Children would ask Carmona to be their daddy

THERON Boodan, former communications adviser to former President Anthony Carmona, said Tuesday one of the things he would remember about Carmona was his love and attention to children.

“Some children come to visit and run and hug him up like a father they had not seen for awhile. Some of them said, ‘President, I love you...be my daddy.’ At times I would see him attending to them, tying the shoelace of a child. Imagine a president doing that.”

Boodan said before accepting Carmona’s offer to work for him, he had “never in my life met a human being like President Carmona.”

Describing Carmona as a “patron of humanity,” Boodan said he enjoyed the job of adviser to the President but hastened to add, “it was a lot of work, boy.

“To keep up with him was a challenge by itself. In a day he would have three to four projects all over (the country). You in office one minute, down deep south the next.” On his most memorable experience with the former president, Boodan said he was really impressed in March 2016, during a trip in Washington, when Carmona took the time to pay his respects and observe a minute’s silence at the grave of Trinidad-born Army Reserve Sgt Kendell Frederick, in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Frederick joined the US Army and was killed in Iraq on October 19, 2005. He was 21 when he died without receiving US citizenship, a situation that was later regularised by the US Government.

“That was a fantastic experience,” Boodan recalled. He said one of the things that amazed him about Carmona was his ability to speak in depth on any topic, anywhere and at any time. Boodan recalled Carmona would sit with doctors and professors and they would be in awe of his knowledge. He once asked Carmona how he was able to do this and Carmona responded it was through reading. “He is a voracious reader.”

He described Carmona as a very compassionate person who would wear his compassion on his sleeve to such an extent that sometimes, when he spoke on an issue dear to him, Carmona’s voice would crack with emotion. Boodan, a former senior journalist with Newsday, said there were so many negative things said and written about Carmona, yet through it all, Carmona’s response would be, “Don’t let that worry you.”

“People say things about the President and knew nothing about what they are saying,” Boodan said. He also recalled Carmona telling him things which would normally take a President two terms to accomplish, he would do in one term.

Carmona served this country from March 2013-March 2018. New President Paula-Mae Weekes was inaugurated on Monday.