Thomko Petro Chemical Blog

More news about Cuba . . . the U.S. side

The only McDonald's on this island sold its trademark burgers on Monday for 39 cents apiece, 1986 prices, as the all-American classic celebrated the 20th anniversary of its arrival on this U.S. controlled corner of communist Cuba.

With daily flights, a couple of Starbucks and pizza delivery to U.S. Navy housing, the fast-food fries and shakes are less of a sensation today than when the Golden Arches went up 20 years ago on this sprawling 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba.

Back then, sailors on the base known as ''Gitmo'' drank powdered milk and bread that arrived frozen on a barge from the U.S., recalled retired sailor Stacey Byington, who did a tour of duty in the '80s and is today the base spokesman.

''I live for McDonald's french fries and their cheeseburgers,'' said a U.S. Army sergeant first class who just so happened to be named Domini McDonald as he picked up a sack-full Monday at the drive-thru.

''McDonald's makes Gitmo feel like home,'' said the 43-year-old soldier from Dunnellon, Fla.

The franchise along the base's main thoroughfare, Sherman Avenue, has a drive-thru window lane wide enough for a Humvee.

Still, it looks much the same as it did on that first day, in the 1980s when, as today, the base is self sufficient since a decision to exclusively resupply from stateside since early, tense U.S. - Cuban relations in the 1960s.

Since then, sweeping changes have come to the base, which in the mid-1990s was overwhelmed by 40,000-plus Cuban and Haitian boat people and then down-sized to a sleepy backwater of some 1,200 sailors and contract workers.

Business once again soared in 2002 when the Pentagon chose this remote site for its offshore interrogation center for suspected terrorists.

Today there are about 490 ''enemy combatants'' confined to prison camps a few miles up the road from the drive-thru, behind maximum security barriers, on a bluff overlooking the Caribbean.

On that first day, 2,595 customers came by to get a taste, according to a report in the base newspaper, The Gazette.

Average daily traffic now runs at about 1,200 customers a day, said manager Anthony Lewis, who Monday offered hamburgers for 39 cents, cheeseburgers for 49 cents and free birthday cake and balloons to celebrants.

One thing, however, hasn't changed.

Marines still patrol opposite a Cuban minefield along a 17.4-mile fence-line made famous in the 1992 Hollywood hit movie, A Few Good Men, when Jack Nicholson sneered, "You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.''

And Fidel Castro is still in charge on the other side.