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I went to army Jungle Warfare School there in 1986 and even then the "Canal Zone" was largely defunct. But the bases handed over to the Panamanians looked like New Orleans after Katrina they'd been looted and stripped of everything including sewage pipes in the walls of buildings. Even the railroad we built to run alongside the canal was given to them and in just a matter of months the officials in charge had allowed it to decay to the point that the US Military declared it unsafe to ride and banned all Americans from boarding the durn thing. Even the Lock System itself, an engineering marvel of the world began to go bad with no maintenance or care. This is what happens when the FIRST WORLD treats the THIRD WORLD as an equal. I know that is so un-PC and more than a little arrogant but that's life.

I can't argue with what you may have seen in 1986, but that certainly doesn't describe today's conditions.

The Canal Zone looks pretty tidy even if the architecture is a bit dated. The railroad seems to be working perfectly fine, and the port facility on the Pacific side (I didn't see the other side at Colon) seems very modern.

The Panamanians are in the process of building new parallel locks to the existing ones to allow wider ships to make the transit. It's multi-billion dollar project.

In 1986, Manuel Noriega was the Panamanian leader. Today, it's a graduate from Texas A&M. Perhaps that has made a difference.

“Even the Lock System itself, an engineering marvel of the world, began to go bad with no maintenance or care.”

That is a totally untrue statement…a lie if you wish. Locks go through a thorough complete maintenance every 5 years. This has never stopped.

“went to army Jungle Warfare School there in 1986 and even then the “Canal Zone” was largely defunct.”

I can see why you are in the dark…eating snakes and things in the jungle. You couldn’t see the forest because of the trees.

“But the bases handed over to the Panamanians looked like New Orleans after Katrina they’d been looted and stripped of everything including sewage pipes in the walls of buildings.”

I live here. Another total lie on your part.

Dog Gone you are 100% correct, my observations are dated as of JULY 1986. They continued to be confirmed until the end of the invasion in (IIRC) 1991, since my friends were stationed there or dropped in to visit friends acting as cadre. But I saw the conditions at Fort Sherman and Fort Clayton and the word ravaged springs to mind. Can't speak for the air force, though. What was the name of the USAF base down there? Was it Davis AFB? Or was that Fort Davis on the army side? My memory fails me. I didn't get to travel much since eating snakes was a large part of my daily activity. I do recall seeing the big japanese ships try and make it thru the locks and having the fit be so tight that scrapes of ships paint were left on the sides of the locks. Fact is that we WERE banned from riding the canal rails at that time. I was also given a briefing along with a bunch of other visiting officers at that time that the next place the where USA was going to have to militarily intervene was Panama. That was 1986 and it proved to be correct.

So I apologize for not specifically making certain that I was giving my personal observations from circa 1986. I have had some fairly regular input from folks stationed in the region as to the continuing veracity of my observations however most of that stopped around 1998 for one reason or another.

Obviously things have changed and for the better and that's great. Is it true that the Chinese control both ends of the canal both economically and militarily? How vital a passageway is the canal for our warships given that most of the true heavies are too big to get thru?

CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer, it's poor form to accuse folks of lying outright. My observations were true in 1986. I personally saw this. That things have obviously gotten better doesn't make me a liar. Anymore than being rude makes you a jerk. I'm sure you're really a nice person. Freepers usually are with few notable exceptions and I don't put you in that category without further documentation. Dog Gone, I've been knowing quite awhile and know him to be one of the good ones for sure.