most of the rules and laws were 

beyond an infantryman’s scope of training.” Very soon, he and those around 

him were asking the same questions that had troubled marines going onto the 

Arraiján Tank Farm in April 1988, or light fighters and mechanized soldiers 

running convoys at the outset of Nimrod Dancer a year later. When was it 

appropriate for the soldiers to open fire? What was considered a threat? How 

were soldiers to translate such general, even ambiguous, terms as minimum 

force, self-defense, selected marksmen, and appears to be? 

There were so many things that needed to be clarified. We could lock (place 

the magazine in the magazine well), but not load our weapons (chamber a 

round) during [a] Sandflea unless someone locked and loaded and pointed a 

weapon at us. The problem, of course, is that by then it is too late to defend 

yourself. Furthermore, designating selected marksmen beforehand is not feasible, as you cannot possibly know who will be shot at and when and where it 

will occur. Also, how do you tell who is an “innocent civilian”? Many of the 

Dignity Battalion soldiers wore civilian clothes. 

Again, as with other units over the nearly two-year buildup of U.S. troops 

in Panama, several of Company B’s leaders determined that they would not 

allow what they regarded as an unorthodox situation and confusing rules of 

engagement to paralyze their decision making in the field or to put them and 

their soldiers at undue risk. Thus, there was tough talk at first of permitting some 

of the troops, if finding themselves in dangerous circumstances, to lock and load 

their weapons before the rules suggested that such action was warranted. On 

further reflection, though, the officers “finally decided that we would just have to 

wait and handle the situation as best we could when and if it arose.”

The live ammunition Company B took on the Cerro Tigre Sand Flea 

included rounds for M16 rifles and M60 machine guns, AT4 antitank rockets 

and LAWs, claymore mines, and grenades. As Briggs recorded, “It was the 

first time any of us had carried an infantryman’s basic load, and it was heavy,” 

seemingly even more so in the tropical heat. Once the soldiers had their 

supplies, there was a “forced hydration ceremony” (each man had to consume 

at least one quart of water), after which the troops boarded the LCMs that 

would convey them through the canal to their objective. Hovering overhead, 

Colonel Moore observed the activity from his seat in an OH–58.

While no confrontation with the PDF developed during the Sand Flea, the 

paratroopers experienced the inevitable fog and friction inherent in military 

undertakings. The maps they had of the area proved outdated, and the jungle 

less penetrable than anticipated. Intelligence reports concerning an unused 

railroad line were refuted by an onrushing train that drove the company’s 

ambulatory 1st Platoon off the tracks and into the jungle. Finally, at the golf 

course extraction site, a squad leader and one of his fire teams failed to board 

14 For the controversial issues surrounding rules of engagement for U.S. forces in the 

Panama crisis from early 1988 to December 1989, see the relevant sections in Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989.
Table 3—Rules of Engagement for Cerro Tigre Sand Flea

Under the Laws of War You Must:

1. Treat civilians and detainees humanely.

2. Respect civilians and their property.

3. Avoid forbidden targets, tactics, and techniques.

4. Prevent and report to your superiors any crime committed under 

the laws of war.

Rules for Leaders

1. A commander will take all steps necessary and appropriate for his 

unit’s self-defense.

2. Use only the minimum force necessary to control the situation.

3. If possible when returning fire, use selected marksmen.

4. Without endangering your unit or risking the success of the mission, take measures to minimize risk to civilians.

5. Riot-control agents may only be used when authorized by the 

division commander or his designated representative.

6. Upon cease-fire, take necessary measures to maintain control and 

assist any injured.

Rules for Individuals

1. If fired upon, fire back if necessary in self-defense.

2. If it appears that you are about to be fired upon, fire if necessary in 

self-defense.

3. When returning fire, aim directly at its source; do not spray your 

fire into a general area.

4. Cease fire when the threat is over.

5. Allow anyone who is trying to surrender to do so.

6. Treat innocent civilians with respect.

Source: Clarence E. Briggs III, Operation Just Cause, Panama, December 1989: A Soldier’s 

Eyewitness Account (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1990), pp. 27–28. The same list with 

typographical errors is in An. F, to After Action Review, Operations Order for Sand Flea to 

Cerro Tigre, n.d.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

339

the waiting trucks (a last-minute substitution for the anticipated helicopters, 

which were unavailable). The absence of the men was not noticed until 

the convoy had returned to Fort Sherman. There followed a scene marked 

by confusion and considerable swearing, after which Moore, Dyer, and the 

platoon leader made the 21⁄2-hour truck ride back to Cerro Tigre and retrieved 

the errant team. The furor notwithstanding, the troops had accomplished their 

mission, which consisted of securing the antenna site and electrical substation 

southwest of Cerro Tigre. In the process, their march took them near enough 

to the logistical complex to observe its layout, the terrain in the area, and, in 

the event of combat, the best place to breach the fence surrounding it.15

On the day Company B conducted its Sand Flea, the 3d Battalion’s 

remaining rifle companies, A and C, received orders for their contingency 

exercises at Gamboa and Renacer Prison, respectively.16 Moore later observed 

in an interview that each company’s assignment matched well with the 

personality of its commander. Company C’s captain had shown himself in 

the past to be “very aggressive,” exactly what would be needed for the “real 

shootout” anticipated at the well-guarded prison in the event of actual combat. 

The commander of Company A, in contrast, was “very steady,” according to 

Moore, exactly the kind of leader needed for Gamboa, “the only target that we 

had that had American families on the target. So we really had to show a great 

deal of restraint there, because no matter what we did throughout the rest of 

the country, if we harmed a single American or damaged a single American 

home, then it was all for naught.”17

The exercises for Gamboa and Renacer Prison were described in the same 

mission statement and would occur on the same day. A team from Company 

A would fly to Gamboa via four Chinook helicopters, mount a mock air 

assault onto a landing zone dubbed Sword, seize and secure a U.S. school in 

the vicinity, and then head to a beach labeled Normandy for extraction by an 

LCM. Meanwhile, a team from Company C would arrive by LCM at a site 

designated Omaha Beach, conduct a “route reconnaissance” near the prison, 

secure an objective identified as Iron, and then move to a Panama Canal 

Commission golf course for an airmobile extraction using the Chinooks. 

Should either exercise turn into a confrontation with armed Panamanians, 

Team A had 81-mm. mortars at its disposal, while two attack aircraft—an 

AH–1 and an OA–37—would provide any necessary fire support for Team C. 

The exercises received the code name Blue Devil and, similar to Cerro Tigre, 

called for “highly visible” maneuvers to “elicit the maximum response possible 

from the PDF.” By this time, the controversy surrounding such wording had 

subsided. The troops knew that they were not to engage in confrontational acts 

or take unnecessary risks. To the contrary, their guidance expressly prohibited 

various provocative measures. They were not, for example, to block traffic 

along roads located in their objectives. As the commander’s intent portion of 

their operation order further elaborated, 

15 See also Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 281. 16 The 3d Battalion’s official chronology indicates that the activity at Cerro Tigre took 

place on Wednesday, 13 December, while Briggs’ account suggests that it was on Thursday, 

the fourteenth. 17 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

340

Because of our visibility, we will be subject to the perusal of the Panamanian 

people and press. Absolutely nothing must occur that would present other than 

a 100% professional appearance. Because we will be operating in close proximity 

to PDF units, all leaders must be thoroughly familiar with maneuver rights 

under the Canal Treaty and each soldier must know the [rules of engagement] 

especially with regard to the use of deadly force. I will not have a soldier killed 

because he was unsure of his rights of free passage and self defense.18

The two companies accomplished their missions, although, in the case of 

Company C at Renacer Prison, not without incident. At that site, the troops 

disembarked from the LCMs at Omaha Beach only to be greeted by the prison’s 

Panamanian guards with their weapons at the ready, locked and loaded. The PDF 

officer in charge, a lieutenant colonel, approached Company C’s commander, 

Capt. Derek Johnson, and informed him that under the canal treaties the U.S. 

force had no right to be in the area without having received prior authorization. 

According to Moore, Johnson responded, “Okay, I’m coordinating it right now. 

We’re going through here in five minutes.” Following some animated discussion 

among the Panamanians, the PDF officer proposed that the U.S. troops wait 

fifteen minutes before proceeding. Johnson accepted the compromise, and, at the 

appointed time, his men divided into two elements and reconnoitered the area. As 

Moore later noted with pride, his company commander had “stood toe to toe with 

the P.D.F. lieutenant colonel and backed him down.” All the while, the Sand Flea 

was being videotaped by a SEAL team nearby, thus providing Task Force Atlantic 

with invaluable information on the location of the PDF guard posts and the layout 

of the prison. What they could not determine was the number of prisoners inside 

the complex. Still, Johnson was pleased: “A company commander couldn’t ask for 

anything better except the names of the prison guards.”19

In summing up the 3d Battalion’s first week in Panama, Moore talked 

about having “almost a 24-hour cycle here of planning the CRE, executing 

the CRE, doing the after-action review on that, adjusting the contingency 

plan to fit our lessons-learned, and then executing 24 hours later the next 

CRE.” The exercises culminated on Saturday, 16 December, with something 

of a milestone: authorized personnel within the 3d Battalion received the 

OPLAN 90–2 operation orders they might have to execute. In almost every 

case, the actual battle plans approximated what Moore’s four principal 

companies had rehearsed during the Sand Fleas. Company A would conduct 

an air assault into Gamboa to protect American citizens and property and 

to seize police stations and the FUFEM (fuerzas femininas) Barracks, a PDF 

women’s training facility. Company B would conduct air assaults to seize 

the Cerro Tigre logistical center, secure an ordnance school and a nearby 

intersection, and block enemy use of that portion of the transisthmian 

Boyd-Roosevelt Highway passing near the objective. Company C (minus) 

would conduct an air and LCM assault to seize Renacer Prison and rescue 

the political prisoners there, including one or two American “ecologists” 

18 After Action Review, Operations Order for Sand Flea to Gamboa/Renacer Prison, n.d.

19 Second quote from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Interv, author with Lt Col 

Gregory Gardner, U.S. Army, 7 Apr 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 29. 

Other quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 270–71.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

341

(presumably intelligence operatives), together with a number of Panamanian 

officers who had taken part in coup attempts against Noriega in March 

1988 and October 1989. Finally, Company D (minus) would conduct a road 

march to secure the Madden Dam and to observe another portion of the 

transisthmian highway (Map 19).20

Moore’s staff and company commanders barely had time to peruse the 

contingency plans when word reached Fort Sherman of the Paz shooting. 

More details soon followed, some describing troop movements by Panamanian 

forces at several key locations. For example, reports had V300 Cadillac Gage 

personnel carriers taking up positions around the Comandancia in Panama 

City, while other PDF elements in the capital were setting up roadblocks, 

including one at the Bridge of the Americas, and moving to defend other 

military and police facilities. At some point, so reports ran, the entire defense 

force, as well as some Dignity Battalions, had increased their alert status. 

On the Atlantic side, one group of DigBats was known to have been issued 

arms and told to guard a Panama Canal Commission building in Colón. 

More disconcerting, the PDF 8th Company at Fort Espinar supposedly had 

been ordered to “take out” any U.S. soldiers attempting to block the gates 

there. All of this led to a corresponding increase in Task Force Atlantic’s own 

alert posture, which included “frantically” issuing ammunition to the troops. 

Equally unsettling, the transportation assets needed to convey Kellogg’s forces 

to their combat objectives began arriving at Fort Sherman, just in case the 

death of Lieutenant Paz escalated into a shooting war.21

Tension eased somewhat on Sunday and Monday, although the monitoring 

of Panamanian radio and television stations revealed that the regime 

apparently expected some kind of U.S. retaliation for Saturday night. To 

increase its readiness posture, the 3d Battalion canceled further training at the 

jungle school (although some of Company B’s officers “went out on the land 

navigation course just for kicks”), and company commanders began “scouring 

the area” in search of buildings that at least resembled each company’s actual 

targets. When a replica could not be found, long strips of engineer tape 

stuck to the ground sufficed to approximate a target’s blueprint. Rehearsals 

followed, lasting into Tuesday. In the meantime, on Monday night, Moore was 

in the room with other Task Force Atlantic officers when Kellogg, who had 

called the meeting, wrote the day-time group of H-hour on a piece of paper, 

an unofficial heads up regarding the conflict just over one day away. As a result 

of the news, Moore told his company commanders to order an earlier than 

usual “lights out” and later surprised several of them “with how irate I was 

when they weren’t asleep at 10:00 o’clock that night.” That his troop leaders 

20 Quote from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Operations Summary and 

Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th 

Inf, n.d.; JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989; McConnell, Just Cause, p. 166. While several 

sources mention the presence of one or two American prisoners at Renacer, McConnell’s account is among those that suggest that Moore and other U.S. planners believed them to be 

intelligence operatives. 21 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Quoted words from Briggs, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 41–42. Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d 

Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

342

get sufficient sleep was more important to Moore than having them continue 

the war-gaming they were doing when he issued his directive.22

22 First quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 42–43. Other quotes from Interv, 

Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. As an example of the makeshift rehearsals, one account 

states that Captain Dyer, the Company B commander, by “a stroke of sheer luck” found buildings at Fort Sherman that “closely resembled” those at the logistical complex at Cerro Tigre. 

Madden

Lake

Gatun

Lake

Rio Chagres

c a n a l

c h a n n e l

C A N A L

Z O N E

P A N A M A

Z O N E

C A N A L

P A N A M A

F O R M E R

F O R M E R

Fort

Clayton

Cerro Tigre

Fort Davis

Coco Solo

Naval Station

France Field

Fort Espinar

Empire Range

Renacer Prison

Madden Dam

Gamboa

PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS

MIRAFLORES LOCKS

Nueva Providencia

El Limón

Puerto Pilón

Paraíso

Chilibré

B O Y D -R O O S E V E LT H I G H W A Y

M A D D E N R O A D

AREA OF OPERATIONS SOUTH

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

20 December 1989

Objective

Roadblock

0

0

6 Miles

6 Kilometers

Map 19
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

343

The official announcement of impending hostilities was given to 3d 

Battalion at 1800 the next evening and to lower echelons at 2100. By then, 

the battalion had completed a physical training run, and speculation that 

war was imminent was already filtering down through the ranks. One clue 

that something was afoot had come earlier that morning when troops had 

awakened to find an array of transport and attack helicopters, some rigged 

with armaments, lined in formation on the field outside the battalion’s 

barracks. The likelihood that they were about to go into combat led a 

number of soldiers to call their families and sweethearts in the United States, 

often revealing in the course of their conversations sensitive operational 

details over unsecured telephones easily monitored by Panamanian officials, 

thanks in part to the fact that Noriega’s brother-in-law controlled the 

telephone exchanges. To stop these security violations, Moore banned 

further communications with the outside world, “although some damage 

had already been done.” The remainder of the day was spent fine-tuning and 

rehearsing the contingency plans and then going through the same standing 

operating procedures that occupied almost all U.S. combat units on each 

side of the canal as they prepared to depart for their objectives. Also in 

common with other U.S. troops about to take part in Just Cause, morale was 

high, albeit dampened somewhat by the news, received around 2300, that the 

Panamanian military knew the Americans were coming.23

Madden Dam

The leaders and soldiers of Company D, Moore’s antitank company, 

had little chance to analyze the information provided them during the 2100 

meeting. Only an hour later, they were boarding trucks that, once transported 

across the Panama Canal, would take them to Fort Davis, their staging area 

and departure point for the 11⁄2-hour trip to Madden Dam, fifty miles to the 

southeast. Possible traffic in the canal prompted the decision to leave Sherman 

hurriedly; in being ferried across the waterway, the convoy did not want to “get 

stuck behind some ship going through the [Gatun] Locks.” Even if the transit 

took place without incident, the company still had to negotiate the overland 

ride from Davis to the objective. The roads to the dam were primitive, and, 

although there were no enemy combat units at the facility itself, the Panama 

Defense Forces had small elements armed with AK47s and .38-caliber pistols 

manning two checkpoints and a customs station along the route. There was 

also the PDF 1st Infantry Company at Las Tinajitas, but it would not be able 

to get reinforcements to the dam for at least ninety minutes, if it was able to 

respond at all given the air assault planned for it. 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 282. Another account tells how Company 

C used trash cans and Meals, Ready to Eat cases to build a mock-up of its target, the Renacer 

Prison. See CALL, “Renacer Prison Raid,” in Newsletter 91–1, Rehearsals (1991), at http://

www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_91-1_sec6.htm. 23 Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 

504th Inf, n.d. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 44, 48.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

344

Another factor that could possibly disrupt Company D’s timely deployment 

was the rules of engagement. Prior to 0100, the company commander, Capt. 

John Campbell, would not have the right under the pre–H-hour restrictions 

imposed on him to take hostile action against any enemy troops he encountered 

unless those troops fired on his own soldiers first. Besides the legal distinction 

between precombat and combat phases, there was another compelling 

reason for the constraint. If Campbell were to initiate the use of lethal force 

prematurely—the noise of which would be heard for miles—he would risk 

compromising the other missions planned for Task Force Atlantic’s southern 

area of operations. Moore’s advice to the captain: if you are stopped, lie your 

way through. Colonel Kellogg had emphasized the same point at his meeting 

with the battalion and company commanders. Campbell was to tell any armed 

Panamanians he met along the route that he and his troops were on their way 

to Howard Air Force Base to catch flights back to the United States. As an 

alternative to that cover story, Campbell could simply say that he was lost. 

Right after the meeting, the captain, realizing the vulnerability of his troops, 

requested protective air support, but Moore turned him down: “We don’t . . . 

divide air cap for the convoys. You’re on your own. We’ll be on strip alert; call 

us if you have a problem.”24

Madden Dam, as Campbell knew, was considered “a vital facility to the 

operation of the Panama Canal.” For this reason, it was regarded in at least 

24 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 286–88. Quotes from Interv, 

Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. During Moore’s interview with Wright, when Moore said 

that he had told Campbell to call back to Fort Sherman for air support if there was a problem, 

the written transcript indicated “laughter” on the part of Wright or Moore or both. As for the 

estimates concerning enemy forces along Campbell’s march route and at the dam, see After 

Action Review, Operations Order for Sand Flea to Madden Dam, n.d. Although the Sand Flea 

occurred just one week before Just Cause, there had been no reason to change the estimates.

Madden Dam
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

345

one account as “Task Force Atlantic’s only strategically significant objective, 

the others being enemy positions or areas where American civilians were 

in danger.” The dam provided power to U.S. military facilities south of it. 

Moreover, the water it retained in Madden Lake, if released through an act of 

sabotage, would quickly submerge the nearby town of Gamboa. Such an event 

would be catastrophic, but U.S. planners saw the threat as remote. Indeed, 

they expected Campbell to secure the dam and block the highway north of 

it with less than his full company, one of his platoons having been assigned 

to the Coco Solo mission. In partial compensation, the captain received as 

attachments to his force two squads of engineers, a mortar section from the 

battalion’s Company C, and two teams of military police from the 549th 

Military Police Company.25

The Company D convoy consisted of a military police HMMWV, a 

command and control HMMWV, and three 21⁄2-ton trucks, one of which was 

mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun. The vehicles and troops departed 

Fort Davis on time at 2330, with Campbell’s plan being to keep their speed 

around thirty-five miles per hour so as not to draw unwanted attention. The 

military police lieutenant attached to Company D, however, had other ideas, 

and he would be at the head of the convoy. According to Campbell, the young 

officer thought the captain’s imposed speed limit too slow and too dangerous. 

“Sir, that won’t work,” he is quoted as saying. “There’s only one speed, that’s 

hauling ass. That’s the only safe way to go.” Campbell argued to the contrary, 

but once the convoy set out, he found himself chasing after the junior officer’s 

lead HMMWV. As a result, the assault force arrived in the vicinity of the 

dam twenty minutes before H-hour. By that time, Moore was hovering over 

AO South in the OH–58, monitoring his battalion’s movements over the 

helicopter’s single radio. When he heard that Campbell was prematurely 

approaching Madden Dam, he ordered him to find the nearest cover and go to 

ground until H-hour.26

Campbell complied but stayed in place for only fifteen minutes. At 0055, 

he decided that his troops had waited long enough in the “hiding position” he 

had chosen at an intersection on the Boyd-Roosevelt Highway near the dam 

and the PDF customs station. “I’m not going to just sit here,” he reportedly 

declared. Having made this decision, he and the engineers moved down the 

road toward the dam, their advance covered by one of his platoons armed 

with two .50-caliber machine guns. The only hostile force they expected to 

encounter was a single guard who, as a result of previous contacts, was known 

to be friendly. Still, approaching the armed Panamanian was “one of the 

tightest things” Campbell had to do, since he could not answer one crucial 

question: would an overriding sense of patriotism and honor compel the guard 

at the last minute to offer some resistance? To everyone’s relief, the soldier 

25 First quote from After Action Review, Operations Order for Sand Flea to Madden Dam, 

n.d. Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Second quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 286, and see also pp. 287–88. 26 Military police lieutenant quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, 

pp. 288–89. Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

346

readily surrendered his weapon and opened the gate to the dam. About fifteen 

minutes later, Campbell’s troops had secured the facility.27

While the engineers moved into the dam and power plants, Campbell 

fortified his position, placing a platoon on the roof of the electrical station, 

another at the roadblock north of the dam, a mortar section with two 60-mm. 

mortars south of the installation, and, somewhat later, a team of scouts near 

Madden Road and Boyd-Roosevelt Highway where they could monitor traffic 

along those routes. With these locations secured, he took eight men from his 

1st Platoon and moved to the PDF customs station. The two guards there 

decided not to offer even token resistance, surrendering without firing a shot. 

The remainder of the night proved uneventful. Members of the 4th Platoon 

spied a couple of Panamanians with AK47s, but the men fled once they saw 

American troops. In another minor incident, U.S. soldiers apprehended an old 

man foraging for food. When they brought him to Campbell, the company 

commander could only laugh. “What the hell are we going to do with this 

man?” The answer was to give him some Meals, Ready to Eat and send him 

on his way. After dawn, Campbell decided to seize the smaller of the two PDF 

stations in the vicinity. As he and ten of his men in two military police vehicles 

approached the building, they saw a group of armed Panamanians surrounded 

by a group of children. The Americans held their fire, which allowed the enemy 

to abandon the kids and escape out the back of the station into a wooded area. 

Campbell had to settle for confiscating the weapons left behind and returning 

to Madden Dam. The rest of the day passed without incident.28

Cerro Tigre

Because there were no shooting incidents at Madden Dam, the battalion’s 

after action report noted that it was the only objective at which there was 

no contact with the enemy. The degree of resistance encountered at the 

other targets varied greatly. In the case of Cerro Tigre, it turned out to be 

considerably less than anticipated. On the eve of the mission, the officers in 

Company B “fully expected to go into a hot landing zone (LZ) and to fight our 

way up to the objective.” The enemy force, some estimated, could be as large 

as a company of soldiers.29

Unlike the Sand Flea in which Company B had deployed in LCMs, the real 

attack on the PDF logistical center would be via an air assault, employing four 

transport helicopters from U.S. Army, South’s 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation; 

two UH–1s would take the 1st Platoon to the objective, while two CH–47s 

would follow close behind with the rest of the company. Initially, planners 

had located the landing zone for the Hueys inside the enemy complex, with 

the troops on board then establishing a secure perimeter for the remaining 

soldiers who would land thirty seconds later. But when word circulated that 

27 First and third quotes from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Second quote from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 288–89. 28 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 289–90. 29 Operations Summary, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th 

Inf, n.d. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 49.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

347

the mission had been compromised, a last-minute decision shifted the landing 

zone to a golf course near the site, the same greens from which the company 

had been extracted after its Sand Flea. Supporting the troops from the air 

would be a Cobra attack helicopter from Task Force Hawk. Originally, it 

was to hold its fire until Captain Dyer requested support, but, once the 

breakdown in operations security shattered hopes that Company B might be 

able to “sneak in without causing suspicion or compromise,” there was no 

reason to stop the Cobra from firing on PDF guard positions—one of which 

boasted a ZPU4 Soviet antiaircraft gun—even before Dyer’s infantry had 

landed on the golf course.30

The transport helicopters for Company B arrived at Fort Sherman around 

midnight. While platoon leaders briefed their superiors, the troops received 

their final inspections, moved to the pickup zone, and began boarding the 

Hueys and Chinooks. Then, the waiting began, with its toll on one’s nerves 

and self-confidence. The principal fears, of course, stemmed from wondering 

how one would react in combat and whether one would survive the experience 

intact. As Briggs later wrote in an allusion to the rules of engagement, “The 

principles of military necessity, proportionality, and avoidance of unnecessary 

suffering were brushed aside. It all boiled down to ‘us or them,’ and it sure as 

hell was not going to be us. We could worry about the legal ramifications later, 

assuming that we lived through this. In the meantime we would go in with 

both barrels blazing, hitting them with everything we had to gain total and 

immediate victory.”31

The two Hueys and the first Chinook took off on time with their passengers. 

When the second Chinook tried to lift off, however, it broke down. The troops 

quickly exited and made their way to a backup CH–47, but the loading process 

delayed a timely departure. Further disrupting matters, the backup pilot was 

uncertain of the route he was supposed to take to Cerro Tigre, the result being 

that he flew past the objective and almost all the way to Panama City before 

discovering the error, returning to the correct landing zone, and disgorging his 

passengers nearly ten minutes late. As for the troops who arrived at the golf 

course on schedule, they encountered enemy fire on their approach, but 2.75-

inch rockets from the Cobra and machine gun fire from door gunners on the 

Hueys quickly silenced the PDF guards doing the shooting.32

30 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990; Douglas I. Smith, Army Aviation in Operation 

Just Cause (Study project, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 1992), p. 53. Smith 

was the commander of USARSO’s aviation battalion. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 282. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 48–49. 31 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 282; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, 

pp. 49–50. Briggs also notes the concern over friendly fire, especially given reports that a number 

of AC–130 gunships would be in the area providing fire support. To lessen the chances that the 

soldiers of Company B would be mistakenly identified from the air as the enemy, the soldiers 

“brought along glint tape” that the AC–130 crew could see from the air. 32 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 53. According 

to Moore, only the second Chinook arrived late at the golf course. According to Captain Dyer, 

both Chinooks arrived late, thus leaving the 1st Platoon that had already exited the Hueys alone 

and vulnerable. “I had a platoon on the ground for five minutes by themselves,” Dyer is reported 

as saying. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 283.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

348

In Colonel Moore’s opinion, Captain Dyer had a very sound plan. After 

engineers had breached the fence surrounding the target, the full company 

would move into the logistical complex and begin a three-platoon operation to 

clear the buildings in each of three areas into which the planners had divided 

the compound. For the breaching operations, the officers had ruled out 

claymore mines, grenades, and antitank weapons as being ineffective against a 

chain-link fence. Instead, the engineers would use C4 explosives. “They made 

a belt charge,” Briggs explained, “by attaching a coat hanger to the top of 

an empty bandoleer. They could attach it to the fence to facilitate vertical 

separation of the wire when the charge exploded.” As things turned out, the 

innovative rigging went for naught. As the first elements moved toward the 

fence, a startled PDF guard fled. Dyer’s men then discovered that a gate in 

the barrier had been left open, enabling the entire company to walk into the 

compound unimpeded.33

While Company B’s 2d Platoon initially stayed in place as a reserve, the 3d 

Platoon moved to the western part of the complex, with the 1st Platoon going 

to the south. As they began clearing the guard shacks, warehouses, and other 

buildings, the few enemy soldiers they came upon fled into the jungle. At one 

guardhouse, however, the 3d Platoon saw enough enemy activity to warrant 

taking the structure by force. Small-arms fire and an AT4 were enough to do 

the job, with the hostile troops fleeing like the others. This success, however, 

came close to exacting a very high price. To the surprise of the 1st Platoon and 

the company’s executive officer situated in a nearby warehouse, many of the 

rounds being fired at the guardhouse ricocheted into their area, at first creating 

the fear that an enemy counterattack was under way. In the warehouse, in fact, 

Briggs had laid his grenades in front of him, switched off his rifle’s safety, and 

was preparing to open fire on a group of men he saw moving in his direction. 

Only when he heard them swearing in English and saw their rucksacks did he 

lower his weapon. They were soldiers from the 3d Platoon still maneuvering 

against the guardhouse. As the situation stabilized following this close call, 

Dyer brought in his 2d Platoon to join the clearing process. By 0600, Company 

B controlled the logistical site. No enemy soldiers had been killed and no 

wounded had been found. As for the U.S. force, two men had been injured 

from the use of M203 grenade launchers. One of the soldiers had thought 

he was firing a buckshot round but had chambered a high explosive grenade 

instead. Given the short distance over which the grenade traveled, fragments 

from its blast wounded the shooter. Afterward, the two casualties succeeded 

in convincing some of their superiors that M203 fragmentary grenades were 

not best suited for clearing rooms, unless a unit had actually trained with such 

ammunition, which Company B had not.34

Once the logistical compound was secured, the company’s 1st Platoon 

concentrated on the ordnance school just over a half-mile to the north. The 

troops in the attacking party rode most of the way to the facility on two PDF 

trucks taken from the Cerro Tigre motor pool and then dismounted and made 

33 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

49, 54. 34 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 283–84; Briggs, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 55–56.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

349

the final approach along a road through the jungle. The Panamanians at the 

school, having anticipated the route, had prepared some defensive measures. 

The fact that the Americans were exhausted and moving along the jungle path 

too close to one another only increased their vulnerability. Suddenly, there was 

an explosion, freezing the men in their tracks except for the soldier who took 

some of the shrapnel in his arm. “I’m hit! I’m hit!” he cried out. Surprised by 

the blast and unnerved by the soldier’s screaming, 1st Platoon’s initial attempts 

to return fire on a guardhouse some fifty yards away proved ineffective, with 

the rounds going high. Finally, a corporal from a squad positioned across a 

road from the target made a run for a berm in front of the guardhouse. The rest 

of the squad quickly followed, bringing with them a PDF .30-caliber machine 

gun they had also appropriated from Cerro Tigre. They shot up the structure 

but, by then, the guard who had set off the explosion had escaped.35

As the squad moved toward the objective, the men discovered that they 

were in the middle of an area filled with wired booby traps. Without engineers 

to disarm the devices, the platoon carefully crept forward, marking the 

locations. As Briggs recalled, “I examined every twig and patch of dirt before 

me, imagining that something was going to explode between my legs at any 

moment and leave me squirming on the ground with stubs of raw hamburger.” 

Once the men made it through to the school’s barracks area, they began the 

clearing operations, generally starting the process by lobbing M203 grenades 

through windows, following with shotgun fire, and then with personnel entering 

the premises. As they went from building to building, they met no resistance. 

By early morning, the ordnance school was secured.36

Once Cerro Tigre and the ordnance school were under U.S. control, 

Company B began regrouping, redistributing ammunition, sorting through 

captured PDF equipment and weapons, and setting up defensive positions 

against a possible (if unlikely) enemy counterattack. In the meantime, some 

elements of the company returned to Fort Sherman where, they learned, 

their numbers and firepower were needed to assist in the delayed sweep 

through Colón.37

Gamboa

Southwest of Madden Dam and northwest of Cerro Tigre, the town of 

Gamboa was home to three PDF facilities: a headquarters said to contain 

three platoons of forest rangers, a police station containing two platoons, and 

a counterintelligence training center for a company of FUFEM soldiers. The 

town also contained about one hundred seventy American citizens, many of 

whom were Panama Canal Commission or Department of Defense school 

system employees. The mission for Capt. Peter Boylan’s Company A was to 

neutralize the enemy forces while protecting the Americans, a responsibility 

35 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 284–85. Briggs, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 67–69; Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. 36 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 

69–70. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 285–86. 37 For details on the Colón sweep, see the next chapter.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

350

that all knew would require restraints on the use of deadly force in ways that 

could put U.S. troops at risk from hostile fire. To accomplish the mission, 

Boylan assigned the forest ranger headquarters to his 1st Platoon, the police 

station to his 2d, and the FUFEM to the 3d. The 2d Platoon also had the 

task of establishing a blocking position on a bridge over the Chagres River. 

Renacer Prison, another 3d Battalion objective, was located on the other side 

of the bridge.38

As in the case of Cerro Tigre, there was a last-minute change to the 

planned air assault on Gamboa once word reached Moore’s headquarters that 

the enemy knew the time hostilities would commence. The original plan called 

for the helicopters involved—one Huey and two Chinooks—to put down at 

two landing zones: one, McGrath soccer field in the center of the city, near the 

forest ranger headquarters, and the other near the female counterintelligence 

facility. Once news of the breach in operations security reached Fort Sherman, 

the ranking officers at Task Force Atlantic had to assume that both landing 

zones at Gamboa would be hot. To preclude having Company A’s divided force 

trying to land under lethal fire in two different locations, a decision was made 

to put the whole force down at McGrath field, labeled Landing Zone Vulture, 

on the grounds that all three enemy targets were accessible from the field and 

that a full company could more easily overwhelm any enemy resistance at 

that location. The pilots of the helicopters factored in this new information, 

and, at 0040, Company A was in the air en route to its objectives. The Huey 

took the lead, “carrying the 3d Platoon leader, his radio operator, and three 

gunnery teams, each consisting of an M60 gunner, an assistant gunner, and 

a squad leader carrying an M203 grenade launcher.” The preponderance of 

automatic weapons in the Huey reflected the critical role the soldiers aboard 

would play in securing the landing zone for the two Chinooks behind them. 

The Chinooks transported the 1st and 2d Platoons and what remained of the 

3d Platoon, with Boylan and his company headquarters among the passengers 

on the second CH–47.39

The three helicopters followed the Chagres River until they reached 

Gamboa, then veered over the golf course, and headed for McGrath field. As 

feared, the Panamanian defenders opened fire as the first paratroopers jumped 

from the aircraft. Despite the “tremendous volley,” only one U.S. soldier was 

hit, a thigh wound that he did not even realize he had sustained; he just thought 

he had banged his leg getting out of the Chinook. The three M60 teams quickly 

established their firing positions, with each machine gun crew targeting one of 

the company’s three objectives. The forest ranger headquarters was the closest 

and, because of the Americans living around it, the most problematic. No 

LAWs or AT4s could be employed against the facility for fear of hurting or 

killing the people Boylan and his force had arrived to protect.40

38 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 276–77; Interv, Wright with Moore, 

29 May 1990; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 62–63. 39 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 278–79. 40 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 278–79. Quote from Briggs, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 63–64, and see also p. 65. The soldier who was wounded in the thigh, 

Sgt. Christopher Thompson, was evacuated to a hospital. After learning that the medical staff 
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

351

As the 1st Platoon exited its Chinook, the men became aware of another 

problem concerning the forest ranger headquarters: it “was located on a hilltop 

up a 70-degree slope.” They had scouted the area only a few days before during 

the Blue Devil Sand Flea, but the route they had taken to observe the facility 

actually concealed the steep incline they now discovered directly in front of 

them. Moore later made an additional admission: “Maybe if we had looked 

more closely at the 1:50,000 map we might have seen it.” At H-hour on 20 

December, however, the 1st Platoon could only curse its misfortune and accept 

the inevitable, as the men began climbing the hill. In the heat and humidity 

of Panama, even at night, this was no simple feat, requiring the soldiers to 

crawl upward “with aching lungs and burning muscles.” Reaching the top 

of the hill, they discovered a fence, the breaching of which sapped more 

of their energy. Once through this last obstacle, they approached the PDF 

headquarters, positioning themselves at several locations around the building, 

including on property or against residential housing that was assumed to 

be Panamanian. At one house, a U.S. soldier who had moved just inside its 

breezeway was confronted by a man walking onto the patio, loudly asking 

what was happening. The man turned out to be an American citizen who, 

once informed of the danger he faced, went back inside. The soldier, for his 

part, quickly realized that his continued presence there could draw enemy fire 

toward the house and its friendly inhabitants.41

Once the 1st Platoon was in position, it opened fire on the headquarters, 

using small arms, machine guns, and grenade launchers in a prelude to storming 

the building. One minute later, the troops launched their attack. The defenders 

quickly fled out the back and into the area planners had declared a no-fire 

zone because of the American housing it contained. As Moore related, one 

U.S. machine gunner “had to make the choice between shooting the fleeing 

P.D.F. members and not firing towards American buildings, and he held fire.” 

When the 1st Platoon entered the headquarters and began clearing the rooms, 

it used “small arms with a couple of grenades,” Boylan noted.42

By the time the forest ranger headquarters was secured, the 2d and 3d 

Platoons had already achieved their objectives. The police station south of 

McGrath field was the first to fall, although not easily, as U.S. troops coming 

under fire had to respond with great care, not because there were any American 

citizens in the area, but because a stray round into a gasoline station next 

to the police building might set off an unwanted conflagration. As with the 

forest rangers, the PDF police fled—in this case into the jungle—after the 2d 

Platoon began its final assault. Once inside the station, the clearing operation 

uncovered a variety of weapons, including assault rifles, bayonets, shotguns, 

and pistols. With the building secured, two teams from the platoon moved 

to the Gamboa bridge to establish the blocking position that would help the 

there planned to send him back to the United States for an operation, he left and rejoined his 

unit. 41 First and third quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 63. Second quote from 

Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. 42 Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 63–64. First quote from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 

May 1990. Second quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 279.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

352

battalion’s Company C isolate Renacer Prison on the other side of the Chagres. 

By 0230, the 2d Platoon controlled its area of operations.43

A half hour later, the final target, the counterintelligence training center, 

had been taken by the 3d Platoon. Moore recounted that, before Just Cause, 

the idea of U.S. troops having to fight female personnel elicited smiles from 

many of the planners. The reaction was quite different from the soldiers who 

actually had to conduct the attack. Well armed and highly trained, the women 

waged a brief firefight, suffering several casualties during the shooting before 

they fled or surrendered. By 0300, the 3d Platoon had finished clearing the two 

main buildings of the school.44

After the successful execution of its Just Cause mission, Company A 

reported four soldiers wounded but no fatalities. Also no American citizens 

had been harmed during the fighting. As for the Panamanian defenders, 

blood trails and the accounts of eyewitnesses indicated that several had been 

wounded, perhaps a few killed. None had surrendered prior to the fighting; 

they had not been offered the chance. Given the concentration of American 

citizens in the battle zone, Moore and Boylan did not want to give the enemy 

an opportunity to take hostages. Hence, they dispensed with the planned 

PSYOP broadcasts as too time-consuming and went straight into the attack. 

In looking back at how those actions had fared, Moore was pleased with the 

performance of Boylan’s company at Gamboa, emphasizing the point that 

light infantry had demonstrated that it was capable of conducting surgical 

operations. Referring to the forest ranger headquarters specifically, he noted, 

“I don’t think we had a single bullet hole in the surrounding quarters.”45

Renacer Prison

The 3d Battalion’s fourth major H-hour objective, Renacer Prison, was 

considered the unit’s most dangerous mission. After the confrontation with 

the Panamanian guards that had occurred during Company C’s Sand Flea 

exercise there, Colonel Moore and Captain Johnson both anticipated that 

seizing the facility and securing the prisoners inside would probably involve 

the toughest fight the battalion would face that night. 

The layout of the prison and the terrain in the vicinity did nothing to 

ease their concerns. The prison contained some twenty cinderblock or wood 

buildings, including the main prison, a headquarters, a barracks, office 

facilities, a chapel, and storage areas. The prison yard measured about a third 

the size of a football field and was surrounded by a high chain-link fence 

topped with razor wire. Outside the fence at the northeast corner was a single 

guard tower, the most conspicuous structure in the installation. As for the 

terrain surrounding the compound, it was also formidable. As described in 

one account, the prison “spread across the cleared top of a steep jungle bluff 

above the confluence of the Canal and the Chagres River near the town of 

43 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 279–80. 44 Ibid., p. 280; Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.

45 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

353

Gamboa.” Scattered within the landscape were high-voltage power lines, light 

poles, towers, the prison fence, and a railroad bridge built a hundred feet above 

the Chagres. Mounting a combined air and sea assault on the target would 

not be easy, one reason being the restrictions in the canal treaties that had 

prohibited U.S. forces from practicing air assaults in the area. Complicating 

matters further was a lengthy list of unknowns. While, to Moore’s previously 

noted satisfaction, the Sand Flea and a four-day reconnaissance by a SEAL 

team had allowed Company C to study the prison and identify the location 

of the guards’ quarters and stations, the number of PDF defenders was still 

undetermined, with estimates ranging from twenty to as high as seventy-five. 

The number of prisoners, placed at sixty, also remained a guess, and no one 

knew for sure where they were located inside the complex. Most of the guards, 

analysts believed, carried only small arms, including AK47s and T65s (a 

Taiwanese assault rifle resembling the U.S. M16). But these defenders, as the 

Sand Flea had also demonstrated, could be reinforced quickly by police units 

in Gamboa, which was one reason for Company A’s mission to establish a 

blocking position on the bridge between the town and the prison.46

The plan for Renacer at H-hour was to insert into the prison yard two 

groups of paratroopers from Company C’s 2d Platoon. Originally, Chinooks 

were to be employed for that part of the operation, but, given the small size 

of the landing zone, two Hueys were used instead.47 Each carried eleven 

soldiers, the total being called Team Oswalt after the 2d Platoon leader, 2d Lt. 

Christopher F. Oswalt. A third UH–1 would land a team of ten scouts at the 

front gate to seal off that entrance from any enemy reinforcements. In this first 

phase of the operation, a Cobra attack helicopter and two Kiowas—including 

the one with Moore aboard—would provide suppressive fire. The right door 

gunners on the Hueys would join the effort as well, backed by their passengers 

armed with squad automatic weapons and grenade launchers. To make sure 

the rounds struck only places known to be occupied by the guards, there would 

be no firing from the left side of the Hueys, the side that would be facing those 

buildings most likely housing the prisoners. 

While the helicopters were flying the lead elements into the prison 

compound, the bulk of the Company C attack force would be landing via 

two LCMs, the part of the operation that had been rehearsed during the Sand 

Flea. The remainder of the 2d Platoon, armed with five M60s and twenty 

AT4 antitank weapons, would be the first troops to disembark. Once off their 

landing craft, the troops would climb the ridge in front of them and set up a 

position from which to deliver additional suppressive fire. Since Team Oswalt 

would be inside the fence by that time, the prison yard was to be considered 

a no-fire zone, meaning that the fire support element would concentrate on 

targets such as the headquarters building and guard quarters outside the fence. 

Meanwhile, paratroopers from the 3d Platoon would disembark from the 

46 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 268, 270–73; “Raid At Renacer,” in 

Soldiers in Panama: Stories of Operation Just Cause (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of 

Public Affairs, Department of the Army, 1990), p. 6; Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990; 

CALL, “Renacer Prison Raid.” Quote from McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 165–66. 47 The information regarding the switch from Chinooks to Hueys is from Briefing, Lt Col 

Johnny Brooks, 29 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, Wash.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

354

second LCM. As Oswalt and his men concentrated on seizing the main prison 

buildings within the compound and securing the prisoners, the 3d Platoon 

would assault and clear prison facilities outside the perimeter fence.

Around 2100 on the nineteenth, Captain Johnson approached the soldiers 

from his 3d and 2d Platoons (minus Team Oswalt) as they were loading onto 

the LCMs. When he told them that they were not going on another exercise but 

into combat, their reaction, as he later described it, was “calm.” “There was 

no fidgeting around or scurrying for cover or Hail Marys or anything. There 

was a job to do and they were going to do it.” Back in the briefing room, the 

interaction between Moore and some of the helicopter pilots assigned to the 

mission was not so dispassionate. At issue was the part of the plan that called 

for the Cobra and two Kiowas to make a last-minute reconnaissance over the 

prison. Once word arrived that Operation Just Cause had been compromised, 

the pilots argued for canceling the recon mission: the PDF defenders would be 

waiting, and, if the flyover itself did not draw fire, it would certainly alert the 

enemy that American forces were on the way. Moore refused the request, and 

a heated argument ensued, especially with the Cobra pilot who, the battalion 

commander bemoaned, demonstrated “not quite the attitude that I wanted 

him to have.” Moore reportedly told the aviator that “he was going to fly the 

mission the way it was briefed, or I’d find somebody else to fly it. . . . We 

had some guys on the LCM who were hanging out a lot more than he was.” 

Given that Moore outranked the pilots, his view prevailed. In the opening 

phase of the attack, however, he would have an additional reason to express 

his displeasure with the Cobra pilot.48

The LCMs left Fort Sherman around midnight. The helicopters were in 

the air by 0030, with the two Kiowas leading the Hueys along the Chagres 

River to the objective. The weather, while far from threatening, could have 

been better, as clouds and dense fog obscured the waterways below and much 

of the terrain on each side. Once the Huey pilots arrived in the vicinity of the 

target, they had to fly across the canal, then make a 180-degree turn before 

approaching the prison. To avoid the power lines and the prison fence, the 

UH–1s, in Moore’s words, had “to come in at a very high angle and then shoot 

straight down” on about a 40-degree glide slope.49

Fifteen seconds before H-hour, as the Hueys were in the process of 

performing this difficult maneuver, a sniper on one of the Kiowas opened 

fire on the prison’s guard tower. Moore, in the other Kiowa, fired his M16 

at the target as well, while the Huey door gunners poured M60 rounds into 

the buildings where the guards were presumably located. The few soldiers 

aboard armed with SAWs and M203 grenade launchers joined in, although 

those with the M203s quickly found that pressure from the helicopters’ rotor 

wash pushed the rounds downward, causing them to fall well short of their 

targets. When the Panamanian defenders returned fire, the numerous tracer 

rounds from both sides reminded Moore of firefights he had seen in Vietnam. 

As for the pilot in the lead UH–1, CWO Michael Loats, he could only marvel 

48 Johnson quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 270, and see 

also pp. 268, 272–73. Moore quotes from Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990. Johnson’s 

1st Platoon, it should be recalled, was assigned to a mission in AO North. 49 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

355

at surviving the shooting unscathed. “How we never got hit, I don’t know,” he 

recounted. “All we saw were tracers in front, on the side, and behind us.” The 

Cobra arrived late, according to an aggravated Moore, who also complained 

that the fire from its 20-mm. Gatling gun, once it finally became engaged, was 

erratic. “I think we were fortunate in that regard that we didn’t take any of our 

own rounds.” The effect of the Cobra’s fire support was later debated, but not 

the sequence of events that followed its arrival on station: the Hueys departed 

the prison yard, the twenty-two soldiers they had deposited there from the 2d 

Platoon began their assault on the main prison building, and the troops from 

the LCMs began moving against the outer areas of the prison complex.50

To get Team Oswalt inside the main building, an engineer and his security 

man crawled forward under fire to place three one-pound blocks of C4 

explosives on the doorway.51 The security man was hit in the arm by grenade 

fragments, but the engineer managed to set the charge, pull the pin on the 

igniter, and then crawl away through broken glass and gravel. The explosion 

rocked the compound as the locked door vanished, leaving a hole through 

which the remainder of Oswalt’s soldiers passed. Men from the team’s 3d Squad 

headed for the cellblock, where the irregular lumps they spied barely visible on 

the floor of the darkened area turned out to be mattresses the prisoners had 

50 Last quote from ibid. Other quotes from CALL, “Renacer Prison Raid.” Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 272–74; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 59–61; 

McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 170–72. 51 The account of the clearing operations is common to the following sources, with some 

differences of detail that this author has tried to reconcile: Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 

1990; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 131–32; McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 173–74; “Raid At 

Renacer,” in Soldiers in Panama; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 274–76; 

Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 61. Citations will be provided for only quoted material or additional sources.

AH–1 Cobra helicopter
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

356

pulled over themselves. Meanwhile, the 2d Squad seized a nearby recreation 

building without incident.

Outside the compound, Company C’s 3d Platoon led by 2d Lt. Chuck 

Broadus made its way up the ridge from the LCMs’ docking area and passed 

through the fire support positions set up by those 2d Platoon elements that 

had also been sealifted to the objective. En route, one of Broadus’ men saw two 

armed Panamanians and pointed them out to an M60 machine gunner, who 

promptly shot and killed them. The platoon continued its advance, only to run 

unexpectedly into a ten-foot-high wire fence hidden by the overhang between 

the office and the headquarters buildings. Broadus called for claymore mines 

and grenades to blow a hole in the obstruction, but none of the blasts had 

any effect. Finally, two of his men crawled to the fence and cut a hole in the 

wire with their bayonets. Within minutes, the remaining soldiers had passed 

through and reached their objectives.

For squad leader Sgt. Kevin Schleben, that was the headquarters building 

on the southern side of the complex. When he reached the main corridor, he 

found himself overcome by a cloud of chemical stun gas. He and his men 

went back outside and then returned wearing their protective masks. In the 

process of clearing the building, Schleben discovered a blood trail on the floor 

and followed it out the back door. There, just a few yards from him, were 

two armed Panamanians, one wounded in the leg. Neither saw him, as both 

seemed to be preparing to fire on three American soldiers moving toward the 

prison’s office block. Schleben yelled, “Down!” causing the two enemy guards 

to turn toward him. As they did, he opened fire with his M16, killing both of 

them. As Broadus later stated, “They could have shot four or five of us. He 

went between us and them. He could have taken our fire or their fire.”52 For his 

quick actions that may have prevented several American casualties, Schleben 

received the Bronze Star.

Around 0200, Company C reported that the main prison building and 

the prisoners were secured.53 Clearing operations continued, however, for 

the next three to four hours. By and large, these were uneventful, save for 

the anxiety generated by entering forbidding structures at night, each one a 

possible hideout for enemy forces not yet ready to concede their inevitable 

defeat. The U.S. troops, despite their fears, displayed remarkable discipline, 

as demonstrated by one episode in a home located near the prison. The house 

was a family dwelling, a duplex, and after clearing one apartment and while 

preparing to enter the other, the squad of soldiers heard a woman’s voice 

yelling, “Don’t shoot.” The men held their fire as a PDF officer, his wife, and 

their child emerged, unharmed but visibly shaken. The thought of “what 

might have been” left its impact on the soldiers as well. One specialist who 

was present could not get over feeling, “I came close to killing that woman 

and her baby.”54

52 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 132. 53 Operations Log Extract, in After Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 

504th Inf, n.d. 54 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 132.
Task Force Atlantic: D-day in Area of Operations South

357

Fourteen die-hard Panamanians did not surrender until later that 

morning. They had holed up in their quarters, taking potshots at U.S. 

soldiers who ventured into view. To silence their weapons, Captain Johnson 

ordered antitank rounds fired into the building, after which the shooting 

stopped. When a Company C element finally entered the quarters, it found 

the soldiers under their beds and ready to give up. Their surrender brought 

the total number of enemy prisoners taken by Company C to twenty-two, 

six of whom were wounded. Five of the defenders had not fared so well, 

having been killed in the firefights. American casualties numbered four 

wounded, none killed. There were also sixty-five former Renacer prisoners 

now under U.S. protection, the number including the two Americans known 

to have been incarcerated there. There were also five Panamanians who had 

participated in coup attempts against Noriega. Accounts differ, but at some 

point between 0430 and 0600, the entire prison complex and surrounding 

area were quiet and deemed to be secured.

Aside from his problems with the Cobra pilot, Moore was pleased with 

the outcome of the raid at Renacer. In interviews and briefings afterward, he 

would cite several aspects of the operation in which Company C had excelled, 

usually emphasizing the novel way in which the unit had cleared the complex’s 

nearly twenty buildings—from the inside out. The concept, referred to in the 

battalion as “star burst,” came from an article Moore had written for Infantry 

magazine on night attacks. In the author’s words, it called for the assault force 

to “make the breach, penetrate to the center of the target, and attack outwards 

from there.” As executed at Renacer, this tactic, he claimed, had ensured that 

U.S. troops, once inside the cellblock, would not be firing on the prisoners 

Company C had been sent to liberate.55

With the mutual success of operations conducted by Brooks’ 4th Battalion, 

7th Infantry, and Moore’s 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry, Task Force Atlantic 

had achieved by midday on the twentieth almost all of its H-hour objectives—

Colón being the major exception—in both halves of its area of operations. In the 

process, a number of insights had been gained, some unique to the task force’s 

experience, some in common with other U.S. units in Operation Just Cause. 

General observations included the value of the prewar exercises conducted 

in Panama, particularly as they pertained to “crowd control, urban patrols, 

check points operations, and other security missions.” There was also praise 

for the predeployment training in urban operations, although existing MOUT 

doctrine was criticized for providing “no nonlethal solutions or proportional 

response techniques for conditions that include civilians in close proximity to 

the target, or for situations where the enemy is indistinguishable from friendly 

civilians.” On a more specific level, elements of Task Force Atlantic touted 

the importance of flak vests, the superiority of shotguns (captured from the 

Panamanians) over grenades and M16s for clearing rooms, the effectiveness 

of LAWs in use against buildings, and the reliability of the PRC–126 radios.56 

55 Interv, Wright with Moore, 29 May 1990.

56 Quotes from Daniel E. Evans, Actions at Fort Espinar, Republic of Panama, 20 December 

1989, n.d., copy at http://www.benning.army.mil/library/content/Virtual/Donovanpapers/other/

STUP5/EvansDaniel%20E.%20CPT.pdf. Michael F. Beech, ‘Quasi-War’: Training Infantry 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

358

For the remainder of 20 December and in the days that followed, U.S. 

units on the Atlantic side of the canal would consolidate their initial gains 

while providing on-order responses to countless other matters that would arise. 

Some of these follow-on operations would take only a few hours to execute, 

others a day or two, and still others a week or more. Some would be routine, 

others quite dangerous. Meanwhile, U.S. forces on the scene would also have 

to accommodate themselves to the transition from strictly combat to stability 

operations. This, too, would often prove a difficult proposition. 

Small Units for Operations Other Than War (Student paper, School of Advanced Military 

Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., Academic Year 1995–1996).
12

Loose Ends

20 December 1989–3 January 1990

By the evening of 20 December, U.S. forces had achieved most of the D-day combat objectives set forth in the JTF-South Operation 

Plan 90–2. The Comandancia had fallen to Task Force Gator after a fierce 

fight, while the remainder of Task Force Bayonet had neutralized organized 

resistance by the Panama Defense Forces and Dignity Battalions stationed or 

operating near the PDF headquarters. Farther out, in the suburbs and outlying 

areas of the capital and in towns close by, Task Force Red-T had captured the 

country’s main commercial-military airfield complex, while Task Force Semper 

Fi, Special Operations Forces, and elements of the 82d Airborne Division had 

dealt with other enemy units that could have reinforced their colleagues at 

Torrijos-Tocumen or in downtown Panama City. Meanwhile, on the northern 

side of the canal area, troops from Task Force Atlantic had secured Coco 

Solo, Renacer Prison, Madden Dam, Gamboa, and Cerro Tigre. 

Despite these impressive accomplishments and the speed with which 

they had been achieved, the outcome of some D-day and other high-priority 

missions remained uncertain. For example, Noriega was still at large, with 

none of the U.S. search teams possessing timely intelligence on his location. 

Complicating matters, while Panamanian citizens displayed unexpected 

eagerness to turn in their deposed dictator, the plethora of information they 

proffered often overwhelmed U.S. forces; much of it also proved unverifiable 

or inaccurate. Meanwhile, the securing of Colón, Panama’s second largest 

city and the neutralization of PDF elements there had been put on hold. In 

addition to this unfinished business, Generals Thurman and Stiner also had to 

deal with follow-on operations, some planned, such as the reduction of PDF 

units and facilities in the provinces west and east of the canal; some arising 

from unforeseen emergencies, such as the rescue of hostages at the Marriott 

Hotel in Panama City. Equally in need of urgent attention was the widespread 

looting and criminal activity the chaos of the invasion had spawned on both 

sides of the isthmus. Finally, as the fighting died down, units in Panama City 

received directives to secure vital installations, such as embassies, warehouses, 

commercial facilities, transformer stations, and so on—over seventy-two 

locations in all, most to be guarded by five- to six-man teams. Thus, while an 

American victory had been assured by late afternoon on the twentieth, there 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

360

was still much to accomplish militarily before the success of U.S. arms could 

be translated into a meaningful political achievement.

Hostages at the Marriott Hotel and Elsewhere

One reason that Thurman and the XVIII Airborne Corps had objected to 

General Woerner’s contingency plan for a gradual buildup of U.S. forces in 

Panama was that the extensive time needed to complete the projected troop 

movements would allow enemy forces to exploit the vulnerability of American 

citizens living in the country. Supporting this argument were U.S. intelligence 

reports of PDF plans to take civilian hostages in the event of hostilities. The 

best way to negate this threat, Thurman and Stiner believed, was to mount a 

massive surprise strike with such speed and power that there would be little time 

for the enemy to do anything other than surrender or run. While the reasoning 

behind this line of thought seemed compelling, it was hardly foolproof. As the 

planners of 1–90 and 90–2 clearly understood, the element of surprise in such a 

large-scale operation as an invasion of Panama could not be taken for granted. 

Further, no matter how sudden and devastating the initial strikes, they could 

not guarantee that the enemy would not have sufficient time to take hostages, 

either by design or as a target of opportunity. Indeed, in the wee hours of 20 

December, several unsuspecting passengers on the commercial airliner that 

had arrived late at Torrijos International Airport found that, only minutes 

later, they had become PDF captives merely by walking into the terminal to 

collect their baggage. Then there was also the case of the Americans staying at 

the Caesar Park Marriott Hotel in Panama City. They fared no better when, 

soon after the shooting began, a group of men dressed in civilian clothes and 

carrying assault rifles entered the building, gathered a number of the hotel’s 

The Marriott Hotel (tall building at center foreground) in Panama City
Loose Ends

361

occupants in the lobby, and announced, “We’re being invaded, so we’re taking 

hostages.”1

Details of what happened inside the Marriott from this initial encounter 

to midafternoon remain confusing, even conflicting. Among the hotel 

occupants were American citizens employed by various news organizations. 

Eastern Airlines pilots and crew members were also guests. There were over 

a hundred other foreign nationals as well. Some registrants managed to hide 

from the various intruders who came and went until well after dawn. Some of 

the hostages—initial reports ranged from twelve to sixteen—were forcefully 

removed and taken away in trucks. Others returned to their rooms between 

visitations. Electrical power was out but the telephones were still working, 

allowing reporters to call their home offices and transmit raw information 

that, in turn, was relayed to Washington. Soon, NBC was reporting that two 

news producers, one from CBS, the other from ABC, had been abducted. Offcamera, network executives were telling U.S. officials that they wanted their 

people in Panama, and especially in the Marriott, protected. According to 

telephone calls received from one of the Eastern Airlines pilots, there were 

twenty-nine American hostages still in the hotel.2

The Crisis Action Team in the Pentagon sifted through this information. 

Then, at 1500 on the twentieth, the team received a message from Thurman, 

listing the Marriott among the general’s top three priorities at that moment. 

President Bush shared this sense of urgency, a fact that Secretary of Defense 

Cheney directed Colin Powell to transmit back to the Southern Command. 

Up to that point, Powell had not tried to influence U.S. military operations 

in Panama. Now, given the concerns of the president, he had to intervene, 

making it clear to the SOUTHCOM commander that the situation at the hotel 

had to be resolved as soon as possible. In a conversation later in the day, Powell 

went further: U.S. troops had to rescue the occupants and secure the Marriott 

by midnight. Thurman discussed the edict with Stiner, who passed word down 

the JTF-South chain of command to the task force he chose for the mission. In 

making that choice, he would have preferred to tap Special Operations Forces, 

but they were busily engaged in a variety of sensitive missions, including the 

search for Noriega. Next in line, given their location and their operational 

status, were elements of the 82d Airborne Division. As to the selection of the 

specific airborne unit for the hostage rescue mission, Stiner left that decision 

to the Task Force Pacific commander, Maj. Gen. James H. Johnson Jr., and 

the 82d’s assistant division commander for operations, Brig. Gen. Joseph W. 

Kinzer. After conferring, the two officers selected the 2d Battalion, 504th 

Infantry, at Panama Viejo. In recalling his thinking at the time, Johnson 

indicated that he was not clear as to whether the Americans at the Marriott 

were in fact hostages or just trapped by the military situation in the capital. In 

either case, they had to be rescued.3

1 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 230. 2 Ibid., pp. 230–31; Washington Post, 21 Dec 1989; Chicago Sun-Times, 21 Dec 1989; 

Associated Press, 20 Dec 1989; New York Times, 22 Dec 1989; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 49. 3 Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 49; Interv, Dolores De Mena with Brig Gen Joseph W. 

Kinzer, U.S. Army, 20 Apr 1992, Fort Clayton, Panama; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 231. In his SAMS briefing on 23 September 1992, Thurman said that military 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

362

The 2d Battalion commander, Lt. Col. Harry Axson, had spent the better 

part of the afternoon at Panama Viejo with his operations officer, Maj. 

