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= South Nashville, Tennessee = South Nashville is an area south of downtown Nashville in Tennessee. It extends "from the southern edge of downtown southward about five miles to the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere" and "from I-65 eastward to the Donelson/Airport/ Antioch areas." The 15.3 mile area is highly-developed, with around three percent of the land remaining undeveloped in 2015. Approximately 61% of that land is used commercially.

The main thoroughfares are Nolensville Pike, Murfreesboro Pike, and Lebanon Pike. Murfreesboro and Nolensville pikes have been developed as commercial strips bordered by sprawling, "classic, older urban residential neighborhoods." A commercial/industrial band that runs from the I-65 to the Cumberland River and Interstate 440 divide the older, downtown-adjacent residential neighborhoods from residential neighborhoods further south. South Nashville "is bisected by CSX railroad lines, and Interstate 40, Interstate 24 and Interstate 440."

The city of Berry Hill is considered a part of South Nashville.

smaller arteries interconnecting the neighborhoods. Some of these smaller arteries include Main Street, Shelby Avenue, Porter Road, Riverside Drive, Eastland Avenue, McFerrrin Avenue, and Woodland Street in no significant order. Ellington Parkway, which parallels Gallatin Avenue and Main Street, bypasses I-24 and I-65 and connects Briley Parkway and downtown Nashville and many other secondary streets along the way. The Cumberland River confines most of the area with a semicircle design on the south, southwest and east. Since East Nashville has no defined boundaries on the west and north the exact perimeter is the cause of some debate. Some would say that Ellington Parkway creates a boundary on the west and northwest, while Cahal Avenue and Porter Road in the north, in the confines of zipcode 37206. Many would now state that I-65 and I-24 create the western border and Briley Parkway as the northern boundary, which is called Greater East Nashville.

History


Captain John Rains, an Indian scout and veteran of the American Revolution, settled with his family in the area that is known today as Wedgewood-Houston.

The Nashville City Cemetery was established in South Nashville in 1822.

Railroad yards established during the 1850s, including the Radnor Yards, began to define the shape of the area.

During the years immediately following the Civil War,

Neighborhoods
Chestnut Hill

Glencliff

Glencliff Estates

Hill-n-Dale

Napier

Patricia Heights

Radnor

Raymond Heights

Wedgewood-Houston

Woodbine

Woodycrest

Wedgewood-Houston
Wedgewood-Houston is a neighborhood located in the south-central area of Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It is part of Nashville's Council District 17

Location
Chestnut Street forms the neighborhood's northern border, while Wedgewood Avenue forms the majority of its southern border. Its eastern boundary runs along 4th Avenue South/Nolensville Pike, and it is bound to the west by 8th Avenue South.

History
In 1921, Central High School, located at Wedgewood and Rains Avenue, began operating as the county system's first public high school.

Central High School was torn down after the graduation of the class of 1971 and the Nashville Public Television Studio was constructed on its location.

In 1983, Wedgewood-Houston was one of several neighborhoods in Nashville's "inner loop" to be left out of the Urban Development Action Grant's Pocket of Poverty program. In order to receive a $9.7 million federal grant that would help the city build its downtown convention center, the federal government required that 51% of new jobs generated by the project be located in low-income neighborhoods. When Nashville Communities Organized for Progress, an umbrella organization that represented thirty-three community organization, demanded more neighborhoods be included in the "pocket of poverty," Metro Urban Development Director Richard Fulton argued that the areas did not meet the requirement of being "contiguous low-income" areas.

and to the east by The Sunset District's southern and eastern borders are not as clearly defined, but there is a general consensus that the neighborhood extends no farther south than Sigmund Stern Grove and Sloat Boulevard and no farther east than Stanyan Street (just east of the Parnassus campus of the University of California, San Francisco) and Laguna Honda Hospital. .

The Sunset District is a neighborhood located in the west-central area of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the largest neighborhood in the West Of Twin Peaks Neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Location
The Sunset District is the largest neighborhood within the city and county of San Francisco, and with a population of over 85,000 it is also the most populous. Golden Gate Park forms the neighborhood's northern border, and the Pacific Ocean (or, more specifically, the long, flat strand of beach known as Ocean Beach) forms its western border. The Sunset District's southern and eastern borders are not as clearly defined, but there is a general consensus that the neighborhood extends no farther south than Sigmund Stern Grove and Sloat Boulevard and no farther east than Stanyan Street (just east of the Parnassus campus of the University of California, San Francisco) and Laguna Honda Hospital. Prior to the residential and commercial development of the Sunset District, much of the area was covered by sand dunes and was originally referred to by 19th century San Franciscans as the "Outside Lands."

The Sunset District and the neighboring Richmond District (on the north side of Golden Gate Park) are often collectively known as The Avenues, because the majority of both neighborhoods are spanned by numbered north-south avenues. When the city was originally laid out, the avenues were numbered from 1st to 49th, and the east-west streets were lettered A to X. In 1909, to reduce confusion for mail carriers, the east-west streets and 1st Avenue and 49th Avenue were renamed. The east-west streets were named in ascending alphabetical order in a southward direction after prominent 19th-century American politicians, military leaders, or explorers; 19th-century Mexican landowners; and Spanish conquistadors. 1st Avenue was renamed Arguello Boulevard, and 49th Avenue was renamed La Playa Street (Spanish for "the beach").

Today, the first numbered avenue is 2nd Avenue, starting one block west of Arguello Boulevard, and the last is 48th Avenue near Ocean Beach. The avenue numbers increase incrementally, with one exception: what would be 13th Avenue is known as Funston Avenue, named after Frederick Funston, a U.S. Army general famous for his exploits during the Spanish–American War and Philippine–American War, and for directing the U.S. Army response to the 1906 earthquake.

