Guantanamo Bay, 1916.

The man on the right is a U.S. Navy officer, but the fellow on the left? I think that alongside the Panama Canal Zone Police and the Philippines Constabulary we may add another entity previously unsuspected by me—a Guantanamo police force. This man’s gray(?) uniform is reminiscent of an army officer’s full dress coat with wide flat braid, but it also has double rows of buttons like the “fireman’s shirts” of the Old West. He has a law-enforcement badge pinned on his chest, and is seriously armed with pistol and sword. It is possible he is Cuban police, but his face looks very American to me.



Another photograph from Guantanamo, not connected with the above. It appears to be a day at the rifle range.


Page by Mark Conrad, 2012.