Jonathan Chase, and other key staff members, drawing up plans to have the 

battalion’s Company B mount an air assault on Paitilla airfield, where the 

Navy SEALs had suffered heavy casualties at H-hour. Around 1730, Axson 

received a call from his immediate superior, 1st Brigade commander Col. Jack 

P. Nix Jr. “I’m flying in. I want to see you,” Nix said. “We’re getting ready to 

go out of here,” Axson replied, referring to the Paitilla mission. Nix’s response 

was crisp: “No you’re not. Your mission’s been changed.” The colonel arrived 

some time later aboard an OH–58 and got straight to the point. Axson would 

put together a rescue party that, before midnight, would seize and secure the 

Marriott, free the twenty-nine hostages being held there, and evacuate them to 

the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex. Nix told the lieutenant colonel that he 

would have an AC–130 to provide fire support. The battalion mortar platoon 

would be on hand to add more, if needed. After Nix departed, Axson and his 

staff immediately began planning for the new mission. The time was 2000. 

The 2d Battalion had just learned how quickly priorities could change at the 

tactical level as the result of directives passed down from officials in the highest 

reaches of the U.S. government.4

The first question Axson had for his staff was, “Where is the Marriott?”5

The battalion intelligence officer turned and pointed across the Bay of Panama 

toward the downtown area of the city where the hotel’s large marquee was 

clearly visible from a distance that Axson estimated to be about 21⁄2 miles. The 

assembled group then located the building on a map and determined the best 

route Company B should take in getting to its new objective. Here Axson was 

aided by Capt. Charles Durr, an officer who had accompanied Nix to Panama 

Viejo. Six months earlier, Durr had finished a tour in Panama, during which 

he had gained more than a passing familiarity with the well-traveled streets 

between the hotel and the old city’s stone ruins, the latter a tourist attraction 

now serving temporarily as the 2d Battalion’s operations center. The captain 

not only recommended a route for the rescue force but, at Axson’s request, 

agreed to accompany the lead element in case it needed to make a detour as 

a means of avoiding a skirmish or any other obstacle that might slow down 

its advance. To improve the chances for unimpeded movement, Axson had 

his tactical air controller, Air Force Capt. John Wittington, coordinate with 

reporting of Just Cause went up the chain of command and not down and that Powell did not 

question him or interfere in the operation. The Marriott Hotel was clearly an exception to that 

generalization. 4 Quotes from Interv, author with Lt Col Harry Axson, U.S. Army, and Maj Jonathan 

Chase, U.S. Army, 8 Apr 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C. Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr. with 1st Lt 

Christopher Miller, U.S. Army, 15 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. Miller was Axson’s mortar platoon leader. 5 Quote from Interv, author with Axson and Chase, 8 Apr 1992. Unless otherwise noted, 

the account of the rescue mission that follows is based primarily on this interview but also on 

the following four sources: Interv, Wright with Maj Jonathan Chase and 1st Lt Robert Cejka, 

U.S. Army, 4 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 181–91; Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 229–32; “The Day Of The Bronze Stars,” in Soldiers 

in Panama: Stories of Operation Just Cause (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Public 

Affairs, Department of the Army, 1990), pp. 23–24.
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363

the AC–130 crew, in part by numbering on two maps—one in Wittington’s 

possession, the other in the plane—the buildings the rescue party would pass en 

route to the hotel. Should the gunship’s sophisticated imagery devices detect a 

concealed enemy position on a rooftop, the AC–130 crew had only to pinpoint 

the site by relaying to the paratroopers the building’s assigned number. 

Axson and Chase told Company B’s commander, Capt. Stephen C. Phelps, 

that his unit was to depart at 2200, just enough time for Phelps to accomplish 

the mission provided there were no significant delays. Not until 2130, however, 

was the rescue plan far enough along to brief the captain, who then had to 

go over it with his platoon and squad leaders, a process one later described as 

“very compressed.” In its final form, the rescue mission called for Company 

B to maneuver to the hotel on foot with its 1st Platoon and engineer squad in 

the lead, accompanied by Chase and Durr. The 2d Platoon would follow, while 

behind it would be Axson’s command post, to include the lieutenant colonel, 

key staff members, and his sergeant major. The 3d Platoon would come next 

and bringing up the rear would be a confiscated van with two specialists—

one the driver—in the front seats and a sergeant in the back. The van would 

serve as a crude ambulance, picking up any casualties and evacuating them 

back to Panama Viejo for medical attention. Last-minute preparations ate up 

additional minutes. As Chase put it, “It just took a little time to get everybody 

together, and get the word out and the route and all that.” As a result, “we left 

at 2215.”6 

Fewer than a hundred yards outside the battalion perimeter at Panama 

Viejo, the rescue team passed an open garage with the lights on. When 

Captain Durr ordered the lights shot out, three or four men hiding inside 

the structure opened fire. Both sides exchanged shots, after which the hostile 

force fled carrying one of its own. Company B then resumed its advance at 

an accelerated pace. There had been no U.S. casualties thus far, but that was 

about to change. About five hundred yards past the garage, the 1st Platoon 

turned a corner and heard the loud, grinding sound of shifting gears—the 

noise suggested a large vehicle—but the men could see nothing in the dark. 

Several nerve-racking seconds passed before a truck suddenly emerged from 

a side street and headed straight for the gap between the 1st and 2d Platoons. 

In the front seat, a passenger was firing a pistol at the soldiers. He also threw 

a grenade, but it sailed over its target, falling harmlessly over a nearby seawall 

and into the bay. As the truck sped among the troops, the side suddenly rolled 

up “like a Venetian blind,” revealing five men, two with AK47s and three firing 

machine guns mounted on tripods bolted to the floor. For a brief moment, the 

paratroopers could only absorb the blow. They did not have a good angle with 

which to return fire. Nor, given the seawall at their backs, did they have much 

room to maneuver out of the way. One paratrooper jumped over the wall into 

the water twenty feet below; three others, including Chase, were wounded.

6 Last two quotes from Interv, author with Axson and Chase, 8 Apr 1992. First quote 

from Maj Robert Haycock, NEO—A Platoon Leader’s Experience: Operation Just Cause/

Marriott Hotel NEO (Student paper, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans., 27 May 1999). Also, two of the official Just Cause chronologies place 

Company B’s time of departure at 2230 vice 2215.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

364

As the truck barreled toward Axson’s command element, members of the 

first two platoons were finally able to begin shooting, their bullets setting the 

vehicle on fire. At almost the same time, a paratrooper crouching behind the 

colonel stood up, walked to the middle of the street, and fired a round from an 

M203 grenade launcher, hitting the passenger and taking off one of his arms. 

With the truck still bearing down on the soldier, he fired a second round that went 

through the windshield on the driver’s side. The vehicle swerved and crashed into 

a building. Inside, the paratroopers found the driver and four of the men in back 

dead; the passenger in the front seat and the fifth man in back were wounded. 

Stiner later identified all the occupants as members of UESAT.7 As for the three 

American casualties, Chase’s wounds were to his face, while the other two men’s 

were superficial. The van following the column picked up the three and headed 

back to Panama Viejo, receiving sporadic fire en route.

With the truck destroyed, Company B again resumed its advance, at which 

point the AC–130 overhead informed Axson’s air control officer that a dozen 

or so enemy soldiers had set up an ambush position on a bridge leading to the 

hotel. Phelps’ men and the gunship had the firepower to deal with the threat, 

but the Marriott was the objective and the clock was ticking. Axson quickly 

decided to maneuver around the ambush, so he radioed Captain Durr with 

instructions to select a detour. The captain picked an alternate route, and word 

was passed to the troops. News of the change, however, failed to reach the 

sergeant and two specialists in the van-cum-ambulance who, after dropping 

off the wounded paratroopers and providing a brief update to Colonel Nix at 

Panama Viejo, were speeding back to rejoin the rescue column. Sticking to what 

they believed was the correct route, the three soon approached the defended 

bridge, at which time the Panamanians began shooting at them, blowing out 

all the vehicle’s windows and wounding the specialist in the passenger seat. The 

driver turned and headed away from the ambush, only to find that an enemy 

vehicle was following him. In what one author has called a “running street 

battle, Mafia movie style,” the sergeant in the van, a former Marine sniper, 

exchanged shots with the pursuers, even as the van swerved wildly on and off 

the road, not as an evasive maneuver but as a result of the driver having had 

his eye glasses shattered.8 The fight ended when the near-blind specialist lost 

the Panamanians by making a sharp turn onto a side street. Once certain that 

the way was clear, he returned to Panama Viejo to get medical help for the 

wounded specialist and to pick up additional ammunition and a new pair of 

glasses. When the sergeant with him began preparing for a second attempt to 

rejoin Company B, Colonel Nix stepped in and vetoed the move. The unit had 

already reached the Marriott and was preparing to enter the building.

Across the bay, as Axson, Phelps, and their men were on the last leg of the 

approach to the hotel, they had heard the shooting at the bridge, guessed what 

had happened, and hoped the occupants of the van were unharmed. About 

ten minutes later, the rescue party again encountered problems of its own. A 

communication from the AC–130 alerted Axson to four enemy snipers on the 

7 Interv, Wright with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort 

Bragg, N.C. 8 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, p. 187.
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365

roof of a building a block or so from the Marriott. The 1st Platoon had just 

made a left turn away from the building in question and the 2d Platoon was 

preparing to do so. Axson surmised that, once the entire column had its back 

to the snipers, they would begin shooting. He therefore directed the gunship 

crew to open fire on the enemy position, telling them to use 40-mm. rounds. 

In response, he was asked to move the 2d Platoon eight feet off the sidewalk 

and away from the building. The AC–130 then fired three rounds onto the roof, 

scattering the enemy snipers and removing the last obstacle to the paratroopers’ 

advance. A minute or so later, the gunship reported two armed men atop the 

Marriott itself, but Axson, fearing for the safety of the hotel’s occupants, told 

the crew not to fire.

When Company B reached the hotel, a few of Captain Phelps’ men 

approached the double doors in front and tried to push them open. The doors 

would not budge, so the paratroopers broke the glass in a nearby window, 

entered the Marriott, and opened the doors from the inside. The soldiers found 

the doors were not locked, rather they opened outward not inward. Stifling a 

laugh, Captain Phelps had one of his three platoons secure the entrance while 

the other two began clearing the hotel floor by floor. In the meantime, Axson 

told Captain Durr to man the hotel’s desk and to telephone every room in the 

building. If the call was answered, the occupant was told to prop the room’s 

door open with a pillow and then lie face down inside until U.S. troops arrived 

to provide an escort to safety. During the process, Axson set up a command 

post on the fifteenth floor, while Phelps remained in the lobby. 

Shortly after midnight, Axson had accounted for twenty-eight of the 

twenty-nine American hostages—the twenty-ninth, a reporter he was told, 

had already fled the Marriott. The rescue team had also gathered up over 

a hundred other people, including hotel employees and guests from several 

countries. Because Company B was still the target of an occasional drive-by 

shooting or sniper round, the assembled civilians were processed in the hotel’s 

windowless discotheque. There had been no fatalities during the room-toroom search, although one of the guests had suffered a heart attack. He and 

some of the paratroopers were examined by the battalion’s surgeon, Capt. John 

Marriott (not connected to the hotel chain). Of the two armed Panamanians 

detected by the AC–130, one had been wounded and the other had escaped. 

Axson tried to report this situation to Colonel Nix but failed to make contact. 

He then called Fort Clayton and talked with General Kinzer, who promised an 

immediate resupply of ammunition and medicine. 

Later that morning, around 1000, the 2d Battalion’s Company D, 

commanded by Capt. Gregory L. Sawyer, arrived at the Marriott in an 

evacuation convoy composed of four HMMWVs armed with .50-caliber 

machine guns, one Sheridan light tank, two cargo trucks, and two Marriott 

“silver-side” trucks his men had hot-wired and commandeered hours before 

they received the rescue mission.9 Company D’s journey to the hotel had 

been uneventful until the last leg of its trip from Panama Viejo. It was just 

9 The account of Company D’s trip from Panama Viejo to the Marriott and back again is 

from Haycock, NEO—A Platoon Leader’s Experience. See also Interv, Wright with Cos C and 

D, 2d Bn, 504th Inf, 8 May 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

366

as the Marriott came into view, about a half mile from the lead vehicles, that 

well-concealed enemy snipers opened fire on the paratroopers. At first the 

shots were sporadic and ineffectual, but the firing soon increased in volume 

and accuracy. In response, the convoy’s soldiers, increasingly fearful and 

exasperated, searched in vain for targets. Then, according to 1st Lt. Robert 

Haycock, a Company D platoon leader, two people suddenly 

appeared out of the shadows and shrubs. These individuals appeared to be 

pointing a large shoulder-fired weapon at the convoy. The reaction was instinctive and deadly. Nearly every weapon system in the convoy . . . traversed 

to the right and opened fire on what we believed to be a PDF carrying an 

RPG or LAW. The men were cut to shreds by SAW and M16 fire and although we knew the men were dead, the medic (Doc Massa) ran over and 

confirmed this fact. The men were not PDF, but instead were reporters who 

happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, 

to the wrong people—an unfortunate accident.10

The tragedy was nearly repeated as the convoy increased its speed and 

approached the entrance to the Marriott. According to Haycock, “We were 

again surprised by two figures running out of the bushes at us. . . . Every 

soldier again traversed the guns to acquire the target. Fortunately, I saw that 

one of the figures had long blonde hair. Recognizing that PDF were generally 

dark complexioned, I made the assumption that this was not a PDF and called 

for a check fire.” The order saved the lives of the two people, both of whom 

were, again, reporters. The troops grabbed them and threw them into separate 

vehicles. The blond reporter landed in Haycock’s HMMWV, where a sergeant 

slapped a helmet on her head, and the lieutenant sat on her “to keep her down 

and out of harm’s way.” 

Between the incidents with the two pairs of reporters, Company D 

received fire from inside the Marriott. This time, there was no doubt as to the 

location of the shooter; muzzle flashes were visible from one of the windows 

several stories up. In the convoy, the paratroopers knew that, once the building 

was secured, Company B intended to occupy the bottom and top floors of 

the Marriott, nothing in-between. Haycock drew the logical conclusion: the 

shooter was a PDF sniper. “I guess everyone else must have thought the same 

thing,” the platoon leader recalled, “because before the leadership could say 

a word, nearly every crew-served and individual weapon system in the convoy 

opened up on the window of the hotel.” For good measure, Haycock’s driver 

fired a LAW, putting it through the window in what Haycock considered a near 

impossible shot. Only later did he learn that the shooter was not Panamanian, 

but a sergeant in Company B, who despite the LAW blast and two .50-caliber 

bullets in his abdomen survived the experience, if only barely. 

Once the convoy stopped in front of the hotel, close to a hundred civilians 

rushed for the two Marriott trucks, “all trying to jump onto the silver-sides at 

10 Haycock writes in his paper that some of his men later told him that only one reporter 

had been shot and killed, but he insists that it was two, in part “because my medic went over to 

assess the casualties.”
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367

the same time, each carrying luggage!” Because of the suitcases and bags, the 

trucks filled to capacity well before all passengers were inside. To impose some 

semblance of order, a platoon sergeant from Company D told the civilians in 

less-than-friendly terms that they could jettison their luggage and stay on the 

trucks or stay behind with their bags. As Haycock described what followed, 

“Luggage began to fly out of the trucks,” after which the loading resumed. 

The process was punctuated by sniper fire throughout, and, despite the flak 

vests made available to the passengers, one Panamanian civilian received a 

superficial wound. Once the convoy pulled away from the hotel, however, the 

shooting subsided, and the trip back to Panama Viejo was without incident. 

Once there, many of the foreign nationals boarded CH–47 helicopters, which 

took them to the Torrijos International Airport. By noon, the affair was as 

good as over. Still unaccounted for were the hostages who had been taken from 

the Marriott at gunpoint, but the Panamanians responsible for their abduction 

released them incrementally at various locations throughout the day. 

In an unrelated but equally publicized hostage development, eleven 

Smithsonian Institution scientists and research assistants (and the four-yearold daughter of one), whom thirty Panamanian soldiers had taken captive in 

the San Blas Islands on the first day of hostilities, also gained their freedom. 

Moved to a jungle on the mainland, the hostages were released on 21 December 

and flown via U.S. helicopters from a Kuna Indian village to Howard Air Force 

Base. Another hostage situation did not have a favorable outcome. Raymond 

Dragseth, a teacher at the Defense Department’s Panama Canal College, 

was dragged from his apartment by armed Panamanians while his wife and 

daughter looked on terrified. Despite the family’s continuous efforts to have 

U.S. military police and soldiers rescue Dragseth, his body was discovered in 

a shallow grave on 28 December, bringing to three the number of American 

civilians killed in Operation Just Cause. In the end, changes authorized by 

Thurman to the Blue Spoon and 90–2 contingency plan in hopes of precluding 

hostage situations had proved effective but not flawless. Left to the realm of 

speculation, however, was how much better or worse things might have been 

had the changes not been made.11

The Move into Colón

For Colonel Axson, Major Chase, Captain Phelps, and the other soldiers 

and airmen who took part in seizing and securing the Marriott Hotel, the 

rescue operation was an unexpected mission that began hours after the 2d 

Battalion had achieved its 90–2 D-day objectives. That same day, on the other 

side of the isthmus, elements of Task Force Atlantic had yet to begin moving 

into Colón to conduct what they had thought would be their main D-day 

assignment, a sweep of the city. During the first four hours of the invasion, 

Company B from the 7th Infantry Division’s 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, 

together with engineers and military police, had fought to establish and secure 

11 On the Smithsonian hostages and the Dragseth incident, see Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 232–34.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

368

a roadblock across the narrow strip at the southern base of the city, known as 

the Bottleneck. During the skirmishing, one U.S. soldier had been killed and 

another wounded. A dozen enemy defenders had been killed, as had several 

civilians caught in the cross fires. Now, with the land approach to Colón sealed 

off, American troops prepared to enter the isolated city and neutralize enemy 

elements there, particularly those located at a DENI station and the PDF 

headquarters for Military Zone 2 (Map 20). Task Force Atlantic expected to 

begin the sweep that day, but, as the hours passed, Colonel Kellogg received 

no order to do so. 

General Cisneros had much to do with that turn of events. Once 

General Stiner had arrived in Panama and taken command of JTF-South, 

the JTF-Panama commander officially became his deputy. That position, 

however, left Cisneros with little to do in the operations center once the 

XVIII Airborne Corps began running the war, so he made plans to spend 

D-day in the field, initially with units from Task Force Bayonet and then 

from Task Force Atlantic, two commands that, while going under Stiner’s 

operational control, had since May been an integral part of JTF-Panama. 

After personally checking on the well being of Panama’s new president who 

had accepted the hospitality of a safe house at Fort Clayton, Cisneros went 

to Fort Amador out of concern for how the American families living there 

would fare during the U.S. air assault against the PDF’s 5th Company and 

other hostile elements. 

Entering the installation about thirty minutes before H-hour, the general 

made his presence felt almost immediately by ordering the fort sealed off 

early because of the attempts of some armed Panamanians to escape.12 After 

daylight, with the heaviest fighting at Amador winding down, he visited Task 

Force Wildcat’s area of operations around Ancon Hill and then headed for 

the Atlantic side to check on the situation there. Prior to his departure, he 

received reports about Colón being sealed off at the Bottleneck. Knowing that 

the next step would be to send U.S. troops into the city, Cisneros contacted 

Col. Thomas H. Needham, the JTF-South operations officer, asking that no 

such action be authorized before he, Cisneros, had a chance to evaluate the 

situation firsthand. Needham relayed the request to Stiner, who agreed to it. 

At some point, Cisneros also discussed his recommendation with Maj. Gen. 

Carmen Cavezza, commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division (Light), 

who after his arrival in Panama from Fort Ord, assumed command of Task 

Force Atlantic on the night of the twentieth. (Because the 7th’s other two 

infantry brigades were deploying to Panama for operations on the Pacific side 

of the country, Cavezza set up his operations center in the officers’ club at 

Albrook Air Station.)13

12 See Chapter 5.

13 Intervs, author with Maj Gen Marc A. Cisneros, U.S. Army, 30 Jan and 29 Jun 1990, 

Fort Clayton, Panama; author, Wright, and Joe D. Huddleston with Lt Gen Carmen Cavezza, 

U.S. Army, 30 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, Wash.; Panel Comments, Lt Gen Marc Cisneros (Ret.), 

19 Jan 2011, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C. With a helicopter at his 

disposal, Cavezza would make daily visits, most of them relatively brief, to Fort Sherman, where 

Kellogg otherwise remained the senior commander on the scene.
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369

Cisneros’ desire to put the sweep of Colón on hold arose from two 

principal concerns. The first was the damage the city could suffer once the U.S. 

troops entered. “If we’d gone in there,” he said a month later, “we’d have had 

a massive burning, and a massive amount of refugees, and we would be in a 

dire world of hurt right now.” Cavezza was in agreement for the same reasons. 

“I did not want to go into Colón if there was any risk of burning that place 

down. We would have had a heck of a mess on our hands. There was just one 

way out of that city. It was a tinderbox. . . . Not only that, we would have had a 

bunch of civilians killed in the fire. What would we do with all those civilians? 

P A N A M Á

F O R M E R C A N A L Z O N E

The Bottleneck

Coco

Solo

Naval

Station

PDF Militar y

Zone 2 HQ

Hotel 

 Washington

Duty-Free Zone

DENI Station

Manzanillo

Bay

LIMÓN

B AY

French Canal

Folk River

c a nal channe l

BOYD-RO O SE V ELT H I G HWAY

BOLIVAR HIGHWAY

Rainbow City

Cristóbal

Coco Solo

C O L Ó N

Margarita

Mount Hope

AREA OF OPERATIONS

SECURING C O L Ó N

20–22 December 1989

0

0

1 Mile

500 1000 Meters

Roadblock

Map 20
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

370

And in my mind, there was not anything militarily essential that we had to do 

right then.”14

Cisneros’ second concern was Colonel Kellogg, whom he described as 

“antsy to attack.” Since becoming commander of Task Force Atlantic in 

October, Kellogg had been Cisneros’ subordinate, and, over the two months 

leading up to Just Cause, the general had concluded that, on more than one 

occasion, the colonel’s behavior had been more aggressive and provocative 

than the circumstances required. Cisneros, in recounting his uneasiness 

regarding Colón on 20 December, alluded to his doubts about Kellogg in 

remarks regarding the “warrior . . . mentality of attack, attack, attack,” even 

though in many cases “it was not necessary.” 

You need to have the discipline of your soldiers so that if one person fires 

from a building doesn’t mean that you destroy the whole building. . . . you can 

tell your soldiers to take cover, and if they take cover, they’re not going to get 

hurt. And then they start working, make an assessment, carefully make sure 

how many families are in there, try to work them [the snipers] out. Then, if 

they keep firing and doing things, then you make the appropriate judgments 

on it. But you don’t just automatically react to destroy things just because one 

sniper fires at you from someplace.15

Cisneros was correct in thinking that the Task Force Atlantic commander 

wanted to seize Colón sometime during the night of 20–21 December. His 

soldiers were “itching to go,” Kellogg informed Thurman when the latter told 

him to postpone the operation. Later, Kellogg would state flatly, “We wanted 

to go in the night of D-day, because we’d finally powered up enough forces by 

securing all the objectives.” But he also recognized the logic of the position 

taken by Cisneros, Cavezza, and Stiner. Planners had anticipated stiff resistance 

in the city from PDF and Dignity Battalion elements, the latter of which 

included unemployed, angry, and armed stevedores and port workers. In light 

of this prognosis, there was no point in fighting a battle on urban terrain, given 

the inherent risks of high casualties, both military and civilian, and extensive 

property damage, unless it was absolutely necessary. Holding back to allow the 

situation to develop “was the right call,” Kellogg acknowledged. Not that he 

lacked a counterargument for moving into the city sooner. U.S. forces at the 

Bottleneck were still coming under fire. Moreover, extensive looting, which 

threatened the country’s economic recovery, had begun the afternoon of the 

twentieth in Colón’s business district and duty-free zone and was continuing 

unchecked except when merchants could employ armed guards to protect their 

goods. Finally, the civilian inhabitants, understandably shaken to the point of 

panic, were beginning to flee despite U.S. loudspeaker broadcasts urging them 

to stay in their dwellings. As they arrived at the Bottleneck, each person and 

vehicle had to be checked for weapons and drugs. The consequent congestion 

14 First quote from Interv, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan 1990. Second quote from Interv, 

author, Wright, and Huddleston with Cavezza, 30 Apr 1992. 15 Interv, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan 1990.
Loose Ends

371

tied up U.S. troops, raised the level of danger, and interfered with Company 

B’s efforts to focus on the planned sweep.16

As Cisneros traveled north to make an on-the-scene evaluation, Lt. Col. 

Johnny Brooks, the commander of the 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, from 

Kellogg’s brigade, was spending much of the afternoon at Coco Solo finalizing 

plans for going into Colón. After receiving guidance from his boss, Brooks, his 

operations officer, and the 4th’s command sergeant major fashioned a foray 

that called for the battalion’s Companies A and C, accompanied by Navy 

SEALs, to board LCM–8s and cross Manzanillo Bay under cover fire from a 

Navy patrol boat and a Spectre gunship. (Brooks later learned to his chagrin 

that the AC–130 he had counted on would not be available.) As the landing 

craft approached Colón, the SEALs would swim ashore and emplace infrared 

chemical lights that would mark a beachhead for the infantry. Once the 

soldiers landed, they would raid the Military Zone 2 headquarters, subdue its 

defenders, and then withdraw. Simultaneously, Company B at the Bottleneck, 

together with Company B from the battalion of the 82d Airborne Division 

located on the Atlantic side, would move into the city and mount an assault 

on the DENI station, which would be subjected to preparatory fires from 

105-mm. howitzers provided by the 82d’s Battery B, 7th Battalion, 15th Field 

Artillery. The operation was set to begin at 0300 the next morning. Brooks 

briefed the plan at 1800 on the twentieth, after which the participating units 

began making preparations and moving into position for the attack.17

Not until 2130 did Brooks receive word that the operation had been put 

on hold. No explanation accompanied the news, but, during the afternoon 

of the next day, he found out why: Cisneros had arrived and was negotiating 

the surrender of the city’s Panamanian defenders. As Cisneros himself would 

relate the story, he suspected even before reaching Colón that many enemy 

soldiers and policemen, if given a chance to lay down their arms, would 

choose not to fight for the city. Once he reached Task Force Atlantic’s area 

of operations, he stopped at Fort Davis, where the prisoners from Coco Solo 

were being held, and sought out the ranking PDF officer, who turned out to 

be Capt. Amadis Jimenez, the naval infantry company commander. Cisneros 

talked to the captain, who was married to the daughter of a man prominent in 

the anti-Noriega movement. Records provided to Cisneros also indicated that 

Jimenez was a highly professional officer. The general asked the captain to 

help him contact ranking PDF officers in Colón. At first, Jimenez responded 

with his name, rank, and serial number, but later that day Cisneros convinced 

him that his assistance would help prevent a conflagration in the city. To this 

end, Jimenez produced a directory of PDF telephone numbers and, following 

Cisneros’ instructions, placed a call to the Military Zone 2 headquarters. When 

a sergeant answered, Jimenez handed the phone to Cisneros, who was told that 

most of the garrison, including the ranking officers, had fled the premises, 

leaving only a few men behind to burn documents. That the zonal commander, 

16 First and third quotes from Interv, author with Brig Gen Keith Kellogg and Lt Col 

Gregory Gardner, both U.S. Army, 9 Apr 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C. Second quote from Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 292–93, 295. 17 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 295–96; Briefing, Lt Col Johnny 

Brooks, 29 Apr 1992, Fort Lewis, Wash.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

372

Maj. Mario del Cid, had deserted his post did not surprise Cisneros. But del 

Cid was still in the city, as were other PDF officers and several hundred enlisted 

men. Cisneros therefore delivered a blunt message to the sergeant: the war was 

over, thus any resistance to a U.S. movement into Colón would be foolish and 

futile, not to mention deadly. That being the case, any Panamanian military 

personnel still at the zonal headquarters should come to the Bottleneck and 

surrender. The sergeant responded that the men remaining with him were 

prepared to comply but only after receiving certain assurances. According to 

Cisneros, “They were scared and I just had to convince them that I was not 

going to shoot them or torture them.” The general was patient and persuasive, 

and in the end the men at Military Zone 2 headquarters turned themselves in.18

With the help of Jimenez and the PDF sergeant, Cisneros was able to 

determine the whereabouts in Colón of other Panamanian military leaders and 

to reach them by telephone, in each instance making a pitch similar to the one 

that had already proved so effective. Surrender appeals from U.S. loudspeaker 

teams and in broadcasts over U.S.-controlled radio and television stations 

reinforced the message. During the evening of 20 December and throughout 

the next day, the success of Cisneros’ initiative could be seen at the Bottleneck, 

as Red Cross vans arrived carrying enemy soldiers. As midnight approached 

on the twenty-first, 127 Panamanians had surrendered at the roadblocks. At 

least a hundred more would follow. One consequence of the surrender process 

was that Thurman postponed for a second time the planned move into the 

city.19

When Johnny Brooks learned of Cisneros’ role in postponing the initial 

sweep planned for Colón, the delay did not upset him. To the contrary, he had 

been considering contacting General Cavezza personally—even if that meant 

circumventing the chain of command—with an appeal to put the operation on 

hold until the defenders had been given ample opportunity to surrender. At 

the time, he did not realize Cavezza had already reached the same conclusion. 

Later, however, he would sound very much like the general in describing 

Colón as a tinderbox. As Brooks phrased it, just one tracer round could have 

set the whole city ablaze. Also influencing his thinking was an aspect of the 

initial plan, dictated by higher headquarters, that troubled him: following the 

proposed raid on the Military Zone 2 headquarters, the U.S. troops involved 

were to withdraw from both the objective and the city itself. In his words, “I 

was going to get kids killed, and in getting kids killed . . . I was going to have 

to go back in that town later on and do it all over again. My personal opinion 

was, if we’re going to go in, let’s go in one time and do it. And let’s don’t burn 

18 Intervs, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan and 29 Jun 1990; De Mena with Capt Amadis 

Jimenez, 13 Nov 1991, Fort Clayton, Panama. Quote from Interv, De Mena with Cisneros, 12 

Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 19 Intervs, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan and 29 Jun 1990; De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 

1990; author with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992, Fort Bragg, N.C.; with Lt Col Johnny Brooks, U.S. 

Army, 11 May 1993, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Briefing, Brooks, 29 Apr 1992; Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 296–97; 7th Infantry Division (Light), at http://www.glo

balsecurity.org/military/library/report/1990/90-9/9091ch1.htm. 
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373

the town down. Let’s wait them out and let them surrender, which is in essence 

what happened.”20

The surrender of Panamanian soldiers in large numbers on the twentieth 

and twenty-first militated for further postponement, and, because a revised 

version of the plan for securing Colón included a change that overcame one of 

Brook’s concerns—once U.S. troops moved into the city, they would stay, not 

withdraw—the battalion commander’s desire to avoid an unnecessary firefight 

held firm. It was a sentiment all of his company commanders shared, if with 

a slightly different emphasis. While Cisneros, Cavezza, Kellogg, and Brooks 

had to balance protecting the city with protecting the U.S. troops assigned 

to take it, the company commanders concentrated almost exclusively on the 

dangers their soldiers would confront in urban combat. As one expressed 

his anxiety, “I didn’t know if I had the manpower to go another six to eight 

blocks under heavy fire.” Capt. Christopher J. Rizzo, Brooks’ Company C 

commander, echoed the sentiment. “Now, that’s a mission you don’t want, if 

it’s in a MOUT environment with any kind of folks who are hostile to you.” 

Yet, though the emphasis of their reasoning differed ever so slightly, Brooks 

and his subordinates welcomed the decisions to postpone sending the 4th 

Battalion into Colón. In retrospect, the lieutenant colonel only wished that 

someone had informed him sooner about what Cisneros and Jimenez were 

doing. Overall, though, the play of events on 20 and 21 December increased 

Brooks’ respect for Cisneros.21

Despite the success of the Cisneros-Jimenez initiative, at least two significant 

problems remained. One history of Operation Just Cause concluded that, with 

the surrender of the large number of enemy forces in Colón during the first 

two days, “The PDF had abandoned the city.” Many of the enemy, of course, 

had decided not to fight, but there were still an estimated four hundred who 

had not yet come out, and U.S. troops at the Bottleneck were still receiving 

sniper fire. The second problem was the looting, which continued unabated. 

Kellogg had personally visited the duty-free zone, a target of the looters 

containing an estimated $2 million worth of goods, and, on the twenty-first, 

his operations officer, Lt. Col. Gregory Gardner, had passed near the area en 

route to Coco Solo. Seeing several people carrying off whatever of value they 

could put their hands on, Gardner ordered the military policemen with him to 

fire over their heads. He then walked around a corner and saw a thousand or so 

civilians engaged in the same illegal activity. The military policemen repeated 

their warning shots—the rules of engagement and common sense prohibited 

them from aiming at the civilians—and dispersed the crowd, only to have it 

return as Gardner drove off. These encounters left an impression. At some 

point sooner than later, Task Force Atlantic would have to do something to 

stop the damage being inflicted on Panama’s economy.22

20 Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993.

21 First quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 296. Interv, author 

with Brooks, 11 May 1993. Second quote from Interv, author with Maj Christopher J. Rizzo, 

U.S. Army, 15 May 1997, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 22 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 297. Intervs, author 

with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992; with Gardner, 7 Apr 1992. According to McConnell, 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

374

The matter came to a head on Friday, 22 December. Kellogg and Brooks 

were talking at Fort Sherman when the brigade’s intelligence officer walked in 

and told them of a telephone call the operations center had just received from 

the chief of security in the free zone. The civilian guards being paid to protect 

merchandise from the looters were running out of ammunition. Could Colonel 

Kellogg help him? The colonel’s first reaction was to swear, but he then told 

the S–2 to assure the man that U.S. troops would get there but not to tell him 

when. In fact, for the third consecutive day, an advance into the city had been 

scheduled, this one to take place during the wee hours of Saturday morning. 

But both Kellogg and Brooks realized that something had to be done sooner. 

To allow the pillaging of Colón’s stores and warehouses to continue would be, 

in Brooks’ opinion, “a real serious black eye” for the United States. Brooks 

had recently driven by the duty-free zone and seen that there was a back 

way that U.S. troops could use to reach the area safely. When, following the 

telephone call, he reported his observation to Kellogg, the colonel, in Brooks’ 

words, “shot up like a bullet,” ran out of his office, and shouted, “Get me a 

landing craft, now!” Sensing a “window of opportunity” to get troops into 

the free zone “through the back door,” Kellogg on his own authority ordered 

the entire sweep operation to begin that afternoon, around 1430, meaning in 

broad daylight, ten hours earlier than scheduled in the most recent orders he 

had received.23

The two-day delay in moving into Colón had allowed Task Force Atlantic 

to acquire additional intelligence and to adjust its plans to accommodate 

unanticipated developments, such as the surrender of large numbers of 

Panamanian troops. Yet, even though details of the sweep had been revised, 

its objectives still included the Military Zone 2 headquarters and the DENI 

station, with the duty-free zone being added to the list. Estimates of organized 

enemy resistance were revised downward, with the most serious threat now seen 

as coming from the DENI station, where remnants of the Panama Defense 

Forces and Dignity Battalions were rumored to be holed up. Company A of 

the 4th Battalion would lead the amphibious assault from Coco Solo, but 

rather than raiding the Zone 2 headquarters as originally planned, it would 

instead move into the duty-free zone. Colonel Gardner arranged for a civilian 

security guard to be waiting for the soldiers after they had disembarked from 

the landing craft to show them the route. Following Company A would be the 

battalion’s Company C, accompanied by Company C from the 7th Infantry 

Division’s 2d Battalion, 2d Brigade, which had flown into Howard Air Force 

Base the previous day as part of the Just Cause follow-on force. These two 

units would land and head for the Military Zone 2 headquarters. Finally, the 

two Company Bs on the scene, one from the 7th and the other from the 82d, 

would move with the 82d’s artillery battery from the Bottleneck to the DENI 

station. Supporting the operation would be Navy patrol boats, Navy SEALs, 

and attack helicopters. Given the suddenness of Colonel Kellogg’s decision to 

Just Cause, pp. 256–57, criminals freed from jail and armed by Dignity Battalion members were 

among the looters, as were the DigBats themselves. 23 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 297. Last two quotes from Interv, Kellogg 

and Gardner, 9 Apr 1992. Remaining quotes from Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993.
Loose Ends

375

launch the undertaking several hours early, the units involved had little time—

in some cases only a half hour—to get to their lines of departure. As they were 

making their last-minute preparations, they received verbal reminders that, 

despite the numbers of enemy troops who had already surrendered, Colón still 

contained many weapons in the hands of people who were willing to use them 

against the Americans.24

The amphibious operation began as planned, with Company A crossing 

Manzanillo Bay first. When it reached the other side, however, the security 

guard who was to meet the men was nowhere in sight. Knowing that the dutyfree zone was only a couple of blocks away, Capt. Michael Beech, the company 

commander, did not linger. His troops moved out, and, to their surprise, the 

Panamanians lining the street and positioned on the rooftops along the route 

began cheering wildly and waving flags. Unfortunately, the unit also received 

some sniper fire, which caused the men to hit the ground and “pop smoke” 

grenades. There were no casualties. When the troops reached the main gate of 

the free zone, they found a large group of armed Panamanians in civilian attire 

waiting for them. Not knowing anything about the men or their intentions, the 

company’s lead element ordered the group to lie on the ground and relinquish 

its weapons. Beech and others soon learned that the men were merchants and 

security guards who, in trying to ward off looters, had themselves looted many 

of their weapons from the PDF Military Zone 2 building. Discussions ensued 

between Maj. Tom Ryan, Brooks’ operations officer, and the zone’s security 

chief, during which an agreement was reached in which the Americans promised 

to provide additional arms, namely assault rifles and pistols, to the security 

force. Kellogg, who was monitoring the deliberations from the Coco Solo side 

of the bay, felt uncomfortable with the deal and let Brooks know his misgivings 

through a continuous series of radio communications. Kellogg also wondered 

why U.S. troops were not shooting, the idea being that a barrage of warning 

shots would quickly clear the duty-free zone of looters. Brooks, who had been 

on one of the LCMs in the amphibious assault, repeatedly assured his boss 

that Beech and Ryan had the situation under control. Finally, in frustration, 

the battalion commander simply said, “Roger. Out.” According to Gardner, 

who was with Kellogg, the colonel completely understood his subordinate’s 

abrupt end to their exchange. By 1500, the free zone was considered secure.25

Brooks himself had come ashore with the two companies responsible for 

seizing the Military Zone 2 headquarters. In contrast to Company A, whose 

Panamanian guide had failed to appear, Brooks’ contingent had not arranged 

for a guide but, in an opportune development, found one waiting for them 

at the beachhead. The man, by appearances a wealthy Panamanian, wore a 

white armband and headband and held a megaphone in his hand. Worried 

that the arrival of the U.S. troops would result in unnecessary damage to the 

city, he offered to lead the units to their objective. Brooks talked to the man at 

length, concluded that he was sincere and his intentions were good, and then 

24 The account of the move into Colón, unless otherwise noted, is based on Donnelly, Roth, 

and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 297–305. 25 The account of Colonel Kellogg “badgering” Brooks via radio messages is from Interv, 

author with Brooks, 11 May 1993. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

376

put him and his bullhorn at the head of the troop column. As the soldiers 

made their way down Colón’s 11th Street, the volunteer guide called on any 

armed Panamanians hiding in the area to throw out their weapons. He also 

directed the throngs of excited observers along the route to go indoors so as 

not to slow down the Americans. Both appeals went largely unheeded. As 

was the case with their comrades in Company A, U.S. troops advancing on 

the zonal headquarters could not believe the exuberant welcome they were 

receiving. For the 4th Battalion’s Company C, which had fought fiercely two 

nights before in Coco Solo, the cheers—punctuated by a sniper round here and 

there—seemed incongruous.

The Military Zone 2 headquarters consisted of several buildings located 

within a square-city-block and surrounded by a high masonry wall with spikes 

on the top. When the two rifle companies arrived at the objective, they began 

to clear the complex systematically. Only one enemy soldier was present, and, 

when he tried to fire his weapon, he was killed immediately. Otherwise, the 

clearing process would have been uneventful had it not been for a telephone 

call warning the troops that the complex was rigged with explosives that could 

be set off by a remote detonator. By then, Kellogg had arrived, only to hasten 

out of the headquarters with the rest of his force. An explosives team began a 

search of the buildings, but, when it found no explosives, the clearing operation 

resumed, after which the headquarters was left under U.S. guard.26

Thus far, armed resistance in Colón had been unorganized and sporadic. 

But the DENI station, which some U.S. officers considered the primary threat, 

had yet to be taken. That phase of the operation did not kick off until right 

before sunset, with a platoon from the 4th Battalion’s Company B advancing 

into the container yard that separated the Bottleneck from the objective. 

The platoon cleared the way for units that would follow by cutting openings 

through fences and looking for possible threats along the route. The airborne 

Company B then began its movement to the target, leaving the Bottleneck at 

1830. The artillery battery passed through the vacated area an hour later. On 

the paratroopers’ right flank, the remaining platoons from the light fighters’ 

Company B provided security. It also attracted most of the attention, as crowds 

cheered the soldiers as they passed by. This fortuitous development allowed the 

paratroopers and the artillerymen behind them to approach the DENI largely 

unimpeded. Once they reached the station, a white cement building, Capt. 

Bryan Dyer, the commander of Company B, 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry, put 

his fire support platoon at the southern end of the structure, and his two other 

platoons on the west side. The artillerymen positioned themselves to the east 

and, on Dyer’s order, brought up two 105-mm. howitzers. The northern end 

of the building was not part of the PDF installation but housed the Panama 

Canal Commission’s Atlantic headquarters. Because it was not believed to 

harbor enemy troops, it was not targeted by the U.S. attackers. 

26 According to Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 299, the telephone 

call may have been triggered by events of the previous day when the headquarters commander 

had driven a truck loaded with explosives to the front gate. He had left the vehicle there “with 

a time fuze wired to it,” but someone in Colón had driven the truck away before the U.S. troops 

arrived.
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As soon as the cannons were ready to fire, the artillerymen opened up. 

According to Kellogg, by then, any hostile forces inside the station had had 

ample opportunity to surrender. Determined not to take casualties but to avoid 

widespread destruction, he authorized the artillery to be used in a direct-fire 

mode, the same way Task Force Black Devil had employed its howitzer at Fort 

Amador. The artillery blasts signaled U.S. infantrymen to open up with their 

M16s and squad automatic weapons. The fusillade lasted for twenty minutes; 

eighteen howitzer rounds were fired in the process. The roof at the southern 

end of the building was ablaze and the walls pockmarked from the hundreds 

of rounds striking them. Yet, despite the amount of ordnance expended, there 

was no collateral damage. The Panama Canal Commission facility remained 

untouched. Cisneros, who by this time had returned to the Pacific side, 

considered the use of the artillery as overkill—“now we have a quagmire of 

damage and repair to do”—but the barrage had the result Kellogg desired. 

A white flag appeared at the DENI station, as three Panamanian soldiers 

surrendered. One of the captives said that the rest of the defenders had fled 

out the back door once the artillery opened fire. There had been no casualties 

on either side so far. But when Company B closed in on the station to begin 

clearing operations, the men came under “uncontrolled fire,” not from the 

enemy but from the platoon of the 549th Military Police Company, a friendly 

unit, that had provided security for the artillery battery in its movement from 

the Bottleneck. No one in Company B was hit—“Luckily they were bad shots,” 

Dyer remarked sardonically—but the episode was unnerving and served to 

intensify the distrust and animosity between the infantry and the military 

policemen in evidence two days earlier during the battle at Coco Solo.27

With the reduction of the DENI station, the forces under Task Force 

Atlantic exercised control over their three principal objectives in Colón. Yet, 

significant as this achievement was, it did not mean that the city itself had been 

secured. That would require Kellogg’s troops to fan out, establish command 

posts, and mount patrols, in the process seizing PDF and Dignity Battalion 

members still at large and restoring law and order and public services. On 

the night of 22 December, the initial actions demanded by these requirements 

had not been taken, which was unfortunate for at least one reason: public 

relations—not in Panama, but in the United States. When Colonel Kellogg 

returned to Fort Sherman that night around 2300, he was curious as to what 

was being reported on American television. Watching ABC’s Nightline, the 

colonel found himself viewing a live interview in which General Thurman was 

saying that Colón was now under U.S. control. Getting to a communications 

radio, Kellogg immediately contacted Brooks with the urgent appeal, “Johnny, 

whatever you do, get me Colón by six in the morning and for God’s sake, don’t 

get in a firefight as you do it, because General Thurman just told the entire 

world we own the city.” By sunrise, the troops had fanned out over the city 

and were beginning their patrols. There was, however, still much to be done.28

27 First quote from Interv, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990. Remaining quotes from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 302. 28 Four years after Operation Just Cause, Brooks recalled receiving the message to take 

Colón by morning and to do so without a firefight. He remembered receiving it from Colonel 

Gardner, however, not Kellogg. Interestingly, a typed version of the Task Force Atlantic and 7th 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

378

As American forces began policing Colón, several questions required an 

immediate answer. One concerned what rules of engagement would be in effect 

now that combat operations had abated. Another related to how the troops 

should interact with the Panamanian people, large numbers of whom were 

expressing their approval of Operation Just Cause and the fall of Noriega’s 

regime. Civilians mingled with the soldiers, wanted to talk with them, and 

brought them food and refreshments. Captain Rizzo was offered even more 

than that. As he passed one house in the northern part of the city, a man 

handed him a briefcase containing $10,000. It was Rizzo’s for the taking if 

he would personally protect the man’s house. The captain promptly returned 

the briefcase. In the ensuing days, as his men and those in other companies 

tried to strike a balance between providing security and exhibiting friendly 

behavior, the realization set in that they had entered a new phase in which 

stability operations, for which few of them had been trained, now constituted 

their principal mission.29

Counterattack at the DNTT

The move into Colón on Friday afternoon and evening completed the 

principal combat missions contained in the operation order for Just Cause. It 

was not, however, the only fighting to take place on the twenty-second. On the 

other side of the canal, in Panama City, a much more fierce battle erupted at 

the PDF’s Directorate of Traffic and Transportation. The large building and 

the complex around it had been taken on D-day by Capt. Donald S. Currie’s 

Company C, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, 193d Brigade. The target had been 

one of several in the Ancon Hill and Balboa area of operations assigned to 

Task Force Wildcat, commanded by Lt. Col. William Huff III. Two days 

later, Wildcat was still responsible for securing most of that area, although a 

portion of it had been turned over to units from the 82d Airborne Division. 

Furthermore, Huff had “unofficially” lost operational control over two of the 

units he had on D-day: Company A from the mechanized battalion, which 

JTF-South had commandeered to secure the legislative assembly building, and 

a platoon of military police, which, according to the colonel, “just kind of 

filtered away.” Despite the depletion of his force, he still had his three infantry 

companies, his headquarters company, and some other forces with which to 

carry out his follow-on missions.30

Infantry Division (Light) log for 18 December 1989 through early January 1990 contained the 

following entry: “221945U Dec 89. . . . All of Colon taken to include MZ2 HQ.” Interv, author 

with Brooks, 11 May 1993; Chronology of Key Events for Operation ‘Just Cause,’ 161400U Jan 

1990. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 303. 29 Interv, author with Rizzo, 15 May 1997.

30 See Chapter 6 for a narrative of Task Force Wildcat’s operations on D-day. Quotes from 

Interv, Wright with Col William H. Huff III and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d 

Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. Unless otherwise noted, the account that follows of 

the PDF counterattack on 22 December is based on this interview and Interv, author with Huff, 

29 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama.
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379

On the twenty-first, those missions included rounding up enemy forces 

still on the loose, collecting documents and other intelligence, and finding 

arms caches. Throughout the day, Huff’s soldiers received assistance from 

the local populace. In one case, a cooperative Panamanian led a patrol to a 

large collection of weapons. Many civilians seemed eager to help ferret out 

PDF members and political officials who had been active in the now-toppled 

regime or at least to point out where these people lived. Because some of the 

fugitives were on wanted lists issued by the Southern Command, U.S. forces 

received permission to raid several of the identified dwellings. In assessing the 

situation, one U.S. officer declared that, in general, “the immediate threat was 

kind of gone from the area,” although he conceded that his troops could not 

always determine “who was the bad guy, who was the nice guy. So we were 

still picking up what we thought were EPWs [enemy prisoners of war] on the 

street and processing them and getting information from them.” At one point, 

DigBat members tried to assemble on a road near the DNTT, but, after U.S. 

sniper fire discouraged the effort, “they were not a threat anymore,” in Captain 

Currie’s assessment. 

On the morning of the twenty-second, after a night of planning, Huff’s 

task force prepared to conduct a sweep of the Ancon-Balboa area, to begin 

at 0600. (See Map 9.) The intention was to canvass locations Task Force 

Wildcat had not searched on Thursday and to pick up Panamanian males of 

military age. The battalion’s Company A at the engineer compound and the 

Headquarters Company securing Quarry Heights would both move to cordon 

off the area: “They made a big circle around our little piece of the pie,” Maj. 

James Woods, the task force operations officer, observed. Then Company C, 

minus a platoon left behind to maintain security at the DNTT, would conduct 

a sweep of a sector bounded by Roosevelt Avenue and Gaillard Highway, 

while Company B covered the largely residential area to the south—inhabited 

mostly by Panama Canal Commission employees—running from Balboa 

Street to the high school being used as a refugee center. The operation began 

on schedule and was still in progress later that morning when, around 1100, 

reports began reaching various commanders that something was happening 

around the Palace of Justice and the Ancon DENI station. Fifteen minutes 

later, these reports indicated shots were being fired at the DNTT. What became 

known as the counterattack was under way.

Huff would later emphasize the confusion surrounding events of that day, 

starting with the arrival at the DNTT of Col. Al Cornell, a former defense 

attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Panama who had returned temporarily during 

Just Cause to assist the new government. Cornell had twenty Panamanians in 

tow and told Huff that President Endara was establishing a new police force, 

that recruitment was to begin that morning in the large parking lot in front 

of the transportation building, and that he, Cornell, was taking charge. All this 

information caught Huff off guard. The night before, Colonel Snell, himself in 

the dark about much of what was planned at higher levels for Friday morning, 

had told his Task Force Wildcat commander to expect a former PDF lieutenant 

who would be coming to pay recruits wanting to join an organization that would 

replace the now-defunct Panama Defense Forces. Cornell and his entourage, it 

was obvious, were contemplating a much larger and complex undertaking. As 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

380

one of Huff’s staff officers explained, “We had no idea what was going on and 

why they were there.” Having received no word about a change to the command 

arrangements, Huff’s response to Cornell’s assertion that he, Cornell, was taking 

charge was to tell the full colonel to leave. As Huff described what followed, “So 

there was a lot of, ‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ ‘Oh, yes, I am.’ Now, all of a sudden people 

are starting to come in, stream in. ‘Well, do we disarm them now, do we put these . . .’ 

‘No, no, these are good guys,’ and we went back and forth and back and forth. 

But the bottom line is, we finally set up a system,” which amounted to a process 

in which the arriving recruits, several hundred former PDF members in all, would 

receive a two-tiered interrogation as part of their necessary vetting. Those who 

passed would be paid and enlisted in the new organization. That the Panamanians 

pouring into the parking lot had been the enemy only two days before did not sit 

well with the platoon providing security at the DNTT. “My guys were, needless 

to say, not polite,” Captain Currie recalled. “They were very apprehensive that it 

would directly jeopardize our security around the place.”31

As the registration process was getting under way, Currie’s tactical operations 

center received a report from his platoon at the Ancon DENI that “something 

was going on.” Currie informed Huff, who drove over to the facility to look into 

the matter personally, arriving around the time, as he put it, “when things were 

kicking off . . . when the rounds started firing.” In trying to make sense of the 

ensuing chaos, Huff and others concluded that shots were being fired at three 

separate locations: the Palace of Justice, somewhere near the Ancon DENI where 

Huff was, and the DNTT. At the first of these locations, Panama’s new First Vice 

President Ricardo Arias Calderón had just finished giving a speech to some of the 

prospective new police recruits. When he and his bodyguards emerged from the 

building, they came under sniper fire. Scurrying to the automobiles constituting 

their small convoy, they hastily departed, their drivers showing no concern for 

speed limits. It was when the motorcade sped past the Ancon DENI that the shots 

there were fired. By then, the DNTT had come under fire as well; in fact, it seemed 

to be bearing the brunt of the enemy attack. 

When the first burst of fire hit the DNTT, a Panamanian seeking to enroll in the 

new police force dropped to the ground, dead. About a dozen other Panamanians 

were wounded. No Americans had been hit, but, in the initial fusillade, none 

seemed to have been targeted by the assailants who were firing down into the 

parking lot from a furniture warehouse next to the transportation building. As 

would be confirmed later, the purpose of the attack was to punish the former PDF 

members at the scene who, in the eyes of the shooters, were committing treason by 

signing up for the new force. “They hosed them down pretty good,” Huff said of the 

Panamanians lined up in front of the interrogation and recruiting tables. Initially 

caught off guard, the U.S. platoon providing security began to shoot back into the 

warehouse, after which the firefight quickly escalated and a few U.S. soldiers were 

hit, none fatally. The horde of Panamanian recruits scrambled for cover, some 

inside the DNTT. The wounded, meanwhile, were tended to until ambulances 

31 The observation that Snell’s brigade headquarters knew little about the recruitment drive 

scheduled for the DNTT (fifth quote) is from Interv, Capt Joseph Nemmers with Capt Robert 

E. Vikander, 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde , 16 Oct 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. Other quotes 

from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 

1990.
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381

arrived and evacuated them under fire to Gorgas Army Hospital. About an hour 

into the fight, enemy snipers started firing 40-mm. grenades into the parking lot 

from a second position, a housing area across the street that presumably had been 

cleared earlier that morning in the sweep operation. In response, a company-size 

element of military police at the DNTT returned fire, shooting indiscriminately 

toward the houses—they were “totally out of control,” according to Currie.

In the midst of this disarray, the three-car convoy containing Arias Calderón, 

“traveling at about Mach 3,” in Huff’s words, came racing down the highway that 

ran past the DNTT. The drivers, thinking they had found a safe haven, pulled 

abruptly into the parking lot. When the U.S. troops there saw AK47s sticking out 

of the cars’ windows, they almost opened fire. “I thought it was a set up,” Currie 

recalled. Only troop discipline and the realization that one of the automobiles was 

an armored car used for VIP travel prevented a tragedy. As the vehicles slowed 

and finally came to a stop, Arias Calderón was identified and hustled with his 

bodyguards who had not been wounded to the second floor of the DNTT. About 

thirty minutes after his arrival, the first vice president was “rescued” by another 

convoy sent to retrieve him.

The close call involving one of Panama’s new leaders later prompted Huff to 

criticize a decision made the previous day by higher headquarters to remove some 

of the roadblocks Task Force Wildcat had set up around Ancon Hill in the first 

hours of Just Cause. The reason given him was that the removal would facilitate 

the movement of motorcades and convoys carrying important Panamanian and 

U.S. officials as they crisscrossed the capital to assess postcombat conditions. 

The decision, however, “proved to be quite a problem for us when we got 

counterattacked at the DNTT,” Huff pointed out, alluding to the unannounced 

arrival of Arias Calderón’s speeding motorcade and the disastrous response it 

nearly precipitated.32

Another problem created by removing the roadblocks concerned drive-by 

shootings, one of which occurred a short distance from the DNTT while the 

firefight there was in progress. The target was the antitank platoon, attached to 

Huff’s Headquarters Company, that was securing Quarry Heights. When the 

shooting started on the twenty-second, the platoon maintained the cordon it had 

established earlier that morning as part of the sweep operation. At one point, a 

black Mitsubishi Montero, unimpeded by any U.S. checkpoint, suddenly appeared 

from around a corner, the occupants firing Uzis at several of the troops. There 

were no casualties, but the Headquarters Company commander, Capt. Robert 

Jones, noted that one of the platoon’s vehicles had been hit three times in the 

windshield. The rounds did not penetrate; “armored glass, we found out, actually 

works,” he reported. If they had gone through, they certainly would have hit the 

driver in the chest. The platoon fired at the car with squad automatic weapons, 

shooting out two windows as the vehicle sped away. Later, it was found on the 

side of a road; there was blood inside. Huff offered his opinion on the drive-bys: 

“Literally, a guy could drive up in civilian clothes, point a weapon out the door 

32 Seventh quote from Interv, author with Huff, 29 Jan 1990. Huff’s comments on the removal of the roadblocks and eighth quote are from Interv, Capt John Hollins with Huff, 20 Jun 

1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. Other quotes from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers 

of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

382

and shoot and keep on going, because there were no roadblocks.” On the directive 

he had received Thursday to remove the checkpoints, in hindsight he realized that 

“we should have said ‘screw that.’ We should have, in fact, put roadblocks in and 

checked every vehicle,” he concluded, referring to the day of the counterattack. 

Captain Jones recounted another near miss, this one not caused by the 

removal of the roadblocks but by the general confusion that prevailed during the 

firefight that morning. When the shooting started, his scouts were in the Balboa 

train station. To determine what was happening, some went up to the second floor 

to get a better view. Once upstairs, they heard weapons being fired from the first 

floor. They hurriedly went back down to find some PSYOP personnel from Fort 

Bragg firing two M60 machine guns. “What are you shooting at?” the scout platoon 

leader shouted. “There! There!” was the response. When he looked where the men 

were pointing, it was not at the warehouse near the DNTT, which the scouts had 

already identified as the source of most of the enemy activity, but at a detention 

center that had been set up for enemy prisoners. The facility was guarded by U.S. 

military police and other friendly forces who, finding themselves under fire from 

the train station, began shooting back. While Jones was later telling the story, 

Captain Currie interrupted to point out that Colonel Snell was at the prisonerof-war center at the time of the friendly fire episode. “He was not pleased about 

that,” Huff added. There were no casualties, but Huff and his senior officers were 

upset that their scouts, and not the PSYOP personnel, were being blamed for the 

misdirected fire.

Adding to the mayhem was the fact that there were just too many people, 

military and civilian, on the streets in Task Force Wildcat’s area of operations, 

many of whom did not have to be there. From the perspective of the Headquarters 

Company, “a lot of the staffers up at Quarry Heights were driving around in 

civilian clothes; they were in POVs [privately owned vehicles] with vests on.” Often 

their cars were filled with captured weapons—Uzis, AK47s, M16s, and so forth. 

“They’re driving around in their POVs with this stuff stuck out the window. And 

we keep telling them, if you do this you’re going to get shot at. At which point, 

one bird colonel said, ‘Well then your people are stupid.’ My reply was, ‘Well then 

you’ll be dead. But then they won’t care.’” One of Huff’s staff officers complained 

that “every Tom, Dick, and Harry in USARSO, as well as SOUTHCOM, started 

getting on the streets and driving around in whatever vehicle . . . or uniform they 

had, even in civilian clothes.” His point was that the infantry battalion commander 

on the scene, meaning Huff, “didn’t know who all these people were.” Thus, there 

was no sure way to monitor the activities of individuals or groups who might be 

preparing for some hostile activity against fellow Panamanians or U.S. troops. 

“There were reports of guys in black uniforms running around,” but with hundreds 

of other people out and about, there was little that could be done to identify and 

isolate them. Once the shooting started Friday morning, some civilians and U.S. 

military personnel successfully vacated the area, but others, such as Panama Canal 

Commission employees residing near Ancon Hill, poured into the streets, only 

creating more distractions as they tried to run or drive to safer locations.33

33 Ninth and tenth quotes from Interv, Nemmers with Vikander, 16 Oct 1990. Other quotes 

from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990.
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383

How enemy forces were able to mount surprise attacks at the Palace of 

Justice, the Ancon DENI station, and the DNTT on the twenty-second would 

be the subject of later analysis and speculation. Once the shooting started, 

though, Huff had to focus his attention primarily on the firefight at the DNTT, 

where he sought to devise a response that would neutralize the enemy without 

exacerbating the chaos and confusion. One step toward that goal was to rely on 

Company C to implement the bulk of the countermeasures. Of Captain Currie’s 

three rifle platoons, the 3d Platoon was the one at the DNTT. At the time the 

shooting started, the 1st was at the Ancon DENI having finished its part of the 

sweep operation, and the 2d was still patrolling its portion. Once the 3d Platoon 

identified the warehouse as the source of the initial firing, most of the troops 

concentrated their return fire on that structure, leaving a squad to control the 

gate into the DNTT parking lot and, to the extent the soldiers could, the crowd 

already inside. On Currie’s orders, the platoon leader also placed some of his men 

on the roof the DNTT and in the back of the building in the motor pool area, 

a vulnerable point if the shooters in the warehouse actually tried to retake the 

transportation complex. Meanwhile, as a result of the sweep, the 2d Platoon had 

reached a location from which, in Currie’s words, “I could maneuver them into 

position, which turned out to be key.” Specifically, after some extensive and timeconsuming movement, the platoon would be in a position to move from the south 

toward the warehouse and the Explansa building next to it—also identified as a 

source of enemy activity. Rounding out the countermeasures, Huff directed the 

antitank platoons in Companies A and B to form up for assaults on the targets 

from the southwest and northeast.

