WEBVTT

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<v ->Three, four, three.</v>

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<v Interviewer>Yeah, we're done, wait a minute, rolling.</v>

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Okay, good afternoon.

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Good afternoon.

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<v Interviewer>We are very grateful to you</v>

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for participating in the witness to Guantanamo project.

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We invite you to speak of your experiences and involvement

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with detainees who were held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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We are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

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to tell your story in your own words.

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We're creating an archive of stories

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that people in America and around the world

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will have a better understanding of what you

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and others have experienced and observed.

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Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo,

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and by telling a story you're contributing to history.

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We appreciate your courage

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and your willingness to speak with us.

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If at any time during the interview,

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you wanna take a break, just let us know.

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And anything you say that you'd like to retract

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or just review, just let us know

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and we can go back over that.

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And I'd like to begin

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with some general background information such as your name

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and your hometown and birth date and age.

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Maybe you could tell us that.

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<v ->Name, Christopher Brandon Arendt, A-R-E-N-D-T,</v>

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hometown, Lansing, Michigan

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and well, born in Sparrow Hospital, Lansing, Michigan,

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raised in Charlotte, Michigan.

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And then birth date, 02/18/1984,

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the February 18th, 1984.

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I feel like this is a pretty military breakdown.

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Like social security should come next.

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Zero, two, five, eight.

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<v Interviewer>And what's your age?</v>

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<v ->27.</v>

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<v Interviewer>And where do you currently live?</v>

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<v ->I live in Trumansburg, New York.</v>

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<v Interviewer>And a little bit, are you,</v>

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your marital status?

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<v ->Single.</v>

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<v Interviewer>And your education?</v>

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<v ->Like some college didn't, have not finished a degree.</v>

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<v Interviewer>Okay, and your current occupation?</v>

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<v ->The art director</v>

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of the veterans sanctuary combat paper project.

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(laughs)

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It sounds pretty professional, right?

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<v ->Good, okay.</v>

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So I'd like to begin just how you first joined the military

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and why you did and which branch?

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Just a little background on that.

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<v ->Was gonna join the military pretty much my whole life.</v>

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I have memories dating back to childhood.

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I'd say like eight, nine, 10 years old,

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having conversations with my mom

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about joining the military, military family,

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so, and also very poor.

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And my mom had kind of built into my brain

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that it was like college money, military equals college.

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Military equals you going to college,

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is like how it broke down.

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So I had accepted that the military was something

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I was gonna do for a long time.

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And then in November of 2007, no, 2001, I'm sorry,

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I was a senior in high school

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and I was gonna join the Marine Corp,

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but then my family started to kind of fall apart.

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And I ended up staying with friends

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and realized that I needed, like I needed money of my own,

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like I no longer had kind of any financial support.

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So I'd been working and I had my own job

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and everything, but I realized I needed a future.

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So I decided to join The National Guard

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instead of the Marine Corps,

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'cause by then the war had started,

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the 911 had happened

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and I decided that I did not wanna shoot people.

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I was really disgusted by the anti Muslim sentiment,

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the whole turn it into a glass parking lot

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and I wanna kill rag heads and the whole favor

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against the Islamic nation that came around.

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I was really disturbed by it,

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so I did not wanna participate in the war.

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So, but I did want the college benefits in the military.

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So I joined The National Guard

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under the false assumption that we would guard the nation.

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<v Interviewer>And what kind of training</v>

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did you give The National Guard?

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<v ->I joined the field artillery</v>

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and I was trained for 16 weeks.

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And eight of them was for basic combat training

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for shooting targets and stabbing targets and running around

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and doing pushups and learning how to yes sir, no sir

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and who to say yes sir or no sir to

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and all the rules of the game.

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And then another eight weeks training

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on how to fire M109 howitzer cannons,

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the whole firing operations

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and maintenance of self-propelled howitzers

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and then that was.

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<v Interviewer>It was purposeful then.</v>

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<v ->For shooting cannons for combat.</v>

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I mean, it's a National Guard unit

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so it's pretty hard to explain why there are things

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like artillery units in The National Guard

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but mine is not to question why.

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All I know is that I kind of failed the ASVAB

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which is the initial test for the military

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and I got a 55, so I could not join.

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I could only join the infantry or the artillery

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and artillery comes with vehicles

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and you don't have to walk around so much.

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So as a naturally lazy person,

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I decided that the artillery would be better.

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<v Interviewer>And after those 18 weeks,</v>

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what happened then?

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<v ->I reported back to Michigan</v>

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and started drilling with my unit

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which is drilling is like three days a month.

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We go in and sweep the floors,

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complain about things,

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most of the times, we're not even around our canons

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until the summertime comes

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and then we start drilling up North

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where we kept our cannons

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and we would fire them for a couple of days

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and then in the summer,

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we would have what's called an annual training

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and we'd fire our canons for two weeks at a time,

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and then spent, well actually most of that time

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was spent in the motor pool, kicking sand around

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and smoking cigarettes and pitching violence.

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<v Interviewer>How did it happen</v>

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that you ended up in Guantanamo, how did that happen?

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<v ->In October of 2001, I was called by my section chief.</v>

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Oh, sorry.

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<v Interviewer>You joined in 2000?</v>

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<v ->Oh, I'm sorry, 2004, I'm sorry.</v>

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Timeline mixed up, October of 2003.

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So I was trying to go to school.

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I was living in a place called Kalamazoo, Michigan

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and going to community college

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and my phone rings and my chief it's my chief.

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And he gives us the call sign for,

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that we've been deployed basically.

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They'd let us know when the war started

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that if we ever get deployed, this is what we'll say,

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when we call you on the phone to let you know

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that we're gonna go somewhere.

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So my chief calls and he's the jerk.

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So all he says is these words

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that you know it's raging bull.

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He just goes raging bull and then hangs up the phone.

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And that's it.

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So like for probably three weeks

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I had no idea what was going on.

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Nobody would answer my calls

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or telling me what was going on.

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I just knew when the next time I had to go for drill was so

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I was so for three weeks, I was just like I'm deployed,

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but I don't know where to, I don't know how to get out,

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I don't know what to do about this.

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So I basically just went into like a big drug coma.

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Like it just did everything.

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I put everything in my mouth I could for

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that entire period of time.

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And then we get to drill for the next month.

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We sit around all weekend long

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everybody's talking about where we're gonna go.

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We're gonna be in Afghanistan,

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we're gonna be in Iraq,

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we're gonna be in England.

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I heard probably six different countries we're gonna go to.

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None of them were going on Guantanamo Bay.

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No one saw that coming.

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And then they line us all up

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and they start showing us these clips of jet skis

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and beautiful beaches.

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And they were like Charlie battery

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been we've been deployed to Guantanamo Bay.

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And then that was really all that was said about it.

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I mean, I went home and looked it up online.

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I'd heard about it

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but I never really thought about the place much.

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I just knew that's where they said

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that they were gonna put detainees, and.

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<v Interviewer>And did they give you any specific training</v>

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before you went to Guantanamo?

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<v ->We had one month of what's called mobilization</v>

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because technically, they had to train,

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they had to do something to trade our jobs.

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You can't make a person, you can't switch a person

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in the military from operating a canon

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to operating a detainee or a detention facility

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without any training whatsoever.

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So, but they didn't put a whole lot of effort

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into their training program.

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We got like a day of culture training

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which was geared towards people deploying to Iraq.

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Like, it's basically

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there was a bunch of generic Iraq deployment stuff

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'cause they were, it's 2004,

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they had people going everywhere.

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This base was full of people deploying

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to every National Guard units.

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I mean, it was Fort Dix, New Jersey.

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So it's a retired base that they don't use anymore

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full of National Guard people who have just been activated.

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So you have like a hive of confused,

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under-trained, poorly militarized people

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that are ill adapted to lifestyle,

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all swarmed onto this base, all prepared,

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trying to prepare for this ridiculous excursion

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into some other cultures world.

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And so they didn't really, the only thing that they had

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that was specifically for training us for Guantanamo

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was this rinky dink little camp

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that they made out in the middle of nowhere.

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They put it as far away as they could.

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It was like a 20 mile bus ride out there.

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And it was just a bunch of chicken wire shacks

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that they put out there

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and they taught us how to like walk around.

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Basically, they just released us to play around

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on the camps.

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They gave us a bunch of locks and keys and shackles

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and said shackle yourselves up,

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lock yourselves in cages, walk around,

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and that happened for like two days and then.

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<v Interviewer>Did they teach you how to shackle</v>

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or you just practiced on each other?

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<v Interviewer>They gave us a few instructions</v>

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on how to shackle.

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It's pretty simple.

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You get it pretty quick.

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<v Interviewer>And did they try to frighten you</v>

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as to what you would see when you went to Guantanamo?

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<v ->Oh yeah.</v>

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I mean, we did the largest chunk of our training

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was combat training, fighting training,

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stabbing knife training.

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And a lot of, one of the most terrifying experiences

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that I had was there with the knife training

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'cause I was not everybody,

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everybody are already want an excuse to beat my ass.

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So then they had this formalized experience

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of like we all got together on these mats

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and they gave us rubber knives

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and then just stabbed the fuck out of each other

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with rubber knives for like two days,

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we were stabbing each other and chanting, like screaming,

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this mantra that they've made us yell, which was,

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I will get stabbed but I will not die,

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over and over and over again.

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That's all we said for like the whole day

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is we're like stabbing at each other,

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and that was all to prepare us for what they said

261
00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:49.330
was the likelihood that the detainees

262
00:10:49.330 --> 00:10:52.500
would craft knives out of anything, including toilet paper.

263
00:10:52.500 --> 00:10:54.800
They told us that they would make knives out of toilet paper

264
00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:56.370
and that they would stab us with them.

265
00:10:56.370 --> 00:11:00.593
So we had to be prepared for that so that they did,

266
00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:04.430
they work mostly like the biggest training that we got

267
00:11:04.430 --> 00:11:06.500
was fear-mongering about the capabilities

268
00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:08.220
of these super powered detainees

269
00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:11.170
that could craft knives out of toilet paper.

270
00:11:11.170 --> 00:11:15.210
And basically like they just had this mystique of like,

271
00:11:15.210 --> 00:11:16.430
we'll kill you with a whim.

272
00:11:16.430 --> 00:11:17.810
These are hardened terrorists.

273
00:11:17.810 --> 00:11:20.140
They've been trained in hand-to-hand combat.

274
00:11:20.140 --> 00:11:24.870
It's like a clash between this like ultra respective,

275
00:11:24.870 --> 00:11:26.210
they're fighting prowess

276
00:11:26.210 --> 00:11:29.910
and then totally belittling them 'cause you know,

277
00:11:29.910 --> 00:11:32.540
and I mean, to be quite frank,

278
00:11:32.540 --> 00:11:34.830
the language that we were using to talk about these people

279
00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:39.420
was at this time, understand that whenever we referred

280
00:11:39.420 --> 00:11:41.810
to these people, the nicest thing we called them

281
00:11:41.810 --> 00:11:44.230
was tainers, which is a shortening of detainees

282
00:11:44.230 --> 00:11:46.490
'cause they wouldn't let us call them prisoners.

283
00:11:46.490 --> 00:11:50.060
But I mean, the rest of the terms ran along the lines

284
00:11:50.060 --> 00:11:51.680
of like the really racist stuff

285
00:11:51.680 --> 00:11:54.470
like a little bit of haji

286
00:11:54.470 --> 00:11:57.330
that we didn't use it, but a lot of like

287
00:11:57.330 --> 00:11:59.580
I don't even wanna say it, but for the purposes

288
00:11:59.580 --> 00:12:02.610
of documentation sand nigger was like,

289
00:12:02.610 --> 00:12:05.520
everyday I heard that term refer to them,

290
00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:09.290
camel jockeys, ridiculous stuff like dune coons.

291
00:12:09.290 --> 00:12:13.630
It was all just a bunch of different racial slurs

292
00:12:13.630 --> 00:12:14.610
to refer to them

293
00:12:14.610 --> 00:12:17.033
which was exclusively how we referred to them.

294
00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:20.830
<v Interviewer>Why couldn't you call them prisoners?</v>

295
00:12:20.830 --> 00:12:23.950
<v ->Because it violates the Geneva conventions</v>

296
00:12:23.950 --> 00:12:26.450
that, yes, that was something that they were very,

297
00:12:27.460 --> 00:12:28.930
the only things about the rules

298
00:12:28.930 --> 00:12:30.850
that they were very specific on

299
00:12:30.850 --> 00:12:35.080
were the nomenclature of what we can call things

300
00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:39.510
to keep it in this detentions kind of atmosphere.

301
00:12:39.510 --> 00:12:41.500
It's like, I don't think people understand

302
00:12:41.500 --> 00:12:44.180
how much of the detentions policy

303
00:12:44.180 --> 00:12:45.700
really runs on the rhetoric

304
00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:47.680
of changing the name of somebody

305
00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:49.320
from a prisoner to a detainee

306
00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:52.231
because just calling someone a detainee

307
00:12:52.231 --> 00:12:53.830
puts them in a whole different kind

308
00:12:53.830 --> 00:12:56.781
of legal situation where, so it's,

309
00:12:56.781 --> 00:13:00.710
That was a really key focus

310
00:13:00.710 --> 00:13:03.810
that they definitely drove into our head of these people

311
00:13:03.810 --> 00:13:04.700
when you refer to them,

312
00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:06.630
they're detainees, they're not prisoners.

313
00:13:06.630 --> 00:13:09.570
And so that's one thing that they were really specific on us

314
00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:12.263
taking away from our little educational experience.

315
00:13:13.315 --> 00:13:16.400
<v Interviewer>What were you thinking you would see</v>

316
00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:18.430
in Guantanamo before you came there

317
00:13:18.430 --> 00:13:19.630
given what you (indistinct)

318
00:13:19.630 --> 00:13:21.660
<v ->Oh man I didn't have fucking clue.</v>

319
00:13:21.660 --> 00:13:22.570
I didn't have a clue.

320
00:13:22.570 --> 00:13:25.660
There was no way I could have predicted that, I mean.

321
00:13:25.660 --> 00:13:27.640
<v Interviewer>What did you think you would see now</v>

322
00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:30.567
when you did see, what did you think you would be seeing?

323
00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:34.700
<v ->There was a lot of speculation on everybody's part.</v>

324
00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:38.737
I don't remember really doing much pre-planning.

325
00:13:41.250 --> 00:13:45.263
I mean, I'm like thinking about what was gonna happen.

326
00:13:47.129 --> 00:13:48.950
I do remember assuming

327
00:13:48.950 --> 00:13:51.760
that there would be gross amounts of torture,

328
00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:55.270
that it would be that the things that people think about

329
00:13:55.270 --> 00:13:57.682
when they think about torture would be occurring there.

330
00:13:57.682 --> 00:13:59.108
<v Interviewer>Why (indistinct)</v>

331
00:13:59.108 --> 00:14:01.623
<v ->Because I thought that due to the nature of like</v>

332
00:14:04.610 --> 00:14:06.420
how we were talking about them as terrorists

333
00:14:06.420 --> 00:14:08.499
and due to the nature of what they were like,

334
00:14:08.499 --> 00:14:13.499
it was proposed as an intelligence gathering place

335
00:14:13.640 --> 00:14:17.520
and intelligence gathering to me and to everybody else

336
00:14:17.520 --> 00:14:21.370
just kind of read as we're gonna torture these people

337
00:14:21.370 --> 00:14:22.750
until they tell us things.

338
00:14:22.750 --> 00:14:26.190
And then, so that's basically

339
00:14:26.190 --> 00:14:28.470
what I was assuming was gonna happen, I guess,

340
00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:31.610
but I didn't really like imagine it 'cause I don't,

341
00:14:31.610 --> 00:14:33.970
that's kind of like playing the game

342
00:14:33.970 --> 00:14:36.420
of like imagining what a psychopath thinks about?

343
00:14:36.420 --> 00:14:41.120
And I was very, I remember being very clear with myself

344
00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:44.200
to avoid that whole deranged game of like

345
00:14:44.200 --> 00:14:49.200
I was really desired to not play the psychological games

346
00:14:49.510 --> 00:14:51.960
that all of the people in my unit were playing

347
00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:54.080
'cause they were very fancy free

348
00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:55.950
with imagining the different kinds of torture

349
00:14:55.950 --> 00:14:57.040
that they wanted to enact.

350
00:14:57.040 --> 00:15:02.040
It was like, I mean, it was like living in all of a sudden

351
00:15:02.170 --> 00:15:04.860
the 150 people that I knew beforehand

352
00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:07.180
turned into violent psychopaths

353
00:15:07.180 --> 00:15:10.290
that were totally free to talk, to run their miles.

354
00:15:10.290 --> 00:15:12.760
No women, no normal people around

355
00:15:12.760 --> 00:15:13.593
and they just turned

356
00:15:13.593 --> 00:15:17.870
into the whole hog racist killing machines

357
00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:19.310
that were just like all talk about

358
00:15:19.310 --> 00:15:21.970
how they wanted to torture these people.

359
00:15:21.970 --> 00:15:26.960
So not that when we got down there, actuality in actuality

360
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:28.010
it was totally different story.

361
00:15:28.010 --> 00:15:31.810
Like people that talk shit, some went through with it,

362
00:15:31.810 --> 00:15:35.750
some were turned out to be tree huggers.

363
00:15:35.750 --> 00:15:37.610
Some turned out to be much more sympathetic

364
00:15:37.610 --> 00:15:38.610
than they thought they would.

365
00:15:38.610 --> 00:15:40.260
Some turned out to not really give back,

366
00:15:40.260 --> 00:15:43.020
some, people want a million different ways

367
00:15:43.020 --> 00:15:45.950
but when we were preparing, everybody was really anxious

368
00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:49.240
to seem as gung-ho as possible because not being

369
00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:51.970
into the mission, the mission being torturing

370
00:15:51.970 --> 00:15:53.770
and beating these people to a polyp

371
00:15:55.250 --> 00:15:57.510
then you're not a real man.

372
00:15:57.510 --> 00:16:00.730
And at the time too, we were all kind of like,

373
00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:02.960
well this is pretty cake deployment to pull during,

374
00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:05.120
everybody else we know is getting into humvees

375
00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.780
and going cross the seed of the ocean

376
00:16:08.780 --> 00:16:09.613
to the Middle East.

377
00:16:09.613 --> 00:16:14.250
So we were also kind of like all pretty relieved

378
00:16:14.250 --> 00:16:15.183
that while I was relieved

379
00:16:15.183 --> 00:16:19.100
that it was such an like an easy duty assignment, but.

380
00:16:19.100 --> 00:16:20.090
<v Interviewer>So where did you see</v>

381
00:16:20.090 --> 00:16:21.763
when you first arrived in Guantanamo?

382
00:16:24.450 --> 00:16:25.530
<v ->When we first arrived,</v>

383
00:16:25.530 --> 00:16:29.540
the Camp Delta is a separate, is in Guantanamo Bay.

384
00:16:29.540 --> 00:16:31.600
Like there is a distinction there that Guantanamo Bay

385
00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:34.650
is just a Naval base in Cuba.

386
00:16:34.650 --> 00:16:38.010
And then on Guantanamo is Camp Delta

387
00:16:38.010 --> 00:16:39.540
where all of these things happen

388
00:16:39.540 --> 00:16:43.743
inside of a certain encampment.

389
00:16:44.640 --> 00:16:46.940
So when I first got there, I really didn't see anything

390
00:16:46.940 --> 00:16:49.320
except Camp Delta from the outside.

391
00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.420
And I could hear Camp Delta,

392
00:16:52.420 --> 00:16:57.420
but mostly I just saw Guantanamo Bay proper,

393
00:16:58.560 --> 00:17:02.120
like they took a lot of time to show us the external things

394
00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:05.540
and a lot of paperwork in lines and stuff,

395
00:17:05.540 --> 00:17:08.270
for like three weeks, we didn't even go into the camps.

396
00:17:08.270 --> 00:17:11.410
We just did processing and processing and processing.

397
00:17:11.410 --> 00:17:16.170
And yeah, we signed way more papers than we did,

398
00:17:16.170 --> 00:17:19.223
than we took in tutorials on how to do our jobs, but.

399
00:17:20.250 --> 00:17:22.320
<v Interviewer>What do those papers say?</v>

400
00:17:22.320 --> 00:17:26.380
<v ->Oh, just, there are a lot of like the military</v>

401
00:17:26.380 --> 00:17:27.880
she's got like a million different papers

402
00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:29.070
you have to sign for anything.

403
00:17:29.070 --> 00:17:32.600
So if they move you somewhere, your equipment's got papers,

404
00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:35.560
your pills have papers, your food has papers,

405
00:17:35.560 --> 00:17:37.780
your wife has papers, your kids have papers,

406
00:17:37.780 --> 00:17:39.103
your shots had papers,

407
00:17:40.520 --> 00:17:42.790
my psychologist had papers upon papers.

408
00:17:42.790 --> 00:17:44.240
My papers had papers.

409
00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:46.730
There's papers everywhere in the military.

410
00:17:46.730 --> 00:17:48.223
I mean, there's files for everybody.

411
00:17:48.223 --> 00:17:49.570
They're so thick.

412
00:17:49.570 --> 00:17:53.120
And especially when you deploy, I mean,

413
00:17:53.120 --> 00:17:57.270
there's just, it's a really crazy system of bureaucracy

414
00:17:57.270 --> 00:18:00.680
and you gotta go one by one through these lines

415
00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:02.990
where they've got one person doing this one paper

416
00:18:02.990 --> 00:18:04.010
and you're sitting in a line

417
00:18:04.010 --> 00:18:06.020
with your little packet for hours

418
00:18:06.020 --> 00:18:08.380
just drinking coffee and just being like, ah,

419
00:18:08.380 --> 00:18:11.570
to hold my spot, I need to go smoke 50 cigarettes.

420
00:18:11.570 --> 00:18:12.480
<v Interviewer>What were your impressions</v>

421
00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:13.850
during those first three weeks

422
00:18:13.850 --> 00:18:16.317
they had really, had it change you?

423
00:18:17.705 --> 00:18:19.599
<v ->Oh, a lot.</v>

424
00:18:19.599 --> 00:18:21.300
I had a lot of impressions starting that first three weeks.

425
00:18:21.300 --> 00:18:24.180
There was a lot of things to get used to down there.

426
00:18:24.180 --> 00:18:25.670
One is that the camp,

427
00:18:25.670 --> 00:18:29.100
the whole place is run by third country nationals.

428
00:18:29.100 --> 00:18:31.810
So I was really shocked by the fact that

429
00:18:31.810 --> 00:18:34.390
no soldiers anywhere were doing any of the jobs

430
00:18:34.390 --> 00:18:37.223
that I had assumed were done by soldiers, cooks,

431
00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:40.490
people working in different areas.

432
00:18:40.490 --> 00:18:43.880
All of these people were little short Filipino dudes

433
00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:46.580
and a few Jamaicans that drove our buses

434
00:18:46.580 --> 00:18:48.600
but at first I was just overwhelmed

435
00:18:48.600 --> 00:18:50.570
by the all of our services, everything,

436
00:18:50.570 --> 00:18:53.100
everything was done by third country nationals.

437
00:18:53.100 --> 00:18:56.600
And it's, I started to like think,

438
00:18:56.600 --> 00:18:58.930
why are they paying other people to do these jobs

439
00:18:58.930 --> 00:19:02.360
when you've got perfectly disposable soldiers

440
00:19:02.360 --> 00:19:05.320
that are trained to do things like sweep floors

441
00:19:05.320 --> 00:19:08.220
and take the trash out and do our own paperwork

442
00:19:08.220 --> 00:19:09.910
and do our own laundry and stuff like that.

443
00:19:09.910 --> 00:19:12.160
You've hired a whole slave force

444
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:14.400
of these poor people down here.

445
00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:15.980
And very quickly, I was like,

446
00:19:15.980 --> 00:19:17.820
I bet you this dudes making a dollar an hour

447
00:19:17.820 --> 00:19:20.730
and then some fat white dudes probably making $50 an hour

448
00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:22.640
to have that one dude down there, you know?

449
00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.300
And it's like, that stuff's starting to me off.

450
00:19:25.300 --> 00:19:28.110
I didn't even really think about the camp a whole lot

451
00:19:28.110 --> 00:19:29.510
until we started to go down there

452
00:19:29.510 --> 00:19:31.590
and then I started to realize like, oh my God

453
00:19:31.590 --> 00:19:33.620
this shit's gonna get really crazy.

