By Jim Roope, CNN

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(CNN) - Army Specialist Terry Holdbrooks was a member of the 463rd Military Police Company when he came to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2003. He was an angry, nearly atheistic 19-year-old military police guard. Nearly a year later, he left a changed man and a Muslim.

[0:18] “One of the things that kind of amazed me about Guantanamo was that the detainees could wake up each day and smile.”

Holdbrooks thought, how can these men, who have no freedom, no rights, not only tell each other jokes and keep each other’s spirits up but still believe in and pray to God?

[1:57] “Obviously there’s something more to Islam than what I’ve been told which was nothing.”

Against the rules, Holdbrooks began to have discussions with the detainees. He became particularly close to one detainee, a Moroccan man named Ahmed Errachidi. It was this relationship that started Holdbrooks' journey of religious conversion.

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