Thursday, Navy battleships assumed their positions for a new round of military exercises on the island of Vieques. The Navy has trained in Vieques for about 60 years, but in 1999, after a civilian was killed when a pair of 500-pound bombs missed their target, residents have actively protested the Navy's presence on the island.

A brief history?
The Navy came to Vieques in 1940, and residents like Severina Guadalupe recall when her family was told they had 24 hours to collect their things and vacate their home before it was to be bulldozed: "We refused to leave our land, our farm, so when the machine came it destroyed everything - our cooking pots, our clothes - they left us with nothing" (Cnn.com).

In the years since, the island of Vieques has developed higher than average cancer and infant-mortality rates - four of Severina's brothers have died of cancer. Residents of Vieques point to the bombings as a health hazard, but the Navy denies these accusations by maintaining that local studies about the environmental ramifications of the bombings are biased.

Vieques today?
Last weekend, 68% of Vieques residents voted in a non-binding referendum for the U.S. Navy to immediately halt bombing exercises and leave the island. Less than 2% of the voters were in favor of the Bush Administration?s proposal to pull the Navy out of the island by 2003, with blank ammunition exercises continuing until then. A binding referendum is planned for November, but the Bush administration opposes such a referendum, arguing that military policy should not be subject to popular votes.

Proponents of the military exercises that occur on the island claim that they are an integral part of warfare training. According to former representative Tillie Fowler, "It is the only site where we can do amphibious landings, aerial bombings and firing from the sea simultaneously and that?s what occurs in real-life, war-like situations. Once we lose it, we?ve lost the ability to train that way" (Cnn.com).

Are you for or against the Navy practicing bombing exercises on the island of Vieques? Do you think Vieques residents should be allowed to voice their opposition to the bombing exercises? Do you feel that our military would suffer if they were unable to train on the island of Vieques?

Carolyn Lastowski, Editor