454
00:19:33.620 --> 00:19:36.870
I was on like a lot of personal issues at that point in time

455
00:19:36.870 --> 00:19:39.050
like really having an adjustment disorder

456
00:19:39.050 --> 00:19:43.450
just to being in the military full-time, so, I don't know.

457
00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:47.980
<v Interviewer>So as the three weeks went by,</v>

458
00:19:47.980 --> 00:19:49.570
when you finally went into the camp,

459
00:19:49.570 --> 00:19:51.250
can you describe what you first saw

460
00:19:51.250 --> 00:19:54.120
and what your first duties were?

461
00:19:54.120 --> 00:19:57.420
<v ->My first, I remember my first day very clearly.</v>

462
00:19:57.420 --> 00:19:59.120
Now, before I explain that though,

463
00:19:59.120 --> 00:20:02.140
I'm gonna explain how they work you in the camp

464
00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:05.370
to keep a sense of disorder about your mental state

465
00:20:05.370 --> 00:20:08.280
as you go through things, you never do the same job

466
00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:09.190
two days in a row.

467
00:20:09.190 --> 00:20:11.750
You never work the same block with the same detainees,

468
00:20:11.750 --> 00:20:15.260
you never even do the same type of task.

469
00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:17.310
You might not work the blocks two days in a row,

470
00:20:17.310 --> 00:20:18.810
You might work the blocks two days in a row

471
00:20:18.810 --> 00:20:20.670
but then the next day you'll be on escorts

472
00:20:20.670 --> 00:20:23.520
or you'll be in a sally guard or a sally gate

473
00:20:23.520 --> 00:20:25.890
which is like opening a gate for people

474
00:20:25.890 --> 00:20:29.230
or you'll be doing some other weird mission.

475
00:20:29.230 --> 00:20:30.880
And then you'll be back on the blocks for a day

476
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:31.830
and then you'll be somewhere else.

477
00:20:31.830 --> 00:20:36.364
And so that it's a constant psychological game

478
00:20:36.364 --> 00:20:38.400
of shuffling you around

479
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:40.720
to different locations and keeping you

480
00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:43.180
and also working different shifts

481
00:20:43.180 --> 00:20:46.170
'cause you'll work morning shifts and then night shifts

482
00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:48.030
and then afternoon shifts.

483
00:20:48.030 --> 00:20:49.490
They'll have you on a week of mornings

484
00:20:49.490 --> 00:20:52.310
and then a week of nights and then a week of afternoons.

485
00:20:52.310 --> 00:20:53.530
And then they'll say you have a week off

486
00:20:53.530 --> 00:20:56.200
but you'll end up in the camp replacing some other unit.

487
00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:01.200
And then, so to deal with like the first impressions

488
00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:03.040
of the camp is really difficult

489
00:21:03.040 --> 00:21:04.690
because my first impressions of the camp

490
00:21:04.690 --> 00:21:07.370
that was very successfully for them

491
00:21:07.370 --> 00:21:09.760
very disheveled and like all over the place,

492
00:21:09.760 --> 00:21:12.040
where the fuck am I, who is this person?

493
00:21:12.040 --> 00:21:14.500
I don't remember any faces 'cause I was on the camp

494
00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:16.690
in like in working the blocks

495
00:21:16.690 --> 00:21:18.050
for such a short period of time

496
00:21:18.050 --> 00:21:21.020
that I didn't really get to cycle through more

497
00:21:21.020 --> 00:21:23.060
than maybe a couple of times through the different jobs

498
00:21:23.060 --> 00:21:26.130
before they realized that I was not a good block guard

499
00:21:26.130 --> 00:21:28.720
and they took me off to do clerical work.

500
00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:32.910
But I can't explain my first like first memory

501
00:21:33.919 --> 00:21:37.310
of the place is very vivid of my first day in the blocks.

502
00:21:37.310 --> 00:21:39.940
We lined up to meet the unit

503
00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:42.160
that we were gonna be working with in the blocks

504
00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:44.720
and this was outside of the camp.

505
00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:48.230
And then on one side was all black dudes and women

506
00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:51.880
and with one Latino Lieutenant

507
00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:53.480
who was their platoon leader

508
00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:56.150
and then on our side was all white dudes

509
00:21:56.150 --> 00:21:59.120
with a couple of black, maybe two black guys in our unit.

510
00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:00.940
And then, and that's it.

511
00:22:00.940 --> 00:22:04.170
And so, and all of the dudes I was with really racist

512
00:22:04.170 --> 00:22:05.800
and I knew it and I've heard him

513
00:22:05.800 --> 00:22:07.120
say the most awful thing.

514
00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:10.027
So it was like, okay, 365 days

515
00:22:10.027 --> 00:22:12.460
was like assigned to working with this unit.

516
00:22:12.460 --> 00:22:13.900
This is gonna be,

517
00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:16.470
so at first I thought it was gonna be funny.

518
00:22:16.470 --> 00:22:18.070
I was like, these guys are gonna knock.

519
00:22:18.070 --> 00:22:21.310
I wanted this other unit to like,

520
00:22:21.310 --> 00:22:23.910
just beat the jet out of my unit for like

521
00:22:25.990 --> 00:22:27.253
I could see it happening.

522
00:22:28.110 --> 00:22:30.670
So we meet and greet and they do the whole thing

523
00:22:30.670 --> 00:22:33.270
where they came right out and they said like

524
00:22:33.270 --> 00:22:35.867
clearly you're not the same.

525
00:22:35.867 --> 00:22:36.882
(laughs)

526
00:22:36.882 --> 00:22:39.700
And we're just gonna have to get along here with like

527
00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:42.960
green is the only color they did this whole like speech

528
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:46.190
and I'm like dying, laughing on the inside

529
00:22:46.190 --> 00:22:47.990
not the stone face on the outside

530
00:22:47.990 --> 00:22:49.530
but inside, I'm just like,

531
00:22:49.530 --> 00:22:52.750
I can't believe that I'm in this whole thing of adults

532
00:22:52.750 --> 00:22:54.000
and they have to pull us together

533
00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:58.327
and make this like speech about how the white people

534
00:22:58.327 --> 00:22:59.160
and the black people

535
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.438
were just gonna have to get along for now

536
00:23:01.438 --> 00:23:02.440
while we torture the brown people.

537
00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:05.170
So it's like, I don't know, it was weird.

538
00:23:05.170 --> 00:23:06.450
So then we just, they marched us.

539
00:23:06.450 --> 00:23:09.673
We marched down, we walked through the camp,

540
00:23:11.270 --> 00:23:12.690
went through the sally ports,

541
00:23:12.690 --> 00:23:13.900
they checked everybody's stuff,

542
00:23:13.900 --> 00:23:18.860
and then we went to our separate blocks

543
00:23:18.860 --> 00:23:21.370
and we walked into the blocks and mine was Oscar block.

544
00:23:21.370 --> 00:23:22.380
I was on there,

545
00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:26.280
I was like one of the only new people working on that block.

546
00:23:26.280 --> 00:23:29.740
And it's an isolation block.

547
00:23:29.740 --> 00:23:32.750
I don't know, I guess I should,

548
00:23:32.750 --> 00:23:34.237
I don't know if I,

549
00:23:34.237 --> 00:23:35.740
it's so hard to explain this stuff like, as it comes along

550
00:23:35.740 --> 00:23:38.826
but the isolation blocks were,

551
00:23:38.826 --> 00:23:43.826
there were fewer cells probably like 24 all told

552
00:23:45.530 --> 00:23:47.600
and they were solid steel instead of the,

553
00:23:47.600 --> 00:23:51.360
like latticed cages you see,

554
00:23:51.360 --> 00:23:55.160
they were just solid metal frames

555
00:23:55.160 --> 00:23:59.230
with like basically like port windows on the doors of them

556
00:23:59.230 --> 00:24:02.200
and in a bean hole

557
00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:04.510
and a little tiny exhaust fan up in the back.

558
00:24:04.510 --> 00:24:07.610
And they were phenomenally hot, really hot inside there.

559
00:24:07.610 --> 00:24:09.160
Just to walk down,

560
00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:11.980
I could feel the cells radiating from the doors

561
00:24:11.980 --> 00:24:14.510
'cause it just like, everything's like a metal

562
00:24:14.510 --> 00:24:16.130
it's like a metal chicken coop,

563
00:24:16.130 --> 00:24:19.540
and every property that you think that like that would have

564
00:24:19.540 --> 00:24:22.990
under the blazing hot Guantanamo sun, it does,

565
00:24:22.990 --> 00:24:24.800
those rooms are cooking.

566
00:24:24.800 --> 00:24:27.673
Like they are so ungodly hot.

567
00:24:29.150 --> 00:24:31.978
All I can really remember is just feeling so,

568
00:24:31.978 --> 00:24:34.650
like the kind of hot that just took my breath away.

569
00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:37.780
And on top of that, the whole place smelled like,

570
00:24:37.780 --> 00:24:40.330
this whole block smelled like OSI spray.

571
00:24:40.330 --> 00:24:42.050
I'm sure this has been explained to you before

572
00:24:42.050 --> 00:24:44.773
by somebody had to say something about OSI spray.

573
00:24:46.628 --> 00:24:50.920
It's oil based like mace that they use

574
00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:52.360
to spray the detainees with.

575
00:24:52.360 --> 00:24:55.040
And it's got, it smells like Frank's hot sauce basically

576
00:24:55.040 --> 00:24:57.550
but really pungently, and it's not so much a smell

577
00:24:57.550 --> 00:25:00.160
as something that you just feel everywhere

578
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:01.300
and it burns your eyes.

579
00:25:01.300 --> 00:25:04.800
And you could just, I mean I was like crying,

580
00:25:04.800 --> 00:25:06.220
like burning eyes, like,

581
00:25:06.220 --> 00:25:07.900
so basically I'm like walking around

582
00:25:07.900 --> 00:25:11.220
with like bloodshot red eyes crying on the blocks

583
00:25:11.220 --> 00:25:13.980
and like the detainees were,

584
00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:16.010
some of them, it was really weird.

585
00:25:16.010 --> 00:25:18.410
I was like, it was like being in some kind of weird zoo,

586
00:25:18.410 --> 00:25:21.240
like I'd look in and one guy's pacing around

587
00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:23.430
in this tiny little circle talking to himself

588
00:25:23.430 --> 00:25:27.650
and another guy is reading from the Quran

589
00:25:27.650 --> 00:25:29.590
and just looking totally kicked back and relaxed.

590
00:25:29.590 --> 00:25:31.710
And another guy's just staring at me in the window

591
00:25:31.710 --> 00:25:32.630
just like sitting in there

592
00:25:32.630 --> 00:25:35.100
and just like staring at me, like he's

593
00:25:35.100 --> 00:25:38.950
and I don't remember saying anything to any of them

594
00:25:38.950 --> 00:25:42.310
until I got down to the end of the block.

595
00:25:42.310 --> 00:25:44.900
And then this guy wanted toilet paper

596
00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:46.540
and I didn't wanna give him the toilet paper

597
00:25:46.540 --> 00:25:48.630
because there was like rules

598
00:25:48.630 --> 00:25:50.037
about how much toilet paper you could give them.

599
00:25:50.037 --> 00:25:51.700
And when you gave them toilet paper

600
00:25:51.700 --> 00:25:53.730
and we were already like,

601
00:25:53.730 --> 00:25:56.840
had given them their allotment of stuff for the day,

602
00:25:56.840 --> 00:25:57.957
so what you do all at one time

603
00:25:57.957 --> 00:26:00.850
you just go through and you're like here's your food

604
00:26:00.850 --> 00:26:02.330
and your toothpaste and everything.

605
00:26:02.330 --> 00:26:04.160
And then you collect back what they can't have.

606
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:05.990
It's a big ordeal,

607
00:26:05.990 --> 00:26:07.680
it's like you give them items.

608
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:08.770
Some of the stuff you get back

609
00:26:08.770 --> 00:26:10.010
you have to know what they can get back.

610
00:26:10.010 --> 00:26:11.840
Some detainees can't have this.

611
00:26:11.840 --> 00:26:13.840
Somebody detainees can't have a cup

612
00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:16.670
or a little one inch toothbrush or something like that.

613
00:26:16.670 --> 00:26:19.650
So they can use them, but you have to give them back.

614
00:26:19.650 --> 00:26:21.610
So everything's is complicated process

615
00:26:21.610 --> 00:26:23.670
of like you put something in the bean hole

616
00:26:23.670 --> 00:26:24.880
and if they don't wanna give it back,

617
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:27.790
then you have to get into their cell

618
00:26:27.790 --> 00:26:28.700
and get it back from them

619
00:26:28.700 --> 00:26:31.570
which is I learned very violent process.

620
00:26:31.570 --> 00:26:34.360
And it's like how the detainees

621
00:26:34.360 --> 00:26:35.247
choose to fight the guards

622
00:26:35.247 --> 00:26:37.430
and how the guards choose to fight the detainees,

623
00:26:37.430 --> 00:26:39.460
is where all the aggression comes together

624
00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:43.820
is when detainees decide to keep things inside their cells.

625
00:26:43.820 --> 00:26:45.903
and then we have to come in and get it.

626
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:48.380
It was just so childish, you know.

627
00:26:48.380 --> 00:26:49.580
<v Interviewer>Well, I'll get to that,</v>

628
00:26:49.580 --> 00:26:50.420
but let's just talk about

629
00:26:50.420 --> 00:26:53.590
when you said you saw the president wanted more toilet paper

630
00:26:53.590 --> 00:26:55.800
and what did you do?

631
00:26:55.800 --> 00:26:58.580
<v ->Well, eventually after a long argument, he spoke English.</v>

632
00:26:58.580 --> 00:27:00.820
Perfect English, British English.

633
00:27:00.820 --> 00:27:02.060
<v Interviewer>Do you know who he was?</v>

634
00:27:02.060 --> 00:27:03.240
<v ->Yes, his name's Terrick.</v>

635
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:08.240
I've met him since then, which is, but do you know Terrick?

636
00:27:11.490 --> 00:27:12.323
Yes, yeah.

637
00:27:12.323 --> 00:27:15.360
It's him with the one arm

638
00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:20.360
and so he got the toilet paper, I gave it to him,

639
00:27:22.760 --> 00:27:24.760
but, well, actually when I put it in the cell,

640
00:27:24.760 --> 00:27:27.750
I was kind of like frustrated and he'd kind of want.

641
00:27:27.750 --> 00:27:30.500
And I was just like, really just super embarrassed

642
00:27:30.500 --> 00:27:33.480
like burning face, like the anxiety prickles

643
00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:36.220
just like, I just felt like a super sheer head,

644
00:27:36.220 --> 00:27:37.723
that this is what I'm doing with my life right now.

645
00:27:37.723 --> 00:27:40.100
I was having this conversation about toilet paper.

646
00:27:40.100 --> 00:27:43.420
And so I finally like gave him the toilet paper

647
00:27:43.420 --> 00:27:45.330
just one of the situation to be done.

648
00:27:45.330 --> 00:27:47.770
And with his one good arm, he just grabbed my whole wrist

649
00:27:47.770 --> 00:27:49.300
and then just drop right down to the floor.

650
00:27:49.300 --> 00:27:51.880
And so like pulled me all the way into the cell

651
00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:55.260
up to my shoulder and I'm like smashed against the window,

652
00:27:55.260 --> 00:27:56.830
like looking down at him

653
00:27:56.830 --> 00:27:59.250
and he's screaming obscenities at me.

654
00:27:59.250 --> 00:28:01.590
And nobody from the rest of the block has come.

655
00:28:01.590 --> 00:28:03.080
They're all upfront bullshitting.

656
00:28:03.080 --> 00:28:07.220
They've left me to watch this whole block of,

657
00:28:07.220 --> 00:28:09.340
I mean, presumably an Oscar block.

658
00:28:09.340 --> 00:28:12.680
If these are the worst of the worst

659
00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:14.670
which Guantanamo was supposed to be,

660
00:28:14.670 --> 00:28:17.210
Oscar block is more or less the worst of the worst

661
00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:18.043
of the worst of the worst.

662
00:28:18.043 --> 00:28:22.180
So it's like, this is the final stop

663
00:28:22.180 --> 00:28:24.620
for the behaviorally challenged in Guantanamo Bay

664
00:28:24.620 --> 00:28:27.890
where it's the ultimate form of like,

665
00:28:27.890 --> 00:28:29.810
but so you don't wanna get along in the camps.

666
00:28:29.810 --> 00:28:32.860
Okay, sit in this hot little box by yourself all day long,

667
00:28:32.860 --> 00:28:34.150
see how you like that.

668
00:28:34.150 --> 00:28:37.540
And they'll put people in there for months and it is hell.

669
00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:41.520
I mean, it is hell inside that place, so.

670
00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:42.353
<v Interviewer>What happened to you</v>

671
00:28:42.353 --> 00:28:44.020
of you being pulled down?

672
00:28:44.020 --> 00:28:45.540
<v ->He finally just let me go.</v>

673
00:28:45.540 --> 00:28:48.500
And I stood there for a couple of seconds and I was like

674
00:28:48.500 --> 00:28:49.913
what do I do now?

675
00:28:49.913 --> 00:28:51.710
Because I knew that if I went and told the guards

676
00:28:51.710 --> 00:28:56.090
that it would be, he'd probably be earthed,

677
00:28:56.090 --> 00:29:00.410
I knew that the next step would be to earth them.

678
00:29:00.410 --> 00:29:02.390
And there was a sick little moment that happened

679
00:29:02.390 --> 00:29:05.290
where I really wanted to get some vengeance,

680
00:29:05.290 --> 00:29:06.560
'cause I felt like such like this guy

681
00:29:06.560 --> 00:29:07.760
had made such a fool out of me

682
00:29:07.760 --> 00:29:09.093
that I wanted to like,

683
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:13.500
I kind of wanted to buy in on that violence.

684
00:29:13.500 --> 00:29:14.950
And everybody was so excited for it.

685
00:29:14.950 --> 00:29:15.783
Everybody wanted it.

686
00:29:15.783 --> 00:29:16.720
We knew what an earth was.

687
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:19.440
We knew that that's how to beat up detainees.

688
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:21.570
And everybody was like, chomping at the bit

689
00:29:21.570 --> 00:29:22.540
to get that first one.

690
00:29:22.540 --> 00:29:24.240
And I was like, am I gonna be the first person

691
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.430
to like have to instigate these things,

692
00:29:27.430 --> 00:29:29.650
and just had this kind of gross little moment.

693
00:29:29.650 --> 00:29:31.290
Before I could even figure it out myself,

694
00:29:31.290 --> 00:29:33.267
he kind of settled it for me,

695
00:29:33.267 --> 00:29:35.688
and he's like, yeah, why don't you go tell all your friends

696
00:29:35.688 --> 00:29:37.110
that you just got beat up by the one-arm dude.

697
00:29:37.110 --> 00:29:39.450
And that back that's sitting in a cell, like what,

698
00:29:39.450 --> 00:29:40.677
I felt probably love that,

699
00:29:40.677 --> 00:29:42.660
and they called me a bitch a couple of times.

700
00:29:42.660 --> 00:29:44.400
And I was just like, wow

701
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:46.180
that's a good point that you bring up.

702
00:29:46.180 --> 00:29:48.150
I can't really go tell people.

703
00:29:48.150 --> 00:29:50.170
It's not gonna improve my reputation at all

704
00:29:50.170 --> 00:29:52.990
if I go and tell them that the one-armed detainee

705
00:29:52.990 --> 00:29:54.390
inside of the isolation cell

706
00:29:54.390 --> 00:29:56.580
just beat my ass through a hole

707
00:29:57.820 --> 00:30:00.010
that I compromised myself

708
00:30:00.010 --> 00:30:01.500
and did exactly what I shouldn't have done

709
00:30:01.500 --> 00:30:03.320
which was put my hand inside the cell.

710
00:30:03.320 --> 00:30:04.360
And then I just realized

711
00:30:04.360 --> 00:30:05.840
that there was like a dozen different ways

712
00:30:05.840 --> 00:30:07.110
that I'd handled the situation

713
00:30:07.110 --> 00:30:09.800
that would lead back to me being at fault.

714
00:30:09.800 --> 00:30:13.883
And so I just kind of realized like, no,

715
00:30:15.170 --> 00:30:17.620
not gonna let this one,

716
00:30:17.620 --> 00:30:19.470
not gonna take this to the next step.

717
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:23.530
And then throughout the course of that day, and that night

718
00:30:23.530 --> 00:30:25.380
like when I went home, felt disgusting,

719
00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:26.700
totally fucking sick.

720
00:30:26.700 --> 00:30:29.650
Like I would say, like rape victim sick,

721
00:30:29.650 --> 00:30:30.890
probably like how people feel

722
00:30:30.890 --> 00:30:34.460
after experiencing really super intense trauma.

723
00:30:34.460 --> 00:30:37.020
I sat in the bottom of the shower

724
00:30:37.020 --> 00:30:39.120
for like an hour that night

725
00:30:40.202 --> 00:30:42.170
and with a cold water on just crying

726
00:30:42.170 --> 00:30:44.970
and realizing that this is gonna be my life.

727
00:30:44.970 --> 00:30:45.803
This is where I was gonna live.

728
00:30:45.803 --> 00:30:47.170
And I was gonna have,

729
00:30:47.170 --> 00:30:49.570
that I was gonna have to deal with,

730
00:30:49.570 --> 00:30:51.170
basically the thing that gross me out most

731
00:30:51.170 --> 00:30:56.170
was that I had wanted to like hurt that guy.

732
00:30:58.070 --> 00:31:00.790
I wanted to call in all of these guards

733
00:31:00.790 --> 00:31:02.450
and watch him get his ass kicked.

734
00:31:02.450 --> 00:31:04.310
I'd wanted to see that kind of violence.

735
00:31:04.310 --> 00:31:09.060
And, but I didn't want that.

736
00:31:09.060 --> 00:31:10.300
It's like, it's hard to explain.

737
00:31:10.300 --> 00:31:12.970
When you have, when you're given that kind of authority

738
00:31:12.970 --> 00:31:13.860
and that kind of power,

739
00:31:13.860 --> 00:31:15.580
it is a really disturbing and sick thing.

740
00:31:15.580 --> 00:31:17.520
And there was two parts of me

741
00:31:17.520 --> 00:31:18.883
going two totally different ways,

742
00:31:18.883 --> 00:31:21.470
then the one part of me that I consider

743
00:31:21.470 --> 00:31:24.550
to be my conscious self really hated the part of me

744
00:31:24.550 --> 00:31:28.793
that it was just like this, yeah.

745
00:31:30.110 --> 00:31:33.030
<v Interviewer>And what did your buddies,</v>

746
00:31:33.030 --> 00:31:36.290
the other people who were in your troop

747
00:31:38.190 --> 00:31:42.667
or fake when they saw you sitting in the shower in tears.

748
00:31:42.667 --> 00:31:43.730
<v ->No, this is we had, we lived in houses.</v>

749
00:31:43.730 --> 00:31:46.185
We had, I had a bathroom

750
00:31:46.185 --> 00:31:48.270
and a house and a bedroom completely

751
00:31:50.587 --> 00:31:55.060
all like any kind of cheap house, military housing

752
00:31:55.060 --> 00:31:57.403
that they provide anywhere on base.

753
00:31:57.403 --> 00:32:01.810
I shared a room with a guy, but we had a full shower sink,

754
00:32:01.810 --> 00:32:04.680
the mirror, toilet, the tile floor,

755
00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:07.033
we're not in tents, we're not in,

756
00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:11.190
bizarrely, we're living in some kind of weird

757
00:32:11.190 --> 00:32:12.780
like on base situation.

758
00:32:12.780 --> 00:32:16.670
So it's like, another thing that alienates our situation

759
00:32:16.670 --> 00:32:19.100
in the war to other people's situation

760
00:32:19.100 --> 00:32:22.470
is that we just had this cushy bougie job

761
00:32:22.470 --> 00:32:24.187
where we got to go home.

762
00:32:24.187 --> 00:32:28.090
And it's really bizarre to go from what to me seemed

763
00:32:28.090 --> 00:32:31.350
like working in a concentration camp into a cozy little bed

764
00:32:31.350 --> 00:32:32.750
and taking showers at night.

