Phil Ehr

That's a long time.

I was a 19-year-old sailor on what people call a mothership these days.

The survivors have called a mothership.

And it was just an inspiring, a really inspiring mission because we actually saved people's lives at sea.

We repudiated that cruel regime of Fidel Castro.

And it was a bipartisan event, meaning Carter ordered it controversially.

Open hearts, open arms.

Yeah.

And the Republicans didn't like it at the time.

But later on, the Republicans, with Ronald Reagan, embraced the Cuban-American community as the rest of us have.

And it's been a wonderful addition to our society.

You can call it an investment in the future.

And we benefit.

We're benefiting from that investment.

Well, I was part of the teamwork that did that.

Yes, I was stationed on the mothership.

So my personal role was receiving these folks on the ship.

And there's this one scene that stuck in my mind.

It's this family, a mom and a dad and two teenagers, like one 13-year-old child and mother, maybe seven or eight.

And the woman in this family was just looking around the big cavernous ship and thinking, oh, my gosh, I could see in her face the gratitude.