ORIN GOR­DON

John Learie Estra­da, asked by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma's staff what he'd like to do in his (the pres­i­dent's) last term start­ing 2013, did not even think about the job he's do­ing now, Unit­ed States am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go. He asked for a post at the Pen­ta­gon.

"I would like to be an As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary or Sec­re­tary in the De­part­ment of De­fense, my com­fort zone", was the gist of what Estra­da re­layed back to the pres­i­dent's staff.

"Pres­i­dent sent the word back. He didn't think that that was a good enough re­ward for the hard work that I did for him for two cam­paigns, and he (asked Estra­da through his staff), would I en­ter­tain the idea of be­ing the US am­bas­sador back to the coun­try of my birth?"

So be­gan a new ca­reer for Estra­da, a re­cent­ly re­tired ma­rine sergeant ma­jor, who had cam­paigned hard for Oba­ma's elec­tion and re-elec­tion in 2008 and 2012.

As a sur­ro­gate, Estra­da worked with key Oba­ma peo­ple such as Su­san Rice, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er and for­mer am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions, and the son of Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, Beau Biden, who died re­cent­ly. The sen­ate was to stall his nom­i­na­tion from 2013 to 2016 be­fore fi­nal­ly ap­prov­ing it last Feb­ru­ary. The 60-year-old Estra­da took up his post in Port-of-Spain last month, ac­com­pa­nied by his wife Dr Eliz­a­beth Cote Estra­da, 39, and their young twin daugh­ters.

The Oba­ma cam­paigns

Estra­da is fit look­ing, get­ting up ear­ly every day to run three to five miles and work out with weights. On­ly a few wisps of white on his shaven head be­tray his three­score years. He looks younger, and has the size and phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance of a wel­ter­weight box­er. He smiles and laughs eas­i­ly, and has a friend­ly, re­laxed de­meanour. While we do the pho­to­shoot be­fore the in­ter­view, we make small talk about trou­ble spots (his, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, and mine, Haiti.) Like many marines, he can't re­sist tak­ing a dig at the (sup­pos­ed­ly less tough) army, say­ing it stands for "ain't ready to be a ma­rine yet."

As is the case with Estra­da, US am­bas­sadors are not al­ways ca­reer diplo­mats.

Pres­i­dents typ­i­cal­ly re­ward high-lev­el friends, donors, busi­ness peo­ple, as­so­ciates and sur­ro­gates with am­bas­sador posts. The cur­rent am­bas­sador to Japan, Car­o­line Kennedy, daugh­ter of pres­i­dent John F Kennedy, was an ear­ly en­dors­er of then sen­a­tor Barack Oba­ma in 2008.

Her back­ing stunned Oba­ma's ri­val Hillary Clin­ton, and was one of the ear­ly signs that the ju­nior sen­a­tor from Illi­nois could pull in the kind of heavy­weight sup­port he need­ed to give his can­di­da­cy lift-off and le­git­i­ma­cy.

Oba­ma had sim­i­lar­ly reached out to Estra­da, a dec­o­rat­ed sergeant ma­jor and one of the few se­nior black of­fi­cers in the US armed forces, for his en­dorse­ment. Oba­ma, Estra­da said, was ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly well-pre­pared. Not on­ly did he know about Trinidad and To­ba­go and could talk knowl­edge­ably about the place, he knew about Estra­da too.

"I was stunned", he said.

The US armed forces are very con­ser­v­a­tive or­gan­i­sa­tions, and their mem­bers most­ly vote Re­pub­li­can.

Throw­ing his lot be­hind the young sen­a­tor, who many in the mil­i­tary did not think ex­pe­ri­enced enough to be their Com­man­der-in-Chief, over his Re­pub­li­can ri­val and dec­o­rat­ed ex-Navy vet­er­an John Mc­Cain, was a lone­ly field to hoe for Estra­da. Some of the blow­back was hos­tile, none more than when he in­tro­duced can­di­date Oba­ma at a ral­ly in heav­i­ly mil­i­tary South Car­oli­na.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ma­rine Corps Times news­pa­per, some fel­low marines ac­cused him of politi­cis­ing an or­gan­i­sa­tion that was meant to be apo­lit­i­cal.

"This is a trend that a lot of us are not re­al­ly hap­py with in terms of mil­i­tary of­fi­cers get­ting out and throw­ing them­selves in­to a cam­paign," Jim Cur­rie, a pro­fes­sor of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stud­ies at the Na­tion­al De­fense Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, DC was quot­ed as scold­ing Estra­da.