765
00:32:32.750 --> 00:32:36.130
But yeah, so, I mean, I was locked in the bathroom by myself

766
00:32:36.130 --> 00:32:36.963
when that was happening.

767
00:32:36.963 --> 00:32:41.963
And when otherwise was in my room by myself,

768
00:32:42.080 --> 00:32:44.240
my roommate drank a lot and was out all the time.

769
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:46.880
So I was renowned for locking myself in my room

770
00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:48.760
and just kind of people wouldn't see me

771
00:32:48.760 --> 00:32:49.640
for two or three weeks,

772
00:32:49.640 --> 00:32:52.250
at a time I'd sleep for the time that I wasn't.

773
00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:54.900
I mean, just like, come back from work.

774
00:32:54.900 --> 00:32:58.140
If I showered that I'd shower and then I'd get in bed

775
00:32:58.140 --> 00:33:01.470
and read like five pages and sleep throughout the day

776
00:33:01.470 --> 00:33:04.827
and just wake up when I had to go to work again.

777
00:33:04.827 --> 00:33:06.825
And that's when people would see me

778
00:33:06.825 --> 00:33:08.974
and then I just wouldn't, you know.

779
00:33:08.974 --> 00:33:09.807
<v Interviewer>Do you ever express</v>

780
00:33:09.807 --> 00:33:12.670
what you were going through to other colleagues?

781
00:33:12.670 --> 00:33:15.500
<v ->I don't remember to what extent I did or did not.</v>

782
00:33:15.500 --> 00:33:17.680
I can't be honest about that question.

783
00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:18.820
I've been asked a lot about it

784
00:33:18.820 --> 00:33:21.370
and I don't remember if I did.

785
00:33:21.370 --> 00:33:25.143
I know that I was really frank about being,

786
00:33:28.120 --> 00:33:31.180
basically I had told everyone

787
00:33:31.180 --> 00:33:32.630
that I was psychologically ill-equipped

788
00:33:32.630 --> 00:33:34.010
for the job from the very beginning

789
00:33:34.010 --> 00:33:35.570
and I tried to get out of the deployment.

790
00:33:35.570 --> 00:33:39.760
So what I had said was that I was losing my mind

791
00:33:39.760 --> 00:33:44.760
and that it was me that was broken, not the job.

792
00:33:45.197 --> 00:33:47.667
I'd never said that it was the camp.

793
00:33:47.667 --> 00:33:52.020
It was I always said that I couldn't take it

794
00:33:52.020 --> 00:33:54.350
but I did frequently say

795
00:33:54.350 --> 00:33:57.760
like that I was losing my shit

796
00:33:57.760 --> 00:33:59.230
and I couldn't keep it together.

797
00:33:59.230 --> 00:34:03.130
And I had a very small group of friends who knew me

798
00:34:03.130 --> 00:34:03.963
and made fun of me

799
00:34:03.963 --> 00:34:05.740
and just kind of like kept things in perspective

800
00:34:05.740 --> 00:34:08.550
and they kind of made me realize that, like, you've

801
00:34:08.550 --> 00:34:09.450
what are you gonna do?

802
00:34:09.450 --> 00:34:10.283
You know?

803
00:34:11.710 --> 00:34:16.510
Well, I mean, there was one thing that we knew I could do

804
00:34:16.510 --> 00:34:18.010
and I eventually tried it

805
00:34:18.010 --> 00:34:21.580
just like all the detainees try it and failed

806
00:34:21.580 --> 00:34:23.250
just like all the detainees fail.

807
00:34:23.250 --> 00:34:26.371
And then that was kind of the end of that story.

808
00:34:26.371 --> 00:34:27.593
<v Interviewer>What is the way out?</v>

809
00:34:27.593 --> 00:34:28.470
<v ->Suicide man.</v>

810
00:34:28.470 --> 00:34:30.300
That's the one way out of the camp.

811
00:34:30.300 --> 00:34:33.080
That's your one one ticket away from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

812
00:34:33.080 --> 00:34:34.353
is to hang yourself.

813
00:34:36.790 --> 00:34:40.320
No, I think seven people have died there.

814
00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:44.462
I know, right after we left there was a rash of hangings

815
00:34:44.462 --> 00:34:46.640
that succeeded.

816
00:34:46.640 --> 00:34:48.126
Most of them do not

817
00:34:48.126 --> 00:34:50.930
'cause other detainees don't accept that.

818
00:34:50.930 --> 00:34:54.282
Even though a lot of people try, when you try,

819
00:34:54.282 --> 00:34:57.070
it takes the complicity of everybody else in the block

820
00:34:57.070 --> 00:34:59.080
to not say anything

821
00:34:59.080 --> 00:35:03.233
'cause there's supposed to be somebody walking up and down.

822
00:35:04.750 --> 00:35:08.860
It takes takes about five to seven minutes for a person

823
00:35:08.860 --> 00:35:12.820
to choke themselves and to die from

824
00:35:12.820 --> 00:35:14.290
'cause you can't hang yourself from the top,

825
00:35:14.290 --> 00:35:16.130
you've got to hang yourself from the side.

826
00:35:16.130 --> 00:35:19.560
So you're still kind of restrained.

827
00:35:19.560 --> 00:35:22.280
So it takes a long time

828
00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:24.840
for you to fully fixate from that.

829
00:35:24.840 --> 00:35:28.860
So normally a soldier will walk by and see that

830
00:35:28.860 --> 00:35:32.670
and they'll, it's kind of a long process

831
00:35:32.670 --> 00:35:34.220
because if there's a detainee in the cell

832
00:35:34.220 --> 00:35:35.440
next to that detainee,

833
00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:39.276
then you have to get that person out and move them

834
00:35:39.276 --> 00:35:42.150
but usually the whole block just lights up

835
00:35:42.150 --> 00:35:44.330
wherever everybody's like, MP, MP, MP,

836
00:35:44.330 --> 00:35:45.500
this guy's trying to kill himself quick.

837
00:35:45.500 --> 00:35:46.333
Get in here, get in here.

838
00:35:46.333 --> 00:35:49.210
Like, I mean, so you'll know right off the bat, it's not,

839
00:35:49.210 --> 00:35:51.870
it's highly unlikely that somebody's gonna try to,

840
00:35:51.870 --> 00:35:54.520
I have heard of it, but I've never seen it

841
00:35:54.520 --> 00:35:56.520
where somebody has tried to hang themselves

842
00:35:56.520 --> 00:35:58.700
and like all the other detainees on the block

843
00:35:58.700 --> 00:36:01.040
are just like sitting there letting it happen?

844
00:36:01.040 --> 00:36:04.770
And those that did happen a few times at night too.

845
00:36:04.770 --> 00:36:06.300
<v Interviewer>Are you saying you were present</v>

846
00:36:06.300 --> 00:36:09.400
when people did try to commit suicide?

847
00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:12.870
<v ->Everybody was, I mean, it was a fairly regular occurrence.</v>

848
00:36:12.870 --> 00:36:15.090
<v Interviewer>Did you see, actually see somebody</v>

849
00:36:15.090 --> 00:36:16.820
being pulled down 'cause they're drank.

850
00:36:16.820 --> 00:36:21.820
<v ->Yeah, yeah, and never parked, like actually cut them down</v>

851
00:36:22.500 --> 00:36:24.053
but I was part of the,

852
00:36:25.260 --> 00:36:27.520
usually I was the person

853
00:36:27.520 --> 00:36:30.600
that opened up the gates for people,

854
00:36:30.600 --> 00:36:32.910
'cause people didn't really want me around for things,

855
00:36:32.910 --> 00:36:35.830
I was known as kind of an emotionally wrecked person.

856
00:36:35.830 --> 00:36:38.010
So I would always get the off jobs.

857
00:36:38.010 --> 00:36:41.440
So my job was to let people in and out of the block

858
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:43.030
because as soon as something like that happens,

859
00:36:43.030 --> 00:36:44.170
you put a radio call out

860
00:36:44.170 --> 00:36:49.170
and then a medical team runs to the situation.

861
00:36:49.300 --> 00:36:53.370
And a video camera comes, eventually later, that was my job

862
00:36:53.370 --> 00:36:54.950
when I got switched off of the blocks

863
00:36:54.950 --> 00:36:58.630
which is a whole other world was to videotape things.

864
00:36:58.630 --> 00:37:01.707
But there's a whole bunch of people report to the block

865
00:37:01.707 --> 00:37:03.840
to respond to the situations.

866
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:08.840
So most of the time, if it happened, then I never saw one

867
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:12.550
and said, hey, this guy is trying to kill himself.

868
00:37:12.550 --> 00:37:16.863
I was always kind of like off doing other things.

869
00:37:17.910 --> 00:37:21.340
So never really directly participated like with that.

870
00:37:21.340 --> 00:37:24.660
And actually, I don't think I've ever really seen any

871
00:37:24.660 --> 00:37:26.500
like up-close I know I've looked down the block

872
00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:28.280
and been like, that guy is definitely hanging in there,

873
00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:30.230
cutting him down like that,

874
00:37:30.230 --> 00:37:31.120
<v Interviewer>I've seen that.</v>

875
00:37:31.120 --> 00:37:33.120
<v ->That I've seen and known that it was happening</v>

876
00:37:33.120 --> 00:37:35.890
either on my block or on another block close to me

877
00:37:37.070 --> 00:37:41.590
but never like cutting them down.

878
00:37:41.590 --> 00:37:43.460
<v Interviewer>So when the people did commit suicide</v>

879
00:37:43.460 --> 00:37:45.730
at Guantanamo, you weren't present at that time?

880
00:37:45.730 --> 00:37:47.223
<v ->No none of my unit was.</v>

881
00:37:49.350 --> 00:37:50.890
<v Interviewer>So what else did you see</v>

882
00:37:50.890 --> 00:37:53.470
before you got taken off blocks.

883
00:37:53.470 --> 00:37:57.653
What else did you see day to day as you walked

884
00:37:57.653 --> 00:37:59.460
(indistinct) your job

885
00:37:59.460 --> 00:38:00.790
as you walked through,

886
00:38:00.790 --> 00:38:01.760
were you always in isolation, are you?

887
00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:04.160
<v ->No, so like I said, switched blocks, switched jobs.</v>

888
00:38:04.160 --> 00:38:06.190
So like I also worked in the sally port,

889
00:38:06.190 --> 00:38:08.630
so just opened up gates or,

890
00:38:08.630 --> 00:38:11.180
they did a lot of after my first couple of days

891
00:38:11.180 --> 00:38:13.350
on the blocks, I got a lot of those jobs,

892
00:38:13.350 --> 00:38:17.600
like non block jobs because every day that I worked

893
00:38:17.600 --> 00:38:20.450
I made it more and more evident that I couldn't,

894
00:38:20.450 --> 00:38:22.210
I really was not good at this job.

895
00:38:22.210 --> 00:38:24.090
Just like my psychological review had said

896
00:38:24.090 --> 00:38:26.683
that I would not be good at this job, so.

897
00:38:27.596 --> 00:38:30.020
<v Interviewer>Did you ever walk detainees</v>

898
00:38:30.020 --> 00:38:30.853
to interrogations?

899
00:38:30.853 --> 00:38:33.230
<v ->Yes, that's called escorts</v>

900
00:38:33.230 --> 00:38:34.880
and I did that job frequently.

901
00:38:34.880 --> 00:38:37.023
<v Interviewer>Can you describe what that's like.</v>

902
00:38:38.538 --> 00:38:42.060
<v ->You have a radio and you're calling on the radio</v>

903
00:38:42.060 --> 00:38:45.440
and they you come into the office and you're handed a slip

904
00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:48.180
and it has the detainees number, location

905
00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:49.690
and where they're gonna move to,

906
00:38:49.690 --> 00:38:53.200
you get a pair of three piece shackles, handcuffs,

907
00:38:53.200 --> 00:38:57.330
waist belt and feat shackles that are all chained together

908
00:38:57.330 --> 00:39:00.570
and one lock and a set of keys

909
00:39:00.570 --> 00:39:04.370
and then you walk to the location where the detainee is.

910
00:39:04.370 --> 00:39:06.170
You ask them to put,

911
00:39:06.170 --> 00:39:08.360
you tell them that they're going to interrogation.

912
00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:10.140
You open up the bean holes.

913
00:39:10.140 --> 00:39:13.660
They put their hands through, you shackle their hands.

914
00:39:13.660 --> 00:39:15.460
It's like left first and then right.

915
00:39:15.460 --> 00:39:18.180
And it's finger, you put one finger in and tightened down

916
00:39:18.180 --> 00:39:21.033
but most people just cranked them on.

917
00:39:22.847 --> 00:39:27.847
And then you drop the rest of the shackle set

918
00:39:30.970 --> 00:39:34.010
down to the floor and you open up the foot being holes

919
00:39:34.010 --> 00:39:36.770
and you reach in and you do their feet

920
00:39:36.770 --> 00:39:40.210
in the same fashion that you did their hands

921
00:39:40.210 --> 00:39:44.090
and then you ask them to hold one end of the chain

922
00:39:44.090 --> 00:39:46.170
for the waist belt and then they grab that

923
00:39:46.170 --> 00:39:49.670
and then they spin around and you hold the other end

924
00:39:49.670 --> 00:39:51.870
and then when they come back around

925
00:39:51.870 --> 00:39:56.450
you grab both and you shackle their waists to use the lock

926
00:39:56.450 --> 00:39:59.780
to shackle the waist belt to the chain

927
00:39:59.780 --> 00:40:04.410
that goes from the handcuffs from here down to their feet.

928
00:40:04.410 --> 00:40:08.310
And then the block guards will open up the door

929
00:40:08.310 --> 00:40:11.580
and the detainee will be shuffled out.

930
00:40:11.580 --> 00:40:13.830
And then from that point until they get from there

931
00:40:13.830 --> 00:40:15.670
until they're locked in the interrogation booth,

932
00:40:15.670 --> 00:40:20.670
there's both guards are to have a two points of contact

933
00:40:21.210 --> 00:40:23.010
on the detainee at all times.

934
00:40:23.010 --> 00:40:25.950
So you walk with your hands,

935
00:40:25.950 --> 00:40:28.210
one on a pressure position on their shoulder,

936
00:40:28.210 --> 00:40:30.160
which is what they tell us.

937
00:40:30.160 --> 00:40:33.350
So you're constantly ready to apply pressure

938
00:40:33.350 --> 00:40:35.740
to try to subdue them from behind

939
00:40:35.740 --> 00:40:39.300
and then the other is to hold their arm while, while yeah,

940
00:40:39.300 --> 00:40:40.360
it's like that.

941
00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.030
And then you just kind of push them forward

942
00:40:43.030 --> 00:40:45.530
and they shuffle and it's a very slow process.

943
00:40:45.530 --> 00:40:47.650
And you shuffle all the way to the interrogation booth

944
00:40:47.650 --> 00:40:50.900
which is usually through several different sally ports

945
00:40:50.900 --> 00:40:52.290
that you shuffle with these.

946
00:40:52.290 --> 00:40:53.600
And they've got sandals on there.

947
00:40:53.600 --> 00:40:55.980
They always get rocks in their sandals.

948
00:40:55.980 --> 00:40:58.737
Like oftentimes people drag them.

949
00:41:02.100 --> 00:41:02.933
I never dragged.

950
00:41:02.933 --> 00:41:05.480
I was always very polite about the whole thing for bashful

951
00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:07.100
and embarrassed about the process.

952
00:41:07.100 --> 00:41:09.024
After my first encounter,

953
00:41:09.024 --> 00:41:10.770
I had a totally different tact with the detainee.

954
00:41:10.770 --> 00:41:14.750
So it was all yeses bear pleases and thank you's

955
00:41:14.750 --> 00:41:16.700
and trying to be as polite as possible.

956
00:41:17.800 --> 00:41:19.500
<v Interviewer>Some people drag them.</v>

957
00:41:19.500 --> 00:41:20.333
<v ->Yep.</v>

958
00:41:20.333 --> 00:41:22.650
<v Interviewer>Because detainees resisted being.</v>

959
00:41:22.650 --> 00:41:23.483
<v ->Walking, yeah.</v>

960
00:41:23.483 --> 00:41:27.999
Usually after being earthed, they would resist

961
00:41:27.999 --> 00:41:31.000
'cause sometimes they could resist going to reservation

962
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:35.293
and that's what they called the interrogations reservations.

963
00:41:36.600 --> 00:41:38.010
So they would resist going to those.

964
00:41:38.010 --> 00:41:39.880
So then they would be earthed and taken out anyway

965
00:41:39.880 --> 00:41:42.200
and then take into their interrogation anyway.

966
00:41:42.200 --> 00:41:43.050
And if that was the case,

967
00:41:43.050 --> 00:41:44.800
then they'd just be dragged along the stones.

968
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:48.130
I've seen, I've dragged people along the stones before.

969
00:41:48.130 --> 00:41:49.450
<v Interviewer>Where dragging mean</v>

970
00:41:49.450 --> 00:41:50.830
that they're on all floors (indistinct)

971
00:41:50.830 --> 00:41:53.730
<v ->No you hold them by their arm and you drag them</v>

972
00:41:53.730 --> 00:41:58.310
and their legs dangle and ride along the rocks.

973
00:41:58.310 --> 00:42:00.110
<v Lady>Is there a translator there?</v>

974
00:42:00.110 --> 00:42:00.943
<v ->Yes.</v>

975
00:42:02.040 --> 00:42:03.170
I've heard that they're bad.

976
00:42:03.170 --> 00:42:05.300
I heard that they're not very good at what they do

977
00:42:05.300 --> 00:42:08.690
but there's translators for every language in the camp.

978
00:42:08.690 --> 00:42:10.840
<v Interviewer>And when you got to the interrogation room,</v>

979
00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:14.231
did you take the detainee inside the room?

980
00:42:14.231 --> 00:42:15.064
Is that part of your job?

981
00:42:15.064 --> 00:42:19.030
<v ->You take them in and you do what we call short shackling</v>

982
00:42:19.030 --> 00:42:22.750
where you shackle their feet cuffs and their handcuffs

983
00:42:22.750 --> 00:42:26.260
to an eyeball lifting plug that they screwed into the door.

984
00:42:26.260 --> 00:42:27.480
So it'll be on the floor.

985
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:30.690
And then they, sometimes there'll be a chair there,

986
00:42:30.690 --> 00:42:34.440
there's different procedure for what's in the room

987
00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:35.273
when you get there.

988
00:42:35.273 --> 00:42:37.120
And usually you're told in advance,

989
00:42:37.120 --> 00:42:39.120
like when I was, I'll get to this later,

990
00:42:39.120 --> 00:42:43.000
but you're told how to leave them in advance.

991
00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:46.380
And then so oftentimes you would sit them down on the chair

992
00:42:46.380 --> 00:42:47.680
and then shackle them

993
00:42:47.680 --> 00:42:49.660
to the point where their arms will be down like this

994
00:42:49.660 --> 00:42:51.110
and they'll just kind of hang

995
00:42:52.490 --> 00:42:54.860
or there'll be no chair and you just shackle them

996
00:42:54.860 --> 00:42:57.910
and they just kind of continuously do

997
00:42:57.910 --> 00:43:02.700
this weird repositioning, trying to find a comfortable spot

998
00:43:02.700 --> 00:43:04.050
but there is no comfortable spot

999
00:43:04.050 --> 00:43:06.670
'cause if you fall back any which way,

1000
00:43:06.670 --> 00:43:08.160
you're pulling against the shackles,

1001
00:43:08.160 --> 00:43:10.827
which cut into your hands.

1002
00:43:10.827 --> 00:43:13.850
So I've seen a lot of people with like really

1003
00:43:13.850 --> 00:43:15.500
you get a lot of cut risks,

1004
00:43:15.500 --> 00:43:19.530
a lot of risks like wounds, scabs

1005
00:43:19.530 --> 00:43:20.810
and shit on people's wrists.

1006
00:43:20.810 --> 00:43:24.360
And especially people that they interrogate in this fashion

1007
00:43:24.360 --> 00:43:27.233
for a long period of time often 'cause they do,

1008
00:43:28.650 --> 00:43:31.100
it's like some people never get interrogated down there,

1009
00:43:31.100 --> 00:43:33.190
some people get interrogated every day

1010
00:43:33.190 --> 00:43:36.890
and some interrogation are like good interrogations

1011
00:43:36.890 --> 00:43:39.270
where they can smoke a hookah.

1012
00:43:39.270 --> 00:43:41.660
There was a lot of talk about porn,

1013
00:43:41.660 --> 00:43:44.530
about like they would get McDonald's

1014
00:43:44.530 --> 00:43:46.450
and then there's interrogations

1015
00:43:46.450 --> 00:43:48.310
where they'll sit in a freezing cold box

1016
00:43:48.310 --> 00:43:52.340
with like music blasting at them for 12 hours in a row.

1017
00:43:52.340 --> 00:43:53.870
They'd just sit in there with music.

1018
00:43:53.870 --> 00:43:56.280
And then at the end of it, the interrogator would,

1019
00:43:56.280 --> 00:43:58.080
well we would never actually see what would go on

1020
00:43:58.080 --> 00:43:59.680
inside the booth 'cause once you're done

1021
00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:02.130
shackling the detainee floor, that's it, you're done.

1022
00:44:02.130 --> 00:44:04.850
You're job over, you go,

1023
00:44:04.850 --> 00:44:07.050
you turn in the keys to those shackles

1024
00:44:07.050 --> 00:44:09.600
to the escort control and then you wait for another call.

1025
00:44:09.600 --> 00:44:10.433
That's it.

1026
00:44:10.433 --> 00:44:15.120
They shut the door and there's rooms

1027
00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:15.953
where the cameras work,

1028
00:44:15.953 --> 00:44:17.390
there's rooms where the cameras doesn't,

1029
00:44:17.390 --> 00:44:19.160
there's people that monitor those cameras.

1030
00:44:19.160 --> 00:44:20.280
That's a whole nother assignment

1031
00:44:20.280 --> 00:44:23.980
is to monitor the interrogation buildings but the intero.

1032
00:44:25.371 --> 00:44:26.204
<v Interviewer>How do you know what</v>

1033
00:44:26.204 --> 00:44:27.230
when an interrogation if (indistinct)

1034
00:44:27.230 --> 00:44:28.370
<v ->No, we don't know.</v>

1035
00:44:28.370 --> 00:44:31.610
We didn't have no idea what goes on interrogations.

1036
00:44:31.610 --> 00:44:32.670
<v Interviewer>And did you monitor</v>

1037
00:44:32.670 --> 00:44:35.720
the cameras in the internet?

1038
00:44:35.720 --> 00:44:38.840
<v ->Nope, but this, I know several people that did</v>

1039
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:42.720
and no one ever reported anything extreme,

1040
00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:45.290
like I mean more extreme than just the general idea

1041
00:44:45.290 --> 00:44:46.960
of like that this room is freezing cold

1042
00:44:46.960 --> 00:44:49.050
and that you're short shackled to the floor for 12 hours

1043
00:44:49.050 --> 00:44:50.270
which is pretty fucking extreme

1044
00:44:50.270 --> 00:44:52.700
but I never heard of anybody saying

1045
00:44:52.700 --> 00:44:54.750
like there were dogs in there,

1046
00:44:54.750 --> 00:44:57.141
that this person was being whipped,

1047
00:44:57.141 --> 00:45:00.210
but those were the rooms where their cameras didn't work.

1048
00:45:00.210 --> 00:45:03.053
So I mean, when they're there,

1049
00:45:03.970 --> 00:45:06.050
when you could monitor the interrogations,

1050
00:45:06.050 --> 00:45:07.490
then there was nothing to monitor.

1051
00:45:07.490 --> 00:45:08.850
The interrogators knew that

1052
00:45:08.850 --> 00:45:11.880
that would be a video friendly interrogation

1053
00:45:11.880 --> 00:45:15.663
and then there's not video friendly interrogation, so.

1054
00:45:16.687 --> 00:45:18.410
<v Interviewer>Did you pick up the detainee</v>

1055
00:45:18.410 --> 00:45:20.993
after the interrogation take him back to his cell?

1056
00:45:21.940 --> 00:45:24.640
<v ->It's not necessarily the same team that picks them up.</v>

1057
00:45:24.640 --> 00:45:27.680
It's basically like any team that's available at the time

1058
00:45:27.680 --> 00:45:31.050
'cause interrogations are that's big business in Guantanamo,

1059
00:45:31.050 --> 00:45:33.210
constantly rotating, constantly doing something.

