A Package at Gitmo
Jerome Brown and His Military Tour at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
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BROWN TOOK A SIP FROM HIS COKE CAN. He kept scanning his sector, and then he started thinking about a specific category of “think’in ‘bout shit,” a category he called his “Big Four” -- four issues he devoted a lot of thought to, especially now, now that this was his last day at Gitmo. Wonder what’s in the package Tywanna said she sent me? He thought this as he was sitting on the tower stool and scanning his sector. The package was one of his Big Four because just three days ago, Tywanna Banks, age twenty-one and Brown’s girlfriend for close to a year, had e-mailed her boyfriend the following message: Hi Baby. Hope you okay and thinking about me. Guest what – I got a surprise package for you that I’m mailing to you right now. I know you once told me that mail going to Gitmo Cuba is slow as crap, but I’ll send it DHL! Hope you like the package baby – I know I did. Hmm? he pondered. Wonder what she sent me in that package of hers, and I sure hope it comes in this morning ‘cause that’s the last time we’s getting mail here at lovely Gitmo. First Sergeant told us yesterday we’s suppose to do some packing right after we get off this long-ass boring shift. Then we’s supposed to load up trucks and head to the Gitmo airstrip to fly outta here. Hmm? Shit, man, T’s e-mail was kinda weird. Sending me a package this late in the Gitmo-deployment game. And sending it DHL – that’s some major bucks, some major bank, man. He took another sip of Coke, and he kept scanning his Tower Three sector.
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About the Book
Jerome Brown, twenty-two, is on his last tower guard duty at Camp Delta, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Like the other members of his Texas Army National Guard unit, Brown is looking forward to the end of his shift, especially since in less than twelve hours, his unit is slated to board a chartered plane and head back to Texas for their deactivation.
To kill time on an otherwise boring and mundane tower guard shift, Brown thinks about what he calls his Big Four: Should he leave the Army when his enlistment term ends in a couple of months? Should he convert to Islam like so many young African-American men do? Should he pop the question to his girlfriend, Tywanna?
And most important of all, what is in that package Tywanna said she sent to him, by DHL so that it would get there in time? Tywanna is his one and only; he loves her and her daughter, Danielle, more than anything. He can envision their life and their future together. And then Brown receives the package, and it changes everything. There’s no turning back, there’s no do-over, and his life will never be the same.
About the Author
PAUL BOUCHARD is a lawyer in the Army JAG Corps. He is the author of Enlistment, A Package at Gitmo, The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Man, and the nonfiction works A Catholic Marries a Hindu and Lessons Learned. For more on Paul Bouchard, visit www.authorpaulbouchard.com.