Guantánamo Bay: Beyond the Prison-- really enjoyed this profile of the base by @carolrosenberg. I lived on Gitmo for two years as a child- my father was an enlisted Navy air traffic controller. Many of the amenities detailed here came after our tour... nytimes.com/2021/11/26/us/…
But one thing @carolrosenberg reminds me of is that I first ate great Filipino food on the base- lumpia and adobo. And we had giant iguanas and land crabs in the back yard. The enlisted housing was also over run with the cats described here- we brought one back stateside.
Back then, we practiced evacuations. Sometimes we'd board boats in the middle of the night, sometimes cargo planes. We had to be ready of the Cubans or Russians tried to overrun the base, I suppose. They'd cut the lights on the base and I remember the stars were like lanterns.
The Marines were great to the kids. One time they set up a kids fun day where we got to ride around in military vehicles. I drove a tank (or believed I was driving a tank). All of my toys were old surplus. We spent along of time at the beach- often with shoes in case of urchins.
This was my Mom's library card. 
We often rented the pontoons that @carolrosenberg refers to here. Once- on my birthday- we strayed outside the area we were allowed to safely navigate and were briefly held at gunpoint by Cuban soldiers. That was memorable!
@carolrosenberg notes "Feeding iguanas is also forbidden, a rule that is openly ignored." I definitely remember feeding the iguanas. Oops.
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