1060
00:45:33.210 --> 00:45:34.690
You're not, there are times

1061
00:45:34.690 --> 00:45:36.220
where you're sitting around sometimes,

1062
00:45:36.220 --> 00:45:37.770
but most of the time it's like,

1063
00:45:39.390 --> 00:45:41.200
eventually that my job was to be

1064
00:45:41.200 --> 00:45:44.967
the dispatcher of the escort teams, so.

1065
00:45:44.967 --> 00:45:45.930
<v Interviewer>Did you ever pick up someone</v>

1066
00:45:45.930 --> 00:45:46.950
after an interrogation?

1067
00:45:46.950 --> 00:45:48.020
<v ->Yes, yeah.</v>

1068
00:45:48.020 --> 00:45:49.940
<v Interviewer>Could you describe what you saw</v>

1069
00:45:49.940 --> 00:45:51.043
after you picked him up?

1070
00:45:52.183 --> 00:45:53.830
<v ->Well, I mean, there is, again</v>

1071
00:45:53.830 --> 00:45:56.100
something is like very normalized behavior.

1072
00:45:56.100 --> 00:45:58.530
It's happened in a bunch of different ways.

1073
00:45:58.530 --> 00:46:01.310
It's like, I remember talking to one guy

1074
00:46:01.310 --> 00:46:04.110
about how they said, I mean,

1075
00:46:04.110 --> 00:46:06.170
every week they would tell this guy,

1076
00:46:06.170 --> 00:46:08.161
his name is Triple Nickel.

1077
00:46:08.161 --> 00:46:09.230
That's not his science name.

1078
00:46:09.230 --> 00:46:10.890
It's Isiah 7555

1079
00:46:12.733 --> 00:46:14.090
and every week he would,

1080
00:46:14.090 --> 00:46:18.190
he was a Christian Muslim and he was a Christian dude.

1081
00:46:18.190 --> 00:46:19.900
So it's kind of weird.

1082
00:46:19.900 --> 00:46:20.920
He spoke good English.

1083
00:46:20.920 --> 00:46:22.880
He used to be a drug mule

1084
00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:24.550
and basically they'd take him in.

1085
00:46:24.550 --> 00:46:26.620
I assumed that he would just ride a bunch of people out

1086
00:46:26.620 --> 00:46:28.390
and then they'd tell him, he'd go home next week.

1087
00:46:28.390 --> 00:46:31.270
And every week when you go back, it's just like so sad

1088
00:46:31.270 --> 00:46:32.880
because he's like, they telling me I'm going home,

1089
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:33.760
I'm gonna go home.

1090
00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:35.760
And he never lost that hope.

1091
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:37.370
It was like the joke of the whole year.

1092
00:46:37.370 --> 00:46:38.640
We were there is like,

1093
00:46:38.640 --> 00:46:41.199
is Triple Nickel's still going home, you know?

1094
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:45.280
So sometimes there's that weird sense of like

1095
00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:46.610
what the are these guys doing

1096
00:46:46.610 --> 00:46:48.180
playing around with these people like this,

1097
00:46:48.180 --> 00:46:50.020
you know they're not going anywhere.

1098
00:46:50.020 --> 00:46:51.710
Triple Nickel's probably still down there.

1099
00:46:51.710 --> 00:46:54.530
Like, well, actually it probably got rid of him

1100
00:46:54.530 --> 00:46:56.520
because it was,

1101
00:46:56.520 --> 00:47:00.060
we all had kind of a general opinion consensus

1102
00:47:00.060 --> 00:47:01.100
that he wasn't worth a diamond

1103
00:47:01.100 --> 00:47:02.900
as far as intelligence was worth

1104
00:47:02.900 --> 00:47:05.130
'cause he told us everything that he would have told them.

1105
00:47:05.130 --> 00:47:07.680
I mean, he's very forward about just being like,

1106
00:47:07.680 --> 00:47:09.490
oh yeah I know I told him that this guy's brother

1107
00:47:09.490 --> 00:47:11.350
was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1108
00:47:11.350 --> 00:47:13.410
And it's like, man I don't understand what you're saying,

1109
00:47:13.410 --> 00:47:14.800
but that's.

1110
00:47:14.800 --> 00:47:15.950
<v Interviewer>What, did you see anything else</v>

1111
00:47:15.950 --> 00:47:17.252
when you picked up

1112
00:47:17.252 --> 00:47:19.060
<v ->Pretty people that were pretty broken?</v>

1113
00:47:19.060 --> 00:47:21.050
I mean, I remember picking up a lot of people

1114
00:47:21.050 --> 00:47:22.920
that looked like they were fucking dead afterwards.

1115
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:26.299
Like that, especially the long ones.

1116
00:47:26.299 --> 00:47:28.720
That's another time when people get dragged

1117
00:47:28.720 --> 00:47:33.170
back to their cells is when they're just like done,

1118
00:47:33.170 --> 00:47:35.720
exhausted, burned out, got bigger problems than you.

1119
00:47:35.720 --> 00:47:37.720
And they're in a whole nother world.

1120
00:47:37.720 --> 00:47:38.553
It's weird.

1121
00:47:38.553 --> 00:47:41.550
You can just, it's like dragging a ghost around.

1122
00:47:41.550 --> 00:47:45.783
It's not, they're just broken people.

1123
00:47:45.783 --> 00:47:46.670
<v Interviewer>Did you ever see any juveniles</v>

1124
00:47:46.670 --> 00:47:47.830
while you were in?

1125
00:47:47.830 --> 00:47:50.510
<v ->I did see the young man,</v>

1126
00:47:50.510 --> 00:47:53.853
the person who was brought in when he was 14,

1127
00:47:54.890 --> 00:47:58.012
Omar Katar is his name, Katar.

1128
00:47:58.012 --> 00:48:01.163
I saw him on several occasions, I never escorted him.

1129
00:48:02.220 --> 00:48:04.830
I know that he had a lot of emotional issues

1130
00:48:04.830 --> 00:48:07.480
and I know that he was in the camp that my friend worked in,

1131
00:48:07.480 --> 00:48:09.216
which was camp four

1132
00:48:09.216 --> 00:48:11.010
which is supposed to be like a softer camp

1133
00:48:11.010 --> 00:48:16.010
until he was exposed that he was being brutally raped,

1134
00:48:17.080 --> 00:48:18.920
regular basis by other detainees

1135
00:48:18.920 --> 00:48:21.966
and then I never saw him after that again.

1136
00:48:21.966 --> 00:48:22.799
<v Interviewer>How did you get that?</v>

1137
00:48:22.799 --> 00:48:23.632
<v ->What?</v>

1138
00:48:23.632 --> 00:48:25.470
<v Interviewer>How'd you get that?</v>

1139
00:48:25.470 --> 00:48:29.250
<v ->Well, at first it came about from a joke from my friends</v>

1140
00:48:29.250 --> 00:48:30.120
who worked in the camp.

1141
00:48:30.120 --> 00:48:34.730
He said that he'd seen two men

1142
00:48:34.730 --> 00:48:36.500
'cause they're open bays in camp four,

1143
00:48:36.500 --> 00:48:39.040
there were 10 people sleeping in the same bay.

1144
00:48:39.040 --> 00:48:40.940
I think it's 10 or 12.

1145
00:48:40.940 --> 00:48:44.670
He said he saw two dudes having sex.

1146
00:48:44.670 --> 00:48:46.190
And he's a very conservative dude.

1147
00:48:46.190 --> 00:48:50.530
So he, I apologize for the frankness of the story,

1148
00:48:50.530 --> 00:48:52.750
but he opened up the mic on the radio

1149
00:48:52.750 --> 00:48:55.280
'cause he's got a radio that goes to every, like

1150
00:48:55.280 --> 00:48:59.060
into the gay and he just yelled faggots, faggots, faggots,

1151
00:48:59.060 --> 00:49:00.330
and they stopped.

1152
00:49:00.330 --> 00:49:04.990
And as he's explaining this story,

1153
00:49:04.990 --> 00:49:08.400
he's already in like point of disgust.

1154
00:49:08.400 --> 00:49:13.400
So then he said when the situation,

1155
00:49:14.460 --> 00:49:18.510
like the dudes separated and he kind of realized

1156
00:49:18.510 --> 00:49:23.510
that the person that was the recipient of the sexual act

1157
00:49:23.970 --> 00:49:28.970
was this kid who was like 15 at the time

1158
00:49:29.130 --> 00:49:32.460
and was exhibiting like

1159
00:49:32.460 --> 00:49:37.330
really intensely like negative behavior.

1160
00:49:37.330 --> 00:49:40.630
So he like this guy that hit at first,

1161
00:49:40.630 --> 00:49:42.600
like thought that it was just two dudes having sex

1162
00:49:42.600 --> 00:49:44.300
with each other in the base

1163
00:49:44.300 --> 00:49:47.925
kind of started to realize that this kid

1164
00:49:47.925 --> 00:49:49.840
was probably being molested like frequently.

1165
00:49:49.840 --> 00:49:51.370
And that he was like showing every sign

1166
00:49:51.370 --> 00:49:53.750
of being like a total, like it's really fucking

1167
00:49:53.750 --> 00:49:56.343
as psychology as well as the fact that

1168
00:49:56.343 --> 00:49:58.520
he'd like lives in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

1169
00:49:58.520 --> 00:50:01.450
and has since he was a young adolescent.

1170
00:50:01.450 --> 00:50:06.450
Has been detained since he was like 12 and then.

1171
00:50:06.700 --> 00:50:08.360
<v Interviewer>Did you report them?</v>

1172
00:50:08.360 --> 00:50:09.810
<v ->No.</v>

1173
00:50:09.810 --> 00:50:11.463
<v Interviewer>Why not, do you think.</v>

1174
00:50:12.670 --> 00:50:14.590
<v ->That's gotta be scratched his name,</v>

1175
00:50:14.590 --> 00:50:17.210
please but can't use his name.

1176
00:50:17.210 --> 00:50:18.760
He's a really good friend of mine

1177
00:50:18.760 --> 00:50:20.980
and I would never drag him into anything

1178
00:50:20.980 --> 00:50:22.283
that I've chosen to do.

1179
00:50:24.490 --> 00:50:26.950
This gig is a little on the dangerous side

1180
00:50:26.950 --> 00:50:28.200
how the paperwork floats.

1181
00:50:28.200 --> 00:50:30.680
And none of my friends are anxious to be out

1182
00:50:30.680 --> 00:50:33.003
where I am with it, so cool.

1183
00:50:33.980 --> 00:50:36.093
But that, no, it was never reported.

1184
00:50:36.958 --> 00:50:40.160
It was later realized and dealt with

1185
00:50:40.160 --> 00:50:42.870
I think it was probably a psychologist that

1186
00:50:44.190 --> 00:50:47.310
or it came out in an interrogation or something of the sort

1187
00:50:47.310 --> 00:50:49.110
and he was moved.

1188
00:50:49.110 --> 00:50:51.190
I think he was moved into the psych block

1189
00:50:51.190 --> 00:50:52.120
or something like that

1190
00:50:52.120 --> 00:50:54.620
but he was moved into a place where he was a nice isolated

1191
00:50:54.620 --> 00:50:57.650
solitary confinement for the rest of my deployment there

1192
00:50:57.650 --> 00:50:59.730
and since then I have no idea.

1193
00:50:59.730 --> 00:51:02.563
<v Interviewer>Did you see any other,</v>

1194
00:51:03.829 --> 00:51:05.260
did you see your a mistreatment,

1195
00:51:05.260 --> 00:51:09.530
any kind of mistreatment while you were walking through?

1196
00:51:09.530 --> 00:51:11.040
<v ->The blocks through the camp?</v>

1197
00:51:11.040 --> 00:51:12.680
Yes, lots of it.

1198
00:51:12.680 --> 00:51:15.810
Like I said, the IRFs are where the bulk of it happens.

1199
00:51:15.810 --> 00:51:19.250
I mean, there's like all kinds of verbal abuses,

1200
00:51:19.250 --> 00:51:20.426
things like that.

1201
00:51:20.426 --> 00:51:21.900
I mean, all day, every day,

1202
00:51:21.900 --> 00:51:24.980
like you can just assume that there's,

1203
00:51:24.980 --> 00:51:27.700
I mean massive quantities of verbal abuse happening.

1204
00:51:27.700 --> 00:51:32.700
They're always physical abuse, saw it regularly.

1205
00:51:33.910 --> 00:51:36.110
I'm not gonna say it was the rules.

1206
00:51:36.110 --> 00:51:38.288
I'm not gonna say that everyone did it.

1207
00:51:38.288 --> 00:51:40.040
I've learned a lesson about that.

1208
00:51:40.040 --> 00:51:42.310
I don't know how to exactly quantify

1209
00:51:42.310 --> 00:51:44.810
exactly how much it happened.

1210
00:51:44.810 --> 00:51:48.670
All I will say is that there is a high capacity

1211
00:51:48.670 --> 00:51:52.160
for excessive amounts of violence

1212
00:51:52.160 --> 00:51:55.360
during the extraction, cell extractions.

1213
00:51:55.360 --> 00:52:00.360
And that that's where most of the soldier

1214
00:52:01.430 --> 00:52:03.930
on detainee violence occurs.

1215
00:52:03.930 --> 00:52:07.720
That's, and, but then there's a lot of other casual

1216
00:52:07.720 --> 00:52:10.224
kind of violence taking away items from them

1217
00:52:10.224 --> 00:52:14.330
like comfort items and a lot of psychological games

1218
00:52:14.330 --> 00:52:15.940
that are played in that camp as well.

1219
00:52:15.940 --> 00:52:20.940
So but everything, it all reduces down to a dialogue about

1220
00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:24.420
what people constitute as like torture

1221
00:52:24.420 --> 00:52:26.070
or excessive amounts of violence.

1222
00:52:26.070 --> 00:52:28.290
And like in the one camp you've got,

1223
00:52:28.290 --> 00:52:29.690
these are terrorists taking away

1224
00:52:29.690 --> 00:52:31.020
their corps is such a big deal.

1225
00:52:31.020 --> 00:52:34.390
And then in the camp that I like to be considered a part of

1226
00:52:34.390 --> 00:52:35.700
is that these are human beings

1227
00:52:35.700 --> 00:52:37.440
that have never been proven guilty of anything.

1228
00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:42.237
So the idea of limiting them to just to corp is insane.

1229
00:52:44.740 --> 00:52:46.190
<v Interviewer>Can you give us an example</v>

1230
00:52:46.190 --> 00:52:48.020
of an earth that you either videotaped

1231
00:52:48.020 --> 00:52:50.196
or did you participate in any.

1232
00:52:50.196 --> 00:52:51.340
Did you ever wear.

1233
00:52:51.340 --> 00:52:53.683
<v ->I never went into a cell ever.</v>

1234
00:52:59.210 --> 00:53:02.820
I do not really want to discuss this in great detail.

1235
00:53:02.820 --> 00:53:05.890
A lot of, I have memory issues

1236
00:53:05.890 --> 00:53:08.340
about the things that I've seen in earths

1237
00:53:08.340 --> 00:53:11.610
or a lot of them a lot of images coming to my mind

1238
00:53:11.610 --> 00:53:13.140
and I don't really want them in my head,

1239
00:53:13.140 --> 00:53:15.690
and I don't, man,

1240
00:53:15.690 --> 00:53:18.290
I don't really like thinking about them a whole lot.

1241
00:53:19.300 --> 00:53:24.300
I've seen people be kicked in the face repeatedly.

1242
00:53:26.570 --> 00:53:29.840
And I mean, I'll only speak to the things

1243
00:53:29.840 --> 00:53:31.040
that I've specifically seen.

1244
00:53:31.040 --> 00:53:36.027
I know that a lot of things happened outside of my view

1245
00:53:37.420 --> 00:53:40.300
but I'm not going to use that as testimony in a real way.

1246
00:53:40.300 --> 00:53:44.460
What I have seen is people being kicked in the face,

1247
00:53:44.460 --> 00:53:45.920
excessive amounts of punching,

1248
00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:49.090
way excessive usage of OSI spray

1249
00:53:49.090 --> 00:53:50.950
would be the number one thing I would say

1250
00:53:50.950 --> 00:53:53.800
instead of like OSI spray is to be used

1251
00:53:53.800 --> 00:53:56.170
as a one second verse across the bridge of the nose.

1252
00:53:56.170 --> 00:53:58.210
And I've seen whole cans of it sprayed

1253
00:53:58.210 --> 00:53:59.950
in the whole block.

1254
00:53:59.950 --> 00:54:02.710
The lieutenants that would just walk down the block

1255
00:54:02.710 --> 00:54:04.360
just spraying the whole can

1256
00:54:04.360 --> 00:54:08.303
as if it was like an aerosol freshener into the cells.

1257
00:54:11.950 --> 00:54:13.305
There's a few more,

1258
00:54:13.305 --> 00:54:14.138
I don't really wanna go into it though.

1259
00:54:14.138 --> 00:54:18.603
I think that should do, that those have occurred.

1260
00:54:20.785 --> 00:54:22.022
<v Interviewer>And sometimes you videotape</v>

1261
00:54:22.022 --> 00:54:22.855
some of those you said.

1262
00:54:22.855 --> 00:54:24.740
<v ->Yes, later when I got into the DOC,</v>

1263
00:54:24.740 --> 00:54:27.150
part of my responsibilities were videotaping these.

1264
00:54:27.150 --> 00:54:29.200
Every everything like this is videotaped

1265
00:54:29.200 --> 00:54:32.770
for transparency purposes.

1266
00:54:32.770 --> 00:54:33.880
What happens to those films?

1267
00:54:33.880 --> 00:54:36.520
I don't know who they're transparent to, I do not know.

1268
00:54:36.520 --> 00:54:38.230
Whether or not they could be used as,

1269
00:54:38.230 --> 00:54:40.870
if I were to file a complaint, still, could I do that?

1270
00:54:40.870 --> 00:54:43.610
And could I, is that what those films are there for,

1271
00:54:43.610 --> 00:54:46.980
is like egregious usages of violence.

1272
00:54:46.980 --> 00:54:48.590
I assume that's what they're there to stop

1273
00:54:48.590 --> 00:54:50.200
but they're never referenced.

1274
00:54:50.200 --> 00:54:51.450
I've never heard them referenced.

1275
00:54:51.450 --> 00:54:53.640
I've never heard anybody speak of them.

1276
00:54:53.640 --> 00:54:57.460
I've never heard them brought into the legal side of things.

1277
00:54:57.460 --> 00:54:58.930
<v Interviewer>Where do they go after you've filmed them,</v>

1278
00:54:58.930 --> 00:55:00.060
where do that go?

1279
00:55:00.060 --> 00:55:01.390
<v ->They're taped onto little cassettes</v>

1280
00:55:01.390 --> 00:55:03.190
and then I would file the cassettes

1281
00:55:03.190 --> 00:55:05.580
into a filing cabinet and then they would just sit

1282
00:55:05.580 --> 00:55:07.270
in a filing cabinet.

1283
00:55:07.270 --> 00:55:08.590
<v Interviewer>And did people ever pull them out</v>

1284
00:55:08.590 --> 00:55:09.423
and watch them?

1285
00:55:09.423 --> 00:55:10.503
<v ->No, I don't think so.</v>

1286
00:55:11.862 --> 00:55:12.695
<v Interviewer>And were they labeled (indistinct)</v>

1287
00:55:12.695 --> 00:55:14.620
<v ->I don't even know who is responsible for the,</v>

1288
00:55:14.620 --> 00:55:16.180
no, they're not really labeled all that well,

1289
00:55:16.180 --> 00:55:18.770
either they just have a date on them,

1290
00:55:18.770 --> 00:55:21.390
as far as I know, as far as I can remember is like

1291
00:55:21.390 --> 00:55:23.090
we'd use the same footage,

1292
00:55:23.090 --> 00:55:27.750
the same tape for a lot of different earths

1293
00:55:27.750 --> 00:55:29.530
and then like, we would just collect the tapes

1294
00:55:29.530 --> 00:55:32.070
until they filled up and then we would use another tape

1295
00:55:32.070 --> 00:55:33.890
and that it would just have the start date on it

1296
00:55:33.890 --> 00:55:38.520
and then at the beginning of each earth on the film,

1297
00:55:38.520 --> 00:55:42.800
it would be everybody, we would go through

1298
00:55:42.800 --> 00:55:46.130
and everybody that's in partaking in it would say

1299
00:55:46.130 --> 00:55:48.220
I'm the number one man, my name

1300
00:55:48.220 --> 00:55:50.260
and my social security today's date.

1301
00:55:50.260 --> 00:55:52.870
And then the next person would say, I'm number two,

1302
00:55:52.870 --> 00:55:54.830
my name social security today's date.

1303
00:55:54.830 --> 00:55:57.920
So that was their means of accountability.

1304
00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:00.070
But then the thing that happens with these videotapes

1305
00:56:00.070 --> 00:56:01.010
is that when there's an earth,

1306
00:56:01.010 --> 00:56:04.940
there's like 15 people that come to the spot.

1307
00:56:04.940 --> 00:56:08.130
And whenever I would go with the camera,

1308
00:56:08.130 --> 00:56:10.843
I remember the first time I went out and like,

1309
00:56:10.843 --> 00:56:14.820
my NCO was like, all right, make sure

1310
00:56:14.820 --> 00:56:19.820
that you just kind of be, like kind of forgiving about this.

1311
00:56:22.580 --> 00:56:23.970
I don't know how to say it exactly

1312
00:56:23.970 --> 00:56:26.500
how he told me to go into the situation

1313
00:56:26.500 --> 00:56:29.100
but basically you were saying, if it gets crazy,

1314
00:56:29.100 --> 00:56:31.640
don't videotape what they're doing.

1315
00:56:31.640 --> 00:56:34.300
Like so, and then I got to the situation,

1316
00:56:34.300 --> 00:56:36.080
never been trained on what to do

1317
00:56:36.080 --> 00:56:39.560
and I realized that they had shouldered all of these people,

1318
00:56:39.560 --> 00:56:42.530
the medics and the officers and the platoon sergeants

1319
00:56:42.530 --> 00:56:44.200
had shouldered me to the back

1320
00:56:44.200 --> 00:56:45.970
and this was, and it was looking like,

1321
00:56:45.970 --> 00:56:49.880
it's this is like crazy block riot situation that's going on

1322
00:56:49.880 --> 00:56:52.670
'cause it's like, it's during the period.

1323
00:56:52.670 --> 00:56:55.350
I think that this was during, when we were trying to take,

1324
00:56:55.350 --> 00:56:57.870
we were taking pants away from people on Romeo block

1325
00:56:57.870 --> 00:57:01.050
and that was crazy, crazy, people share everywhere.

1326
00:57:01.050 --> 00:57:03.590
They had to build plastic.

1327
00:57:03.590 --> 00:57:05.460
They put plastic things on the sides

1328
00:57:05.460 --> 00:57:06.810
of the cells in Romeo block

1329
00:57:06.810 --> 00:57:09.580
'cause it was a literal shit storm.

1330
00:57:09.580 --> 00:57:12.000
Like, I mean, just like people that were working the blocks

1331
00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:14.130
said that it was like feces and pee

1332
00:57:14.130 --> 00:57:17.240
just spraying across the blocks all day long

1333
00:57:17.240 --> 00:57:20.200
just like a constant bombardment of it.

1334
00:57:20.200 --> 00:57:25.200
And I remember trying to get into that space and everybody

1335
00:57:25.520 --> 00:57:28.030
I realized I was being like really shouldered out like that.

1336
00:57:28.030 --> 00:57:31.060
It was, they were making it impossible for me

1337
00:57:31.060 --> 00:57:31.893
to get in there.

1338
00:57:31.893 --> 00:57:34.100
So I finally was just got like really assertive

1339
00:57:34.100 --> 00:57:35.990
for once and I was just like, get out of my way.

1340
00:57:35.990 --> 00:57:37.270
Like I've got a responsibility.

1341
00:57:37.270 --> 00:57:39.840
So I pushed the Lieutenant to the side

1342
00:57:39.840 --> 00:57:44.840
which I was later reprimanded for pushing an officer.

1343
00:57:44.920 --> 00:57:47.370
And then, but then somebody stood up for me.

