FORT CLAYTON, Panama -- The United States' long goodbye to Panama neared an end Friday with the formal departure of the regional U.S. Army headquarters, leaving only a few hundred soldiers until the Panama Canal is handed over at year's end.
"Your 88-year mission here is done," Marine Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, told a closing ceremony at Fort Clayton's Soldier's Field parade ground. "You can report with pride: 'Mission accomplished.' "The Southern Command, the administrative head for all branches of the U.S. military in the region, moved out of Panama in 1997. But Friday's ceremony marked the exit of the regional headquarters of the U.S. Army, which had the largest presence in Panama. That headquarters moves to Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico.
As Panamanian President Ernesto Perez Balladares looked on and a bagpiper played "Auld Lang Syne," a color guard dressed in tan, 1910-style U.S. uniforms and bearing Springfield rifles turned over flags to another color guard dressed in modern camouflage uniforms and carrying M-16 rifles. The modern guard then marched out the gates of Fort Clayton, past U.S. and Panamanian flags.
Maj. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., the commander of U.S. Army South, said the troops were saying goodbye to Panama -- "and in doing so, holding our heads high with the knowledge that Panama and the region have been better for our presence."
Thick gray clouds and a brisk rain began to fall soon after the ceremony ended, a reminder of the tropical downpours that helped the Army train millions of soldiers in tropical jungle warfare over the years.
On Dec. 31, the United States turns the canal over to Panama, ending a relationship between the two countries that began with Panama's birth as a nation in 1903. The first U.S. soldiers permanently assigned came in 1911 to guard construction efforts of the Panama Canal, which was opened in 1914.
Today fewer than 1,000 U.S. military personnel remain in Panama, largely based at Corozal.