Nine Long Months in Gitmo: Jonathon LaKose Is Back After Coast Guard Deployment to the Notorious Base in Cuba
Jonathan LaKose
It’s fitting for Jonathan LaKose to be profiled in an Endless Summer edition.
Life may feel like an endless summer for this multifaceted Stone Harbor resident, who gains a small breather here between a concluded U.S. Coast Guard deployment and resumption of duties as a police officer in Haverford Township, Pa., in the fall.
LaKose returned to Stone Harbor in mid-June from Cuba, savored the Seven Mile air, and even became reappointed to the borough’s planning board. That’s quite an encore from nine months away from home, the longest of his life.
“When I saw people in town late in the summer, they told me they hadn’t seen me in a while,” he laughs. “They said, ‘Where have you been?’”
He had a loaded answer: Gitmo.
Yes, that’s the Guantanamo base in southern Cuba that has held, among other detainees, architects of the 9/11 attack on the United States. LaKose did not deal in that area, but he was a Shoreside Security Division Chief for Port Security Unit 305, which guarded the facility.
LaKose’s armed-forces life may indeed surprise some people here. Many know him via local connections and by seeing him serve as a onetime emergency management specialist for Stone Harbor.
Few know that he’s been a Coast Guard reservist and occasional base commander since 2007. He’s now a chief maritime enforcement specialist for the Coast Guard.
The deployment to Cuba involved a special group.
Port security units are part of the Coast Guard’s deployable specialized forces and have served Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) as the Maritime Security Detachment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom for more than 21 years. The Virginia-based PSU 305 was the first PSU deployed to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 in support of the operation, and this tour completes its fifth unit deployment.
Coast Guard PSUs and Maritime Safety and Security Teams have provided maritime anti-terrorism force protection for JTF-GTMO since 2002 as a part of the global war on terror.
LaKose had quite a baptism in Cuba.
“There were three major aspects to this experience,” he recalls. “The first is being away from my family and all of our friends in Stone Harbor. I thought it was going to be a lot easier than it actually was.
“The second was an emotional connection. I was almost 29 years old when 9/11 happened, so it is very much a part of my existence compared to some who hadn’t even been born at that time.
“To be so close to the people responsible for it had an emotional aspect,” although he did not interact with them.
The third was the environment in Cuba, he adds. The area is very hot and endures long periods of no rain and then heavy rains.
Workers cannot leave the base, as they are in a country that doesn’t want the United States present.
“The area gets very small very fast,” he indicates. “You count the days.
“As a shoreside security chief, overseeing a group, I can see how you have to balance multiple personalities. Many of them are alphas,” he laughs.
“Fortunately, the technology is better than it was back in the day. You think of people who used to write a letter and get one back every six months, and how much better it is now. At least you can FaceTime.”
LaKose’s FaceTime and real-life partner, wife Monika, is a major reason he remains anchored to Stone Harbor.
The Berwyn, Pa., native spent summers here, became interested in the Coast Guard and joined in 2007 as a reservist.
He fell in love with this area so much that he made a premier sacrifice: renting a Stone Harbor apartment and driving about three hours round-trip to his police job in Pennsylvania.
LaKose soon found another love in Monika, whom residents know as the owner of Monika’s Boutique Salon on Third Avenue.
That union fortified his Stone Harbor connection. The couple later purchased a home and the rest has been an interesting juggling act.
LaKose has interspersed roles of the classic reservist, working two weeks in the summer and one weekend a month, with bigger roles as a company commander.
At 50, he’s one of the elder statesmen of the Coast Guard and plays a mentoring role to new recruits. Even if he can’t talk too deeply about specific missions, LaKose loves to tout the Coast Guard itself.
“I feel like one of their biggest cheerleaders,” he says. “The public sees the helicopters and the boats, etc., but there is no way for people to know everything the Coast Guard does. For a long time, we have had to do more with less. We have always been at the forefront of diversity and inclusion.
“I always wanted to be a helper and I love the ocean. If you love both of those things, what are you going to do? You join the Coast Guard.”
How he joined the Coast Guard was anything but conventional. LaKose was in a bar in Pennsylvania with a friend, who got up to leave.
“He said, ‘I have a drill in the morning,’” LaKose recalls. “I said, ‘What are you, a dentist or something?’ And he said, ‘No, I am with the Coast Guard Reserves.’
“We started talking for another two hours and I kept asking questions about all things Coast Guard Reserves.”
LaKose drove to a recruitment center in Philadelphia. At 34, he was just under cutoff age of 35 to join. But he first had to go to Cape May, which is the boot camp for Coast Guard personnel.
That planted the seed for his local connections.
It’s been a rewarding journey, mixed with the blend of cementing Seven Mile roots. Besides owning a home and serving on the planning board, he is a volunteer for the Stone Harbor Fire Department.
LaKose plans to retire from police work in January and pursue the next chapter of his life.
Gitmo may have been an experience he endured, but there was a silver lining.
“It made me appreciate my friends and family more,” he says. “The experience also made me appreciate the little things more, like the internet working.
“I make my bed all the time now,” he adds with a laugh. “Monika thinks that’s one of the best things to happen to me down there.”
Perhaps the best thing is actually the simplest: He came home, to Seven Mile Beach.