1344
00:57:47.370 --> 00:57:51.997
So, but I kind of got up

1345
00:57:51.997 --> 00:57:53.007
and I had to like reach the camera up

1346
00:57:53.007 --> 00:57:54.470
and I twisted the thing down

1347
00:57:54.470 --> 00:57:56.400
and I had to get this like top-down view

1348
00:57:56.400 --> 00:57:58.330
over the people's heads

1349
00:57:58.330 --> 00:58:03.210
plus with an earth you're talking about five grown soldiers

1350
00:58:04.550 --> 00:58:07.520
in riot gear and a detainee

1351
00:58:07.520 --> 00:58:11.960
inside of a five foot by eight foot space.

1352
00:58:11.960 --> 00:58:16.770
That's six people, it's a six person party inside of a cell.

1353
00:58:16.770 --> 00:58:20.870
It's already occupied by a toilet and a bed and you know

1354
00:58:20.870 --> 00:58:21.770
all their other stuff.

1355
00:58:21.770 --> 00:58:23.520
So when all their other stuff,

1356
00:58:23.520 --> 00:58:26.720
not like they had that much stuff to occupy it with, but.

1357
00:58:26.720 --> 00:58:31.300
So it's a lot of commotion that goes on in those situations.

1358
00:58:31.300 --> 00:58:34.370
And it's really like, you can't see much during the camera

1359
00:58:34.370 --> 00:58:38.720
except you see five dudes doing that and then you know

1360
00:58:39.867 --> 00:58:41.483
that that's like, I mean,

1361
00:58:43.539 --> 00:58:44.980
I can't tell you how many times I've videotaped that

1362
00:58:44.980 --> 00:58:46.500
where it's just like pummeling,

1363
00:58:46.500 --> 00:58:48.240
people being fucking pummeled after

1364
00:58:48.240 --> 00:58:51.326
during these things that long past

1365
00:58:51.326 --> 00:58:53.240
and then there's always the little kicks

1366
00:58:53.240 --> 00:58:55.193
and jabs and stuff too.

1367
00:58:56.450 --> 00:58:57.420
<v Interviewer>And then what happens</v>

1368
00:58:57.420 --> 00:59:00.003
after they get pummeled?

1369
00:59:01.380 --> 00:59:03.610
<v ->Either they go to wherever they were supposed to go</v>

1370
00:59:03.610 --> 00:59:05.390
or whatever was supposed to be taken from them

1371
00:59:05.390 --> 00:59:06.223
is taken from them

1372
00:59:06.223 --> 00:59:08.390
and then they go back into the cell.

1373
00:59:08.390 --> 00:59:09.510
Their hair is shaved.

1374
00:59:09.510 --> 00:59:11.380
That's one thing that they do,

1375
00:59:11.380 --> 00:59:13.020
is they take them out into the rec yard

1376
00:59:13.020 --> 00:59:16.690
and they shave their hair off and then bring them back in.

1377
00:59:16.690 --> 00:59:21.690
It's kind of like a mark of the hoofed

1378
00:59:21.750 --> 00:59:24.500
is the shaved head, but poorly shaved head

1379
00:59:24.500 --> 00:59:26.520
'cause they'll leave patches of hair

1380
00:59:26.520 --> 00:59:30.340
all over the place long, strands of beard.

1381
00:59:30.340 --> 00:59:31.820
They'll shave at their beards,

1382
00:59:31.820 --> 00:59:35.670
which is obviously that like way against the rules.

1383
00:59:35.670 --> 00:59:38.630
Later they cracked down on shit like that

1384
00:59:38.630 --> 00:59:39.670
and they started saying like,

1385
00:59:39.670 --> 00:59:41.440
no, that's really unprofessional, you know?

1386
00:59:41.440 --> 00:59:44.380
Like they picked and choose what they would say was too,

1387
00:59:46.367 --> 00:59:49.653
that's too crazy for this place but.

1388
00:59:49.653 --> 00:59:52.303
<v Interviewer>Did you ever see anybody water hosed?</v>

1389
01:00:00.780 --> 01:00:02.560
<v ->We had hoses on the blocks</v>

1390
01:00:02.560 --> 01:00:07.550
and I know that we used to

1391
01:00:08.700 --> 01:00:11.930
like kind of playfully spray the detainees

1392
01:00:11.930 --> 01:00:13.303
every once in a while.

1393
01:00:14.150 --> 01:00:17.150
I'm really hoping that that's still a playful memory

1394
01:00:17.150 --> 01:00:20.307
and I've never thought about it as like, holy shit

1395
01:00:20.307 --> 01:00:21.620
why are hosing these people.

1396
01:00:21.620 --> 01:00:23.260
But I mean, it's just like a garden hose.

1397
01:00:23.260 --> 01:00:24.730
And I mean, it's really hot there too.

1398
01:00:24.730 --> 01:00:28.470
So I don't know a lot of times when they were playing

1399
01:00:28.470 --> 01:00:29.670
and 'cause not everything

1400
01:00:29.670 --> 01:00:32.260
is super intense, crazy violent there all also,

1401
01:00:32.260 --> 01:00:34.310
everything like basically

1402
01:00:34.310 --> 01:00:38.780
I'm just pointing out the egregious errors in this,

1403
01:00:38.780 --> 01:00:41.320
a lot of times like just totally peaceful,

1404
01:00:41.320 --> 01:00:43.520
whatever you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing.

1405
01:00:43.520 --> 01:00:47.880
Especially after we got into the the vibe of the place.

1406
01:00:47.880 --> 01:00:50.158
At first people got out a lot of aggression

1407
01:00:50.158 --> 01:00:53.540
and then for the other eight months of the year,

1408
01:00:53.540 --> 01:00:54.910
you're just kind of doing a job.

1409
01:00:54.910 --> 01:00:56.840
So there were playful times too.

1410
01:00:56.840 --> 01:00:59.420
And I remember people talking about spraying the detainees

1411
01:00:59.420 --> 01:01:01.060
with hoses in the rec yards,

1412
01:01:01.060 --> 01:01:02.410
'cause they like asked for it

1413
01:01:02.410 --> 01:01:06.523
or like joking and like spraying inside the cells.

1414
01:01:07.880 --> 01:01:10.420
And I really hope that those stories were as positive

1415
01:01:10.420 --> 01:01:13.510
and friendly and jovial as they struck me

1416
01:01:13.510 --> 01:01:15.890
because I would hate to think that that situation

1417
01:01:15.890 --> 01:01:19.630
was yet another guard story of somebody like walking

1418
01:01:19.630 --> 01:01:21.440
through the cell's spraying.

1419
01:01:21.440 --> 01:01:22.640
And I could see that being an issue

1420
01:01:22.640 --> 01:01:25.390
because if you spray the Catan or Quran Catan,

1421
01:01:25.390 --> 01:01:27.290
sorry we've been playing a sport camp,

1422
01:01:28.190 --> 01:01:30.370
settlers of Catan anyway.

1423
01:01:30.370 --> 01:01:32.750
But if you spray the Quran with water

1424
01:01:32.750 --> 01:01:36.576
you'd probably start a shit show also, but.

1425
01:01:36.576 --> 01:01:39.326
<v Interviewer>Why was everyone's pants being removed?</v>

1426
01:01:40.740 --> 01:01:43.320
<v ->'Cause we were giving them shorts instead of pants,</v>

1427
01:01:43.320 --> 01:01:45.630
pants were too much of a responsibility for them.

1428
01:01:45.630 --> 01:01:46.630
I don't know.

1429
01:01:46.630 --> 01:01:47.690
<v Interviewer>That's what you think?</v>

1430
01:01:47.690 --> 01:01:49.483
<v ->These are just those crazy,</v>

1431
01:01:50.340 --> 01:01:53.800
you know just like crazy rules that come from on high.

1432
01:01:53.800 --> 01:01:58.130
Like the kernel makes some half fast wild decision

1433
01:01:58.130 --> 01:01:59.030
in the middle of the day.

1434
01:01:59.030 --> 01:02:00.750
And then all of a sudden a new paperwork is out

1435
01:02:00.750 --> 01:02:02.370
and we have to route through a whole block

1436
01:02:02.370 --> 01:02:05.660
or a whole camp to get some item back from people

1437
01:02:05.660 --> 01:02:07.940
'cause he is or giving them something

1438
01:02:07.940 --> 01:02:12.290
'cause he's feeling either generous or like a tyrant.

1439
01:02:12.290 --> 01:02:15.170
So it's like once or twice a week,

1440
01:02:15.170 --> 01:02:18.740
there'd be a new thing introduced or taken back.

1441
01:02:18.740 --> 01:02:21.380
It's a constant ebb and flow of things.

1442
01:02:21.380 --> 01:02:24.372
If they didn't provide us with reasons to go in

1443
01:02:24.372 --> 01:02:26.250
and have them, then we'd provide our own

1444
01:02:26.250 --> 01:02:28.800
by making situations that we knew they would react to, so.

1445
01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:29.820
<v Interviewer>You were saying</v>

1446
01:02:29.820 --> 01:02:32.500
that you wanted long pants to replace them with shorts.

1447
01:02:32.500 --> 01:02:33.502
<v ->Yeah.</v>

1448
01:02:33.502 --> 01:02:34.960
<v Interviewer>That's understood.</v>

1449
01:02:34.960 --> 01:02:39.960
Did you ever see any force feeding or an hunger strike?

1450
01:02:41.140 --> 01:02:43.370
<v ->No, I heard of hunger strikes, yes.</v>

1451
01:02:43.370 --> 01:02:47.470
People, like people very frequently would not eat

1452
01:02:47.470 --> 01:02:49.470
and hand back their food a lot.

1453
01:02:49.470 --> 01:02:50.840
But like I said, we never had

1454
01:02:50.840 --> 01:02:53.170
like a one-on-one relationship with any detainees

1455
01:02:53.170 --> 01:02:54.680
'cause of how we traveled through the camps.

1456
01:02:54.680 --> 01:02:57.740
So, and camps, there's multiple camps

1457
01:02:58.689 --> 01:02:59.970
and they would rotate you through the camps as well.

1458
01:02:59.970 --> 01:03:02.920
So you never really got a feeling for like,

1459
01:03:02.920 --> 01:03:07.260
oh this guy is hunger striking all the time or not.

1460
01:03:07.260 --> 01:03:08.910
They'll be in their notes.

1461
01:03:08.910 --> 01:03:11.090
if you're supposed to say,

1462
01:03:11.090 --> 01:03:12.620
you're supposed to type it into the computer

1463
01:03:12.620 --> 01:03:15.430
whenever a detainee does anything of note.

1464
01:03:15.430 --> 01:03:16.700
And if they're not eating

1465
01:03:16.700 --> 01:03:18.040
or if they've handed back a full meal

1466
01:03:18.040 --> 01:03:19.970
then that's something that you would put into the computer.

1467
01:03:19.970 --> 01:03:21.520
A lot of people don't do that shit though.

1468
01:03:21.520 --> 01:03:24.350
I mean, a lot of people were just like, whatever

1469
01:03:24.350 --> 01:03:26.210
just throw it in the garbage, fine.

1470
01:03:26.210 --> 01:03:28.660
They don't wanna write something in the computer.

1471
01:03:29.590 --> 01:03:31.460
<v Interviewer>And you saw, I never saw a force feeding.</v>

1472
01:03:31.460 --> 01:03:32.840
You were never in the medical clinic?

1473
01:03:32.840 --> 01:03:33.820
<v ->No, nope.</v>

1474
01:03:33.820 --> 01:03:34.750
But I know it happened.

1475
01:03:34.750 --> 01:03:37.920
I mean, I've talked to enough detainees from them,

1476
01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:39.230
they've been forced fed.

1477
01:03:39.230 --> 01:03:40.530
<v Interviewer>They would tell you that?</v>

1478
01:03:40.530 --> 01:03:43.330
<v ->Yeah, but that's all gathered from</v>

1479
01:03:43.330 --> 01:03:46.100
like Gerald Omari and Marvin begging Omar

1480
01:03:46.100 --> 01:03:49.180
to guys who all said that they were forced fed

1481
01:03:49.180 --> 01:03:51.336
at some point in time or the other, so.

1482
01:03:51.336 --> 01:03:52.900
<v Interviewer>Did you ever observe doctors</v>

1483
01:03:54.020 --> 01:03:55.250
in the cells at all?

1484
01:03:55.250 --> 01:03:56.210
You said there was a medic.

1485
01:03:56.210 --> 01:03:57.760
<v ->Yeah, there's medics and there's psychs</v>

1486
01:03:59.640 --> 01:04:04.640
and then there's, the doctors make the rounds every day

1487
01:04:05.570 --> 01:04:07.850
and ask about complaints and set up schedules

1488
01:04:07.850 --> 01:04:11.270
for people to go to the hospital or to the clinic.

1489
01:04:11.270 --> 01:04:13.690
There's two different things in the camp,

1490
01:04:13.690 --> 01:04:14.710
the clinic in the hospital,

1491
01:04:14.710 --> 01:04:16.967
clinics for like a little day to day shit.

1492
01:04:16.967 --> 01:04:21.600
And the hospital is where they had like,

1493
01:04:21.600 --> 01:04:23.740
I think there's two people.

1494
01:04:23.740 --> 01:04:28.740
What'd they call, they called one the guy from oh shit.

1495
01:04:32.210 --> 01:04:33.740
Timmy, they call him Timmy.

1496
01:04:33.740 --> 01:04:35.235
I don't know.

1497
01:04:35.235 --> 01:04:39.170
He was beaten so severely in one of the camps

1498
01:04:39.170 --> 01:04:41.320
that he was rendered completely physically

1499
01:04:41.320 --> 01:04:42.620
and mentally retarded.

1500
01:04:42.620 --> 01:04:45.930
And he was like hooked up to life support

1501
01:04:45.930 --> 01:04:47.880
in the hospital all the time.

1502
01:04:47.880 --> 01:04:49.090
I don't know when this happened.

1503
01:04:49.090 --> 01:04:51.810
It was before we came, he was like a camp legend.

1504
01:04:51.810 --> 01:04:55.560
He was just some detainee that was just totally broken.

1505
01:04:55.560 --> 01:04:58.590
And we were just keeping him alive in the camp.

1506
01:04:58.590 --> 01:04:59.840
<v Interviewer>You never saw him.</v>

1507
01:04:59.840 --> 01:05:02.390
<v ->I did see him once.</v>

1508
01:05:02.390 --> 01:05:04.260
<v Interviewer>You saw him when hooked up on life support?</v>

1509
01:05:04.260 --> 01:05:07.310
<v ->Yeah, I was in the hospital one time.</v>

1510
01:05:07.310 --> 01:05:08.780
I mean, it's not like crazy life support.

1511
01:05:08.780 --> 01:05:10.200
Like, I mean, it's just like,

1512
01:05:10.200 --> 01:05:13.250
I think they just feed him with tubes and stuff.

1513
01:05:13.250 --> 01:05:15.190
It's not like respiratory.

1514
01:05:15.190 --> 01:05:20.190
I think he's still conscious, just super, super fucked up.

1515
01:05:20.570 --> 01:05:22.520
<v Interviewer>And people told you that</v>

1516
01:05:22.520 --> 01:05:24.780
it was the result of being beaten.

1517
01:05:24.780 --> 01:05:26.140
<v ->Yeah, that was word on the street.</v>

1518
01:05:26.140 --> 01:05:27.490
But total rumor, we couldn't,

1519
01:05:27.490 --> 01:05:29.783
we had no way of checking these things,

1520
01:05:29.783 --> 01:05:31.380
and the detainee hospital

1521
01:05:31.380 --> 01:05:34.830
has a top secret file clearance too.

1522
01:05:34.830 --> 01:05:36.220
So you can't get information

1523
01:05:36.220 --> 01:05:38.010
about detainees that are in the hospital

1524
01:05:38.010 --> 01:05:39.900
as well even when I worked in the DOC,

1525
01:05:39.900 --> 01:05:41.620
the detention operations center,

1526
01:05:41.620 --> 01:05:44.280
where I had access

1527
01:05:44.280 --> 01:05:46.310
to basically all the detainees information

1528
01:05:46.310 --> 01:05:48.950
that they would allow, there was a whole other tier

1529
01:05:48.950 --> 01:05:51.690
to that system that I could not access in the hospital,

1530
01:05:51.690 --> 01:05:53.190
anybody in the hospital was one of them.

1531
01:05:53.190 --> 01:05:55.720
So I couldn't get any information about that.

1532
01:05:55.720 --> 01:05:57.030
I remember being really bummed out

1533
01:05:57.030 --> 01:05:59.040
'cause I liked researching the detainees

1534
01:05:59.040 --> 01:06:00.530
and seeing what was going on

1535
01:06:00.530 --> 01:06:02.480
but that was really limited to the guard notes.

1536
01:06:02.480 --> 01:06:04.260
We didn't get any of the interrogation notes

1537
01:06:04.260 --> 01:06:07.270
or like these files that the were just released.

1538
01:06:07.270 --> 01:06:11.500
That's all stuff that was out of our hands.

1539
01:06:11.500 --> 01:06:12.333
<v Interviewer>Could you tell us</v>

1540
01:06:12.333 --> 01:06:14.443
what the detainee operations center is?

1541
01:06:15.290 --> 01:06:19.430
<v ->It's the DOC, detention operations center.</v>

1542
01:06:19.430 --> 01:06:21.380
It is where,

1543
01:06:21.380 --> 01:06:23.500
it's basically the hub of information

1544
01:06:23.500 --> 01:06:24.960
for everything that happens in the camp

1545
01:06:24.960 --> 01:06:27.810
'cause you've got an alphabet of blocks

1546
01:06:27.810 --> 01:06:30.090
A through I think there's a Zulu block.

1547
01:06:30.090 --> 01:06:31.760
There might just be a Yankee block.

1548
01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:34.110
I think there's a Zulu block, I can't remember.

1549
01:06:35.570 --> 01:06:39.790
And camp five and camp six and camp Guana

1550
01:06:39.790 --> 01:06:43.133
and all of these different things gather information.

1551
01:06:43.133 --> 01:06:45.580
Like that's the purpose of the campus to gather information

1552
01:06:45.580 --> 01:06:47.730
and to monitor the detainees.

1553
01:06:47.730 --> 01:06:50.610
So all of that information

1554
01:06:50.610 --> 01:06:53.520
routes back into the detention operations center

1555
01:06:53.520 --> 01:06:57.810
which takes that information, organizes it, edits it

1556
01:06:57.810 --> 01:07:02.810
and also has the job of keeping up communications

1557
01:07:03.770 --> 01:07:06.590
with the auxiliary operations of the unit

1558
01:07:06.590 --> 01:07:08.820
like the tower guards,

1559
01:07:08.820 --> 01:07:10.950
the infantry that would patrol around the camp,

1560
01:07:10.950 --> 01:07:13.730
the infantry reaction forces

1561
01:07:13.730 --> 01:07:18.000
that would like, that if the camp was like really crazy,

1562
01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:20.550
they would call in like a big assault force

1563
01:07:20.550 --> 01:07:22.903
to kind of just like take the camp over again.

1564
01:07:23.850 --> 01:07:24.683
Never happened

1565
01:07:24.683 --> 01:07:27.523
but it's like a theoretical, could happen.

1566
01:07:29.260 --> 01:07:32.970
And you know there's a quartermaster

1567
01:07:32.970 --> 01:07:34.240
where that has guns and everything.

1568
01:07:34.240 --> 01:07:38.980
So basically, and all of the food that goes to the camp.

1569
01:07:38.980 --> 01:07:42.040
It's basically like every operation,

1570
01:07:42.040 --> 01:07:43.530
it's paperwork folk,

1571
01:07:43.530 --> 01:07:46.210
it like comes through the DOC

1572
01:07:46.210 --> 01:07:48.530
and is rerouted to whatever particular office

1573
01:07:48.530 --> 01:07:50.630
that needed to be rerouted from.

1574
01:07:50.630 --> 01:07:54.420
And that is largely a computerized system.

1575
01:07:54.420 --> 01:07:59.420
And due to the charms of the modern war

1576
01:07:59.570 --> 01:08:03.440
that everything's run by computers and the NCO

1577
01:08:03.440 --> 01:08:04.760
the non commissioned officers

1578
01:08:04.760 --> 01:08:06.723
and the officers are all older people

1579
01:08:06.723 --> 01:08:10.280
that in 2004 didn't even know how to use fucking computers.

1580
01:08:10.280 --> 01:08:12.800
So they realized that they had a whole bank

1581
01:08:12.800 --> 01:08:16.460
of things that they didn't know how to operate

1582
01:08:16.460 --> 01:08:19.940
and they basically made a call out to the units and said,

1583
01:08:19.940 --> 01:08:21.160
send us your nerds.

1584
01:08:21.160 --> 01:08:24.787
We want all of your computer nerds, your geeks,

1585
01:08:24.787 --> 01:08:27.040
like if they know how to use the computer,

1586
01:08:27.040 --> 01:08:30.190
send us your 19 year old freaks, we want, we need them.

1587
01:08:30.190 --> 01:08:33.380
So I was gathered up in a minute.

1588
01:08:33.380 --> 01:08:36.215
My Charlie battery was like, we got you guy.

1589
01:08:36.215 --> 01:08:37.400
And they sent me there.

1590
01:08:37.400 --> 01:08:41.500
I interviewed with the NCO in charge there.

1591
01:08:41.500 --> 01:08:44.380
And then that was my new job.

1592
01:08:44.380 --> 01:08:46.223
<v Interviewer>And what was your job then?</v>

1593
01:08:47.560 --> 01:08:51.370
<v ->I learned from a guy who ran the thing before.</v>

1594
01:08:51.370 --> 01:08:54.440
And it was basically to just do everything.

1595
01:08:54.440 --> 01:08:57.700
I mean, you're on every hour, you're making radio checks,

1596
01:08:57.700 --> 01:09:00.530
you're playing over the loudspeakers.

1597
01:09:00.530 --> 01:09:03.883
You're playing the call to prayer on time.

1598
01:09:04.830 --> 01:09:07.350
You're making phone checks with the blocks,

1599
01:09:07.350 --> 01:09:08.680
your radio checks to the block,

1600
01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:10.260
making sure that radio communication

1601
01:09:10.260 --> 01:09:11.910
is operating throughout the camp.

1602
01:09:13.510 --> 01:09:15.600
You are fielding questions

1603
01:09:15.600 --> 01:09:19.110
and you're the standard operating procedure guru

1604
01:09:19.110 --> 01:09:19.943
of the camp.

1605
01:09:19.943 --> 01:09:21.840
Like basically, like I had to know

1606
01:09:21.840 --> 01:09:23.680
that thing inside and out about it.

1607
01:09:23.680 --> 01:09:26.490
So like when they called me, I could say, well

1608
01:09:26.490 --> 01:09:29.010
the rule book says this and the rule book says that,

1609
01:09:29.010 --> 01:09:31.340
but then there was a dozen different varieties

1610
01:09:31.340 --> 01:09:33.520
of the standard operating procedure at the same time.

1611
01:09:33.520 --> 01:09:36.290
The detention operation center had an updated version

1612
01:09:36.290 --> 01:09:39.000
and the blocks had all the old paper versions.

1613
01:09:39.000 --> 01:09:42.910
So it's like, so there was all these misconceptions

1614
01:09:42.910 --> 01:09:44.550
that went on and it changed.

1615
01:09:44.550 --> 01:09:46.850
Like I said, like the commander of the camp

1616
01:09:46.850 --> 01:09:49.580
loved to release memorandums of new rules,

1617
01:09:49.580 --> 01:09:51.510
amendments to rules and stuff like that.

1618
01:09:51.510 --> 01:09:55.300
So, I mean, there was a standard opera operating procedure

1619
01:09:55.300 --> 01:09:57.160
and then there was like 2.5,

1620
01:09:57.160 --> 01:09:59.200
which is like a whole other book of amendments

1621
01:09:59.200 --> 01:10:01.780
to the whole thing and like things that work,

1622
01:10:01.780 --> 01:10:02.740
things that don't work.

1623
01:10:02.740 --> 01:10:07.740
And then, oh, sorry.

