Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class David P. Coleman | Petty Officer 3rd Class Darold Johnsonbrown displays the tonsorial tools he uses to...... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- Looking in the mirror after his mother gave him yet another bad haircut, Petty Officer 3rd Class Darold Johnsonbrown came to a conclusion. Just nine years old at the time, Johnsonbrown decided he could do a better job cutting his own hair and a life-long passion began.
“To be able to take nothing and make something out of it that people are happy with,” said Johnsonbrown, one of two barbers assigned to the Navy Expeditionary Guard Battalion, Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay. “That’s art. Cutting hair is like art.”
The irony not lost on him, Johnsonbrown said it was his mother who gave him his first set of shears.
“She wasn’t mad at all, she just went out and got them for me,” Johnsonbrown said.
Friends from his North Carolina high school noticed his hair and asked Johnsonbrown who the master behind the clippers was.
“When they found out it was me cutting my own hair, my friends started asking me to cut their hair,” said Johnsonbrown, who quickly established a reputation as the man to see if you needed a trim.
Finishing high school and moving on with his life, the need to take care of his young son drew the petty officer to the Navy. When he walked through the recruiter’s door in 2005, there was no question in his mind what job he wanted. As fate would have it, the recruiter had a quota for a ship’s serviceman and Johnsonbrown was on his way to wearing a Navy uniform.
Fast forward through a blur of basic training, A-school and first fleet assignment, Johnsonbrown explained a canceled deployment to Kuwait brought him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“After the deployment to Kuwait didn’t work out, I volunteered to come to Guantanamo,” he said.
Working with his fellow ship’s serviceman, Johnsonbrown makes regular, weekly trips to the camps in the detention facility. The team of barbers ensure they maintain a strict schedule of which camps they visit on a particular day.
“Detainees know when we’re supposed to be at their camp,” Johnsonbrown said. “If we’re not there, that can cause disruptions.”
Disruptions, however, are a normal part of Johnsonbrown’s regular routine. He said it is not uncommon to show up ready to work and a detainee will suddenly decide they don’t want their hair cut.
“And then there are those days were the entire block wants their mustache trimmed or their hair cut and I’m at a camp all day,” he said.
Those are the days Johnsonbrown prefers. Being a barber is just one of the duties incumbent in his rate — logistics, escorting detainees to the phone center and other activities fill the days when he’s not working behind the chair.
“I’d much rather be cutting hair,” he said.
Much like in small-town barbershops that dot the American landscape, Johnsonbrown said inevitably conversations will pick up as he goes about his job.
“Some of the detainees, those who are really strict about their faith, will tell me which way to cut their hair,” Johnsonbrown said, explaining strict adherence to Islamic faith has a hair cut beginning on the right side, working to the left.
“I’ll also hear about which guard a detainee doesn’t like and stuff like that,” Johnsonbrown said. “But I stay out of it. I don’t say anything back to them, I just do my job.”
Still young in his Navy career, Johnsonbrown said he intends to reenlist when the time comes and hopes to get his shore-duty time soon. Looking beyond that, Johnsonbrown said he wants to go to C-school, the barber specific training of the ship’s serviceman rate.
“It’s a long school, about two months,” he said. “But I love doing this and want to keep doing it.”
| Date Taken: | 01.06.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.13.2011 13:57 |
| Story ID: | 63487 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 145 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Have clippers, will travel, by SFC Benjamin Cossel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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