As these units were maneuvering into their preattack positions, the enemy 

began firing mortar rounds from a location well concealed from Huff’s troops, 

but one that apparently did not allow the shooters a line of sight on the DNTT. 

Thus, the first round fell close to the Balboa refugee center. The mortarmen 

made an adjustment, but the second round hit near the warehouse containing 

their own people. The remainder of about a half-dozen rounds fell behind the 

DNTT, causing no damage to the compound. In the meantime, one of the 

antitank platoons picked by Huff had reached an overwatch position vis-à-vis 

the warehouse, which appeared to be on fire, a result of the enemy mortar round 

that fell short. The colonel told the platoon to open up with whatever weapons 

it had, which meant 90-mm. recoilless rifles, LAWs, and TOWs (the only two 

TOW rounds fired during Just Cause). Some of the ordnance used high-explosive 

warheads, which intensified the warehouse fire, ensuring that it would soon burn 

out of control. The column of black smoke produced by the blaze could be seen 

miles away. A few of the enemy apparently burned to death in the warehouse; 

others made their escape. Meanwhile, U.S. troops watching the Explansa building 

could see cars arriving to extract armed men from that location. Some of those 

leaving the building appeared to be hurt. When the shooting finally stopped, there 

was no way to determine how many attackers there had been, or how many had 

been killed or wounded. Two or three days later, military policemen at the DNTT 

began to smell a terrible odor. When they went looking for the source, they found 

up to three dozen bodies in the tall grass near the warehouse. Whether the men 

had been killed in the firefight or in some other exchange with American forces 

could not be resolved at that point. As for the U.S. defenders, Huff’s men had 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

384

suffered a handful of casualties. A few of the wounds were serious but none were 

fatal. Of the Panamanian recruits at the DNTT on 22 December, two had been 

killed and over a dozen wounded. 

In assessing the counterattack, Huff and his men quickly reached two 

important conclusions, neither of which, they conceded, could be proved. First 

of all, they were almost certain that the attack had been coordinated. They based 

this assumption on the near-simultaneous shooting incidents at the Palace of 

Justice, the Ancon DENI, and the DNTT, as well as on the registration of the 

mortar fire, however erratic, which would have required communication between 

the mortar crew and someone observing the DNTT. The logical and immediate 

concern raised by this possibility, of course, was whether other coordinated attacks 

on U.S. positions would follow. Second, they surmised that the enemy force had 

used sewer drains near the warehouse to conceal their entry into the structure. 

Movement via any other approach by men carrying some of the large weapons 

they employed would most likely have been observed by U.S. troops, even given 

the large numbers of people inundating the area. In hindsight, there was one fact 

about the counterattack that was not open to question. Despite reports that enemy 

diehards might mount another such assault, the fight at the DNTT proved to be 

the last episode of major combat to occur in Panama City during Just Cause. With 

the movement into Colón that same day, organized enemy resistance within the 

canal area and at Rio Hato had been eliminated. There were, to be sure, PDF units 

and facilities in the outlying provinces that had to be subdued, but operations to 

that end were already under way.34

Ma Bell and Other Operations Outside the Canal Area

During the afternoon of 20 December, when General Cavezza flew into 

Albrook Air Station and established his command post there, the two infantry 

brigades from his 7th Infantry Division not already in Panama were either in the 

air or making the trip from Fort Ord to Travis Air Force Base, California, to board 

the waiting troop transports. The 2d Brigade—the Division Ready Brigade when 

the warning order arrived at Ord—was commanded by Col. Linwood Burney. It 

began landing at Howard around the same time as Cavezza, with the last transport 

touching down soon after sunrise the next day. The day after that, the twentysecond, the division’s 1st Brigade, commanded by Col. David R. E. Hale, began 

its deployment to Panama.35

During Operation Nimrod Dancer, Hale had been the first Task Force 

Atlantic commander, Kellogg’s predecessor. Now, as part of Operation Just

Cause, he would operate on the Pacific side of the country, in Panama City, and he 

would have nearly his entire brigade with him instead of just one battalion. Upon 

34 One point of contention regarding the counterattack was mentioned by Huff and by several of his senior officers. The press reported the action as taking place at Quarry Heights near 

the SOUTHCOM headquarters. In their interviews, the officers of Task Force Wildcat were 

determined to correct that reportorial error. Quote from Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior 

Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 35 Chronology of Key Events for Operation ‘Just Cause,’ 161400U Jan 1990; Flanagan, 

Battle for Panama, pp. 197–98.
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385

arrival, the 1st Brigade became part of Task Force Pacific under General Johnson, 

the 82d Airborne Division commander, and received the mission of clearing 

and securing a sector of the Panamanian capital. As for the 2d Brigade and its 

commander, they had not participated in any of the earlier phases of the Panama 

crisis. Once deployed for Just Cause, Burney came directly under JTF-South and 

General Stiner, who told the colonel that his brigade would operate west of the 

canal as far out as the Costa Rican border. Its mission “included neutralizing 

the PDF in the area, securing key sites and facilities, protecting U.S. lives and 

property, restoring law and order, and demonstrating support for the emerging 

Panamanian government.” In the process, Burney would have to integrate the 2d 

Brigade’s activities with the U.S. Special Forces and Rangers who had comparable 

missions.36 

With respect to one aspect of the mission, “neutralizing the PDF in the area,” 

there would be an additional participant on the U.S. side: General Cisneros. As 

Burney’s soldiers prepared to move west outside the canal area, they anticipated 

heavy resistance. It was a prudent expectation. As they saw the situation, they 

would be facing the diehards of the toppled regime—PDF and Dignity Battalion 

members who would be heavily armed and determined to fight. More than that, 

these recalcitrants might take to the jungle and begin a guerrilla war against U.S. 

forces—the specter of Vietnam still haunted the American military. While this was 

an unlikely prospect, it could not be dismissed outright, given U.S. intelligence on 

PDF contingency plans. Cisneros certainly understood this anxiety but disagreed 

with the assessment that produced it. In his opinion, the remainder of the Panama 

Defense Forces was not spoiling for a fight. In the interior of Panama, as in the 

canal area, senior PDF officers had left their headquarters when the invasion 

began. Few of these men were fanatical loyalists who would endure the hardships 

of guerrilla warfare, or any other kind of conflict, to prove their devotion to 

Noriega. Thus, plans to have U.S. forces in the provinces “go in there and fire into 

the garrisons, and then give them an ultimatum to surrender” would, Cisneros 

believed, only produce unnecessary casualties. The preferable alternative would 

be to give those PDF officers who had stayed at their posts a face-saving way to 

surrender before armed Americans arrived on their doorstep. If offered such an 

opportunity, Cisneros was convinced, the recipients would take it.37

In searching for a way to do “the minimum we needed to do to knock out 

the headquarters” in the outlying towns and cities, Cisneros did not have to look 

further than the tack he had taken in Colón. In fact, when he returned to Fort 

Clayton the evening of 21 December, he brought Captain Jimenez with him, 

receiving approval from the day-old Endara government to make the officer his 

assistant. Then, referring to the Colón experience, Cisneros told Jimenez, “Okay, 

let’s try the same thing with the military zone commanders in the provinces.” 

Between the two of them, they had most of the telephone numbers they needed. 

Jimenez brought with him the directory he had used in Colón, while Cisneros 

was able to utilize a list of PDF numbers he had requested be put together during 

one of General Stiner’s planning visits. Jimenez suggested that Major Gómez, the 

36 Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 197–99. 37 Intervs, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan and 29 Jun 1990; De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 

1990. Quotes from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 351. Cole, Operation 

Just Cause, p. 56.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

386

PDF province chief in Darién, be the first officer they try to contact. Jimenez 

based his choice on Gómez’ solid professional reputation, even though Darién 

Province was located to the east, near the border with Colombia, an area not yet 

a target of U.S. operations. But if Gómez cooperated and agreed to contact other 

officers, many of whom held him in high esteem, the telephone initiative would 

stand a better chance of success in the west. Cisneros concurred, and Jimenez 

placed the call.38

Gómez answered the phone. By simply being at his duty post, he confirmed 

Jimenez’ assessment of his professionalism. Jimenez explained briefly why he was 

calling, then handed the phone to Cisneros, who matter-of-factly informed the 

major that the battle for Panama was over and that there was no need for further 

bloodshed. He also promised that U.S. forces would not attack PDF members 

and installations in Darién if Gómez agreed to surrender his troops, collect their 

weapons, and wait peacefully until the Americans arrived. Gómez accepted 

Cisneros’ assessment and his offer; the major also agreed to contact other zonal 

commanders with this information and to recommend they follow his example.39

While Cisneros was talking with Gómez, Jimenez was already trying to get 

in touch with other PDF officers outside the canal area. Because Operation Just

Cause had played havoc with Panama’s telephone exchanges, a number of the 

many phone calls he placed between 21 and 23 December were routed through 

a switchboard in Miami. The approach he adopted did not vary significantly 

from that used in Colón and with Gómez. Once he had made contact with a 

PDF officer, he relayed just enough information to turn the conversation over to 

Cisneros. Once on the line, the general employed a mixture of reason, requests, 

demands, and threats, tailoring the specific blend to each Panamanian with whom 

he spoke. He appealed to the officers’ nationalism, patriotism, and sense of selfpreservation. He told them that the regime had been toppled and the Panama 

Defense Forces throughout the Panama City–Colón corridor defeated. If need 

be, he stretched the truth, implying that Noriega had been captured. He promised 

a dignified and peaceful transfer of power and held out the prospect of ranking 

positions in the new police force if the officers and their men agreed to surrender. 

He also threatened an apocalyptic employment of U.S. firepower against any 

PDF cuartel that refused his offer. Most of all, he assured the Panamanians that 

if they surrendered, they would not be shot. He even arranged for safe-conduct 

passes signed by him to be distributed widely throughout the country. (For 

some PDF officers wanted by the United States or the Endara government for 

serious crimes, the passes, when used, were not always honored.) Once the officers 

38 First quote from Interv, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990, and see also 30 Jan 1990. 

Second quote from Interv, De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 1990. Cisneros’ request for the list 

of PDF phone numbers had been prompted by his inability during the 3 October coup attempt 

to find the phone number of the Comandancia, where the rebels held Noriega. See also Interv, 

De Mena with Jimenez, 13 Nov 1991, and Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 

351. In his interview with Dolores De Mena, Jimenez said that, upon arriving at Fort Clayton, 

he and Cisneros met with President Endara and his two vice presidents at their safe house. After 

Endara named Jimenez his liaison officer with Cisneros, the captain and the general went to 

Cisneros’ office, where they would be assisted by Antonio Bonilla and Captain Marquez. 39 On the talks with Gómez, see Intervs, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan and 29 Jun 1990; 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 352. 
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had accepted his terms for turning over their garrisons, he would forward that 

information to General Stiner’s people (who gave Cisneros the impression that 

they suspected the PDF leaders were feigning compliance in order to ambush the 

U.S. troops heading toward them). Perhaps most important, Cisneros made sure 

the information reached the Special Forces elements responsible for coordinating 

surrender operations in the provinces and the Rangers and light fighters who 

would be working with them. 

The Rangers at Rio Hato had started these operations west of the canal on the 

same day Cisneros and Jimenez had begun making their calls from Fort Clayton. 

At both locations, those involved used a near identical approach, suggesting some 

degree of communication and coordination beforehand. For the Rangers, the 

target on the twenty-first was the city of Penonomé, the capital of Coclé Province 

and home to a PDF prison and the Military Zone 6 headquarters. The commander 

at each facility was summoned to Rio Hato, with Colonel Kernan arranging their 

transportation. When the two PDF officers arrived, they received an ultimatum 

indistinguishable from the one Cisneros was issuing from Fort Clayton. Both men 

agreed to the surrender terms and returned to Penonomé to set them in motion. 

Soon thereafter, Company A from the ranger 3d Battalion arrived in the city and 

secured both installations. At the prison, the Panamanians present were treated 

to a demonstration of the kind of air assault they would have experienced had 

they resisted. According to an official history, “Word of this display of force and 

surrender quickly spread throughout cuartels in the countryside,” to good effect.40

As for Cisneros, from the outset of his initiative, he had set his sights on 

capturing Lt. Col. Luis del Cid, Noriega’s deputy, as well as the PDF commander 

of Military Zone 5 in Panama’s westernmost province of Chiriquí. “He was a 

critical one to turn around,” the general declared. Del Cid, like his boss, was 

wanted by the United States for drug trafficking; furthermore, Cisneros considered 

him one of Noriega’s staunchest supporters who might actually fight any U.S. 

forces approaching his base. It was not by chance, given del Cid’s well-established 

loyalty, that a PDF contingency plan designated Chiriquí as a possible redoubt 

for Panama’s dictator, even though the province was known for harboring a high 

degree of anti-Noriega sentiment. (A “reliable source” on Saturday, 23 December, 

reported, incorrectly, that Noriega was in a basement in David, the provincial 

capital of Chiriquí.) Moreover, the province housed the largest PDF weapons 

depot in the country. Yet, however strong the reasons for believing that del Cid 

would not surrender easily, there always remained the possibility that he had 

already accepted the inevitable and hoped to spare himself. Cisneros needed to 

find out. That del Cid was also trying to contact him was something Cisneros 

learned only later. When the two finally did talk on Friday, the general employed 

all his powers of persuasion, and, after several conversations, del Cid agreed to 

40 Quote from U.S. Special Operations Command, History, 1987–2007, 20th anniversary ed. 

(MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.: U.S. Special Operations Command, n.d.), p. 38. Briefing, Gen 

Maxwell R. Thurman at the SAMS, 23 Sep 1992. In remarks to the author, Cisneros talked in 

general terms about his coordination with Special Operations Forces operating in the provinces 

west of the canal area. Panel Comments, Cisneros, 19 Jan 2011. The word cuartel used in this 

account is a generic term employed throughout Latin America to identify a military base of any 

kind. With respect to Just Cause, the term appeared repeatedly in U.S. sources referring to PDF 

bases outside the canal area, as this chapter suggests.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

388

give up. By Friday night, he was flying a white flag over his headquarters in the city 

of David. On Saturday and again on Sunday, however, he called Cisneros two or 

three times, nervous and wanting to know why the U.S. forces had not yet arrived. 

On each occasion, Cisneros told him to be patient, to keep his garrison intact, and 

to maintain law and order in the province.41

The reasons for the delay had to do with the timing of the mission to move 

into the western interior, the distances that had to be covered, and the several 

tasks U.S. troops had to carry out en route to David. Planning for the westward 

movement of Colonel Burney’s 2d Brigade did not kick into gear until Thursday, 

to be followed on Friday—the same day that del Cid agreed to surrender—by 

talks at Albrook between Burney and Maj. Gilberto Perez, the commander of 

Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Perez had just 

that morning received a warning order for operations he would have to conduct 

in the provinces of Herrera, Coclé, Los Santos, and Veraguas. (See Map 21.) In 

these districts, his company would be working in conjunction with Burney’s 2d 

Brigade and the Rangers. The coordinated effort began that day, with Burney 

deploying one of his three battalions to Coclecito and the other two to Rio 

Hato, to relieve the Rangers there. Perez also flew into Rio Hato with his unit. 

As was the case in the Penonomé initiative, the town would serve as the staging 

area for the operations ahead.42 

In the process of neutralizing the Panama Defense Forces in the western 

provinces, each piece of the coordinated U.S. effort became collectively and 

popularly known as the Ma Bell campaign, a sobriquet coined by a Special Forces 

officer who realized the importance the telephone would play in what he was 

about to do. As with the Rangers on Thursday, the approach at the tactical level 

would be very similar to what Cisneros and Jimenez were doing from the general’s 

office at Fort Clayton. There were, according to Major Perez, two phases to his 

concept of operations. In the first, he would insert Special Forces elements into 

the towns of Santiago, Chitré, and Las Tablas, using each town’s airfield as the 

landing zone. From the airport, the Special Forces officer in charge would contact 

the commander of the nearest PDF garrison by telephone. In the conversation 

that ensued, the U.S. officer would dictate surrender terms, which usually meant 

reiterating and reinforcing what the garrison commander or ranking PDF officer 

on the scene had already accepted in talks with Jimenez and Cisneros: “First, the 

surrender would be unconditional. Second, all weapons would be placed in the 

41 First quote from Interv, author with Cisneros, 30 Jan 1990, and see also Interv, author 

with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990. Second quote from Chronology of Key Events for Operation ‘Just 

Cause,’ 161400U Jan 1990. Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 215, 218; Donnelly, Roth, and 

Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 352; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 56. According to Cole, pp. 

56–57, Thurman and Stiner had planned to take David on 25 December in “the last major 

combat assault of Just Cause.” An article entitled “An Overlooked Hero,” on Cisneros’ role in 

Operation Just Cause in the St. Petersburg Times, 20 December 1999, suggested that Cisneros’ 

knowledge of the plan caused him to dispatch Jimenez in a helicopter to speak with del Cid 

directly in order to produce a surrender before the impending attack. Years later, Cisneros remarked, “One of my hardest challenges was to convince the XVIII Airborne Corps not to attack David.” Panel Comments, Cisneros, 19 Jan 2011. 42 Chronology of Key Events for Operation ‘Just Cause,’ 161400U Jan 1990; “Winning the 

West,” in Soldiers in Panama, pp. 16–17; Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 198, 215.
Loose Ends

389

arms room of the cuartel. Third, the entire garrison of the cuartel would assemble 

on the parade ground.” Once the telephone conversation was over, the Special 

Forces leader and the PDF garrison commander would meet and fly over the 

cuartel in a helicopter to ensure that the Panamanian troops were honoring the 

surrender arrangements. If there was any sign of resistance, an AC–130 assigned 

to the operation would fire a few rounds near the installation as a warning of the 

devastation that could follow.43

Soon after the surrender had been accepted, the second phase would begin, 

with the Special Forces moving into the garrison or headquarters, searching the 

premises, and processing the Panamanians present. Meanwhile, a ranger or light 

fighter company in waiting would enter the town and begin reestablishing law and 

order. When necessary, that would include stopping the inhabitants from looting 

or from taking reprisals against PDF or Dignity Battalion members. 

On Saturday afternoon, 23 December, the Ma Bell campaign on the ground 

formally began, with the ensuing operations hitting only a few snags. The first 

objective for Perez was the town of Santiago, where Task Force Hawk helicopters 

flew him and his men to a nearby airfield. Once they landed, the major was 

unable to contact the cuartel commander, so he took five of his men and flew 

over the facility. Below they could see Panamanians lined up on the parade 

ground as instructed, ready to surrender. When the Special Forces team landed, 

however, someone in the assembled group fired at them. The “misguided youth” 

was quickly overpowered, and the remainder of the operation went as planned, 

with the Special Forces company moving into the cuartel and clearing it, while 

an infantry company from a battalion in Burney’s 2d Brigade entered the town. 

When Perez pulled his people out on Sunday to move on to the next objective, 

he left a Special Forces detachment to serve as translators for the light fighter 

company, which remained in place to occupy the PDF garrison and stabilize the 

area. The company’s commander had four missions: 

First, he was to gather intelligence on the location of weapons caches and those 

personnel of the Panama Defense Forces . . . and dignity battalions who had not 

surrendered. Second, he was to assist local government officials in reestablishing the civilian infrastructure. Third, he was to assess the public utilities, medical 

facilities, and law and order capabilities of the area. This information would be 

used to establish the working priorities for the follow-on civil/military operations. 

Finally, he was to conduct joint U.S. and Panamanian patrols throughout Santiago in order to reestablish law and order in the community. 

The 2d Brigade had follow-on missions planned for the countryside immediately 

west of Santiago but, according to one report, those were “temporarily prohibited 

as CINCSO negotiates with new government.”44

43 McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 291–92; Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos: The Secret 

History of the Special Forces (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 50. Quote from “Winning the 

West,” in Soldiers in Panama, p. 16. 44 First quote from Flanagan, Battle for Panama, pp. 216–17. Second quote from “Winning 

the West,” in Soldiers in Panama, pp. 16–17. Last quote from Chronology of Key Events for 

Operation ‘Just Cause,’ 161400U Jan 1990. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

390

Caribb ean Se a

P A CIF

82°

83° 82°

81° 80

81° 80

8°

7°

Chiriquí

V e r a guas

Herr e r a

L o s Sant o s

C o c l é

C olón

B o c a s d e l T o r o

I n t e r - A m e r i ca n H i gh w a y

Bocas del Toro

David

Santiago

Las Tablas

Rio Hato

C

Chitré

Penonomé

Coclecito

C O S T A RIC A

1989

PANAMA

0

0

75 Miles

75 Kilometers

Map 21

Perez took his next two objectives, Chitré and Las Tablas, without incident 

on 24 and 25 December, respectively. In each case, the operation followed the 

script: he contacted the local PDF commander, went to the assigned cuartel, 

and received the surrender of the troops present. At Las Tablas, a crowd of 

curious Panamanian civilians assembled outside the base. Perez used their 

presence to send a message. With the crowd looking on, he assembled the U.S. 

and Panamanian troops on the parade ground and had the Panamanian flag 

raised on the compound’s flagpole. The gesture, he believed, would convey in 

dramatic fashion the message that the United States military did not intend to 
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conquer Panama but to liberate it. He viewed the cooperation he received from 

the locals during the remainder of his brief stay as proof that the civilians of 

Las Tablas had understood the symbolism of the flag-raising ceremony.45

On Christmas Day, while Perez was busy in Las Tablas, about two hundred 

fifty Rangers from the 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, commanded by 

Lt. Col. Joseph F. Hunt, and a contingent of about thirty Special Forces led 

by Maj. Kevin M. Higgins, the on-scene commander during the Pacora River 

45 “Winning the West,” in Soldiers in Panama, p. 16.

IC OCEA N

Gulf of P a nama

Bay of P a n ama

0° 79° 78°

0° 79° 78°

77°

9°

P a namá

C o l ó n

Darién

I n t e r - A m e r i ca n H i g h w a y

La Chorrera

olón

Balboa

PANAMÁ

Tocumen Gamboa

El Porvenir

La Palma

C O L O M BIA

IC OCEA N

Gulf of P a nama

Bay of P a n ama

0° 79° 78°

0° 79° 78°

77°

9°

P a namá

C o l ó n

Darién

I n t e r - A m e r i ca n H i g h w a y

La Chorrera

olón

Balboa

PANAMÁ

Tocumen Gamboa

El Porvenir

La Palma

C O L O M BIA
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

392

bridge fight, moved on the PDF headquarters in David. Hunt apparently 

knew about the arrangement Cisneros had made with del Cid, but he was still 

concerned about “what we were really flying into.” Higgins and his men had 

also received reports that the PDF members in the city would probably not 

resist the U.S. takeover. Hunt sent the Special Forces into David ahead of the 

Rangers. If Higgins ran into trouble, two Apache attack helicopters and an 

AC–130 would be there immediately to provide fire support until Hunt’s force 

landed at the airfield.46

The helicopters carrying Higgins and his men set down at a schoolhouse 

near the PDF cuartel. The operations officer, Capt. Charles Cleveland, knew 

the area. There was a telephone outside the schoolhouse, he said, that Higgins 

could use to call del Cid. Hunt had already talked with the PDF lieutenant 

colonel, informing him that the Special Forces would be arriving soon at his 

headquarters. The ranger commander also reminded del Cid of the combat 

power facing him if he should change his mind and make a fight. Now Higgins 

would close the deal, beginning with his call from the schoolhouse. He dropped 

the necessary number of quarters into the telephone box, but received no dial 

tone. He then slammed the phone down, after which an old man sitting on 

a bench nearby suggested that he use the telephone inside the schoolhouse. 

When the Special Forces showed signs of knocking down the school’s door to 

gain access, the man produced a set of keys, saying that he was the janitor. The 

encounter with the out-of-order telephone proved to be the biggest obstacle to 

Higgins accomplishing his mission. When he contacted del Cid on the school 

telephone, the PDF officer asked, “What day would you like to come?” Higgins 

said the Special Forces would be there within the hour.47

As with U.S. troops in several other locations, Higgins and his men arrived 

at del Cid’s headquarters to find a crowd of several hundred cheering, flagwaving Panamanian civilians. Del Cid proved accommodating, cooperating 

with the Americans even as he futilely tried to negotiate an agreement whereby 

his soldiers would keep their weapons. He also held a press conference during 

which he swore loyalty to the new government. Then, after he insisted repeatedly 

that he could play a helpful role in building a new Panama, Higgins suggested 

that he be flown to a meeting in the capital that would decide much of the 

country’s future. Del Cid agreed and subsequently made the flight. When he 

landed at Howard Air Force Base, he was promptly turned over to the Drug 

Enforcement Administration, who put him on an airplane bound for Miami, 

where he would eventually stand trial on the drug charges U.S. federal grand 

juries had brought against him in February 1988. Del Cid accused his captors 

of double-crossing him. None of them felt moved to dispute the allegation or 

to offer apologies.48

While del Cid was still talking with Higgins, Hunt’s Rangers flew into 

David’s airfield. In the days to come, they would help pacify the city while 

46 Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 353. Robinson, Masters 

of Chaos, p. 50. 47 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 353. Quote from Robinson, Masters 

of Chaos, pp. 50–51. 48 Robinson, Masters of Chaos, p. 51; McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 291–92; Associated Press, 

24 Dec 1989; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 26 Dec 1989.
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Higgins’ men concentrated on taking over other PDF outposts in the area. In 

time, elements of Colonel Burney’s 5th Battalion, 21st Infantry, commanded 

by Lt. Col. Robert Cronin, would relieve the Rangers. Major Perez also 

arrived in David to serve as Cronin’s deputy after Higgins and his men had 

redeployed to Panama City to conduct stability operations there. Together, 

Cronin and Perez worked to gain acceptance in Chiriquí for the new police 

force Endara had authorized. Perez also persuaded Burney to redeploy one 

of his infantry battalions to Rio Hato. From there, Burney could mount light 

fighter operations designed to canvass the western region, searching for arms 

caches and rounding up enemy troops on the run. Eventually, the 2d Brigade 

would be called back to Panama City, and then deployed to the countryside 

east of the canal, but from late December through early January, Burney’s 

infantrymen working with Special Forces helped secure the area from the 

capital to David for Panama’s new government. As for the Ma Bell campaign, 

the procedures initiated by Cisneros and Jimenez and further executed in the 

field by the 7th Infantry Division, Rangers, and Special Forces were credited 

with getting all nine of Noriega’s provincial commanders to surrender, together 

with around five thousand Panamanian troops. In the process, according to 

General Thurman, only one shot was fired in anger.49

Apprehending the Dictator 

Cisneros had made the surrender of del Cid a priority in part because 

of the demoralizing effect he hoped it would have on Noriega, who was 

still managing to elude the U.S. forces searching for him. When del Cid did 

surrender on Christmas Day, the impact of his action was still substantial, 

but circumstances had changed. On the afternoon of Sunday, 24 December, 

one day before Higgins and Hunt reached David, Noriega had entered the 

Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Panama City, 

seeking asylum. Nearly five days after Operation Just Cause had begun, the 

United States finally knew the dictator’s whereabouts. The problem now was 

how to get him out of the nunciature and into American custody. 

As a fugitive, Noriega had moved frequently, usually from the 

accommodations of one friend or colleague to another. In the meantime, 

U.S. military personnel were finding themselves overwhelmed with reports 

concerning the general’s location. Moreover, as of 21 December, capturing 

Noriega was Thurman’s second priority, the first being completing the defeat of 

the Panama Defense Forces. On that same day, the Pentagon suggested placing 

a bounty of $1 million on the deposed strongman, which was approved. From 

H-hour on, elite special operations units had led the search for the dictator, 

often reacting at a moment’s notice, regardless of the disruptive effect they 

might have on the scheduled operations of conventional units in the field. The 

49 St. Petersburg Times, 20 Dec 1999; Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992; Flanagan, 

Battle for Panama, pp. 218–19; “Winning the West,” in Soldiers in Panama, p. 17. At some 

point after the outlying garrisons had surrendered, Cisneros visited each of the commanders 

still in place to impress on them their role for maintaining law and order in their areas. Panel 

Comments, Cisneros, 19 Jan 2012. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

394

day after moving into Colón, for example, Task Force Atlantic had its activities 

interrupted when, at 0400, some of Kellogg’s soldiers answered an unexpected 

but urgent request to cordon off the Hotel Washington so that Navy SEALs 

could enter the building to look for Noriega. At other times, special operations 

and conventional forces worked closely together in the search, as in the case 

of the Panzergruppen that General Downing cobbled together. There were 

even conventional units at the tactical level that were drawn into the search on 

their own simply because they had to run down the numerous leads they were 

receiving from Panamanian citizens who approached them on the streets or 

telephoned their headquarters. Also, some of these units, as a result of their 

D-day missions, found themselves in a position to search Noriega’s offices or 

one of his residences. All the while, the Noriega tracking cell continued to 

operate out of SOUTHCOM’s Tunnel. As Thurman put it, “Got all kinds of 

spooks—NSA and CIA and all kinds of guys looking for him.”50 

There were several near misses, as search teams often entered a home 

just after Noriega had departed. “We missed him by one hour here, thirty 

minutes there,” Thurman later declared. Left for speculation was how many 

of the close calls were caused by the inability of the Southern Command and 

JTF-South to process in a timely way the enormous amount of information 

they were receiving and to separate the signals contained in legitimate reports 

from the noise produced by inaccurate rumors or false accounts, some planted 

deliberately but most submitted innocently with the best of intentions. Bad 

luck also played its part. Early in the morning of 24 December, one of 

Noriega’s bodyguards, Ivan Castillo, found an excuse to leave the dictator. 

Castillo then tried to find a way to turn his boss over to Cisneros, but, despite 

his assiduous efforts, he either could not find U.S. troops who spoke Spanish, 

or, when he did, who realized the importance of the information he was 

imparting. As a result, Castillo did not make contact with Cisneros until 1030. 

The general sent Captain Jimenez and a sergeant from the Panama-based 29th 

Military Intelligence Battalion to the location where Castillo had last been 

with Noriega, but, by the time the two-man team arrived, the elusive quarry 

was gone. Had Noriega been there, the two had instructions from Cisneros to 

do nothing other than call and inform him. Just hours later, the object of the 

manhunt entered the nunciature.51

Noriega’s decision to seek refuge there was probably based on his sense 

that U.S. forces were closing in on him. “Finally, we wore him out,” Thurman 

later boasted. Noriega likely realized that, if he continued to move between 

the residences of various acquaintances, he would eventually be seen and 

captured. One alternative was to seek asylum in the embassy of a country he 

considered friendly. But anticipating that Noriega might make such a move, 

Thurman and Stiner had placed a cordon of U.S. troops around the Cuban, 

50 Interv, John Partin with Gen Maxwell R. Thurman, U.S. Army, 12 Apr 1990, Fort 

Benning, Ga. Quote from Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. On the sudden operation at 

the Hotel Washington, see Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993. For a very brief account of 

how Downing created the Panzergruppen, see Chapter 4. See also Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 110–11; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 56. 51 Quote from Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, pp. 111–12; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 56.
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Nicaraguan, and Libyan Embassies, a violation of an international treaty, the 

former later remarked, after which he defended his action by saying “when 

in charge, take charge.” The two generals also placed some other embassies 

under surveillance. Noriega may have suspected that the embassies were being 

watched, or someone may have told him. For whatever reason, he chose not 

to approach them but to reach out instead to the papal nuncio, Monsignor 

José Sebastián Laboa, the man who had granted a safe haven to Endara in 

the aftermath of the violence following Panama’s May presidential election. 

Laboa, seeing a way to help end further bloodshed, agreed to take in the fallen 

dictator, sending a car to pick him up at a prearranged site—a Dairy Queen in 

Panama City. The nuncio also made it clear that his offer was good only for as 

long as it took to arrange for Noriega to be sent to a third country. When the 

nuncio’s car arrived at the Dairy Queen, Noriega jumped in and hid behind 

the seat as the vehicle sped off. In the meantime, Laboa had been trying to 

get in touch with Cisneros to inform him about the pickup, with hopes that 

U.S. forces would intercept the car before it returned. But Cisneros was out 

with Stiner, observing the progress of various stability operations. When the 

nuncio finally reached the USARSO commander on the telephone, it was too 

late. Just as they began their conversation, Laboa looked up and, seeing a 

pockmark-faced man in running shorts and a T-shirt enter the building, had 

little time to say more than, “He just walked in.” Within a short time, Noriega 

was joined by an entourage of bodyguards, advisers, other PDF officers, and 

even their family members.52

Cisneros immediately informed Stiner about the phone call, including the 

nuncio’s request to meet and talk. “Go ahead and see Laboa,” Stiner replied. 

“Call me as soon as you have details.” The JTF-South commander then 

contacted Downing and ordered him to send Special Operations Forces to the 

nunciature and to seal it off. Soon thereafter, Downing had the area secured. 

In the process, he established his operations center in an elementary school 

across the street from the two-story stucco building.53

52 First and second quotes from Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. Last quote from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 112. Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow 

Warriors, pp. 371–72. The use of U.S. troops to cordon off certain foreign embassies in Panama 

City resulted in two well-publicized incidents. In one on 28 December, the troops stopped the 

Cuban ambassador and his escort and checked their papers. The escort was an intelligence officer using a diplomatic position as his cover, not an uncommon practice. On instructions from 

General Stiner, the two men were taken to Panama Viejo but then, again at Stiner’s insistence, 

returned to the ambassador’s residence by 1700. The Cuban government protested, but, given 

the courtesy with which both men had been treated and the short period of the escort’s being 

detained, nothing more came of the incident. More serious, the next day U.S. troops broke into 

the residence of the Nicaraguan ambassador and found an arms cache. The troops claimed the 

residence had not been properly marked as being affiliated with the Nicaraguan Embassy, although General Powell would later concede that, attached to the house, a round seal the size of 

a manhole cover did exactly that. The Nicaraguan government protested, but the United States 

responded that the arms cache inside the residence violated, and thus overrode, diplomatic immunity. Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 57, 61–62. The title nuncio refers to a papal legate of the 

highest rank permanently accredited to a civil government. 53 Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 372–73.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

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After talking to Downing, Stiner called Thurman to give him the 

news. Thurman was surprised. “I never figured that he’d go into the Papal 

Nunciature, the Vatican embassy, but happily he did,” the general later stated. 

He notified Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the Joint Staff’s operations officer in 

the Pentagon, about the development, and Kelly informed General Powell. 

Thurman also spoke to Secretary of Defense Cheney, who was at that moment 

flying to Panama to deliver a Christmas message to the U.S. armed forces. 

“He was forty minutes out,” Thurman recalled. The general wanted to know 

who would make the announcement, the White House or himself. Cheney 

called back from his plane and told Thurman to go ahead and hold a press 

conference. The secretary was also reported as saying, “Don’t let that guy out 

of the compound.” On the diplomatic front, the State Department quickly 

contacted the Vatican with a strong entreaty that Noriega be denied asylum. 

The next day, Christmas, Thurman met Laboa at the front gate of the 

nunciature to reiterate that the United States wanted Noriega turned over to 

stand trial. While this marked the beginning of face-to-face talks to obtain 

that outcome, the man with whom the nuncio would be speaking on a daily 

basis would not be Thurman but Cisneros. As the commander in chief of the 

Southern Command, Thurman did not have the time or the inclination to be 

the lead negotiator. (He also did not have the language skills.) Cisneros, too, 

was extremely busy. Having worked the telephones to secure the surrender of 

PDF officers and other personnel in the provinces, he had turned his attention 

to stability operations aimed at helping the Endara government set up its new 

police force. Yet, he was the logical choice to conduct the negotiations. Besides 

his fluency in Spanish, he and Laboa knew one another and shared a mutual 

An M551 Sheridan outside the nunciature during negotiations for Noriega’s surrender
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respect and trust. A directive from President Bush designating Cisneros as the 

U.S. negotiator sealed the deal. To assist the general, the State Department 

sent Michael Kozak, a long-time veteran of the crisis, back to Panama. Either 

Kozak (who did not speak Spanish) or his deputy would be at Cisneros’ side 

in mapping an effective strategy for getting Noriega to turn himself over to the 

United States.54

The talks lasted ten days and were known almost as much for the events 

surrounding them as for the results they produced. The Bush administration 

had to make numerous decisions relating to the negotiations and then adjust 

to changing circumstances as the talks progressed. One early decision, made 

on the twenty-fourth, concerned what would happen to Noriega if the nuncio 

brought him to the front gate and turned him over to the United States. 

Telephone conversations between the Pentagon and the Justice Department 

produced an agreement whereby the Drug Enforcement Administration 

would take custody of the deposed dictator at that point, leaving U.S. forces in 

Panama to provide security and the transportation needed to get him from the 

nunciature to Howard Air Force Base and, from there, to Florida.55

Also on the first day of Noriega’s stay in the nunciature, U.S. officials 

discussed what could be done, first, to prevent him from providing colleagues 

who visited him with instructions for carrying on armed resistance against 

American forces and, second, to keep him or one of his entourage from 

escaping with a visitor, say in the trunk of a car. The actions recommended 

as a response to both concerns were complicated and changed over the course 

of the negotiations. Among the initial decisions, General Kelly informed 

Brig. Gen. William Hartzog, Thurman’s operations officer, that U.S. troops 

could stop vehicles with diplomatic plates entering and exiting the nunciature, 

check the occupants’ papers, and, if suspicions surfaced that someone might 

be hiding inside, search the car or van. If, in fact, either Noriega or any one 

of his associates also wanted by U.S. or Panamanian officials was found 

inside, the troops could place the person in custody until they received further 

instructions. Late in the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, the State Department 

modified those guidelines: all Vatican diplomats and the four top officials in 

the new Panamanian government were to be allowed unrestricted access to 

the nunciature. The department also indicated that it would be preferable if 

the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy, John Bushnell, informed Thurman 

of any visit by these people. Thurman quickly objected to the term preferable, 

insisting that he be notified of all such visits without fail, a position that Powell 

supported. The Deputies Committee of the National Security Council in the 

White House approved the change two days later on 26 December.56

Another issue raised a potentially more lethal threat: the taking of hostages 

inside the nunciature by Noriega and the men with him, all of whom U.S. 

authorities assumed were armed. On the twenty-sixth, soon after Cisneros 

became involved in the negotiations, Laboa gave his oral, then written 

54 Third quote from Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 57–58. Intervs, author with Cisneros, 29 

Jun 1990; Partin with Maj Gen Wayne A. Downing, U.S. Army, 6 Jan 1990, Howard Air Force 

Base, Panama. Quotes from Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. 55 Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 58–59. 56 Ibid., p. 59. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

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permission to have U.S. troops assault the compound if a hostage situation 

developed. Cisneros and Downing passed the word to Stiner, after which it 

went up the chain of command, with Powell briefing Cheney, and the latter 

authorizing American forces to enter the nunciature if they heard shots fired 

inside. The next day, Acting Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood approved a 

request from Thurman to employ U.S. snipers in the event of a hostage crisis. 

According to an official account, Atwood made the following statement: 

“You are authorized to use the appropriate military force necessary to resolve 

any hostage situation . . . which you have reason to believe is immediately 

life threatening. Of course, if time permits, you are expected to consult with 

the National Command Authorities.” Four days later, Atwood revised his 

guidance in light of certain political considerations. The Vatican had to make 

a direct request for the troop intervention before U.S. forces could enter the 

compound. Furthermore, the Vatican would have to acknowledge publicly 

that it had made the request. These conditions would both reduce the chances 

of a mistaken assault on the nunciature and, if an attack had to be launched, 

prevent the Vatican from claiming that the action had been unprovoked or 

carried out without its knowledge.57

Perhaps the most memorable circumstance surrounding the negotiations 

was the music blaring from loudspeakers the U.S. military placed around the 

nunciature. Viewed by the news media as a psychological operation aimed 

at Noriega, the initiative was actually directed at them, at least at first. On 

Christmas Day, as Thurman was leaving the front gate of the nunciature 

after his only meeting with Laboa, a reporter on the balcony of a hotel close 

by yelled out, “Hey General Thurman, how ya doin’? Merry Christmas!” 

Knowing that, in the negotiations to come, some of the talks would likely take 

place at the front gate and concerned that reporters might employ directional 

microphones to eavesdrop on what was being said just below them, Thurman 

approved emplacement of the speakers after Stiner made the recommendation. 

The reporters cried censorship, even though the selection of songs—“I Fought 

the Law and the Law Won,” “Voodoo Chile,” “You’re No Good,” “Ring of 

Fire,” “Nowhere to Run To,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and others—appeared 

to have been selected by a desire to harass Noriega, not the press. The fact that 

the loud music played around the clock, not just when Cisneros and Laboa 

met at the front gate, also supported the psychological operation rationale. 

Whatever the case, Washington was soon experiencing adverse fallout from 

the tactic, as the Bush administration received strongly worded complaints 

from the Vatican, diplomats, irate Catholics, and Laboa himself. If the 

music was keeping Noriega awake, it was also having the same effect on the 

57 Quote from ibid., pp. 59–60. Intervs, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990; Partin with 

Downing, 6 Jan 1990; Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 373–74. In his oral 

history interview, General Downing referred to the presence of Noriega in the nunciature as being “like a hostage barricade situation, complete with negotiators and everything else.” That the 

negotiations lasted well over a week caused him to add, “you must also practice a high degree 

of patience.” On the possibility of sending U.S. forces into the nunciature, Cisneros later related 

that Laboa wanted the troops to come in but also hoped that he could deny he had requested 

such action. The decisions in Washington precluded that tack. Panel Comments, Cisneros, 19 

Jan 2011.
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nuncio. Moreover, the noise seemed to be making the dictator and his men 

nervous. Thurman, who readily touted the PSYOP aspect of the music in his 

communications with Washington, argued in its defense that the racket might 

make Laboa more eager to rid the nunciature of a man who not only was 

armed but growing increasingly agitated as well. Cisneros, meantime, thought 

otherwise and lobbied the State Department representative with him to have 

the music stopped. After a couple of days, President Bush himself came to 

regard the ploy as “irritating and petty.” On 29 December, under instructions 

from the National Security Council not to “make things any more difficult or 

unpleasant for Monsignor Laboa than necessary,” Powell directed Thurman to 

turn off the music. Other ways would have to be found to prevent journalistic 

eavesdropping and to bring pressure on Noriega.58

In the midst of the furor over the music, negotiations continued, with 

Washington monitoring the process closely. Powell communicated with 

Thurman several times a day, while Kelly and the Pentagon’s Crisis Action 

Team did the same with Hartzog and his staff. Meanwhile, Cisneros and Laboa 

began conferring at the front gate. The nuncio argued that diplomatic protocol 

dictated that only Noriega could make the decision to leave the nunciature. 

Laboa could use his powers of persuasion to produce that result but would 

not force Noriega out. As for Cisneros’ role, the two agreed that the general 

should concentrate on persuading individual members of Noriega’s entourage 

to depart, thus gradually isolating the former strongman and using that sense 

of isolation to convince him to leave. To this end, beginning on 26 December, 

Cisneros conferred one-on-one at the gate with several of the men who had 

followed Noriega into the nunciature. Within twelve hours, he had persuaded 

nine of them to turn themselves over to U.S. authorities, assuring them in the 

process that they would not be harmed and that the United States did not plan 

to indict them. General Downing, who was present, praised Cisneros as being 

“magnificent to work with. He was really, really good.” He added, however, 

that, unwittingly, Cisneros was not being completely candid with the men. 

“We got them out basically by lying to them,” Downing later admitted. What 

he knew at the time, and what Cisneros did not know, was that Thurman and 

Stiner had no intention of letting the men go before interrogating them at Fort 

Clayton. After that, some would be released, others not.59

On the twenty-seventh, Cisneros was talking to one of the remaining men, 

Capt. Asunción Eliécer Gaitán, a UESAT officer, and just about had him 

ready to walk out, when Downing received a call from either Thurman or 

Stiner, he could not remember which one, telling him “to knock that s——t 

58 Quotes from Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 59–60. Time, 8 Jan 1990; Panel Comments, 

Cisneros, 19 Jan 2011; Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 377–78. In his comments on 19 January, Cisneros said that, although he had not been consulted in the matter, in 

his mind the use of the loudspeakers and the music was not an anti-media ploy that evolved 

into a psychological operation, but a PSYOP from the very beginning. He only told Laboa that 

it was aimed at reporters to calm the increasingly irritated nuncio. Stiner, on the other hand, 

emphasized the need to prevent reporters from overhearing the talks as the basis for his recommendation to Thurman. 59 Interv, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990. Quotes from Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 

Jan 1990. Los Angeles Times, 30 Dec 1989. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

400

off.” Thurman, it seemed, wanted to change the strategy on which Laboa and 

Cisneros had agreed. Downing conveyed this “unfortunate” news to Cisneros 

immediately, thereby terminating the talks with Gaitán. From that point on, 

the strategy became one of leaving those remaining in Noriega’s entourage—

with one or two specific exceptions—in the nunciature in order “to let them 

work against each other.”60

The question remained as to why Thurman sought the change in the 

negotiating strategy. The answer most often given is that the SOUTHCOM 

commander did not trust the nuncio and believed that Cisneros, whom he 

also suspected, had fallen under Laboa’s influence. The nuncio, according 

to Thurman, advocated the strategy of bringing Noriega’s people out one 

at a time so that, once the entourage had left, Noriega could remain in the 

nunciature indefinitely. One factor contributing to Thurman’s opinion was 

the presence in the nunciature of a number of Basques from Spain who had 

been given asylum there several years before. In Thurman’s mind, this was 

proof that Laboa supported terrorism and could not be trusted. Cisneros 

knew that the Basques’ presence was the result of a deal made between the 

Spanish government and the Vatican; Laboa had not been involved. Once 

again, Cisneros and his immediate superior were at loggerheads.61

Downing, too, was not pleased. “It appeared to us on the scene that the 

strategy became ‘get the Nuncio.’ Embarrass the Nuncio and embarrass the 

Vatican. The plan was we are going to pressure the Catholic Church to give 

this guy up. My reflection was that the Catholic Church has been around for 

2,000 years. They are probably going to be hard to pressure. Maybe what we 

ought to do is work with the Nuncio and help him.” If that approach had 

been continued, the general believed, “we probably could have ended the thing 

several days earlier.”62

The breakthrough that forced Noriega’s hand came on the afternoon of 3 

January 1990, when a mob of several thousand angry Panamanians marched 

on the nunciature, carrying anti-Noriega signs and angrily shouting slogans 

such as “Assassin! Assassin!” and “Down with Noriega!” Stiner moved extra 

troops into the area, while overhead there were AH–64s and an AC–130, all 

under orders not to fire indiscriminately into the crowd. In the event that 

someone in the mob opened fire, the troops were told to locate the gunman 

and target only him. The message Cisneros sent through Laboa to Noriega, 

though, deliberately conveyed a different impression. “We will not kill a single 

Panamanian citizen to defend Noriega. If there’s a riot that comes in here and 

wants to drag Noriega out, we’re not going to kill one single Panamanian. It’s 

not worth it, not for us.” In Cisneros’ opinion, that message convinced the 

nuncio to tell his unwanted guest, “Your solution is turn yourself over to the 

Americans or you’re going to be faced with a Mussolini experience where the 

people will come and drag you out and hang you.” Laboa added a twist of his 

own in talking with Noriega, telling him that, come the next day, he intended 

to lift all diplomatic immunity at the nunciature. Noriega also received a phone 

60 Interv, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990. Quotes from Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 

Jan 1990. 61 Intervs, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990; Partin with Downing, 6 Jan 1990.

62 Interv, Partin with Downing, 6 Jan 1990.
Loose Ends

401

call—one in a series that Stiner and Downing had arranged—from his mistress, 

Miss Vicki, telling him, “The decision is in your hands.” The combination of 

pressure and entreaties had the desired effect. A shaken Noriega decided the 

time had come to give himself up.63 

During the remainder of the day and into the evening, details of the 

handover were worked out between the nunciature and U.S. officials. Then, at 

2048 that night, Laboa and another priest accompanied Noriega to the front 

gate. The former general, who carried a Bible and a toothbrush, had shed his 

T-shirt and running shorts for a military uniform that he insisted he be allowed 

to wear. Cisneros refused to meet with the man he detested, so Downing 

was present in his place. After Noriega passed through the gate, U.S. troops 

handcuffed him over his protests. A helicopter flew him to Howard, where he 

boarded a C–130 transport. There, Drug Enforcement Administration agents 

read him his rights, arrested him, and had him exchange his uniform for plain 

prisoner’s coveralls. Less than an hour after leaving the nunciature, he was in 

the air, en route to Miami. The principal Just Cause objectives pertaining to 

the defeat of the enemy and the capture of the dictator had now been achieved. 

There was, however, still much left for U.S. forces to accomplish in Panama.64

63 Cisneros and Laboa quoted messages from Interv, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990. Cole, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 64. Last quote from Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, pp. 

379–82. 64 Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 64; Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 382.

Noriega being placed in custody

13

The Transition to Stability Operations 

and Nation Building

December 1989–January 1990

Throughout the lengthy preinvasion crisis in Panama, U.S. combat units arriving in the country for security enhancement and treaty enforcement 

duties in 1988 and 1989 had experienced various degrees of frustration in 

adapting to a situation that required their presence more than their firepower, 

their restraint rather than their belligerence. Trained for high-tech, conventional 

battles, these warriors found the bulk of their time in Panama taken up with 

police-type duties. Even when reasserting American treaty rights—actions 

that in some cases carried the risk of armed conflict with the Panama Defense 

Forces—the troops had to observe highly restrictive rules of engagement and 

rules of confrontation that many soldiers and marines believed nullified their 

inherent right of self-defense. In their minds, the constraints imposed on them 

yielded the initiative to their opponent, who would be virtually guaranteed the 

first shot if a confrontation spiraled out of control. 

Following the outbreak of hostilities in late December, many U.S. units 

engaged in D-day combat operations found themselves making a similar 

adjustment. During the fighting, they clearly understood that they were to 

avoid inflicting unnecessary casualties and property damage, but they also 

knew that the Just Cause rules of engagement explicitly permitted them 

to take “all necessary and appropriate action” in their own defense.1 Their 

adjustment came later, once the shooting began to subside and they had to 

make an abrupt and, for some, an unexpected and difficult transition from 

combat to stability operations and nation building. For many of the units, 

the transition occurred as a result of on-order or follow-on missions derived 

from JTF-South’s Operation Plan 90–2; other units acted in accordance with 

Promote Liberty, the civil-military operations plan the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

approved on 21 December, a day after they received it from the Southern 

Command. Whatever the source, the military tasks that were deemed essential 

to securing the country, to helping restore law and order, and to supporting 

the new Panamanian government required American forces to demonstrate 

several sets of skills—political, diplomatic, law enforcement, social, economic, 

and humanitarian—for which their war-fighting capabilities and warrior selfimage often seemed irrelevant, even counterproductive. Also back in force 

were much more restrictive rules of engagement. In the slew of interviews 

1 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

404

and after action reports to emerge from Just Cause and Promote Liberty, 

individual soldiers and marines, together with the units in which they served, 

emphasized that they had not been trained or mentally prepared to conduct 

stability operations. 

The argument could be made that the headquarters and senior military 

officers responsible for planning and executing the invasion were partly 

responsible for this lack of preparation. The JTF-South operation plan 

envisaged military action in Panama taking place in five phases, the third of 

which called for “Assault Force Operations” and the fourth for “Stabilizing 

Force Operations.” In the latter phase, U.S. objectives were to “restructure the 

PDF; provide support to civil-military operations; and prepare JTFSO forces 

for redeployment.” Yet, while the plan recognized the significance of stability 

operations and, in the words of one officer, “acknowledged that a breakdown 

in law and order was likely,” it did not, in his opinion, “address in any detail 

the actions US forces would have to take to bring order to the situation.” In 

contrast, Blind Logic, the code name for the Prayer Book’s civil-military 

operations plan, did contain specific guidance for short-term and long-term 

measures to restore and rebuild a postconflict Panama. But, in the second 

half of 1989, efforts by staff officers at the Southern Command to integrate 

this document with the CINCSO Blue Spoon operation order and with 

what became the airborne corps’ OPLAN 90–2 proved largely unsuccessful. 

Consequently, on the eve of Just Cause, no detailed and seamless campaign 

plan existed, except as a concept, to facilitate a smooth, timely, and effective 

transition from armed conflict to peace.2

As for the combat units that lacked training and experience in stability 

operations and nation-building activities, they had little incentive to scrutinize 

the contents of 90–2’s section on Stabilizing Force Operations while they were 

preparing for a life-and-death struggle with armed Panamanians during the 

Assault Force Operations phase. The focus was on the battle to come, with 

most troops either completely unaware or only vaguely cognizant of other, 

noncombat missions they would be asked to perform. To be sure, units received 

oral instructions to protect American citizens, innocent Panamanians, and 

public and private property during the fighting. But with just a few hours left 

before being placed in harm’s way, few recipients of this guidance gave any 

serious thought to Panama’s future beyond the removal of its dictator and the 

defeat of the enemy force. 

2 First, second, and third quotes from ibid. While an original copy of 90–2 describes a fivephase operation, the After Action Report, Operation Just Cause, 20 Dec 1989–12 Jan 1990,

Joint Task Force-South, 19 Mar 1990 (hereafter cited as JTF-South AAR), for Operation Just

Cause, forwarded to the Southern Command on 8 March 1990, speaks of operations in only 

four phases. The “Stabilizing Force Operations,” cited as Phase IV in 90–2 is listed as Phase III 

in the March report. The reason for the discrepancy is that Phase II in 90–2, “In-Place Force 

Operations,” is combined with Phase III, “Assault Force Operations,” in the after action report. 

Remaining quotes from Timothy D. Bloechl, “Operation ‘Just Cause’: Low Intensity Conflict 

Stability Operations and Issues of Tactics,” Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement 2, no. 1 

(Summer 1993): 24.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

405

From Blind Logic to Promote Liberty

Contingency plans for U.S. civil-military operations in a post-Noriega 

Panama had their origins in Phase V of the Southern Command’s Elaborate

Maze operation order, written under General Woerner’s guidance in March 

1988.3 Initially drafted by two civil affairs (CA) officers on the SOUTHCOM 

staff, Phase V anticipated what the country would look like at the end of 

hostilities with the United States: normal government functions would have 

broken down; various public and private services would have been disrupted; 

and the Panama Defense Forces, while surviving as an organization, would 

have been decapitated and shorn of its combat capabilities. In determining the 

role U.S. armed forces would play in this scenario, planners drew extensively 

on America’s experience in establishing military governments at the end of 

World War II. From that and other precedents, an operative assumption 

emerged: the commander in chief of the Southern Command would be in 

charge of running Panama for thirty days following hostilities. At the end of 

that period, Phase V read, his “direction and control of selected government 

functions will be transferred to the US Country Team and/or the [government 

of Panama].” A second assumption stemmed from the first: the White House 

would authorize a call-up of Selected Reserve units trained in civil-military 

operations, especially in the area of civil affairs, to provide qualified American 

personnel to help run the military government.4

In early April 1988, after the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed Woerner to 

break Elaborate Maze into four discrete operation orders, Phase V became 

Krystal Ball, a code name that was superseded several months later by Blind

Logic. During this period, small teams of civil affairs personnel, primarily 

from the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade, a reserve unit with formal ties to the 

Southern Command, rotated in and out of Panama on temporary tours of 

active duty (TTAD) in order to help the four officers in the SOUTHCOM 

J–5’s overwhelmed Civil Affairs Branch write the civil-military operation 

orders. Their efforts encompassed both the CINCSO version of Krystal Ball

and Blind Logic and the immediate supporting plan, the Commander, CivilMilitary Operations Task Force (COMCMOTF), version. In August, progress 

3 This section draws on the author’s U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–

December 1989; and “Panama, 1988–1990: The Disconnect between Combat and Stability 

Operations,” Military Review 85 (May-June 2005): 46–52. Also consulted were the works of 

John T. Fishel, an expert on stability operations and nation building in Panama during Just

Cause and Promote Liberty. At the time of the crisis, Fishel, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves serving on active duty in SOUTHCOM’s J–5 directorate, was intimately involved with 

various iterations of the planning for Blind Logic. See his The Fog of Peace; Fishel, “Planning 

for Post-Conflict Panama: What It Tells Us About Phase IV Operations,” in Turning Victory 

Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, ed. Brian M. De Toy (Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), pp. 169–78; Fishel and Richard D. Downie, 

“Taking Responsibility for Our Actions? Establishing Order and Stability in Panama,” Military 

Review 72 (April 1992): 66–78. 4 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 181945Z Mar 1988, sub: USCINCSO/001/Elaborate Maze/

OPORD 2–88. As for the anticipated call-up of reservists, the president, under Section 673b, 

Title 10, United States Code, had the authority in 1989 to activate up to two hundred thousand 

members of the country’s Selected Reserve.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

406

on the two orders reached a point at which the planners could set them aside, 

to be updated as needed. 

Then and later, Woerner considered Blind Logic to be “the most important 

and politically delicate of all the contemplated military actions” contained 

in the Prayer Book because of the embarrassment contingency plans for a 

U.S. military government in Panama, a sovereign country, could cause if they 

became public knowledge.5 To guard against that possibility, several measures 

to ensure operations security insulated the planning effort. One of these 

prohibited each arriving reserve civil affairs team from discussing the evolving 

plan with the team that it was replacing or with the team that would follow. 

Similarly, the teams leaving Quarry Heights would be read off the plan, meaning 

that they would no longer have access to it unless they returned on additional 

temporary tours. Some of the departing reservists, however, were not only 

planners but also officers who would be personally involved in overseeing civilmilitary operations should Blind Logic be executed. In that event, the fact 

that they might not have seen the plan since their last visit to Panama could 

prove counterproductive, especially if, in the interim, SOUTHCOM personnel 

and the other reservists had made extensive changes to the document.

As contingency plans for the Panama crisis were being drafted and revised, 

Woerner’s guidance contained a condition that he regarded as indispensable. In 

the words of one participant, the general wanted planners to ensure that each of 

the five Elaborate Maze phases or, later, each of the Prayer Book operation 

orders, could be executed “independently, concurrently, or in sequence with 

any other phase” or operation order.6 The injunction flowed logically from 

the concept of operations contained in the plans, which reflected Woerner’s 

prudent approach to the crisis. If the United States had to take military action 

in Panama, the first step, he hoped, could be confined to a gradual buildup of 

U.S. troops, the psychological effect of which might convince the Panamanian 

military to oust Noriega. If the buildup alone failed to produce that outcome 

or if the regime initiated military action that obliged Washington to respond 

with armed force, the ensuing combat operations would strike only a limited 

number of targets chosen for their command and control capabilities and their 

immediate threat to American forces stationed near Panama City. Most PDF 

units based on the periphery of the capital city would not come under attack, 

nor would there be an extension of combat operations into distant parts of 

the canal area or throughout the country at large. By thus restricting the scope 

of the fighting, but also by hitting the Panama City targets in sequence, the 

headquarters fighting the war directly under Woerner’s command, be it JTFPanama or a joint task force with the XVIII Airborne Corps in charge, would 

have sufficient manpower on hand to neutralize the enemy while securing the 

capital’s business areas and neighborhoods.

Under this concept of operations, the execution of the Post Time

operation order, which contained the U.S. troop buildup, and the Blue Spoon

plan for combat operations would most likely take place sequentially, with the 

Klondike Key plan for evacuating noncombatants being conducted in either 

5 Fishel, “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama,” p. 172, and see also p. 171.

6 Ibid., p. 170.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

407

phase—if, in fact, Blue Spoon and Klondike Key needed to be implemented 

at all. If events did result in hostilities, then, ideally, Blue Spoon and Blind

Logic would be executed simultaneously, since the need to conduct stability 

operations—contrary to planning schemes that emphasized sequenced or 

linear phasing—would surface with the onset of combat operations, not just 

after the fighting had stopped. 

Essential to achieving the capability Woerner stipulated for carrying 

out the operation orders independently, concurrently, or in sequence were 

organizational and procedural arrangements that would promote close 

cooperation and coordination among the various and often dispersed groups 

of commanders and staff officers involved in drafting the plans. At the 

Southern Command, the highest level at which U.S. contingency planning 

for Panama was taking place, officers assigned to a specific top secret and 

compartmentalized strategic-level Prayer Book order would have to do the 

best they could, given the obstructions and restrictions under which they 

worked, to furnish progress reports to colleagues writing each of the other plans. 

Complementing this lateral flow of information would be a vertical exchange 

whereby staff directors at Quarry Heights would monitor and provide advice 

and feedback to subordinate headquarters charged with writing the supporting 

operational-level plans that sought to convert the general guidance contained 

in the CINCSO operation orders into tasks and assignments that units at the 

tactical level could use in writing their more detailed plans for specific missions. 

In the case of Blue Spoon, the vertical communications network consisted of 

separate channels running from the SOUTHCOM J–3’s plans shop downward 

to three planning groups on two installations: JTF-Panama at Fort Clayton, 

special operations staff at Fort Bragg, and, beginning in early 1989, the XVIII 

Airborne Corps, also at Bragg.