1624
01:10:07.920 --> 01:10:09.099
<v Interviewer>Do you wanna ask the question?</v>

1625
01:10:09.099 --> 01:10:10.193
<v Lady>Next time.</v>

1626
01:10:10.193 --> 01:10:11.753
<v Interviewer>(indistinct)</v>

1627
01:10:11.753 --> 01:10:12.586
<v Lady>(indistinct)</v>

1628
01:10:12.586 --> 01:10:14.336
<v Interviewer>Okay.</v>

1629
01:10:15.560 --> 01:10:17.720
<v ->Yeah, I think, well,</v>

1630
01:10:17.720 --> 01:10:20.530
so I'll finish breaking down the operations of the DOC

1631
01:10:20.530 --> 01:10:21.910
and then there's another section

1632
01:10:21.910 --> 01:10:24.610
which is escort control, separate office,

1633
01:10:24.610 --> 01:10:26.850
and that's what I just explained earlier.

1634
01:10:26.850 --> 01:10:28.080
The escort teams,

1635
01:10:28.080 --> 01:10:30.314
they all sign up at the beginning of a shift.

1636
01:10:30.314 --> 01:10:33.390
They receive a radio,

1637
01:10:33.390 --> 01:10:36.310
the escort control person signs for everything in that room,

1638
01:10:36.310 --> 01:10:38.840
all the keys, all the radios, all the shackles, everything.

1639
01:10:38.840 --> 01:10:39.890
This is the military man.

1640
01:10:39.890 --> 01:10:42.053
You lose it and you're online.

1641
01:10:44.710 --> 01:10:47.853
And the yeah, then.

1642
01:10:47.853 --> 01:10:50.120
<v Interviewer>You were the central person</v>

1643
01:10:50.120 --> 01:10:51.000
for a lot of this?

1644
01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:53.380
<v ->Yeah, either in the DOC.</v>

1645
01:10:53.380 --> 01:10:54.700
When I worked in the DOC,

1646
01:10:54.700 --> 01:10:58.170
I was a central person there, but there are still NCOs, NCOs

1647
01:10:58.170 --> 01:10:59.410
there that do that job.

1648
01:10:59.410 --> 01:11:02.300
I was only the central person

1649
01:11:02.300 --> 01:11:04.550
for like operating the computers.

1650
01:11:04.550 --> 01:11:05.710
All the decision-making,

1651
01:11:05.710 --> 01:11:08.210
all that went to the up and ups.

1652
01:11:08.210 --> 01:11:10.030
I was just the person that they said,

1653
01:11:10.030 --> 01:11:11.160
log this in the computer.

1654
01:11:11.160 --> 01:11:13.530
If this is the USS enterprise,

1655
01:11:13.530 --> 01:11:17.650
I'm like, I don't know what the checkoff,

1656
01:11:17.650 --> 01:11:19.920
like I'm just with my little computer,

1657
01:11:19.920 --> 01:11:20.820
like putting things in,

1658
01:11:20.820 --> 01:11:23.863
not decision-maker just making the radios work,

1659
01:11:24.850 --> 01:11:28.940
and doing stuff and filing the papers, not decision-making.

1660
01:11:28.940 --> 01:11:30.920
And then in the escort control side,

1661
01:11:30.920 --> 01:11:32.170
it's all basically just

1662
01:11:35.170 --> 01:11:36.840
fulfilling the expectations of that job.

1663
01:11:36.840 --> 01:11:40.413
I don't know how to explain it so, so much, but.

1664
01:11:42.980 --> 01:11:44.990
So those are the two major functions of that.

1665
01:11:44.990 --> 01:11:47.553
And then that office,

1666
01:11:50.330 --> 01:11:52.040
we shared that office with all the command

1667
01:11:52.040 --> 01:11:55.200
and the whole camp, command, Sergeant Major Mendez

1668
01:11:55.200 --> 01:12:00.120
and Colonel, oh God, we went through two generals

1669
01:12:00.120 --> 01:12:02.607
'cause I came when Miller was there and then Miller left

1670
01:12:02.607 --> 01:12:06.620
and then there was some other guys that were a cowboy hat

1671
01:12:06.620 --> 01:12:07.453
for a while.

1672
01:12:07.453 --> 01:12:10.950
Thought he was real awesome weirdo, fucking weirdo.

1673
01:12:10.950 --> 01:12:13.080
And he was only there for a little while.

1674
01:12:13.080 --> 01:12:14.980
I think he was hood.

1675
01:12:14.980 --> 01:12:17.080
No, it's not hood.

1676
01:12:17.080 --> 01:12:18.507
I don't know.

1677
01:12:18.507 --> 01:12:19.570
And then there was Colonel something

1678
01:12:19.570 --> 01:12:22.690
who was just this frumpy old dude from Ohio

1679
01:12:22.690 --> 01:12:25.570
who just looked like, he just sat at his desk.

1680
01:12:25.570 --> 01:12:27.340
He was at the, always at the end of the hall.

1681
01:12:27.340 --> 01:12:29.648
Every day I walked in and I will see him

1682
01:12:29.648 --> 01:12:31.243
and he was just sitting down there and was just like,

1683
01:12:32.850 --> 01:12:34.510
like, so it's like just bummed out.

1684
01:12:34.510 --> 01:12:36.830
Like he was just like I don't know.

1685
01:12:36.830 --> 01:12:39.207
I felt like we had a real special connection with him.

1686
01:12:39.207 --> 01:12:41.679
And even if he didn't know that we had it,

1687
01:12:41.679 --> 01:12:43.640
like I felt like somewhere we were on the same page

1688
01:12:43.640 --> 01:12:45.880
because he just looked really resentful.

1689
01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:48.410
He was a National Guard guy that like,

1690
01:12:48.410 --> 01:12:53.410
I feel like he was like, kind of had the feeling

1691
01:12:53.720 --> 01:12:55.377
like he had gotten pinned into this

1692
01:12:55.377 --> 01:12:56.880
and had become like the fall guy.

1693
01:12:56.880 --> 01:12:59.620
Like they knew that this shit was too super whack

1694
01:12:59.620 --> 01:13:03.340
and they just needed some random replaceable officer

1695
01:13:03.340 --> 01:13:04.510
to stick in there.

1696
01:13:04.510 --> 01:13:05.343
And he got rank.

1697
01:13:05.343 --> 01:13:07.000
I mean, he got up to general in that office

1698
01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:09.060
but he didn't do shit and he never left the office.

1699
01:13:09.060 --> 01:13:11.010
He just sat back there and moped all day.

1700
01:13:11.010 --> 01:13:12.910
I think, I mean, I saw him pick up a pen

1701
01:13:12.910 --> 01:13:14.430
like a half dozen times.

1702
01:13:14.430 --> 01:13:16.200
I don't know what his job was.

1703
01:13:16.200 --> 01:13:18.780
Command Sergeant Major Mendez ran everything

1704
01:13:18.780 --> 01:13:20.410
'cause he loved his job.

1705
01:13:20.410 --> 01:13:22.660
Loved it, loved everything about it.

1706
01:13:22.660 --> 01:13:23.700
Loved yelling at us

1707
01:13:23.700 --> 01:13:28.330
Loved, he loved causing pain for detainees

1708
01:13:28.330 --> 01:13:29.300
and soldiers alike.

1709
01:13:29.300 --> 01:13:32.910
It was like if they hadn't built Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

1710
01:13:32.910 --> 01:13:35.190
I don't know what that man would have done with his life.

1711
01:13:35.190 --> 01:13:37.020
Oh, it probably would have just continued working

1712
01:13:37.020 --> 01:13:38.630
at the prison that you worked at beforehand

1713
01:13:38.630 --> 01:13:39.463
with the military.

1714
01:13:39.463 --> 01:13:43.390
So, but he was made for it man.

1715
01:13:43.390 --> 01:13:45.730
That guy, he's my nemesis.

1716
01:13:45.730 --> 01:13:47.171
I hate him.

1717
01:13:47.171 --> 01:13:48.004
I hate him more than anything.

1718
01:13:48.004 --> 01:13:50.073
Spawn of Satan on the planet.

1719
01:13:53.210 --> 01:13:54.363
<v Interviewer>Did you meet with Miller?</v>

1720
01:13:55.540 --> 01:14:00.540
<v ->I mean, meet like as much as me, there's as an officer,</v>

1721
01:14:01.070 --> 01:14:04.730
as a general of Miller's caliber is gonna have in like

1722
01:14:04.730 --> 01:14:07.970
a specialist that's just working in the office.

1723
01:14:07.970 --> 01:14:11.980
We pass by a couple of times and I'm kind of a weird person.

1724
01:14:11.980 --> 01:14:14.250
I have a weird bill, didn't fit in, in the military.

1725
01:14:14.250 --> 01:14:17.800
I also have trouble controlling my mouth.

1726
01:14:17.800 --> 01:14:20.310
So because of the close operations

1727
01:14:20.310 --> 01:14:21.790
and because he was in the same office,

1728
01:14:21.790 --> 01:14:25.020
a lot of like our weird personal stuff would spill out

1729
01:14:25.020 --> 01:14:26.790
and I'd get a lot of, kind of like

1730
01:14:26.790 --> 01:14:28.810
there'd be a lot of weird memorandums

1731
01:14:28.810 --> 01:14:30.640
that would come in about stuff that I would do

1732
01:14:30.640 --> 01:14:33.100
or that was kind of seemed specifically directed

1733
01:14:33.100 --> 01:14:37.110
towards my personality disorder from him.

1734
01:14:37.110 --> 01:14:41.590
So he would address the issue of me, but we never like met.

1735
01:14:41.590 --> 01:14:44.960
So I think the only time we talked to each other

1736
01:14:44.960 --> 01:14:47.740
is in the chow hall when I begged and pleaded him

1737
01:14:47.740 --> 01:14:50.480
once a month to put vegetarian food in there,

1738
01:14:50.480 --> 01:14:51.380
which he never did.

1739
01:14:51.380 --> 01:14:54.050
So I picked up a habit

1740
01:14:54.050 --> 01:14:56.360
of starving myself while I was down there.

1741
01:14:56.360 --> 01:14:58.930
Well that, and the responsibility of being signed

1742
01:14:58.930 --> 01:15:02.750
for 40 radios and 40 sets of shackle keys

1743
01:15:02.750 --> 01:15:04.370
which are the same colors, the dirt.

1744
01:15:04.370 --> 01:15:07.570
And if you lose them, then everything stops.

1745
01:15:07.570 --> 01:15:09.400
Everything, whole camp shuts down.

1746
01:15:09.400 --> 01:15:12.850
No sally ports open, nobody goes anywhere.

1747
01:15:12.850 --> 01:15:16.210
Everybody gets fully inspected and it's all my fault.

1748
01:15:16.210 --> 01:15:18.400
So if I left for half an hour to go to lunch

1749
01:15:18.400 --> 01:15:23.290
and somebody misplaced his keys, that's it, that's like it.

1750
01:15:23.290 --> 01:15:28.063
I mean that level of responsibility caused such a huge,

1751
01:15:30.613 --> 01:15:31.610
I don't know, man,

1752
01:15:31.610 --> 01:15:35.130
I still like can't touch a pair of keys to save my life.

1753
01:15:35.130 --> 01:15:36.500
Like if you put keys in my hands,

1754
01:15:36.500 --> 01:15:40.090
like all I can think about is them is keys.

1755
01:15:40.090 --> 01:15:45.090
And I haven't, it's just, oh man, that's really wild.

1756
01:15:45.710 --> 01:15:48.603
<v Interviewer>Change all the locks, if you lost the keys.</v>

1757
01:15:50.080 --> 01:15:53.620
<v ->No, 'cause it's a generic lock key thing for the handcuffs</v>

1758
01:15:53.620 --> 01:15:56.670
and for the, they would have to get new handcuffs,

1759
01:15:56.670 --> 01:16:00.720
new shackle things like, but I mean,

1760
01:16:00.720 --> 01:16:02.670
it got down to the point one time where

1761
01:16:02.670 --> 01:16:04.230
they were checking in toilets

1762
01:16:04.230 --> 01:16:09.230
and they'd shut down the camp for like a couple hours.

1763
01:16:09.240 --> 01:16:10.937
I know we were extended there

1764
01:16:10.937 --> 01:16:12.340
and people were hating me, hating me.

1765
01:16:12.340 --> 01:16:14.520
And I was like total line

1766
01:16:14.520 --> 01:16:16.620
with a command Sergeant, Major Mendez

1767
01:16:16.620 --> 01:16:20.078
and he's screaming at me, he's like,

1768
01:16:20.078 --> 01:16:23.493
I'm gonna lose everything over losing these keys.

1769
01:16:23.493 --> 01:16:26.390
And the detainees are gonna get out of their shackles

1770
01:16:26.390 --> 01:16:27.223
and killed guards.

1771
01:16:27.223 --> 01:16:28.450
And it's all gonna be my fault

1772
01:16:28.450 --> 01:16:29.810
and it all the way on my head.

1773
01:16:29.810 --> 01:16:32.770
And it's all my responsibility and I'm such a shit bag.

1774
01:16:32.770 --> 01:16:36.450
And then I go into my office and take all that anger out

1775
01:16:36.450 --> 01:16:39.610
on all of the people that I have the authority

1776
01:16:39.610 --> 01:16:41.510
to take my anger out on, which I shouldn't have

1777
01:16:41.510 --> 01:16:43.577
'cause most of them aren't ranked me,

1778
01:16:43.577 --> 01:16:45.100
but call them in one by one and be like,

1779
01:16:45.100 --> 01:16:47.450
you find me these keys you shit bag.

1780
01:16:47.450 --> 01:16:49.780
Well, I mean like that's how the military works.

1781
01:16:49.780 --> 01:16:50.860
One person yells at you.

1782
01:16:50.860 --> 01:16:52.760
You immediately take it to the next person

1783
01:16:52.760 --> 01:16:55.706
that you have the authority to yell at and yell at them.

1784
01:16:55.706 --> 01:16:57.256
And it's that's you pass it on?

1785
01:16:58.550 --> 01:16:59.383
<v Interviewer>Do you wanna (indistinct)</v>

1786
01:16:59.383 --> 01:17:00.216
Do you wanna take (indistinct)

1787
01:17:00.216 --> 01:17:02.960
<v ->No, I'm good, I'm kinda good on everything.</v>

1788
01:17:02.960 --> 01:17:04.370
If you guys want a break.

1789
01:17:04.370 --> 01:17:05.315
<v Interviewer>No bro.</v>

1790
01:17:05.315 --> 01:17:06.630
<v ->[Man With Low Voice] We've got about nine minutes.</v>

1791
01:17:06.630 --> 01:17:07.960
<v Interviewer>Okay, well let's,</v>

1792
01:17:07.960 --> 01:17:09.848
if you wanna ask your question.

1793
01:17:09.848 --> 01:17:12.360
<v Lady>When you do respond, could you look at the camera?</v>

1794
01:17:12.360 --> 01:17:13.193
<v ->Mhm.</v>

1795
01:17:13.193 --> 01:17:14.190
<v Interviewer>Or look up here.</v>

1796
01:17:14.190 --> 01:17:15.023
<v ->Okay.</v>

1797
01:17:15.023 --> 01:17:17.520
<v Lady>I had a question when you said early on</v>

1798
01:17:17.520 --> 01:17:22.520
when you were grabbed by the one around prisoner

1799
01:17:23.360 --> 01:17:26.970
and you've mentioned that you've spoken to him subsequently,

1800
01:17:26.970 --> 01:17:28.650
could you describe a little bit about that,

1801
01:17:28.650 --> 01:17:30.410
how that went and how it came up

1802
01:17:30.410 --> 01:17:32.680
and kind of relationship (indistinct)

1803
01:17:32.680 --> 01:17:35.570
<v ->That kind of unfolds into a super large question</v>

1804
01:17:35.570 --> 01:17:38.040
'cause that gets into like, oh yeah,

1805
01:17:38.040 --> 01:17:40.000
that kind of unfolds into a super large question

1806
01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:41.620
'cause that gets into

1807
01:17:41.620 --> 01:17:43.700
how I got involved in anti-war activism

1808
01:17:43.700 --> 01:17:45.810
after I got out of the military

1809
01:17:45.810 --> 01:17:50.370
and then how that, how I was contacted

1810
01:17:50.370 --> 01:17:55.210
and you know it took years to set that situation up

1811
01:17:55.210 --> 01:17:57.050
in which I met those people.

1812
01:17:57.050 --> 01:17:59.020
So I think it will probably work more organically

1813
01:17:59.020 --> 01:18:00.790
to work towards that later if that's okay.

1814
01:18:00.790 --> 01:18:04.010
Like to work on a timeline 'cause I feel like

1815
01:18:04.010 --> 01:18:05.860
while we're talking about the get more stuff

1816
01:18:05.860 --> 01:18:07.840
I'd kinda like to get that over in this chunk

1817
01:18:07.840 --> 01:18:10.883
and not have to continuously reference back to it.

1818
01:18:12.060 --> 01:18:15.300
<v Lady>Another question is you mentioned</v>

1819
01:18:15.300 --> 01:18:19.750
that when you saw the interrogator,

1820
01:18:19.750 --> 01:18:21.300
she never went into the room.

1821
01:18:21.300 --> 01:18:25.550
Were those interrogators non-military

1822
01:18:25.550 --> 01:18:28.210
and did you ever interact with those interrogators

1823
01:18:28.210 --> 01:18:31.543
outside the interrogation rooms?

1824
01:18:32.940 --> 01:18:35.420
<v ->Yeah, they're, all of the military,</v>

1825
01:18:35.420 --> 01:18:38.560
all of the interrogators are non-military.

1826
01:18:38.560 --> 01:18:39.620
If they are military,

1827
01:18:39.620 --> 01:18:41.450
then they wear civilian clothes,

1828
01:18:41.450 --> 01:18:44.723
Hawaiian shirts, almost gaudy nonmilitary types.

1829
01:18:45.600 --> 01:18:50.030
And I do, I worked with, when I was an escort control,

1830
01:18:50.030 --> 01:18:51.320
I worked very closely with them.

1831
01:18:51.320 --> 01:18:52.670
They would come into office, they knew me.

1832
01:18:52.670 --> 01:18:53.780
They called me Chris,

1833
01:18:53.780 --> 01:18:55.790
they'd come in and they'd be like, hey man,

1834
01:18:55.790 --> 01:18:57.630
here's my reservations for the day.

1835
01:18:57.630 --> 01:18:58.580
They give me their list

1836
01:18:58.580 --> 01:19:01.870
and then I'd have to write that out into my big list.

1837
01:19:01.870 --> 01:19:03.780
Each interrogator would come in,

1838
01:19:03.780 --> 01:19:05.923
they all work with different organizations,

1839
01:19:07.116 --> 01:19:08.300
different countries, different,

1840
01:19:08.300 --> 01:19:09.600
like there was a German guy there.

1841
01:19:09.600 --> 01:19:11.495
Like there were people that

1842
01:19:11.495 --> 01:19:12.328
I didn't even understand

1843
01:19:12.328 --> 01:19:14.210
what political affiliations they had to anything

1844
01:19:14.210 --> 01:19:15.450
and they wouldn't explain it.

1845
01:19:15.450 --> 01:19:18.270
And that so, I had top secret clearance

1846
01:19:18.270 --> 01:19:21.590
so I thought that I was free to ask questions from people

1847
01:19:21.590 --> 01:19:25.083
but it's very not free to ask questions from people but,

1848
01:19:27.390 --> 01:19:29.560
yeah, so there are a lot of non-military,

1849
01:19:29.560 --> 01:19:33.730
a lot of CIA types, a lot of, I think probably FBI

1850
01:19:33.730 --> 01:19:37.020
but I don't remember too much FBI.

1851
01:19:37.020 --> 01:19:38.210
What did they say?

1852
01:19:38.210 --> 01:19:40.830
The No Such Agency, NSA,

1853
01:19:40.830 --> 01:19:42.133
then there's the,

1854
01:19:44.590 --> 01:19:47.260
I think there's even contractors down there

1855
01:19:47.260 --> 01:19:49.390
who do like psychologists,

1856
01:19:49.390 --> 01:19:51.530
like people that are kind of like unaffiliated,

1857
01:19:51.530 --> 01:19:53.350
like really weird loose relationships

1858
01:19:53.350 --> 01:19:56.100
with the interrogation process.

1859
01:19:56.100 --> 01:19:57.200
Yeah, and they were all,

1860
01:19:57.200 --> 01:19:59.760
there was one guy that was like a brick share house

1861
01:19:59.760 --> 01:20:03.560
big white dude with like 80 style handlebar,

1862
01:20:03.560 --> 01:20:06.680
mustache all poofy, real jovial like come in

1863
01:20:06.680 --> 01:20:09.980
and he'd kind of like, hey, what's up man.

1864
01:20:09.980 --> 01:20:12.180
And he'd shoot the shit if you will.

1865
01:20:12.180 --> 01:20:16.140
But then when on the camp was that he was a monster

1866
01:20:16.140 --> 01:20:17.230
in the interrogation room.

1867
01:20:17.230 --> 01:20:19.790
Like people really had built up for that guy

1868
01:20:19.790 --> 01:20:21.440
a big reputation of being like

1869
01:20:21.440 --> 01:20:22.880
a little bit of a bone breaker

1870
01:20:22.880 --> 01:20:25.770
and like a real intense interrogator.

1871
01:20:25.770 --> 01:20:27.150
So that kind of scared me.

1872
01:20:27.150 --> 01:20:28.680
And then there was a lady

1873
01:20:28.680 --> 01:20:33.567
who was like this really sexy blonde, like 40-ish woman.

1874
01:20:36.080 --> 01:20:38.700
And then supposedly she was the one

1875
01:20:38.700 --> 01:20:42.990
that like kind of sexually harassed the detainees.

1876
01:20:42.990 --> 01:20:45.240
I've heard a lot of like people being touched

1877
01:20:45.240 --> 01:20:47.020
in their genital areas by women.

1878
01:20:47.020 --> 01:20:50.340
And I think that was the lady that did that style

1879
01:20:50.340 --> 01:20:52.250
of interrogation more likely

1880
01:20:52.250 --> 01:20:54.470
'cause women make Muslim men uncomfortable

1881
01:20:54.470 --> 01:20:57.030
not, oh, wow, that was a really shitty thing to say,

1882
01:20:57.030 --> 01:20:57.863
not accurate

1883
01:20:57.863 --> 01:21:01.730
but women and Muslim men have their own relationship

1884
01:21:01.730 --> 01:21:05.120
and a non Muslim woman being really forward

1885
01:21:05.120 --> 01:21:06.540
and sexually aggressive with them

1886
01:21:06.540 --> 01:21:07.860
makes them really uncomfortable.

1887
01:21:07.860 --> 01:21:08.693
And you know,

1888
01:21:08.693 --> 01:21:11.920
they definitely played with those borders there, so.

1889
01:21:11.920 --> 01:21:13.303
<v Interviewer>How do you know that?</v>

1890
01:21:15.870 --> 01:21:17.840
<v ->Well, like detainees telling us,</v>

1891
01:21:17.840 --> 01:21:19.883
detainees complaining about things,

1892
01:21:20.980 --> 01:21:25.200
that her general makeup and demeanor

1893
01:21:25.200 --> 01:21:27.160
and presence would suggest that

1894
01:21:27.160 --> 01:21:31.540
because she dressed very erotically seductively

1895
01:21:31.540 --> 01:21:35.810
which is I'm gonna say dangerous for lack of a better term

1896
01:21:35.810 --> 01:21:37.770
around the soldiers as well

1897
01:21:37.770 --> 01:21:41.140
because there was also a lot of rape that happened

1898
01:21:41.140 --> 01:21:46.080
in Guantanamo soldier on soldier rape.

1899
01:21:46.080 --> 01:21:51.080
And so to have like a very scantily clad woman

1900
01:21:52.690 --> 01:21:55.540
walking around a place with all uniformed,

1901
01:21:55.540 --> 01:22:00.430
aggressive men and a few women, there's very few women there

1902
01:22:00.430 --> 01:22:05.430
but a lot of combat arms type men is a dangerous situation.

1903
01:22:06.950 --> 01:22:08.400
So I knew that.

1904
01:22:08.400 --> 01:22:09.970
And also she was a professional

1905
01:22:09.970 --> 01:22:12.470
so I knew that like she had to be dressed up like that

1906
01:22:12.470 --> 01:22:14.700
for a reason, that's part of.

1907
01:22:14.700 --> 01:22:15.930
And that's how everything is there.

