Photo By Dan Grubb | Kurt Muse, a former prisoner of dictator Manuel Noriega, speaks about his ordeal to...... read more read more
Author Kurt Muse, who almost single-handedly forced the eventual downfall of Manuel Noriega more than three decades ago, met with Soldiers from the Soldier Recovery Unit (SRU) Fort Liberty, NC on Friday. He also paid a visit to Womack Army Medical Center to speak about his ordeal to an audience at the Weaver Auditorium.
Born in the United States and raised in Panama, Muse grew up oppressed under the regime of Manuel Noriega. For Muse, accepting a dictator like Noriega was not going to work. For two years, Muse and his friends operated clandestine radio stations on low-tech equipment smuggled into Panama. At first, they began broadcasting on a very small scale. But in late 1987, his group realized they could override all transmissions from Noriega’s government-run radio network and a revolution was born.
“Kurt Muse is a national treasure,” said Lt. Col. John Radnoczi, Commander of the Soldier Recovery Unit Fort Liberty. “He will humbly just say he is just a man that wanted change. But in reality, Kurt is one the bravest men that I have ever met and had the pleasure to sit and talk to.”
In Muse’s book “Six Minutes to Freedom”, he details how he became imprisoned causing his family to flee. He helped in the planning to thwart Noriega and urged others to rise and fight for their freedom as well. After building a tremendous following among those willing to fight along with him, he was thrown in prison for his defiance.
“For someone locked up in a prison like that, the scariest sound is footsteps,” said Muse. “That's a scary sound because somebody's coming there and if you're in solitary confinement, you're safe but if somebody comes there, that's where bad things happen.”
Lt. Col. Radnoczi says that the SRU supports a wide variety of Soldiers that have encountered trauma and adversity, The soldiers here are here going through the program and learning to cope with adversity and overcome the trauma from their past.
“I wanted to bring Kurt in because he survived 9-10 months in captivity in a foreign country while enduring abuse and starvation from the prison guards in the notorious Modelo Prison in Panama,” Lt. Col. Radnoczi said. “I want the Soldier in Recovery to hear his story of resilience and how he overcame adversity in hopes that the Soldiers in Recovery will see his struggles and understand that there is always hope and an end to the trying times that they are facing.”
On December 20, 1989, Operation Acid Gambit took place as an opening action of the United States invasion of Panama. It was a Delta Force operation that rescued Muse, who had been arrested for leading the plot with other Panamanians to overthrow the government of Panama, from the Cárcel Modelo, a notorious prison in Panama City. Muse, who developed a bond with his rescuers, said he was not even aware at the time the soldiers were there to rescue him.
“Your soldiers that are wounded here at the SRU are going through all sorts of stuff” added Muse. “You can't look up if you haven't been rock bottom. You know, if you're here, you still have some juice in you, you know what I mean? And as you keep going down, down, down, once you crash, that's the time you decide you’re going to make it.”
Several years after the rescue, Muse collaborated with author John Gilstrap on a book about the ordeal, called “Six Minutes to Freedom”. For more information about Womack’s Soldier Recovery Unit, visit https://womack.tricare.mil/About-Us/Soldier-Recovery-Unit
| Date Taken: | 01.31.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 01.31.2025 13:23 |
| Story ID: | 489884 |
| Location: | FORT LIBERTY, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 28 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Plot Leader in Noriega’s Demise Visits Womack’s SRU, by Dan Grubb, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