The coordination requirements for Blind Logic were somewhat different. 

Because the strategic CINCSO version of the plan and the operational-level 

COMCMOTF supporting plan had both been written at Quarry Heights, they 

were largely in sync. That fact, together with the security restrictions imposed 

on the reserve teams once they left Panama, precluded a continuous exchange 

of information with U.S.-based headquarters specializing in civil-military 

operations. Instead, what SOUTHCOM planners working on Blind Logic

wanted was some form of meaningful interaction with their counterparts 

drafting the sections on civil-military operations in the CINCSO and joint 

task force versions of Blue Spoon. In the drafts of both Blind Logic and 

Blue Spoon, general assumptions concerning the immediate and negative 

impact of hostilities on Panama were pretty much the same, as planners 

working separately on each version of each plan considered the possibility 

of looting, an upswing in criminal activity, vigilantism, die-hard resistance, 

and even terrorism and insurgency. Thus, at the strategic level, the principal 

task was simply to fine-tune the language contained in both operation orders. 

More substantive issues emerged in trying to harmonize the supporting plans. 

Since Blind Logic called for the establishment of a civil-military operations 

task force to be run by the SOUTHCOM J–5 director, a brigadier general, 

questions requiring answers included how that task force would interact with 

the joint task force executing Blue Spoon, and how civil affairs forces that, 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

408

in early drafts of JTF-Panama’s Blue Spoon, would be attached to combat 

units on the eve of hostilities would interact with the civil affairs elements 

working for the Civil-Military Operations Task Force.7 Other operational 

issues demanding coordination involved listing all the units that would be 

required to conduct stability operations while the war-fighting joint task force 

was still focused on winning the war; scheduling the timely arrival of those 

units if they were deploying from the United States; determining the point at 

which operational control of the troops engaged in stability operations under 

the Blue Spoon joint task force would be transferred to the Civil-Military 

Operations Task Force commander; and assessing what the most effective 

command and control relationship would be between the war-fighting joint 

task force and the Civil-Military Operations Task Force at different phases 

of the military operation. Unless the stability operations called for in Blue

Spoon and Blind Logic could be synchronized during the planning stage, the 

actual process of providing security for a postconflict Panama while returning 

it to the status of a functioning state could entail needless delay, hardship 

for the country’s citizens, and prolonged disruption in restoring the country’s 

institutions, basic government services, and social and economic well-being. 

Unfortunately, while the need for cooperation and coordination was 

imperative, the obstacles to achieving those goals were daunting. Because 

each Prayer Book operation order was compartmentalized, it could only be 

accessed on a need-to-know basis. This prevented a group writing one plan 

from examining the progress of a group working on another, even though at 

Quarry Heights, two groups drafting separate plans were likely to be only a 

short walk from each other. In the case of Blue Spoon and Blind Logic, early 

in 1989 the two plans did reside together in the SOUTHCOM J–3 directorate, 

the result of a command reorganization, but in May of that year, Blind Logic

was returned to the J–5 because of “the relative qualifications of J5 personnel 

required for its execution and the ongoing relationship between the J5 and the 

361st [Civil Affairs Brigade].” Specifically, responsibility for the plan fell to 

the directorate’s Policy and Strategy Division under Lt. Col. John T. Fishel, a 

reserve officer on an extended tour of active duty. Because that division oversaw 

a variety of activities not related to the Panama crisis, Woerner supported 

creation of a Blind Logic “workable planning cell,” consisting of Fishel and 

another reservist. In time, six more officers joined the group, three from the 

active component’s 96th Civil Affairs Battalion and three from civil affairs 

units in the reserves. Fishel later recorded that, of the six, “three were language 

qualified . . . while only two of the officers involved had worked on the plan in 

1988.”8 Even so, a group now existed to concentrate on Blind Logic, albeit in 

a separate directorate from those drafting the CINCSO Blue Spoon.

Besides the security and organizational barriers to coordinated planning for 

stability operations, long-standing military practice posed a significant if less 

tangible obstacle. Traditionally, officers responsible for planning conventional 

7 The civil affairs forces are discussed in Briefing Slides, JTF-Panama, n.d. [1988].

8 First and second quotes from Fishel, “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama,” p. 171 (see 

also p. 172). Last quote from Ms, John T. Fishel, War, Peace, and Civil Military Operations: 

The Role of Civil Affairs in Operations Just Cause, Desert Storm, and Provide Comfort, May 

1992, copy in author’s files.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

409

combat operations have tended to focus almost exclusively on the battles 

to be fought, while slighting or even ignoring the requirements for stability 

operations that those battles generate. Such tasks, according to an oft-repeated 

phrase, were “someone else’s job.” To be sure, a hard logic has underpinned 

this well-established approach: should U.S. forces fail to achieve victory, the 

question of whether or not stability operations and nation building received 

adequate attention while planning the war would become moot. Added to 

this has been the fervent desire to devise a plan for defeating the enemy with 

as few friendly casualties as possible. When Blue Spoon planners took into 

account the number and diversity of U.S. combat units that would see action 

in Panama and then factored in the innumerable ways in which war’s fog and 

friction might affect those units adversely, the natural impulse was to spend 

every available minute working to minimize the inevitable risks and dangers, 

even if that meant neglecting the Stabilizing Force Operations portion of the 

combat plan and dodging the requests for coordination emanating from the 

officers working on the civil-military operations plan.

As late as mid-1989, with the CINCSO version of Blue Spoon being 

written within his own headquarters and with the JTF-Panama supporting 

plan being drafted just ten minutes away at Fort Clayton under a general officer 

answerable directly to him, Woerner was in a position to impose some degree 

of coordination between the officers drafting Blue Spoon and those drafting 

Blind Logic. Fishel went so far as to characterize the general’s intervention to 

this end as pivotal. “If General Woerner had not taken such personal interest 

in postconflict operations, there is no way that the staff elements responsible 

for Blue Spoon would have devoted any time to the necessary coordination 

with Blind Logic.”9 The question remained, however, as to whether Woerner 

could exact the same level of cooperation from the XVIII Airborne Corps at 

Fort Bragg when, during Nimrod Dancer, that headquarters began to assert 

its role as the executive agent for writing an operational-level version of Blue

Spoon, one that would supersede the work of JTF-Panama if the corps ended 

up forming the conventional joint task force for directing combat operations 

in Panama. Woerner’s feelings toward the Army’s contingency corps were 

mixed. On the one hand, he welcomed the staff support it could provide the 

planning effort; on the other, he perceived the headquarters as composed of 

“outsiders” unfamiliar with the subtleties and nuances of the situation in 

Panama. The corps, by its own admission, preferred planning and executing 

combat operations that incorporated the rapid insertion of U.S. troops and 

firepower, the use of decisive force to achieve clearly stated objectives, and the 

quick withdrawal of the troops once the shooting had ended. While Woerner 

admitted that this approach might be appropriate for certain contingencies, he 

did not consider it the best prescription for Panama, where the idea of an allout American invasion ran counter to his own stratagem for a gradual troop 

buildup and, if necessary as a last resort, U.S. military strikes against a limited 

number of PDF targets. But the XVIII Airborne Corps had its reputation and 

way of doing business. Unless he provided it with firm guidance, he anticipated 

receiving a supporting plan that, among other shortcomings, would pay only 

9 Fishel, “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama,” p. 172 (and see also p. 173).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

410

lip service to the civil-military operations contained in the CINCSO version 

of Blue Spoon. 

At first, Woerner enjoyed some success, as, in Fishel’s words, the general’s 

“command emphasis forced coordination with the Corps when it was brought 

on board as execution planner for Blue Spoon.” The corps, one could argue, 

had little choice. Despite its dislike of Woerner’s gradual and limited strategy 

for a possible military showdown in Panama, the Joint Chiefs had designated 

the Southern Command as the supported headquarters for contingency 

planning, and the XVIII Airborne Corps as a supporting headquarters. 

The corps commander and his staff would have to comply with Woerner’s 

enjoinders—“we had to salute the flag,” as one of them put it—which included 

meeting with Fishel and the Blind Logic planning cell.10 The discussions took 

place in Panama during the early weeks of Nimrod Dancer after General 

Stiner had dispatched a three-man team led by Maj. David Huntoon Jr. to 

help determine how the corps should respond to the intensifying crisis. Fishel 

and his group, knowing that the corps was now giving serious attention to 

preparing its supporting plan for Blue Spoon, wanted assurances that Huntoon 

and the staff officers he represented understood the ramifications flowing from 

the civil-military operations portion of that plan. Specifically, in a rehash of 

issues the J–5 planners had at one time discussed with JTF-Panama personnel, 

Fishel needed to be sure that the corps would make provisions for the timely 

arrival of military police, engineers, medics, civil affairs units, and reserve 

personnel essential to the process of restoring law and order and government 

services during and after hostilities. Command and control arrangements for 

these forces as well as for U.S. combat troops engaged in stability operations 

also received careful scrutiny. When the talks concluded, the participants had 

reached some tentative agreements. Huntoon’s team returned to Fort Bragg 

soon thereafter, leaving the J–5 planners at Quarry Heights confident that 

the XVIII Airborne Corps now fully understood “the law and order mission 

and emergency service restoration mission” it would have to conduct if it was 

activated as the conventional joint task force headquarters executing Blue

Spoon.

11

During this period in mid-1989, Fishel’s planners were also engaged in a 

general review of the CINCSO and the COMCMOTF versions of the Blind

Logic operation order. One of the assumptions reflected in drafts from the 

previous year drew their immediate attention: if war broke out, there would 

be a presidential call-up of Selected Reserve units trained in civil-military 

operations. By mid-1989, according to the “political sensing” of one of the 

J–5 planners, convincing the Joint Chiefs to recommend such a call-up “might 

well be more difficult than expected.” The Blind Logic group therefore 

devised an alternative that would allow the deployment of twenty-five “preselected volunteers,” mainly from the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade, to perform 

the civil-military mission. According to Fishel, “These individuals . . . would 

have gone on active duty for 31 days under TTAD orders. There was sufficient 

10 Ibid., p. 172. The “salute the flag” phrase was said to the author during a conversation 

with Lt. Col. David Huntoon at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, sometime in 1993. 11 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 20–24.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

411

redundancy among the volunteers to make certain that a full team would have 

been activated. This approach would have provided the minimal capability to 

execute the mission along with in-place forces.”12

The review of Blind Logic left most other significant parts of the plan 

unchanged, including the assumption that the SOUTHCOM commander 

would briefly act as the U.S. military governor of a postinvasion Panama. 

As things turned out, this assumption proved false. At some point in 1989, 

President Bush decided that, if Blue Spoon were executed, the three opposition 

candidates who had clearly won the May presidential election in Panama—the 

results of which Noriega had annulled—should make good on their victory 

by taking office immediately, even before U.S. forces began their attacks. The 

United States would do all it could to support the new government and to 

get it functioning, but there would be no interim period necessitating the 

establishment of a CINCSO-led military government. That the president’s 

decision did not percolate down to SOUTHCOM’s J–5 and into the revised 

Blind Logic would lead to problems on the eve of Operation Just Cause. 

If there was to be no U.S. military government, to whom would the military 

organizations and personnel involved in stability operations and nationbuilding activities ultimately be accountable? 

Odds were that, on paper at least, these military endeavors would fall 

under the jurisdiction of the new Panamanian government, with the American 

ambassador serving as the senior U.S. official involved (a prospect that would 

require reaching some accommodation with the SOUTHCOM commander, 

whose chain of command did not run through the State Department). Yet, 

so long as the assumption persisted at Quarry Heights that there would be a 

U.S. military government in Panama, operations security ensured that routine 

requests by Blind Logic planners to coordinate their efforts with the political 

counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Panama City were denied, in Fishel’s words, 

“on the grounds that the plan was classified and controlled within the JCS 

channels only and, therefore, could not be coordinated with any non-DOD 

agencies.” The best the planners could obtain was permission to talk with the 

political counselor “on a hypothetical situation but not to reveal the existence 

of the plan.”13

Amid this flurry of drafting and updating plans, the Pentagon announced 

that Woerner would be retiring as the SOUTHCOM commander, to be replaced 

by General Thurman at the end of September. The impact of the change in 

command on Blind Logic was enormous, once Thurman authorized the new 

concept of operations for Blue Spoon. In addition to calling for the overthrow 

of the Noriega regime through a surprise attack, what became 90–2 also 

added the goal of destroying the Panama Defense Forces as an institution. 

This change and those necessitated by the 3 October coup attempt caused 

several more PDF units and facilities to be added to the D-day target list. 

Consequently, combat units that under the original Blue Spoon would have 

swept through Panama City—thus being in a position to prevent looting and 

various criminal activities in the capital’s business centers and neighborhoods—

12 Fishel, War, Peace, and Civil Military Operations.

13 Ibid.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

412

would now be dispersed in and outside the capital so that they could assault 

targets that the former SOUTHCOM commander had considered peripheral 

and nonthreatening. As formally approved by the Joint Chiefs on 3 November, 

JTF-South OPLAN 90–2 did contain the mission statement that U.S. troops 

should be prepared “to restore law and order, and support the installation of 

a U.S.-recognized government of Panama.”14 Yet, given the plan’s expanded 

combat operations, there was little in the operational annexes to educate troop 

commanders as to what specific tasks they might have to perform—and how 

to perform them—in support of the stabilization mission. 

All of this and more worried the Blind Logic planners at Quarry Heights. 

Further coordination with the XVIII Airborne Corps was essential, they 

believed, but Thurman did not move to arrange the kind of face-to-face 

session that his predecessor had mandated during Major Huntoon’s Nimrod

Dancer visit. Indeed, between the beginning of October and the execution 

of Just Cause, the general never asked for a briefing on Blind Logic, while 

the Blind Logic planners, preoccupied with other duties, never prepared 

one in the absence of a formal request. As for the XVIII Airborne Corps, 

when Stiner wanted to know who was responsible for “conflict termination,” 

Thurman replied, “Not you. That is the USARSO staff. I want you to focus 

on combat operations.”15 Stiner complied, to the consternation of Fishel’s 

planning cell, which soon discovered that the agreements they thought they 

had reached with Huntoon’s team months earlier were being either ignored 

by the corps’ planners as a result of Woerner’s departure or disregarded as 

irrelevant because of changes in the war plan. 

In addition to the SOUTHCOM planners working on Blind Logic, there 

was another group of staff officers concerned over how combat and civilmilitary operations would mesh together in the event of armed conflict in 

Panama. Under the troop deployment schedule contained in OPLAN 90–2, 

the two brigades of the 7th Infantry Division still at Fort Ord were not likely 

to arrive in the country until most of the heavy fighting had subsided. This 

suggested that the light fighters would be heavily involved in the Stabilizing 

Force Operations phase of Just Cause. Given that probability, one of the 

division planners responsible for the 7th’s version of Blue Spoon contacted 

Huntoon at Fort Bragg and recommended that the coordination of combat 

and civil-military operations be placed on the agenda for the planning session 

slated to be held in Panama in mid-December. Huntoon readily agreed, but 

when Lieutenant Paz was killed two days before the conference was to begin, 

the scheduled session turned into a war council, with last-minute adjustments to 

the Assault Force Operations portion of the plan dominating the proceedings. 

One change in Blue Spoon that Thurman himself had personally initiated 

upon taking over at Quarry Heights had a direct, if not immediately obvious, 

impact on plans regarding the Civil-Military Operations Task Force called 

for in Blind Logic. By removing the Joint Special Operations Task Force 

14 JTF-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 Nov 1989. In a reversal of normal planning procedures, the 

updated CINCSO version of Blue Spoon, Operation Order 1–90, had been revised to reflect, in 

more general terms, the contents of the supporting plan, 90–2. 15 Interv, Lt Col Steven P. Bucci with Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army (Ret.), 1999, USAWC/

USAMHI Senior Officer Oral History Program.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

413

from the operational control of 

the SOUTHCOM commander 

and putting it under JTF-South, 

Thurman had sought to streamline 

Blue Spoon command and control 

arrangements. The point was not 

lost on the Blind Logic planners. 

With “all the executing elements” 

now under the war-fighting joint 

task force, “unity of command” 

could be further strengthened by 

taking the Civil-Military Operations 

Task Force and having “an entity 

under the command and control 

of JTF-South” take charge of it. 

For several reasons, the “logical 

candidate” was General Cisneros’ 

U.S. Army, South, a headquarters, 

the J–5 officers reasoned, that 

had dealt with the crisis since its 

inception and, equally important, 

that would “be without a mission in 

the event of action in Panama.” In 

the planners’ opinion, most duties 

USARSO was performing while wearing its JTF-Panama “hat” would be 

assumed by JTF-South, which would also absorb Cisneros and his staff. They 

would serve as deputies to Stiner’s people, who were likely to regard them as 

excess baggage. So why not call on them to run the Civil-Military Operations 

Task Force under Stiner? After some preliminary discussions between the 

USARSO and SOUTHCOM staffs, the SOUTHCOM J–5 director, Air Force 

Brig. Gen. Benard W. Gann, formally requested that Thurman give Cisneros 

the civil-military operations mission.16

Thurman consented, but the proposed transfer quickly stalled. In early 

December, when Col. Norman Higginbotham, the acting USARSO chief 

of staff, received a copy of Blind Logic, he asked Maj. Les Knoblock to 

review the document and provide feedback. A week later, Higginbotham, 

back in his position as deputy chief of staff for logistics, together with 

USARSO Chief of Staff Col. Leonard Hardy Jr., met with SOUTHCOM’s 

deputy J–5 director to discuss the transfer. According to Higginbotham, he 

and Hardy told the J–5 officer that the current version of Blind Logic was 

“full of crap”; that it contained too many false assumptions, such as the 

establishment of a U.S. military government; and that, as written, it could 

not be executed. What was needed, they maintained, was a new operation 

order, a USARSO plan that would be coordinated with the U.S. Embassy 

and other American governmental agencies in Panama. Given the problems 

that the SOUTHCOM J–5 had already experienced in trying to obtain 

16 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 27–28.

General Gann
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

414

Pentagon approval for coordination outside military channels, the redrafting 

of Blind Logic along the lines Hardy and Higginbotham suggested promised 

to be a difficult and time-consuming process. The prospect of further delay, 

however, caused little concern at the time. As Fishel recalled, “There was no 

great sense of urgency about any of this—the assessment of the probability 

of execution remained low.”17

Such was the status of the Prayer Book planning for civil-military 

operations when President Bush made his decision on 17 December to use 

armed force in Panama. “At that point,” according to Fishel, “the SOUTHCOM 

staff ‘discovered’ Blind Logic.” There followed two days of “frantic activity” 

in which planners tried to harmonize that operation order with OPLAN 

90–2 and with certain political realities. It could not be done. One USARSO 

officer summoned to Quarry Heights to review the Blind Logic command and 

control arrangements, as well as the transition from combat to civil-military 

operations, assessed the J–5 plan as “a disaster waiting to happen.” With 

H-hour looming, the SOUTHCOM J–5 director and staff had little choice but 

to draft as quickly as possible a shorter version of the command’s operation 

order; attach the still highly relevant annexes from the existing plan; give the 

on-order mission of commander, Civil-Military Operations Task Force, to 

the commander, JTF-SOUTH (not the USARSO commander); and, over 

Thurman’s signature on 20 December, send Operation Order 2–90 (Blind

Logic) to the Joint Chiefs for approval, several hours after the fighting in 

Panama had commenced. Despite the last-minute failure to save the original 

plan, Fishel could take comfort in knowing that much had been salvaged 

from it. The CINCSO version, he noted, “provided alternative blueprints for 

force structure and command and control of post-conflict operations. The 

COMCMOTF plan provided checklists of things that would need to be done 

by those forces to restore a functioning government to Panama.” 

The message to the Joint Chiefs spoke of the likely security vacuum and 

breakdown of law and order, public safety, and some basic infrastructure services 

resulting from a combination of Panama’s preinvasion economic decline and 

the demise of the Panama Defense Forces that Just Cause would effect. The 

threat to law and order would come from former PDF members, paramilitary 

personnel, hostile third-country nationals, and criminals and could take the 

form of guerrilla warfare, terrorist attacks, sabotage, and criminal activity. 

Given this threat, Operation Order 2–90 authorized Thurman to establish the 

Civil-Military Operations Task Force under a military commander to protect 

American lives and property, ensure law and order, and provide essential 

services. Simultaneously, the Southern Command would conduct nationbuilding projects in support of the new government in Panama. 

The next day, the Joint Chiefs approved the plan. Looking beyond the 

combat operations that were winding down, they concurred that the CivilMilitary Operations Task Force would come under JTF-Panama upon the 

inactivation and departure from Panama of JTF-South. In a setback the J–5 

planners had anticipated months before, the chiefs refused to ask the White 

17 Second quote from ibid., pp. 27–28. First quote from Interv, author with Col Norman D. 

Higginbotham, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

415

House for the presidential call-up of reserve civil affairs units, including the 

361st Civil Affairs Brigade and, under it, the 478th Civil Affairs Company. But 

they did approve the SOUTHCOM J–5’s alternate plan for relying on twentyfive preselected volunteers and additional reservists if they were needed. 

There was a hitch, though, that invalidated much of what the alternative 

sought to accomplish. The chiefs directed that the volunteers would have to 

request tours of 139 days, not 31 days, as Blind Logic recommended. This, 

according to Fishel, “played havoc with the planning of the 361st, which had 

teams prepared to go for 31 days but could not, in general, volunteer for the 

longer 139 days.” On 22 December, the Joint Chiefs weighed in again, this 

time approving the recommendation from the SOUTHCOM J–5 to change 

the name of Blind Logic to Promote Liberty.

18

Thurman regarded the Joint Chiefs’ approval of the revised civil-military 

operations order as an inconvenient but necessary formality. Faced with the need 

for immediate action, he had in essence already executed portions of the order on 

his own authority on the morning of 20 December. Because the handover of the 

civil-military mission to USARSO had not been accomplished prior to D-day, 

the SOUTHCOM commander told General Gann to move most of his staff to 

Panama’s Legislative Assembly building, down the hill from Quarry Heights, 

and to begin helping the Endara government. Thurman also directed Gann to 

provide U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Panama John Bushnell “what he needed to 

assist the newly inaugurated Panamanian government, as well as such additional 

support that might be required.” If Thurman did not formally activate the CivilMilitary Operations Task Force at that moment, his instructions giving the 

J–5 staff its new mission and putting Gann in charge of it had the same effect. 

Moreover, once established, the task force would be a separate headquarters 

under Thurman, although it would share a liaison officer with JTF-South. By 

midmorning of the twentieth, two-thirds of the J–5 staff was en route to the 

assembly building.19 By that time, many U.S. troops in Panama were already 

conducting law and order and stability operations in the field.

The Transition in the Field: The Troops and the People

At Rio Hato, midday on 20 December, 1st Lt. David Haight, a rifle platoon 

leader with Company B, 2d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, had finished 

a night of combat—the “easy part,” as he would later describe it—and was 

18 Activities surrounding Blind Logic on 17–22 December and the first, second, and fourth 

quotes are from Fishel, “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama,” pp. 173, 175–76. Third quote 

from Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 

Last quote from Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 31–32. Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 202055Z Dec 

1989, sub: USCINCSO OPORD 2–90 (Blind Logic); Fact Sheet, Maj Robert A. Richardson 

to Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (DCSOPS) [USARSO], 15 Mar 1990, sub: Research 

Reason For Lack of JTF-PM Supporting Order in Panama. This last document, a report to 

Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Kinzer, the occupant of the newly created position of deputy commanding 

general, USARSO, contains a chronology of the Blind Logic/Promote Liberty messages between the Southern Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 20, 21, and 22 December 1989. 19 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 32–33.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

416

engaged in mopping-up operations when he learned that he and his men were 

to be transported to a small town north of Panama City.20 There, as part of 

a company-size operation, they were to maintain order and engage in various 

administrative duties. As he listened to a colonel go over the platoon’s new 

assignment, Haight realized that none of the various tasks being enumerated 

related to anything his unit had been trained to do. Nevertheless, he and thirtyseven of his men prepared to move out. When they arrived at their destination, 

they discovered “the town was a mess.” “Murder, rape, pillage” numbered 

among the worst offenses, the result of there being “no one in charge.” Over 

the next three weeks, the Rangers assisted in reorganizing the community and 

helping the residents cope with the temporary disruptions and uncertainties 

created by the invasion. In the process, the troops would serve as policemen, 

politicians, logisticians, sanitation workers, counselors, and more—almost 

everything but warriors. Consequently, they had to adjust psychologically from 

the “kill and leave” mind-set their training and professional self-image had 

instilled in them to the unexpected and unwelcome reality of being ordered to 

stay and be “polite.” 

Despite the abruptness of the transition and the perplexity of the troops, 

there was, in Haight’s mind, “no room for mistakes.” One of the first orders 

of business was simply finding out who the Rangers could trust and who they 

could not, who could best aid them in their mission and who was most likely to 

obstruct progress. The mayor of the town was still in residence but with little 

real authority, given that Just Cause had eliminated his police force. After 

assessing the situation, Haight’s soldiers helped restore the mayor’s credibility 

and political legitimacy, two prerequisites to his being able to govern again. As 

Haight described the process, the Rangers would tell the official what to say 

and then publicly demonstrate their support for him after he had said it. The 

success of this approach took time, during which the Rangers had to deal with 

crime, security issues, trash collection, plumbing problems, and, on occasion, 

the mediation of personal disputes.

All of this transpired in an urban environment characterized in part by the 

ubiquitous civilian. Most of the residents were friendly, but that often proved 

a mixed blessing, since their presence sometimes interfered, unintentionally, 

with the Rangers carrying out their duties. There were, for example, the 

curious children, groups of whom seemed to be everywhere. Early on, 

Haight’s men decided it prudent to keep the kids following them around at 

arm’s length. The same approach, however, could not be taken with the town’s 

adults. Their cooperation was essential, yet, they could be the source of too 

much information or conflicting reports. They could also be overzealous in 

showing their appreciation for what the Rangers were doing, as when they 

would organize one social event after another, prompting Haight to warn his 

men about the consequences of fraternization. Some residents were not so 

friendly, and on two occasions, members of the platoon came under sniper 

fire. In response, the lieutenant told the mayor that, if another such incident 

20 The account that follows and the quotes in this and the next three paragraphs are from 

Presentation, Capt David Haight, author’s History of Modern Warfare course, n.d. [early to 

mid-1990s], U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

417

occurred, the Rangers would seize the building from which the fire emanated 

and kill everyone in it. The threat was a bluff, of course; moral and legal 

considerations alone precluded such a response, as did the postconflict rules 

of engagement. Not that the full range of circumstances under which deadly 

force might be used was all that cut and dried. According to Haight, elements 

from the battalion’s Company C, also located in the town, opened fire on 

drunk drivers on four different occasions, killing three of the four inebriates. 

Over the course of three weeks, U.S. military policemen, civil affairs 

officers, and psychological operations personnel augmented the ranger force 

and stayed behind when Haight’s platoon pulled out of the town in mid-January 

prior to redeploying to the United States. The unit, in its leader’s opinion, had 

accomplished its mission. The mayor’s authority had been bolstered, and law 

and order had been restored. But getting those results had not been easy for 

the rangers. While Haight acknowledged that over time a series of prolonged 

stabilization missions of the sort he had been given for the town in Panama 

could lessen his rangers’ combat skills, he also asserted that the Army would 

have served his men better by forgoing at least “a few iterations of assault 

training” in favor of instruction covering the civil-military-type tasks his 

platoon had been called on to perform. 

From one side of the canal area to the other, thousands of U.S. soldiers 

and marines in the field shared Haight’s sentiment as they began conducting 

a variety of on-order and follow-on missions in the wake of their combat 

achievements. In the days and weeks after 20 December, most of these troops 

would engage in some form of stability operations, with the details of each unit’s 

experience depending on time, place, and circumstances. Diversity prevailed. 

For example, to help secure and stabilize a location, some units, like Haight’s, 

had to be transported far from where they had engaged the enemy with armed 

force. Other units, such as those in Colonel Snell’s Task Force Bayonet, simply 

moved outward from their assault targets into adjoining neighborhoods, partly 

in search of fleeing PDF and Dignity Battalion members and partly to conduct 

patrols aimed at restoring or maintaining law and order. Some neighborhoods 

Snell’s troops entered had hardly been touched by the fighting; others had not 

been so fortunate, with burned-out El Chorrillo suffering the worst damage. 

There were also units, like the company from the 82d at Las Tinajitas, that 

did not have to leave the target area at all before encountering civilians who, 

as soon as the shooting stopped, began beseeching the soldiers to provide 

food and medical treatment, restore electrical power, and perform additional 

“unfamiliar tasks” until the newly established Endara administration could 

begin running the country effectively.21

21 Interv, Capt John Hollins with Lt Col Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 1990, 

Fort Clayton, Panama. Quote from CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned,

vol. 2, 1990, p. 23. Concerning the elements of the 82d Airborne Division, in General Cisneros’ 

opinion they did not move into Panama City quickly enough to help restore law and order to 

the areas hit by looting and criminal activity. He cited their unfamiliarity with the area, rather 

than any pressing civil-military operations at Las Tinajitas or Panama Viejo, as the reason for 

their slow response. Interv, author with Maj Gen Marc A. Cisneros, U.S. Army, 29 Jun 1990, 

Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

418

If the distance one had to travel before beginning civil-military operations 

varied from unit to unit, so, too, did the time spent at a given location once the 

troops arrived. While Haight’s platoon stayed three weeks in the town assigned 

to it, in other cases units received orders to secure an area for just a matter of 

hours or for a day or two before moving on. During the first several days into 

the invasion, the frequency of unit relocations was based in part on quickly 

changing circumstances, with troops being transferred here and there as real 

or potential security threats became apparent. In these instances, there was 

often little time to become acquainted with the local population or to acquire 

the level of information and expertise needed to perform the prescribed duties. 

Complicating matters further, the tasks themselves changed—or at least the 

emphasis they received did—as, over a period of days and weeks, nation 

building became the priority mission, even though concerns over maintaining 

security persisted. As Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Kinzer of the 82d Airborne Division 

observed, “The search and clear combat piece vis-à-vis the nation assistance 

piece began to disconnect. Fewer and fewer combat-type operations were 

planned and executed, and we got more into nation assistance—those kinds of 

programs that were conducive to assisting in restructuring or reconstructing 

the new government.”22 At the tactical level, the impact of this shift could 

be disruptive. Combat troops, for instance, who had just begun to develop a 

degree of proficiency in screening traffic at the checkpoint they manned could 

find themselves discarding those newly acquired policing skills overnight 

in order to learn the ins and outs of running a successful food distribution 

program. 

As civil-military operations continued throughout late December and 

into January, the frequent movement of troop units from one location to 

another often deposited forces from vastly different organizations next to one 

another without sufficient coordination in advance (a common occurrence 

during combat operations as well). The risks of friendly fire inherent in such 

placements, especially if communications between adjacent units had not 

been well established and if variations in operating procedures between them 

had not been clearly identified, could be high. An incident on 23 December 

brought home this point. A hastily drawn boundary line in Colón separated 

a company of the 82d Airborne Division from elements of the 7th Infantry 

Division. On the night in question, one of the airborne company’s security 

patrols came under fire from light fighters engaged in a similar activity. No one 

was hurt, and, afterward, the paratroopers “raised hell about it,” receiving the 

explanation, “Well, we saw you had weapons, so we figured you were enemy.” 

Officers from both headquarters worked to prevent a repetition of the incident, 

concluding in the process that the “importance of fire control and friendly 

boundaries can’t be understated.”23

22 Interv, Dolores De Mena with Brig Gen Joseph W. Kinzer, U.S. Army, 20 Apr 1992, Fort 

Clayton, Panama. At the time of Operation Just Cause, Kinzer was the 82d’s assistant division 

commander for operations. He returned to Panama in February 1990 as U.S. Army, South’s 

deputy commanding general. 23 Quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 109. Interv, author with Lt Col Johnny 

Brooks, U.S. Army, 11 May 1993, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

419

By early January 1990, the movement of troop units conducting stability 

and nation-building operations, especially into Panama City, began to reflect 

the redeployment schedules of the stateside forces who had taken part in the 

invasion. The Rangers were the first to leave—the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger 

Regiment—on 3 January, the 2d Battalion a week later. As the 2d Battalion 

redeployed to Fort Lewis, units from the 82d Airborne Division began their 

return to Fort Bragg. Before they moved out, they were relieved from their 

positions in and around Panama City by the two brigades of the 7th Infantry 

Division located on the Pacific side of the country. For a week, until the 7th’s 

1st Brigade redeployed to Fort Ord on 17 January, the two headquarters 

shared responsibility for securing and stabilizing most of the capital. The 2d 

Brigade remained in Panama until 6 February, where it “expanded operations 

to the east toward the Colombian border . . . to show a strong U.S. presence, 

support for the new Panamanian government, and neutralize any remaining 

PDF elements.” With its departure and, on 3 February, that of the division’s 3d 

Brigade, which had constituted the core of Task Force Atlantic, the principal 

stateside combat units had returned to their home bases, leaving the U.S. 

conventional and Special Operations Forces stationed in Panama to follow 

through with ongoing stability and nation-building activities.24

While the elements of time, place, and circumstance made the conduct 

of civil-military operations a unique experience for each combat unit during 

Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty, there were, in a broader 

context, certain themes and patterns that emerged. By 21 December 1989, 

D plus 1, almost all units had become deeply involved in performing basic 

security and law and order tasks that required continuous patrolling, search 

and clear operations, and the manning of roadblocks and other checkpoints. 

On Saturday, 23 December, General Thurman issued his priorities for U.S. 

military activities in Panama, the first being to establish stability in the cities. 

By then, many U.S. troops had already spent three days, in the words of 

one company executive officer, “maintaining the peace, searching out PDF 

and Dignity Battalion members, arresting drunkards, stopping looters, 

and settling domestic disputes.” Another officer included among his list of 

immediate concerns the need to “resolve hostage situations; capture weapons 

and munitions caches; secure US and Panamanian facilities.” And there were 

more. Besides security issues, Thurman’s priorities also encompassed a variety 

of essential services that had to be restored in Panama—“removal of debris, 

reopening of schools and businesses, distribution of food, establishment of 

a magistrate system, establishment of combined patrols (US Army Military 

Police and reorganized Panamanian police forces), and restoration of public 

utilities.” These reflected the shift to nation assistance activities to which Kinzer 

later referred. Prior to their redeployment to the United States, paratroopers, 

Rangers, and light fighters were not exempt from these longer-term restoration 

projects, even though most of the stateside units would not have the capabilities 

24 Dates for the redeployment of U.S.-based troops and quote are from CALL Bull 90–9, 

Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 1, pp. 6–13. On the 82d’s turnover of its area of operations in Panama City to elements of the 7th Infantry Division (Light), see Interv, De Mena 

with Kinzer, 20 Apr 1992.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

420

or resources to become involved in more than one or two such large-scale and 

time-consuming enterprises.25

But whether engaged in on-going security operations or highly specialized 

restoration programs, almost all U.S. troops shared one common experience: 

daily contact with the Panamanian people, some operating in an official 

capacity, but most just wanting to show their appreciation for the service the 

Americans had rendered in ridding the country of its dictatorial regime. On 

both sides of the isthmus, the scene was similar. As the Americans entered 

a town or village, the locals would turn out cheering and waving U.S. and 

Panamanian flags. More than a few soldiers and marines recalled accounts of 

World War II, when their predecessors in western Europe and certain areas 

of the Pacific had been greeted as liberators by crowds behaving in the same 

jubilant way. Over forty years later in Panama, the assemblages may have 

been smaller, but the story was the same. For days, perhaps weeks, after a 

unit arrived at its assigned location, it would experience a near-continuous 

outpouring of goodwill manifested in handshakes and pats on the shoulder, 

deliveries of homemade food, offers of beverages of all sorts, invitations to 

parties, and groups of curious and grateful people just trying to be helpful.

The troops appreciated the show of gratitude, but, as Haight had discovered, 

too much of a good thing could at times be a nuisance, as when groups of 

people inadvertently obstructed a routine patrol or when U.S. officers had 

to spend time discouraging fraternization between their young soldiers and 

the friendly Panamanian women in their midst. There was, of course, a host 

of much more serious problems. At least two officers in different locations 

recounted how children playing with toy guns jumped from hiding places to 

shoot at passing U.S. soldiers. The discipline of the kids’ targets prevented 

a tragic outcome in each case, but, with split-second decisions being made, 

the results could easily have been otherwise, especially in an environment that 

still harbored a variety of dangers. Despite the overwhelming support the 

Americans enjoyed from the Panamanian people, there remained enemies at 

large with real weapons waiting for a chance to do harm to those who had 

vanquished them. The violence unleashed by Just Cause, U.S. troops had 

to constantly remind themselves, was not necessarily over. True, no other 

units would find themselves in the kind of firefight that engulfed Task Force 

Wildcat at the DNTT on 22 December. But for an extended time that lasted 

well after D-day, sniper fire, drive-by shootings, and attempted ambushes were 

almost routine occurrences. There was also speculation that remnants of the 

Panamanian military and Dignity Battalions were planning some form of 

resistance, a “Black Christmas” counterattack, as some rumors phrased it.26

The attack never came, but a serious incident did occur shortly before the 

holiday that brought home the dangers still facing U.S. forces. On 23 December, 

paratroopers of Company D, 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry, at Madden Dam 

stopped a vehicle with five Panamanians inside. Seeing a tear gas grenade on 

the front seat, the Americans ordered the men out of the vehicle and began 

25 Author’s notes, n.d. First quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 95. Second quote 

from Bloechl, “Operation ‘Just Cause,’” p. 23. Last quote from JTF-South AAR, summary section, p. 8. 26 Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

421

searching them. At that point, one of the suspects lobbed a grenade at his 

tormentors. Nine paratroopers were wounded. The reaction was immediate. 

“All hell broke loose,” according to one account. “After the shooting stopped, . . . 

all the vehicle’s occupants were presumed dead.” When one moved, however, 

a noncommissioned officer opened fire and killed him. The psychological 

carryover of the incident may have contributed to the shooting later that night 

of a Panamanian driver as he tried to flee a U.S. checkpoint at the dam. Reports 

of what happened varied, but one battalion commander in nearby Colón 

concluded that the paratroopers had probably overreacted to an innocent 

civilian just trying to get out of harm’s way.27

All of this served as a caution to the troops not to let down their guard 

as they went about their daily duties. Here, again, the locals tried to help 

out, be it in leading the troops to caches of arms or in revealing the hiding 

places of PDF and Dignity Battalion members still on the loose. And 

until Christmas Eve, when Noriega sought refuge in the nunciature, there 

was no shortage of information concerning his whereabouts as well. In 

the words of battalion commander Lt. Col. Billy Ray Fitzgerald of Task 

Force Black Devil, “Everybody was reporting that [Noriega] was in their 

basement.” One of Fitzgerald’s counterparts on the Atlantic side, Lt. Col. 

Johnny Brooks, echoed that sentiment: “Everybody knew where Noriega 

was. They all wanted to get their million dollars.” In defense of those 

offering such information, Fitzgerald maintained that he did not “think 

the Panamanians were trying to misrepresent the truth. I think that they 

27 Quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 103–04. Operations Log Extract, in After 

Action Review, Operation Just Cause, 3d Bn (Abn), 504th Inf, n.d.; Interv, author with Brooks, 

11 May 1993.

Panamanians providing information to U.S. troops
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

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were just so pleased with US forces that they wanted to do something. And 

if they thought they had some tip that might head us in the right direction, 

they wanted to give it to us. So the main problem we had with intelligence 

was the abundance of inaccurate intel.”28

Fitzgerald and others could have made the more comprehensive point 

that troops in the field simply had too much information to process, be it 

accurate or inaccurate, and not just from the people they encountered on 

the streets but from higher headquarters as well. At H-hour, psychological 

operations specialists in Panama activated a radio station. At the same time, 

Special Operations Forces neutralized the PDF-managed national television 

station, thus clearing the way for personnel aboard Volant Solo aircraft from 

the 1st Special Operations Group to begin making broadcasts over that 

channel directly to the Panamanian people. (Despite plans to the contrary, the 

Southern Command’s own radio and television stations remained off-limits 

for PSYOP use; instead, they confined themselves strictly to English-language 

broadcasts aimed at American citizens in Panama.) In the days that followed, 

elements from the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion and, soon thereafter, 

its parent 4th Psychological Operations Group churned out an assortment 

of posters and leaflets to supplement radio and television announcements 

in which Panamanians were encouraged to provide American forces with 

specific information concerning weapons caches and fugitives, two items listed 

in almost every U.S. unit’s priority intelligence requirement at the time. The 

telephone numbers of key U.S. staff directorates usually accompanied the 

broadcasts and printed material. In the first day or two of Operation Just

Cause, the handful of officers and employees who could make it to their offices 

were quickly overwhelmed by ringing phones, not that the capability to handle 

the enormous body of incoming information improved much when a near 

full workforce returned over the succeeding days. What intelligence could be 

processed at this level frequently found its way to units in the field, but there 

it only deepened the avalanche of information under which the troops were 

already being smothered.29

In the beginning, as seemingly critical information poured in, units tried 

to react to every tip they received concerning weapons locations and enemy 

personnel, but that approach soon became impossible for many commanders 

and staff. In the words of Task Force Wildcat’s Colonel Huff, “We could not 

respond to them fast enough. . . . We didn’t have enough MI people, Spanish 

speaking/reading MI people.” Fitzgerald made a similar point, stating that 

he soon decided that his men would not act on a tip “unless we got some 

hard intel from some credible source.” In an early assessment of intelligence 

problems affecting Just Cause, the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, concluded that in light of “the amount of reports 

generated by the local populace, maneuver elements found that they were 

28 First and third quotes from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Second quote 

from Interv, author with Brooks, 11 May 1993. 29 Directorate of Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs, J–9, Psychological Operations 

in Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty (MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.: 

U.S. Special Operations Command, March 1994); Encl 8 (Psychological Operations), to JTFSouth AAR, p. 3. 
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

423

quickly overwhelmed by battlefield reporting. From D to D + 10, battlefield 

reports were so numerous that most units were only able to look at each 

report once. At times, this led to improper evaluations and prioritization of 

information which may have delayed operations and/or presented a skewed 

view of the battlefield.” There was another problem as well. In trying to 

determine the accuracy of information and the credibility of its source, U.S. 

troops on both sides of the country quickly learned that much of the poor or 

inaccurate information they received originated not just from honest mistakes 

by well-intentioned people, but also from deliberate attempts to deceive the 

Americans. Supporters of the Noriega regime, for example, might lie about the 

location of an arms cache in order to lure a small U.S. unit into an alley or house 

where it could be ambushed. More often, though, a Panamanian engaged in a 

personal feud or vendetta with a neighbor would denounce the man as a PDF 

or Dignity Battalion member in order to have him arrested and sent off to the 

enemy prisoner-of-war camp. As this tactic became increasingly apparent to 

the Americans, the concern, according to Fitzgerald, “was for us not to turn 

into some vigilante organization or some resource that a neighbor could use 

to get back at another neighbor.” No one ever developed a guaranteed method 

for separating accurate from inaccurate information. Field commanders could 

urge their troops to “ask those lead-in questions that often showed that the 

source didn’t know what they were talking about,” although, in some cases, 

that fact became obvious without resort to an informal interrogation. In other 

cases, a corroborating piece of information often bolstered the credibility of 

the original source, making a quick U.S. response more likely.30

In the event a small-unit leader or company commander believed his 

troops had legitimate intelligence that required action by other units in the 

area or by higher headquarters, the information went first to a battalion 

intelligence staff officer, or S–2, for logging, cataloging, and prioritization, 

and then to brigade for dissemination laterally or up the chain of command. 

At the highest levels, Huff reflected, “we couldn’t get it processed by the MI 

people.” “It was tough getting anything out of 470th MI [Brigade],” he cited 

as an example, “because they were directed at other priorities.” These included 

“going through the Comandancia, the G–2 offices, even the DNTT and DENI 

offices that we’d taken. And Buildings 9 and 8 at Amador became sources/

storehouses of loads of intelligence, which they were trying to sift through.” 

Colonel Hale, 7th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade commander, went further 

than Huff in critiquing the value of the information processed and intelligence 

generated by higher headquarters in Panama. “Intelligence was most effective 

from the bottom up. It was lousy from the top down,” he maintained, rating 

the latter as only 5 to 6 percent accurate. Exacerbating the problem was the 

“broken” system that often put pressure on him to ignore valuable information 

he was receiving from one of his battalions in order to respond “to the things 

that came from above which were, in effect, dramatically less likely to produce 

results.” Citing one example of how bits of information from above could be 

30 First quote from Interv, Hollins with Col William H. Huff III, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 1990. 

Second, fourth, and last quotes from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Third quote 

from CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 5. Haight Presentation; 

Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 95.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

424

“more of a nuisance and more of a distraction in mission performance than 

they were assistive,” Hale recalled how higher headquarters would use six- to 

eight-digit grid coordinates in reporting to him the location of a fugitive. On 

urban terrain, such coordinates often proved useless in that the designated 

area could contain several structures or, worse, an apartment building housing 

over two hundred people. Precise addresses, not map coordinates, were what 

he needed.31

The poor communication that sometimes existed among the Southern 

Command, JTF-South, and other key headquarters located in the Panama 

City area and the units in the field had an adverse effect on more than the 

assessment and dissemination of intelligence requirements. Other priorities 

suffered as well, at least initially, as was the case with the money-for-weapons 

program. The precise date for the formal beginning of the program has 

been recorded variously as 20 December, 21 December, 24 December, and 

27 December—the discrepancies themselves serving as an indication that a 

communication problem existed. What seems clear in retrospect is that when 

the newly installed Panamanian president, Guillermo Endara, addressed his 

people over the PSYOP-operated radio station on the twentieth, he included 

in his remarks a promise that anyone turning in a weapon to U.S. troops would 

receive American dollars in return. In fact, no money-for-weapons program 

existed in the field at that time, one reason being that half of the equation 

was missing—the money. Furthermore, no one stationed in Panama had any 

experience setting up such a program. Once Thurman blessed the endeavor, 

the job of finding the cash and establishing appropriate procedures fell to 

Col. William Connolly, U.S. Army, South’s deputy chief of staff for resource 

management, and his people. Connolly, whom the general had already graced 

with last-minute responsibility for running the refugee camp that had sprung 

up overnight in the Balboa area, threw himself into his new assignment, 

agreeing to set up a contingency fund to support the proposed purchases. 

The first step, he quickly determined, obliged him “to get guidance on how 

to legally proceed with the expenditure of funds for this.” A series of hastily 

arranged telephone conversations with people in the U.S. Army Finance and 

Accounting Center and in Army Budget gave him the initial funding he sought, 

$150,000, together with a promise of more money if needed and advice on 

how to make the process for spending it legally accountable. On the twentyfirst, Connolly’s office took the next step and “issued payment procedures for 

the weapons program.”32

31 Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Huff quotes from Interv, Hollins with Huff, 

20 Jun 1990. Hale quotes from Video Interv, Army–Air Force Center for Low Intensity Conflict 

(CLIC) with Col David R. E. Hale, U.S. Army, 1990. Related to a point made by Hale, the 

Center for Army Lessons Learned, in addressing the issue of processing prisoners, declared that 

an area requiring specific attention was “the use of six digit grid coordinates instead of street 

names.” The ambiguity of the sentence, unfortunately, left doubts as to which method was preferred or the level of command to which the statement referred. CALL Bull 90–9, Operation 

Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 4. 32 Psychological Operations in Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty.

First and second quotes from Interv, Dolores De Mena with Col William J. Connolly, 20 Feb 

1991, Fort Clayton, Panama. Last quote from Encl 9 (Special Staff), to JTF-South AAR, p. 5.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

425

All this was taking place while combat units were still winding down 

their operations against enemy forces. Some commanders did not receive 

word about money for weapons until well after the local population had 

been so informed. Where this was the case, any Panamanian advancing 

toward a U.S. troop position carrying a weapon he wanted to turn in for 

money risked being shot. As word about the program gradually trickled 

down to the units, many did not have the resources on hand—cash, forms, 

and legally authorized personnel for handling both—or the experience to 

run such an undertaking. Given these shortcomings, some commanders 

welcomed the memorandum they received on the subject that did not commit 

them to a specific date for starting the program in their area of operations 

but advised them only to begin it “as soon as possible.” Yet any delay risked 

exacerbating existing difficulties. When troop units lacked the cash and 

forms needed to complete a transaction, soldiers sometimes closed a deal 

by signing makeshift IOUs—pieces of paper that were easily duplicated by 

recipients who sought a maximum return on their contribution. Also, unless 

both U.S. troops and Panamanian civilians were acquainted with accepted 

procedures for how to carry a weapon when presenting it at a check-in 

point, the potential for a lethal encounter remained. To minimize this 

possibility, the psychological operations people arriving in Panama began 

producing flyers that identified the prescribed series of steps, together with 

cautions, in printed and illustrated form. The flyers—often accompanied 

by loudspeaker broadcasts—provided other useful information, such as 

the location of turn-in points and, once U.S. authorities had agreed on 

a scale of payments, the price each surrendered weapon would fetch. The 

initial absence of such a uniform and equitable pricing system created its 

own problems. A Panamanian citizen, most likely a former PDF or Dignity 

Battalion member, might pull up to a turn-in point with a pickup truck full 

of AK47s. Expecting to be paid a generous price for each rifle, he would 

more than likely have to settle for a much reduced lump sum. (A rumor 

concerning a related issue held that one Panamanian wanted to turn in an 

armored personnel carrier for $2,500; Colonel Snell intervened with a takeit-or-leave-it offer of $150. The man took it.) Once a pricing system was 

in place, however, it often had an unforeseen consequence of its own: the 

number of reports U.S. units had been receiving on the location of arms 

caches dropped precipitously as informers realized more money could be 

made if they themselves turned in the stockpiled weapons.33

If the starting date for the money-for-weapons program is not certain, 

the date on which it ended is—8 January 1990. U.S. forces accepted almost 

nine thousand weapons—although the antiquated condition of some 

invited the sarcastic phrase, “money for muskets”—at a price of nearly 

$811,000. Lessons learned afterward abounded, including reminders that 

such a program put strains on a force’s transportation assets, which would 

33 Psychological Operations in Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty. 

Quote from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 11–12. McConnell, Just Cause, pp. 267–68; CALL 

Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 9. For the armored personnel carrier story, see Herbert A. Friedman, U.S. PSYOP in Panama (Operation Just Cause), n.d., http://

www.psywarrior.com/PanamaHerb.html.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

426

have to take the purchased weapons somewhere; and required the presence 

of authorized people and forms to ensure “that valuable data, such as 

serial number tracking and weapon location, will not be lost for future 

analysis.” Despite the problems that plagued money for guns, especially in 

its first several days, the U.S. military viewed it as a success, contributing 

to the total of 61,000 Panamanian weapons captured or bought during the 

The front and back of a money-for-weapons flyer
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

427

invasion. Also, in some locations, military intelligence officers benefited 

from setting up shop near a money-for-guns pay table in order to interview 

people who had just received their cash and were presumably in a good 

and, ideally, loquacious mood.34

Preinvasion discussions concerning money for weapons did not receive a 

high priority—if any at all—within planning staffs and troop units earmarked 

for combat. Thus, the early confusion, risks, and problems associated with 

the program were to some degree understandable, given its sudden and 

fitful beginnings, the lack of effective coordination surrounding it, and the 

unavoidable learn-while-you-earn approach to its procedures. Less explicable 

were the glitches associated with another program that also required careful 

preparation, expertise, and close communication and coordination—the 

detainment of enemy prisoners of war and other captured fugitives. This issue 

had been addressed in detail during preinvasion planning and preparation 

sessions, with those involved determining the locations of prisoner collecting 

points and camps and the procedures for handling the detainees. As for the 

tactical units who would actually be gathering up the enemy, part of their drill 

on the eve of Just Cause was to sit through briefings on how their captives 

were to be treated. Yet, despite all this preparation, difficulties arose. 

During combat and mopping-up operations on 20 December, Panamanian 

defenders surrendered to U.S. troops in significant numbers. As news footage 

would confirm, almost all of the prisoners were treated well from the time they 

were flex-cuffed (although some U.S. units apparently ran out of the restraining 

device), placed on trucks for their ride to the collection points (despite crowds 

in some locations trying to pull them off the trucks), and incarcerated in a 

prisoner-of-war camp. The main facility for most enemy personnel was set 

up at the Empire Range across the canal from Fort Clayton, while a separate 

detention center at Clayton was used for high-profile political and military 

prisoners. Visits to the Empire Range camp by Red Cross officials and other 

humanitarian observers confirmed that the prisoners were being properly fed 

and cared for. 

The initial problem, then, stemmed not from the treatment of the 

prisoners but from the failure of some tactical forces to find time in the midst 

of engaging the enemy to process the captives properly. A shortage of Spanishspeaking troops in some units did not help. Thus, too many prisoners were 

arriving at the collection points and camps without the tags, printed prior to 

Just Cause, providing such key information as a person’s full name (which in 

Spanish includes the mother’s surname after the father’s) and the location and 

circumstances of that person’s capture. Of those prisoners who did have tags, 

the information on them had often been filled out incorrectly. The situation 

34 The figures are from Briefing Slides, U.S. Southern Command, Operation Just Cause: 

“Rebirth of a Nation,” n.d. The author received a set of the slides from Lt. Col. James Willbanks 

in June 1990. Quote from CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 

9. Intervs, Robert K. Wright Jr. with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf 

Bde, 5 Jan 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; Wright with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 

27 Mar and 11 Jun 1990, Fort Bragg, N.C. Wright is the source for the “money for muskets” 

reference, a variation he picked up in the course of interviews he conducted after Operation 

Just Cause.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

428

did not improve once the prisoners reached the Empire Range. The military 

police company in command of the camp itself did not have the capability to 

process the arrivals and had to rely on the 92d Personnel Service Company at 

Fort Clayton “to assume the administrative portion of the EPW mission.” But 

even the 92d did not have all the supplies it needed to do the full fourteen-step 

processing procedure, so it cut the process to eight steps. The ramifications of 

all this incomplete, inaccurate, and delayed paperwork were felt immediately, 

as U.S. authorities found it difficult to identify and free the hundreds of 

prisoners who, in only a matter of days, would be needed to fill the ranks of 

any new organization being stood up to replace the Panama Defense Forces.35

Once a combat unit had dispatched its earliest and generally largest group 

of prisoners to a collection point, sometimes without escort, the troops still 

had to round up individual and small groups of PDF and Dignity Battalion 

members who remained at large. To assist in the search and to facilitate the 

extraction of better, more reliable information from the Panamanian people, 

counterintelligence and interrogator teams from the 29th Military Intelligence 

Battalion made their in-country expertise available to units in the field, while, 

back at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton, military intelligence and other 

officers developed “black-gray-white” (hostile-questionable-friendly) and 

most-wanted lists containing the names of high-profile targets. As the lists 

35 On the handling of Panamanian forces who surrendered during the first day or two of 

Just Cause, see CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 4. Quote 

from Encl 2 (Personnel), to JTF-South AAR, p. 3, and see also Encl 3 (Intelligence), p. 1. 

Intervs, De Mena with Col Larry L. Raab, U.S. Army, 29 Apr 1991, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Hollins with Huff, 20 Jun 1990. Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990. The CALL Bulletin, p. 10, 

mentions that counterintelligence and interrogator teams from the 29th Military Intelligence 

Battalion “relied on their in-country expertise in conducting mission area analysis and screening 

of EPW/displaced persons.”

The detainee camp at the Empire Range
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

429

made their way down to the tactical level, so, too, did wanted posters cranked 

out by PSYOP personnel. Many of the posters displayed a photograph of 

the fugitive to augment the written physical description and summary of 

his misdeeds. As a result of these efforts, the trickle of prisoners continued 

unabated for days after combat operations had wound down.36

As U.S. troops pursued fleeing Panamanian hostiles and sought their 

hiding places in the neighborhoods and built-up areas near the battle zones, 

talks were already under way in Panama City to determine the kind of 

organization that would replace the Panama Defense Forces and who would 

qualify for membership in it. The country’s newly sworn-in governing officials 

discussed the issue with a host of American military and civilian authorities, 

including Thurman, Cisneros, Gann, Colonel Cornell, and U.S. Chargé 

d’Affaires Bushnell. All agreed on one point: the need for a decision was 

urgent.37 What had become crystal clear to Lieutenant Haight and the other 

U.S. service personnel conducting patrols in Panamanian cities and towns was 

not lost upon these senior officials: for the moment, American troops were the 

principal force responsible for law and order and, to a slightly lesser degree, 

public services from one side of the canal area to the other. With parts of 

the capital city destroyed and looted, with criminals and pro-Noriega forces 

armed and running loose in several urban areas, and with seemingly everything 

from traffic lights and power plants to grocery stores and the judicial system 

barely functioning if at all, President Endara, his two vice presidents, and the 

ministers they had begun appointing to office had to offer more than pledges 

to lead their country into a new and better era. They had to demonstrate that 

they were indeed in charge and capable of making democracy in Panama 

work. At stake was nothing less than the legitimacy and credibility of their 

government.

As one who would help execute any decisions coming out of the high-level 

talks, Colonel Fishel in the SOUTHCOM J–5 recalled that, for both the United 

States and Panama, “the objective was to establish a first-rate, professional 

police force capable of implementing an effective system of law enforcement 

as rapidly as possible.” Fishel could easily have emphasized the word police, 

in that a consensus was reached early on among the conferees that the PDF’s 

successor would not be a military organization. According to one account, the 

three top Panamanian leaders regarded their country’s “situation as analogous 

to that of Costa Rica. A standing army was not necessary,” although the new 

security force might require a small paramilitary capability. Furthermore, “to 

build democracy, it was essential to expunge all vestiges of praetorian rule.” 

With that difficult decision made, the key question shifted to who would 

constitute the new police force. Two options presented themselves. The first 

entailed starting from scratch by recruiting members who had not served in 

the Panama Defense Forces. The psychological and utilitarian value of this 

approach required little elaboration. New recruits would not be tainted by the 

corruption and other abuses of power that had so contaminated many of their 

36 CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned, vol. 3, p. 10; Bloechl, 

“Operation ‘Just Cause,’” p. 33; Psychological Operations in Panama During Operations Just 

Cause and Promote Liberty. 37 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 33, 36.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

430

predecessors. With proper training they could be molded into a professional, 

if initially inexperienced force that, from the outset, would earn the respect 

of the people they would be sworn to help and protect. Yet, if those aspects 

of the proposal seemed promising, there were drawbacks. To begin with, the 

recruiting and training process could take a year or two, during which time U.S. 

troops would have to police the country as an occupying force. Cisneros, who 

took part in the talks, held that in “the euphoria of the first month, I know it 

would have been acceptable to most Panamanians because they supported us 

and the vast majority of the people still support our presence and operations 

here. But sooner or later Panamanian nationalism is going [to] resurface.” 

Cisneros usually talked about a “honeymoon period” for U.S. forces of about 

a hundred days. Fishel agreed. After that time, he surmised, a continuation of 

the American occupation pending the emergence of an effective police force 

would likely result in such a negative reaction that the political fallout for 

Endara “would have measurably degraded the new government’s international 

legitimacy.”38

The second option was to fill the new force with individuals who had served 

in the now defunct PDF. Since they were already trained and experienced, they 

could be on the streets in short order—for the first recruits, in just a matter 

of days. The pitfalls to this approach, as with the first, were also obvious and 

numerous. Some retraining would be essential, mainly to break the corrupt 

and criminal habits many of the prospective recruits had acquired in their 

old positions. There was another psychological barrier that had to be broken 

down as well. Most of the recruits would be coming from military units where 

they had learned to disparage policemen as second-rate functionaries, while 

glorifying the machismo of the true soldier. Would these erstwhile warriors 

accept shotguns and .38-caliber revolvers in place of the AK47s and .9-mm. 

semiautomatic pistols to which their military status had entitled them? How 

would they adapt to such tasks as handing out traffic tickets and calming 

domestic disputes? Would they be willing to place themselves under civilian 

control and to swear allegiance to the new government? Few discussing 

these issues believed the transformation to an enlightened force would be 

immediate, and that reality raised another, even more critical issue. How 

would the Panamanian people react to news that the same individuals who 

had so recently tormented and brutalized them were back on the streets with 

the blessing of both Panama’s new government and the United States?

