Curl Goes to Gitmo and All I Got Was This Lousy Post

A gaggle of reporters took off from Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday ($400 round trip from what we hear!) aboard a DoD plane headed for Guantanamo Bay. Among them was TWT's resident silver fox, Joseph Curl who's currently kicking it at the U.S. Navy base while covering preliminary hearings for several Sept. 11th terror suspects. Lucky for us, our pal found a few moments to pen us a post[card] from his plush pad. Curl writes: "First, an ironclad pledge: I will never, ever, again say, 'Man, it's hot!' -- not even wearing a dark wool suit on an August day in downtown Washington. From now on, I will only say, 'Hey, at least it's not as hot as Gitmo in July!' "The heat here is like a hideous cross between DC and Arizona: 100 degrees, plus 100 percent humidity. You sweat walking a few feet from one building to another. You sweat in the shade. You sweat sitting still -- in the shade. "But you don't sweat in your sleep. There, you freeze. The media is housed in Tent City, square in the middle of Camp Justice (on a burning hot tarmac, the base's old airstrip). The tents, shaped like quonset huts, have six beds in them, separated by sheets of plywood. But unlike the rest of Gitmo, they're freezing. Huge, puffy nylon pipes blast in a steady stream of ice-cold air, which really does keep the mosquitoes out -- or numb your flesh so you don't feel their bites. "The dark walk to the bathroom at night, though, brings dangers bigger than a skeeter. There are huge iguanas lurking in the tall grass, and banana rats skitter across the runway from time to time. But the iguanas eat the banana rats, so at least there's that. "By Day 2, though, standing downwind from other reporters was the most serious danger. I don't want to mention any names, but man, that guy from the BBC? Ripe! He most definitely would benefit from some 'enhanced hygiene techniques.' "But getting to skip the Sotomayor Scrum at 216 Hart: Worth every drop of sweat."

Fishbowl

Curl Goes to Gitmo and All I Got Was This Lousy Post

Matt Dornic

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Matt Dornic