Bienvenido a los Tres Centavos, Edición Cubana!

I just added "blog from a Communist country" to my Columbus Day to-do list. It is going to be sweet to cross that one off the list upon completing this post. This also qualifies as my first international blog entry. I am absolutely crushing it today.

I am blown away that I am going into my seventh week on-island. The time has absolutely flown. This is largely attributable to the fact that the people I work with, both within the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate and the JTF at large, are nothing short of awesome. My particular job within the JTF has also been an incredible experience and opportunity. However, due to the sensitive nature of my position and our mission down here, I am going to refrain from writing directly about my day-to-day within the JTF.

Living in Guantanamo Bay has been an experience. Naval Station (NAVSTA, "Nav Stay") Guantanamo Bay has the unique status of not only being the oldest overseas American military installation but the only one in a Communist Country. The United States leased Guantanamo Bay in 1903 after our five-month long throttling of the second rate power known as Spain in the Spanish-American War. Spain, you may recall, is best known for a work force that naps 22 hours a day (earning them the nickname "Europe's Koala Bear"), having their 1587 Armada decimated by the completely unforeseeable force of nature known to many as "wind," and for possessing the hands down most bat-shit crazy fans whenever the Tour de France passes through the Pyrenees.

Gypsy! Give me your tears! If you will not give them to me, I will take them from you! 

The lease of Guantanamo Bay, codified in a 1934 treaty, gives us this hunk of land for a mere $4,085.00 a year. That's a real estate deal that would make even Peter Minuit or Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross blush. Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. Government. The Cuban government maintains this was only done because of "confusion" in the heady early days of the revolution, while the US government maintains that the cashing constitutes an official validation of the treaty. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (a position that has ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.

I'd think someone at least got the steak knives for snagging GTMO.

This odd history lead to the significant legal question in Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004) if U.S. District Courts had the authority to review habeas corpus petitions from detainees in Guantanamo due to the fact (among other things) that under the the 1934 treaty, it is Cuba, and not the United States, that retains ultimate sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay. Overcoming logic, reason, and case-law with judicial activism, the Supreme Court ultimately found that the detainees, who had previously been focusing their energies on blowing up U.S. citizens and servicemembers, had standing to utilize U.S. courts to challenge their detention.

As an Air Force Officer, it has taken me a little bit to get used to the quirks and culture of working under a Navy Command. The rank structure, both officer and enlisted, is straight out of a Gilbert & Sullivan production. An interesting facet of this is the fact that while my rank of Captain denotes the grade of O-3 in the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps, a Navy Captain is an O-6 (full bird Colonel equivalent). This has lead to some odd situations on the phone when I, calling as Captain Johnny Utah, have been effectively promoted three full ranks by the person on the other end of the line.

To classify the Navy enlisted rank structure as byzantine would be to meet them more than halfway. For the purposes of illustration, let's take an E-5 paralegal. In the Air Force, this individual would be a Staff Sergeant. Simple. "Hey, Sergeant Snuffy, did you get my email?" But not in the Navy. We first take the rank (known as "rate" in the Navy), an E-5 being a Petty Officer Second Class, abbreviated as PO2. The Navy, however, is obsessed with the function of its sailors (make the Seaman joke now and just get it over with). Navy paralegals are known as Legalmen, which is abbreviated as LN. Legalman is their "rating," or job title. We then smoosh their rate and rating together, making an E-5 paralegal an LN2. Legalman, Second Class. LN2 is the term of address. "Hey, LN2, didn't Da Bears look great against the Panthers this weekend?" That still strikes me as weird. This gets even worse when you consider there are over FIFTY different ratings currently used by the Navy. Fifty separate Gilbert & Sullivan titles like Boatswains Mate with their corresponding two letter designations. Madness I say. Madness.

One aspect of this whole Navy thing that I am secretly growing to love is the nautical lingo. Doors are now hatches. Floors are decks. Dining facilities are galleys. Walls are bulkheads. Everyone says "welcome aboard" to newcomers. I no longer have a Wingman looking out for my 6, having replaced it with a Shipmate. I have a feeling I am going to be absolutely insufferable to be around once I bring this back to Nellis.

Any questions? Is the poop deck what I think it is. I like the cut of your jib. What's a jib? Promote that man at once.

Naval Lexicon aside, the single weirdest thing about being here is the wildlife. I am generally willing to tolerate things like dogs, squirrels, rabbits, deer, and the like. The very first thing I saw here, best that I could tell, one was of those small dinosaurs that killed Newman in the beginning of Jurassic Park. I was later informed that I had seen my first iguana. It would not be my last as these things are legion.

Driving around at any given moment, you see dozens of these corpulent scaly beasts blithely sunning themselves on the side of the road. Despite their omnipresence, iguanas here somehow enjoy a protected status. This means no one on the base can do anything that might offend these lizards, to include not using profanity around them or wearing white after Labor Day. God help you if you accidentally run one of these things over with your car. As a result, whenever one of these Godzilla rejects drags its fat ass onto a road, traffic has to stop until it meanders its way to the other side. You will literally see cars sitting for 10 minutes at a time, just waiting. We have mounted security patrols, riding around in Humvees with M-240B 7.62mm machine guns and soldiers carrying M-4 carbines and yet we are all completely impotent to do anything beyond politely saying "shoooo" while making that weird universal "shooo" hand gesture.

"I'ma gonna eat you f-ing face off right after I get done eating this pear."

This little guy is eating out of my neighbor's cat-food bowl. He already ate the cat.

This thing is the size of a small pony. He kind of looks like Marlon Brando after he let himself go.

I also get to hang out with Hutias, better known as Banana Rats. These things are absolutely fine by me. They are nocturnal and do not appear to have any function beyond getting run over by cars and becoming carrion for our robust population of always creepy looking Turkey Vultures. Yes, this place truly has it all.

Oh hai.

Nom nom nom.

Life at Guantanamo is quite comfortable. All of the Joint Task Force officers live in the same giant cul-de-sac subdivision, sharing townhouses with a roommate. Everyone works together, lives together, and socializes together. It is a community unlike anything else I had previously experienced. Everyone is part of the same mission and that combines with the fact that everyone is deployed here unaccompanied, so no one has to rush home to get their kids or prepare dinner. It can take on almost surreal military Beaver Cleaver character at times; no one ever locks their doors, people are always waving to each other and the like. One of my JAG friends down here is from Brooklyn and truly does not know what to make of the friendliness. I think he thinks it is all part of some big grift.

Perhaps the coolest thing I have down here is my whip, a white 2000 Ford Escort SE with 90,000 miles on it. Known throughout the JTF as "White Lightening," it is four cylinders of pure energy, allowing me to live my life a quarter mile at a time, just like my hero, Action Superstar Vin Diesel. I feel sorry for all the married female officers who have to watch me drive around, knowing they cashed in their chips too early.

Xzibit is coming to the island to pimp this ride out. "Yo dawg, I heard you like defending democracy..."

That is it for now. Hope this finds you all well back in the States. It is always awesome to get mail, so get off of your ass and put that care package together.