After careful reflection and further consultations with U.S. officials, 

Endara, Arias Calderón, and Ford decided in favor of the second option, 

describing their approach as “evolutionary” instead of “revolutionary” and 

as one they firmly believed would work, despite its drawbacks. Cisneros later 

remarked, “There were a lot of salvageable people within the PDF.” That 

38 First and last quotes from Fishel and Downie, “Taking Responsibility for Our Actions?” 

pp. 66–67. Fourth quote from Interv, De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. Second and third quotes from Richard H. Shultz Jr., In the Aftermath of War: US 

Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following JUST CAUSE (Maxwell 

Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1993), p. 45. What follows on standing up the police 

force is taken largely from the Fishel and Downie article. During a trip to Panama in January 

1990, the author heard General Cisneros refer to the 100-day honeymoon on several occasions.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

431

many members had been highly dissatisfied with the Noriega regime, some 

to the point of voting against it in the May elections, was well known. As for 

the issue of corruption, it was an institutional affliction that some members 

managed to avoid while others, given peer pressure, “went along to get along,” 

but perhaps only in a small way. A key, then, to making the new force work was 

to vet the former PDF members thoroughly. Logic suggested that the officers 

who had tried and failed to overthrow Noriega in March 1988 and October 

1989 were prospective leaders. Just Cause had rescued from prison those who 

had survived the attempts, and, before the end of the week, they were brought 

en masse to Fort Clayton for discussions concerning their future in the new 

organization. 

As for that organization’s rank and file, ideally they would have clean or 

nearly clean records, although determining who had not been corrupt and who 

had not committed criminal acts—or who had been involved in both but to a 

tolerable degree—in an organization in which such behavior had been endemic 

would not be easy. Nevertheless, given the pressure to get policemen on duty 

as soon as possible, the initial vetting would be a hasty process, rationalized in 

part by the fallback position that, if further investigation revealed that a new 

policeman had grossly abused his authority under Noriega, the person could be 

removed from the force once that information had been verified. The screening 

got under way within the first week of Just Cause. So, too, did efforts to make 

the new force palatable to Panamanians. The people would have to be won over 

through a persuasive public relations campaign and, once the police turned up 

in their neighborhoods, by the behavior of the cops themselves. Citizens would 

have to be convinced that the uniformed men they had formerly despised were 

now deserving of their trust and, ultimately, their respect.39 

With a decision made on the composition of the successor organization 

to the Panama Defense Forces, the Endara government and the Southern 

Command announced over television and radio that recruiting would begin 

Friday, 22 December, at the Ancon DNTT.40 Given this short notice, the 

several hundred people who showed up were mainly PDF members who either 

had not reported for duty on the twentieth or had eluded the efforts of U.S. 

troops to capture them during and after the fighting. Despite the shootout that 

disrupted the proceedings, the recruitment program was under way. Meanwhile, 

the initial screening process, in Cisneros’ words, sought to get “rid of many 

majors, lieutenant colonels and all the colonels—cleared them out as much as 

possible.” (One source claimed that the vetting “eliminated all the colonels, 83 

percent of the lieutenant colonels, and 38 percent of the majors, 31 percent of 

the captains, and 19 percent of the lieutenants.”) The opposite was the case 

with former PDF enlisted men, almost all of whom were declared suitable for 

service in the new force. The immediate problem was that many of them were 

still incarcerated at the Empire Range. Not surprisingly, the commander of the 

39 First quoted words from Interv, De Mena with Col Jack Pryor, U.S. Army, 20 May 1991, 

Fort Clayton, Panama. Cisneros quote from Interv, De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 1990. Interv, 

author with Pryor, 21 Jun 1990, Fort Amador, Panama. 40 In The Fog of Peace, p. 36, Fishel suggests that Cisneros may have influenced the decision 

to send Colonel Cornell and his entourage to the DNTT on the twenty-second, the day of the 

firefight there. See previous chapter. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

432

prisoner-of-war camp there soon found himself inundated with a stream of 

memorandums from the Southern Command’s intelligence directorate listing 

the Panamanians to be released and transported to the Ancon DNTT.41

The new police force, later named the Panama National Police (PNP), 

served under what would soon become the Panama Public Force (PPF), an 

umbrella organization for several subordinate groups—the air service and the 

maritime service, for example—that filled the vacuum created when Endara 

announced on 22 December that the Panama Defense Forces would be 

dissolved. On the recommendation of Cisneros and Cornell, the Panamanian 

president named Col. Roberto Armijo, the former PDF naval chief, to head the 

PPF, only to relieve him a few weeks later after unnamed officials, according to 

one report, “discovered his million dollar bank account.” Armijo was replaced 

by his deputy, Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassan, a twenty-year PDF veteran 

who had also served as Panama’s ambassador to Israel.42 Cisneros suggested 

that the DNTT building become the PPF headquarters and directed Colonel 

Higginbotham to set up an ad hoc advisory group there, the U.S. Forces 

Liaison Group, to help establish and work with the public force. The initial 

group was composed of the colonel and five other people. Cisneros also created 

the Judicial Liaison Group, another ad hoc organization, and he himself soon 

set up an office in the DNTT, where he worked daily with U.S. advisers (who 

would be supplemented by civil affairs personnel) and Arias Calderón. The 

Panamanian vice president, as minister of justice under Panama’s system 

of government, would be in charge of most of the new security force. His 

discussions with the general centered on ways to organize the public force and 

how best to allot power within it. (Cisneros remained at the DNTT until he 

was tapped to head negotiations at the nunciature.) 

41 Interv, Sgt Daniel C. Wagner with 2d Lt Paul H. Fredenburgh and 1st Lt Robert M. 

Mundrell, both U.S. Army, 18 Oct 1990, Fort Davis, Panama. First quote from Interv, De Mena 

with Cisneros, 12 Jun 1990. Second quote from Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, p. 47. Fishel 

and Downie, “Taking Responsibility for Our Actions?” p. 71; Memos, Brig Gen Michael M. 

Schneider, Dir of Intelligence, SOUTHCOM, for Cdr, Empire Range Detention Facility; Cdr, 

Fort Clayton Installation Detention Facility, 1, 2, 6, 12 Jan 1990, sub: Detainee Release from 

U.S. Control. The text of several memorandums included the sentence “Screening conducted by 

both US and Panamanian authorities has determined that detention of the individuals listed on 

the enclosure is no longer required.” 42 As with the PDF, the English name and acronym for the new force will be employed 

instead of the Spanish because the English usage is found in most of the documents consulted by the author. Quote from CBS Evening News, 3 Jan 1990. Fishel and Downie, “Taking 

Responsibility for Our Actions?” pp. 67–68; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 36–37. For the State 

Department plot that was ridiculed in U.S. military circles as “the Rambo option,” see Yates, 

U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989, p. 57. Colonel Herrera Hassan 

was a key figure in the State Department’s stillborn plot in 1988 to restore the presidency of 

Eric Arturo Delvalle, whose removal from office Noriega had engineered in February of that 

year. In another development affecting the new force, in May 1990, Aristides Valdonedo, the 

deputy chief of the national police, was arrested for actions he had taken between 1986 and 

1988—mainly closing down radio stations and newspapers—when he was a PDF major. That 

he had been a central conspirator in the March 1988 coup attempt against Noriega and was still 

in prison at the time of Just Cause did not spare him, although many observers believed that 

the Endara government’s action against him deprived the new police force of a capable leader. 
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

433

Other issues that demanded immediate attention included uniforms, 

weapons, supplies, vehicles, and facilities. Many of the police recruits showed 

up for work in their PDF uniforms, attire guaranteed to elicit a hostile reaction 

from Panamanians. Designing, purchasing, and awaiting receipt of new 

uniforms would take weeks, but fortuitous circumstances offered a solution 

to the problem. U.S. troops had just adopted a new uniform, with stocks of 

their old one temporarily stored in warehouses in sufficient numbers to issue 

three sets to each Panamanian policeman until a purchase request could be 

submitted for obtaining a permanent uniform. Weapons came from captured 

materiel, but not before Stiner’s people intervened with U.S. logistical units 

preparing to ship the assortment of arms they were in charge of back to the 

United States. Each recruit received a pistol to carry while on duty, although 

many of the revolvers were in poor condition and holsters were scarce. It 

would take several months and U.S. security assistance funds to purchase 

newer weapons. Meanwhile, short-term fixes also had to be found to supply the 

vehicles and radios so essential to police work. Police stations, too, required 

attention. Nearly all of them were in a natural state of disrepair, worsened by 

the damage to which they had been subjected during the fighting. They could 

function neither as offices nor jails. U.S. engineers helped with initial repairs, 

but ultimately the police themselves had to restore their own facilities.43

A year would pass before the Panama National Police would outgrow many of 

its birth pangs. In December 1989, however, the crash measures enacted largely by 

the U.S. military had succeeded in putting policemen back on the beat. Despite the 

positive rhetoric designed for public consumption, expectations did not run high 

at the beginning. Cisneros, for example, recognized that “a major effort is required 

in their retraining and re-education.” “We had to start with basics,” he continued, 

“and teach them that you just don’t take a pistol out and shoot somebody because 

he starts arguing with you.” In time, a long-term, professional training program 

for the police would be institutionalized. In the first days, however, the quick fix 

consisted of a twenty-hour course taught by U.S. reservists who were policemen 

in civilian life. Subsequent training came on the job, as Panamanian police joined 

U.S. troops in patrolling the country’s cities and towns.44

Around Christmas Eve, liaison officers from the new police force began 

showing up at the brigade, battalion, and company headquarters of American 

forces. Their arrival often came as a surprise to U.S. personnel, who in some 

43 Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 51; Intervs, author with Higginbotham, 20 Jun 1990, 

with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 36; idem, War, Peace, and Civil 

Military Operations; Fishel and Downie, “Taking Responsibility for Our Actions?” pp. 70–75. 

Concerning the dates on which the new government abolished the Panama Defense Forces and 

created the Panama Public Force, the initial moves, all are agreed, occurred within days of the 

beginning of Operation Just Cause, although Endara’s cabinet did not formally approve the 

dissolution decree until 11 February 1990 and the creation of the public force until 17 February. 

The UN Refugee Agency’s Refworld, 1 Jun 1990, gives the February dates but notes “the de 

facto existence of the [public force] very soon after the U.S. invasion.” A copy of this issue of 

Refworld can be found at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/type,QUERYRESPONSE,,PAN,3ae6

ab6a50,0.html. 44 Quotes from Interv, De Mena with Cisneros, 12 Jun 1990. Fishel and Downie, “Taking 

Responsibility for Our Actions?” p. 73, discuss the quick-fix training course.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

434

cases could barely conceal their displeasure. “I must admit to you that it was 

a very unusual situation,” Colonel Fitzgerald later commented, “that 24/36/48 

hours ago we were shooting at a guy that looked very much like this guy in a very 

similar uniform. And now, all of a sudden, he was in my Tactical Operations 

Center, and I was supposed to put full confidence in him. So that was a very 

difficult thing, but we did have that liaison, we did have that contact.” Another 

officer had the same reaction. “Do we want to walk with these guys, because we 

were shooting at them last week?” The issue was not open to debate, of course, so 

U.S. officers adjusted to the awkward situation as best they could. At some point 

early on, Panama City was divided into seven police precincts. Colonel Hale 

responded by redrawing his boundary lines so that each of his battalion’s areas 

of responsibility would coincide with a precinct. Still, the consternation among 

U.S. troops at being asked to work side by side with their recent enemy was not 

easily overcome, making the initial patrols, once more Panamanian policemen 

began arriving, tense if not outright contentious. A somewhat common sight was 

to see a Panamanian cop walking slightly in front of his armed U.S. companions, 

enabling the soldiers to keep a wary eye on him.45

Serving as something of a buffer between American combat troops 

and the new arrivals were U.S. military policemen. As Col. Larry Raab, the 

USARSO military police commander, related, “Our primary mission was to 

work with the Panamanian police at every level of their command structure 

in order to get them back on the streets of Panama as quickly as possible. 

. . . We had the vehicles, we had the weapons, we had the radios.” Without 

question, the involvement of the U.S. military police was constructive, if not 

free from criticism. As Colonel Huff crisply stated, “they do not walk.” This, 

in his opinion, was counterproductive. “You cannot glean intelligence or get 

to meet and befriend the people sitting on top [of] a HUMVEE behind an 

M-60 machine gun. It does not work.” For Colonel Hale, the problem was 

one of command and control. Hale praised the military police’s work with the 

Panamanian police in his area of operations as being “extremely helpful” but 

regarded as an unacceptable violation of the principle of unity of command 

the fact that, despite his protests, they were not under his operational control. 

“That forced me to do one of two things,” he recounted. 

Either to not pay attention to civil-military operations and to turn that over 

. . . to the Military Police Command . . ., or, the choice I chose, to de facto 

make them OPCON, to coordinate so closely with them, to be so involved 

in their operations, to demand that they give me a liaison officer full-time at 

battalion and at regimental level, to demand that they coordinate all their 

operations with me, and to demand that I know precisely what patrols they 

were conducting . . . that, in effect, I made them OPCON.46

45 Fitzgerald quote from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Other quote from 

Interv, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. 

Interv, De Mena with Raab, 29 Apr 1991. 46 Raab quote from Interv, De Mena with Raab, 29 Apr 1991. Huff quotes from Interv, 

Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Hale 

quotes from Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

435

Initially, the reappearance of Panamanian police on the streets of the 

cities and towns produced the expected hostile reaction. Panamanians were 

reluctant even to approach the new recruits, much less seek their assistance 

or reveal to them valuable information. The people clearly preferred to 

continue dealing with the Americans. By early January, though, this approach 

had softened somewhat, so that one U.S. operations officer could report that 

Panamanians “are now consciously going to the DENI with some faith that 

the new government will take care of them.” Hale could also state that the 

combined patrols in his area of operations were effectively maintaining law 

and order.47

But, despite these signs of progress, the popular distrust and American 

suspicions would not be easily dispelled. Concerning working relations with 

the recruits, Hale later echoed Cisneros (and many other observers), “I think 

the one difficulty that we had was what I would call imparting a new set of 

values to the members of the police force.” He recalled one episode in which 

the ranking Panamanian officer in his area was walking a beat with one of 

the 1st Brigade’s company commanders. The former PDF member knew 

the neighborhood well and suggested the two men have lunch in a nearby 

restaurant. Upon entering the establishment, the Panamanian told the 

proprietor, “Today, you have the pleasure of donating lunch to my American 

friend and I.” The U.S. officer quickly interrupted to inform the owner that he 

and his partner would have the pleasure of paying for the lunch, that day and 

every day thereafter. Other stories like this made the rounds, but not all of them 

had such satisfactory conclusions. There were instances, word had it, in which 

some of the new police on patrol with U.S. troops who did not speak Spanish 

actually tried shaking down Panamanian citizens in front of the Americans, 

smiling all the while and ordering the victims to do the same. The stories raised 

an obvious question: what would happen once the U.S. troops redeployed to 

the United States or, for those based in Panama, returned to their regular 

peacetime duties, which did not include the combined police patrols? As Hale 

was well aware, the patrols were designed, in part, to demonstrate the U.S. 

troops’ outward “vote of confidence” in the new police force. Many observers 

throughout the country, however, seemed more confident that, without the 

American presence, police work in Panama would quickly return to business 

as usual, as it had been under the Panama Defense Forces. In May, La Prensa, 

a Panamanian newspaper that had been shut down under Noriega in 1988, 

joined the chorus expressing this opinion, writing that one could not transform 

“military personnel humiliated by defeat into policemen that respect the laws 

and rights of citizens.” A week later, another newspaper, El Siglo, wrote that 80 

percent of the PDF’s members were now part of the new police force, adding 

that “no [PDF] member has turned into a rabbit considering they have had 21 

years of indoctrination.”48

47 Interv, Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Quote 

from Interv, Hollins with Maj John Woods, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 

Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990. 48 All quotes except for last two from Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990. While in Panama 

in January and June 1990, the author heard stories describing the ways some of the new police 

engaged in what U.S. officers considered misconduct. The translated quotes from La Prensa 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

436

These pessimistic evaluations may have worried U.S. troops based in 

Panama but had little impact on those combat units preparing to redeploy to 

the United States. Aside from their involvement in toppling Noriega, the latter 

had little stake and only a moderate interest in the long-term prognosis for the 

country they had liberated. Still, when dealing with the new police force or 

in performing the broader range of stability and nation-building operations, 

they generally welcomed the help of military personnel who had experience in 

these issues. Providing that assistance, at least in part, were small civil affairs 

teams that began showing up at various U.S. headquarters on both sides of 

the canal to lend their expertise in restoring law and order and rebuilding 

the country. Some of these specialists had arrived in Panama on D-day, as 

was the case with elements of the only active duty civil affairs unit, the 96th 

Civil Affairs Battalion based at Fort Bragg. Within the next two days, most of 

the rest of the battalion had flown in as well. Another four days would pass 

before individual civil affairs specialists from the reserves began arriving, and 

another six days after that before a civil affairs support team composed of 

five functional offices—embassy support teams, public security, public works, 

government, and humanitarian assistance—joined them. At their peak, civil 

affairs personnel on the ground would number 152 during Just Cause. Of 

these, 57 had managed to arrange 139-day temporary tours of active duty; 

another 75 volunteers came on 31-day tours.49

Regardless of when they arrived, the civil affairs specialists quickly 

discovered that there would be more to their mission than working to get the 

new government of Panama functioning; they were also to interact with tactical 

commanders in the field, particularly in providing food and medicine to the 

general population. The teams assuming these duties usually consisted of an 

officer and one or two enlisted men or noncommissioned officers. When such 

a team arrived in a town or village—usually to the great relief of the chaplains, 

S–1s, and S–5s whose superiors had “volunteered” them to take the lead in 

civil affairs duties in the absence of trained personnel—its members would 

assess the situation and suggest ways in which to start a program or to expedite 

those already under way. An existing program did not always mean an efficient 

one. Combat units that had set up food distribution points, for example, often 

confronted chaos and a lack of resources during the first days. Sometimes 

there was no food to hand out, although any nearby PDF facility might have a 

food locker that could be raided or, given the season, undistributed Christmas 

and El Siglo are from the UN Refugee Agency’s Refworld, 1 Jun 1990. Almost a year and a half 

after Just Cause, the U.S. military police commander in Panama still observed public doubts 

about the Panamanian police. “The Panamanian people continue to feel as though nobody is in 

charge and they feel unsafe,” Colonel Raab stated. “Therefore, no matter how proficient their 

police force is they will be perceived to be ineffectual.” Interv, De Mena with Raab, 29 Apr 1991. 49 Stanley Sandler, Glad to See Them Come and Sorry to See Them Go: A History of U.S. 

Army Tactical Civil Affairs Military Government, 1775–1991 (Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army 

Special Operations Command History and Archives Division, 1993), pp. 379–80, 382; Interv, 

author with a captain from the 96th Civil Affairs Bn, U.S. Army, 20 Dec 1989, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. According to the captain, thirteen members of the battalion parachuted with the 

Rangers at Torrijos-Tocumen; he and a full colonel followed soon thereafter; and another fortysix members of the battalion were scheduled to arrive later on the night of 20 December. 
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

437

baskets of food. There were also boxes of meals, ready to eat that could be 

obtained from the Americans’ own supplies. With little or no training in riot 

control, many combat units found it nearly impossible to impose order on the 

mobs of Panamanians who often overwhelmed several of the food sites. As 

a result of the confusion and the absence of a systematic way to dispense the 

food, many recipients quickly learned they could stand in line several times, 

in the process receiving more than their share. Where such dysfunctional 

programs existed, the civil affairs teams could help modify, streamline, and 

oversee the procedures. As for Panamanians in need of medical treatment, 

civil affairs personnel and the doctors who sometimes arrived with them set up 

Medical Civic Action Programs (MEDCAPs); ensured that adequate medical 

supplies were on hand (again, often supplemented from those found in PDF 

facilities); and, in conjunction with any PSYOP teams present, spread the 

word as to when and where the clinics would be open. Between 26 December 

and 3 January, civil affairs teams helped provide 1,660 tons of food and 218 

tons of medical supplies to the population.50

In addition to the food and medical programs, civil affairs specialists 

worked with local political leaders to restore essential services. The teams also 

produced surveys, based on information compiled by American troops in the 

area, to determine what problems needed fixing, either by the troops, other 

U.S. government agencies, or the Panamanians themselves. One U.S. officer 

summarized the breadth of the surveys when he wrote, “We were to report on 

a region’s sewage system, electricity, water and food supply, medical coverage, 

fire-fighting capability, garbage disposal, and a whole array of systems that 

make civilization possible.” In assessing the effectiveness of the civil affairs 

teams, the Center for Army Lessons Learned concluded that they “were most 

successful when allowed by commanders to operate in the field as advisors to 

units and liaison with the local population. Teams that served as augmentation 

to the [battalion or brigade] staff were not as effective.”51

Despite their accomplishments, the reviews civil affairs personnel received 

were mixed. Among the positive comments, one staff officer rhapsodized that 

“I just think that we won every heart and mind that we lost with Noriega’s 

propaganda.” In a similar vein, a U.S. commander declared, “The best surprise 

I had, with all the outside agencies, was with the Civil Affairs.” More negative 

assessments stemmed from several causes. In at least one case, the tactical 

commander did not believe the team that showed up to be large enough or 

qualified enough to do its job. There was only a captain and a sergeant, he 

complained, neither of whom spoke Spanish or was “familiar with the way 

the operation worked in general.” Nor did they “interlock or intermix.” In 

response, a lot of civil affairs officers ridiculed what they regarded as the 

foolishness of many of the conventional forces they were trying to help, 

criticizing, among other things, “the kindly tendency of the tactical unit 

50 Sandler, Glad to See Them Come, p. 381; Briggs, Operation Just Cause, p. 125; Intervs, 

Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990; with Huff, 20 Jun 1990; Wright with Huff and Senior 

Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 66. 51 Sandler, Glad to See Them Come, pp. 378, 383. First quote from Briggs, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 124. Second quote from CALL Bull 90–9, Operation Just Cause Lessons Learned,

vol. 2, p. 20.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

438

troops to give away MRE rations to civilians long after any immediate need 

had passed. This frustrated Panamanian food distribution, did the economy 

no good and fostered an unhealthy dependence on the U.S. military.”52

Most of the friction was not so personal but derived from procedural and 

organizational tensions. To begin with, there were not enough civil affairs 

personnel to cover each combat unit’s area of operations; indeed, some civil 

affairs teams had to scramble to perform their duties over an area that combined 

the jurisdictions of two or three tactical commanders. Not surprisingly, the 

overextended teams were not always available or responsive when a particular 

unit needed them. From that unit’s limited perspective, it seemed that the team 

would show up for a few hours or, at best, a day or two and then disappear. There 

was also the issue of command and control similar to the one that had plagued 

Hale with the military police. According to Huff, “You have to understand 

we are very particular in the way we do operations. You don’t come in, and 

we need to borrow you. When you come to us, we own you, and, therefore, 

you respond to what we tell you to do, so we can have positive control of the 

action, and make things go where they should go. That did not happen.” As 

a result, Huff’s subordinates believed, resources were not “properly utilized,” 

whether because civil affairs teams had not returned to carry out duties they 

had promised to perform or because the teams, when they did respond, did 

not do so quickly enough. The latter had been the case, in Huff’s opinion, 

when food his men had found in the PDF engineer compound rotted before 

a civil affairs team had arrived with a plan to transport the provisions to the 

refugee camp at Balboa, where they were sorely needed. Huff’s final judgment 

on the civil affairs assets in his area of operations was reflective: “We wish we 

could have worked with them a little sooner in training.” Fitzgerald had much 

the same critique to add to what otherwise was his high praise of the civil 

affairs personnel who, he stated emphatically, should have been in his chain of 

command, thus allowing him to receive directly the resources and guidance on 

“how we were to run a Civil Affairs operation.” “As infantrymen,” he noted, 

“we didn’t necessarily know how to go about doing Civil Affairs correctly.”53 

If the generally productive working relationships between combat troops 

and the military specialists sent to assist them—military police, civil affairs 

personnel, psychological operators, and others—occasionally led to friction, 

the intensity and duration of the resulting criticism rarely exceeded that 

generated by another source: the rules of engagement. Part of the problem 

stemmed from the increasingly stringent nature of the rules, although most 

soldiers and marines understood the need for greater restrictions on the use of 

force once major combat operations had ceased. Still, the additional limitations 

seemingly carried with them greater risks, as well as reminders that a change 

had occurred as “infantrymen, trained primarily ‘to close with and destroy 

the enemy’” suddenly “were expected to act as diplomats and policemen.” As 

52 First, third, and fourth quotes from Intervs, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 

5th Bn, 87th Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Second quote from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 

20 Jun 1990. Last quote from Sandler, Glad to See Them Come, pp. 378, 381. 53 First three quotes from Intervs, Wright with Huff and Senior Officers of the 5th Bn, 87th 

Inf, 193d Inf Bde, 5 Jan 1990. Remaining quotes from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 

1990.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

439

one officer wrote later, “No grunt worth his salt will tell you that his primary 

function is to prevent kids from stealing tennis shoes, help old ladies cross the 

street, break up domestic quarrels, or rescue babies from burning buildings—

but we found ourselves doing all of these things in Panama.”54

When combat troops attended a unit briefing in which new and stricter rules 

of engagement were announced, the news usually signaled that they would be 

taking on another role for which they had not been trained or prepared. The 

degree of difficulty experienced in making the necessary adjustment depended 

on the unit. While documentation on this point is sketchy, what exists 

suggests that the adverse psychological impact fell hardest on combat forces 

who, having deployed for Just Cause from outside Panama, were receiving 

their first exposure to the political, economic, and social considerations and 

requirements that contingency operations with limited military objectives 

often entail. These units had engaged and defeated the enemy in a matter 

of hours, a day or two at most. After some brief follow-on and mopping-up 

operations, they expected to return home, only to discover that their mission 

was far from over and involved work for which others, in their opinions, 

were better suited. This same realization caused less consternation, it seems, 

within deploying units that had been involved in the crisis before Just Cause. 

Colonel Hale’s 1st Brigade was such a unit, in which two of its battalions had 

lived with strict rules of engagement and unorthodox taskings during their 

Nimrod Dancer rotations earlier in the year. In Hale’s opinion, the rules of 

engagement he received upon his return in December were “cautious, but not 

overly restrictive.” Finally, units based in Panama probably felt the least stress 

from the adjustment; indeed, the major transition for them had been to engage 

in combat operations after having grown accustomed over the course of two 

years to exercising restraint so that higher authorities, in a chain of command 

that reached all the way to Washington, could use the troops’ presence to send 

political signals to the Noriega regime.55

If the degree of difficulty varied from unit to unit with respect to the 

adjustments each had to make as Operation Just Cause passed from the 

Assault Force Operations phase to the Stabilizing Force Operations phase, 

one feature of the rules of engagement aggravated nearly everyone equally: 

besides becoming more restrictive, they changed continuously, sometimes 

daily. Also, “there were different Rules of Engagement for different areas 

and different types of situations.” Concerning the latter point, the rules for 

troops around the Cuban Embassy differed from those in effect at a traffic 

control point. Moreover, at both locations and others, what was considered 

permissible behavior on one day could be prohibited on the next. Hale, for 

example, recounted how the rules for house searches changed over a short 

period, beginning with troops informing occupants their houses were going to 

54 Quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 4, 141. For a dissenting view, one that 

argues the changes in the rules of engagement presented no significant problems as stability and 

nation-building operations superseded combat in Panama, see Interv, author with Brooks, 11 

May 1993. 55 Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990. A similar assessment as that applied to Hale’s brigade could be used for light fighter units already in Panama under Colonel Kellogg’s 3d Brigade, 

the successor to the 1st Brigade in the Nimrod Dancer rotation. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

440

be searched; then switching to troops having to request permission to search a 

house; then to requiring soldiers to provide advance notification as well; and, 

finally, mandating that troops get clearances and provide formal justifications 

before conducting a search. For a unit frequently moving from one location 

to another, the need to memorize a new set of rules for each new area and 

to have those rules change regularly became a source of exasperation and, 

worse, confusion. “Behavior deemed meritorious under one set of rules could 

be construed as unacceptable under another set,” wrote a company executive 

officer from the 82d Airborne Division. “It is not difficult to understand how 

a soldier can become confused when he is praised for an act in one instance 

but is then reprimanded for a similar act in another. This is especially true 

in an environment where hesitation or a lapse in judgment could very well 

kill you or your fellow soldiers. The result was often frustration, tension, and 

ambivalence that further complicated an already confusing state of affairs.” 

More succinctly, the same officer noted, “Testimonies too numerous to list 

here focus on the same problem—‘I wasn’t sure when to use force, or when I 

could shoot, or what to do IF. . . .’”56

If the troops were often confused and frustrated, there was only so much 

that their superiors could do to remedy a problem arising in part from the 

decentralized nature of the situation. With small units assigned individual tasks 

such as guarding a facility or manning a checkpoint or patrolling an area and 

with each task having its own rules of engagement that, in turn, varied according 

to location and circumstances, the brigade and battalion commanders found it, 

in Hale’s words, a “very complex thing to keep that type of information flowing 

down to the individual soldier. . . . We tried to put it in very simple terms . . . what 

you could do and couldn’t do. We tried to ensure that we had written instructions 

at each one of these specific sites so that subordinate leaders had something 

like an SOP constantly to refer to.” Not helping matters was the fact that most 

rules of engagement arrived at brigade and battalion headquarters in classified 

form, generally at the secret level, to be passed along to troops who might have a 

confidential clearance (one level below secret) or none at all. “So we would have 

to sanitize it,” Fitzgerald said of his battalion, “and give it to a soldier in words 

that he could understand and apply to his situation.” 

After higher headquarters had done what they could to disseminate the 

information they received concerning the rules of engagement, a platoon leader 

or squad leader became the “man on the spot,” according to Hale, responsible 

for “enforcing and interpreting the situation” and “making the judgments 

there in terms of what should or should not be done.” To ensure that the rank 

and file understood the instructions they had been given, some brigade and 

battalion commanders would develop ROE training programs for small-unit 

leaders to administer to individual soldiers. Also, senior officers, when visiting 

those units, could themselves quiz the troops, asking them how they would 

apply the rules in a variety of hypothetical situations. Finally, the colonels 

and lieutenant colonels could try pulling whatever strings they could to keep 

a small unit in a given assignment for as long as possible, thus enabling the 

56 First quote from Interv, Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Video Interv, CLIC with 

Hale, 1990. Remaining quotes from Briggs, Operation Just Cause, pp. 4, 104.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

441

troops to become more knowledgeable with the rules in effect at that location, 

as well as more proficient in implementing them.57

As U.S. combat forces engaged in stability and nation-building operations 

in Panama and performed unfamiliar tasks with a variety of military and 

civilian specialists, the frustration, resentment, and puzzlement they often 

experienced was counterbalanced by the deep-seated gratitude the Panamanian 

people displayed toward them and by the sense of accomplishment the troops 

themselves often felt at what tangible progress they were making in bringing 

security, law and order, and stability to the country. If what they were doing 

seemed confusing at times or if the means to an end were not always clear or 

resourced, some way could generally be found to get a task done. Many of the 

troops shrugged off the difficulties and assumed that, at the highest echelons, 

there was probably a coherent plan and purpose that simply had not been 

communicated effectively to them. Others assumed that things at the top were 

probably as screwed up as down in the streets and alleys. Both groups were 

right to some extent. There was also some validity to a conclusion reached by 

troops located in areas outside of Panama City that their stability and nationbuilding initiatives lacked the high priorities assigned to similarly categorized 

activities taking place in the capital.58

Panama City: From Ordered Chaos to the 

Military Support Group

Common sense supported the disproportionate attention accorded U.S. 

civil-military operations in Panama City after 20 December, even if that meant 

efforts in other parts of the country might not be fully resourced. The capital 

had witnessed some of the heaviest fighting in Operation Just Cause, had 

seen one neighborhood—El Chorrillo—completely destroyed and two others 

heavily damaged, and had suffered (as had Colón) the economic consequences 

of widespread looting. It was also the seat of the national government, while 

adjacent to it was the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. For 

these and other reasons, the city became the centerpiece for the most visible 

stabilization and nation-building programs. 

One urgent issue in need of immediate attention concerned the refugee, or 

displaced persons, camp at Balboa High School. By the end of the day on 20 

December, over ten thousand people, mostly from burned-out El Chorrillo, 

occupied the camp, creating an immediate demand for security, food, sanitation, 

shelter, and a host of other services that the U.S. military would have to provide. 

Once Colonel Connolly arrived at the facility to take charge, he quickly realized, 

57 Hale quotes from Video Interv, CLIC with Hale, 1990. Fitzgerald quotes from Interv, 

Hollins with Fitzgerald, 20 Jun 1990. Fitzgerald, a battalion commander, commented in the 

aforementioned interview on how his brigade commander, Colonel Snell, handled rules-of-engagement issues effectively as the relevant information made its way down the chain to Snell’s 

battalion commanders. 58 Lt. Col. Johnny Brooks, referred to for a time in late December and January as “el jefe de 

Colón,” was one officer to make the “stepchild” analogy when assessing the lower priority that 

his stability and nation-building efforts received compared to those in Panama City.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

442

“There were no ground rules. We had to establish the policies and the procedures 

as we were going along.” On the positive side, Connolly knew that “we had 

the expertise to do the basic care and feeding and accomplished those kinds of 

missions, setting up food lines and making sure cots and blankets and that kind 

of stuff was available.” Other services, however, were not secured so easily. With 

the fighting still winding down, there were not enough U.S. soldiers or military 

police to stand guard, to deal with troublemakers, and to cull out the PDF and 

Dignity Battalion members and criminals who had mingled with the horde 

of civilian families, children, elderly people, and other innocents. Additional 

manpower and resources would eventually arrive. In the meantime, according 

to Connolly, “Our biggest problem when we started out was just giving it some 

semblance of organization.” Until that was done, something as seemingly routine 

as a food line for breakfast could degenerate into a free-for-all. A solution to 

the organizational crisis soon offered itself. “We had the actual elected mayor 

of the area of Chorrillo in a tent and we brought him up and told him it was 

his problem,” Connolly recounted. “We told him they were his people and to 

organize it so that we could have five or six groups each with a group leader.” To 

the surprise of the colonel and other U.S. officers present, the mayor “came back 

a little later and told us he had worked it out.” Within each of the groups the 

mayor had organized, individual Panamanians accepted certain responsibilities, 

such as cleaning latrines, which had overflowed on the first day, or passing out 

food. As a result, “almost over night the camp became more livable.”59

Security remained a problem, however. “We didn’t have any permanently 

assigned force to protect the site at night,” Connolly noted. He tried to 

obtain help from the combat units, but, even several days after the fighting 

had stopped, most of them were still overwhelmed with follow-on missions, 

some known in advance, some not, such as escorting news reporters. Succor 

for the colonel came in the form of military police units who were arriving 

in Panama. Several of them, before heading for their preassigned locations, 

would help guard the camp for a brief time. “I have a tremendous respect for 

them,” Connolly said later. He had the same feeling for several other groups 

who showed up, including U.S. medics, Panamanian and American civilian 

volunteers, and the “computer literate” high school students who helped 

register the refugees. There was also what he called “the most sought [after] 

resource of every commander,” the psychological operations personnel with 

their loudspeakers. According to one after action report, 

A tactical PSYOP loudspeaker team set up full-time operations in the compound, 

amplifying the PSYOP radio station broadcasts . . . to put the people at ease 

and keep them informed. This team, along with other PSYOP soldiers, moved 

throughout the camp handing out newspapers prepared by the PSYOP [task 

force], pretesting proposed PSYOP products, chatting with the people, observing 

their actions, and reporting potential problems, concerns and troublemakers to 

the camp administrators—members of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion.60 

59 Interv, De Mena with Connolly, 20 Feb 1991.

60 First four quotes from ibid. Last quote from Psychological Operations in Panama During 

Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

443

Two elements of the civil affairs battalion had parachuted into TorrijosTocumen with the Rangers. Once on the ground, several of the men headed 

for the high school, which was also the site of the battalion’s aid station. 

Within a week, there were at least a dozen civil affairs personnel at the 

camp. Soon thereafter, Connolly departed to assume other duties. By that 

time, the facility was running smoothly; the inhabitants numbered around 

four thousand, less than half of the eleven thousand who had ultimately 

been registered; and a potential humanitarian disaster had been averted.61

The civil affairs contingent stuck with the organizational arrangement 

already in place, coordinating its activities with other civil-military groups, 

the Panamanian Red Cross, the Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Agency 

for International Development (USAID), and officials of the Endara 

administration. The contingent also helped to relocate the camp once 

word arrived that the U.S. State Department wanted Balboa High School 

reopened. With the help of military engineers and the Air Force, a new 

displaced persons center was constructed on nearby Albrook Air Station, 

with the transfer of the remaining refugees taking place in mid-January. 

On 19 January, USAID took control of the facility, which was supposed to 

furnish temporary housing for no more than ninety days. Under contract, 

the Red Cross assumed responsibility for managing the center on a dayto-day basis, and a platoon of U.S. troops provided security. Given the 

innovative measures put in place to overcome the early adversity facing 

homeless Panamanians, few observers would have disputed a statement 

later praising the handling of the refugees up to that point as “the earliest 

and most successful CA operation” during Just Cause. Within a year, 

though, the evaluations would be less flattering, as a failure to build 

permanent housing for the nearly two thousand displaced civilians still 

living at Albrook had become a festering scandal for Endara and the U.S. 

military.62

While Connolly and others were occupied with the refugee situation, 

a host of American officers were busy providing direct help to the new 

Panamanian government. That the U.S. military would play a role—indeed, 

the predominant role—in getting the Endara administration stood up and 

running reflected both understaffing at the U.S. Embassy in Panama and, 

in stark contrast, the availability of manpower, especially staff officers, 

and other resources to the Southern Command. After President Bush had 

recalled Ambassador Arthur Davis in May 1989 following the postelection 

violence in Panama, the embassy in Panama City was headed by the chargé 

d’affaires, who on 20 December was John Bushnell. Under Bushnell were 

forty-five employees, about a third of whom were at their duty stations in 

61 Many of the camp’s inhabitants returned to El Chorrillo once it had been cleared of 

debris. The rebuilding of the neighborhood, however, fell victim to the failure of financial aid 

promised by Washington to arrive in a timely way, a delay that affected numerous reconstruction programs. 62 Quote from Sandler, Glad to See Them Come, pp. 380–81. Memo for Col William M. 

Graham, Cdr, Albrook Displaced Persons Camp, 16 Jan 1990, sub: Transfer of Responsibility 

for the Displaced Persons Center Albrook Hangar; Resettlement of Panama’s Displaced El 

Chorrillo Residents (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 20 December 1990).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

444

the days after hostilities broke out. The State Department immediately 

dispatched three political advisers to Panama, including Michael Kozak, a 

veteran of the crisis and the deputy assistant secretary of state for interAmerican affairs. Ambassador Davis also returned, but, only briefly, as he 

would be replaced in early January by Deane R. Hinton. All would take 

part in the discussions with Endara, Arias Calderón, Ford, and others over 

what needed to be done in Panama. But while their contributions and those 

of the country team were invaluable, the U.S. Embassy in late December 

and well into January simply did not have the wherewithal to help the newly 

inaugurated officials govern effectively. The U.S. military filled the vacuum 

by default and by design. Despite the flaws in Blind Logic, the Southern 

Command had the personnel in its J–5 shop and elsewhere who could get the 

plan started, and it had the specialists—some already on the ground, some 

en route—who could sustain the effort and make it work. 

On the first day of Just Cause, General Thurman had set the effort 

in motion when he sent the revised Blind Logic operation order to the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff for what would become Promote Liberty and when 

he directed General Gann to command the Civil-Military Operations 

Task Force. According to Fishel, Gann quickly realized that, given 

the disarray in the country, the task force “had no choice but lead the 

Government of Panama, couching its actions in the form of suggestions 

and recommendations to the ‘government’ and the Chargé.” The same 

morning that Thurman gave the J–5 director his marching orders, he also 

telephoned Col. Jack Pryor in the J–5 shop, telling him, “Put your uniforms 

away, go ahead and get your guayaberas, . . . you’re going to work for the 

new government of Panama. You’re going to be my mini-MacArthur of 

Panama. Go to liaison, work with them, tell us what they need, protect 

them.” Following the conversation, Pryor presented himself to Endara, 

Arias Calderón, and Ford and set up an office next to theirs. Over the 

succeeding days and weeks, the colonel served as a bridge between the 

Endara government, including the ministries that were beginning to take 

shape, and virtually all outside organizations, agencies, and people involved 

with assisting that government, including SOUTHCOM, USARSO, the 

U.S. Embassy, USAID, and a host of others.63

Even a brief summary of the U.S. military’s work with the Endara 

government from late December into mid-January covers an extensive list 

of activities. Pryor recalled that among the first things he did was read the 

Panamanian constitution, after which he worked with other U.S. officers to 

devise an organizational chart that they could put forward as a representation 

of the new government. At first, the diagram only “had three names in it, 

Endara, Arias, and Ford.” More names followed, but many more lines still 

remained blank. “We had to fill in all the little boxes,” Pryor continued, 

“Minister of Education, minister of this, minister of that. So, the starting 

point was just to fill that out and blend it with the Constitution of Panama,” 

recognizing that some of the current constitution’s dictatorial verbiage 

63 First quote from Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 33–36. Second quote from Interv, De Mena 

with Pryor, 20 May 1991.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

445

introduced by Torrijos and Noriega would have to be ignored until it could be 

removed by due process. Meanwhile, as Endara, his vice presidents, and other 

advisers fleshed out the wiring diagram, offices and supplies had to be found 

for the incoming ministers and their staffs. Also requiring immediate attention 

were certain housekeeping chores, as two female civilians and a captain from 

the USARSO protocol office drove through the still dangerous streets of the 

capital to the presidential palace Wednesday night, 20 December, to vacuum 

and clean the premises so that a more formal inauguration ceremony for the 

new government could be held as soon as possible.64

Over the ensuing days, stability and nation-building activities gained 

momentum, as the civil affairs regional and local surveys became available; 

as shipments from various humanitarian relief agencies began arriving in the 

country; as U.S. units dealt with refugee, detainees, fugitives, and criminals; as 

engineers began repairing damaged areas and engaging in several civic action 

projects; as contractors were hired to help with reconstruction; as the government 

ministries began functioning; and as business activity resumed, despite the 

negative impact of the looting. To keep the public informed and to generate 

and maintain popular support for all these activities, the new government 

commenced a barrage of television and radio broadcasts, posters and flyers, and 

other material, produced and, through a highly sensitive arrangement, provided 

to it by the psychological operations unit from Fort Bragg. After a month of 

uninterrupted work, Panama by mid-January could boast a functioning, if 

clearly overwhelmed, government and the restoration of most public services. 

Furthermore, in Fishel’s words, the PDF “had been broken into its component 

parts, elements had been detached and reorganized, and there were Panamanian 

policemen on the street working with U.S. MPs.”65

On a less positive note, Fishel also recorded that “the general impression 

that one received in Panama during the last 10 days of December 1989 and the 

first 2 weeks of January 1990 was a kind of ordered chaos.” The impression 

stemmed to some extent from the organizational framework the U.S. military 

set up to execute Promote Liberty. For the first week, the Civil-Military 

Operations Task Force formed around General Gann’s J–5 staff and bolstered 

by specialists from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion and certain military police 

units took the lead on most civil-military matters. Others were handled by the 

two ad hoc liaison groups Cisneros had created at the DNTT and by Colonel 

Pryor in his capacity as an adviser to Endara, Arias Calderón, and Ford. Also 

weighing in after their arrival in Panama on 26 December were 25 civil affairs 

reservists, the preselected volunteers (114 more volunteer reservists would 

enter the country around 1 January). The senior officer among the twentyfive was Col. William Stone from the reserve’s 361st Civil Affairs Brigade. 

Stone had not worked on Blind Logic since 1988 and, thus, having been 

read off the planning process, had not seen any of the revised versions since 

64 Interv, De Mena with Pryor, 20 May 1991. The author was present in the USARSO command group area when the two protocol officers donned Kevlar vests and left with the captain 

to go vacuum the palace. 65 Intervs, De Mena with Pryor, 20 May 1991; author with Lt Col John T. Fishel, U.S. 

Army Reserve, 20 Jun 1990, Panama City, Panama; Psychological Operations in Panama During 

Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty. Quote from Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 39.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

446

then, including the Joint Chiefs–approved Promote Liberty. Once back in 

Panama, he had the group with him begin setting up headquarters for a civilmilitary operations task force and, under that, a civil affairs task force, all in 

accordance with the last draft of Blind Logic to which he had been privy. 

He assumed that all of this would come under Gann’s operational control, 

but soon “discovered”—no one “told him,” he made it clear—that Gann’s 

group belonged to Thurman, while his fell under JTF-South. The time taken 

to establish each of these headquarters entailed delays, and straightening out 

the organizational relationships prevented the reservists from getting a quick 

start on the projects over which they expected to exercise responsibility.66

66 First quote from Interv, author with Fishel, 20 Jun 1990. Remaining quotes from Interv, 

author with Col William Stone, U.S. Army Reserve [1990], Panama.

An example of material prepared by U.S. psychological operations personnel for use by the 

Endara government
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

447

As Fishel succinctly described the situation, “We had three headquarters 

running into each other.” And that did not take into account the two liaison 

groups at the DNTT and Colonel Pryor’s activities. Over a couple of weeks, 

however, the civil-military mishmash began to sort itself out. Stiner quickly 

realized that he was making little use of Stone’s people in JTF-South, so 

he transferred control of the group to the SOUTHCOM J–5, under whose 

direction Stone believed he should have been working in the first place. Also, 

something in the way of a division of labor began to emerge. The staff of 

Gann’s task force broke up into ministry teams, with each helping a government 

department with the problems and issues unique to it. In the meantime, the 

task force Stone had formed focused on the country surveys and took control 

of the displaced persons camp, while the U.S. Forces Liaison Group under 

JTF-South, with Fishel serving as a representative from Gann’s task force, 

continued its work with the public force. On a wiring diagram, the command 

and control arrangements in effect by early January appeared functional and 

efficient (Chart 3). That said, in the day-to-day activities of these various 

groups there was still, at one extreme, a good deal of overlap and duplicated 

functions, and, at the other, a number of operational voids. Daily coordination 

meetings helped reduce the disarray, but the perception of “ordered chaos” 

remained.67

As each of the elements responsible for civil-military operations was 

sorting through the organizational 

turmoil of late December and early 

January, a larger effort was under 

way to overhaul and rationalize 

the whole process. The initiative 

came from the commander in 

chief of the Special Operations 

Command at MacDill Air Force 

Base, General James J. Lindsay, 

who expressed his concerns about 

the stability and nation-building 

phases in Panama even before 

Colonel Stone’s group had arrived 

in the country. Lindsay had lobbied 

vigorously and successfully to 

have civil affairs and psychological 

operations units brought into the 

special operations fold. He now 

bore ultimate responsibility for 

the performance of those units 

and did not want to see them fail 

in Panama, especially as a result 

of being misused by conventional 

force commanders who did not 

understand their unique capabilities 

67 Interv, author with Fishel, 20 Jun 1990.

General Lindsay
Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command

Joint Task Force-South

Joint Special 

Operations Task Force

U.S. Forces

Liaison Group

Judicial Liaison Group Combat

Elements

Joint Psychological 

Operations Task Force

Commander, Civil-Military Operations Task Force

Civil Affairs Task Force

Civil-Military Operations Task Force

Ministry Team Support Team

Source: John T. Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 

1992), p. 93.

Chart 3—Civil-Military Operations Organizations
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

449

and, as a result, how to apply them. Stiner, of course, was not a problem; he 

had spent much of his career in special operations. Yet, as commander of JTFSouth, his principal concern would be winning the combat phase of the war. 

As for other officers on the SOUTHCOM, JTF-South, and USARSO staffs 

and in the field, Lindsay was less confident in their civil-military expertise or 

even interest. Reinforcing Lindsay’s apprehension were reports from one of his 

staff who, having interacted at times with Blind Logic planners in Panama, 

believed the plan to be unworkable.68

In the first days of Just Cause operations, Lindsay telephoned Thurman 

several times to discuss the relationship between Just Cause and Promote

Liberty, and then, once JTF-South folded its tents, the transition from the 

former to the latter. At one point, Lindsay asked permission to send an 

officer from MacDill to Panama to assess the situation and perhaps suggest 

an organizational alternative to the one that was taking shape. Thurman, 

who would later be quoted as saying, “I did not even spend five minutes on 

Blind Logic,” was preoccupied with the nunciature negotiations at the time 

and willingly accepted the offer. On Christmas Day, Col. Harold Youmans, 

Lindsay’s emissary, left MacDill heading south. During his first two days in 

Panama, Youmans helped to improve the dissemination of civil affairs surveys 

to the tactical units that would collect the specified information. After that, he 

began lobbying for a single civil-military organization under which most of the 

others could be subsumed. In developing a concept for what this organization 

would look like, he talked to the SOUTHCOM J–3 and J–5 staffs; the 

commander, Special Operations Command, South; the commanders of the 

4th Psychological Operations Group and the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion; and 

the staff officers at U.S. Army, South. To the USARSO chief of staff, Colonel 

Hardy, Youmans stressed what he saw as the inevitability of SOUTHCOM’s 

largest service component being assigned the civil affairs stability operations 

mission, just as had been attempted without success earlier in the month. 

Hardy agreed, provided Youmans an office (thus allowing him to move to Fort 

Clayton from Quarry Heights where he had not been popular with the J–5 

staff), and told the Army staff at Clayton to prepare for the new tasking.69

One critical issue surrounding Youmans’ proposal concerned how a 

single, centralized civil-military organization would be structured. The 

colonel himself initially favored an agency composed of civilians and military 

personnel working together, an arrangement that Fishel likened to the Civil 

Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) that had 

enjoyed some success in pacifying Vietnam, although not in time to change the 

outcome of that war. General Lindsay, however, preferred another approach, 

that of the Special Action Force (SAF) that had existed from the 1960s into 

the early 1970s and had been employed in Latin America and Southeast Asia. 

Unlike CORDS, the SAF was an all-military organization that, according 

to Fishel, “put CA, PSYOP, Special Operations Forces, and Combat Service 

Support all in the same command subordinate to the JTF and commanded by 

68 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 39; Interv, author with Col Harold W. Youmans, U.S. Army, 

13 Aug 1992, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. 69 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 39–40; Interv, author with Youmans, 13 Aug 1992. Quote 

from Sandler, Glad to See Them Come, p. 379.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

450

a general officer.” Lindsay made his preferences known to Youmans in a series 

of telephone calls and during a visit to Panama. Youmans, in turn, adapted the 

SAF concept to the needs of Promote Liberty, discussed the resulting model 

with others, passed his revised proposal along to General Hartzog, Thurman’s 

director of operations, and then returned to MacDill. In early January, after 

having further modified the concept, Hartzog briefed it to Thurman, who gave 

his blessing to what had been labeled the Military Support Group (MSG).70

In the ten days between Hartzog’s briefing and the activation of the Military 

Support Group, much had to be done. Colonel Higginbotham and Lt. Col. 

Michael W. Menser, the liaison officer to U.S. Army, South, from the Army’s 

Training and Doctrine Command, moved to Building 1 at Fort Amador, the 

support group’s designated headquarters, and began work on getting the 

personnel authorizations needed to staff the organization. At first, these came 

exclusively through the Department of the Army, although a decision that the 

Military Support Group would be a joint undertaking nullified much of this 

effort. The group’s designated commander, Col. (P) James Steele, had made 

the decision regarding jointness and stuck to it. Steele was a Vietnam veteran, 

an expert on Latin America, and a former U.S. Military Group commander 

in strife-torn El Salvador. He and Thurman had worked together in the past, 

and it was the SOUTHCOM commander who personally picked Steele for the 

new assignment. Steele responded enthusiastically, sending a note to Thurman 

with an attached memorandum, “Thoughts on Panama.” Next to his signature, 

Steele wrote, “¡Estoy listo! [I’m ready!].” Steele’s deputy would be Pryor, 

whose presence in Panama’s presidential palace had become untenable when 

what political opposition there was to the Endara administration had begun 

referring to the colonel sarcastically as the country’s “real vice president.” 

As for command and control arrangements, the new organization would fall 

under JTF-Panama, thus fulfilling to some extent Youmans’ prediction that 

U.S. Army, South, would acquire the nation-building mission. As for JTFPanama, it underwent its own reorganization that gave Cisneros two deputies: 

the Military Support Group commander and General Kinzer, the commander 

of the newly established Ground Forces component that would oversee dayto-day operations.71

The Military Support Group was activated on 17 January 1990 with 

the mission to “conduct nation building operations to ensure democracy, 

70 Quote from Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 39–40. Interv, author with Youmans, 13 Aug 

1992; Memo, John W. Partin for author, 26 Jun 1990, sub: Military Support Group Origins, 

and attached Memo, Youmans for Commander in Chief, SOUTHCOM, 8 Jan 1990, sub: 

Organization of Nation Building Forces. 71 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 40; Interv, author with Higginbotham, 20 Jun 1990. Quote related to Pryor’s presence at the presidential palace from Interv, author with Pryor, 21 Jun 1990. 

Interv, author with Col (P) James Steele, U.S. Army, 28 Jun 1990, Fort Amador, Panama; Note 

and Memo, Steele for Thurman, 3 Jan 1990. According to a fact sheet prepared in March 1990 

by the USARSO Operations Division, at no point after receiving the civil-military operations 

mission did JTF-Panama, either under General Cavezza or General Cisneros, prepare a supporting plan for Promote Liberty. In receiving this news, General Kinzer noted on the report 

that, if the information was correct, “we’re on our ass!” Fact Sheet, USARSO Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations/Plans Division to Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, 15 Mar 1990, sub: 

Research Reason for Lack of JTF-PM Supporting Order in Panama.
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

451

internationally recognized standards of justice, and [that] professional 

public services are established and institutionalized in Panama.” Soon 

thereafter, Gann’s task force was phased out, after having handed off “all 

ongoing civil-military operations and activities.” Over the coming year, 

the Military Support Group would experience several organizational 

changes, but initially it absorbed Cisneros’ liaison group (renamed the 

Public Force Liaison Division) and created components for military police, 

psychological operations, civil affairs, and special operations (Chart 4). 

With the redeployment of General Cavezza who, given his seniority, served 

briefly as the JTF-Panama commander, Steele reported daily to Cisneros, 

who had reclaimed that post. Wiring diagrams notwithstanding, Steele and 

other support group personnel, with Cisneros’ blessing, worked directly for 

whoever needed their services: the new government and its ministries, the 

Southern Command, and, perhaps most important, the U.S. Embassy under 

Ambassador Hinton. As the Military Support Group began to function, one 

assumption was that it would be disbanded at year’s end.72

On 11 January, six days before the Military Support Group stood up, the 

Joint Staff in the Pentagon had informed General Thurman that, if he had no 

72 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 43–48. 

Building 1 at Fort Amador where the Military Support Group worked 
Joint Task Force-Panama

Military Support Group-Panama

Operational control

Civil Affairs Division Public Force

Liaison Division Psychological Operations

Support Element

Joint Special

Operations

Task Force

Military Police Bde

Source: Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 97.

Chart 4—Military Support Group Command Structure (as of 31 March 1990)
The Transition to Stability Operations and Nation Building

453

objection, an announcement would be made that day declaring the formal end 

to Operation Just Cause. Thurman did not object. Noriega was in custody 

in the United States. The Panama Defense Forces had been defeated, and the 

threat of significant, organized armed resistance was over. The Panama Canal 

was again open, as were the Bridge of the Americas and Torrijos International 

Airport. A new police force was on the streets, a semblance of law and order 

was returning, programs for repairing the damage caused by the invasion were 

under way, and the Military Support Group would soon begin to assist the 

new Panamanian government as it struggled to become an effective, legitimate, 

and popular entity. As for the American forces who had flown in from the 

United States to ensure a victory in Panama, most had redeployed to their 

home bases or were in the process of doing so. Opinion polls and the public 

reaction of thousands of Panamanians with whom American troops came 

into contact indicated that an overwhelming majority of the people approved 

of the U.S. invasion. Finally rid of a ruthless dictatorship, Panama, with the 

assistance of the United States, was in the midst of a fitful but promising start 

toward becoming a stable, functioning democracy. 

14

Follow-Through and Assessments

The day after Noriega turned himself over to U.S. authorities, he was arraigned in a federal court in Miami on drug-trafficking, racketeering, 

and money-laundering charges. The trial began over a year and a half later, 

with the jury delivering its guilty verdict in April 1992. That summer, the judge 

sentenced Noriega to forty years in prison (reduced to thirty years at the end 

of the decade). The trial in the United States generated headlines but little 

public interest. Most Americans had closed the book on the Panama crisis 

once the widely circulated photograph of Noriega’s official mug shot appeared 

on the front pages of their newspapers.1

Public inattention extended as well to the fortunes of the country he had 

dominated. At the time of the invasion, American officials had talked at length 

about what needed to be done to transform Panama into a democratic, lawabiding republic. Within a year, however, such discourse was rarely heard, 

while the aid and assistance the United States had promised to help effect the 

desired reconstruction proved halting and insufficient. Panama’s new leaders 

complained about the gap between Washington’s initial promises and ultimate 

performance, but, by the end of 1990, their protests were barely heard over the 

clamor engulfing the Middle East, where war loomed between the United States 

and Iraq. Given Panama’s precipitous demotion on the Bush administration’s 

list of foreign policy priorities, the Endara government, with whatever outside 

assistance it could muster, proceeded as best it could with the difficult and 

complex task of rebuilding its country in the wake of the U.S. invasion.

A Busy Year

The growing indifference of the American public toward Panama 

after Operation Just Cause and the decreasing commitment to nation 

1 In 2010, the former dictator was extradited to France where, in July, a French court 

found him guilty of laundering drug money and sentenced him to seven years in jail. Then, 

in September, France granted Noriega a conditional release so that he could be extradited to 

Panama. Upon his arrival there in December, he was placed in Renacer Prison, a Just Cause

target. On 5 February 2012, six days before his seventy-eighth birthday, he was hospitalized for 

a possible stroke but returned to prison four days later. As of this writing, he is still incarcerated. 

Associated Press, 12 Dec 2011; New York Times, 5 Feb 2012.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

456

building there on the part of the Bush administration caused only mild 

consternation at the Southern Command where, with the end of hostilities 

against the Noriega regime, General Thurman declared to a subordinate, 

“Now, let’s get on with the drug war.”2 As a result, most Panama-based 

U.S. military units, which for over two years had been consumed and 

distracted by the crisis with the country’s dictator, were able to turn their 

attention back to broader, high-priority issues affecting the hemisphere. 

Some personnel, to be sure, had to postpone the transition. In Thurman’s 

J–5 directorate, several of the staff remained actively involved in Operation 

Promote Liberty, while at U.S. Army, South, General Cisneros retained 

responsibility for overseeing what nation-building activities were being 

enacted by the Military Support Group under Colonel Steele. For these 

U.S. officers and the people working with them, events in Panama would 

remain very much in the forefront of their official duties for the remainder 

of 1990.

Of the urgent concerns confronting the reconstruction and nationbuilding effort, one of the most potentially disruptive in terms of public 

support for the new government was crime. While the ruinous looting that 

occurred during Just Cause had subsided after a few days, the more common 

forms of crime against property and violent crime against people—murder, 

assault, and armed robbery—climbed to abnormally high levels during 

the first three months of 1990, thus undermining official statements that, 

with the establishment of the new police force, order in the streets was 

being restored.3 The causal factors pushing the crime rates higher were not 

difficult to determine. To begin with, the Panamanian economy had been 

sliding downward for months before Operation Just Cause, propelled in 

part by the economic sanctions Washington had imposed on the country 

in hopes of unseating Noriega without force. Unemployment had reached 

distressing rates well before December 1989, with the disruptions caused 

by the invasion only exacerbating the bleak job market and the sense of 

desperation it generated. Many Panamanians out of work and searching 

for a way to make ends meet turned to extralegal or illegal means in an 

effort to support their families and themselves. Hard times determined 

their course of action. For others, crime was simply a way of life, their 

chosen profession. For these habitual lawbreakers, the dissolution of the 

Panama Defense Forces removed many of the prewar restraints on their 

illicit activities. Compounding the problem were the actions of several 

PDF officers who, in the early hours of the invasion, had emptied local 

jails in hopes that the inmates’ presence would interfere with U.S. military 

2 Conversation, author with a lieutenant colonel stationed at the Southern Command, 1990.

3 Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support Group Panama, n.d. (used during a briefing given 

to the author on 22 June 1990 at Fort Amador, Panama). Besides the spike in crime, U.S. officials also worried about possible terrorist attacks from recalcitrant hardliners among Noriega’s 

followers. Despite the low probability given such a threat, incidents such as the 2 March 1990 

grenade attack at My Place, a discothèque in Panama City, in which an American was killed and 

fifteen U.S. servicemen and twelve Panamanians wounded, kept the issue alive. Eyewitnesses 

claimed that two men shouting, “Long live Noriega!” were responsible for the attack. New York 

Times, 4, 5 Mar 1990; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 387.
Follow-Through and Assessments

457

operations. In reality, the scheme accomplished little more than to inflate 

the number of criminals walking the streets of cities, towns, and villages 

where the confusion and chaos that prevailed served as an open invitation 

for lawbreakers to ply their skills. For those who chose to do so, regardless 

of motive, weapons were readily available for a price, despite the success of 

the JTF-South money-for-guns program.