The east-west streets in the Sunset appear mostly in alphabetical order. These streets are: Lincoln Way (bordering the south side of Golden Gate Park), Hugo (from Arguello to 7th Avenue only), Irving, Judah, Kirkham, Lawton, Moraga, Noriega, Ortega, Pacheco, Quintara, Rivera, Santiago, Taraval, Ulloa, Vicente, Wawona, Yorba, and Sloat Boulevard. "X" was originally proposed to be Xavier, but was changed to Yorba due to a pronunciation controversy.

History
The origin of the "Sunset" name is not entirely clear. One claim indicates that Aurelius Buckingham, a developer who owned property in the area, coined the term in 1886. Another claim comes from the California Midwinter Exposition, held in Golden Gate Park in 1894 and also known as "The Sunset City."

Before construction of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1917, the Sunset was a vast, sparsely inhabited area of large sand dunes and coastal scrub land known as the "Outside Lands." Development was initiated in the 1870s and 1880s with construction of Golden Gate Park, but it did not reach a full scale until after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when small lots of tract homes and row homes now characteristic of the neighborhood were built into the sand dunes. These tract homes would displace a smaller original settlement built into the dunes called Carville, which was so named for squatters that lived in abandoned horsecars (horse-drawn trolleys) and cable cars that were dumped in the sand dunes. Development increased by the 1930s, as the Sunset was built and developed into a streetcar suburb. The post–World War II baby boom in the 1950s saw the last of the sand dunes leveled down and replaced with more single- and multifamily homes. In these developments, built mostly by Henry Doelger, entire blocks consist mainly of houses of the same general character, differentiated by variations in their stucco facades and mirrored floorplans, with most built upon 25 ft lots with no free space between houses. Later, Oliver Rousseau built more individualistic homes in the district.

Historically, the Sunset's demographics were consisted mostly of European Americans, specifically Irish and Italian. Beginning in the late 1960s the neighborhood saw a steady influx of Asian (mostly Chinese) immigrants following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which lifted racial quotas allowing for more non-European nationals to immigrate to the United States. Additionally, the Handover of Hong Kong motivated many Chinese to immigrate to the U.S. due to the political and economic uncertainties.

Today, the vast majority of the neighborhood's population is Asian, with Chinese as the dominant ethnic group. There are still some small Irish enclaves however.

Sub-neighborhoods
For most of its history, the Sunset existed as a large individual area. In recent years, the neighborhood has been popularly divided into three parts with sometimes vague borders.

Inner Sunset
The Inner Sunset is bordered by Lincoln Way to the north, 2nd Ave to the east, Quintara Street to the south, and 19th Avenue to the west. This far-east section of the Sunset is located just west of Mount Sutro. The main commercial area is along Irving Street from 5th Avenue to 12th Avenue, and along 9th Avenue from Lincoln Way to Judah Street, much of which is dotted with a variety of restaurants and shops.

The Inner Sunset is a unique part of San Francisco that hosts a variety of local businesses, including restaurants, bars, breweries, book stores, bakeries, coffee shops, ice cream parlors, clothes and shoe stores, a tattoo parlor, and a wine bar. All these establishments are clustered around the intersection of 9th Avenue and Irving Street. There is a great deal of gastronomic diversity in the restaurants located in the Inner Sunset: Pizza, Mexican, Thai, Persian, Korean, Malaysian, Hawaiian, Greek, Ethiopian, Pakistani, Cajun/Creole, Dim Sum, Turkish, Peruvian,  Chinese, Vietnamese, California Cuisine, Mediterranean, Indian, Japanese, Vegetarian.

Central Sunset
The Central Sunset is bounded by Lincoln Way to the north, 19th Avenue to the east, Quintara Street to the south, and Sunset Boulevard to the west. This area is mostly residential with cookie-cutter homes and large lots and a commercial strip along Irving Street from 19th Avenue to 24th Avenue and on Noriega Street from 19th Avenue to 27th Avenue and 30th Avenue to 33rd Avenue. Features of the area include the massive Sunset Reservoir (which takes up eight square blocks between Ortega and Quintara streets and 24th and 28th avenues), which has a small park surrounding its outer rim; Golden Gate Park; the Sunset Recreation Center; and Abraham Lincoln High School.

Outer Sunset
The Outer Sunset is bordered by Lincoln Way to the north, Sunset Boulevard (between 36th and 37th avenues) to the east, Sloat Boulevard to the south, and Ocean Beach to the west. The primary commercial avenues are Judah, Noriega, and Taraval. The Outer Sunset is the foggiest section in San Francisco due to its close proximity to Ocean Beach. The area's main attractions include the San Francisco Zoo, Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, and Lake Merced.

Attractions and characteristics
The western part of the Sunset borders the cold northern California Pacific Ocean coastline, so it tends to get much of the fog San Francisco is famous for. The Sunset can be foggy and chilly for some days during summer. The Sunset's finest weather is usually from August through December, when regional air patterns transition from onshore to offshore weather and the area is free of fog. Sand carried by Pacific Ocean winds can be found on roadways and driveways within the first five to ten blocks east of Ocean Beach.

The Sunset District contains several large park and recreation areas. The San Francisco Zoo is located in the southwestern corner of the neighborhood by Lake Merced, the largest lake within San Francisco. Also within the Lake Merced area are several golf courses: the private Olympic Club and San Francisco Golf Club, and the public TPC Harding Park. Across from Lake Merced is Fort Funston, an old coastal battery, now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Fort Funston notably has some of the last remnants of the sand dune ecosystem that once covered the entire Sunset District.

