Standing on a sandy stretch of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs coastline, 90-year-old Orestes Chamizo gestures toward the exact location where U.S.-backed Cuban exiles stormed ashore on April 17, 1961.
“The mercenaries came in right there,” Chamizo explains, remembering the failed invasion and his participation in hunting down fleeing survivors who escaped into the surrounding marshland.
With President Donald Trump making repeated threats against Cuba and enforcing what amounts to an oil embargo on the island nation, Chamizo warns that any future American invasion would meet the same fate as the first attempt.
“I’m 90 years old but if I have to pick up a gun again, I’ll do it without fear,” the energetic veteran told reporters. “The last invasion failed … and the next one will too.”
The idea that communist Cuba could successfully repel an attack from the world’s dominant military power seems just as unlikely now as it did six and a half decades ago.
Conversations with more than 20 Bay of Pigs area residents of various ages reveal a stark contrast between the passionate defiance of those who experienced the revolution firsthand and the despair of younger Cubans struggling under the weight of a failing government-controlled economy and American economic sanctions.
“Young people here don’t have the same spirit they used to,” explains Miguel Piloto Garcia, a 22-year-old barber speaking from his front porch near the 1961 invasion site. “We want to improve our lives, but right now there’s no future for us.”
Both nations, despite being separated by only 90 miles of ocean, have confirmed they are engaged in diplomatic discussions. However, Trump has repeatedly suggested military action against Cuba might be possible, telling journalists as late as March that he could be “taking” the Caribbean island.
“I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it,” Trump stated.
Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel recently informed NBC that his country has no desire for armed conflict. Nevertheless, he cautioned that Cuba would resist any attack through “irregular warfare” that would render any American military operation “untenable.”
The island’s legal framework mandates military service for all young citizens, beginning at age 18. This typically one-to-two-year commitment includes weapons instruction as part of Cuba’s comprehensive “War of All the People” strategy, which is codified in the National Defense Law and promoted by Diaz-Canel during his recent television appearance.
“Every Cuban man or woman has a mission, a purpose, a place to defend, and they will have their own place to take in the defense,” Diaz-Canel explained. “So this is all based on people’s participation, voluntary participation.”
Since the United States invaded Venezuela in early January and removed former president Nicolas Maduro from power, Cuba has conducted weekly military exercises every Friday, dubbed “National Defense Days.”
These training sessions, frequently broadcast on Cuban state television news, feature citizens in both city and countryside settings practicing with rifles, operating aging Soviet tanks, piloting drones, and throwing explosive devices.
Although these military preparations receive increasing media attention, Cuba’s defense capabilities remain largely mysterious to international observers, with no public information available regarding troop readiness, budget allocation, equipment inventory, or overall strength.
Without access to public polling data, determining popular support for the military remains challenging in Cuba.
The heated exchanges between Washington and Havana take considerable time to reach the remote Bay of Pigs region, an isolated area within the Zapata Swamp that currently endures 22-hour daily power outages. Local residents have adapted to life with minimal public transportation and limited access to modern technology like cellular service and internet connectivity.
Thirty-year-old Yudel Ramos, who makes his living fishing and catching crabs, finds himself too preoccupied with survival to focus much attention on potential warfare. His wages don’t cover basic necessities like purchasing charcoal, forcing him to spend his time searching for burning materials.
“If the time came to give my life for Cuba, I would, but sometimes I don’t know what to think,” he shared outside his residence in Palpite. “We are going through a very difficult time.”
Mass emigration has also reduced the pool of potential military personnel.
From 2020 through 2024, Cuba experienced a population decrease exceeding 1.4 million residents, representing more than 10% of the total population, primarily due to emigration heavily concentrated among people aged 18 to 30, based on recent statistics from Cuba’s ONEI data collection agency.
This demographic transformation deeply troubles Jesus Bernardino Alonso, an 87-year-old Bay of Pigs veteran among the few still residing in Palpite, a community whose entrance features a monument commemorating the victory over American-trained attackers.
Alonso remembers how the entire community mobilized to respond to the invasion 65 years earlier.
“It’s true times have changed, and young people today … some don’t share the same ideals,” Alonso reflected. “But there are still many of us who defend this, even though we know we are facing a superpower.”
