Nestor G. Pino-Marina, Army colonel
Nestor G. Pino-Marina, a highly decorated Army
colonel and Special Forces veteran who participated in operations in Asia and
Central America and was involved in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion that tried to
topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro, died June 15 at his home in Vienna. He
was 72.
The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s
disease, said his wife, Randee Pino-Marina.
Col. Pino-Marina attended the military academy in
his native Cuba before Castro’s rise to power in 1959. He then joined
CIA-trained Cuban exiles in Guatemala, and the brigade of more than 1,000 was
defeated by stronger Cuban forces during the Bay of Pigs incursion.
Col. Pino-Marina was among those who received
30-year prison sentences before their release to the United States in December
1962 in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in food and medical supplies.
Several other prisoners remained in captivity for decades.
Col. Pino-Marina joined the Army’s Special Forces in
1964 and participated the next year in the U.S. invasion of the Dominican
Republic.
He served in Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam
War. He received the Silver Star in 1968 for helping supervise construction of
a vital operating base at Thien Ngon in Vietnam, despite intense and repeated
enemy attacks.
He was a military adviser in Nicaragua and El
Salvador in the early 1980s. His final active-duty assignment, in 1990, was
intelligence work on the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington.
Nestor Gervasio Pino-Marina was born in Havana,
where his father was police chief in the mid-1940s and a retired army colonel.
His mother was a lawyer.
Col. Pino-Marina was a 1974 graduate of Park College
in Missouri and received a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the
University of Florida in 1978.
After his retirement from the military, he spent 11
years as president of Aegis Enterprises, a Vienna-based security consulting
company. In the early 2000s, he was operations director of the African Crisis
Response Initiative, a peacekeeping and humanitarian relief program financed by
the State Department. His work took him frequently to Kenya, Senegal and Mali.
Besides the Silver Star, his military decorations
included the Legion of Merit, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Soldier’s
Medal and the Bronze Star Medal.
He was a member of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic
Church in Vienna.
Survivors include his wife of 44 years, Randee
Newgaard Pino-Marina of Vienna; three children, Christina Hughey of Brasilia,
Joseph Pino-Marina of Romoland, Calif., and Meredith Pino-Marina of Richmond; a
sister; two half-sisters; and three grandchildren.
— Adam Bernstein
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