There is a year-round, Sunday morning farmers' market which is located at 1315 8th Avenue (the parking lot between 8th and 9th Avenues). The market is operated by the Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Association and is sponsored by the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors. The Inner Sunset Farmers' Market offers California-grown produce, fish, eggs, and meat, as well as local food vendors and artisans.

Stern Grove, a heavily wooded park and amphitheater located on Sloat Boulevard between 19th and 34th avenues, is known for its annual summer festival.

Three parks lie on the far east border of the district: the northernmost is Grand View Park (also referred to as Turtle Hill) a small, elevated park surrounded by 14th and 15th Avenues, as well as Noriega Street; moving south, next is Golden Gate Heights Park, just east of 14th Avenue north of Quintara; and Hawk Hill Park, also east of 14th Avenue at Santiago. These natural areas belong to a remnant ridge-top system and include some of the last-remaining sand-dune communities in the city.

Education
The San Francisco Unified School District operates public K–12 schools.

Educational institutions include the Parnassus campus and medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, located in Inner Sunset; the main campus of San Francisco State University, located in the southwestern corner of the neighborhood across from Lake Merced; Abraham Lincoln High School, located in the center of the Sunset District; St. Ignatius College Preparatory (a private, coeducational school operating in San Francisco since 1855) located since 1969 adjacent to Sunset Boulevard; and Lowell High School, the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi and one of the top performing ones in the United States.

Beach culture
The strip near the Pacific Ocean has a notable population of surfers who take advantage of the sometimes excellent surf conditions of Ocean Beach. Because of the cold Pacific current that brings ocean water from Alaska, it is usually necessary to wear a wetsuit when surfing at Ocean Beach. Several surf shops can be found near the beach in the Outer Sunset.

Several playgrounds are located in the Sunset, including Sunset Playground and Recreation Center, Blue Boat Playground, West Sunset, McCoppin Square, and South Sunset.

Current issues
The current efforts to develop a comprehensive plan for this section of San Francisco is the Ocean Beach Master Plan (OBMP). The OBMP is an interagency effort to develop a long-term vision for Ocean Beach that will address numerous issues.

Climate
Like much of the coast of Northern California, Sunset district has a cool summer mediterranean climate, albeit with an unusual annual temperature distribution. The warmest days of the year occur in October and then the coldest nights of the year occur just two months later in December. Its climate is strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean and therefore has even cooler summers and milder winters than downtown San Francisco. Rainfall follows a seasonal pattern with plentiful precipitation in the winter (almost all of this falling as rain) and extremely dry summers.

Latin American Training Center-Ground Division
In 1946, the United States Army founded the Latin American Training Center-Ground Division (Centro de Entrenamiento Latino Americano, Division Terrestre ) at Fort Amador in the Panama Canal Zone to centralize the "administrative tasks involved in training the increasing number of Latin Americans attending U.S. service schools in the canal zone." The school trained Latin American military personnel to use artillery and advanced weapons purchased from the United States and provided instruction in nation-building. The army soon renamed the division the Latin American Ground School (Escuela Latino Americano Terrestre) and divided it into three departments: engineering, communications, and weapons and tactics. The school was affiliated with army training schools in Panama that included the Food Service School (Fort Clayton), the Motor Mechanics School (Fort Randolph), and the Medical School (Fort Clayton). Chronic under-enrollment occurred during the school's first few years, as Latin American officials preferred to have personnel trained within in the continental United States. Cadets of varying degrees of education and military experience were placed in the same courses. In 1947, discussions of national castes and class divisions in Latin American countries among U.S. officials led to changes in course structure that created separate classes for officers and lower-ranks.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the school sought to prove that the quality of training provided matched or exceeded training provided by institutions within the U.S. When a group of Argentine officers attended a three-month course in 1948, the school painstakingly structured the program to convince them that that U.S. was "enterprising, efficient, and powerful." Administrators leveraged preconceived notions around Argentine racial superiority in Latin America to cultivate feelings of equality between the Argentine officers and their U.S. counterparts.

Scholar Lesley Gill has argued that the Ground School not only trained students, but incorporated them "into the ideology of the 'American way of life' by steeping them in a vision of empire that identified their aspirations with those of the United States."

U.S. Army Caribbean School
In February of 1949, the army consolidated the training schools in the Panama Canal Zone and transferred operations to Fort Gulick. The army changed the name of the Latin American Ground School to the U.S. Army Caribbean School. Some courses were taught in Spanish to accommodate requests from Latin American countries that the school served. The school graduated 743 U.S. military personnel and 251 Latin Americans representing ten countries in 1949.

Mutual defense assistance agreements bound the U.S. Army to the militaries of Latin America by the middle of the 1950s, with only Mexico and Argentina as exceptions. By 1954, the school's pupils were overwhelmingly from Latin American countries due to a decrease in U.S. military personnel in the region, an increased utilization of the school by governments in Latin America, and an agreement that the United States would pay "transportation, per diem and course costs for military trainees from MDAP countries in Latin America." In 1956, English was eliminated as an instructional language and the school adopted Spanish as its official language. Accordingly, the majority of U.S. Personnel the school trained between 1956 and 1964 were Puerto Rican.

