Robert Lamb

“ Today is Cuban-American Friendship Day. This annual event has been celebrated at GTMO for the past 38 years. It is held to honor the people of Cuba who continued to walk through the gate, those who reside in our community, and those who have made lasting friendships with the people who live and work on station. ”

“ I asked, when I had recovered myself. “Yes,” said he, “I understand that you wish to know the particulars of that great battle which took place on the town moor” (how did he understand anything of the sort?) —“Ah! I was chief of the commissariat to the grand army of Tortoiseshells at that time, and knew the flavour of a fine fat mouse; alas! these joys are gone never to return. I have tried more than once since shuffling off the mortal coil, to eat a mouse, but they burnt to cinders in my inside and brought on such a severe attack of dyspepsia that I thought I should never get over it. ”

“ In a week we had raised a numerous army. From every household and farmstead of Durham they came swarming in to the camp. Plump domestic Toms, wiry and veteran mousers from barns and lofts, and a chosen band of wild cats from the woods, terrible of aspect and having claws six inches long.
Then putting himself at their head, the King led them forth to invade the territory of the enemy. ”

“ The race of two legged creatures called men were their most formidable enemies. These gigantic and ferocious beings destroyed them for their skins, yea, even ate them; and capturing their young ones, carried them off into slavery and compelled them to catch rats and mice for their living.
In the course of years the race of cats was much reduced in numbers, and the greater part of them utterly subdued and domesticated by their enemy, man. ”

“ Four nights we marched, an advanced guard of 2000 leading the way, and skirmishers and foraging parties scouring the country and robbing the larders, while our main body, consisting of 20,000 well-clawed and active cats, marched in close order, their tails rustling in the breeze. ”

“ In the infancy of this land, when men wore paint—the fashion is confined to the gentler sex now—and hyenas’ bones were held to be a sovereign cure for rheumatism, the race of cats was great and powerful and numerous. ”

“ It will be objected by some that the spiritual manifestation of a Tom Cat is preposterous, and impossible, and therefore unworthy of belief. I simply refer such to the many and interesting accounts of apparitions that have been given lately in some of our periodicals. ”