Billy Corben

In our case, it would have been a feature documentary.

So how do you condense two hours into one bite and from whom?

And so I was sitting interviewing Eugenio Orlando Martinez at the

Brigade 2506 Museum in Little Havana.

And we were in this room and he's surrounded by these black and white portraits, these eight by tens of these young men, his brothers in arms who perished or were captured during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And he said something and I'm like, oh shit, this is going to be the last line.

I never got to make it, but I shared it when he died in February of 2021.

And unbelievably, my grandmother, may she rest in peace, called me and said, Billy, you're in The New York Times.

And I said, oh, no, what did I do?

And she said, no, it's the obits.

I said, well, I'm fine.

Thank you for calling and checking on me.

She goes, no, about this Watergate burglar.

And sure enough, the last line in The New York Times obit.

quoted my Facebook page and became what I wanted to be the last line of my documentary.

But when we interviewed him, he passed away at 98 years old, by the way, he lamented his unsuccessful lifelong mission to free his homeland and the friends who sacrificed their lives at Playa Giron.

Quote, for what?

They all died for nothing.

We lost Cuba, end quote.

Then suddenly his eyes brightened up like he was just struck by a sweet, warm breeze off the coast of Baradero.