During this period, the army utilized the school for translation. In 1955, the Department of the Army established the Spanish Translation Review Board within the school to "review new and old translations of U.S. Army Field Manuals prior to publishing to correct grammatical and technical errors and to assist in the standardization of military terms" employed in Spanish-language curriculum. In 1961, General Lyman Lemnitzer suggested that Latin American students could be utilized to "review translations to insure conformance with individual country language and practical applicability."''A. Latin America, Military Actions for. Transmittal Memorandum, JCSM-832-61, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, to the President. Nov. 30, 1961. 2 p. App. (A): Part I. Recommendations with Statement of the Problem and Need for Action [the US has a greater capability for furthering its objectives in Latin America than it is presently using]. 7 p.; App. (B): Part II. Recommendations with Supporting Data [actions and programs are outlined that are to be implemented within the DOD, that are to implemented within the DOD in conjunction with other agencies, and that require host government acceptance and participation]. 15 p.; Annex (A) to App. (B): Basis for United States Military Participation in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 4 p.; Annex (B) to App. (B): Requirement for Intelligence. 2 p.; Annex (C) to App. (B): The Military Assistance Program in Latin America. 4 p.; Annex (D) to App. (B): Proposed Implementation for a Latin American Military Information and Education Program. 5 p.; Annex (E) to App. (B): A Proposal for Latin American Civilian Conservation Corps Programs. 4 p.; Annex (F) to App. (B): Latin American Military Air Transport in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 3 p.; Annex (G) to App. (B): Nation Building and Civic Actions. 2 p.; App. (C): Part III. Factual Data [information on bloc penetration; Communist Parties in Latin America; influence of the US on the Latin American military; indigenous politics; economics, social, cultural, and psychological life; and significant US military accomplishments in Latin America]. 25 p. SECRET to CONFIDENTIAL. SANITIZED copy. Released Mar. 20-23, 1981. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, NSAM 118, JCS Recommendations, Parts I-III, Dec. 1961, Box 333''. Department Of Defense, 30 Nov. 1961. U.S. Declassified Documents Online, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/C9pba3. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

After the 1959 revolution in Cuba, the U.S. Military adopted a national security doctrine under the perceived threat of an "international communist conspiracy." In 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered the school to focus on teaching "anti-communist" counterinsurgency training to military personnel from Latin America. Broadly, the U.S. offered training to Latin Americans in riot and mob control, special warfare, jungle warfare, intelligence and counterintelligence, civil affairs, and public information. ''A. Latin America, Military Actions for. Transmittal Memorandum, JCSM-832-61, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, to the President. Nov. 30, 1961. 2 p. App. (A): Part I. Recommendations with Statement of the Problem and Need for Action [the US has a greater capability for furthering its objectives in Latin America than it is presently using]. 7 p.; App. (B): Part II. Recommendations with Supporting Data [actions and programs are outlined that are to be implemented within the DOD, that are to implemented within the DOD in conjunction with other agencies, and that require host government acceptance and participation]. 15 p.; Annex (A) to App. (B): Basis for United States Military Participation in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 4 p.; Annex (B) to App. (B): Requirement for Intelligence. 2 p.; Annex (C) to App. (B): The Military Assistance Program in Latin America. 4 p.; Annex (D) to App. (B): Proposed Implementation for a Latin American Military Information and Education Program. 5 p.; Annex (E) to App. (B): A Proposal for Latin American Civilian Conservation Corps Programs. 4 p.; Annex (F) to App. (B): Latin American Military Air Transport in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 3 p.; Annex (G) to App. (B): Nation Building and Civic Actions. 2 p.; App. (C): Part III. Factual Data [information on bloc penetration; Communist Parties in Latin America; influence of the US on the Latin American military; indigenous politics; economics, social, cultural, and psychological life; and significant US military accomplishments in Latin America]. 25 p. SECRET to CONFIDENTIAL. SANITIZED copy. Released Mar. 20-23, 1981. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, NSAM 118, JCS Recommendations, Parts I-III, Dec. 1961, Box 333''. Department Of Defense, 30 Nov. 1961. U.S. Declassified Documents Online, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/C9pba3. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019. According to anthropologist Lesley Gill, the label "communist" was a highly elastic category that could accommodate almost any critic of the status quo."

Beginning in 1961, Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza sent Nicaraguan officers to the school attend a 46-week course in their final year of training. Somoza himself made occasional visits to the school.

Curriculum
To accommodate objectives of cooperation between the United States and Latin America established by President Kennedy in the Alliance for Progress in 1961, the school's curriculum was constructed and reorganized into two departments. The Department of Internal Defense dealt with "national internal defense," while the Counterinsurgency Committee provided counterinsurgency training in ten-week and two-week courses. According to the Department of Defense, the school provided intelligence and counter-intelligence training to "foreign military personnel" under the Mutual Assistance Program. It also trained military police and maintained a close relationship with the Inter-American Police Academy. As part of an effort to emphasize "nation building and economic growth through military civic action," the school taught "technical skills applicable to civic action programs." These skills included bridge building, well-drilling, radio repair, medical technique, and water purification.

School of the Americas
In 1963, officials renamed the facility the U.S. Army School of the Americas "to better reflect its hemispheric orientation."

During the mid-1960s, the school was one of several institutions through which the U.S. Army augmented "training in jungle warfare." In first years of the decade, the Army made the Jungle Operations Committee part of the School of the Americas. This addition resulted in a surge in attendance by U.S. military personnel. By 1967, the school had graduated 22,265 U.S. soldiers. The Department of Defense reported to President Lyndon Johnson that 180 students from the Continental U.S. Base had been trained in 1965, including 60 from the 1st Cavalry Division deployed in the Republic of Vietnam.

