Reminds of a story from Pat Conroy about his father, the model for Bull Meacham...
Col Conroy was alerted for combat patrol over Cuba, to shoot down anything Castro put up in the air. This combat patrol was to be in support of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Of course it never happened but... As he left to report to the base Mrs Conroy was praying - praying for the souls of all the poor b*st*rds that Col Conroy was gonna blow out of the sky!
“Bay of Pigs...The Untold Story” by Peter Wyden. Published in 1979.
It’s an excellent narrative of the entire invasion fiasco, from it’s inception under Allen Dulles at CIA during the Eisenhower Administration, to the actual disastrous invasion 90 days into the Kennedy Administration, and ends with the release of the last of the Brigade from Cuban prison in the late 1970s.
This book explains why things are the way they are with Cuba, and why the United States will not change things as long as Fidel Castro draws breath.
Personally I hope he does not suffer, but I do hope Fidel has assumed room temperature at long last.