The obvious response to the problem of rampant crime was to field 

a more competent police force and to restore a judicial system capable of 

handing out justice to lawbreakers who had been arrested. As discussed in 

the previous chapter, the Endara government made the decision in the first 

few days of Just Cause to replace the Panamanian military with a police force 

manned at the outset almost exclusively by former PDF members. The risks 

to this approach, while deemed to be more acceptable than those inherent in 

the alternative of starting from scratch with inexperienced recruits, quickly 

became manifest, afflicting the inchoate program from the outset. The early 

initiates into the force, formally named the Panama National Police, received 

only cursory training, a fact that became all-too obvious from the numerous 

incidents of unprofessional and questionable behavior that were reported once 

the new cops arrived at their designated headquarters and began walking the 

streets. The heavy-handedness many PNP officers exhibited in dealing with 

their countrymen gave rise to increasing resentment among a population 

already alienated by the cops’ PDF lineage. Not that most of the fresh recruits 

were themselves all that happy, having been compelled to make the abrupt 

transition from soldiering to police work, with the perceived loss in status and 

self-esteem associated with the latter. Adding to their discontent was the fact 

that in the first weeks on the job, many in the Panama National Police lacked 

uniforms and equipment, as well as any real familiarity with police methods 

and procedures. 

Throughout the remainder of 1990, as U.S. and Panamanian officials 

sought remedies for each of these problems, measures to redress the shortage 

of weapons, radios, vehicles, and uniforms yielded the most immediate and 

visible results. Here, the U.S. Forces Liaison Group—renamed the Public 

Force Liaison Division after its incorporation into the Military Support Group 

in late January—played a leading role, searching inventories of captured 

Panamanian materiel, drawing on U.S. military surplus, and employing U.S. 

security assistance funds to acquire many of the needed items.4 The progress 

achieved in this area, however, was not matched by efforts addressing the more 

intangible problem of recasting the mind-set of former PDF members who 

had joined the national police. Training and advisory programs essential for 

creating an efficient and respected force could take months, even years, to 

overcome the legacy of the past and instill within PNP recruits a new set of 

standards and values that would lead to more professional behavior. Time, 

unfortunately, was in short supply. The purpose of Operation Just Cause, 

4 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 43. Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support Group Panama, 

n.d., provide a longer list of the Panama National Police’s equipment needs and the means by 

which they would be fulfilled. Besides the methods mentioned in the text, the new government 

of Panama itself purchased many of the required items and relied on countries other than the 

United States for additional equipment.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

458

the Bush administration insisted, had been to liberate, not occupy, Panama. 

Avoiding any impression to the contrary meant, in part, that U.S. military 

personnel working with the Panama National Police would not enjoy the 

luxury of an extended timetable for their efforts to succeed. Bureaucratic and 

legal constraints, together with what often seemed like official indifference in 

Washington, further impeded attempts to implement long-term training and 

advisory programs.5

The only training the entire force received in its first year was the twentyhour “quick-fix” transition course developed by reservists and supervised by 

the Public Force Liaison Division’s Maj. Richard Downie, with the help of 

Colonel Stone’s Civil Affairs Task Force. Panamanian officers took the course 

and then taught it to the rank and file stationed in the cities and countryside. 

All involved recognized the defects of the quick-fix, which had to cover at least 

a dozen substantive topics in a very short time: ethics, first aid, basic police 

techniques, community relations, patrol techniques, crowd control, traffic 

control, criminal code procedures, the use of force, weapons familiarization, 

police reporting procedures, and handling problems involving juveniles. 

Downie’s sardonic take on the course: its primary goal was to make the new 

cops safe to walk the streets.6

As the transition course struggled forward, U.S. officials labored to put 

other measures into place that would ensure graduates received continuous onthe-job training and advice. In late January, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Bushnell 

determined that members of the U.S. reserve component on the scene who 

had been policemen in the United States were eligible to serve as trainers for 

the Panama Public Force. Thus began what participants dubbed the RC Cop 

program, in which two reservists would be assigned to every city police precinct 

and one reservist to every rural precinct. Also in each precinct, whether urban 

or rural, would be two U.S. Green Berets, there to place their language skills 

and other capabilities at the disposal of the reservists. In further support of the 

program would be U.S. military police, who would continue to conduct patrols 

and share their expertise with the new Panamanian force.7

These arrangements for the American military to expedite a systemic 

training program for the Panama National Police beyond the transition 

course soon encountered difficulties. Chief among these was a law the 

U.S. Congress passed in February, the Urgent Assistance to Democracy 

in Panama Act, that appropriated a meager $43 million for use in 

reconstructing the country. As the legislation pertained to Operation 

Promote Liberty, Congress, by granting an exemption to Section 660 of the 

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, permitted the U.S. military to support the 

PNP. The exemption, however, did not extend to that portion of Section 

5 According to Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 43, “The U.S. Embassy had set as its watchword 

from the beginning that Operation Just Cause was a ‘liberation,’ not an ‘occupation.’ Liberation 

clearly put the onus for success or failure on the Panamanians and severely constrained the U.S. 

role, including the role of the military.” 6 Ibid., pp. 43–49. The list of topics covered in the twenty-hour course was taken verbatim 

from Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support Group Panama. n.d. Downie’s comment on the 

course was mentioned by Fishel in a marginal note on a manuscript copy of this chapter. 7 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 43–49.
Follow-Through and Assessments

459

660 prohibiting a military role in training foreign police forces. That still 

left several things American armed forces could do. The Special Forces 

could help vet the new force and assist zonal police officials in establishing 

positive relationships with local civilian leaders. Reservists and Green 

Berets could advise and monitor the new police, and U.S. military police 

could still set a professional example for their Panamanian counterparts. 

But any formal training sponsored by the United States would have to 

come from a nonmilitary source.8

Such an entity existed in the form of the International Criminal Investigative 

Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). Created on 6 January 1986 under 

the administrative and operational authority of the U.S. Department of 

Justice, the program in practice received its guidance and funding from the 

State Department. Drawing on the expertise of available law enforcement 

personnel and civilian officials in the United States, the training assistance 

program undertook as one of its principal objectives the development of 

foreign police forces, mainly in the Caribbean. Prior to 1990, the program had 

accomplished little in the region as a whole, having devoted most of its limited 

resources to assisting in the investigation of human rights violations in strifetorn El Salvador. Still, when Congress and the Bush administration sought 

an alternative to the U.S. military for training the Panama National Police, 

ICITAP was selected for the assignment. To remove any possible doubts about 

the legality of the undertaking, the Urgent Assistance to Democracy in Panama 

Act contained an authorization for ICITAP personnel to “reconstitute” police 

authority in nations “emerging from instability,” including the training of “cops 

on the beat.” Specifically, the training assistance program received the mission 

of inaugurating a multiyear plan for restoring law enforcement services to 

Panama. The State Department’s Bureau of Inter-American Affairs provided 

the initial funding in the amount of $13.2 million.9

By the end of 1990, this hastily implemented arrangement had not fulfilled 

all its supporters’ expectations. As one analyst has observed, the training 

assistance program was “wholly unprepared for the tasks thrust upon it.” 

Having completed just its fourth year in operation, the program still lacked 

adequate funding and consisted of “only a small staff of FBI agents on loan 

and a few regional language specialists.” Ten officers arrived in Panama, their 

official experience in the Justice Department program having been limited 

almost exclusively to helping foreign policemen become skilled investigators, 

not streetwise professionals. In short, the program’s personnel lacked the 

practical knowledge as well as the necessary resources for training cops on the 

beat. Their work with the Panama National Police over the ensuing months and 

into the following year reflected those deficiencies as well as other problems. 

To their credit, ICITAP personnel did design and implement a new three-week 

8 Ibid., pp. 47–50; Anthony Gray and Maxwell Manwaring, “PANAMA: Operation Just 

Cause, in Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security, eds. Robert 

B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg (Washington, D.C.: National Defense 

University Press, 1998), pp. 54–55. 9 Quotes from Charles T. Call, “Institutional Learning within ICITAP,” in Oakley, 

Dziedzic, and Goldberg, eds., Policing the New World Disorder, p. 320. Gray and Manwaring, 

“PANAMA,” pp. 55, 59.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

460

transition course for the former PDF members, establish a police academy, 

and offer advice on PNP organizational issues. But progress in most areas was 

glacial, and deadlines and goals were continuously missed. According to one 

account, “The 3-week transition course . . . was not initiated until May 1990, 

and the 1991 target of 5,000 course recipients was not met until September 

1992.” The police academy enjoyed some success because of the positive 

working relationship established between the PNP major serving as its director 

and a U.S. official in the Justice Department. Other programs, in which such 

a level of personal interaction did not exist or was less constructive, often 

drew criticism. One director general of the Panama National Police dismissed 

the three-week transition course as useless and the bulk of the ICITAP effort 

as a waste of U.S. tax dollars. The training assistance program, for its part, 

conceded its imperfect start but argued that it was making the adjustments 

and requirements needed to improve its chances for future success. Officials 

involved in the undertaking also reminded their critics that many of the 

difficulties being encountered were the result of the decision made well before 

ICITAP’s arrival to rely on former PDF personnel in standing up a new force. 

Seemingly confirming the problems inherent in this plan, an opinion poll in 

1992 indicated that nearly 65 percent of the Panamanian people remained 

distrustful of the Panama National Police, with only 26 percent recording a 

positive perception.10

ICITAP’s fitful approach, initial delays, and staff shortages proved 

frustrating to all involved, especially those U.S. military personnel who, while 

providing authorized support to Panama’s police force, had to neglect many of 

their duties not related to the PNP. The inability to effect a workable handoff 

of the training mission with the training assistance program also impeded the 

military’s attempts to lower its high profile in Panamanian security matters, a 

move deemed essential for confirming President Bush’s assertion that it was not 

an occupation force. The new U.S. ambassador to Panama, Deane Hinton, was 

especially concerned about this point. He was the top U.S. civilian official onthe-scene responsible for post–Just Cause reconstruction programs, and, based 

on his extensive diplomatic experience in other countries, he firmly believed 

that, in the words of one author, the U.S. military should not be placed “in the 

forefront of supporting democratization, the creation of civil government, and 

nation-building.” Holding to this conviction, Hinton let Thurman, Cisneros, 

and Colonel Steele’s Military Support Group know that the U.S. Embassy and 

the State Department should play the leading role in establishing a new police 

force. Then, having made his point, he bowed to the reality of the situation as 

it existed throughout 1990. Until the Panama National Police demonstrated 

greater progress in its development as a professional organization, Hinton 

could not sever most of the working ties that had been established between 

the PNP and the Military Support Group. Consequently, the support group’s 

Public Force Liaison Division would continue to interact with ICITAP, while 

U.S. Special Forces, military police, and reservists would continue to conduct 

joint patrols with the Panama National Police, support “precinct house 

10 Quotes from Call, “Institutional Learning within ICITAP,” pp. 329–33. Fishel, The Fog 

of Peace, pp. 49–51; Gray and Manwaring, “PANAMA,” pp. 55–64.
Follow-Through and Assessments

461

administration” and “other law enforcement functions to maintain order,” 

and monitor the PNP’s “adherence to training standards.” These activities, as 

characterized in the Military Support Group’s briefing slides, would permit 

U.S. military personnel to operate with the Panamanian police but not train 

them.11

While Hinton recognized the need for the U.S. military to enjoy some 

latitude in dealing with the Panama National Police, he faced a larger issue 

concerning the Military Support Group. Although the new ambassador was 

formally in charge of the postinvasion reconstruction program in Panama, 

the Pentagon and the Southern Command had deliberately excluded his 

predecessor and the U.S. Embassy from the nearly two-year planning 

process that had culminated in Operation Promote Liberty. Complicating 

matters further, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered execution of 

the plan on 21 December, most embassy personnel were not even in the 

country. Not that their presence would have mattered that much. Given the 

staff’s small size and its lack of nation-building expertise, it would not have 

been able to assume the leading role that diplomatic protocol and tradition 

expected of it. Nor could these shortfalls be rectified by appeals through 

official channels back to Washington. The State Department simply did not 

have a sufficient complement of officials with nation-building experience to 

commit to Panama, and time constraints precluded hiring volunteers, an 

option that would have required advertising for the positions, screening 

the applicants, and then training those selected. Given the scope of all the 

difficulties he faced, Hinton found himself lamenting, “I had no clue at all, 

arrived here with a disorganized embassy staff, no [US]AID at all, a few 

local employees. . . . No resources and a mandate to fix things. . . . I think 

their [DOD] planning and the way they did things was mistaken in some 

respects.” But mistaken or not, without the assets to address his misgivings 

along lines more acceptable to him, Hinton acquiesced as the Military 

Support Group moved to the forefront of the nation-building effort by 

default. As Colonel Steele succinctly summarized the situation, “The 

embassy was not functional,” so his newly formed organization “played 

the role of the country team.”12

As Hinton made his peace with what necessity demanded, he also made 

his position clear. The Military Support Group would take the organizational 

lead in reconstructing Panama, but only with him, the ambassador, calling the 

shots. On paper, it appeared as though this condition would be difficult to meet. 

The support group’s command and control diagram placed the organization 

squarely within JTF-Panama and answerable directly to its commander, 

General Cisneros; Cisneros, in turn, reported to General Thurman, who, as a 

unified commander, answered directly to the National Command Authority, 

not the State Department or any U.S. Embassy in his area of responsibility. 

(Thurman later said he made this point forcefully, but amicably, to “my buddy” 

11 Gray and Manwaring, “PANAMA,” p. 60; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 50. First quote 

from Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, p. 40. Remaining quotes from Briefing Slides, U.S. 

Military Support Group Panama, n.d. Interv, author with Maj Gen Marc A. Cisneros, U.S. 

Army, 29 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 12 Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, pp. 40, 63.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

462

Hinton, a “good man, but you’ve got to straighten him out every now and 

then.”) But Hinton was a tough and seasoned diplomat, and Thurman, eager 

to shift his command’s attention to other issues afflicting Latin America, did 

not desire a turf battle with the ambassador over nation building in Panama. 

As a result, the two men hammered out a mutually acceptable arrangement 

whereby the Military Support Group, while formally remaining within the 

military’s chain of command under Cisneros, acknowledged the primacy of the 

ambassador’s jurisdiction. Cisneros, for his part, accepted the agreement. To 

be effective, he realized, the support group needed to be in direct and constant 

communication with virtually any individual or group involved in the rebuilding 

process or affected by it, including Panamanian officials at the highest levels, 

American diplomats, and the variety of U.S. agencies contributing to Promote

Liberty (Chart 5). A daily briefing from Colonel Steele kept the JTF-Panama 

commander informed of the group’s activities and contacts and served as one 

vehicle for the general to issue directives reflecting what he believed needed to 

be done and who needed to be doing it. Steele briefed Thurman daily as well, 

with the military chain in Panama ensuring that Hinton received full accounts 

of these deliberations.13 

Once the embassy and the Southern Command reached accord on who 

would answer to whom for U.S.-sponsored nation-building activities in 

Panama, civil-military relations for the most part proceeded harmoniously. 

There were, to be sure, a few exceptions to this concord, one of the most 

significant of which concerned the role psychological operations would play in 

Promote Liberty. Once Ambassador Hinton was fully briefed on the Military 

Support Group, he learned of the PSYOP program, started during the first days 

of Just Cause and now under Steele, to produce informational material and 

engage in projects that would help the new government of Panama establish its 

legitimacy. Of necessity, the task involved the Army’s psychological operations 

personnel in activities directly linked to Panamanian politics, a connection 

that, if made public, could prove extremely embarrassing to both President 

Bush and President Endara. Hinton was understandably uncomfortable with 

the arrangement. 

Well before the new ambassador’s arrival in Panama, the Psychological 

Operations Task Force set up under JTF-South was composed primarily of 

people and materiel from the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion and, later, 

its parent headquarters, the 4th Psychological Operations Group, both based 

13 Ibid., p. 49; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 39–40; Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support 

Group Panama, n.d. Quote from Briefing, Gen Maxwell R. Thurman at SAMS, 23 Sep 1992. 

Intervs, author with Cisneros, 29 Jun 1990; with Col (P) James Steele, U.S. Army, 28 Jun 1990, 

Fort Amador, Panama; with Col Jack Pryor, U.S. Army, 21 Jun 1990, Fort Amador, Panama. 

During a postinvasion trip to Panama in June 1990, the author attended Colonel Steele’s briefings to General Cisneros. Thurman, in his SAMS briefing, said that Hinton initially thought of 

him as the U.S. Military Group commander in Panama. Thurman corrected that misperception, 

while also laying out his chain of command, which did not include the ambassador. Thurman’s 

“straighten him out” phrase should be viewed as nothing more than the kind of dramatic talk 

for which the general was known and not as his actual statement or an insinuation that he in any 

way was brusque with the ambassador. Thurman, in fact, repeatedly mentioned their cordial 

interaction and daily tennis matches.
Military Police

Psychological Operations

Civil Affairs

Special Forces Engineers

Military Support Group

Joint Task Force-Panama

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)

Other

SOUTHCOM Service Components

Government of Panama

President Endara

Vice President Ford

Vice President Arias Calderón

Director of Media

 Media 

 Public 

Minister of Government and Justice

 National Police 

 National Air Service 

 National Maritime Service 

 Penitentiary System 

 Judicial Police 

Attorney General

Minister of Foreign Relations

Minister of Education

Minister of Commerce and Industry

Minister of Agriculture

Minister of Planning and Finance

Minister of Treasury

Minister of Health

Minister of Public Works

Minister of Housing

Minister of Labor

Comptroller General

Minister of Tourism

U.S. Embassy

AmbassadorDeputy Chief of MissionDrug Enforcement AdministrationInternational Criminal Investigative  Training Assistance ProgramU.S. Agency for International  DevelopmentPolitical SectionEconomic SectionU.S. Security Assistance Agency,  Latin AmericaDefense Security Assistance AgencyInternational Security AgencySOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty AffairsArmy Forces (U.S. Army, South)Naval ForcesMarine ForcesAir Force Forces

Coordination/support

Chart 5—Military Support Group Interactions, Access, and Influence

Source: Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support Group Panama, n.d.; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

464

at Fort Bragg. Until early January, the unit had concentrated most of its effort 

on explaining and legitimizing the U.S. invasion, soliciting information from 

the Panamanian people concerning the whereabouts of weapons caches and 

fugitives, providing information on such topics as displaced persons camps and 

U.S. military medical services, and getting formerly regime-operated television 

and radio stations up and running for use by the new government. At the 

time the Military Support Group was activated, the task force had been cut 

back to a 48-person Psychological Operations Support Element designed for 

Steele to incorporate into his organization. By then, the situation in Panama 

had reached a point where the PSYOP element could shift its priorities from 

supporting U.S. operations in the field to the task that so troubled Hinton: 

assisting the Endara government in consolidating and legitimizing its power. 

Toward that end, psychological operations specialists manufactured a number 

of audio-visual and printed products—posters, pamphlets, leaflets, television 

news footage, and radio scripts, among them—that could be used by President 

Endara, Vice Presidents Arias Calderón and Ford, and the ministers serving 

under them.14 

The entire undertaking was highly sensitive and classified and not 

without reason. Even in the euphoria immediately following the downfall 

of the Noriega regime, some Panamanian leaders were already criticizing 

the Endara administration for being a puppet of the United States, a charge 

that had pushed Col. Jack Pryor out of his advisory position inside Panama’s 

presidential palace and into the Military Support Group as Steele’s deputy. If, 

under these circumstances, the fact became known that U.S. PSYOP experts 

were secretly involved behind-the-scenes in assisting the new government, the 

critics’ credibility would be strengthened at a time when the American-installed 

triumvirate was very vulnerable. Any public exposure of the relationship would 

also raise questions concerning whether the U.S. Army was engaged in what 

could be construed not just as political activities, which were often unavoidable 

in stability operations, but as partisan politics, the institutional prohibition 

against which has been a time-honored American military tradition. For these 

reasons, security measures surrounding the Psychological Operations Support 

Element’s activities were rigorous. 

Security, of course, provided no guarantee that the material produced by 

the PSYOP element would be free from errors caused by the impossibility on 

short notice of mastering all aspects and nuances of Panama’s political culture. 

For example, one PSYOP task was to produce a poster showing Panama’s 

national seal “surmounted by an eagle.” When completed, the poster was 

“beautifully done,” according to the psychological operations after action 

report. Unfortunately, from the support group’s perspective, the bird depicted 

atop the Panama crest was not the eagle traditionally found in that country 

but “a North American bald eagle—not exactly the kind of thing which 

would make us popular with the population!” The element’s operations officer 

caught the mistake before the poster was distributed—a close call “clearly 

14 Psychological Operations in Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty; 

Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, pp. 57–61.
Follow-Through and Assessments

465

demonstrating the complexity of PSYOP product development during Just

Cause, and later during Promote Liberty.”15

In light of these glitches and other risks that could result in scandal, 

unwanted publicity and a counterproductive backlash, Hinton told Steele at 

the outset of their collaboration, “I do not like PSYOPS.” Bushnell shared 

this view, and pressure from the embassy led to the Psychological Operations 

Support Element being cut in April 1990 from forty-eight to eighteen people. 

According to one analyst, the decision crippled the element’s “crucial 

communication and information support” without making any attempt 

“to establish what was and what was not within the boundaries of military 

PSYOPS, or to follow up after the groundwork was laid.” Whatever the 

validity of this critique, it was not compelling enough to reverse the new 

policy.16

The retrenchment in psychological operations was just one setback the 

Military Support Group encountered in performing its mission. Another was 

lack of sufficient funds with which to conduct a full-scale nation-building 

program. President Bush had spoken of $1 billion in foreign aid for Panama, 

but the funding bill that passed Congress in May allocated less than half 

of that, $420 million, and, of that sum, only $100 million had reached its 

destination by early 1991. With just one-tenth of the money that had been 

anticipated, Steele’s group and those working with it had to scale back 

dramatically what they hoped to accomplish. As one author described the 

adjustment, nation building gave way to “infrastructure reconstruction,” 

especially in the countryside. Translated into specific projects, this meant 

undertaking repairs on the country’s dilapidated schools, hospitals, clinics, 

roads, bridges, and other facilities in rural areas. To work on these enterprises, 

the Military Support Group needed military engineers, which Steele had 

no authority to summon. The colonel was thus appreciative when General 

Thurman intervened to arrange for the 536th Engineer Battalion and various 

National Guard engineering assets to come under the support group’s 

operational control (Chart 6).17 

Of overriding importance was that credit for the reconstruction projects 

go to the new government and that the president and vice presidents and 

their ministers be observed cooperating with provincial and local officials 

in whose districts the work would be performed. Yet, these seemingly basic 

connections took time to arrange. During the Noriega years, Endara and his 

colleagues had been in the opposition; they had no experience in running a 

country. Moreover, the dictatorial system dominated by the Panama Defense 

Forces had stifled coordination between government officials at the national 

level and those scattered throughout the provinces, cities, towns, and villages. 

15 Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, pp. 57–61. Quotes from Psychological Operations in 

Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty. 16 Quotes from Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, pp. 57–58, 60–61. Most of the eighteen 

soldiers remaining after the personnel cuts in the support element were replacements from the 

8th Psychological Operations Battalion, assisted by a few experts from the 1st Psychological 

Operations Battalion and the 4th Psychological Operations Group. Psychological Operations in 

Panama During Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty. 17 Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, pp. 55–56.
Special Staff J–1 J–2 J–6 J–5 J–4 J–3

Commander, Military Support Group-Panama

Deputy Commander

Maritime Liaison Team Metro Area Police Liaison Element Engineers Judicial Liaison Team

Police Liaison Element Psychological Operations Support Element Aviation Liaison Team Rural Area Police Liaison Element

Source: Briefing Slides, U.S. Military Support Group Panama, n.d.

Chart 6—Organization of the Military Support Group (Effective 15 May 1990)
Follow-Through and Assessments

467

To establish the essential network of contacts among the various levels, the 

Military Support Group, according to one source, 

encouraged coordination by requiring that every reconstruction project be 

coordinated between the MSG and the appropriate [government of Panama] ministry. For example, if the Ministry of Education presented a list of 

schools it would like the MSG to repair, the MSG identified the resources 

required while ministry representatives took the proposal to the appropriate 

province officials and then to the local level for their input. When consensus 

was reached, the project would be initiated.18

The local reconstruction projects, while less grandiose than the scope of 

nation-building activities originally envisaged by U.S. officers planning civilmilitary operations for postcombat Panama, generally received favorable 

publicity that redounded to the benefit of the Endara administration. The 

sense of relief that pervaded the country following Noriega’s downfall also 

enhanced the new government’s image. But with the accolades also came the 

brickbats, as a number of high-profile problems plagued the administration 

during its first year or so in office. To begin with, Endara had campaigned for 

the presidency in 1989 as leader of a broad-based four-party coalition that, 

once in power, fell victim to factional political bickering and in-fighting that 

frustrated American officials and exasperated many Panamanians. Then, there 

was the fact of the U.S. invasion with which to contend. In the process of 

deposing the dictator, Operation Just Cause had taken a psychological and 

physical toll on the Panamanian people and their country. As previously 

noted, Cisneros repeatedly warned in early 1990 that the United States and 

the Endara administration could expect a honeymoon of about a hundred 

days, after which both governments would be subjected to criticism for any 

remaining problems stemming from the invasion. Of these problems, perhaps 

the most salient was the plight of the people displaced by Just Cause, especially 

in Panama City, where, over two years after being burned out of El Chorrillo 

and other neighborhoods, victims of the fire saw the construction of new 

homes slowed by financial and political disruptions or found themselves still 

living in the “tin city” erected for them at Albrook Air Station.19 The trickle 

of promised U.S. aid provided no corrective, and, while Endara at one point 

conducted a public hunger strike to draw attention to the displaced persons 

(and his country’s poverty level in general), his inability after a meeting with 

President Bush to obtain a substantial increase in U.S. funding raised questions 

concerning his clout in Washington, not to mention the White House’s interest 

in the welfare of a post-Noriega Panama.

Another issue proved a two-edged political sword for Endara. While he 

moved quickly to replace the Panama Defense Forces with a police-oriented 

organization answerable to civilian officials, the Panama National Police’s 

18 Ibid., p. 56.

19 The Panama Deception, a 1992 Oscar-winning “documentary” on Just Cause, offered 

viewers little more than a well-made piece of propaganda. One of the film’s critiques, however, 

its depiction of the displaced persons’ plight at Albrook, raised a valid issue and highlighted a 

scandalous situation, albeit in a sensationalized way.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

468

glacial adoption of high professional standards, the problems affecting its 

training program, and its initial inability to curtail crime resulted in a gap 

between public expectations and actual progress that worked against the new 

government. Nor was the administration’s image helped when, in December 

1990, around a hundred members of that new force staged what was 

variously described as a protest, an uprising, and a coup attempt against the 

government. U.S. troops stationed in Panama crushed the movement, but that 

only left Endara exposed as a man who still seemed to need American armed 

force to help run his country. One result of the December unpleasantness 

was that Ambassador Hinton asked Steele to postpone inactivation of the 

Military Support Group, scheduled for that month, until 17 January 1991, the 

anniversary of its creation.20

Operation Promote Liberty did not end with the support group’s subsequent dismantling. Steele, who became U.S. Army, South’s deputy commander for support, used JTF-Panama’s J–5 directorate to continue a variety of assistance programs, and, as part of that process, he and Ambassador 

Hinton met with the Panamanian president once a week for breakfast. Still, 

on 17 January 1991, a milestone had been reached, as Promote Liberty entered a new, even less dynamic phase. Looking back over the preceding year, 

the balance sheet on nation building and reconstruction had been mixed. In 

the most general terms, a civilian-led government had replaced a military dictatorship, and the U.S. military had done what it could to make both the new 

government and that government’s new police organization work. In December 1990, news media in the United States ran several broadcasts along the 

lines of “Panama: One Year Later.” Most noted areas in which progress had 

been made but concluded that poverty, corruption, and drugs remained serious problems in the “liberated” country. By that time, of course, the American people were concentrating on the buildup of U.S. troops in the Persian 

Gulf in what would be the prelude to Operation Desert Storm. If the situation in Panama had not improved to the extent that policymakers had hoped 

as the result of President Bush ordering Operation Just Cause, few Americans cared by the first anniversary of that occasion. Nor did they concern 

themselves in 1994 with the results of the first Panamanian national elections 

to be held after the invasion, even though the candidate of a reformed and 

revitalized Partido Revolucionario Democrático, one of Noriega’s principal 

political organs, won the presidency. U.S. officials assessing the outcome emphasized its positive side; the political structure in Panama had proved itself 

viable in the toughest test a new democracy could face, the peaceful transfer 

of power to the opposition through the electoral process. Five years later, 

another milestone passed, again without notice or fanfare on the part of the 

American people: on 31 December 1999, the United States, in adherence to 

the Panama Canal treaties, vacated its remaining military bases in Panama 

and turned complete control of the waterway over to the government of that 

country, thus confounding the critics who had charged that the U.S. invasion 

ten years earlier had been a naked power play, motivated by Washington’s 

desire to reacquire absolute control over the canal’s operation. 

20 Fishel, The Fog of Peace, p. 52.
Follow-Through and Assessments

469

Conclusions

Within months—in some cases weeks—of the cessation of hostilities in 

Panama, the Pentagon, the Southern Command, the XVIII Airborne Corps, 

and the numerous other U.S. military headquarters involved in Operation 

Just Cause began conducting briefings and distributing after action reports—

some classified, some not—touting their respective roles. Somewhere near the 

beginning of practically each of these assessments was the mission statement 

that the featured headquarters had received, while the information contained 

in the slides and pages that followed reflected an across-the-board consensus: 

U.S. units and personnel had accomplished their missions in what had been 

a highly successful operation. The dictatorship in Panama had fallen, and its 

leader was in the United States awaiting trial. The Panama Defense Forces 

had been destroyed as an organization and replaced by a police force subject 

to civilian control. After a rough but short transition from combat to stability 

operations, law and order had been restored to most of the country, and a 

government that had been legally elected but denied power was finally in place 

and functioning. In the process, U.S. property and other interests including 

the canal had been secured, and, with three tragic exceptions, the lives of 

American civilians living in Panama protected.21

American service personnel had paid a price in lives and limbs to achieve 

these goals, but the casualties were considered low in light of the worst-case 

scenarios some planners had predicted. The U.S. military had lost 23 killed 

in action and 324 wounded. An exact count of enemy dead was difficult to 

obtain, largely because many defenders fought wearing civilian clothes, 

making it impossible in some cases to distinguish between them and innocent 

bystanders who were killed. Well before the end of Just Cause and quickly 

thereafter, several U.S. and Panamanian agencies conducted rigorous 

investigations to determine as best they could the number and identities of 

the Panamanian dead. Most conclusions indicated that somewhat over three 

hundred Panamanian military, paramilitary, and innocent civilians had died 

in the invasion. Wounded and injured Panamanians numbered around sixteen 

hundred.22

21 Preinvasion assertions by the SOUTHCOM and JTF-South commanders that the death 

of one U.S. civilian would mean Operation Just Cause had failed were ignored or explained for 

what they were—an emphasis on the importance of protecting American lives. As noted in the 

text, two of the three Americans—the schoolteacher and the college student—were killed (the 

first by the PDF, the second by friendly fire) the night of the invasion. The body of the third 

American was found a few days later. 22 Casualty figures are from Briefing Slides, U.S. Southern Command, Operation Just 

Cause: “Rebirth of a Nation,” n.d.; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 65–66; and the Web site 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/just_cause.htm. In commenting on this chapter, 

John Fishel indicated that he thought the most accurate figure was 302, which was provided 

by the Roman Catholic Church after an investigation. A list of the figures drawn up by various agencies are at http://william_h_ormsbee.tripod.com/jc_casualties_panamanian_p01.htm. 

Immediately after Just Cause and for several years to follow, critics of the invasion claimed that 

the actual number of Panamanians killed was in the thousands, many of them executed by U.S. 

forces and buried in secret mass graves. Intensive official investigations revealed no evidence to 

support such figures, while the largest mass grave in Panama City was front-page news at the 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

470

It was only natural that the success of Operation Just Cause and the speed 

with which victory was achieved would call forth a good deal of hyperbole. 

One boast made by a number of senior military officers was that U.S. forces 

had attacked twenty-seven targets simultaneously at H-hour—a catchy and 

evocative, albeit not quite accurate, characterization of the rapid deployment 

of American firepower. Pronouncements also heralded how each one of the 

some twenty-seven thousand U.S. service personnel involved in Just Cause

had performed superbly, the result of the high standards set for military 

recruiting, training, and leadership. This was an obvious exaggeration not 

meant to be taken literally but rather as a generalized tribute to a praiseworthy 

performance by the post-Vietnam armed forces of the United States. Another 

embellishment, duly circulated by the news media, came in a comment made 

to reporters by General Stiner, in which the JTF-South commander stated 

that “in my judgment, there were no lessons learned on this operation. I don’t 

think that I or my commanders or our armed forces learned a single lesson. 

. . . But we did validate a lot of things.” The statement had an immediate 

impact on at least one group, a six-man team of officers arriving in Panama 

from the recently created Center for Army Lessons Learned located at Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas. Given Stiner’s position, the team’s mission changed 

from finding lessons to compiling “first impressions.” Consequently, the center 

published a largely anecdotal analysis of the operation, a series of vignettes 

contained in three very thin but insightful pamphlets.23

A decade later, Stiner still stood behind his initial assessment. As he 

elaborated to author Tom Clancy, “I can’t say we really learned any lessons. In 

my opinion, you only learn a lesson as a result of a big mistake, or when you 

have failed to anticipate an event somewhere along the line—training readiness, 

plan development, or the like—that would affect the mission.” Turning to what 

the U.S. military had “validated” during Just Cause, the general proceeded to 

enumerate “some principles and procedures that contributed to our success in 

Panama, which also apply to future operations.” The nine points on the list he 

supplied Clancy could be found, with much additional material, in the corps’ 

own 1990 after action report, which hails the “many valuable observations 

time it was dug for the purpose of providing a temporary burial place until the city’s morgues 

and hospitals could care for the bodies properly. 23 For the simultaneous targets claim and variations on it, see Briefing Slides, U.S. Southern 

Command, Operation Just Cause: “Rebirth of a Nation,” n.d.; Daniel Bolger, Death Ground: 

Today’s American Infantry in Battle, paperback ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), p. 71, 

and see also p. 70. (The hardback edition of Bolger’s book was published by Presidio Press in 

1999.) A doctrinal source is Joint Publication 3–0, Doctrine for Joint Operations, September 

2001, p. IV-11. First quote from “Inside the Invasion,” Newsweek, 25 Jun 1990, and is also 

discussed in the Bolger volume and in Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s 

Way of War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 220. One example of the 

somewhat exaggerated depiction of individual performance in Just Cause came in a briefing 

by a high-ranking Army officer at Fort Leavenworth on 9 January 1990. As for the changed 

mission of the CALL team to Panama, the experience (and the second quote) was related to 

the author by Col. Frank Akers, the leader of the team. As for CALL’s instructive but meager 

output on Operation Just Cause, compare the three pamphlets—all cited in previous chapters 

of this volume—with the larger, more thorough, and comprehensive studies the organization 

produced for later U.S. operations in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf.
Follow-Through and Assessments

471

and insights relating to the conduct of joint contingency operations.” The 

item topping the lists contained in both sources, whether identified as one of 

the principles and procedures or observations and insights, was “integrated 

planning and execution.” As phrased in the after action report, “The first 

key to success was a good planning and execution sequence focused on joint 

campaign objectives. For Operation Just Cause there was guidance from the 

NCA and the JCS, properly developed and approved plans at all levels, and 

the execution with proper advice, but without undue interference.”24

With respect to the planning process that began in February 1988, the 

series of strategic-level contingency plans available throughout the crisis had 

been drafted by joint staffs answerable to the Southern Command. Each 

iteration of the operation orders had been coordinated up the chain of 

command with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and downward with the appropriate 

joint task forces and their components. Laterally, coordination occurred 

between headquarters for special operations and conventional forces. So 

refined and flexible was the planning process that it could readily incorporate 

the input of an additional headquarters—the XVIII Airborne Corps—

midway into the enterprise. It could also adjust quickly to a major change 

in the concept of operations, namely that which occurred when Thurman 

succeeded Woerner as the SOUTHCOM commander. Finally, under both 

Woerner and Thurman, the Southern Command determined that, if force 

had to be used to resolve the crisis in Panama, the U.S. troops involved 

would be employed in accordance with a broad campaign plan. The Prayer

Book served as proof of this intent, containing operation orders that ranged 

from defensive measures the U.S. military might take in Panama, including 

a troop buildup (Post Time) and an evacuation of American civilians 

(Klondike Key), to offensive combat operations (Blue Spoon, 1–90, and 

90–2) and civil-military operations, involving nation building and stability 

and reconstruction activities (Blind Logic). In short, should war come, the 

U.S. military intended—on paper at least—to be involved across a spectrum 

of operations beginning with the defense of U.S. interests, moving on to the 

elimination of a dictatorial regime and its military arm, and finishing up 

with actions to support a new, democratic government.25

As the Prayer Book took shape, U.S. units based in Panama and those 

deployed there as part of Washington’s response to the crisis were able to 

incorporate the various contingency plans into exercises and training events 

scheduled by Joint Task Force-Panama. In many cases, these activities amounted 

to rehearsals carried out under the rubric of the Purple Storms established 

by General Loeffke during his tenure as the JTF-Panama commander or the 

Sand Fleas and contingency readiness exercises General Cisneros added after 

he succeeded Loeffke. In the aftermath of the failed October coup against 

Noriega, the tempo of such rehearsals increased dramatically and reached 

out to encompass units that, while based in the United States, were slated for 

24 First and second quotes from Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 392. 

Remaining quotes from Cover memo and Encl 1, to AAR, Operation Just Cause, 20 Dec 1989–

12 Jan 1990, JTF-South, 19 Mar 1990, p. 9. 25 The summary of the planning process should be supplemented by Yates, U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989. See also Cole, Operation Just Cause.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

472

action in Panama should Blue Spoon be executed. Stiner would later praise 

the training regimen during this period: “There is no substitute for live-fire 

training, under the most realistic conditions, as you expect to fight.” In many 

cases, especially those involving U.S.-based units, the realistic conditions 

included mock-ups of the actual targets listed in the battle plans.26

When the order did come to execute Blue Spoon, most of these wellprepared combat forces—half of which were already located in Panama, 

just minutes from their targets—achieved their objectives quickly, an 

accomplishment attributed by senior officers not just to the troops’ rigorous 

and realistic training and exemplary leadership but also to the manner in which 

they entered the area of operations: rapidly, violently, and in overwhelming 

force. Stiner had argued for this approach once the XVIII Airborne Corps 

became involved in the planning process. Thurman had signaled his support 

for the concept even before he took command at Quarry Heights. And most 

officers involved in Just Cause applauded the results as representing a decisive 

reversal and repudiation of the kind of piecemeal troop commitments that, 

in their minds, had contributed to the American military defeat in Vietnam. 

Put another way, Panama seemed to have validated the anti-incrementalist 

approach to war espoused in the Weinberger-Powell doctrine first enunciated 

in the mid-1980s. In what was regarded as a further contrast with the war 

in Indochina, the tactical units and operational headquarters in Just Cause

were able to carry out their assignments without unwanted and unwarranted 

interference from higher authorities far removed from the battlefield, namely 

the National Command Authority and the Pentagon in Washington. This 

freedom from micromanagement, when combined with the multiservice 

composition of the force employed in Panama, caused several officers to declare 

that Just Cause had also validated the command and control arrangements 

and the emphasis on jointness found in the Goldwater-Nichols Department 

of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Not until after Operation Desert

Storm in 1991 would President Bush announce, “By God, we’ve kicked the 

Vietnam syndrome once and for all!”27 Some military analysts would have 

argued that the U.S. military and the American people as a whole had taken a 

major step in that direction well over a year earlier in the invasion of Panama. 

Having showered effusive praise on the overall planning, preparation, 

and execution of Just Cause, those assessing the relevance of the operation to 

future contingencies proceeded throughout 1990 to offer much more detailed 

26 Quotes from Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow Warriors, p. 392. 27 President Bush’s statement was widely quoted at the time and has been since. One source 

is Washington Post, 9 Jan 2005. General Thurman, in a comment about the provision in the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act that had the chain of command running from the president through the 

secretary of defense directly to the unified combatant commanders, noted characteristically that 

he had a “very streamlined command and control operation,” one in which he did not have to 

“take any crap off subordinate commanders,” especially the Air Force component commander. 

Thurman SAMS briefing, 23 Sep 1992. General Stiner echoed Thurman’s opinion on the efficacy of the command and control arrangements under Goldwater-Nichols. As he told the 

Senate Armed Services Committee in 1990, “There were no problems with ambiguous arrangements or with units receiving guidance from multiple sources.” This quote from Stetson M. Siler, 

“Operation Just Cause: An Air Power Perspective,” Air Power History 55, no. 4 (Winter 2008).
Follow-Through and Assessments

473

analyses of the factors they perceived as underlying the victory. Given the 

dozens of briefings, reviews, and interviews generated at the time, hundreds of 

observations poured forth, some so specialized or highly technical as to be of 

interest to but a very select audience. The importance of others often did not 

survive changes in doctrine, procedures, equipment, or weapon systems that 

were in progress well before December 1989 but not completed until after the 

invasion. Still, even with these anomalies, there remained sufficient grounds for 

categorizing the crisis and the hostilities in Panama as an important milestone in 

the 200-year saga of the American military. As many spokespersons reminded 

their audiences, Just Cause was “the most complex contingency operation 

undertaken by US forces since World War II,” or, to quote General Stiner once 

more, it was “the largest, most sophisticated contingency operation conducted 

over the longest distances in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces.”28

The complexity and sophistication of the operation derived in part from 

the composition of the force involved. As the references to Goldwater-Nichols 

made clear, it was a joint force. Some critics could not refrain from noting 

the disproportionate number of Army units in an operation planned by an 

Army-heavy unified command, the four-star Army commander of which had 

called on his service’s own contingency corps at Fort Bragg to be the warfighting component. This observation, while correct, did not change the fact 

that no service had been left out of the undertaking. Soldiers and marines 

handled most of the land combat, while the Air Force provided timely troop 

transports, resupply, and close air support. The Navy guarded the air and sea 

deployment routes from the United States and also participated in the logistical 

effort. One feature of the joint endeavor that received special attention was 

the way it integrated conventional units, both heavy and light, with Special 

Operations Forces to execute a plan designed to capitalize on the strengths of 

each (although, again, some observers criticized the use of Navy SEALs instead 

of Rangers at Paitilla and questioned the need for 82d paratroopers instead of 

light fighters at Torrijos-Tocumen). As a result of this integration, small Special 

Operations Forces units carried out rescue missions, conducted raids, seized 

critical terrain, and sabotaged key targets. Rangers and paratroopers put their 

airborne capability to good use, thus reducing the time needed to insert combat 

troops into certain critical areas. And, in a more traditional vein, conventional 

infantry and mechanized units went after a number of well-fortified fixed targets, 

with the mechanized-heavy Task Force Gator converging on the Comandancia, 

the most formidable of the PDF’s defensive positions. Throughout the fighting, 

Joint Task Force-South provided the operational control, coordination, and 

joint communications needed to make the operation’s many “moving parts” 

mesh as well as possible, a task complicated by the fact that the first several 

hours of combat took place at night, with most targets being located in or near 

densely populated, built-up urban areas. 

For years preceding Operation Just Cause, both the Army and the Marine 

Corps had largely neglected the study of urban combat. The Army especially, 

given its post-Vietnam preoccupation with being prepared to fight Soviet forces 

28 First quote from Cover memo, to JTF-South AAR. Second quote from Briefing Slides, 

U.S. Southern Command, Operation Just Cause: “Rebirth of a Nation,” n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

474

on the plains of central Europe, adhered to a doctrine of bypassing enemy-held 

cities encountered along any line of advance. Time constraints and supply issues, 

senior officers believed, would not permit lengthy and resource-consuming 

sieges or street-by-street fighting. The Panama experience by itself did not 

cause a sudden reversal of this position, but it did suggest that a reassessment 

was overdue. As the JTF-South after action report bluntly states, the “Army 

must acknowledge the growing significance of MOUT.” Military developments 

throughout the world in the 1980s and 1990s, including the sieges of Beirut and 

Sarajevo, and the involvement of U.S. forces in such places as Mogadishu, Portau-Prince, and the Balkans reinforced this conclusion. In the mid-1990s, the 

marines took the lead in addressing the need to prepare for urban combat. By the 

turn of the century, the Army had joined in as a full partner, with both services 

elevating city-fighting to a much higher priority in their doctrinal deliberations 

and training. One source of insight on which the reorientation relied was an 

analysis of past urban operations. The lists of case studies are lengthy but 

manageable and generally contain much overlap, with something like the World 

War II battle for Stalingrad representing a worst-case nonnuclear scenario. In 

comparison, Panama was not close in terms of duration, ferocity, death, and 

destruction. Regardless, the Just Cause experience offered much to study about 

clearing buildings (from the bottom up when necessary), clearing rooms (the 

danger of using fragmentary grenades when construction material was flimsy), 

minimizing collateral damage under certain circumstances (the requirement for 

restrictive rules of engagement, nighttime operations, and selected weaponry), 

and interacting with a large civilian population (the need for realistic training in 

a more inclusive environment than one characterized simply by force on force).29

Just as most of Just Cause took place in urban areas, most of the D-day 

assaults began at night. U.S. officers at the outset of the planning effort in 1988 

had designated 0100 as H-hour for this decisive phase of the invasion because of 

both the reduced number of civilians likely to be on the streets or at the airport 

during a nocturnal attack and the superior night-fighting capabilities U.S. forces 

possessed as a consequence of their training and equipment. The first concern, 

the desire to minimize civilian casualties as well as property damage, produced 

rules of engagement that placed some restrictions on what U.S. forces could do 

to achieve victory. The purpose of such rules was to balance the troops’ need 

to defend themselves and deliver a quick knockout blow to the enemy with the 

requirement to keep civilians and their possessions out of harm’s way. That 

innocent bystanders would be killed or wounded was seen as inevitable, given 

the congestion found throughout many sections of Panama’s two major cities. 

But the rules of engagement, U.S. officials concluded soon after the shooting 

29 Quote from Encl 4, to JTF-South AAR, p. 13. In September 1999, the author attended an 

urban operations conference at Fort Leavenworth, during which it became clear that the Army 

was preparing to join the Marine Corps in the study of military operations on urbanized terrain 

(MOUT). In January 2001, the commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command 

sent an e-mail to the Command and General Staff College and the Combat Studies Institute 

(CSI) at Fort Leavenworth formally directing both to address the issue through teaching and 

research. One result of that directive was an anthology of MOUT case studies, Block by Block: 

The Challenges of Urban Operations, ed. William G. Robertson and Lawrence A. Yates (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2003).
Follow-Through and Assessments

475

stopped, had helped minimize civilian casualties as well as property damage. 

For combat troops who habitually trained to fight with minimal constraints, 

their most negative comments about the imposition of restrictive ROE in 

Just Cause pertained not so much to the D-day firefights, as one might have 

anticipated, but to the transition from combat to stability operations, a time 

when rapid and continuous changes to the rules of engagement, together with 

the variations based on time and location, generated a good deal of confusion 

and frustration on the ground. 

The second reason for choosing 0100 as H-hour—the planners’ desire to 

utilize surprise and the “night-fighting advantages” training and equipment 

gave U.S. forces—was seen as “a key contributing factor in the success of the 

operation.” The JTF-South after action report highlights the importance of 

night-vision devices, which, it states, were employed by “individual soldiers, 

attack and lift helicopter crews, mechanized infantry crews, and US Air Force 

crews.” The report also singles out the AC–130 Spectre gunship as “an effective 

close support weapons system, particularly in terms of delivery of accurate fires 

at night.”30 That support proved essential at the Comandancia, where despite 

the friendly-fire incident involving a mechanized platoon—the one instance in 

which U.S. troops had cause to rue the aircraft’s pinpoint accuracy—the PDF 

headquarters received a pounding from the air while civilian areas surrounding 

the target remained largely unscathed. The fact that the AC–130 proved less 

helpful to Task Force Wildcat at the PDF engineer compound did not find its 

way into the after action reports of higher headquarters.

Besides serving as an effective weapons platform for nocturnal warfare, 

the AC–130 also helped compensate for the undesirable force ratio that 

U.S. troops experienced at certain targets. Normally in urban operations, 

defenders are perceived to hold the advantage when the attackers do not 

have at least a two-to-one ratio of forces in their favor (with some experts 

putting the desired ratio as high as six to one). In Panama, often the friendlyto-enemy ratio was at best only one to one, including at the Comandancia. 

Historically, under such conditions, the U.S. military has sought to 

compensate for manpower deficits by relying on massive firepower. But in 

Panama, concerns about collateral damage precluded the use of indirect 

fire weapons such as field artillery (on hand only as a backup system or 

a direct-fire weapon) and certain other heavy weapons such as tanks (the 

M551 Sheridan used at the Comandancia being considered a light tank or, 

officially, an armored reconnaissance assault vehicle). Still, what remained 

in the U.S. inventory even after these exclusions was sufficient to shift the 

advantage to the attackers. In addition to the AC–130s, the AH–64 Apache 

and AH–1 Cobra helicopters and the special operations AH–6 Little Birds 

delivered lethal and effective fire from the air at night. On the ground, 

the weapons possessed by most troop units generated more than enough 

firepower, with the 90-mm. recoilless rifle receiving special recognition for 

quickly demonstrating “our fire superiority” in Panama’s urban terrain, 

largely because of the weapon’s “immediate ‘psychological effect’ due to 

30 Quotes from Encl 4, to JTF-South AAR, with first, second, and third on p. 16, and fourth 

on p. 1. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

476

[the] size of the warhead and subsequent explosion and the debris producing 

and penetration capability of the system.”31 Other weapons and weapons 

platforms found worthy of praise were the Marine LAV–25s, the F–117A 

fighter aircraft (despite the targeting controversy), the AT4 rockets, and the 

.50-caliber machine guns mounted on HMMWVs and M113s. 

Among the host of other factors singled out as facilitating the victory 

in Just Cause, the use of psychological operations broadcasts also came 

in for special mention. At some targets, PSYOP activities helped reduce 

casualties by convincing enemy forces to surrender or causing them to 

flee. In other cases, the broadcasts and various means of disseminating 

information kept the civilian population abreast of what was expected of 

them, particularly during stability operations, and explained to them the 

objectives and actions of U.S. forces in their midst. With the exception of 

a brief period just prior to H-hour, the Noriega regime and the Panama 

Defense Forces were denied a similar capability, thanks to JTF-South’s “use 

of electronic warfare, specifically US Air Force systems” such as Volant 

Solo and Compass Call. Operating aboard six Air Force EC–130s, the 

systems overrode enemy media broadcasts while transmitting pre-prepared 

radio and television messages stating, “We are the Americans, your friends. 

We are here to give your freedom back. . . . Stay in your homes and no one 

will be harmed.” These broadcasts started at H-hour, as did the jamming 

of PDF radar and tactical communications by two Air Force EF–111s.32

In general, then, U.S. officers involved in Operation Just Cause used their 

after action reports, briefings, and interviews to tout the joint composition and 

rigorous preparation of the U.S. force; command, control, and communications 

arrangements that integrated Special Operations Forces and conventional 

operations and that gave operational and tactical commanders the latitude to 

make critical decisions necessitated by the fluid situation; the nighttime launch 

of the invasion with overwhelming but selective firepower that employed a 

variety of high-tech devices the enemy could not counter or match; and a 

logistical system that provided timely refueling and resupply. 

In contrast to the hyperbolic flourishes used in recounting how these and 

other factors contributed to the swift removal of the Noriega regime and 

its military support, the rhetoric used to describe the numerous difficulties 

encountered in achieving that decisive outcome was much more subdued. The 

list of problems was lengthy, with a representative sample usually including the 

ice storm that delayed the arrival of many paratroopers from Fort Bragg; the 

news reports and other breaches in operations security that warned the enemy 

well before H-hour that U.S. troops were going to attack; intelligence lapses 

that allowed Noriega to evade capture for several days; friendly fire at the 

Comandancia and elsewhere; the ineffectiveness of the Sheridans deployed on 

31 Ibid., p. 13. The report went on to note that the antipersonnel and high-explosive rounds 

available for the recoilless rifle in Panama were not the ideal rounds for penetrating “concrete 

structures commonly found in cities.” The Army therefore needed to “provide suitable munitions that can be effectively employed against buildings.” 32 First quote from ibid., p. 19. Second quote from Clancy with Stiner and Koltz, Shadow 

Warriors, p. 322. William C. Martel, Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Military Policy

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 172. 
Follow-Through and Assessments

477

Quarry Heights; and the loss of several vehicles in the airdrop over TorrijosTocumen. Other problems making the list were the thousands of refugees 

from El Chorrillo who fled through the battle lines and overwhelmed the 

makeshift displaced persons camp in Balboa; the controversy surrounding the 

2,000-pound bombs at Rio Hato; the several hostage situations that developed, 

despite the rapid infusion of U.S. troops designed to prevent such incidents; 

the controversial raid on the Nicaraguan ambassador’s residence; the looting 

that remained unchecked for several days; and the often rough transition 

from combat to stability operations. Given longstanding military etiquette, 

no official assessment addressed another negative: the impact of personality 

conflicts on the operation, not that there was much on which to comment. At 

the top of the chain of command in Panama during Just Cause, Thurman 

and Stiner had always been in sync concerning how the invasion should be 

conducted. On the other hand, the friction between Thurman and Cisneros 

that had surfaced soon after the change in command at Quarry Heights in 

late September carried over into the invasion, but, unlike the abortive coup 

of 3 October, in which the mistrust between the two may have cost the United 

States an opportunity to remove Noriega from power, in Just Cause the main 

consequence was felt at the nunciature, where Thurman forced a change to 

Cisneros’ negotiating strategy for getting Noriega and his entourage into U.S. 

custody. The change, while disruptive and most likely unnecessary, did not 

alter the outcome of the talks. 

Many of the problems listed above and countless others encountered 

during Just Cause were attributed to the fog and friction of warfare. In that 

context, Stiner’s claim that no lessons were learned seemed less incredulous in 

that, beginning with their precommissioning education, all officers are taught 

the maxim that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. There are going 

to be gaps in the information or intelligence that friendly forces require, and 

there is going to be a plethora of unexpected, undesirable, and uncontrollable 

developments. That Just Cause had its fair share of these was to be expected 

and did not, in the eyes of the U.S. military, detract from the undeniable success 

of the operation and its value as a model of a military contingency operation. 

That being said, there were several cautionary conclusions of a general 

nature that did occasion comment at the time, at least two of which pertained 

to the planning process. By the time President Bush ordered the execution of 

Blue Spoon, U.S. military headquarters from the Southern Command, through 

the XVIII Airborne Corps (Joint Task Force-South), down to the various 

task forces operating at the tactical level had copies of the operation orders 

relevant to their echelon. There were still last-minute revisions being made at 

all levels, but the basic plans were in place weeks—and, for some portions of 

them, months or over a year—before D-day. In fact, the planning itself had 

been under way for almost two years, an anomaly when compared to most of 

the Cold War contingencies preceding Just Cause and those that would arise 

in the post–Cold War decade following it. In U.S. military interventions in 

the Dominican Republic in 1965, in Grenada in 1983, in Somalia in 1992, in 

Haiti in 1994, and, after that, in Bosnia, the planning staffs involved in each 

had a few days or at best a few weeks to fashion the strategy, tactics, forces, 

transportation, and resources for accomplishing American objectives. Even 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

478

after General Thurman took over the Southern Command and approved a 

change in the concept of operations from a gradual buildup of U.S. troops to 

a swift strike that employed overwhelming combat power, his “warfighters” 

in the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg still had over two months to finetune and disseminate the new operation plan they had finished drafting in 

September 1989, parts of which relied on the contents of General Woerner’s 

version of Blue Spoon. 

Given the generous, if atypical, amount of time available for contingency 

planning on the Panama crisis, U.S. staff officers, as previously noted, sought 

to integrate the Prayer Book series of operation orders into a campaign plan. 

On paper, they succeeded. In reality, the words they generated did not translate 

into the necessary command emphasis, staff coordination, and unit training 

that would have facilitated an effective synchronization between combat and 

stability operations, especially in the transition from the former to the latter. 

True, the mission statement contained in each iteration of Blue Spoon and, 

after 3 November 1989, OPLAN 90–2 alerted combat units to be prepared 

to restore law and order and to support the installation of a U.S.-recognized 

government in Panama. Yet, most of the combat troops participating in the 

operation, especially those deploying from the United States without previous 

experience in the Panama crisis, believed that their work would be all but 

over once the shooting stopped. If each plan’s reference to follow-on stability 

operations generated any expectations among the warriors, it was mostly that 

the mission would be simple, short, and largely handled by specialists in such 

matters. 

Officers in SOUTHCOM’s J–5 directorate responsible for planning the 

civil-military operations contained in Blind Logic blamed the XVIII Airborne 

Corps for deliberately ignoring the stability operations with which JTF-South 

would be charged under Blue Spoon and OPLAN 90–2. General Stiner 

thought otherwise. Yes, the “conflict termination part” of Just Cause was 

“not done properly,” he later concurred, but, as for the reason, he stated the 

following: 

Now let me address that. I asked General Thurman from the beginning who 

was responsible for that. He said, “Not you. That is the USARSO [U.S. Army, 

South] staff. I want you to focus on the combat operations.” I said, “Sir, this 

is a seamless process, it has to be, because when the fighting stops you have 

to get right into stability operations. You have to have refugees and you have 

to get into the nation building. These other agencies of government that do 

this sort of thing are going to have to be brought in on this.” He said, “My J5 

will take care of that.” I said, “I need to be briefed on it while we are planning 

the actual combat part, Just Cause, so that it is a seamless process.” He said, 

“The next time you come down on a planning mission, you will be briefed.” 

But the next time I would go down, the J5 was not present to brief. He [Thurman] promised that two or three times and it did not occur. On the night that 

we struck, he said, “I have been let down. This part has not been planned 

adequately and I want you and Bill Hartzog to work on it.” That part was 

not done well. Or perhaps the transition process could have gone quicker or 

smoother and we would not have had some of the glitches that we did in the 
Follow-Through and Assessments

479

nation building, conflict termination part. But other than that I think it was 

a great operation.33

Stiner’s account omitted the early coordination between his people 

and Woerner’s J–5 and the breakdown of the agreements reached, but his 

“nonlesson” was clear enough. The planning for military action in Panama 

had not ensured a seamless process for a realistic transition from combat to 

stability operations. But even if it had, there was no guarantee at the time that 

the affected combat units would have been any better prepared to make that 

transition. As Lt. Col. Mike Menser, the Training and Doctrine Command 

liaison officer in Panama, asked in April 1990,

Where do we train an infantry or artillery battalion to run a city, take care 

of prisoner/refugees, feed and police the populace, and operate the public 

utilities? Superb effective execution of METLs [mission-essential task lists] 

was the norm for all units involved in Just Cause. But they had to chart new 

ground as they faced real challenges in conducting foreign internal defense 

(FID), civil affairs (CA), civic action, and psychological operations (PSYOP). 

We had combat (direct action) units working in the political, economic, and 

social (or indirect) arenas. When, where, and how do we prepare conventional 

Army forces to do this? They knew what they were sent here to do: protect 

U.S. lives and property as effectively as possible. They did. They were, however, given no warning order for a follow-on nationbuilding mission. If they 

had been, how would they have prepared? What’s the METL?34

Over a decade after Just Cause, Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated 

that answers to Menser’s questions remained elusive, while the institutional 

obstacles to Stiner’s seamless process had yet to be removed, as the military’s 

elaborate master plan for reconstructing post-Saddam Iraq was jettisoned 

by U.S. military and political authorities at higher levels and, thus, never 

integrated into the projected campaign plan.

Despite the disconnect between combat and stability operations and 

despite the fog and friction and other problems U.S. forces encountered in 

accomplishing their missions in Panama, the planning and preparation for 

Operation Just Cause, together with the way in which it was executed, deserved 

all the accolades the undertaking received. Moreover, in the initial penchant 

for official hyperbole, no one tried to pass the victory off as the one thing that 

it was not: the defeat of a first-rate enemy force. The outcome of Just Cause

had never been in doubt. The Panama Defense Forces would be destroyed as 

an institution, and the Noriega regime would fall. What was not so certain was 

the price that victory would extract. The worst scenario envisaged Panamanian 

defenders knocking U.S. troop transports out of the sky with shoulder-fired, 

surface-to-air missiles, taking large numbers of American citizens hostage, 

engaging in tenacious and bloody street fighting in Panama City and Colón, 

33 On Stiner’s comment that Thurman failed to involve the XVIII Airborne Corps in planning for stability operations, see Interv, Lt Col Steven P. Bucci with Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. 