The Jungle Operations Course included in-field exercises. For example, in 1966"a company of 103 students from Panama and 4 other Latin American countries enrolled in the Jungle Operations Course, U.S. Army School of the Americas, Fort Gulick, Canal Zone, recently completed a 9 day tactical exercise crossing the Isthmus of Panama, a ground distance of about 55 miles, through jungle, swamp and water. Symbolically following in the footsteps of Spanish explorers 300 years ago, the crossing began with an amphibious landing on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Exercise ended with the last student completing the trek by emptying a container of Pacific Ocean Water into the Caribbean. The 9 day exercise emphasized jungle operations and tactics and techniques of combat in this environment. The U.S. Army School of the Americas' Jungle Operations Committee supervised and controlled the maneuver."Heightened tensions in the Southeast Asia increased demand for "jungle operations techniques." In 1966, the army ordered the Commander, U.S. Army Forces Southern Command, to augment the school's Jungle Operations Course to accommodate more students. More specifically, these new students were to be soldiers "enroute to assignments in units serving in the Republic of Vietnam." A feedback-loop created between the school and General Westmoreland's headquarters allowed the Army to ensure that "lessons learned" in Vietnam were incorporated into the curriculum. Scholar J. Patrice McSherry has argued that methods derived from Vietnam and incorporated into the curriculum included "torture techniques and other dirty war methods." Further, the school leveraged instructors returning from service in Vietnam to "insure currency of the instruction." As new techniques were developed and adopted, the military became increasingly protective of course content. According to one scholar, by the mid-to-late 1960s "trainees required security clearances even to view the course descriptions of military intelligence courses."

The counterinsurgency manuals that the school used for instruction were produced during the Army's Project X, established under the Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program in 1965-66, which relied on knowledge produced during the Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program. According to Major Joseph Blair, a former instructor at the school, "the author of SOA and CIA torture manuals [...] drew from intelligence materials used during the Vietnam War that advocated assassination, torture, extortion, and other 'techniques'." McSherry argues that the authors of the manuals "believed that oversight regulations and prohibitions applied only to U.S. personnel, not to foreign officers." Use of the manuals was suspended under President Jimmy Carter over concerns about their correlation to human rights abuses.

Despite Carter's worries about the school's training materials, he believed that the international military education and training provided by the School of the Americas, among other institutions, was critical to furthering "the national interests of the United States." He considered the training conducted in Panama to be essential because it enhanced American "access to the politically influential leadership" of the Panamanian National Guard and instilled in its personnel "attitudes favorable to the United States." Further, he believed the training served to "increase respect for United States foreign policy goals and the United States concept of military-civilian relationships at the national level." To justify his decision to "provision international military education and training" to Panama in 1980, Carter argued that not doing so would "endanger the future operation" of the School of the Americas and the Inter-American Air Force Academy. Training manuals suspended under Carter were re-introduced into the school's curriculum under the Reagan Administration in 1982.

During the 1970s, the quantity of trainees sent by Latin American dictatorships backed by the United States increased widely. Between 1970 and 1979, cadets from Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Panama, Peru, and Honduras made-up sixty-three percent of the school's students. In the late 1970s, civil wars and communist revolutions intensified the Central American crisis. In 1980, the United States increased economic aid to Honduras, which remained relatively stable compared to other Central American countries. Journalist Ray Bonner reported that much of this aid would go toward training military officers at the School of the Americas and training programs within the continental United States. Hundreds of Hondurans were trained at the school during the 1980s, when the country became increasingly critical to President Ronald Reagan's efforts to overthrow and defeat the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and other revolutionary guerrilla movements in the region. The surge in trainees during the 1980s marked the second wave of Hondurans to be trained by the school. The first wave took place between 1950 and 1969, when 1000 Honduran cadets were trained at the school or other facilities within the United States.

During the 1980s, Mexico, El Salvador, and Colombia made-up seventy two percent of the school's cadets.

On September 21, 1984, the school was expelled from Panama under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Prior to this expulsion, politicians and journalists in Panama had complained that civilian graduates from the school engaged in repressive and antidemocratic behavior. The army considered relocating the school to Fort Allen in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, ultimately choosing Fort Benning, Georgia, where it re-opened in December of 1984 as part of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

In 1989, the school established a policy on human rights instruction and revised its curriculum to integrate human rights training. According to the school, cadets received between four and forty hours of human rights training depending on their length of attendance. Instructors received sixteen hours of human rights training before they began to teach.

Further international curriculum on human rights was included in the instruction, as were warnings about the penalties of human rights abuses. Despite this required instruction, the school still utilized material from Spanish language training manuals that discussed methods of coercion through execution and torture from 1982 until 1991. The release of a number of manuals by the Department of Defense in September 1996 was met with controversy and further criticism of the school. <>

<---earlier text to deal with-->As the Cold War drew to a close during the early 1990s, United States foreign policy shifted focus from "anti-communism" to the War on Drugs, with narcoguerillas replacing "communists". This term was later replaced by "the more ominous sounding 'terrorist'." Now, all elements of the School of the Americas are located at Fort Benning with the exception of the Helicopter School Battalion at Fort Rucker, Alabama. f

During the 1990s, the school continued to incorporate human rights into both its curriculum and institutional structure. An instructional class that taught proper development of human rights training programs in student's home countries was implemented in December of 1994. A Board of Visitors, which included noted human rights advocates, was established in 1996.

Congressional Criticism
In 1993, a list of 60,000 graduates released confirmed that "dictators, death squad operatives, and assassins" had been educated at the SOA. Two bills to cut funding to the school were rejected by the House of Representatives in 1993 and 1994. These bills were introduced by Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II with the intent to close the school by eliminating the amount of funding dedicated to running the school. Despite the rejection of the 1994 bill, legislative action that year required a report on the school's promotion of respect for human rights and civilian authority. This request was included in the Foreign Operations Appropriations measure for fiscal year 1995. The report required explanation of how the "School of the Americas IMET program" would "contribute to the promotion of human rights, respect for civilian authority and the rule of law, the establishment of legitimate judicial mechanisms for the military, and achieving the goal of right sizing military forces."

