It was business as usual Monday for hundreds of U.S. troops at two sites in Honduras, despite a military coup that ousted the nation's president and sent him to Costa Rica in his pajamas.
No American forces were called back from the Soto Cano air base in Honduras, 60 miles from the capital of Tegucigalpa, where the U.S. has leased space and maintains a runway with helicopters and about 600 U.S. military, including mechanics.
The Pentagon has had a presence at Soto Cano since the 1980s, with a revolving unit of U.S. forces — called Joint Task Force Bravo — directing air missions coming and going from Latin America. The hub typically gets busy for search-and-rescue operations during hurricane season.
''There are no changes there,'' reported Jose Ruiz, spokesman for the Pentagon's Southern Command in Miami, which directs the U.S. military in Latin America and the Caribbean. "We see no indication of a security threat at Joint Task Force Bravo.''
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