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Full Rigor: South Florida knows what it is like to tangle with Russia aka the Soviet Union

FIDEL CASTRO
FILE – This April 1961 file photo shows Fidel Castro, center, with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces at his base of operations at the Australia Sugar Refinery in Jaguey, near Playa Giron, during the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. (AP Photo/Str)

Florida’s brush with World WarFlorida has had a brush with World War twice. Once during WWII and also when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missile sites on Cuba.
Today, perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to build a new Soviet Union with his threatened invasion of Ukraine.
As President Biden puts up to nine thousand US troops on high alert to potentially fight against the Russian army, memories of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis comes to mind for many Floridians. It was a very tense time during which the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores, specifically Florida.

That was not Florida’s only taste of war. In 1942, German U-boats lurked off the Florida coast destroying ships and sinking valuable cargo.
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