In 1995, the House Appropriations Committee urged the Department of Defense to continue its ongoing efforts to incorporate human rights training into the School of the Americas regular training curriculum, as well as to employ stringent screening processes to potential students to ensure that they had not carried out past human rights abuse. That same year, Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II introduced bill H.R. 2652, which sought "to close the School of the Americas and establish a U.S. Academy for Democracy and Civil-Military Relations." The bill stalled in January 1996 while awaiting executive comment from the Department of Defense.

Again in 1996, the committee urged the Department of Defense to continue efforts to incorporate human rights training into the regular curriculum and to monitor the human rights performance of its graduates. A report regarding the school's selection process and monitoring of human rights practices of its graduates, as well as examples in which graduates made significant contributions to democracy-building and improved human rights practices, was requested by the House Appropriations Committee in 1996.

In September of 1996, the Pentagon made training manuals used by the School of the Americas available to the public and confirmed publicly that tactics conveyed in the manuals "violated American policy and principles." The Pentagon declared that all copies of the manuals had been destroyed apart from a single copy retained by its general counsel. An investigation was undertaken to ensure that the school's contemporary intelligence and counterintelligence materials were in "complete compliance with law, regulations and policy." Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II stated that the manuals confirmed that "taxpayer dollars have been used to train military officers in executions, extortion, beatings and other acts of intimidation -- all clear civil rights abuses which have no place in civilized society." Rep. Nancy Pelosi addressed the issue in the congressional record: "for years, some of us have had serious questions about the Army's School of the Americas and its connection to some of the worst human rights violators in our hemisphere. Last weekend, information released by the Pentagon confirmed our worst suspicions: U.S. Army intelligence manuals, distributed to thousands of military officers throughout Latin America, promoted the use of executions, torture, blackmail, and other forms of coercion. We now have concrete proof of what we had suspected. For almost 10 years, U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to promote an approach that advocates using, and I quote, 'fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions, and the use of truth serum.'"Congress continued to debate whether or not to close the school throughout 1997. In February, Representative Kennedy introduced another bill, H.R. 611, that sought to close the school. Instead of pressing for the establishment of the U.S. Academy for Democracy and Civil-Military Relations, the bill urged the Department of Defense to create an Inter-American Center for Defense Studies in order to "provide professional training and education relevant to defense management in a democratic constitutional context." Senator Richard Durbin introduced a similar bill, S.980, into the senate in June. That same month, the Department of Defense submitted the report previously requested to address screening and monitoring of the school'd students. The House Appropriations Committee noted that the report was delivered six months beyond its deadline and criticized its content as "woefully inadequate." The report divulged that the screening and selection processes of school candidates differed between countries and that each country was responsible for screening and selecting candidates. According to the report, the names of selected candidates were sent to the "appropriate [U.S.] mission offices and agencies," who were expected to run their own background checks on the candidates. It also suggested that the resources required to monitor all 60,000 graduates were not available.

In July, the House Appropriations Commission reported that the House version of the foreign operations appropriation bill required major reforms before funding would be provided to the school.

In September, numerous senators entered statements in the congressional record to support or close the School fo the Americas. Rep. Rob Bishop argued for keeping the school open:"I am proud of the school. All Americans should be. It has provided professional training to thousands of military and civilian police personnel from throughout Latin America, including extensive indoctrination in the principles of human rights and representative democracy. For less than $4 million a year, the school promotes democracy, builds stronger relationships with our neighbors, and combats narcotics trafficking. Some handful of the school's graduates have committed terrible crimes, but over 68,000 have been on the front lines of the move toward democracy in Latin America. The school has undergone a series of investigations and studies, and all confirm that it has been a force for good in our hemisphere. I urge all of my colleagues to visit the school, learn more about the job it is doing, and not to rush to judgment on the basis of false and unfounded accusations made by people who may have good intentions, but who have little regard for the facts. Mr. Speaker, I urge our colleagues to support the truth. Support the School of the Americas."Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II entered a counterargument into the congressional record:"Mr. Speaker, in the next couple of hours, this House will have the opportunity of closing down the School of the Americas. This is one of the worst vestiges of this country's foreign policies over the course of the last couple of decades. While the cold war has ended, the association of this country in hundreds of villages throughout Latin America, in thousands of families where human rights abuses have taken place time and time and time again, those who perpetrated those human rights abuses have one thing in common. They were graduates of the School of the Americas. This is a school that is funded by U.S. taxpayers. It has trained the Latin American militaries how to come to this country and learn to kill, torture, and maim more efficiently. It is a school that should never have been associated with U.S. taxpayer funds. It is a school whose time has not only come and gone, but whose time should never have been associated with this country. It is time, I believe, for us to close down the School of the Americas. I ask Members on both sides of the aisle, save the taxpayers money. Close the School of the Americas."In July of 1999, the House of Representatives voted 230-197 to reduce funding for the school by two million dollars. A House-Senate committee voted 8-7 to overturn the vote in the weeks that followed.

WHINSEC
By 2000 the School of the Americas was under increasing criticism in the United States for training students who later participated in undemocratic governments and committed human rights abuses. In 2000, the US Congress, through the FY01 National Defense Act, withdrew the Secretary of the Army's authority to operate USARSA.

The next year, the institute was renamed to WHINSEC. U.S. Army Maj. Joseph Blair, a former director of instruction at the school, said in 2002 that "there are no substantive changes besides the name. ... They teach the identical courses that I taught and changed the course names and use the same manuals."

In 2013, researcher Ruth Blakeley concluded after interviews with WHINSEC personnel and anti-SOA/WHINSEC protesters that "there was considerable transparency ... established after the transition from SOA to WHINSEC" and that "a much more rigorous human rights training program was in place than in any other US military institution."