1908
01:22:15.930 --> 01:22:19.860
Everything's for a reason, nothing happens haphazardly,

1909
01:22:19.860 --> 01:22:22.480
even the Hawaiian shirt is there for a reason that you know

1910
01:22:22.480 --> 01:22:24.660
everything about their demeanor is there

1911
01:22:24.660 --> 01:22:26.713
for some kind of psychological game.

1912
01:22:28.260 --> 01:22:29.810
That's probably the end for that tape, right?

1913
01:22:29.810 --> 01:22:31.020
<v Interviewer>Yeah let's take a break</v>

1914
01:22:31.020 --> 01:22:32.923
and then come back, any questions?

1915
01:22:35.323 --> 01:22:37.319
Then we can.

1916
01:22:37.319 --> 01:22:38.152
<v Lady>(indistinct)</v>

1917
01:22:38.152 --> 01:22:39.110
<v Interviewer>Okay.</v>

1918
01:22:39.110 --> 01:22:40.386
You're ready?

1919
01:22:40.386 --> 01:22:41.219
<v ->Mhm.</v>

1920
01:22:41.219 --> 01:22:42.052
<v Interviewer>Okay, you were saying some things</v>

1921
01:22:42.052 --> 01:22:45.780
about the interrogators and about the woman who was

1922
01:22:45.780 --> 01:22:47.200
as you described seductive

1923
01:22:47.200 --> 01:22:50.970
and could you tell us a little bit more about

1924
01:22:50.970 --> 01:22:54.110
what your impressions were about the interrogators

1925
01:22:54.110 --> 01:22:57.990
if there's anything that (indistinct)

1926
01:22:57.990 --> 01:23:00.480
<v ->I mean, they were just, it's hard to explain,</v>

1927
01:23:00.480 --> 01:23:03.260
in a place like that, they're the superheroes of the camp,

1928
01:23:03.260 --> 01:23:04.890
they're the people that are getting,

1929
01:23:04.890 --> 01:23:06.250
they're people that have the picture

1930
01:23:06.250 --> 01:23:07.290
that we were all missing.

1931
01:23:07.290 --> 01:23:10.070
So we were all kind of,

1932
01:23:10.070 --> 01:23:13.670
we kind of mythologized their position amongst the camp

1933
01:23:13.670 --> 01:23:16.590
'cause it's like these people know what's really going on,

1934
01:23:16.590 --> 01:23:17.920
what we're only guessing at.

1935
01:23:17.920 --> 01:23:22.920
So a part of me definitely wanted that information

1936
01:23:23.490 --> 01:23:25.840
and their authority was attractive

1937
01:23:25.840 --> 01:23:28.510
that they were completely outside of any rules

1938
01:23:28.510 --> 01:23:31.050
or regulations or guidelines or answering to anyone

1939
01:23:31.050 --> 01:23:33.210
they talked to Sergeant Major Mendez

1940
01:23:33.210 --> 01:23:36.790
as if that he was their personal assistant,

1941
01:23:36.790 --> 01:23:41.340
like run off and get me this now, kind of behavior.

1942
01:23:41.340 --> 01:23:46.340
So they kind of asserted a very like cool in charge.

1943
01:23:46.570 --> 01:23:48.510
Like they were like clearly the people

1944
01:23:48.510 --> 01:23:49.910
that really ran the camp

1945
01:23:49.910 --> 01:23:51.720
if they wanted something, they got it.

1946
01:23:51.720 --> 01:23:53.730
We were all there to do what they wanted.

1947
01:23:53.730 --> 01:23:56.820
If they wanted anything to happen to a detainee,

1948
01:23:56.820 --> 01:23:58.023
we made it happen, so.

1949
01:23:59.071 --> 01:24:00.270
<v Interviewer>And you said some of them were foreign,</v>

1950
01:24:00.270 --> 01:24:01.800
like you said you saw a German.

1951
01:24:01.800 --> 01:24:06.050
Was he interviewing only people who spoke German or was he?

1952
01:24:06.050 --> 01:24:09.940
<v ->I don't have that kind of, I didn't keep that close.</v>

1953
01:24:09.940 --> 01:24:14.070
I mean, when I was organizing the interrogations,

1954
01:24:14.070 --> 01:24:16.340
there's 50 of them in a day

1955
01:24:16.340 --> 01:24:18.470
and on top of that I've got to rotate everybody

1956
01:24:18.470 --> 01:24:19.840
out through chow.

1957
01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:22.780
So the Sergeant major wants the trash cleaned out of,

1958
01:24:22.780 --> 01:24:25.430
wants soldiers to walk along and pick the garbage

1959
01:24:25.430 --> 01:24:27.830
out of the concertina wire along the camp.

1960
01:24:27.830 --> 01:24:28.850
I got other fish to fry.

1961
01:24:28.850 --> 01:24:31.010
I can't sit around and be like,

1962
01:24:31.010 --> 01:24:32.880
so this guy wants this guy from this country.

1963
01:24:32.880 --> 01:24:34.250
It must be for this reason.

1964
01:24:34.250 --> 01:24:37.910
Like all of my political, like piecing things together,

1965
01:24:37.910 --> 01:24:38.743
like, who's this,

1966
01:24:38.743 --> 01:24:40.760
why do they want this guy all got swamped out

1967
01:24:40.760 --> 01:24:43.470
by just being overly exhausted

1968
01:24:43.470 --> 01:24:45.240
on their responsibility front.

1969
01:24:45.240 --> 01:24:47.150
<v Interviewer>So I just wanna go back to the woman</v>

1970
01:24:47.150 --> 01:24:48.690
who you said was seductive.

1971
01:24:48.690 --> 01:24:50.870
Detainees kind of told you

1972
01:24:50.870 --> 01:24:54.270
that there was some inappropriate behavior from her?

1973
01:24:54.270 --> 01:24:55.103
<v ->They told my friends</v>

1974
01:24:55.103 --> 01:24:56.220
and my friends told me.

1975
01:24:56.220 --> 01:24:58.930
So it's uncertain weather and ow much came from them?

1976
01:24:58.930 --> 01:25:01.860
How much came from my guard buddies out.

1977
01:25:01.860 --> 01:25:03.740
It was definitely amongst us.

1978
01:25:03.740 --> 01:25:06.200
We said terrible things about her.

1979
01:25:06.200 --> 01:25:08.270
We assumed that she had sex with them.

1980
01:25:08.270 --> 01:25:13.270
Like people regarded her as if she was hooker,

1981
01:25:14.990 --> 01:25:17.010
and then people would back that up

1982
01:25:17.010 --> 01:25:18.770
with things that the detainees would say about that.

1983
01:25:18.770 --> 01:25:22.370
And then from, and then upon further hearing more

1984
01:25:22.370 --> 01:25:25.620
about detainee stories as my research has gone onwards

1985
01:25:25.620 --> 01:25:28.350
into what they have said about what happened there,

1986
01:25:28.350 --> 01:25:31.370
I know that they, that a lot of them talk about

1987
01:25:31.370 --> 01:25:34.760
being sexually assaulted by a woman interrogator

1988
01:25:34.760 --> 01:25:37.793
and she's the only woman that I know there, so.

1989
01:25:39.100 --> 01:25:40.921
<v Interviewer>And was she there the whole time</v>

1990
01:25:40.921 --> 01:25:41.754
you were there?

1991
01:25:41.754 --> 01:25:42.587
<v ->She was there the whole time I was there.</v>

1992
01:25:42.587 --> 01:25:45.260
All the interrogators that I knew that were there

1993
01:25:45.260 --> 01:25:47.250
were there before we came and they were there when we went

1994
01:25:47.250 --> 01:25:48.860
and they were probably still down there.

1995
01:25:48.860 --> 01:25:50.350
<v Interviewer>And when you talked about rape</v>

1996
01:25:50.350 --> 01:25:52.730
at Guantanamo, what were you talking about exactly

1997
01:25:52.730 --> 01:25:54.206
when you said.

1998
01:25:54.206 --> 01:25:55.039
<v ->The women soldiers were raped.</v>

1999
01:25:55.039 --> 01:25:58.770
Women in our units were raped.

2000
01:25:58.770 --> 01:25:59.603
<v Interviewer>Five soldiers?</v>

2001
01:25:59.603 --> 01:26:01.290
<v ->Yes, five people in my unit,</v>

2002
01:26:01.290 --> 01:26:02.123
people in other unit,

2003
01:26:02.123 --> 01:26:05.003
men in my unit and other units.

2004
01:26:05.985 --> 01:26:07.760
<v Interviewer>Did they report it?</v>

2005
01:26:07.760 --> 01:26:09.440
<v ->I think occasionally it wasn't,</v>

2006
01:26:09.440 --> 01:26:11.390
it was probably squash.

2007
01:26:11.390 --> 01:26:16.000
I only knew one woman that had specifically told me

2008
01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:18.520
that she had been raped by people in my unit

2009
01:26:19.964 --> 01:26:21.220
and that I never reported that,

2010
01:26:21.220 --> 01:26:23.363
and she never reported that, and.

2011
01:26:25.350 --> 01:26:27.060
<v Interviewer>Why do you think?</v>

2012
01:26:27.060 --> 01:26:28.460
<v ->About not reporting it?</v>

2013
01:26:28.460 --> 01:26:30.230
She knew she wouldn't be taken seriously

2014
01:26:30.230 --> 01:26:31.330
and I agreed with her.

2015
01:26:32.210 --> 01:26:35.083
Not, they all operated under,

2016
01:26:36.350 --> 01:26:38.060
we were the least of their concerns

2017
01:26:38.060 --> 01:26:41.060
and our problems were not to not,

2018
01:26:41.060 --> 01:26:43.060
I mean it's all a matter of chain of command

2019
01:26:43.060 --> 01:26:45.310
because we were there as JTF-GTMO

2020
01:26:45.310 --> 01:26:47.450
So we would have to report to JTF-GTMO.

2021
01:26:47.450 --> 01:26:50.300
So if you're gonna report something like that to that camp,

2022
01:26:50.300 --> 01:26:54.010
it's all very small and these women work in these units,

2023
01:26:54.010 --> 01:26:56.050
everybody would know immediately,

2024
01:26:56.050 --> 01:26:58.840
I mean it would be if you dropped that thing,

2025
01:26:58.840 --> 01:27:01.193
if it got outside of the chain of command,

2026
01:27:01.193 --> 01:27:04.560
it's gonna be a huge issue all in,

2027
01:27:04.560 --> 01:27:07.260
so that it never became a huge issue

2028
01:27:07.260 --> 01:27:09.990
means that those women that did bring those charges up

2029
01:27:09.990 --> 01:27:12.090
were not taken seriously.

2030
01:27:12.090 --> 01:27:16.050
And from further communication with that woman that I know

2031
01:27:16.050 --> 01:27:17.250
that was there, that was raped,

2032
01:27:17.250 --> 01:27:20.420
I know that she knows of other women that were raped

2033
01:27:20.420 --> 01:27:22.450
while they were there.

2034
01:27:22.450 --> 01:27:26.020
And I do not, I am not surprised by the general behavior

2035
01:27:26.020 --> 01:27:29.770
and the general mentality of the people that I saw there

2036
01:27:29.770 --> 01:27:30.883
that that is the case.

2037
01:27:32.270 --> 01:27:34.990
I oftentimes felt very sexually threatened

2038
01:27:34.990 --> 01:27:36.070
in that I might be raped.

2039
01:27:36.070 --> 01:27:40.980
I was very, because I am,

2040
01:27:40.980 --> 01:27:45.060
I don't fit the normal manly build of the soldier,

2041
01:27:45.060 --> 01:27:49.860
I was oftentimes kind of treated like a woman

2042
01:27:49.860 --> 01:27:53.220
or more realistically, just a gay soldier.

2043
01:27:53.220 --> 01:27:55.730
My name was basically faggot while I was in the military

2044
01:27:55.730 --> 01:27:58.670
and I had a lot of rape threats.

2045
01:27:58.670 --> 01:28:00.800
I had a lot of really creepy things said

2046
01:28:00.800 --> 01:28:04.000
on top of just, I mean, pounds and pounds and pounds

2047
01:28:04.000 --> 01:28:06.823
of daily verbal abuse that I learned to just accept.

2048
01:28:08.100 --> 01:28:10.170
And there were several situations.

2049
01:28:10.170 --> 01:28:13.940
One time I was duct taped to my bed by people in my unit

2050
01:28:13.940 --> 01:28:15.730
and I thought that I was going to be raped.

2051
01:28:15.730 --> 01:28:17.840
I thought that I was being raped the whole time.

2052
01:28:17.840 --> 01:28:20.820
And I was left in my bed duct-taped naked to my bed.

2053
01:28:20.820 --> 01:28:22.940
And I was late for work the next day

2054
01:28:22.940 --> 01:28:24.550
until my roommate came home

2055
01:28:25.690 --> 01:28:28.610
and unduct taped me.

2056
01:28:28.610 --> 01:28:30.750
<v Interviewer>Why did that happen?</v>

2057
01:28:30.750 --> 01:28:32.340
<v ->They got drunk.</v>

2058
01:28:32.340 --> 01:28:34.150
They didn't even remember that they did it the next day

2059
01:28:34.150 --> 01:28:35.620
or they'd never admitted to it.

2060
01:28:35.620 --> 01:28:37.570
I took it immediately to my command

2061
01:28:37.570 --> 01:28:41.010
'cause I was punished upon getting to work

2062
01:28:41.010 --> 01:28:42.950
about why I had showed up late.

2063
01:28:42.950 --> 01:28:45.190
And then, so I immediately said, well

2064
01:28:45.190 --> 01:28:47.520
my guys in my unit did this

2065
01:28:47.520 --> 01:28:51.120
and my superiors in the DOC said, well

2066
01:28:51.120 --> 01:28:52.540
then we're gonna have to talk to your command

2067
01:28:52.540 --> 01:28:54.300
and then it just all disappeared.

2068
01:28:54.300 --> 01:28:56.039
And apparently they'd done it

2069
01:28:56.039 --> 01:28:58.310
to like three other people on our unit.

2070
01:28:58.310 --> 01:29:00.800
<v Interviewer>How did you manage to survive</v>

2071
01:29:00.800 --> 01:29:04.270
during your time in Guantanamo where you personally lived?

2072
01:29:06.010 --> 01:29:07.890
<v ->I stayed in my room and slept and dreamed.</v>

2073
01:29:07.890 --> 01:29:09.780
I created two, there was two different worlds.

2074
01:29:09.780 --> 01:29:10.850
There's the world outside

2075
01:29:10.850 --> 01:29:12.160
and then there was the world inside

2076
01:29:12.160 --> 01:29:14.610
and I'd learned to take the world inside of myself

2077
01:29:14.610 --> 01:29:17.190
as a totally separate and pristine environment

2078
01:29:17.190 --> 01:29:19.100
that I worked very hard to keep separate

2079
01:29:19.100 --> 01:29:21.880
and I became really detached from reality

2080
01:29:21.880 --> 01:29:25.040
and lived inside of a dream of what I wanted to do

2081
01:29:25.040 --> 01:29:27.730
when I got back and what I basically art thinking

2082
01:29:27.730 --> 01:29:32.340
about writing and writers and goals of my life.

2083
01:29:32.340 --> 01:29:35.280
I became very self-centered and very focused

2084
01:29:35.280 --> 01:29:39.180
on the beautiful things that I wanted to do with my life

2085
01:29:39.180 --> 01:29:42.113
after GTMO and that's how I survived.

2086
01:29:44.020 --> 01:29:45.840
<v Interviewer>Can we go back to the translators?</v>

2087
01:29:45.840 --> 01:29:46.740
<v ->Yeah.</v>
<v ->Everybody thoughts</v>

2088
01:29:46.740 --> 01:29:49.327
about the translator that you saw.

2089
01:29:50.320 --> 01:29:51.580
<v ->Not more than that.</v>

2090
01:29:51.580 --> 01:29:54.030
They're just kind of run of the mill translators

2091
01:29:54.030 --> 01:29:56.210
that some of them didn't seem super adequate.

2092
01:29:56.210 --> 01:29:59.590
It seemed like a lot of times they caused trouble

2093
01:29:59.590 --> 01:30:01.203
more than helped it

2094
01:30:01.203 --> 01:30:05.430
that they were not necessarily on one side or the other

2095
01:30:05.430 --> 01:30:08.970
but that they could occasionally be on either side.

2096
01:30:08.970 --> 01:30:11.130
I've seen it on both ways where it seemed

2097
01:30:11.130 --> 01:30:16.130
like the translator was hindering the guard's process

2098
01:30:17.030 --> 01:30:20.680
by favoring the detainee or otherwise

2099
01:30:20.680 --> 01:30:22.287
but it was,

2100
01:30:22.287 --> 01:30:27.287
they were oftentimes a third point in communications.

2101
01:30:27.690 --> 01:30:31.980
They would filter kind of statements.

2102
01:30:31.980 --> 01:30:33.070
They would save detainees

2103
01:30:33.070 --> 01:30:34.140
from things that they'd said

2104
01:30:34.140 --> 01:30:36.850
that are particularly like inflammatory.

2105
01:30:36.850 --> 01:30:39.250
You could tell like a detainee would be screaming

2106
01:30:39.250 --> 01:30:40.800
and yelling for five minutes

2107
01:30:40.800 --> 01:30:43.071
and then the interrogator would go,

2108
01:30:43.071 --> 01:30:46.970
he says that he wants this in his meals.

2109
01:30:46.970 --> 01:30:48.480
You know, so it's like, well,

2110
01:30:48.480 --> 01:30:51.210
it sounds like he said some other things in there.

2111
01:30:51.210 --> 01:30:52.153
What's all that?

2112
01:30:53.030 --> 01:30:55.280
And then you'd hear occasional swear words in English

2113
01:30:55.280 --> 01:30:58.880
come out and none of that would come through it.

2114
01:30:58.880 --> 01:31:01.530
It's basically like watching a translated film

2115
01:31:01.530 --> 01:31:02.950
that's been translated really poorly

2116
01:31:02.950 --> 01:31:04.740
and you're not really getting,

2117
01:31:04.740 --> 01:31:08.240
'cause the super emotion on a detainee's face

2118
01:31:08.240 --> 01:31:09.640
and then the translator is looking at you

2119
01:31:09.640 --> 01:31:11.580
and just kind of like reducing

2120
01:31:11.580 --> 01:31:15.090
these three or four or five minute dialogues down

2121
01:31:15.090 --> 01:31:17.580
to little snippets of what they're saying.

2122
01:31:17.580 --> 01:31:20.193
So it's a lot of synthesis that happens there too.

2123
01:31:22.410 --> 01:31:23.760
<v Interviewer>Another question I had for you</v>

2124
01:31:23.760 --> 01:31:26.807
was about the plane rights that we use.

2125
01:31:26.807 --> 01:31:30.110
Did you ever scored any detainees and plan

2126
01:31:30.110 --> 01:31:33.047
or do you know any people in your unit who did?

2127
01:31:33.047 --> 01:31:35.920
<v ->Our unit was tasked to assign people</v>

2128
01:31:35.920 --> 01:31:37.750
to that special mission?

2129
01:31:37.750 --> 01:31:38.700
I was not chosen.

2130
01:31:38.700 --> 01:31:40.130
I was by that time already working

2131
01:31:40.130 --> 01:31:41.500
in the detention operations center.

2132
01:31:41.500 --> 01:31:44.100
So no longer fell under my former command.

2133
01:31:44.100 --> 01:31:48.070
So they couldn't assign me to do anything nor would they,

2134
01:31:48.070 --> 01:31:50.570
the people that they chose to send were all fairly

2135
01:31:52.630 --> 01:31:54.110
rough around the edges types,

2136
01:31:54.110 --> 01:31:56.410
like people that they could expect to keep their mouth shut.

2137
01:31:56.410 --> 01:31:57.360
They were good soldiers.

2138
01:31:57.360 --> 01:31:59.560
They were hand selected by our chain command,

2139
01:31:59.560 --> 01:32:04.060
people that were definitely insider people with our unit,

2140
01:32:04.060 --> 01:32:05.963
people that our commander trusted.

2141
01:32:07.050 --> 01:32:10.370
And one of my friends was selected to go.

2142
01:32:10.370 --> 01:32:12.630
And they were all very quiet about it.

2143
01:32:12.630 --> 01:32:13.950
All I heard when they came back

2144
01:32:13.950 --> 01:32:18.950
from the mission was that they'd gone to Turkey.

2145
01:32:19.680 --> 01:32:21.530
A couple of them had sex with hookers.

2146
01:32:21.530 --> 01:32:23.670
They did a lot of drugs, they drank,

2147
01:32:23.670 --> 01:32:26.590
but none of them talked about anything that happened

2148
01:32:26.590 --> 01:32:31.590
except for my friend who told me a few uncomfortable things

2149
01:32:31.920 --> 01:32:35.700
about the experience, but all he always fought

2150
01:32:35.700 --> 01:32:38.360
with kind of like, he really believed

2151
01:32:38.360 --> 01:32:40.370
in what we were doing and that these people were terrorists.

2152
01:32:40.370 --> 01:32:42.750
And that's kind of just one of those things that we accepted

2153
01:32:42.750 --> 01:32:46.010
in the lack of communication in our dialogue

2154
01:32:48.110 --> 01:32:52.730
but he seemed noticeably weirded out

2155
01:32:52.730 --> 01:32:54.720
by how that whole thing had gone.

2156
01:32:54.720 --> 01:32:56.610
And more than that,

2157
01:32:56.610 --> 01:32:59.810
that was kind of the first time that I started thinking,

2158
01:32:59.810 --> 01:33:02.250
well where did these people go?

2159
01:33:02.250 --> 01:33:04.270
'Cause we were also at that same time

2160
01:33:04.270 --> 01:33:06.810
starting all of these like mock trials too.

2161
01:33:06.810 --> 01:33:08.230
So it was really confusing

2162
01:33:08.230 --> 01:33:12.755
'cause you've got these bullshit courts happening

2163
01:33:12.755 --> 01:33:16.280
the military tribunals, which are a huge to do.

2164
01:33:16.280 --> 01:33:18.160
I mean, 'cause they had to take the detainees

2165
01:33:18.160 --> 01:33:22.480
outside of the camp and I would have to arrange the pistols.

2166
01:33:22.480 --> 01:33:25.380
They'd have to pick up pistols ammunition

2167
01:33:25.380 --> 01:33:28.087
and a vehicle to transport the detainee

2168
01:33:28.087 --> 01:33:30.090
and the detainee would have to be hooded

2169
01:33:30.090 --> 01:33:32.820
and shackled in a different way

2170
01:33:32.820 --> 01:33:36.300
and taken in a different uniform.

2171
01:33:36.300 --> 01:33:41.300
And it was just like, why are we taking one group of people

2172
01:33:43.180 --> 01:33:46.030
that have gone through no process whatsoever

2173
01:33:46.030 --> 01:33:47.750
back to their countries

2174
01:33:47.750 --> 01:33:52.050
and putting other people through this silly trial system

2175
01:33:52.050 --> 01:33:54.070
that seems broken right off the bat.

2176
01:33:54.070 --> 01:33:56.980
I mean like the lawyers

2177
01:33:56.980 --> 01:33:59.170
from these things were all military.

2178
01:33:59.170 --> 01:34:01.410
I talked to a few of them

2179
01:34:01.410 --> 01:34:03.330
and it did not seem like they were like,

2180
01:34:03.330 --> 01:34:06.050
I mean everybody's attitude seemed like

2181
01:34:06.050 --> 01:34:09.800
these were phony trials made to like kind of what I mean.

2182
01:34:09.800 --> 01:34:12.983
And once again with interrogators it's like.

2183
01:34:14.650 --> 01:34:16.410
<v Interviewer>Could we just go back to the plains again?</v>

2184
01:34:16.410 --> 01:34:20.274
Can you tell me exactly what was uncomfortable

2185
01:34:20.274 --> 01:34:21.567
about those things.

2186
01:34:21.567 --> 01:34:23.840
<v ->I just heard how they were transported,</v>

2187
01:34:23.840 --> 01:34:25.040
shackled to the floor.

2188
01:34:25.040 --> 01:34:28.460
And that I believe that though, that they were beaten

2189
01:34:28.460 --> 01:34:31.630
while I think that that during that flight

2190
01:34:31.630 --> 01:34:34.750
those detainees were probably harassed pretty intensely.

