Armed Forces Day 

The Armed Forces Day Celebration aka “San Francisco Fleet Week” started in 1981 and continues today. In 1984, President Reagan was providing billions of dollars in equipment and training to the Salvadoran military; which formed death squads, carried out US funded bombings on their own citizens, and terrorized and murdered thousands. In Nicaragua, Reagan was backing rightist counter-revolutionary groups (“Contras”), providing them with funding, equipment, and training through illegal arms sales to Iran.

At home, the US was using Grand Juries to imprison Puerto Rican independence activists. In Puerto Rico, the home of Roosevelt Roads, the largest naval base outside of the US, the military was using the Islands of Culebra and Vieques for live ammunition target practice, destroying both islands’ ecosystems and fishing industry. Roosevelt Roads was used as the staging ground for the invasion of Grenada in 1983. This demonstration was one of many that took place during the 1980s and early 1990s to protest the US war machine both domestically and in Central America.

Image: Background abstract rectangle intersected by a white slash.

Words: From Puerto Rico to Central America, Stop the U.S. War Machine! Demonstrate on Armed Forces Day, Stop War Games in Puerto Rico.

Color: red ink on newsprint.

Event: Demonstration Saturday May 19, Assemble: Aquatic Park San Francisco, CA.

Sponsors: National Committee to Free the Puerto Rican P.O.W.’s and the New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence and Socialism.

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