The visitor’s concourse of the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, last Thursday, was filled with well-wishers, colleagues, family, and friends, to celebrate the retirement of Captain Eric Bramwell, after he served 36 1/2 years in the Department of Safety and Security.
Surrounded by his wife Grace, and daughter Ericia, Bramwell told Caribbean Life during an interview at the UN that tears streamed down his face during a supervisors meeting that he had attended to discuss the security, and thought, “how many of us in this room envisioned being in New York at the United Nations discussing the security for delegates, head of states, and VIPs who would come onto the premises.”
“My journey started in Kingston, Jamaica in 1980, where I was associated with the preparatory committee of the International Seabed Authority, while serving in the special branch of the Constabulary Force. I was tasked with providing security for delegates attending forums at the international conference center, this is where I first encountered the UN security officers, who had come from New York,” said Captain Bramwell, who was age 24, 165 pounds and 6”1’ tall.
A detective corporal back then in the Special Branch, he said he was quite impressed with the elite officers, and later, when he was about to migrate to the United States, he told himself that the only place he would want to work was at the United Nations. Albeit, in September 1987, six months after arriving in New York, his ultimate dream became a reality when he walked through the gates of the UN and joined the Safety and Security Service.
Bramwell admitted that in the beginning, it was a bit boring, he however understood what his role was, and since he was exposed to the UN in Kingston as an impressionable young man who felt the security officers could move mountains.
He recalled his first encounter with a young man at the front gate entrance in New York, and immediately applauded his demeanor, and how he was immaculately dressed in uniform. “Till to this day I never said to him how much I had admired him,” Bramwell said of his colleague who was from Japan.
Climbing the ladder from a security officer, Captain Bramwell, who received on the job training, patrolling the perimeter of the complex, as well as weapons instruction, said the security service, has come a far way. New recruits, now receive classroom instruction and are required to be physically fit akin to law enforcement officers many who are trained in their homeland.
Bramwell was one of the first of 26 UN officers, in 1991, to be deployed to northern Iraq where he served for four months, after the first Gulf war. He went into a war zone not knowing what his role and functions were, however, he felt the team did a very good job after understanding what was expected of them.
He said even though it was high-risk being in the region, he was there to do a job, putting his military police experience to work. The captain was not worried about the danger and went on to support multiple mission assignments and conferences around the world.
Captain Bramwell, who attended Manchester High School in Mandeville, and trained in the National Youth Service Program in Jamaica, went on to an impressive career at the UN, serving from 1992 – 93 in the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia. In 1994, he headed the UN Protection Force in the Former Yugoslavia, and from 2001-23, in the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor.
Included in his indelible, and impeccable journey, Captain Bramwell who is a well-loved, and engaging person, left a lasting, extraordinary imprint in the organization that many experienced, when he served at UN conferences, such as the COP, Habitat, Stockholm + 50, the International Conference for Financing and Development, and Security Council Missions, cementing his…
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