Army (Ret.), 1999, USAWC/USAMHI Senior Officer Oral History Program. 34 Memo, Lt Col Mike W. Menser for Distribution List, 1 Apr 1990. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

480

and carrying the combat into neighborhoods full of Panamanian civilians.35

Each of these prospects bedeviled U.S. planners and commanders, even though 

more realistic projections held that the PDF did not have the numbers, the 

leadership, the training and discipline, the technology and equipment, and 

the determination to fight the Americans head-on. Nor would they provoke 

America’s wrath by committing a prolonged series of calculated atrocities. This 

assessment, in turn, led analysts at Quarry Heights, Fort Clayton, Fort Bragg, 

and the Pentagon to predict that many, if not most, enemy units would flee 

or surrender once hostilities commenced—a prediction that proved prophetic, 

except for some specific PDF elements and DigBats that fought tenaciously. 

Some battles, such as at the Comandancia, were indeed ferocious. Yet, with a 

one-to-one force ratio, U.S. troops, with their advantage in virtually every other 

category of military power, eliminated most of the opposition within hours. 

The worst damage enemy forces inflicted was on their own countrymen, as when 

PDF and Dignity Battalion members deliberately set fire to El Chorrillo. In the 

wake of Just Cause, some commentators opined on what would have happened 

had the PDF been a highly professional and determined opponent. The obvious 

response was that there would have been a different set of contingency plans 

taking those facts into account. That being said, any remaining discussion 

became pure conjecture. 

Immediately after Just Cause, each service looked beyond Panama to 

determine what the operation signified for its future. The Army, as the largest 

service component to take part in the conflict, drew the most far-reaching 

conclusions, as initially presented in early January 1990 by its deputy chief 

of staff for operations, Lt. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan. According to Sullivan, 

Just Cause had shown low-intensity conflict to be a “growth industry” that 

recognized “the ascendancy of contingency forces” in the Army’s priorities. It 

was important, he stated, to have the capability to project light, heavy, special 

operations, or any combination of forces from bases in the United States to 

trouble spots overseas, often in support of forward-deployed units.36 To this 

end, the Army would reassess its current doctrine, force structure, equipment, 

and training and education programs, using Just Cause as a model. That 

process, however, had just begun to show results when Saddam Hussein’s forces 

invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm

soon followed, with some observers suggesting that, in Desert Storm, the U.S. 

military finally was able to fight the kind of war for which it had been preparing 

for four decades: a conventional force-on-force conflict in which firepower and 

maneuver would prove decisive. In the meantime, the prominence that had 

been accorded the U.S. intervention in Panama dropped off precipitously. 

Within a year, it had lost its status as a beacon a future fighting force would 

follow and had become simply another example of the successful if limited 

exercise of U.S. power in a dangerous world. Such references made their way 

35 On 19 June 1990, General Cisneros conducted a review, or “hot wash,” with a PDF officer 

who had taken part in the defense of Torrijos-Tocumen. At one point, the Panamanian stated 

that had his men possessed more sophisticated weapons, they would have “created havoc” with 

the U.S. Rangers dropping onto the air complex. They were “easy targets,” he declared. Author’s 

notes, Hot Wash, 19 Jun 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama. 36 Briefing, Lt Gen Gordon Sullivan, 9 Jan 1990, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
Follow-Through and Assessments

481

into the 2008 version of the Army’s Field Manual 3–0, Operations, which lists 

Just Cause as an example of a coup de main (a swift, surprise attack), and into 

the 2011 version of Joint Publication 3–0, Joint Operations.

37 Besides listing 

Just Cause as a coup de main, 3–0 also lists it as an example of forced entry 

and nonlinear operations. Still, for many who studied the manuals, the U.S. 

invasion of Panama had become little more than a distant memory. 

This assertion raises a familiar conundrum for the military professional. 

American society, countless observers have pointed out, suffers from historical 

amnesia. In an equally repeated truism, the U.S. military reflects the society 

from which it springs. For many officers, an operation occurring twenty-five 

years ago has little relevance for the present, much less the future. A historian 

would argue otherwise, of course, maintaining that there is much to learn 

from past military undertakings, even those that go back a quarter century (as 

well as centuries and millennia). If Operation Just Cause did not live up to its 

instant billing as the principal model a U.S. Army of the future would emulate, 

it still contains many insights for today’s officers. As an enhancement to an 

officer’s professional education and training, Just Cause serves as a superb 

case study for better understanding contingency operations, urban combat, 

stability operations, nonlinear warfare, and campaign planning. And one 

should not forget that the actual event was a joint undertaking throughout, as 

well as an exercise of the operational art that produced a quick and decisive 

victory. As such, the operation was a major confidence builder at a time when 

a rejuvenated U.S. Army needed it the most. For this and for the reasons 

enumerated throughout this volume, the historical verdict on Just Cause is a 

positive one. 

37 DA FM 3–0, Operations, 27 Feb 2008, pp. 2-13, 8-4 to 8-5; Joint Publication 3–0, Joint 

Operations, 11 Aug 2011, pp. V-14, V-46, V-51. 

Bibliography

I I I

Primary Sources

Research for this project began in March 1989, just months before 

Operation Just Cause ended the two-year crisis in U.S.-Panamanian relations. 

At the time, the documents available for me to examine were located almost 

exclusively in Panama, either at Quarry Heights, home of the U.S. Southern 

Command, or ten minutes north on Gaillard Highway at the headquarters 

of U.S. Army, South, the organization that sponsored my first six research 

trips to the country. The agenda for each trip was similar. An assortment 

of written sources would be copied, including daily and weekly reports, 

operation orders, messages, memorandums, organizational directives, 

training and exercise projections and assessments, and policy statements and 

discussions. Also on the schedule were frequent meetings, especially of JTFPanama, and a host of interviews with U.S. officers and civilians involved 

in the crisis. During the fourth research visit, which began on 11 December 

1989, the routine was broken by the onset of Just Cause, with the JTF-South 

operations center at Fort Clayton affording me a vantage point from which 

to witness the first hours of the operation. 

With that event, the scope of my project and the research it required 

expanded to include contingency planning for the crisis (I was allowed to see 

the plans the night before the invasion), the execution of the plans, and the 

impact of Just Cause on both the situation in Panama and the U.S. military, 

particularly the Army. The geographical area covered in subsequent research 

trips also expanded after Just Cause, as documents became available to 

me in military and other governmental collections scattered across the 

United States: the I Corps headquarters at Fort Lewis, Washington; the 

Combined Arms Research Library and various organizations located at Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas; the Operations Division and the Joint History Office 

in the Pentagon; the U.S. Army Center of Military History, now situated 

at Fort McNair, D.C.; the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and 

the XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; 

the U.S. Army War College and U.S. Army Military History Institute at 

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; the U.S. Marine Corps History Division at 

Quantico, Virginia; and the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

484

Air Force Base, Florida. At these locations and from my desk in the Combat 

Studies Institute, I also continued to conduct interviews with Just Cause

participants and to acquire interview transcripts from individuals and 

organizations engaged in the same activity. Among those who promoted 

the use of oral history in analyzing the Panama crisis were officers and 

historians at the XVIII Airborne Corps; U.S. Army, South, now at Fort Sam 

Houston, Texas; the U.S. Army Military History Institute; the U.S. Army 

Special Operations Command; the U.S. Marine Corps History Division; U.S. 

Southern Command, now in Dade County, Florida; and the U.S. Special 

Operations Command. My position at the Command and General Staff 

College also provided an ideal position from which to discuss Just Cause

with student officers, faculty members, and other personnel on post who had 

served in Panama. Many of these individuals also shared personal records 

they had kept or accounts they had written (or, in some cases, would write 

for one of my classes). 

My most intensive research in primary sources took place within the 

first five years or so after Just Cause. This point deserves emphasis, in 

that almost all of the documents I collected during that period came from 

folders lodged in file cabinets still being used for daily business. Today, for 

the most part, those collections do not exist intact. Presumably, some of 

the files were formally retired to the National Archives or to a military 

service’s history division, such as the Army’s Center of Military History, 

or to the history office of a subordinate headquarters, such as U.S. Army, 

South. Some collections were relocated within a given headquarters, while 

other collections simply vanished, not infrequently the victims of “shredding 

parties” held for the purpose of freeing cabinet space for files dealing with 

more immediate and pressing issues. In short, the original documents that I 

examined and copied during the first few years of my research are rarely to 

be found in the same locations, if they can be found at all. Still, a researcher 

looking into the Panama crisis would do well to contact the organizations 

cited in this bibliography to ascertain the nature and status of any relevant 

material they might hold.

Another approach would be to seek access to the discrete collection of 

primary sources I assembled in preparing this volume and its predecessor. Even 

here, though, the undertaking will not be easy, at least not for some time. As 

the collection grew, it was housed on the secured floor of the Combined Arms 

Research Library. As the first volume neared publication and work progressed 

on the second, that floor was closed for extensive repairs. I removed many of 

the public records, after which the remaining material was put under plastic 

wrap for a number of years. At some future point, my intent, and that of the 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, is to reunite the two portions into one 

collection that will be made available to researchers. 

Unpublished Material

Many of the student papers contained in the list below were submitted in 

classes I taught at the Command and General Staff College. The authors were 

participants in Operation Just Cause.
Bibliography

485

Akers, Col. Frank, comp. Operation Just Cause, The Warriors. Collected 

vignettes released by the U.S. Southern Command.

Beech, Michael F. ‘Quasi-War’: Training Infantry Small Units for Operations 

Other Than War. Student paper, School of Advanced Military Studies, 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans., Academic Year 1995–1996.

Collins, James W. “Blue and Purple: Optimizing the Command and Control 

of Forward Deployed Naval Special Warfare.” Master’s thesis, U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, 1997.

Fishel, John T. War, Peace, and Civil Military Operations: The Role of Civil 

Affairs in Operations Just Cause, Desert Storm, and Provide Comfort.

May 1992.

Haycock, Maj. Robert. NEO—A Platoon Leader’s Experience: Operation 

Just Cause/Marriott Hotel NEO. Student paper, U.S. Army Command 

and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 27 May 1999.

Hedegaard, Maj. Michael L. Task Force Wolf in Operation Just Cause: 

First AH–64 Apache Helicopters in Combat. Student paper, U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 2 March 

2001.

Madrigan, Maj. Brod N. How I Spent the Holidays. Unpublished article, n.d.

Marcella, Gabriel, and General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.). 

The Road to War: The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 1987–1989. Draft article, 

6 May 1991.

Myers, Houston. A First Lieutenant Navigator’s Experience in Panama. 

Student paper, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.

Reeves, Brian W. “Navy SEALs: Theory and Reality.” Master’s thesis, Naval 

Postgraduate School, 1997.

Rosello, Victor M. An MI Paratrooper’s Memory of Operation Just Cause. 

n.d. 

Ryan, Michael. C-645 essay [on securing France Field]. Student paper, U.S. 

Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.

Books, Pamphlets, and Articles

Of the published sources used in this project, three works must be singled 

out for special mention. First, Thomas Donnelly, Margaret Roth, and 

Caleb Baker’s Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: 

Lexington Books, 1991) is a superb overview of the invasion that relies on 

interviews and other primary sources. That book was used extensively to 

supplement my own sources, and it is cited frequently in the footnotes. With 

near equal enthusiasm, the same sentiments apply to Edward M. Flanagan 

Jr.’s excellent Battle for Panama: Inside Operation Just Cause (New York: 

Brassey’s, 1993). Finally, John T. Fishel’s The Fog of Peace: Planning and 

Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic 

Studies Institute, 1992) is one of the best analyses available on planning for 

a democratic and functioning Panama and, once the Noriega regime fell, the 

conduct of stability operations and nation-building activities in pursuit of 

those goals. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

486

Adams, Thomas K. US Special Operations Forces in Action: The Challenge of 

Unconventional Warfare. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Adkin, Mark. Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. 

Heath, 1989.

Bahmanyar, Mir. Shadow Warriors: A History of the US Army Rangers. 

Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2005.

———, with Chris Osman. SEALs: The US Navy’s Elite Fighting Force. Oxford, 

U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2007.

Baker, James A., III, with Thomas M. DeFrank. The Politics of Diplomacy: 

Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 

1995.

Bloechl, Timothy D. “Operation ‘Just Cause’: Low Intensity Conflict 

Stability Operations and Issues of Tactics.” Low Intensity Conflict & Law 

Enforcement 2, no. 1 (Summer 1993).

Bolger, Daniel. Death Ground: Today’s American Infantry in Battle. Paperback ed. 

New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.

Briggs, Clarence E., III. Operation Just Cause, Panama, December 1989: A 

Soldier’s Eyewitness Account. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1990.

Buckley, Kevin. Panama: The Whole Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 

1991.

Butler, F. K., Jr. “Closed-circuit oxygen diving in the U.S. Navy.” Undersea and 

Hyperbaric Medicine 31, no. 1 (2004).

Call, Charles T. “Institutional Learning within ICITAP.” In Policing the New 

World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security. Edited by Robert 

B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg. Washington, D.C.: 

National Defense University Press, 1998.

Clancy, Tom, with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz. Shadow 

Warriors: Inside the Special Forces. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2002.

Cole, Ronald H. Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint 

Operations in Panama, February 1988–January 1990. Washington, D.C.: Joint 

History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995.

———. Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada. Washington, D.C.: Joint History 

Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997.

Combelles, Pascale M. “Operation Just Cause: A Military-Media Fiasco.” 

Military Review 75 (May-June 1995). 

Department of the Army. Field Manual (FM) 3–0, Operations. February 2008.

———. FM 7–10, The Infantry Rifle Company. December 1990.

———. FM 90–10–1, An Infantryman’s Guide to Urban Combat. September 

1982.

DeTreux, 1st Lt. Kenneth M. “Infantry in Low-Intensity Conflict: Observations 

From Operation Just Cause.” Marine Corps Gazette 74 (September 1990).

Dinges, John. Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United 

States and Made Millions in Drugs and Arms. New York: Random House, 

1990.

———. Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel 

Noriega. Rev. ed. New York: Times Books, 1991.

Durant, Michael J., and Steven Hartov, with Lt. Col. Robert L. Johnson (Ret.). 

The Night Stalkers. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006.
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Falerios, Kenton J. “Give Me Something I Can’t Do”: The History of the 82nd 

Military Police Company from WWI to the Iraq War. Bloomington, Ind.: 

Authorhouse, 2007.

Fishel, John T. “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama: What It Tells Us About 

Phase IV Operations.” In Turning Victory Into Success: Military Operations 

After the Campaign. Edited by Brian M. De Toy. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005.

———, and Richard D. Downie. “Taking Responsibility for Our Actions? 

Establishing Order and Stability in Panama.” Military Review 72 (April 

1992).

Gray, Anthony, and Maxwell Manwaring. “PANAMA: Operation Just Cause.”

In Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security. 

Edited by Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg. 

Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1998.

Hammond, Capt. Kevin J., and Capt. Frank Sherman. “Sheridans in Panama.” 

Armor 99 (March-April 1990).

Huelfer, Evan A. “The Battle for Coco Solo Panama 1989.” Infantry 90 

(January-April 2000).

Kelly, Orr. Brave Men, Dark Waters: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs. 

New York: Pocket Books, 1992.

Kempe, Frederick. Divorcing the Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with 

Noriega. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990.

LaFeber, Walter. The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective. New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Len-Rios, Maria. “Operation Just Cause: An Eyewitness Account.” Focal 

Point (Winter 1990).

Linn, Brian McAllister. The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War. Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Madrigan, Maj. Brod N. “The Attack on the DNTT Station.” Marine Corps 

Gazette 74 (April 1990).

Martel, William C. Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Military Policy. 

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Mauskapf, Col. Robert P., and Maj. Earl W. Powers. “LAVs in Action.” Marine 

Corps Gazette 74 (September 1990).

McConnell, Malcolm. Just Cause. Paperback ed. New York: St. Martin’s 

Press, 1991.

Meditz, Sandra W., and Dennis M. Hanratty, eds. Panama: A Country 

Study. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 

1989.

Military Airlift Command. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: An Illustrated 

History of the Military Airlift Command, 1941–1991. Scott Air Force Base, 

Ill.: Office of History, Military Airlift Command, 1991.

Mucciarone, Lt. Cdr. James J., Col. Craig H. Llewellyn, and Lt. Col. John 

M. Wightman. “Tactical Combat Casualty Care in the Assault on Punta 

Paitilla Airfield.” Journal of Special Operations Medicine 8, no.1 (Winter 

2008).

Muse, Kurt, and John Gilstrap. Six Minutes to Freedom. New York: Citadel 

Press, 2006.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

488

Nemmers, Capt. Joseph M., et al. United States Army South Staff Ride: 

Operation Just Cause, 20 December 1989–31 January 1990. Rev. ed. Fort 

Clayton, Panama: Historical Office, Headquarters, U.S. Army, South, 

1998.

Raines, Edgar F., Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics 

in Grenada, 1983. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2010.

Reynolds, Lt. Col. Nicholas E. Just Cause: Marine Operations in Panama, 

1988–1990. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums 

Division, 1996.

Robinson, Linda. Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. 

New York: Public Affairs, 2004. 

Rottman, Gordon L., and Ron Volstad. Panama 1989–90. London: Osprey 

Publishing, 1991.

Sandler, Stanley. Glad to See Them Come and Sorry to See Them Go: A History 

of U.S. Army Tactical Civil Affairs Military Government, 1775–1991. 

Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army Special Operations Command History and 

Archives Division, 1993.

Shultz, Richard H., Jr. In the Aftermath of War: US Support for Reconstruction 

and Nation-Building in Panama Following JUST CAUSE. Maxwell Air 

Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1993.

Siler, Stetson M. “Operation Just Cause: An Air Power Perspective.” Air 

Power History 55, no. 4 (Winter 2008).

Soldiers in Panama: Stories of Operation Just Cause. Washington, D.C.: 

Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Department of the Army, 1990.

Thigpen, Jerry L. The Praetorian STARShip: The Untold Story of the Combat 

Talon. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 2001.

U.S. Special Operations Command. History, 1987–2007. 20th anniversary 

ed. MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.: U.S. Special Operations Command, 

n.d.

Woodward, Bob. The Commanders. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Yates, Lawrence A. “Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama City, December 

1989.” In Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations. Edited by 

William G. Robertson and Lawrence A. Yates. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2003.

———. “Panama, 1988–1990: The Disconnect between Combat and Stability 

Operations.” Military Review 85 (May-June 2005).

———. The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and 

Crisis Management, June 1987–December 1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 2008. 

Internet

Since retirement in 2005, I have limited my research in primary documents 

to just a few archival holdings, such as those at the U.S. Army Center of 

Military History and the U.S. Special Operations Command History Office. 

One relatively new resource, though, has proved particularly helpful—the 

Internet. A small sample of useful material from various Internet sites is 
Bibliography

489

listed below. The problem associated to this asset, however, will be well known 

to those who surf the Web: what is there today may not be there tomorrow. 

Copies of the following reside in my background files for this book.

Arvidson, Cheryl. “Press advocates: Cheney kept a tight rein on media during 

military conflicts.” Freedom Forum Online. http://www.freedomforum.org/

templates/document.asp?documentID=3869.

Bush, George H. W. Speech. http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.

php?id=1356&year=1989&month=12.

Casualty figures for Operation Just Cause. http://william_h_ormsbee.tripod.

com/jc_casualties_panamanian_p01.htm.

Evans, Daniel E. Actions at Fort Espinar, Republic of Panama, 20 December 

1989. n.d. Copy at http://www.benning.army.mil/library/content/Virtual/

Donovanpapers/other/STUP5/EvansDaniel%20E.%20CPT.pdf.

Friedman, Herbert A. U.S. PSYOP in Panama (Operation Just Cause). n.d. 

http://www.psywarrior.com/PanamaHerb.html.

Govern, Lt. Col. Kevin H. Sorting the Wolves from the Sheep. [Detainee 

camps and U.S. military police during Operation Just Cause.] http://www.

wood.army.mil/mpbulletin/pdfs/oct%2004%20pdfs/govern.pdf.

Haight, Maj. David B. Operation Just Cause: Foreshadowing Example of 

Joint Vision. Student paper, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., 2010. 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1998/juscause_T18.

htm.

Hunter, Thomas B. “Operation Acid Gambit: The Rescue of Kurt Muse.” 

http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/Just_Cause/Acid_Gambit/

default2.html.

Rangers operations at Rio Hato. http://www.suasponte.com/m_riohato.htm.

Reeves, Brian W. Navy SEALs: Theory vs. Reality. Thesis, Naval 

Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., 1997. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/

GetTRDoc?AD=ADA342802.

The SEAL assault on Patilla [sic] Airfield during Operation Just Cause. n.d. 

http://www.specwarnet.net/miscinfo/patilla.htm.

U.S. Army. 7th Infantry Division (Light). At http://www.globalsecurity.org/

military/library/report/1990/90-9/9091ch1.htm.

U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned. “Renacer Prison Raid.” In 

Newsletter 91–1, Rehearsals (1991). At http://www.globalsecurity.org/

military/library/report/call/call_91-1_sec6.htm.

U.S. Army Center of Military History. Web site on Operation Just Cause.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/panama/taskorg.htm.

To U.S. civilians who died during Operation Just Cause. http://william_

ormsbee.tripod.com/Pages/dedications_p4.html.

U.S. International Development Cooperation Agency. Panama Project 

Paper. AID/LAC/P-520. Washington, D.C.: Agency for International 

Development, 3 February 1990. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDABB803.

pdf.

U.S. Southern Command. Public Affairs After Action Report. Operation 

Just Cause. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/

latinAmerica/3.pdf.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

490

Newspapers, Bulletins, and Magazines

Army Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, El Siglo, La Prensa, Los 

Angeles Times, New York Times, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Seattle PostIntelligencer, St. Petersburg Times, Tropic Times, and Washington Post. 

Department of State Bulletin and Refworld.

Newsweek and Time.
Abbreviations

I I I

AAR after action report

ADA air defense artillery

AFB Air Force Base

AFFOR Air Force Forces 

AO area of operations 

AUTODIN Automated Digital Network

CA civil affairs

CALL Center for Army Lessons Learned 

CEV combat engineer vehicle

CG commanding general

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CINCFOR commander in chief, U.S. Forces

Command 

CINCMAC commander in chief, Military Airlift 

Command 

CINCSAC commander in chief, Strategic Air 

Command 

CINCSO commander in chief, Southern 

Command

CJCS chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

CMOTF Civil-Military Operations Task Force 

COMCMOTF commander, Civil-Military Operations 

Task Force 

CORDS Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support 

COSCOM Corps Support Command

CRE contingency readiness exercise

DENI Spanish acronym for PDF National 

Investigation Department 

DNTT Spanish acronym for Directorate of 

Traffic and Transportation

DoD Department of Defense
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

492

EDRE emergency deployment readiness 

exercise 

EPW enemy prisoner of war

EXORD execute order

FARP Forward Area Rearming and Refueling 

Point

FAST Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team 

FORSCOM U.S. Army Forces Command 

FRAGO fragmentary order

FUFEM fuerzas femininas (female PDF soldiers)

HB heavy broadcast 

HF high frequency 

HHC Headquarters and Headquarters 

Company

HMMWV high mobility, multipurpose wheeled 

vehicle

ICITAP International Criminal Investigative 

Training Assistance Program 

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff 

 jg junior grade

JOTC Jungle Operations Training Center 

JSOTF Joint Special Operations Task Force

JTF Joint Task Force

JTF-Panama Joint Task Force-Panama 

JTF-South Joint Task Force-South 

LAV light armored vehicle

LAW light antiarmor weapon 

LCM landing craft, mechanized 

LZ landing zone

MAC Military Airlift Command 

MEDCAP Medical Civic Action Program

MEDEVAC medical evacuation

MOUT military operations on urbanized 

terrain

MP Military Police

MRE meal, ready to eat

MSG Military Support Group 

NAVFOR Naval Forces 

NCA National Command Authority

NSA National Security Agency

NSD national security directive
Abbreviations

493

OPLAN operation plan

OPORD operation order

OPTEMPO operational tempo

PCC Panama Canal Commission 

PDF Panama Defense Forces 

PML Personnel Movement Limitation

PNP Panama National Police 

POV privately owned vehicle

PPF Panama Public Force 

PSYOP psychological operations 

PZ pickup zone

QRF quick reaction force 

RC reserve component

ROE rules of engagement 

RPG rocket-propelled grenade 

R & S reconnaissance and surveillance 

SAF Special Action Force 

SAM surface-to-air missile 

SAMS School for Advanced Military Studies

SAW squad automatic weapon

SEAL Navy Sea-Air-Land element

SKE station-keeping equipment 

SOCOM U.S. Special Operations Command

SOCSOUTH Special Operations Command, South 

SOF U.S. Special Operations Forces 

SOP standing operating procedure

SOUTHCOM U.S. Southern Command 

TF Task Force

TOE table of organization and equipment

TOW tube-launched, optically tracked, wire 

command-link-guided 

TTAD temporary tour of active duty

TU Task Unit

TEWT tactical exercise without troops

UESAT Spanish acronym for the PDF’s special 

operations unit

USAID U.S. Agency for International Development 

USAMHI U.S. Army Military History Institute

USARSO U.S. Army, South 

USAWC U.S. Army War College

USCINCLANT commander in chief, U.S. Atlantic 

Command 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

494

USCINCSOC commander in chief, U.S. Special 

Operations Command 

VHF–FM very high frequency–frequency modulated 

YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association 
Index

I I I

A–7 Corsair, 151

A-Teams, 210

ABC (television network), 361, 377

AC–130 Spectre gunship, 99

Coco Solo, 314n20, 318n29

Colón, 371

Comandancia attack and, 110, 111, 

121–22, 124, 127, 128, 129, 136, 

137

contingency planning and, 25

in formal plan for Just Cause, 49, 55

friendly fire and, 126–27, 128 

Ma Bell campaign and, 389, 392

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 362–65

Paitilla, 88, 91

success of, 475

Task Force Black and, 210–12, 

213n8, 214–15, 217–19

Task Force Black Devil and, 157, 

165, 168, 169

Task Force Red-R and, 275, 282, 286, 

288

Task Force Red-T and, 224, 225, 228

Task Force Wildcat and, 189–90, 195, 

203

Acid Gambit, 96, 99

AH–1 Cobra helicopter, 16n16, 33, 157, 

163, 165, 264, 268, 269, 270, 

339, 347, 353, 354, 355, 357, 475

AH–6 Little Bird gunship 

assessment of, 475

in Comandancia attack, 110, 121, 128

in special operations at outset of Just 

Cause, 98, 99, 101

Task Force Red-R and, 275, 284n24, 

286, 292, 295, 297

Task Force Red-T and, 224, 225, 226, 

228, 229, 231

AH–64 Apache helicopter, 26, 33, 49, 58, 

133–34, 266, 268, 270, 275, 282, 

284n24, 286, 392, 400, 475

Air Defense Artillery

2d Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery, 7th Infantry Division, 306, 

312, 324

3d Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery, 1st Brigade, 82d Airborne 

Division, 248

Air force, Panamanian, 50, 226, 228, 230

Air Force, U.S.

1st Special Operations Wing, 99, 210, 224

forces committed to Just Cause, 52, 

53, 55, 473

security enhancement forces, buildup 

of (1988), 16n16

Task Force Red-R at Rio Hato and, 

275, 277

See also Military Airlift Command; 

Tactical Air Command; Tactical 

Airlift Wing, 317th.

Airborne Corps, XVIII

1st Corps Support Command, 61

assessment of Just Cause and, 469, 

471, 472, 477–78, 479n33

Comandancia attack and, 107

concentric circles concept and, 140

PDF garrison targets of 82d Airborne 

Division and, 238, 244
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

496

run-up to and planning for Just 

Cause, 20–21, 31, 32, 34, 47, 53, 

60–61, 63n44

stability operations and nation building, 404, 406, 407, 409, 410, 412

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

303–04, 307

Task Force Red-T and, 223

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142, 145, 

151

Task Force Wildcat and, 177

Airborne Division, 82d, 237–71

XVIII Airborne Corps, close working 

relationship with, 238–39n3

air assaults, 259–71

bad weather at departure sites, effects 

of, 64, 226, 237, 250–52, 262

Colón, sweep of, 371, 378

deployment, 245–55

Division Ready Brigade, 64, 240, 

243, 244–45, 246, 248

downtown Panama City and, 359

Fort Cimarrón assault, 207, 220, 236, 

237–38, 241–42, 244, 254, 258, 

259, 271

heavy drop, issues with, 44, 64, 247, 

254, 258–59

Las Tinajitas assault, 207, 223, 236, 

237–38, 241, 244, 254, 259, 

265–71

Ma Bell campaign, 385

Marriott Hotel hostages, 360–67

mission of, 205, 207

name of Task Force Black Devil and, 

156n32

notification and briefings, 245–47, 

250, 251

Panama Viejo assault, 207, 223, 236, 

237–38, 241, 244, 254, 259, 

262–67, 270–71

planning, 34, 40, 46, 56, 57–58, 64, 

237–45

preparation and rehearsal, 243–45

at Renacer Prison, 306, 352–57

Signal Battalion, 82d, 249

stability operations and nation building, 417, 418, 419, 440

success of, 359

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

303–04, 306, 315, 321

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

331, 332

Task Force Black and, 220

Task Force Red-T and, 223

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142

Torrijos-Tocumen airfield complex 

drop zone, 207, 213, 236–37, 

241–44, 250, 252–59, 263, 

265–71, 359, 473

units in operation, 249

Airborne Division, 82d, units

1st Battalion, 504th Infantry, 248, 

249, 256, 267, 269

2d Battalion, 504th Infantry, 248, 

249, 256, 259, 263, 267, 361

3d Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery, 246

3d Battalion, 73d Armor, 109, 249

3d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery, 

246, 334

3d Battalion, 504th Infantry, 248, 

306, 312, 323, 328, 331, 357, 

376, 420

3d Battalion, 505th Infantry, 248

4th Battalion, 325th Infantry, 248, 

249, 256, 271

7th Battalion, 15th Field Artillery, 

306, 371

313th Military Intelligence Battalion, 

249

407th Supply and Service Battalion, 

1st Brigade, 248, 249, 256, 267, 

269

82d Military Police Company, 249

Airborne Division, 101st, 277

“Airborne mafia,” comments about, 238

Aircraft, fixed-wing. See A–7 Corsair; 

AC–130 Spectre gunship; C–5 

Galaxy cargo plane; C–20 

Gulfstream aircraft; C–130H 

Hercules transport; C–141 

Starlifter transport aircraft; 

EC–130 Volant Solo; EF–111 

Raven; F–111 fighter; F–117A 

Stealth fighter; KC–10 transAirborne Corps, XVIII—Continued
Index

497

port aircraft; KC–10A refueling 

aircraft; L–1011 TriStar airliner; 

MC–130 Combat Talon; OA–37 

Dragonfly. 

Akers, Col. Frank, 470n23

Albrook Air Station

Cavezza’s operations center at, 368

Comandancia attack and, 108, 120, 

126, 136

displaced civilians living at, 443, 467

Ma Bell campaign and, 384, 388

shooting incident of 18 December 

near, 46–47

Task Force Black and, 207, 210–14, 

219, 220n19, 221

Task Force Gator, 136

Task Force Wildcat and, 178, 181, 

182, 188, 190, 193, 195, 196, 

198, 202

American citizens in Panama

casualties, 469

Colón sweep and, 368

Marriott Hotel hostages, 360–67

prior to outbreak of hostilities, 10, 11, 

23

special operations and beginning of 

Just Cause and, 96, 100

Task Force Atlantic and, 309, 314–15, 

319, 327–28, 336, 349–52

Task Force Black Devil and, 153, 

155, 157, 161–62, 169

Task Force Wildcat and, 182

See also Civilians and civilian refugees.

Ancon Hill, 171–72

Comandancia attack and, 118, 123, 

127, 130n45, 132, 140

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57

SOUTHCOM on, 7

See also Task Force Wildcat.

AN/TPQ–36 counterbattery radar, 213

Apostolic Nunciature, Noriega seeking 

asylum in Vatican’s, 393–401, 

421, 432, 449, 477

Area of coordination, treaty concept of, 306

Arias Calderón, Ricardo, 75–76, 79, 

210–11, 380–81, 430, 432, 444, 

445, 464

Armijo, Col. Roberto (PDF, PPF), 432

Army, U.S.

briefing on proposed combat plans, 

32

Finance and Accounting Center, 424

forces committed to Just Cause, 52, 

473

security enhancement forces, buildup 

of (1988), 16n16

Training and Doctrine Command, 

474n29

See also Airborne Corps, XVIII; 

Airborne Division, 82d; Airborne 

Division, 82d, units; Airborne 

Division, 101st; Engineer Battalions; Field Artillery; Infantry Division, 7th (Light); Infantry Divisions; Infantry Brigade, 193d; 

Infantry Battalions; Medical 

Battalions; Medical Detachment, 

214th; Military intelligence; 

Military police (MP); Signal 

Brigades; Signal Battalions. 

Army Budget, 424

Army reserve components, 405–08, 410, 

414–15, 436, 445, 458. See also

Civil Affairs Brigade, 361st; 

Civil Affairs Company, 478th; 

Civil affairs specialists, in stability operations and nation building 

period; Fishel, Lt. Col. John T.; 

National Guard (U.S.); Selected 

Reserve; Stone, Col. William.

Army School of the Americas, 322

Army Times, 19

Arraiján (town), 142, 144, 145, 148–49, 

151

Arraiján Tank Farm, 16–17, 19, 141, 144, 

150, 159, 337

Asian Senator (German merchant ship), 

80–81

Assessments

82d Airborne Division, assaults by, 

270–71

of Blind Logic command and control arrangements, 41

casualties, 469

of Comandancia assault, 135–38, 473, 

480
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

498

coup de main, Just Cause as, 481

of execution of Just Cause, 472–77, 

479–80

of historical significance of Just 

Cause, 480–81

of Panamanian forces by U.S. military intelligence, 50, 274

of planning and preparation process, 

471–72, 477–80

of PSYOPS, 476

of reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama, 468

success, general declarations of, 469, 

470, 476

of Task Force Atlantic, 357–58

of Task Force Black, 221–22

of Task Force Black Devil, 168–69

of Task Force Red-R, 298–99

of Task Force Red-T, 298–99, 

480n35

of Task Force Wildcat, 203–04

of weapons and weapons platforms, 

475–76

AT4 rocket

82d Airborne Division and, 258

assessment of, 476

planning for Just Cause and, 49

special operations at outset of Just 

Cause and, 88, 93

Task Force Atlantic and, 308, 309, 

314, 316, 326, 337, 348, 350, 

353

Task Force Black and, 214, 217–18

Task Force Black Devil and, 159, 

165, 169

Task Force Wildcat and, 178, 195, 

200, 203

Atlantic Command, 16n16, 32, 49

Atwood, Donald, 398

Automated digital network (AUTODIN) 

data communications service, 61

Aviation Group, 160th (Night Stalkers), 

70, 98, 224

Aviation Battalion, 228th, 58

Aviation Detachment, 617th, 70

Axson, Lt. Col. Harry B., 259, 265–66, 

362–65, 367

Baker, James A., 27, 76

Balboa district

assessment of securing of, 424, 438, 

477

Comandancia attack and, 115, 118, 

121, 131n47

counterattack and, 379, 382, 383

Muse rescue and, 103

Task Force Black Devil and, 157, 

159

Task Force Red-T and, 234

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 175, 

179, 181, 183, 197–204

Balboa Harbor

seizure of Presidente Porras patrol 

boat in, 77, 81–86

Task Force Wildcat and, 180, 199

Balboa High School and displaced persons camp, 120, 131, 201n57, 

441–43, 477

Balkans, U.S. forces in, 474

Banner Savior, 31, 321n32

Barletta, Nicolás Ardito, 6

Barnard, S. Sgt. Larry, 298

Basques given asylum at nunciature, 400

Battalion 2000 (PDF), 70, 106, 140, 211, 

213, 216, 217, 220, 222, 259

Beech, Capt. Michael F., 323–27, 375

Beirut bombing (1983), 45, 283, 474

Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas, 55

Bernius, Sgt. Thomas P., 148

Black Knight, 243, 244

Blade Jewel, 23

Blind Logic (originally Krystal Ball)

assessment of, 41, 471, 478

becoming Promote Liberty, 415

Comandancia attack and, 130–31

command and control arrangements, 

41, 471

evolution of stability operations planning and, 12, 405–15

hunt for Noriega and, 70

organized chaos of stability operations, sorting out, 445, 449

reinstatement of Endara government 

and, 444

specific guidance contained in, 404

Blue Devil, 339, 351

Assesments—Continued
Index

499

Blue Spoon

82d Airborne Division, assaults of, 

237–38, 240, 243

approval of final plan, 32

assessment of Just Cause and, 471, 

472, 477, 478

briefings on, 30, 35

Comandancia attack and, 105–10, 

112, 114, 115, 117, 130, 136, 140

in days prior to D-day, 38, 39, 41, 42, 

43, 45, 46, 48, 56, 57, 60, 65

development of, 12, 13, 20–21, 30–31, 32

on hostages, 367

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69, 70, 71, 83, 

96, 99

stability operations and nation building, 404, 406–13

Task Force Atlantic and, 303, 304, 331

Task Force Black and, 211

Task Force Black Devil and, 153, 

155, 157, 158

Task Force Red-R and, 273, 274–75, 

283, 284

Task Force Red-T and, 222, 225, 234

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142, 143, 

144

Task Force Wildcat and, 174–76

Bomb scares, 34, 376

Bonilla, Antonio, 386n38

Boquete, 283, 284, 297

Bowers, Capt. Isadore, Jr., 184–87, 190

Boyd-Roosevelt Highway, 25, 72, 306, 

322, 328, 329, 340–41, 345, 346

Boylan, Capt. Peter, 349–52

Bradley fighting vehicle, 108, 136

Bray, Capt. Linda, 270n58

Bridge of the Americas, 81, 83, 117, 120, 

140, 144, 149–50, 153, 158, 341, 

453

Briggs, 1st Lt. Clarence E., III, 337, 

339n16, 347, 348, 349

Broadus, 2d Lt. Chuck, 356

Brooks, Lt. Col. Johnny

Coco Solo, 311, 312n19, 314–17, 

319n32, 320, 321, 371

Colón, 335, 371–75, 377

Fort Espinar, 323, 324, 326, 327

on Kellogg, 302n2

planning and preparation for Task 

Force Atlantic, 304–06, 307–

08n12, 309, 311

in stability operations and nation 

building, 421, 441n58

success of operations under, 331, 357

on Task Force Atlantic’s missions and 

lack of backup, 301n1, 335, 357, 

359

Brown, Pfc. Roy, Jr., 298

Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, 2–3n3

Burba, General Edwin H., Jr., 38

Burke, 1st Lt. Walter, 318

Burney, Col. Linwood, 308, 384–85, 

388–89, 393

Bush, George H. W.

assertion that Just Cause was not an 

occupation, 460

Colombian drug cartel bomb threat 

and antidrug activities of, 34

declining interest in Panama, 455, 456

final review before D-day, 62–63

funding shortfall for rebuilding of 

Panama, 465

Giroldi coup attempt, 29

Marriott Hotel hostages, 361

Muse arrest, detention, and rescue, 

94–96

Nimrod Dancer, 24, 25

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 72, 397, 399

NSD-17, 26–27

official addresses on Just Cause, 74, 76

order for execution of Just Cause, 

1–2, 35, 144, 225, 245, 414, 477

Paz death, lack of immediate public 

response to, 278

presidential elections in United States, 20

on reinstatement of winners of May 

Panamanian elections, 411

on secrecy prior to D-day, 37–38

on Vietnam syndrome, 472

Bushnell, John, 76, 397, 415, 429, 443, 

458, 465

C4 plastic explosive, 83, 166, 320, 348, 

355
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

500

C–5 Galaxy cargo plane, 33, 64, 99, 

100n45

C–20 Gulfstream aircraft, 45

C–130H Hercules transport, 55, 224, 226, 

228, 229, 280, 285, 286, 287, 

291, 292

C–141 Starlifter transport aircraft, 43, 44, 

64, 224, 226, 228, 240, 242, 243, 

246–48, 250–54, 256, 258, 279, 

333, 334

Caldwell, Maj. William, 238–39n3, 240

Camp Rousseau (Camp Gator), 108, 115, 

118, 120

Campbell, Capt. John, 344–46

Canal Zone, 2–4, 197

Carcel Modelo

Comandancia attack and, 109, 110, 

111, 115, 122, 125, 132–33

See also Muse, Kurt, rescue of.

Carley, Cdr. Norman, 84–86

Carter, Jimmy, 4

Castillo, Ivan, 394

Castro, Fidel, 4

Casualties, civilian, 469

AC–130 reducing, 475

in Comandancia attack, 129, 135

in DNTT counterattack, 380–81, 384

Dragseth, Raymond, 367

Marriott Hotel hostage rescue, 366, 

367

night deployment reducing, 475

police at Colón bottleneck, 328

in stability operations, 421

Task Force Wildcat and, 182, 199–

200, 380–81

Casualties, Panamanian forces, 469

at Colón, 376

in Comandancia attack, 135

in counterattack at Panama City, 383

Marriott Hotel hostage rescue, 364, 

365

in PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division, 266, 268

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, 315, 

318, 322, 329, 368

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, 352, 

356, 357

Task Force Black, 220

Task Force Black Devil, 160–61, 168

Task Force Red-R, 290, 294, 295, 298

Task Force Red-T, 229, 232

Task Force Semper Fi attack on 

DNTT station, 148

Task Force Wildcat, 191, 201

Casualties, U.S. forces, 469 

at Arraiján Tank Farm, 16–17

in Comandancia attack, 123, 124, 

126, 129, 132, 135

in counterattack in Panama City, 

380–81, 383–84

heat stroke, problem of, 271

Marriott Hotel hostage rescue, 

363–64, 366

Muse rescue and, 101–03

at Paitilla airfield, 91–92, 103

in PDF garrison assaults by 82d 

Airborne Division, 255–56, 266, 

269, 270, 271

in stability operations, 421

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, 318, 

327, 329, 368

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, 348, 

349, 350, 352, 355, 357

Task Force Black Devil, 162–63, 

164n47, 168

Task Force Red-R, 287–88, 289, 296, 

298

Task Force Red-T, 230, 232, 235

Task Force Semper Fi, 148, 153

Task Force Wildcat, 186–87, 191, 

380–81

See also Paz, 1st Lt. Robert, shooting 

of.

Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic 

Church.

Cavezza, Maj. Gen. Carmen, 57, 238, 308, 

368, 369, 370, 372, 373, 384, 

450n71, 451

CBS, 64–65, 361

Center for Army Lessons Learned 

(CALL), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 422–23, 424n31, 437, 470

Center for Treaty Affairs, SOUTHCOM, 

11, 19

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 6, 10, 

20, 49, 71, 94–95, 394
Index

501

Centurions (Panamanian police company), 

10

Cerro Azul television tower, 207, 211, 

221, 241

Cerro Tigre, 58–59, 304, 306, 336–40, 

342n22, 346–49, 350, 359

CH–47 Chinook helicopter, 58, 244, 339, 

346, 347, 350–51, 353, 367

CH–53 Sea Stallion helicopter, 221

Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, 44, 64, 248n22, 251, 252n28, 

253, 254

Chase, Maj. Jonathan, 361, 363–64, 367

Cheney, Richard

on activation of JTF-South, 34

in days prior to D-day, 40, 43, 45, 55, 

62, 63

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 361

Muse, rescue of, 95, 96

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 74, 396, 398

Task Force Red-R and, 282–84, 

286n27

Woerner relieved of command of 

SOUTHCOM by, 27

Chiriquí Province, 387, 393

Chitré, 388, 390

Cisneros, Maj. Gen. Marc A.

assessment of Just Cause, 471, 477, 

480n35

Colón sweep, 368–71

on Comandancia attack, 100, 113n14, 

115, 116

in contingency planning during escalation of crisis, 19, 20, 26, 27, 

28–29, 33, 34–35

in days prior to D-day, 37, 41, 42, 47, 

48, 49

follow-up operations and, 372–73, 

377, 385–88, 392–401

Kellogg and, 302–03

Ma Bell campaign, 385–88, 392–93

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 71, 73, 392–401

stability operations and nation 

building, 413, 417n21, 430–33, 

435, 445, 450, 451, 456, 460, 

461–62, 467

Task Force Atlantic and, 302–03, 

307

Task Force Black Devil and, 159, 

163, 165, 168

Task Force Semper Fi and, 141, 154

Task Force Wildcat and, 177, 178

Civil Affairs Brigade, 361st, 408, 410, 

415, 445

Civil Affairs Battalions

96th, 40, 59, 224, 275, 408, 436, 

442–43, 445, 449

supporting special operations, 70

Civil Affairs Company, 478th, 415

Civil affairs specialists, in stability operations and nation-building period, 

436–38, 458

Civil-military operations and operations 

orders. See Stability operations 

and nation building.

Civil-Military Operations Task Force 

(CMOTF), 12, 405, 407, 408, 

410, 412, 413–15, 444, 445

Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support (CORDS), 

Vietnam, 449

Civilians and civilian refugees 

assessment of problem of, 477

Balboa High School facility, 120, 

131, 201n57, 441–43, 477

cheering U.S. troops, 375, 376, 392, 

420

in Chinese restaurant in Coco Solo, 

314–15, 319

in Colón, 370–71, 375–76, 378

Comandancia attack and, 126, 130–32

counterattack at Panama City and, 

382, 383

hunt for Noriega and, 394, 400

Klondike Key, 12, 406–07, 471

Ma Bell campaign, 390–91, 392

Marriott Hotel, 271, 359, 360–67

stability operations, transition to, 

416–17, 420–22, 441

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

314–15, 319, 328

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

346, 349–52, 356

Task Force Semper Fi and, 150
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

502

Task Force Wildcat and, 201–02, 379

in Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex 

terminal building, 228, 233–35, 

257, 360

See also American citizens in 

Panama; Hostages.

Claymore mines, 17, 219, 250, 288, 337, 

348, 356

Cleveland, Capt. Charles, 392

CNN, 43

Coco Solo

Chinese restaurant, civilians in, 

314–15, 319

Colón, sweep of, 371, 373, 374, 375, 

376, 377

defined and described, 311–12

in formal plan for Just Cause, 59

Fort Espinar compared, 323–24, 326

Panamanian marines at, 311–14, 315, 

316–18, 320–22

premature beginning of fighting at, 

311, 315–16, 325, 329

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 78, 80, 81

success of taking of, 359

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

303, 304, 306, 308n14, 309, 

311–22, 359

Colombia

drug cartel bomb threat from, 34

Panamanian independence from, 2

Colón

bottleneck, 328–29

in contingency planning and formal 

plan for Just Cause, 13, 39, 59

JTF-Panama responsibilities for, 106

looting in, 441

Noriega in, 72, 73n30

special operations in and around, 77, 

78, 80, 81, 89

stability operations and nation building, 418, 421, 441

sweep of, 329, 349, 359, 367–78

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

301, 304–07, 311, 321, 326, 

328–29, 394

Colon, Capt. Robert, 175n4

Comandancia complex 

air attack, 121–22, 127, 128

assessment of, 135–38, 473, 480

attack on, 121–38

Carcel Modelo and, 109, 110, 111, 

115, 122, 125, 132–33

civilians fleeing attack on, 126, 130–32

command and control relationships, 

uncertainty about, 115–16, 137

concentric rings concept and, 140, 

153, 169, 204–05, 273

final pre-attack review, briefing, and 

preparation, 116–21

in formal plan for Just Cause, 

56–57, 66–67

Giroldi coup and, 29, 106

isolation of, 271

Muse rescue and attack on, 96, 98, 

99, 100, 101, 103–05, 110, 111, 

115

planning for attack on, 33, 105–11

preparation and rehearsal for attack 

on, 112–15

Rangers and, 105–07, 109, 132–34, 

235, 273

success of attack on, 359

switch from Special Operations to 

conventional forces for attack on, 

105–07

Task Force Black Devil and, 153, 

161, 162

Task Force Gator, 105–38

Task Force Wildcat and, 120–21n26, 

174, 181, 197

Combat control team, Air Force, 275

Combat engineer vehicle (CEV), 136–37

Communications 

communications-electronics instructions, 177, 222

in formal plan for Just Cause, 60–61

in stability operations phase, 421–24

Task Force Black and, 221–22

Task Force Wildcat and, 177

See also Radio stations; Radios; Television stations.

Concentric rings concept, 140, 153, 169, 

204–05, 273

Civilians and civilian refugees—

Continued
Index

503

Conley, Capt. Mark, 175n4, 198–202, 

303n59

Connolly, Col. William J., 131, 137, 424, 

441–43

Connors, Lt. (jg) John, 91

Constitution, Panamanian, 3, 444–45

Contingency readiness exercises, 28, 33, 

112, 114, 140, 143, 175, 243, 

302, 304, 324, 328, 334–35, 

336n13, 340, 471

Cope, Col. John A., Jr., 27

Cordoba, Luis A., 81

Cornell, Col. Al, 379–80, 429, 431n40, 

432

Corozal, 108, 115, 118, 120, 199, 202

Cortizo, Maj. Moisés (PDF), 37, 155, 158, 

165, 167–68

Counterattack in Panama City, 378–84

Coup attempts against Noriega

Comandancia attack and, 106

Giroldi coup attempt, 28–30, 31

March 1988, 16, 28, 341, 431, 432n42

planning and preparation for Just 

Cause and, 50, 57–58, 471

Renacer Prison, political prisoners at, 

340, 357

Rio Hato and, 222, 271, 273

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69

Task Force Black Devil and, 153

Task Force Semper Fi and, 143

Task Force Wildcat and, 172

Coup de main, Just Cause regarded as, 481

Crime levels in post–Just Cause Panama, 

dealing with, 456–57

Crisis Action Team, Pentagon, 361, 399

Crocker, Col. George, 245, 246

Cronin, Lt. Col. Robert, 393

Crowe, Adm. William, Jr., 19–20, 21, 22, 

25, 28

Cuba, Noriega’s ties to, 4, 72, 222, 

394–95

Cuban missile crisis, 47

Currie, Capt. Donald S., 175n4, 183–86, 

188–92, 194, 378–83

Curundu area, 46, 117–18, 179–81, 183, 

193–95

Custer, Capt. John M., 221

Daugherty, Lt. Cdr. Marshall D., 77–78, 

80–81

Daves, Pfc. Jerry Scott, 270

David (Chiriquí Province), 387, 388, 

392–93

Davis, Arthur H., 10, 23, 443–44

DeBaere, S. Sgt. David, 289

Defense Communications Agency, 49, 61

Defense Intelligence Agency, 49

Defense Logistics Agency, 49

Defense Mapping Agency, 49, 221

Del Cid, Lt. Col. Luis (PDF), 387–88, 

392, 393

Del Cid, Maj. Mario (PDF), 372 

Delvalle, Eric Arturo, 6, 11, 432n42

DENI. See National Investigation Department.

Denson, Pfc. Martin D., 270

Desert Shield, 52n26, 480

Desert Storm, 52n26, 468, 472, 480

Detainees. See Prisoners of war and 

detainees.

Díaz Herrera, Col. Roberto (PDF), 7

Dignity Battalions (DigBats)

in Colón, 370, 374, 374n22, 377

Comandancia attack and, 126, 129, 

130

El Chorrillo fire set by, 130, 480

failure of Noriega to mobilize, 72

in formal plan for Just Cause, 49, 

51, 53

Ma Bell campaign and, 389

neutralization of, 359

Panama elections and, 22–23

Paz shooting, rumors of increased 

alert status after, 341

stability operations and nation building, 417, 419, 420, 421, 423, 

425, 428, 442

Task Force Red-T and, 228

Task Force Semper Fi and, 143, 144, 

149

Task Force Wildcat and, 180, 181, 

201, 202, 203, 204

Directorate of Traffic and Transportation 

(DNTT)

counterattack at, 378–84

stability operations and, 432
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

504

Task Force Semper Fi taking of Station 2, 144, 145–49

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 183, 

187–93, 194, 195, 378

Displaced persons. See Civilians and 

civilian refugees.

Dobermans (Panamanian police company), 10, 50

Dochnal, Capt. Alfred E., 132, 135, 

224–26, 229–31, 233–35

Dominican Republic, U.S. intervention in 

(1965), 53n26, 238n1, 477

Donivan, Maj. James M., 115, 129, 137, 

140

Downie, Maj. Richard, 458

Downing, Maj. Gen. Wayne A.

Comandancia attack and, 116, 129, 132

in days prior to D-day, 39–40, 49, 53, 

62, 66, 67

hunt for Noriega and, 73–74, 394–

401

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69, 73–74, 88, 

99, 102–03

Task Force Red-R and, 275, 280, 

282–84

Task Force Red-T and, 224, 225

Draeger underwater breathing equipment, 

83, 85

Dragon rockets, 151, 162, 169, 339

Dragseth, Raymond, 367

Drug cartel bomb threat from Colombia, 

34

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 

6, 392, 397, 401

Dukakis, Michael, 20

Durr, Capt. Charles, 362–65

Dyer, Capt. Bryan, 336, 339, 342n22, 

347–48, 376, 377

EC–130 Volant Solo, 55, 476

EF–111 Raven, 55, 476

Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 87, 99

El Chorrillo neighborhood, 125, 130, 132, 

197, 201, 417, 441, 442, 443n61, 

467, 471, 477, 480

El Salvador, 450, 459

Elaborate Maze contingency plan, 12, 

14, 39, 56, 153, 222, 273, 303, 

405, 406

Elder Statesman (later Post Time), 

12, 22, 30, 48, 108, 303, 406, 

471

Emergency deployment readiness exercises (EDRE), 40–41, 243, 244, 

245, 246

Empire Range, 108, 113, 175, 262, 

427–28, 431

Endara, Guillermo

approval of Cisneros’ use of Jimenez, 

385

civilian refugees and, 443

dissolution of PDF, 432, 433n43

on money-for-weapons program, 

424

new government, rebuilding activities 

of, 417, 443–45, 455–56, 462, 

465, 467–68

new police force, establishment of, 

379–80, 384, 393, 396, 429, 430, 

431, 432, 457, 467–68

nuncio and, 395

PDF officers wanted by, 386

reinstatement of, 70, 71, 75–77, 

210–11, 411, 445

at safe house, 368

Task Force Black and, 210–11

Engineer Battalions

7th, 109

13th, 306

307th, 249

536th, 142

Engineer Company, 59th, 193d Infantry 

Brigade, 157

Engineer compound and battalion 

(PDF), 174, 179, 181, 183, 

192–97, 198

Estep, CWO John, 214–17

Ethridge, Capt. Matthew R., 109, 111–13, 

115, 123–24, 126–28

Eubanks, Spec. Michael, 231–32

Evans, 1st Lt. Daniel E., 325–26

Execute order, 45–46, 48–49, 51, 63, 222

Exodus, 153

Directorate of Traffic and Transportation 

(DNTT)—Continued
Index

505

F–111 fighter, 282

F–117A Stealth fighter, 46, 49, 55, 62, 275, 

280–85, 286n27, 287n30, 476

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 459

Field Artillery

320th Field Artillery, 157

3d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery, 

82d Airborne Division, 246, 334

7th Battalion, 15th Field Artillery, 

82d Airborne Division, 306, 371

Field Manual 3–0, Operations, 481

Field Manual 90–10–1, An Infantryman’s 

Guide to Urban Combat, 333

Fishel, Lt. Col. John T., 405n3, 408–12, 

414, 415, 429, 430, 431n40, 444, 

445, 447, 449, 458n6, 469n22

Fitzgerald, Lt. Col. Billy Ray, 154–59, 

161–65, 167–68, 421–23, 434, 

438, 440, 441n57

Fitzwater, M. Marlin, 74

Flamenco Island, 92

Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team (FAST) 

Marine platoon, 142, 149, 150, 

151

Flynn, Capt. Timothy John, 109, 112, 113, 

115, 117, 125, 129, 134–35

Flynt, Capt. William C., III, 174, 179, 

193–97

Follow-on operations, 393–401

Colón, move into, 367–78

counterattack in Panama City, 378–84

Ma Bell campaign outside the canal 

area, 384–93

Marriott Hotel hostages, 271, 359, 

360–67

Food distribution program, 436–37, 438

Forces Command, 16n16, 32, 38, 46, 48

Ford, Guillermo “Billy,” 23, 70–71, 75, 

76, 210–11, 430, 444, 445, 464

Forest ranger (PDF) headquarters, Gamboa, 349–51, 352

Fort Amador

Colón sweep and, 377

Comandancia attack and, 115, 140, 153

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57

Fort Espinar battle compared, 327

as military intelligence storehouse, 423

Military Support Group at, 450, 451

Paitilla airfield, seizure of, 92

Task Force Gator and, 115, 138

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140, 153

See also Task Force Black Devil.

Fort Benning, Georgia, 224, 225, 277, 

278, 322

Fort Bliss, Texas, 278

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

assessment of Just Cause and, 460, 

473, 478

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 30, 

31, 32, 33

days prior to D-day and, 39, 40, 41, 

42, 43, 45, 46, 53, 58, 59, 64, 65

stability operations and nation building, 407, 409, 410, 412, 419, 

436, 445

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

332–35

Task Force Black and, 207, 221

Task Force Red-T and, 224

Fort Campbell, Kentucky, 98, 99, 226

Fort Cimarrón

concentric rings concept and, 140, 

205, 207

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 58

higher priority accorded to, 106

PDF Battalion 2000 at, 70

PDF garrison assault by 82d Airborne 

Division, 207, 220, 236, 237–38, 

241–42, 244, 254, 258, 259, 271

Task Force Black reconnaissance and 

surveillance operations, 207, 211, 

213–16, 220

Task Force Red-T airport assault and, 

222, 223

Task Force Wildcat and, 174

Fort Clayton

assessment of Just Cause and, 480

Comandancia attack and, 106, 115, 

116, 118, 120, 130, 131

in days leading up to D-day, 41, 46, 

47, 58, 62–67

follow-up operations, 365, 368, 385, 

386n38, 387, 388, 399

stability operations and nation building, 407, 409, 427, 428, 431, 449
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

506

swearing-in of new Panamanian leaders at, 76

Task Force Atlantic and, 302, 303, 

308, 336

Task Force Black and, 212, 213

Task Force Black Devil and, 159, 161

Task Force Semper Fi and, 145, 151

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 177, 178, 

179, 180–81, 183, 189, 198, 202

Fort Davis, 304, 307, 312, 329, 343, 345, 

371

Fort Espinar

in formal plan for Just Cause, 59

officers’ club, U.S. reclamation of, 

25–26, 27, 322

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

304, 306, 322–28, 341

Fort Hood, Texas, 111

Fort Kobbe, 88, 112, 115, 117, 144, 155, 

158, 161, 162

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 34, 422, 470, 

474n29

Fort Lewis, Washington, 64, 277, 278–79, 

305n8, 312n19, 419

Fort Meade, Maryland, 57

Fort Ord, California, 16, 23, 223, 238, 

307, 308, 368, 384, 412, 419

Fort Polk, Louisiana, 23, 108, 174, 248

Fort Sherman

Nimrod Dancer, 24, 25, 58

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

301, 303, 307, 308, 309, 312, 

322, 324

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, 

and, 331n1, 332–35, 339, 341, 

342n22, 344, 347, 349, 350, 354

Fragmentation grenades, 88, 148, 149, 

195, 289, 320, 333, 348, 474

France, Noriega extradited to, 455n1

France Field, 306, 328

Franks, Lt. Col. Michael J., 142

Fredenburgh, 2d Lt. Paul H., 188

Freedom-of-movement operations, 24–25

Freeze, Maj. Terry, 113–14, 116

Friendly-to-enemy troop ratios, 107, 301, 

475

Friendly fire, 127, 128, 129, 164, 166, 

182, 190, 200, 297–98, 333, 

347n31, 382, 418

Fry, Col. Chuck, 13, 18, 27

FUFEM (fuerzas femininas) soldiers, 

Panamanian, 340, 349–50, 352

Gaillard Highway, 172, 181, 183, 184, 

185, 187, 188, 198, 379

Gaitán, Capt. Asunción Eliécer, 73, 75, 

399, 400

Gamboa, 304, 306, 339–40, 345, 349–52, 

353, 359

Gann, Brig. Gen. Benard W., 413, 415, 

429, 444–47, 451

Gardner, Lt. Col. Gregory, 301n1, 302n2, 

303, 309, 316, 373, 374, 375, 

377n28

Gaskins, Capt. Gerald H., 142, 145, 148, 

150–51

Genesis, 153

Gibbs, Spec. William, 329

Giroldi Vega, Maj. Moisés (PDF), 28–29, 

31, 69

Gneckow, Rear Adm. Gerald E., 53, 55

Goldwater-Nichols Department of 

Defense Reorganization Act of 

1986, 13n14, 60, 472, 473

Gorgas Army Hospital, 98, 171, 172, 174, 

179, 187, 381

Goss, Capt. Joseph D., 109, 112, 120, 123, 

125–29, 133, 136

Gray, General Alfred M., Jr., 63

Gray, Sfc. Charlie, 315–16, 317

Green Berets. See Special Forces.