"You don't want an of­fi­cer corps that is seen as a De­mo­c­ra­t­ic of­fi­cer corps or a Re­pub­li­can of­fi­cer corps."

That didn't de­ter him. He found much com­mon philo­soph­i­cal ground with can­di­date Oba­ma.

"Right af­ter I left the Ma­rine Corps, af­ter I re­tired, I had mis­giv­ings about the war. I did not like it, I felt it was wrong. We had Sad­dam Hus­sein pret­ty much boxed in, and I felt that it was go­ing to be mis­take, that it was go­ing to be a long war."

Ear­ly years and home­com­ing

Estra­da left T&T at 14, mov­ing with his fam­i­ly to Wash­ing­ton DC. He takes his mid­dle name from the leg­endary Trinidad and To­ba­go crick­eter Learie Con­stan­tine, and he lived up to it by play­ing crick­et in Trinidad as a child.

It was in Wash­ing­ton as a young man in the ear­ly '70s that his fas­ci­na­tion with the US mil­i­tary be­gan. He'd make fre­quent in­quiries about join­ing the mil­i­tary to a lo­cal re­cruit­ment cen­tre. Even­tu­al­ly, he got in.

The Viet­nam war end­ed two years af­ter he en­list­ed, but af­ter a spell in the Philip­pines he did serve in Kuwait in 1991–Amer­i­ca's first en­gage­ment of Sad­dam Hus­sein af­ter his in­va­sion–and in Iraq in 2003 when they fin­ished the job by re­mov­ing him.

Sergeant ma­jor is a unique of­fice in the US mil­i­tary. On­ly one of­fi­cer can hold it at a time, and it is the ninth and high­est-en­list­ed rank. On­ly 18 men have held the post, and Estra­da was the 15th. It is a con­sid­er­able achieve­ment.

The new am­bas­sador has dived in­to his role, and has not been shy about us­ing his per­son­al sto­ry and the ap­peal of his roots to ad­vance his pol­i­cy goals.

He's spent a lot of time with school­child­ren.

"I hope to in­flu­ence these kids, es­pe­cial­ly the at-risk youth, to turn away from the so­cial pres­sures they are feel­ing to have to do drugs, or steal or kill peo­ple to get ahead", he said.

"I'm try­ing to let them know there are oth­er ways, and I'm try­ing to use my­self, as I'm re­ferred to here as a son of the soil, try­ing to use my­self as an ex­am­ple, com­ing out of Laven­tille (to show that) you can be suc­cess­ful."

"But I don't just want to fo­cus on my­self. I tell them look around your coun­try here. You have some great lead­ers and men­tors, in your class­rooms, your pub­lic ser­vice and in the pri­vate sec­tor–and I chal­lenge these kids to step up and be lead­ers."

In a pol­i­cy agen­da sur­pris­ing­ly heavy on so­cial is­sues, he told me that some of the is­sues he cares deeply about are hu­man rights in gen­er­al, women's rights, and those of the LGBTI com­mu­ni­ty and fight­ing back against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

"That touched me when I was grow­ing up as a kid.

"I per­son­al­ly wit­nessed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to a close fam­i­ly mem­ber. As a young kid...I prob­a­bly was about ten, maybe 12 years old. That stuck with me at that young age, be­cause I re­mem­ber my broth­er and I hav­ing to try to weigh in.

"I have very strong feel­ings on it."

"For girls, I said you had your first fe­male prime min­is­ter. Think of how many peo­ple prob­a­bly told her that she couldn't be", he chuck­les.

"They can do it right here. They don't have to run to the Unit­ed States."

He re­alis­es the con­tra­dic­tion in that mes­sage from him–the Tri­ni boy who left a poor neigh­bour­hood for Amer­i­ca, in or­der to make it big.

"My cir­cum­stances were dif­fer­ent. My mes­sage is–stay fo­cused, work hard, ed­u­ca­tion is knowl­edge and pow­er.

"If they do that, they can reach their dreams."

He's clear­ly en­joy­ing the job. It will be all change in Wash­ing­ton next Jan­u­ary with a new cast at the State De­part­ment and White House.

How do you think you'll get along with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, I teased.

He laughs, stum­bles mo­men­tar­i­ly, then says, "if there's a Pres­i­dent Trump, we'll get along fine."