I was a hodge in the Guantànamo prison, that's what happened to me.

I was one of the first Muslim firehouses in the United States Army. The clergy advocate the right of the US military person to practice their religion. This means offering religious support, providing services, and advising commanders for religion, ethics, and morality.

I was raised in New Jersey as a Lutheran, and I was still a Christian when I graduated from the military academy in West Point, but I met someone who opened my eyes to Islam and its similarities to other Abrahamic religions. I converted in 1991.

After West Point, I left the army to follow my spiritual course, and I moved to Syria to learn to read the Koran properly. By the end of the decade, the U.S. Army, perhaps the cause of political accuracy, was seeking to recruit the mother, so I first settled in Fort Lewis, Washington.

A few years later, I was asked to go to Guantànamo Bay. My wife was from Syria, had no family in America, and had a little girl. We were just getting comfortable. But the army persevered, and I felt left out for this challenge. Shortly after my first anniversary of September 11, I moved to Guantanamo and became a hodge there.

It was November 2002 when I arrived, but the air was wet and hot. In Camp Delta, the permanent detention camp, prisoners were held individually in caves similar to those made from heavy cell nets. It was something that the outside world had an idea of at the time.

I worked from dawn until dusk in chaotic circumstances, where prisoners were abused and humiliated on daily grounds.

On my daily visits, the prisoners often told me what to endure during the interrogation sessions. I witnessed broken bruises. Despite physical abuse, most of my direct complaints involved religious persecution. The guards desecrated the Koran and forced the prisoners to bow in the center of satanic circles. The official military line was that torture wasn't happening in Guantanamo. As an insider, I knew this was a lie. Some guards were good, but others were abusive.

I knew who the abusive guards were because when I got back to the scene, they would alert the other guards by screaming, “Hoja in the block.” There were three prisoners who were being held in a separate location... Camp Iguana because they were 12 to 14. The guards there were excellent.

I performed Muslim prayer services at the shrine every Friday and led a community of very living Americans. That raised suspicion, and FBI agents would come to the shrine to oversee us.

When I began to receive formal reports of how prisoners were being abused, I was accused of taking sides with terrorists. It became clear that the officials wanted me out of town and I was under surveillance.

Toward the end of my time, I took two weeks off, with the intention of when I returned to Fort Lewis to do everything in preparation for the return of my wife and daughter. I left the base and boarded the plane to Jacksonville Marine Station in Florida.

When we landed, they took me to a room and questioned the FBI. I was accused of spying on the enemy, rebellion, and rebellion.

After being imprisoned in Florida for several days, I was taken to Charleston, South Carolina, where I spent 70 days, most of them as in solitary confinement. On my way there, I was subject to the same privation and bonds I had seen in Guantanamo. It was a sad test.

Why I was acquitted of all charges and returned to Fort Lewis, it became clear that they no longer believed me.

The Bush administration had failed my country and the world in the most distressing way. They put the prison in Guantànamo Bay believing it would be out of law. Before long, they knew that most of the prisoners were innocent, but they kept them there because it meant being ill.

I had great hopes at Barack Obama when he said he'd close the prison camp, but these hopes disappeared. It is now Joe Biden's obligation to fulfill Obama's promise.

Now I work with veterans, using art to help them be cured by the horrors of war. In part, I left to tell my story, to speak the truth about Guantanamon. I've been doing this ever since.