Grenada invasion (1983), 45, 60, 271n60, 

287n30, 477

Guardia, Maj. Luis (PDF), 323, 326

H-hour

assessment of Just Cause and, 

474–76

Colón sweep and, 368

Comandancia attack and, 117, 118, 

120, 121–22, 127, 128

in contingency planning, 31

discussion of, in days prior to D-day, 

39, 40n4, 56, 57, 62, 64–67

hunt for Noriega and, 393

Fort Clayton—Continued
Index

507

Marriott Hotel hostages at, 362

number of targets attacked at, 470

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69–70, 73, 76, 

77, 84–85, 96, 101, 103

stability operations and, 414, 422

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

301, 304, 308, 309, 311, 312, 

315, 316, 325–26, 328

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

341, 344, 345, 351–54, 357

Task Force Black and, 207, 211–14, 

216, 221–22

Task Force Black Devil and, 155, 

156, 157, 159, 161, 162, 164n47

Task Force Red-R and, 273, 275, 

284n24, 285, 298

Task Force Red-T and, 222–24, 228

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142, 145, 150

Task Force Wildcat and, 177, 179, 

180, 205

Haight, 1st Lt. David, 415–18, 420, 429

Haiti, U.S. forces in, 474

Halder, Capt. Matthew, 323, 325

Hale, Col. David R. E.

Nimrod Dancer, 24, 25

on stability operations, 423–24, 434, 

435, 438–40

as Task Force Atlantic commander, 

302, 322–23, 384

Hale, Col. Glynn Walter, 245n15

Hamilton, Col. Jack, 245n15

Haney, Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Eric L., 175n4

Hardy, Col. Leonard, Jr., 413–14, 449

Hartzog, Brig. Gen. William, 31–32, 42, 

247n21, 397, 399, 450, 478

Hay, John, 3n3

Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, 2

Haycock, 1st Lt. Robert, 366–67

Helicopters. See AH–1 Cobra helicopter; AH–6 Little Bird gunship; 

AH–64 Apache helicopter; 

CH–47 Chinook helicopter; 

CH–53 Sea Stallion helicopter; 

MH–6 Little Bird; MH–60 Black 

Hawk; OH–58 Kiowa helicopter; 

UH–1H Huey helicopter; UH–60 

Black Hawk helicopter.

Helin, Gertrude Kandi, 182

Hellfire missile, 33, 49, 133

Herrera Hassan, Col. Eduardo (PDF), 

432

Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute, Rio Hato, 

274, 293–94

Higginbotham, Col. Norman, 413–14, 

432, 450

Higgins, Maj. Kevin M., 211–21, 391–93

High Anxiety, 48, 106, 110, 114, 172, 174

High-frequency (HF) radios, 61

High mobility, multipurpose wheeled 

vehicle (HMMWV), 113, 145, 

148, 160, 178, 181–82, 242–43, 

248n22, 254, 256n35, 258, 262, 

265, 266, 329, 334, 345, 365, 

366, 434, 476

Hinton, Deane R., 444, 451, 460–62, 464, 

465, 468

Hoerner, S. Sgt. Richard J., 289–90

Hoffman, Fred S., 63n44

Horsley, CW3 Fred, 121–22, 128

Hort, Capt. John, 159

Hostages

assessment of problem of, 477

Dragseth, Raymond, 367

Gamboa, risks at, 352

Marriott Hotel, Panama City, 271, 

359, 360–67

Noriega inside papal nunciature, 

risks of hostages being taken by, 

397–98

Smithsonian Institution scientists 

and research assistants, San Blas 

Islands, 367

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex 

terminal, 233–34, 360

U.S. intelligence reports regarding 

Panamanian plans for, 360

“Hot wash,” 228n29, 480n35

Hotel Washington, Colón, 394

Howard Air Force Base

Comandancia attack and, 105, 111, 

112, 114, 115, 132

in days leading up to D-day, 41, 42, 

46, 47, 54, 55, 66

follow-on operations, 367, 374, 384, 

392, 397, 401
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

508

shooting incident near, 17–18

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 76, 81, 89n32, 

92, 99, 100n45, 101, 102–03

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

334, 344

Task Force Black and, 211, 212, 213

Task Force Black Devil and, 159

Task Force Red-T and, 223–24

Task Force Semper Fi and, 144, 150

Howitzer, 91, 111, 122, 157, 158, 162, 

165, 169, 228, 242, 258, 334, 

371, 376, 377

Huff, Lt. Col. William, III

as commander of Task Force Wildcat, 

172, 378

and DENI, 184–85, 198, 201, 203, 204

and DNTT, 189, 191, 193, 378–84

and PDF Engineer Compound and 

Battalion, 195, 196, 197

preparations and initial movements, 

174–83

on stability operations, 422–23, 434, 

438

Huggens, 1st Lt. Kevin, 175n4, 202, 

203n59

Hull-Alfaro Treaty of 1936, 3

Hunt, Lt. Col. Joseph F., 275, 391–93

Hunt for Noriega

Apostolic Nunciature, Noriega seeking asylum in papal, 393–401, 

421, 432, 449, 477

bounty on Noriega, 393, 421

Chiriquí Province, Noriega rumored 

to be in, 387

lack of intelligence regarding whereabouts, 359, 421

location and apprehension, 393–401

Muse rescue and, 100

music at nunciature, 398–99

at outset of Just Cause, 69, 70–77

Task Force Gator, 69–77, 122, 

129–30

Task Force White, 89

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex, 

Noriega at, 222

widespread effects of, 393–94

Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, 64, 224, 

225, 226

Huntoon, Maj. David, Jr., 31, 238–39n3, 

410, 412

Hurlburt Field, Florida, 225, 277

Hussein, Saddam, 479, 480

Infantry Division, 7th (Light)

3d Brigade, 58

2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, 304

2d Battalion, 62d Air Defense Artillery, 306, 312, 324

4th Battalion, 17th Infantry, 58, 

304, 306, 323, 328, 331, 357, 

367

and 82d Airborne Division, 238, 

239–40, 270n58

contingency planning and planning 

for Just Cause, 16, 23–24, 26, 

33, 34, 46, 56, 57, 58

Ma Bell campaign and, 393

Military Police Company, 306, 323, 

324n39

stability operations and nation building, 418, 419

Task Force Atlantic and, 303, 322

Task Force Black Devil and, 162, 

163

Task Force Red-T and, 223

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142

women personnel in, 270n58

Infantry Divisions

5th (Mechanized), 23, 57, 108, 109, 

118, 132, 135

24th (Mechanized), 46

Infantry Brigade, 193d, 17, 24, 56, 58, 

247, 258

1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, 210, 

214, 216, 244, 346

1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, 109, 

112, 113n14, 117, 118, 125, 128, 

132

5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, 120–

21n26, 172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 

378

59th Engineer Company, 157

and 82d Airborne Division, 247, 258

Comandancia attack and, 107, 137

Howard Air Force Base—Continued
Index

509

contingency planning and planning for 

Just Cause, 17, 24, 56, 58, 106

Task Force Bayonet and, 24, 106–07, 

137

Task Force Black Devil and, 157

Task Force Gator and, 137

Task Force Wildcat and, 172

Infantry Battalions 

1st Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne) (Red Devils), 155, 

156n32, 162

4th Battalion, 6th Infantry (Mechanized), 5th Infantry Division, 

108, 109, 118, 132, 135

5th Battalion, 6th Infantry, 108

5th Battalion, 21st Infantry, 393

See also Airborne Division, 82d; 

Infantry Brigade, 193d; Infantry 

Division, 7th (Light).

Infantry magazine, 357

Inter-American Highway, 16, 150, 274, 

275, 290, 291, 297

International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), 459–60

Iraqi Freedom, 479

Isaak, Cpl. Garreth C., 148

Jacobelly, Col. Robert C. “Jake,” 76, 

207–13, 216–17, 219–22

Jimenez, Capt. Amadis (PDF), 320–21, 

371–73, 385–88, 393, 394

Johnson, Capt. Derek, 340, 352, 354, 357

Johnson, General Hansford T., 38, 39

Johnson, Maj. Gen. James H., Jr., 40, 

64, 235, 239–48, 250–59, 264, 

271n60, 361, 385

Johnson, Lyndon B., 3

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)

contingency plan briefed to, 32

in days prior to D-day, 34, 38, 39, 49, 

63

guidance during Just Cause, 471

NSD-17 and, 27

reaction to escalating crisis, 12

on stability operations and nation 

building, 411, 414–15

“Joint” military facilities, 311–12

Joint Publication 3–0, Joint Operations, 

481

Joint Special Operations Task Force 

(JSOTF)

and 82d Airborne Division, 242

activation of, 13

Comandancia attack and, 105, 106, 

110, 111, 115, 116, 137

in days prior to D-day, 39, 49

in formal plan for Just Cause, 49, 

53, 57

under JTF-South, 32

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69, 84, 88, 99

stability operations planning and, 412

Task Force Black and, 222

Task Force Red-T and, 275

Joint Task Force-Panama (JTF-Panama)

activation of, 13–14

on Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 17

Comandancia attack and, 105, 106, 

107, 110, 113–16

command relationships, 15

compared to JTF-South, 60n36

contingency planning and, 13–14, 17, 

18, 20–21, 26

day-to-day management of security 

troops, 33

in days prior to D-day, 37, 41, 42, 47

Nimrod Dancer, 24, 25

reassertion of U.S. treaty rights and 

other measures, 24–28

reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama, 461, 462, 468, 471

role after decision to use force, 32, 

53, 368

SOCSOUTH and, 18

stability operations and nation building, 406, 407–10, 413, 414, 

450–51

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

301, 302, 303, 307, 324

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

334, 336

Task Force Black Devil and, 153, 

155, 158, 169

Task Force Red-T and, 273

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140–44, 150
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

510

Task Force Wildcat and, 175, 177

Joint Task Force-South (JTF-South)

activation of, 34, 47

assessment of, 469n21, 470, 474, 475, 

476, 478

Comandancia attack and, 107, 114

compared to JTF-Panama, 60n36

follow-up operations, 359, 361, 368, 

378, 385, 394, 395

in hunt for Noriega, 394, 395

operational control, 32, 46, 53–59

OPLAN 90–1, 31, 239

OPLAN 90–2, 32, 41, 42, 48–62, 96, 

114, 156, 172, 207, 223, 241, 

243, 246, 304, 329, 340, 360, 

403, 411–12, 478

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 237, 241, 

257, 258

reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama, 457, 462

stability operations and nation building, 403, 404, 412–15, 424, 

446–47, 449

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

304, 311, 316, 329

Task Force Black and, 211, 222

Task Force Black Devil and, 156, 

159, 161, 166, 169

Task Force Red-R and, 281

Task Force Semper Fi and, 144

Task Force Wildcat and, 174, 180

Jones, Capt. Robert W., Jr., 175n4, 381–82

Jones, Capt. Timothy, 163–64

Judicial Liaison Group, 432

Jungle Operations Training Center 

(JOTC), 24, 58, 77, 248, 304–06, 

309, 312, 324, 331–32, 333, 334

Just Cause

assessment of, 469–81

change of name to, 45

combat operations and deployment of 

troops, 49–50, 51–52

command and control, 53–61

communications and logistics, 60–61

contingency planning, 11–18, 30–35

declaration of formal end to, 453

execute order, 45–46, 48, 49, 51, 63, 

222

follow-on operations, 359–401

formal plan for, 48–62

as four-phase campaign plan, 61–62

military mission, statement of, 48

precipitating incident and go-ahead 

for, 1–2, 35

reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama following, 455–68

rules of engagement, 49, 50

secrecy prior to D-day, 37–38, 43, 48, 

62, 64–65, 117, 144, 343

stability operations and nation building following, 403–53

See also Assessments; Follow-on 

operations; H-hour; Reconstruction and restoration of Panama;

Stability operations and nation 

building; specific task forces 

and mission targets.

KC–10 transport aircraft, 333, 334

KC–10A refueling aircraft, 285

Kellogg, Col. Keith

appointment to lead Task Force Atlantic, 33

Cisneros and, 302–03, 370

Coco Solo, 312n19, 314, 315, 316, 

317, 322

Colón, 329, 370–71, 373–77

in days prior to D-day, 38, 39, 40, 45, 

49, 63

formal plan for Just Cause and, 

58–59

Fort Espinar, 324

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 394

perception of Task Force Atlantic 

mission, 302–03

planning and preparation for Task 

Force Atlantic, AO North, 

302–09, 311

Renacer Prison, observation of assault 

on, 309

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 77

Joint Task Force-Panama (JTF-Panama)—

Continued
Index

511

Kelly, Lt. Gen. Thomas

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 30–31, 32

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 396, 397, 399

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 238, 245, 

250

planning of Just Cause and, 38–40, 

45, 49, 63

Task Force Red-R and, 284

Kelly, Pfc. William, 231–32

Kempf, Lt. Gen. Peter T., 55, 282

Kennedy, John F., 47

Kernan, Col. William F. “Buck,” 224–25, 

275, 278, 280, 282–88, 292, 297, 

387

Kinzer, Brig. Gen. Joseph W., 239, 240, 

245–46, 247n21, 250, 257–58, 

361, 365, 415n18, 418, 419, 450

Kirk, 2d Lt. Daniel K., 320–21

Klondike Key, 12, 406–07, 471

Knight, Chaplain (Capt.) William E., 

175n4

Knoblock, Maj. Les, 131, 201, 413

Koren, Lt. Col. Henry L. T., Jr., 225, 228, 

233, 234

Kozak, Michael, 397, 444

Krystal Ball. See Blind Logic (originally Krystal Ball).

Kuna Indians, 258, 367

Kunkel, Capt. George, 121–22, 128

Kutschera, 1st Lt. Lisa M., 264–65n49, 269

L–1011 TriStar airliner, 334

La Chorrera, 150–53

La Escondida, 283, 284

Laboa, Monsignor José Sebastián (nuncio), 395–401

Las Tablas, 388, 390–91

Las Tinajitas

concentric rings concept and, 140, 

205, 207

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 58

higher priority accorded to, 106

PDF garrison assault by 82d Airborne 

Division, 207, 223, 236, 237–38, 

241, 244, 254, 259, 265–71

stability operations, 417

Task Force Black reconnaissance and 

surveillance operations, 207, 211, 

212–13

Task Force Wildcat and, 174

Law 20, 5–6

Lawson Army Airfield, Georgia, 64, 277, 

279, 285

LCM (landing craft, mechanized), 77, 

80–81, 336–37, 339–40, 346, 

353–56, 371, 375

Lear, Spec. Philip, 296

Learjet, 86–89, 91, 93

Lebanon

Beirut bombing (1983), 45, 283, 474

U.S. intervention in (1958), 53n26

Libyan Embassy in Panama, 395

Light antiarmor weapon (LAW)

82d Airborne Division, 266

in Comandancia attack, 117, 134

in counterattack in Panama City, 383

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 366

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

314, 316, 318, 326

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

337, 350, 357

in Task Force Black, 217

in Task Force Black Devil, 159

Task Force Red-R and, 290, 296, 297

in Task Force Wildcat, 177, 186, 189, 

195, 196, 200, 203

Light armored vehicle (LAV)

Comandancia attack and, 109, 112, 

113, 118, 120, 127, 128, 129, 

133, 136, 137, 140

LAV–1, 140n3

LAV–25, 109, 112, 113, 118, 140n3, 

476

LAV–C2, 140n3

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140, 141, 

142, 145, 148, 149, 151

Lindsay, General James J., 13, 38, 45, 73, 

83n24, 87, 93, 94n38, 277, 447, 

449–50

Loats, CWO Michael, 354–55

Loeffke, Maj. Gen. Bernard, 14, 17, 18, 

22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 49, 141, 143, 

302n2, 303, 471
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

512

Logistics, in formal plan for Just Cause, 

61

Looting

assessment of, 477

Comandancia attack and, 100, 

131n47, 132

follow-on operations and, 359, 370, 

373–75, 389

reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama and, 456

stability operations and, 411, 417n21, 

419, 429, 441, 445

Task Force Wildcat and, 202, 203

Low-intensity conflict, concept of, 33, 

480

Luck, Maj. Gen. Gary, 31–32, 39, 49, 96

M21 antitank mine, 278

M24 sniper system, 178

M102 105-mm. howitzer tubes, 242, 258

M113 armored personnel carrier

Comandancia attack and, 108, 111, 

112, 114, 115, 117, 120, 121, 

123–30, 132, 136–38

Special Operations Forces at beginning of Just Cause and, 98, 99, 

100, 103

M203 grenade launcher, 94n38, 129, 178, 

195, 219, 296, 334, 348, 349, 

350, 354, 364

M249 squad automatic weapon (SAW), 

145, 148, 200, 217, 219, 334, 

354, 366

M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance 

vehicle, 67, 139

and 82d Airborne Division, 242, 243, 

248, 254, 258, 262, 265–66

assessment of, 475, 476

contingency planning and planning 

for Just Cause, 33, 49, 56, 66

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 365

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 396

special operations at outset of Just 

Cause and, 108–09, 112–13, 

117–18, 120, 127–28, 129, 130, 

133, 136, 137

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140

Ma Bell campaign outside canal area, 

384–93

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, 13, 447, 

449–50

Madden Dam, 59, 304, 306, 335, 336, 

341, 343–46, 349, 350, 420

Madrigan, Maj. Brod N., 142, 145, 151

Maestas, Lt. Col. Alan, 275, 278, 279

Maintenance Battalion, 707th, 306

Manrique-Lozano, Spec. Alejandro J., 

266

Marable, Lt. Col. Renard, 268, 270

Marine Corps, U.S. 

2d Light Amphibious Infantry Battalion, 2d Marine Division, 109, 

142

3d Battalion, 6th Marines, 142

Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 16–17, 

141

FAST platoon, 142, 149, 150, 151

forces committed to Just Cause, 52, 

55–56

 Nimrod Dancer, 23, 24

security enhancement forces, buildup 

of (1988), 16n16

urban combat and, 474

See also Task Force Semper Fi.

Marines, Panamanian, at Coco Solo, 

311–14, 315, 316–18, 320–22

Mark 84 2,000-pound bomb drop at Rio 

Hato, 280–86

Markwell, Pfc. James William, 230

Marriott, Capt. John, 365

Marriott Hotel, Panama City

hostage situation at, 271, 359, 360–67

PDF harassment of Americans staying at, 16

Mattison, 1st Sgt. Joseph L., 290

Mayaguez incident (1975), 45

MC–130 Combat Talon, 292

McChord Air Force Base, Washington, 

279

McElrath, Pfc. Patrick, 288

McFaul, Chief Engineman Donald, 91n33

McGrath, Cdr. Thomas, 87–88, 89n32

McGrath field, Gamboa, 351

McMahon, Lt. Col. Timothy L., 31

McMillan, Maj. Charles G., 122n28
Index

513

McNeill, Lt. Col. Dan, 245, 246

MEDEVAC helicopters, 92, 98

Media coverage 

of Colón, 377

Defense Department National Media 

Pool call out, 63

first official announcement of Just

Cause, 74

first reports on possible invasion of 

Panama, 64–65

Marriott Hotel hostages, 361, 366

music at the nunciature and, 398, 

399n58

of new police force in Panama, 435

of Noriega hunt, 74–75

of Paz incident and aftermath, 43, 46, 

278

See also Radio stations; Television 

stations; specific media outlets.

Medical Battalions

7th, 306

307th, 249

Medical Civic Action Programs (MEDCAPs), 437

Medical Detachment, 214th, 92

Menser, Lt. Col. Michael W., 450, 479

MH–6 Little Bird, 98–99, 101–03

MH–60 Black Hawk, 207, 214

Military Airlift Command, 16n16, 32–33, 

38, 39, 43, 55, 64, 224, 240, 246

Military intelligence, U.S.

470th Brigade, 59, 193, 423

29th Battalion, 155, 394, 428

313th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 82d 

Airborne Division, 249

lists of PDF targets, 428

money-for-weapons program and, 

427

Noriega and, 6, 47, 153, 211

Pacora River bridge assault, 212

Panamanian force and combat 

weapon assessments, 50, 274

Military operations on urbanized terrain 

(MOUT), 113, 136, 175, 204, 

295, 333, 357, 373, 473–74

Military police (MP), 26, 118, 131, 145, 

163, 172, 174, 181, 248, 256–57, 

309, 326, 329, 334

16th Military Police Brigade, 16n16, 

59

519th Military Police Battalion, 

16n16, 56–57

7th Military Police Company, 306, 

323, 324n39

82d Military Police Company, 249

534th Military Police Company, 142, 

324n39

549th Military Police Company, 312, 

315, 345, 377

820th Military Police Company, 235

988th Military Police Company, 109, 

137

at Balboa Harbor, 180

at Coco Solo, shooting incident, 

315–16

at Colón, 367, 373, 377 

counterattack at Panama City and, 

381–83

at Fort Amador gates, 155, 157, 

159–60

looters and, 373

at Madden Dam, 345–46

security enhancement forces, buildup 

of (1988), 16

stability operations and nation building, 417, 419, 428, 434, 438, 

442, 445, 451, 458–60

in Task Force Black Devil, 157, 158, 

165

Military Support Group (MSG), 450–53, 

456, 457, 460–68

Mine Division 127, 55

Mogadishu, U.S. forces in, 474, 477

Money-for-weapons program, 424–27

Moore, Lt. Col. Lynn D.

Cerro Tigre, 347n32, 348

Gamboa, 350, 351, 352

Madden Dam, 343, 344, 345

planning, preparation, and deployment, 331–37, 339–43

Renacer Prison, 352, 353, 354, 355, 

357

Mowatt, Sgt. Rick, 317–19

Muir, Capt. Thomas, 269, 270

Mundell, 1st Lt. Robert M., 182

Muse, Kurt, rescue of, 94–95, 102
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

514

Comandancia attack and, 96, 98, 99, 

100, 101, 103–05, 110, 111, 115

planning for, 64, 66–67, 69, 70

Music at the papal nunciature, 398–99

Mussolini, Benito, 400

My Place grenade attack, Panama City, 

456n3

N-hour deployment sequence, 41, 43, 45, 

246

Nation building. See Reconstruction and 

restoration of Panama; Stability 

operations and nation building.

National Civic Crusade, Panama, 7, 11

National Command Authority, 48, 245, 

283, 461, 472

National guard (Panama), 4, 5

National Guard (U.S.), 151, 465

National Investigation Department 

(DENI)

Colón, sweep of, 368, 371, 374, 376, 

377

counterattack at, 380, 383, 384

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 179–80, 

181, 183–87, 190, 192–93, 

197–204, 380, 383, 384

National Security Agency (NSA), 49, 61, 

71, 394

National Security Council, 397, 399

National Security Directive (NSD)-17, 

26–27, 28, 141

Naval infantry (marines), Panamanian, at 

Coco Solo, 311–14, 315, 316–18, 

320–22

Naval Security Group, 55

Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, 55

Naval Special Warfare Unit 8, 70, 77, 87

Navy, Panamanian, 50, 55, 153

Navy, U.S. 

forces committed to Just Cause, 52, 

53–55, 473

planning for Panama crisis and, 

13n14

See also Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) units; 

Special Boat Unit 26.

NBC, 43, 64, 361

Needham, Col. Thomas H., 64, 66, 151, 

243n12, 246, 251, 252–53, 258, 

368

Neutrality Treaty (1979), 4

New York Times, 6, 21, 65, 287n30

Newberry, S. Sgt. Wayne, 290–91

Nicaragua

Embassy in Panama, 395, 477

Sandinista movement, 4, 257

Night Stalkers (160th Aviation Group), 

70, 98, 224

Nimrod Dancer, 23

Comandancia attack and, 108, 112

Just Cause planning and, 33, 51, 57, 

58, 69

PDF garrison assaults of 82d Airborne Division and, 238

reasserting treaty rights and other 

operations, 24–28

stability operations and, 409, 410, 

412, 439

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, and, 

301, 304, 322

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

331, 332, 333, 337

Task Force Black Devil and, 155

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140, 141

Task Force Wildcat and, 174, 384

Nix, Col. Jack P., Jr., 245n15, 246, 248, 

252, 259, 263, 265, 271, 332, 

362, 364, 365

Noriega Moreno, General Manuel Antonio 

Bush and, 20

drug charges, prosecution and incarceration on, 455

 Genesis and Exodus plans for hostage-taking and guerrilla warfare, 

153

indictment on drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering 

charges, 11

Just Cause aimed at toppling dictatorship of, 2

military career and rise to power, 5–7

opposition to, in Panama, 6, 7

speech of 15 December, 35, 43

at Torrijos-Tocumen airfield complex 

at beginning of invasion, 228, 230

Muse, Kurt, rescue of—Continued
Index

515

United States, relationship with, 6–7, 

10–11

Woerner on, 19

See also Coup attempts against 

Noriega; Hunt for Noriega.

Nuevo Emperador, 142, 144

Nuevo Guararé, 142

Nuncio, Noriega asylum and negotiations 

with papal, 393–401, 421, 432, 

449, 477

OA–37 Dragonfly, 151, 162, 169, 339

OH–58 Kiowa helicopter, 16n16, 33, 58, 

151, 157, 163, 164n47, 268, 271, 

337, 345, 353, 354, 362

Olivera, S. Sgt. Louis, 289

Operations, U.S. military. See Blade Jewel; Just Cause; Nimrod Dancer; 

Promote Liberty.

Oswalt, 2d Lt. Christopher F., 353, 354, 

355

Pacific Command, 49

Pacora River bridge, 207, 211–14, 

216–17, 220, 222, 271, 391–92

Paitilla airfield, seizure of, 77, 86–94, 103, 

122, 241, 473

Palace of Justice, 184, 379, 380, 383, 384

Panama

Constitution of, 3, 444–45

elections of May 1989 in, 22–23, 51, 

70–71

independence from Colombia, consequences of, 2–3

negotiations with U.S. over Canal 

Zone, 3–4

opposition to Noriega in, 6, 7, 10, 11

reinstatement of winners of May 1989 

election, 70–71, 75–77, 210–11, 

411, 445 

role of military in pre–Just Cause

government of, 4–6

time zones in U.S. and, 40n4

U.S. military departure from, 468

U.S. sanctions against, 10

See also American citizens in Panama; Arias Calderón, Ricardo; 

Endara, Guillermo; Ford, Guillermo “Billy”; Reconstruction and 

restoration of Panama.

Panama Canal

control turned over to Panama, 468

Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 

on, 2

Madden Dam and, 344–45

potential traffic in, 343

reopening of, 453

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69, 77–81

swing bridge, 66, 114, 115, 120, 127

Panama Canal Commission (PCC)

in Colón, 376, 377

Comandancia attack and, 127

Navy’s familiarity with, 55

Panama Canal Treaty and, 3, 4

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, and, 

339, 341, 349

Task Force Wildcat and, 174, 182, 

185, 188, 197, 199, 379, 382

Panama Canal Treaty (1979)

Fort Espinar and, 322

negotiation and ratification of, 3–4

Sand Flea operations and, 340

U.S. assertion of rights under, 24–27, 

155

U.S. military departure from Panama 

under, 468

Panama City 

82d Airborne Division operations in, 

359

concentric rings concept and, 139–40, 

144, 153, 169, 207, 273

counterattack in, 378–84

My Place grenade attack, 456n3

shooting incident (18 December), 

46–47

stability operations and nation building in, 441–42

Panama crisis

American declining interest in, 

455–56, 468

contingency planning for, 11–18, 

30–35

 Nimrod Dancer and U.S. assertion of 

treaty rights, 23–28, 33, 155

origins and historical background, 2–11
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

516

reconstruction and restoration following, 455–68 

stability operations and nation building following, 403–53

See also Just Cause; Nimrod Dancer; 

Reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama; Stability operations and 

nation building.

Panama Defense Forces (PDF) 

1st Cavalry Squadron, 259, 262, 264

1st Infantry Company, 212, 266, 267, 

343

1st Naval Infantry Company (Marine 

Company), 311–14, 315, 316–18, 

320–22

2d Infantry Company, 69, 222–23, 

226, 228

4th Infantry Company, 28

5th Infantry Company, 57, 140, 153–58, 

161–63, 165, 167–68, 327

6th Infantry Company (Mechanized), 

69, 106, 273, 274, 283, 285, 286, 

288, 295, 296–97

7th Infantry Company (macho de 

monte), 69, 106, 273, 274, 283, 

285, 286, 288, 289, 294–95

8th Infantry Company, 25–26, 59, 

322, 324, 325, 327, 341

on Asian Senator (German merchant 

ship), 80–81

collapse of, 73, 271, 298–99, 359

condition of forces at time of Just

Cause, 50–51

creation of, 5

dissolution of, 432, 433n43

economic and political power of, 6

failure of Noriega to mobilize, 72

Fort Espinar officers’ club, U.S. reclamation of, 25–26

harassment by, 16, 19, 24–25, 47, 176

intent to destroy as institution, 411

knowledge of imminent attack (Tuesday, 19 December), 65–66

Ma Bell campaign outside canal area, 

384–93

Military Zone 2 headquarters at 

Colón, 368, 371–72, 374–77

Military Zone 5 headquarters in 

Chiriquí, 387

Military Zone 6 headquarters at Penonomé, 387

Military Zone 10 headquarters at La 

Chorrera, 150–53

NSD-17 and, 26

preemptive attack by, plans for dealing with, 47–48, 66

proposed restructuring of, 9–10, 

70n3, 178, 183, 265n49, 404

SOUTHCOM, relationship with, 

9–10

SOUTHCOM contingency planning 

and, 13

stability operations and nation building, 414, 417, 419, 421–23, 425, 

428–33, 435, 442, 445

tránsitos (traffic police), 16, 46, 181

UESAT, 50, 106, 153, 157, 161, 162, 

204, 259, 364, 399

See also Coco Solo; Coup attempts 

against Noriega; specific task 

forces; specific sites and mission 

targets.

Panama National Police (PNP), 379–80, 

384, 393, 396, 429–36, 457–61, 

467–68

Panama Public Force (PPF), 432

Panama Viejo

civilian presence at, 264, 265n49

concentric rings concept and, 140, 

205, 207

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 58

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 361–65, 

367

PDF garrison assault by 82d Airborne 

Division, 207, 223, 236, 237–38, 

241, 244, 254, 259, 262–67, 

270–71, 417n21

reconnaissance and surveillance by 

470th Military Intelligence Brigade, 207

Pantier, Lt. Col. Robert, 41–42, 60n38, 

105n3

Panzergruppen, 130, 394

Paredes, Rigoberto, 149

Partido Revolucionario Democrático, 468

Panama crisis—Continued
Index

517

Paul, Richard A., 199–200

Paz, 1st Lt. Robert, shooting of, 1–2, 35, 

37, 43, 46, 47, 114, 144, 158, 

177, 245, 278, 307, 324, 341, 412

Penonomé, 387, 388

Pentagon Crisis Action Team, 361, 399

Perez, Maj. Gilberto, 220, 388–91, 393

Perez, Cpl. Ivan, 123, 125

Perry, Lt. Col. Robert, 100–101

Personnel Movement Limitations (PMLs), 

11, 67

Phelps, Capt. Stephen C., 363–65, 367

Pineapple Crush, 175. See also Task 

Force Wildcat.

Planning, contingency, 11–18, 30–35

Police, Panamanian

at Colón bottleneck, 328

crime levels, dealing with, 456–57

establishment of new force (Panama 

National Police), 379–80, 384, 

393, 396, 429–36, 457–61, 

467–68

at Gamboa, 349–50, 351, 352

tránsitos (traffic police), 16, 46, 181

Political prisoners

at Renacer Prison, 340–41, 355–56, 

357, 431

See also Muse, Kurt, rescue of.

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, 40, 

43–45, 64–65, 226, 240, 245, 

247, 248, 251, 252, 259, 333, 334

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, U.S. forces in, 474

Porter, CWO2 Andrew P., 163, 164n47

Post Time (originally Elder Statesman), 12, 22, 30, 48, 108, 303, 

406, 471

Pote, Maj. Robert, 165

Powell, General Colin

in days prior to D-day, 32, 34, 35, 38, 

43, 45, 49, 52, 56, 59–60, 62, 63

on Endara’s swearing-in, 77

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 361, 

362n3

Muse rescue and, 103

on Nicaraguan Embassy incident, 

395n52

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 74–75, 396, 397, 398, 399

PDF garrison assault by 82d Airborne 

Division and, 250–51

Task Force Red-R and, 282–84, 

286n27

Weinberger-Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, 52, 472

Prayer Book, 12, 14, 20, 22, 31, 174, 303, 

404–08, 414, 471, 478

La Prensa, 435

Presidente Porras patrol boat in Balboa 

Harbor, destruction of, 77, 81–86

Price, Pfc. John M., 288

Prisoners of war and detainees

82d Airborne Division, 266

Colón sweep, 372

Comandancia attack, 126, 128, 

132–33

counterattack at Panama City and, 

382

Ma Bell campaign outside the canal 

area, 384–93

new police force, constitution of, 

431–32

stability operations and nation building, 424, 427–29

Task Force Atlantic, AO North, 315, 

319, 320–22, 326

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, 346, 

357

Task Force Black, 220–21

Task Force Black Devil, 160–61, 166

Task Force Red-R, 291, 293, 294, 297

Task Force Red-T, 231, 234

Task Force Semper Fi, 148, 149

Task Force Wildcat, 196, 202, 204, 

379, 382

Promote Liberty, 403–04, 405n3, 415, 

419, 444, 445, 449–50, 456, 458, 

461, 462, 465, 468

Pryor, Col. Jack, 444–45, 447, 450, 464

Psychological operations (PSYOP)

4th Psychological Operations Group, 

40, 59, 224, 242, 275, 449, 462, 

465n16

1st Psychological Operations Battalion, 462, 465n16

8th Psychological Operations Battalion, 465n16
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

518

assessment of, 476

at Balboa High School, 442

Cerro Azul television tower, Task 

Force Black seizure of, 221

civil affairs personnel and, 437

counterattack in Panama City and, 

382

Endara government, reinstatement of, 

445, 446, 462–65

money-for-weapons program, 425, 426

music at papal nunciature, 398–99

on radio and television stations, 422, 

424

in stability operations, 417, 422, 424, 

425, 426, 429, 437, 442, 445, 446

supporting special operations, 70

in Task Force Atlantic, 59, 326, 352

in Task Force Black Devil, 164–65, 

167

in Task Force Wildcat, 183, 189, 200, 

204

use of 2,000-pound bombs at Rio 

Hato as, 283

wanted posters, 429

Public Force Liaison Division, 451, 457, 

458, 460

Public services, restoration of, 377, 414, 

419, 429, 445, 451

Purple Storms, 33, 112, 140, 143, 175, 

243, 304, 324, 328, 471

Quarry Heights

Comandancia attack and, 115, 120, 

125

counterattack in Panama City and, 

381, 384n34

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 64

Las Tinajitas garrison and, 267

location of SOUTHCOM at, 7, 42, 

171

meetings at, 47, 239

planning for Panama crisis and, 14

snipers at, 100, 101

Task Force Black and, 212

U.S. reclamation of facilities at, 27

See also Task Force Wildcat.

Raab, Col. Larry, 434, 436n48

Radio stations

activated by PSYOP specialists, 422, 

424

SOUTHCOM, 422

U.S. and Endara government announcements, 424, 431, 445, 

464, 476

Radios

HF (high-frequency) radios, 61

PRC–90 radio, 121

PRC–126 radio, 357

VHF–FM (very high frequency–

frequency modulated) radios, 

61

Ramos, 1st Lt. Loren, 290–91

Ranger Regiment, 75th 

1st Battalion, 224, 226, 228, 230, 

235, 419

2d Battalion, 275, 415–16, 419

3d Battalion, 132, 224, 225, 228, 

235, 275, 391

and Battalion 2000 (PDF), 211

Comandancia attack and, 105–07, 

109, 132–34, 235, 273

departure of, 419

deployment of, 64

follow-on operations, 385, 387, 

391–93

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57

Noriega’s evasion of, 73

at Paitilla airfield, 93, 473

rehearsals and field exercises, 34

stability operations, transition to, 

415–17

Task Force Red, 69

See also Task Force Red-R; Task 

Force Red-T.

Rather, Dan, 65

RC Cop program, 458

Reagan, Ronald W., 6–7, 10, 11, 18, 20, 

52

Reagan, Capt. William R., 162–63, 

167–68

Recoilless rifle, 90-mm., 134, 158, 

168–69, 178, 186, 187, 188, 189, 

193, 194, 198, 199, 203, 287, 

383, 475

Psychological operations (PSYOP)—

Continued
Index

519

Reconstruction and restoration of Panama

assessment of, 468

crime levels, dealing with, 456–57

Endara government and, 455–56

funding shortfall, 465, 467

Military Support Group, 456, 457, 

460–68

Panama National Police, increasing 

competency of, 457–61

Red Cross, 372, 427, 443

Reed, Lt. Col. James W.

Comandancia attack and, 109–10, 

111–12, 114–18, 120, 122, 

125–31, 134–37, 140

Muse rescue and, 99, 100n45

Task Force Black Devil and, 157

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 181

Reeves, Sgt. David, 231–32

Refugees. See Civilians and civilian 

refugees.

Reinstatement of winners of May 1989 

election in Panama, 70–71, 

75–77, 210–11, 411, 445. See 

also Arias Calderón, Ricardo; 

Endara, Guillermo; Ford, Guillermo “Billy.”

Renacer Prison

described, 352–53

in formal plan for Just Cause, 59

Kellogg’s observation of assault on, 

309, 316

Noriega in, 455n1

political prisoners at, 340–41, 

355–56, 357

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, 306, 

339–40, 341n20, 343n22, 350, 

352–58, 359

as Task Force Atlantic target, 304, 

305–06

Reserve components, Army. See Army 

reserve components.

Richardson, Col. Charles E.

appointment to lead Task Force Semper Fi, 33

formal plan for Just Cause and, 

55–56, 58

Task Force Semper Fi, command of, 

141–45, 148, 150, 151

Rio Hato

concentric rings concept and, 140

coup attempt on Noriega and, 222, 

271, 273

follow-on operations and, 384, 387, 

388, 393

higher priority accorded to, 106

Ma Bell campaign and, 387, 388, 393

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 69

stability operations, transition to, 

415–17

See also Task Force Red-R.

Rio Potrero, 144

Rizzo, Capt. Christopher J., 309, 312–19, 

321, 323, 324, 373, 378

Rock, Lt. Col. Jeff, 304

Rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), 117, 

122, 123–24, 127, 136, 148, 265, 

274, 276, 326, 366

Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, 144, 

159

Rodman Naval Station, Panama

Comandancia attack and, 108, 113, 

118

Special Operations Forces and, 77, 

83–86, 88–89, 92

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140, 142, 

143, 144, 145, 149, 151

Rodriguez, Torpedoman’s Mate 2d Class 

Isaac, 91n33

Roman Catholic Church

Apostolic Nunciature, Noriega seeking asylum in and negotiations 

with, 393–401, 421, 432, 449, 

477

casualty estimates provided by, 

469n22

Roosevelt, Theodore, 2

Roosma, Maj. Gen. William A., 223–24, 

252

Rossi, Col. Arnold T., 27

Rough Rider, 142, 143

Rubin, 1st Lt. Douglas L., 121, 123–24, 

126–28, 136–38

Rules of confrontation, 25, 403

Rules of engagement (ROE)

Arraiján Tank Farm firefight and, 17
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

520

Comandancia attack and, 121, 137, 

138

in formal plan for Just Cause, 49, 

50, 51

freedom-of-movement operations, 25

Paitilla airfield, treatment of planes at, 

88–89

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division, 264–65n49

stability operations and nation-building phase, adjustment to, 403–04, 

438–41

Task Force Atlantic, AO South, affected by, 337, 344, 347

Task Force Wildcat and, 183

use of 2,000-pound bombs at Rio 

Hato and, 283

Ryan, Maj. Tom, 375

Safe-conduct passes for PDF officers, 386

San Blas Islands, Smithsonian Institution 

personnel on, 367

Sand Fleas, 28, 33, 112, 114, 140, 143, 

302, 304, 314, 324, 328, 334, 

340, 471

Sandinista movement, Nicaragua, 4, 257

Sandoz, Capt. John, 87, 93

Santiago, 388, 389

Sarajevo, siege of, 474

Sawyer, Capt. Gregory L., 365

Schleben, Sgt. Kevin, 356

Scholes, Brig. Gen. Edson, 41

School of the Americas, 322

Sconyers, Col. Ronald T., 43

Scott, Pfc. Kenneth D., 187

Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) units

assessment of, 473

at Colón, 371, 374

in formal plan for Just Cause, 55

in hunt for Noriega, 394

Marriott Hotel hostages, 362

at Paitilla, 86–94

SEAL Team 2, 83, 84

SEAL Team 4, 87

Task Force Atlantic and, 306, 315, 

340, 353

in Task Force Red-T, 273, 284

in Task Force White, 70, 77–78, 

80–81, 83, 85–89, 91–93, 103, 

473

Security enhancement forces, buildup of 

(1988), 14–16, 33, 51, 58, 140, 

304, 306, 322–23, 403

Selected Reserve, 405, 410, 415

Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicle. 

See M551 Sheridan armored 

reconnaissance vehicle.

El Siglo, 435

Signal Brigades

35th, 59

1109th, 59, 61

Signal Battalions

82d, 249

112th, 70

127th, 306, 312

Smith, Capt. Stephen A., 189

Smithsonian Institution personnel in San 

Blas Islands, 367

Snell, Col. Michael G.

appointment to lead Task Force Bayonet, 33

Comandancia attack and, 107–08, 

110, 113n14, 114–16, 130, 132, 

137

DNTT counterattack and, 379, 

380n31, 382

formal plan for Just Cause and, 

56–58

stability operations and nation building, 417, 425, 441n57

Task Force Black Devil, 158, 159, 

168

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 174, 

175n4, 176, 177, 178, 181, 183, 

379, 380n31, 382

Somalia, U.S. forces in (1992), 474, 477

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), U.S.

Center for Treaty Affairs, 11, 19

contingency planning in reaction to 

escalating crisis, 11–18, 26

counterattack at Panama City and, 382

in days prior to D-day, 41, 47

in formal plan for Just Cause, 53

Giroldi coup attempt and, 28–29

hunt for Noriega and, 394

Rules of engagement (ROE)—Continued
Index

521

Marriott Hotel hostages and, 361

mission of, 7–9

PDF, relationship with, 9–10, 11

PDF members and political officials 

wanted by, 379

at Quarry Heights, 7, 42, 171

stability operations and nation building, 405–08, 410–15, 429, 444, 

447, 449, 450

in transition of Panamanian government, 70–71

Spadafora, Hugo, 6–7

Special Action Force (SAF), 449–50

Special Boat Unit 26, 55, 70, 77

Special Forces 

Ma Bell campaign, 385–93

missions, 69–70, 207, 210–11

Operational Detachment Alpha 785, 

221

Panamanian National Police training 

and, 458, 459

See also Task Force Black.

Special Operations Command, South 

(SOCSOUTH), 13, 18, 39, 76, 

207, 210–11, 214, 221, 449

Special Operations Command, U.S., 13, 

16n16, 38–39, 45, 49

Special Operations Forces (SOF) 

Balboa Harbor, seizure of Presidente 

Porras patrol boat in, 77, 81–86

Comandancia attack switched to conventional forces from, 105–07

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 13, 14

early deployment of, 40

follow-on operations, 385, 387, 393

forces committed to Just Cause, 50, 

51, 52

Howard Air Force Base shooting 

incident, 17–18

 Nimrod Dancer, 23

Paitilla airfield, seizure of, 77, 86–94, 

103, 122

Panama Canal, securing of, 69, 77–81

Panamanian National Police training 

and, 458, 459

rehearsals and field exercises, 34

rescue of Kurt Muse from Carcel 

Modelo, 66–67, 69, 70, 94–103

See also Hunt for Noriega.

Special operations units

1st Special Operations Wing, Air 

Force, 99, 210, 224

1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces 

Group, 69

3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces 

Group (Airborne), 69, 207, 211

617th Special Operations Aviation 

Detachment, 207, 214, 216

SEAL Team 2, 83, 84

SEAL Team 4, 87

See also Civil Affairs Brigade, 361st; 

Civil Affairs Battalions; Civil 

Affairs Company, 478th; Psychological operations (PSYOP); 

Ranger Regiment, 75th.

Stability operations and nation building 

civil affairs specialists, 436–38, 458

Civil-Military Operations Task Force, 

12, 405, 407, 408, 410, 412, 

413–15, 444, 445

civilians and civilian refugees, 

416–17, 420–22, 441–43

combat troops’ transition to, 415–20

coordination issues, 406–09

departing combat troops, 419

Dignity Battalions, 417, 419, 420, 

421, 423, 425, 428, 442

Endara government, support for, 

443–45

evolution of plans for, 405–15

information barrage and communications issues, 421–24

Military Support Group, 450–53

money-for-weapons program, 424–27

objectives of, 404, 419

organizational chaos, sorting out, 

445–53

in Panama City, 441–42

PDF forces, 414, 417, 419, 421–23, 

425, 428–33, 435, 442, 445

police force, new, establishment of, 

379–80, 384, 393, 396, 429–36

Promote Liberty, 403–04, 405n3, 

415, 419, 444, 445, 449–50, 456, 

458, 461, 462, 465, 468
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

522

public services, restoration of, 377, 

414, 419, 429, 445, 451

reinstatement of winners of May 

1989 election in Panama, 70–71, 

75–77, 210–11, 411, 445 

replacement of Woerner by Thurman, 

repercussions of, 411–12

rules of engagement, adjustments to, 

403–04, 438–41

secrecy of plans for, 406

See also Arias Calderón, Ricardo; 

Blind Logic (originally Krystal

Ball); Endara, Guillermo; Ford, 

Guillermo “Billy”; Reconstruction and restoration of Panama.

Stalingrad, World War II battle for, 474

Steele, Col. (P) James, 450–51, 456, 

461–62, 464–65, 468

Stewart, Brig. Gen. John F., Jr., 27

Stiner, Lt. Gen. Carl W.

assessment of Just Cause and, 

470–73, 477–79

Comandancia attack and, 111, 132

combat plan for Just Cause and, 

48–49, 51–53, 55–62

concentric circles concept and, 140n2

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 31–34

follow-on operations and, 359, 360, 

361, 364, 368, 370, 385, 387, 

388n41, 394–96, 398, 399, 400, 

401

Joint Task Force-South, likely commander of, 32

on Monday, 18 December, 43–48

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 72, 73n7, 75n12, 76, 394–96, 

398, 399, 400, 401

on PDF 6th and 7th Infantry Companies, 275n4

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 238–40, 

242–46, 247n21, 250–52, 256, 

258–59

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 72, 73n7, 

75n12, 76, 93, 96, 100

stability operations and nation building, 410, 412, 413, 433, 447, 449

on Sunday, 17 December, 38–42

on Task Force Atlantic, AO North, 

301, 303–04, 308

Task Force Black and, 212, 213

Task Force Black Devil and, 158

Task Force Red-R and, 275n4, 277, 

281–84, 286, 287

Task Force Red-T and, 224, 228

Task Force Semper Fi and, 142, 144, 

145, 151, 153

on Tuesday, 19 December, 63–66

Stone, Col. William, 445–58

Strategic Air Command, 16n16, 49, 55

Stringham, Col. Joseph S., 13

Sullivan, Lt. Gen. Gordon R., 480

Supply and Service Battalion, 407th, 1st 

Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, 

249

Supply and Transportation Battalion, 7th, 

306

Support Battalion, 528th, 70

Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), shoulderfired, 66, 228, 479

T65 assault rifle, 353

Tactical Air Command, 49, 55

Tactical Airlift Wing, 317th, 252

Tactical exercises without troops 

(TEWTs), 155, 176

Tactical satellites, 61

Task Force Atlantic

assessment of, 357–58

Boyd-Roosevelt Highway, 306, 322, 

328, 329

commanders’ perceptions and personalities affecting, 301–03, 322–23

creation of, 24

division into northern and southern 

parts, 306–07

forces involved in, 306

in formal plan for Just Cause, 58

missions, 301, 304, 306

number of targets, lack of backup, 

and unfavorable friendly-to-enemy troop ratio, 301

Stability operations and nation building—

Continued
Index

523

in run-up to Just Cause, 33

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 77

Task Force Atlantic, AO North

Coco Solo, 303, 304, 306, 308n14, 

309, 311–22, 359

Colón and, 301, 304–07, 311, 321, 

326, 328–29, 394

deployment, 308–11

Fort Espinar, 304, 306, 322–28, 341

missions, 306

notifications and briefings, 307–09

perceptions of situation by commander, 301–03

planning for, 303–06

premature beginning of, 311, 315–16, 

325, 329

preparations and rehearsals, 302–03, 

304–09

Task Force Atlantic, AO South

Cerro Tigre, 304, 306, 336–40, 

342n22, 346–49, 350

deployment, 334–35

France Field, 306, 328

Gamboa, 304, 306, 339–40, 345, 

349–52, 353, 359

Madden Dam, 304, 306, 335, 336, 

341, 343–46, 349, 350

missions, 306

notifications and briefings, 340–41, 

343

planning, preparation, and rehearsal, 

331–42

Renacer Prison, 306, 339–40, 341n20, 

343n22, 350, 352–58, 359

rules of engagement, 337, 344, 347

Task Force Aviation, 58, 262

Task Force Bayonet

Comandancia attack and, 106–08, 

110, 114, 116, 130, 132, 137, 140

in formal plan for Just Cause, 56–58

Nimrod Dancer, 24

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 242, 247, 

257, 258

in run-up to Just Cause, 33

stability operations and nation building, 417

success of, 359

Task Force Black Devil and, 155

Task Force Semper Fi and, 140, 144

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 176, 178

Task Force Black

assessment of, 221–22

Cerro Azul television tower, seizure 

of, 207, 211, 221

Endara, Arias Calderón, and Ford, 

planned securing of, 210–11

forces and commanding officers, 

207–10

forces and mission, 69–70, 207

Fort Cimarrón reconnaissance and 

surveillance operations, 207, 211, 

213–16, 220

Las Tinajitas reconnaissance and 

surveillance operations, 207, 211, 

212–13

missions and overtasking of, 210–12

at Pacora River Bridge, 207, 211–14, 

216–17, 220, 222

Task Force Black Devil 

air assault and landing of troops in 

Fort Amador, 155, 157, 158, 159, 

161, 162–64

ammunition issues, 159

assessment of, 168–69

closing off of main gates and securing 

of American personnel, 157–58, 

159–62, 169

Comandancia attack and, 153, 161, 

162

composition and command, 155, 157

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57

notifications and briefings, 158–59

Objective Cortizo and Objective Piña, 

158, 164–68

preparation and rehearsal, 155–59

rationale and planning for, 153–55

Task Force Blue, 70

Task Force Gator, 105–38 

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 66

formation of, 109

success of, 359

Task Force Wildcat and, 172, 174, 

181, 197, 198, 201, 203

See also Comandancia complex.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

524

Task Force Green, 70

Task Force Hawk, 16, 58, 347, 389

Task Force Pacific, 57–58, 241–42, 247, 

257, 361, 385

Task Force Red, 69

Task Force Red-R 

airfield, securing of, 290–92

airfield control tower, 291

assessment of, 298–99, 480n35

attack, 285–99

Boquete, Noriega’s beach house and 

guest houses at, 283, 284, 297

deployment, 265, 278–80

Herrera-Ruiz Military Institute, 274, 

293–94

Inter-American Highway fighting, 

291–92, 297–98

mission targets and expected resistance, 275

motor pool and fuel tanks, 295–96

notifications and briefings, 278, 279, 

280–81

parachute drop, initial firefight, and 

assembly, 285–90, 293

PDF 6th Company compound, 

296–97

PDF 7th Company compound, 

294–95

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 271

planning for, 273–75

preliminary 2,000-pound bomb drop, 

280–86, 287n30, 477

preparations and rehearsals, 275–78

reinforcement and supply planes, 

landing of, 292–93

relief of Rangers, 388

resupply, 298

Task Force Gator and, 107

Task Force Red-T and, 224

Task Force Red-T

air assault, 228–29

assessment of, 235–36

civilians in terminal building, 228, 

233–35

drop zone for 82d Airborne Division 

and, 207, 236, 254, 257

ground battle, 230–35

importance of, 222–24

parachuting Rangers, arrival of, 

229–30

PDF infantry stationed at, 222–23

planning for, 224, 226–28

preparation, notification, and briefing, 

225–26

success of, 359

Task Force Semper Fi

briefing of, 145

Comandancia attack and, 109, 112

commencement and completion of 

operations, 145–53

composition and command of, 

140–42

DNTT Station 2, taking of, 144, 

145–49

in formal plan for Just Cause, 56, 58

La Chorrera, seizure of, 150–53

Nimrod Dancer, 24

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne 

Division and, 242, 257, 258

preparation and rehearsal, 142–45

role of, 144

in run-up to Just Cause, 33

success of, 359

Task Force Bayonet and, 109, 112

Task Force White, 70, 77–81

Task Force Wildcat

assessment of, 203–04

Balboa district and, 172, 175, 179, 

181, 183, 197–204

Comandancia attack and, 120–21n26, 

174, 181, 197

concentric rings concept and, 169

counterattack in Panama City, 378–84

DENI targets, 172, 179–80, 181, 

183–87, 190, 192–93, 197–204

DNTT building, 172, 183, 187–93, 

194, 195, 378–84

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57

Gorgas Army Hospital, 171, 172, 174, 

179, 187

initial movements, 178–83

mission of, 172–74

notification and briefing, 177–78

PCC administration building, 174, 

182, 185, 188, 197, 199
Index

525

PDF Engineer Compound and Battalion, 174, 179, 181, 183, 192–97, 

198

preparations and rehearsals, 

174–78

reconnaissance group, 179–81

Task Force Gator and, 172, 174, 181, 

197, 198, 201, 203

Task Unit Charlie (Task Force White), 

77–78, 80–81

Task Unit Foxtrot (Task Force White), 77, 

81, 83

Task Unit Papa (Task Force White), 77, 

87–89, 92, 93, 99

Task Unit Whiskey (Task Force White), 

77, 78n17, 81, 83–85

Team Armor, 109, 112, 118, 120, 127, 

129, 132–33

Team Donivan, 129, 137, 140

Team King, 99, 103, 115, 118, 120, 125, 

129

Team Oswalt (Task Force Atlantic, AO 

South), 353–54, 355

Team Recon (Task Force Black Devil), 

159–60

Team Track (Task Force Wildcat), 172, 

181, 183–85, 187

Television stations

Cerro Azul television tower, 207, 211, 

221, 241

PDF-operated, 210–11, 221, 422

SOUTHCOM, 11, 422

United States and Endara government 

announcements, 431, 445, 464, 

476

U.S. control of, 372, 422

U.S. monitoring of, 341

Terrell, Col. Douglas R., 58

Thatcher Highway, 142, 145, 148, 149

Thomas, Maj. Carter, 175n4

Thompson, Sgt. Christopher, 351–52n40

Thorp, Capt. Doug, 329

Thurman, General Maxwell R.

appointed to command of SOUTHCOM, 27–28, 411–12, 471, 478

assessment of Just Cause and, 472, 

477–78, 479n33

Comandancia attack and, 111, 131

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 30–32, 34–35

in days prior to D-day, 38, 39, 42, 

47, 48, 49, 53, 59–60, 63, 64, 

65, 67

follow-on operations and, 359, 360, 

361, 367, 370, 372, 377, 387n40, 

388n41, 393–400

Giroldi coup attempt, 28–29

Noriega, location and apprehension 

of, 73, 76, 393–400

PDF garrison targets of 82d Airborne 

Division and, 238–39, 247n21

reconstruction and restoration of 

Panama, 460–62, 465

special operations at beginning of 

Just Cause and, 73, 76, 88, 

89n32, 96, 103

stability operations and nation building, 411–15, 419, 424, 429, 444, 

446, 449, 450, 451, 453

Task Force Atlantic and, 302, 303, 

308

on Thanksgiving bomb scare, 34

Tilghman, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class 

Christopher, 91n33

Time zones in U.S. and Panama, 40n4

Tocumen airfield. See Torrijos-Tocumen 

airport complex.

Tomlin, Maj. Harry, 58n32

Tonopah Test Range, Nevada, 285

Toohey, Lt. Cdr. Patrick, 87–89, 91–92

Top Hat, 122

Tornow, Brig. Gen. Robin, 55, 56, 151, 

251

Torrijos Herrera, General Omar (Panama), 

4–5, 6, 7, 166, 444–45

Torrijos mausoleum, 166, 167

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex

civilians at, 228, 233–35, 257, 360

concentric rings concept and, 140, 

205, 206

as drop zone for 82d Airborne Division, 207, 213, 236–37, 241–44, 

250, 252–59, 263, 265–71, 473

in formal plan for Just Cause, 57, 64

Marriott Hotel hostages taken to, 367

reopening of, 453
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause

526

special operations at beginning of Just

Cause and, 69, 72, 73, 81, 132

Task Force Black and, 211, 212, 219

See also Task Force Red-T.

Tracked, wire command-link-guided 

(TOW) missiles and missile 

vehicles, 108, 117, 157, 159–61, 

163, 178, 242, 383

Transisthmian highway. See Boyd-Roosevelt Highway.

Tránsitos (traffic police), 16, 46, 181

Transportation Command, 32, 38, 49

Travis Air Force Base, California, 384

Tropic Times, 43, 46

Trumbull, Lt. Col. Roy R., 210, 212

U–2 incident, Cuban missile crisis, 47

UESAT, 50, 106, 153, 157, 161, 162, 204, 

259, 364, 399

UH–1H Huey helicopter, 58, 223, 244, 

346, 347, 350, 353–55

UH–60 Black Hawk helicopter, 16n16, 

58, 157, 207, 214

PDF garrison assaults by 82d Airborne Division and, 240, 243–44, 

259, 262–70

Special Operations Forces at beginning of Just Cause and, 92, 98, 

99, 102, 103

Task Force Black and, 207, 212, 213, 

214, 217, 220n19, 221

Task Force Black Devil and, 157, 

161, 162–63

Urban combat. See Military operations on 

urbanized terrain (MOUT).

Urgent Assistance to Democracy in 

Panama Act, 458, 459

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 443, 444

U.S. Army. See Army, U.S.

U.S. Army, South (USARSO)

Blind Logic and, 412–14

communications and logistical planning, role in, 61

contingency planning for Panama 

crisis and, 13, 14, 16, 21

counterattack at Panama City and, 

382

Howard Air Force Base shooting 

incident and, 18

MPs from, 316

PDF garrison assaults of 82d Airborne Division and, 244

stability operations and, 412, 413, 

444, 449

Task Force Black and, 213, 214

Task Force Black Devil and, 155

U.S. Embassy, 10, 129–30, 413, 443–44, 

451, 458n5, 460–61

U.S. Forces Liaison Group, 432, 447, 

457

U.S. Marines. See Marine Corps, U.S.

U.S. military intelligence. See Military 

intelligence, U.S.

U.S. Navy. See Navy, U.S.

Uzi submachine gun, 196, 381, 382

V150 Cadillac Gage armored car, 140, 

274, 290

V300 Cadillac Gage armored reconnaissance vehicle, 91, 117, 127, 128, 

140, 145, 165, 168, 211, 259, 

266, 274, 341

Valdonedo, Aristides, 432n42

Valore, Capt. Joseph P., 16–17

Vatican nunciature, Noriega seeking 

asylum in, 393–401, 421, 432, 

449, 477

Veracruz, 144, 150

Vietnam syndrome, 52, 385, 472

Vietnam War, 87, 354, 449, 450, 472

Vikander, 1st Lt. Robert E., 175n4

Vista Alegre, 142, 144

Vulcan air defense system, 306, 307, 

312–14, 316–19, 323–27

Vuono, General Carl E., 32

Wagner, Lt. Col. Robert W., 224–26

Webster, William H., 95–96

Weinberger, Caspar W., 52n26

Weinberger-Powell doctrine, 52, 472

Wilderman, Lt. Col. David, 214

Williams, Pete, 63n44, 287n30

Williams, Thomas R., 89n32

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex—

Continued
Index

527

Witches’ houses, 163

Wittington, Capt. John, 362–63

Woerner, General Frederick F., Jr.

assessment of Just Cause and, 471, 

478, 479

concerns about internal Panamanian 

problems, 9–10, 11

contingency planning by, 11–14, 16, 

18, 30–31, 49, 100, 360, 405

opinions on resolution of crisis, 18, 

19–22

as political general, 303

relieved of command of SOUTHCOM and replaced by Thurman, 

27–28, 411–12, 471, 478

stability operations planning by, 

405–12

Women in combat, 270n58, 340, 349–50, 352

Woods, Maj. James, 175n4, 200, 379

Woodward, Bob, 45, 63, 103

World War II, 237, 420, 474

World Wide Military Command and Control System, 61

Youmans, Col. Harold, 449–50

Zebrowski, Capt. Robert, 162–65, 168

ZPU4 antiaircraft gun, 163, 164, 165, 223, 

228, 259, 264, 266, 274, 281, 

282, 347


PIN: 103164—000