However, the first WHINSEC Director, Richard Downie, became the controversial director of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), the educational institution of both the U.S. Northern and U.S. Southern Commands (SOUTHCOM), at the National Defense University in Washington, DC from March 2004&#x2013;March, 2013. During Downie's tenure at CHDS, the institution faced controversy over its continued employment of a former military officer from Chile, who was later indicted by a civilian court for his alleged participation in torture and murder and who was defended by Downie. In addition, The Intercept reported that Honduran plotters in the illegal 2009 military coup received "behind-the-scenes assistance" from CHDS officials working for Downie. The detailed August 2017 article noted that Cresencio Arcos, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras who was working at the Center at the time the coup occurred, received an angry call from a Congressional staffer who had met with the Honduran colonels who were meeting with Members of Congress in Washington. The colonels purportedly told the staffer they had the center's support. Arcos confronted Downie and Center Deputy Director Ken LaPlante, telling them, "We cannot have this sort of thing happening, where we're supporting coups." LaPlante was a former instructor at the notorious School of the Americas and an ardent defender of that institution while at what is now called the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies.

Participation
Since its opening in 2001, WHINSEC has trained more than 19,000 students from 36 countries of the Western Hemisphere. In 2014–2015, the principal "Command & General Staff Officer" course had 65 graduates (60 male and five female) representing 13 nations: Belize, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and the U.S.

In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of its soldiers at WHINSEC after a long period of chilling relations between the United States and Venezuela. On March 28, 2006, the government of Argentina, headed by President Néstor Kirchner, decided to stop sending soldiers to train at WHINSEC, and the government of Uruguay affirmed that it would continue its current policy of not sending soldiers to WHINSEC.

In 2007, Óscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, decided to stop sending Costa Rican police to the WHINSEC, although he later reneged, saying the training would be beneficial for counter-narcotics operations. Costa Rica has no military but has sent some 2,600 police officers to the school. Bolivian President Evo Morales formally announced on February 18, 2008, that he would not send Bolivian military or police officers to WHINSEC. In 2012, President Rafael Correa announced that Ecuador would withdraw all their troops from the military school at Ft. Benning, citing links to human rights violations.

In 2005 a bill to abolish the institute, with 134 cosponsors, was introduced to the House Armed Services Committee. In June 2007, the McGovern/Lewis Amendment to shut off funding for the Institute failed by six votes. This effort to close the Institute was endorsed by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which described the Institute as a "black eye" for America.

USCARIB School

 * Col. Cecil Himes (1959–1961). Born in Cincinnati, OH (1915), died in Birmingham, AL (2009).
 * Col. Edgar W. Schroeder (1961–1963)

(According to another source, Cecil Himes was commandant from 1958 to 1961.)

School of the Americas

 * ? (1964–1972)
 * Col. Joseph Villa (around 1973)
 * ? (1973–1984)
 * Col. Michael J. Sierra (1984–1985) (transfer from Fort Gulick, Panama to Fort Benning, GA)
 * Col. Miguel A. García (1985–?)
 * Col. William DePalo (1989–1991)
 * Col. José Feliciano (1991–1993)
 * Col. José Álvarez (1993–1995)
 * Col. Roy R. Trumble (1995–1999)
 * Col. Glenn R. Weidner (1999–2000)

WHINSEC

 * Col. Richard D. Downie (2001–2004)
 * Col. Gilberto R. Pérez (2004–2008)
 * Col. Félix Santiago (2008–2010)
 * Col. Glenn R. Huber Jr. (2010–2014)
 * Col. Keith W. Anthony (2014–2017)
 * Col. Robert F. Alvaro (2017–)

Charter
Authorized by the United States Congress through in 2001, WHINSEC is responsible for providing professional education and training on the context of the democratic principles in the Charter of the Organization of American States (such charter being a treaty to which the United States is a party), and foster mutual knowledge, transparency, confidence, and cooperation among the participating nations and promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United States customs and traditions. WHINSEC has provided training for more than 10,000 individuals since its existence and over 60,000 US and international students since its original establishment in 1946. Its educational format incorporates guest lecturers and experts from sectors of US and international government, non-government, human rights, law enforcement, academic institutions, and interagency departments to share best practices in pursuit of improved security cooperation between all nations of the Western Hemisphere.

Independent Review Board
When the National Defense Authorization Act for 2001 was signed into law, WHINSEC was created. The law called for a federal advisory committee—the Board of Visitors (BoV)—to maintain independent review, observation, and recommendations regarding operations of the institute. The 14-member BoV includes members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, representatives from the State Department, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Northern Command, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, and six members designated by the Secretary of Defense. These six members include representatives from the human rights, religious, academic, and business communities. The board reviews and advises on areas such as curriculum, academic instruction, and fiscal affairs of the institute. Their reviews ensure relevance and consistency with US policy, laws, regulations, and doctrine.

Members of the Board are not compensated by reason of service on the Board.

Board of Visitors
As of August 2018, Board members include:


 * Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe, or his designee
 * Ranking minority member of the SASC, Sen. Jack Reed, or his designee
 * Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, or his designee; (Rep. Austin Scott [Ga-8] is the current designee.)
 * Ranking minority member of the HASC, Rep. Adam Smith, or his designee.
 * The Secretary of State designates a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, usually from the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
 * Commander, U.S. Southern Command, Adm. Kurt W. Tidd or his designee
 * Commander, U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy or his designee
 * Commanding General, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, or his designee
 * Dr. Dafna H. Rand, Adjunct Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University
 * Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services
 * Dr. Frank Mora, Director, Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center and Professor in the Department of Politics & International Relations at Florida International University.
 * Amb. (Ret) Carmen Maria Martinez, United States diplomat and career foreign service officer. She served as the U.S. Ambassador to Zambia from 2005 to 2008.
 * Hon. Dan Trimble, U.S. Immigration Judge
 * LTG(R) Ken Keen, Associate Dean for Leadership Development at Emory University's Goizueta Business School

Accusations toward the School of the Americas
The School of the Americas has been blamed for human rights violations committed by former students.

