Photo By Emily McCamy | The commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Navy Rear Adm. David M. Thomas, Jr....... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - During his first two months as the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Navy Rear Adm. David M. Thomas, Jr. has walked the blocks and seen the way Troopers from all five branches of the armed services conduct their business. In a sit-down interview with "The Wire," the admiral laid out the state of the JTF, the importance of mission accomplishment and how to act when the world's eyes are on you.
First and foremost, the admiral stressed JTF's main mission areas.
"We do four things," said Thomas. "We provide safe and humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detained enemy combatants. That's mission number one. We perform intelligence collection operations to ensure the safety of detainees and detainee guards, and, if we find any actionable intelligence, we forward it to the folks fighting the war. We also provide support to the Office of Military Commissions and we are prepared to support migration operations in the Caribbean."
"If you ask me what's going on day-to-day," continued Thomas, "it's the flawless execution by the 2,000 plus people here. That includes Troopers, my staff, incredible contractors and some truly professional government employees. The highlight of my day is seeing that well-oiled machine executing the mission."
Despite the command-message tone of the four mission area descriptions, Thomas insists that truly thinking about what comprises the mission is essential to making the task force better.
"If I can define our missions and if we think about every activity that we do, then in the context of the mission it'll make sense," said Thomas. "Ask yourself, why am I doing this? If the answer's because it supports OMC or one of the other mission areas, then you know you're contributing to the greater good. If we're doing something that doesn't contribute, then you need to raise your hand and say 'Why are we doing this?' If it doesn't contribute, then we'll stop doing it."
The JTF certainly does not operate in a vacuum, and Thomas recognizes that Troopers will read about their actions in the media. Thomas draws upon his own experience of setting aside his personal feelings while performing an emotionally charged mission.
"A detainee guard asked me right after I got here, 'Hey, I heard you were in the Pentagon on 9/11.' A lot of people were in the Pentagon on 9/11," said Thomas. "A lot of people were in New York City on 9/11. People have feelings about that day and activities going on around the world, but the fact of the matter is, when I think about the job here, what I feel about 9/11 or the War on Terror is completely irrelevant. What's important is doing the job correctly."
Thomas also looks at the upcoming year and sees it as an exciting time to be down here.
"The world moves pretty fast, and the older I get, the faster it seems to move," said Thomas. "We've got elections coming up and that's really important. We'll have a new administration which will affect our Department of Defense and possibly the future direction of all kinds of programs in our military, including, perhaps, Guantanamo. The fact is, regardless of all that political activity, we have a very important mission to accomplish and executing the mission scrupulously and flawlessly is important. Getting it right will say a lot about our nation."
None of this can be done without the boots on the ground and Troopers roaming the deckplates.
"I map everything around our four mission areas, and I was looking at my meeting schedule one day," said Thomas. "I thought to myself, 'you know what's missing here?' The foundation of those mission areas is people."
"The quality of life and quality of work of our Troopers are linked," continued Thomas. "So, I took out a clean sheet of paper and rebuilt my whole battle rhythm around a weekly quality of service discussion with all the key players. I've got a Morale, Welfare and Recreation representative, a travel rep, a housing rep, a food service rep, a chaplain and others that play a role in the quality of life down here. Where we live, how we eat, how we recreate and how we and our families get on and off the island – all those pieces have to fit together, otherwise everything will fall apart."
In order to make life better for JTF Troopers, Thomas has put in motion plans to create programs which will pass along experience from one cycle of Troopers to the next.
"Unlike many duty stations where people are there for two to three years, our Troops can't say 'it used to be lousy, now it's getting better,'" said Thomas. "Since most people are only here for a year, all anyone really knows about is today, so there's no corporate knowledge. You and I won't have any context for these improvements we're seeing, so it's hard to get a perspective on whether things are getting better or worse."
"I ask myself, 'is it good enough for me right now?' and 'how can I improve things,'" continued Thomas. "I'm trying to build a sense of continuity, looking at where we are today, where we'll be in a year and where we'll be in a couple of years. So, I'm putting together some long term programs so there's a framework to give us perspective on those questions of 'are we getting better?' and 'are we moving forward?'"
Two months into his tour of duty, Thomas may be the happiest Trooper in the task force.
"When I got word I was coming down to Guantanamo, I was incredibly excited about going back to commanding and getting the opportunity to lead Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen in this very important mission," said Thomas. "Obviously, this mission is under incredible scrutiny and it's so important to our nation to get it right. Exactly right. So, the excitement that I felt four months ago when I found out I was coming down has been replaced by an amazing sense of humility after seeing the Troopers in action everyday. I've been doing this all my adult life. I've been a member of great teams and I've been a leader of great teams, but I've never seen one execute this magnificently in such a tough, tough mission."
| Date Taken: | 07.18.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 07.21.2008 11:07 |
| Story ID: | 21694 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 199 |
| Downloads: | 191 |
This work, JTFCDR Talks to the Troops, by PO2 Nathaniel Moger, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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