By the early 1980s, Latin American critics accused the school of teaching techniques of repression to be used toward civilians. American officers rejected the criticism, arguing that the training prevented abuse toward civilians.

According to the Center for International Policy, "The School of the Americas had been questioned for years, as it trained many military personnel before and during the years of the 'national security doctrine' – the dirty war years in the Southern Cone and the civil war years in Central America – in which the armed forces within several Latin American countries ruled or had disproportionate government influence and committed serious human rights violations in those countries." SOA and WHINSEC graduates continue to surface in news reports regarding current human rights; most Argentine military graduates are currently in prison by crimes against humanity and genocide.

The institute itself explicitly denies accusations of teaching torture: in 1999 the School of the Americas FAQ had several answers denying accusations of torture, such as "Q: What about the accusations that the School teaches torture and murder? A: Absolutely false. The School teaches U.S. Army doctrine which is based on over 200 years of success, and includes a variety of military subjects, none of which include criminal misconduct." WHINSEC says that its curriculum includes human rights, and that "no school should be held accountable for the actions of its graduates."

Human Rights Watch says that "training alone, even when it includes human rights instruction, does not prevent human rights abuses."

SOA Watch
Since 1990, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit human rights organization School of the Americas Watch has worked to monitor graduates of the institution and to close the former SOA, now WHINSEC, through legislative action, grassroots organizing and nonviolent direct action. It maintains a database with graduates of both the SOA and WHINSEC who have been accused of human rights violations and other criminal activity. In regard to the renaming of the institution, SOA Watch claims that the approach taken by the Department of Defense is not grounded in any critical assessment of the training, procedures, performance, or results (consequences) of the training programs of the SOA. According to critics of the SOA, the name change ignores congressional concern and public outcry over the SOA's past and present link to human rights atrocities.

Protests and public demonstrations
Since 1990, SOA Watch has sponsored an annual public demonstration of protest of SOA/WHINSEC at Ft. Benning. In 2005, the demonstration drew 19,000 people. The protests are timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador on November 1989 by graduates of the School of the Americas. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Joaquín López y López, Juan Ramón Moreno, and Amado López); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. A United Nations panel concluded that nineteen of the 27 killers were SOA graduates.

Graduates of the School of the Americas
"The U.S. Army School of the Americas is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."

- Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II A number of graduates of the SOA and WHINSEC have been accused and sentenced for human rights violations and criminal activity in their home countries.

In response to public debate and in order to promote transparency, the Freedom of Information Act released records that tracked trainees of the school. In August 2007, according to an Associated Press report, Colonel Alberto Quijano of the Colombian Army's Special Forces was arrested for providing security and mobilizing troops for Diego León Montoya Sánchez (aka "Don Diego"), the leader of the Norte del Valle Cartel and one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. School of the Americas Watch said in a statement that it matched the names of those in the scandal with its database of attendees at the institute. Alberto Quijano attended courses and was an instructor who taught classes on peacekeeping operations and democratic sustainment at the school from 2003 to 2004.

Critics of SOA Watch argue the connection between school attendees and violent activity is often misleading. According to Paul Mulshine, Roberto D'Aubuisson's sole link to the SOA is that he had taken a course in radio operations long before the Salvadoran Civil War began. Further, others assert that training statistics show that Argentina, a country that engaged in much anti-Communist sentiment and violence during the Cold War era, had a relatively small number of military personnel educated at the school.

In 2018, two of the highest officers of the Venezuelan Army, Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López and SEBIN director Gustavo González López were sanctioned by the United States for human rights abuses against opposition protesters and dissidents, corruption leading to the economic collapse of the country, and drug trafficking charges. Both of them were found to have been students of psychological operations courses at SOA in 1995 and 1991 respectively.

Educated according to other sources
In 1992 the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended prosecution of Col. Cid Díaz for murder in association with the 1983 Las Hojas massacre. His name is on a State Department list of gross human rights abusers. Díaz went to the Institute in 2003.

Media representation

 * School of the Americas Assassins, a 1994 short documentary film produced by Robert Richter. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short
 * Hidden in Plain Sight, a 2003 feature-length documentary film produced by Andrés Thomas Conteris, Vivi Letsou, and John Smihula
 * The War on Democracy, a 2007 documentary film produced by Youngheart Entertainment PTY Limited
 * The Empire Files: The U.S. School That Trains Dictators and Death Squads, a 2015 documentary produced by Abby Martin and broadcast on teleSUR

Official government websites




Other websites






Media and documentaries

 * On 20th Anniversary of Killings of 6 Jesuit Priests, Thousands Protest "School of the Assassins" – video report by Democracy Now! (retrieved November 20, 2010)
 * La Escuela de Las Americas – Documentary by Andrés Thomas Conteris – Spanish and English (retrieved November 20, 2010)
 * School of the Americas Assassins, a 1994 short documentary film produced by Robert Richter. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
 * HiddenInPlainSight.org – Feature-length documentary that looks at the nature of U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas, the military school that trains Latin American soldiers in the United States'
 * Truth Commissions: Reports: El Salvador – The Hague Justice Portal (retrieved November 20, 2010)
 * Vigil at School of the Americas
 * Empire Files: The U.S. School That Trains Dictators and Death Squads. The Real News. December 5, 2015
 * Empire Files: The U.S. School That Trains Dictators and Death Squads. The Real News. December 5, 2015
 * Empire Files: The U.S. School That Trains Dictators and Death Squads. The Real News. December 5, 2015