2191
01:34:34.750 --> 01:34:36.660
It was kind of, it sounds like

2192
01:34:36.660 --> 01:34:39.388
they were given the green light to basically,

2193
01:34:39.388 --> 01:34:43.030
I mean really do whatever they wanted to,

2194
01:34:43.030 --> 01:34:44.260
which is really unfortunate

2195
01:34:44.260 --> 01:34:47.290
'cause if those people did go back,

2196
01:34:47.290 --> 01:34:49.680
they were the most innocent of the bunch.

2197
01:34:49.680 --> 01:34:52.140
They were the people that the government first said

2198
01:34:52.140 --> 01:34:54.770
was like, okay, we really screwed up with these people.

2199
01:34:54.770 --> 01:34:56.660
They don't belong here at all, send them back.

2200
01:34:56.660 --> 01:34:59.640
And there was also a lot of rumors

2201
01:34:59.640 --> 01:35:01.760
that some of these people had been killed

2202
01:35:01.760 --> 01:35:04.770
as soon as they went back to their countries,

2203
01:35:04.770 --> 01:35:06.700
that they would be killed going back to their countries

2204
01:35:06.700 --> 01:35:09.220
and upon further analysis now in the future,

2205
01:35:09.220 --> 01:35:10.590
I believe that probably a lot of them

2206
01:35:10.590 --> 01:35:12.150
probably were killed by their governments

2207
01:35:12.150 --> 01:35:15.030
because now that I find out about how they were detained,

2208
01:35:15.030 --> 01:35:16.830
a lot of them were just on lists

2209
01:35:16.830 --> 01:35:21.025
from like Omar, the guy is a detainee

2210
01:35:21.025 --> 01:35:24.520
who was only ever on any of these lists

2211
01:35:24.520 --> 01:35:27.600
because his father and his whole family

2212
01:35:29.240 --> 01:35:34.240
are basically the precursors to today's Libyan rebels

2213
01:35:34.520 --> 01:35:36.940
who were anti Gaddafi people.

2214
01:35:36.940 --> 01:35:39.620
And Gaddafi had said, I don't want these people in my,

2215
01:35:39.620 --> 01:35:40.910
I don't want them around here.

2216
01:35:40.910 --> 01:35:43.700
And so that's why they live in England

2217
01:35:43.700 --> 01:35:47.170
'cause they were trying to get asylum from Libya

2218
01:35:47.170 --> 01:35:50.040
and then he'd made some random trip to Afghanistan

2219
01:35:50.040 --> 01:35:53.240
and got detained there because Gaddafi had said,

2220
01:35:53.240 --> 01:35:55.360
here's the list of people that I want in cages.

2221
01:35:55.360 --> 01:35:57.760
And China did the same thing with the Weigers.

2222
01:35:57.760 --> 01:36:01.740
And so when you take those people back

2223
01:36:01.740 --> 01:36:03.400
to those countries on planes,

2224
01:36:03.400 --> 01:36:04.450
they don't want them still.

2225
01:36:04.450 --> 01:36:07.100
And if they're just sitting there on a tarmac,

2226
01:36:07.100 --> 01:36:08.480
all shackled up,

2227
01:36:08.480 --> 01:36:10.670
these places are not the United States of America

2228
01:36:10.670 --> 01:36:11.700
and they won't hesitate.

2229
01:36:11.700 --> 01:36:12.560
Look at how they operate.

2230
01:36:12.560 --> 01:36:14.200
They won't hesitate to put a bullet in the back

2231
01:36:14.200 --> 01:36:15.520
of somebody's brain on the tarmac,

2232
01:36:15.520 --> 01:36:17.564
throw you off the side of the ditch

2233
01:36:17.564 --> 01:36:18.790
and then their problem is fucking over it.

2234
01:36:18.790 --> 01:36:20.465
<v Interviewer>Did your friends see that happen</v>

2235
01:36:20.465 --> 01:36:21.804
or you just.

2236
01:36:21.804 --> 01:36:23.090
<v ->They never said anything about it.</v>

2237
01:36:23.090 --> 01:36:25.820
<v Interviewer>Do you know if the planes had guards</v>

2238
01:36:25.820 --> 01:36:26.710
on where.

2239
01:36:26.710 --> 01:36:27.936
<v ->They were the guards.</v>

2240
01:36:27.936 --> 01:36:28.805
<v Interviewer>They were the guards?</v>

2241
01:36:28.805 --> 01:36:29.638
<v ->They were the guards.</v>

2242
01:36:29.638 --> 01:36:30.471
<v Interviewer>Were they on the same level</v>

2243
01:36:30.471 --> 01:36:32.330
or were they in a second level, do you know that from?

2244
01:36:32.330 --> 01:36:34.530
<v ->No, it was all gutted.</v>

2245
01:36:34.530 --> 01:36:36.600
It was a gutted C140, is of C140.

2246
01:36:42.550 --> 01:36:43.610
C140 rolling down the street.

2247
01:36:43.610 --> 01:36:45.173
I don't know, it was some old.

2248
01:36:45.173 --> 01:36:46.530
<v Interviewer>And they just stand there as guards?</v>

2249
01:36:46.530 --> 01:36:48.520
<v ->Yes, and then all the detainees</v>

2250
01:36:48.520 --> 01:36:51.920
were short shackled to the ground, hooded with goggles on,

2251
01:36:51.920 --> 01:36:56.360
full transportation mode, which is really horrible.

2252
01:36:56.360 --> 01:37:00.870
That is a super long flight and the traveling accommodation,

2253
01:37:00.870 --> 01:37:02.150
they just pissed themselves.

2254
01:37:02.150 --> 01:37:03.970
I know that, that I know that my friend

2255
01:37:03.970 --> 01:37:06.900
that went on that was said that they just peed themselves

2256
01:37:06.900 --> 01:37:11.500
where they sat and that it was really uncomfortable to see

2257
01:37:11.500 --> 01:37:13.390
and that they were sedating them with drugs

2258
01:37:13.390 --> 01:37:17.169
that they were just, the doctors would just stick them

2259
01:37:17.169 --> 01:37:21.810
and put them out with whatever on labeled drugs.

2260
01:37:21.810 --> 01:37:23.850
<v Interviewer>And when they were brought to Guantanamo,</v>

2261
01:37:23.850 --> 01:37:24.683
do you know anybody

2262
01:37:24.683 --> 01:37:26.660
who was on any of those planes (indistinct)

2263
01:37:26.660 --> 01:37:27.537
<v ->No, no.</v>

2264
01:37:28.750 --> 01:37:30.180
<v Lady>How would you know that those people</v>

2265
01:37:30.180 --> 01:37:32.570
were sent back to their country to be freed?

2266
01:37:32.570 --> 01:37:34.933
Could any of them been rendered?

2267
01:37:36.680 --> 01:37:37.520
<v ->Anything could have happened?</v>

2268
01:37:37.520 --> 01:37:39.020
We didn't know anything.

2269
01:37:39.020 --> 01:37:41.870
The detainees could have been freed or killed

2270
01:37:41.870 --> 01:37:44.470
or put in another prison or put in another American prison.

2271
01:37:44.470 --> 01:37:47.150
They could have been sent back to the same camps,

2272
01:37:47.150 --> 01:37:49.380
maybe they're back in Kandahar biogram

2273
01:37:49.380 --> 01:37:51.540
or any of these black campsites.

2274
01:37:51.540 --> 01:37:53.800
They could have, anything could have happened to them.

2275
01:37:53.800 --> 01:37:56.730
And that's kind of the mystery of being a soldier

2276
01:37:56.730 --> 01:37:58.460
in Guantanamo Bay is that

2277
01:37:58.460 --> 01:38:00.240
anything could have happened with these people

2278
01:38:00.240 --> 01:38:03.435
and anything can happen with them after you come and go.

2279
01:38:03.435 --> 01:38:04.742
Your job is not to worry about that.

2280
01:38:04.742 --> 01:38:05.575
Your job is to feed them

2281
01:38:05.575 --> 01:38:06.860
and to make sure that they don't die

2282
01:38:06.860 --> 01:38:08.290
while you're watching them.

2283
01:38:08.290 --> 01:38:09.330
<v Lady>Did you have any encounters</v>

2284
01:38:09.330 --> 01:38:11.878
where people were put on plane

2285
01:38:11.878 --> 01:38:13.578
and then the plane never took off?

2286
01:38:14.430 --> 01:38:17.003
<v ->No, that sounds entirely unfamiliar.</v>

2287
01:38:18.900 --> 01:38:21.650
<v Interviewer>Did you ever hear of Camp Nou?</v>

2288
01:38:21.650 --> 01:38:22.855
<v ->No.</v>

2289
01:38:22.855 --> 01:38:23.688
<v Interviewer>No, okay.</v>

2290
01:38:23.688 --> 01:38:24.521
(laughs)

2291
01:38:24.521 --> 01:38:25.895
<v ->Sounds like it was adequately named.</v>

2292
01:38:25.895 --> 01:38:29.670
<v Interviewer>You've heard.</v>

2293
01:38:29.670 --> 01:38:31.850
We asked you in the break and you know

2294
01:38:32.840 --> 01:38:35.950
your initial impressions of the detainees,

2295
01:38:35.950 --> 01:38:40.075
did you resent them when you first arrived?

2296
01:38:40.075 --> 01:38:41.357
<v ->[Man With Low Voice] First let's (indistinct)</v>

2297
01:38:41.357 --> 01:38:42.546
<v Interviewer>Okay.</v>

2298
01:38:42.546 --> 01:38:45.296
(siren whistles)

2299
01:38:55.290 --> 01:38:56.587
<v ->He's driving around the block?</v>

2300
01:38:56.587 --> 01:38:58.670
(laughs)

2301
01:39:10.280 --> 01:39:11.670
Sounds like it's all on the same spot.

2302
01:39:11.670 --> 01:39:13.703
It doesn't sound like it's moving at all.

2303
01:39:14.700 --> 01:39:18.267
There it goes now, it's getting a little bit more distant.

2304
01:39:22.520 --> 01:39:24.985
<v Interviewer>Okay, so your initial impression</v>

2305
01:39:24.985 --> 01:39:25.818
with detainees,

2306
01:39:25.818 --> 01:39:28.844
I'm gonna ask you, during the break

2307
01:39:28.844 --> 01:39:30.880
if you had some initial resentment

2308
01:39:30.880 --> 01:39:32.983
before your attitude changed.

2309
01:39:34.690 --> 01:39:36.060
<v ->I would like to qualify this</v>

2310
01:39:36.060 --> 01:39:39.753
with the resentment is a natural part of that job.

2311
01:39:40.670 --> 01:39:45.300
Yes, I was resentful that my life was interrupted

2312
01:39:45.300 --> 01:39:50.300
because at first I thought that there was a high likelihood

2313
01:39:50.320 --> 01:39:51.770
that these people probably were terrorists.

2314
01:39:51.770 --> 01:39:53.010
I wanted to believe very much

2315
01:39:53.010 --> 01:39:58.010
that we were not being asked to do something totally wrong

2316
01:39:58.450 --> 01:40:01.300
and that there had to be some reason

2317
01:40:01.300 --> 01:40:03.340
and that I was just being too liberal

2318
01:40:03.340 --> 01:40:06.570
and idealistic to think that these people were all innocent.

2319
01:40:06.570 --> 01:40:10.770
And I did hate the ones that were terrorists.

2320
01:40:10.770 --> 01:40:15.410
I do still, like, I think that if they're causing violence,

2321
01:40:15.410 --> 01:40:17.640
I hate them as much as I hate American soldiers

2322
01:40:17.640 --> 01:40:19.120
that cause violence.

2323
01:40:19.120 --> 01:40:22.530
I hate them as much as the American politicians

2324
01:40:22.530 --> 01:40:25.435
and businessmen that cause violence.

2325
01:40:25.435 --> 01:40:30.435
I resent anybody who is killing for whatever reason.

2326
01:40:31.830 --> 01:40:34.963
And I do resent the idea of terrorism.

2327
01:40:37.970 --> 01:40:39.980
It was, the only thing that stopped me

2328
01:40:39.980 --> 01:40:42.860
from letting that go whole hog and fully resenting them

2329
01:40:42.860 --> 01:40:45.910
is that they were never proven to be guilty of anything.

2330
01:40:45.910 --> 01:40:47.840
And I never had any evidence to hold my hand

2331
01:40:47.840 --> 01:40:49.250
and I'm just principled in that way.

2332
01:40:49.250 --> 01:40:51.680
I won't hate anybody without being given.

2333
01:40:51.680 --> 01:40:55.900
So it's very confusing and resentment comes and it goes,

2334
01:40:55.900 --> 01:40:57.530
some days he resent more than others.

2335
01:40:57.530 --> 01:41:00.143
Some days you're a tree hugger and some days,

2336
01:41:03.090 --> 01:41:03.980
I won't lie.

2337
01:41:03.980 --> 01:41:08.229
There were days where I said and did some pretty awful shit

2338
01:41:08.229 --> 01:41:11.800
and allowed a lot of awful shit to happen

2339
01:41:11.800 --> 01:41:16.240
that I didn't challenge because I maybe was getting out

2340
01:41:16.240 --> 01:41:19.640
my little kicks against them in my own little way.

2341
01:41:19.640 --> 01:41:23.140
Yes, there was resentment, but more against the soldiers.

2342
01:41:23.140 --> 01:41:25.560
I resented the soldiers much more and much more clearly

2343
01:41:25.560 --> 01:41:30.560
and much more violently than I resented the detainees.

2344
01:41:32.010 --> 01:41:33.860
So if there was resentment against the detainees,

2345
01:41:33.860 --> 01:41:38.860
I felt much more kindred or kinship with them as well too.

2346
01:41:39.930 --> 01:41:42.800
<v Interviewer>Why did you resent the soldiers?</v>

2347
01:41:42.800 --> 01:41:44.320
<v ->Because they were rapists.</v>

2348
01:41:44.320 --> 01:41:48.260
And I had seen enough of their racism

2349
01:41:48.260 --> 01:41:51.730
and I had been called a faggot by most of them

2350
01:41:51.730 --> 01:41:54.580
for the last three at that time,

2351
01:41:54.580 --> 01:41:56.130
three to four years of my life.

2352
01:41:56.130 --> 01:42:00.170
And I thought that they were dumb

2353
01:42:00.170 --> 01:42:02.180
and I thought that they were violent

2354
01:42:02.180 --> 01:42:07.180
and that they had been given the opportunity to be violent

2355
01:42:08.120 --> 01:42:09.730
and that a lot of them had taken it.

2356
01:42:09.730 --> 01:42:13.093
And I pretty much say that everything about them.

2357
01:42:14.570 --> 01:42:17.130
Just about everybody, I hated them all.

2358
01:42:17.130 --> 01:42:19.800
I hated them for being in the military.

2359
01:42:19.800 --> 01:42:21.580
I hated me for being in the military for that matter.

2360
01:42:21.580 --> 01:42:23.637
I wasn't sparing myself from any of this hatred.

2361
01:42:23.637 --> 01:42:26.800
During this, the person I resented the most was this guy.

2362
01:42:26.800 --> 01:42:29.640
I mean, I really, really loathed myself

2363
01:42:29.640 --> 01:42:33.620
during that period of time, so.

2364
01:42:33.620 --> 01:42:35.560
<v Interviewer>But there was no way out really.</v>

2365
01:42:35.560 --> 01:42:38.863
<v ->No, just the initial way that we discussed already.</v>

2366
01:42:39.940 --> 01:42:41.420
I mean, other than doing your time

2367
01:42:41.420 --> 01:42:43.490
and spending your whole year there, but for the detainees,

2368
01:42:43.490 --> 01:42:47.510
there's literally no way out,

2369
01:42:47.510 --> 01:42:50.790
instead of waiting for this infuriating legal process

2370
01:42:50.790 --> 01:42:53.880
to manifest around you when it chooses to.

2371
01:42:53.880 --> 01:42:56.210
<v Interviewer>Were there other friends of yours</v>

2372
01:42:56.210 --> 01:43:00.470
who felt the same way as you did who wanted out too?

2373
01:43:00.470 --> 01:43:01.520
<v ->No.</v>

2374
01:43:01.520 --> 01:43:03.210
<v Interviewer>You were pretty alone?</v>

2375
01:43:03.210 --> 01:43:04.860
<v ->Pretty, I would, yeah.</v>

2376
01:43:04.860 --> 01:43:08.460
I never made contact with anybody on the terms

2377
01:43:08.460 --> 01:43:11.800
that we collaboratively thought

2378
01:43:11.800 --> 01:43:13.500
that what we were doing was wrong.

2379
01:43:16.294 --> 01:43:17.840
No, I would never expose that.

2380
01:43:17.840 --> 01:43:20.650
I felt like exposing that would be like walking out

2381
01:43:20.650 --> 01:43:24.260
into 1940 to Germany and saying I'm a Jewish

2382
01:43:25.950 --> 01:43:30.950
or I'm a Jew, it's like, I felt very strongly that

2383
01:43:31.120 --> 01:43:34.970
to express an opinion of distasteful for what was going on

2384
01:43:34.970 --> 01:43:39.453
with label me as I would either get beaten up or,

2385
01:43:42.290 --> 01:43:44.430
who knows they're murdered.

2386
01:43:44.430 --> 01:43:47.110
I could easily, I could name 20 people

2387
01:43:47.110 --> 01:43:48.650
who would love to kill me,

2388
01:43:48.650 --> 01:43:49.483
who would love to kill me

2389
01:43:49.483 --> 01:43:51.300
before I even started doing this stuff,

2390
01:43:51.300 --> 01:43:55.480
who probably just wanted to kill me from the day they met me

2391
01:43:55.480 --> 01:43:58.641
'cause they thought that I was a fag or whatever,

2392
01:43:58.641 --> 01:44:02.504
there were a lot of people that I was really afraid of.

2393
01:44:02.504 --> 01:44:07.504
And also really afraid to expose myself is not military,

2394
01:44:08.320 --> 01:44:09.800
is not masculine

2395
01:44:09.800 --> 01:44:12.500
'cause I had to be very sharp and very quick

2396
01:44:12.500 --> 01:44:16.400
to defend that so that I could keep my buy-in

2397
01:44:16.400 --> 01:44:19.200
with these people so that I didn't, wasn't always a freak.

2398
01:44:19.200 --> 01:44:20.400
It took me a lot of,

2399
01:44:20.400 --> 01:44:24.380
I had to create an entire other persona to be around them.

2400
01:44:24.380 --> 01:44:26.850
You know this like sharp witted

2401
01:44:28.682 --> 01:44:32.300
kind of alpha male of an intellect kind of,

2402
01:44:32.300 --> 01:44:37.090
like I made it very quick that if you came to make fun of me

2403
01:44:37.090 --> 01:44:40.870
or to deride me that you were probably going to leave,

2404
01:44:40.870 --> 01:44:43.180
looking and feeling like a fucking asshole

2405
01:44:43.180 --> 01:44:45.510
for having ever endeavored to do so

2406
01:44:45.510 --> 01:44:47.207
and I got really good at it.

2407
01:44:47.207 --> 01:44:49.900
And it was almost impossible to change the behavior

2408
01:44:49.900 --> 01:44:52.100
when I came back 'cause all I knew how to do

2409
01:44:52.100 --> 01:44:53.610
was defend myself against people

2410
01:44:53.610 --> 01:44:54.720
and make them feel like shit.

2411
01:44:54.720 --> 01:44:56.830
And I was in Guantanamo.

2412
01:44:56.830 --> 01:44:59.970
Perfect behavioral trait that had application all day,

2413
01:44:59.970 --> 01:45:03.450
every day at home, really difficult to adjust

2414
01:45:03.450 --> 01:45:07.540
to my friendships again, and to find lasting relationships.

2415
01:45:07.540 --> 01:45:10.910
And to this day still, I still find myself

2416
01:45:12.490 --> 01:45:14.400
very defensive against other people.

2417
01:45:14.400 --> 01:45:17.790
I can be open for a period of time

2418
01:45:17.790 --> 01:45:20.780
and then once anything gets towards the real

2419
01:45:20.780 --> 01:45:24.050
like relationship, I find that that personality

2420
01:45:24.050 --> 01:45:26.290
is now not so much under my control

2421
01:45:26.290 --> 01:45:29.160
so much as just a dark part of myself

2422
01:45:29.160 --> 01:45:31.047
that I'll probably always have, so.

2423
01:45:33.990 --> 01:45:35.480
<v Interviewer>And you think being in Guantanamo</v>

2424
01:45:35.480 --> 01:45:36.313
where the military

2425
01:45:36.313 --> 01:45:39.000
is what helps this develop

2426
01:45:39.000 --> 01:45:41.280
this kind of personality character?

2427
01:45:41.280 --> 01:45:42.690
<v ->It's the only reason I made it.</v>

2428
01:45:42.690 --> 01:45:45.480
I would have never been like this otherwise I would.

2429
01:45:45.480 --> 01:45:46.530
Well, that's not true.

2430
01:45:46.530 --> 01:45:49.180
I mean, I grew up in the country around a lot of rural,

2431
01:45:49.180 --> 01:45:51.760
the behavior had developed to a certain degree

2432
01:45:51.760 --> 01:45:54.860
amongst country boys

2433
01:45:54.860 --> 01:45:56.740
who had also been calling me a fag

2434
01:45:56.740 --> 01:45:59.030
since that and a lot of the problem with my unit

2435
01:45:59.030 --> 01:46:01.430
is that these people were from my local area,

2436
01:46:01.430 --> 01:46:04.590
I'd known some of them before we even joined the military.

2437
01:46:04.590 --> 01:46:06.860
I had known some of them since we were five, you know?

2438
01:46:06.860 --> 01:46:07.723
So it's like,

2439
01:46:11.540 --> 01:46:13.160
no, I'd already learned how to deal

2440
01:46:13.160 --> 01:46:15.010
with that kind of repressive behavior,

2441
01:46:15.010 --> 01:46:16.780
which I wanted very much to leave.

2442
01:46:16.780 --> 01:46:18.050
I wanted to move to the city.

2443
01:46:18.050 --> 01:46:20.950
I wanted to be able to be whoever I wanted to be

2444
01:46:20.950 --> 01:46:22.197
without being criticized about that

2445
01:46:22.197 --> 01:46:23.890
and the military was just,

2446
01:46:23.890 --> 01:46:26.320
and that's why for me being activated

2447
01:46:26.320 --> 01:46:29.740
was such a brutal reality for me.

2448
01:46:29.740 --> 01:46:31.910
It was that I was gonna be around only these people

2449
01:46:31.910 --> 01:46:32.743
for a long time.

2450
01:46:32.743 --> 01:46:35.770
And then they provided me with every, I mean,

2451
01:46:35.770 --> 01:46:39.000
it was the full validation of everything that I had.

2452
01:46:39.000 --> 01:46:40.270
Before I thought just had been

2453
01:46:40.270 --> 01:46:43.060
like selfish weakness on my part of like,

2454
01:46:43.060 --> 01:46:45.440
I can't play with all these rough edge to boys

2455
01:46:46.801 --> 01:46:50.700
to now fully hating them for what I saw inside of them

2456
01:46:50.700 --> 01:46:53.140
and will ultimately see inside of myself as well.

2457
01:46:53.140 --> 01:46:55.390
It's something that I fight against every day

2458
01:46:55.390 --> 01:46:58.150
and work against being like,

2459
01:46:58.150 --> 01:46:59.870
and have always worked against being like

2460
01:46:59.870 --> 01:47:04.163
is a violent rapist really.

2461
01:47:05.580 --> 01:47:08.290
<v Interviewer>Did you see rape of any males?</v>

2462
01:47:08.290 --> 01:47:09.907
Did you hear rape of any?

2463
01:47:11.310 --> 01:47:14.010
<v ->Long connected stories.</v>

2464
01:47:14.010 --> 01:47:15.940
Like stories with far-flung connections

2465
01:47:15.940 --> 01:47:20.160
but I know of a gay boy who was in the Navy,

2466
01:47:20.160 --> 01:47:23.150
who was a medic there and people talked

2467
01:47:23.150 --> 01:47:26.160
that he'd been raped by infantry soldiers, but not,

2468
01:47:26.160 --> 01:47:29.303
I mean nothing that was too substantial.

2469
01:47:31.560 --> 01:47:33.215
<v Interviewer>Do you have any real quick (indistinct)</v>

2470
01:47:33.215 --> 01:47:34.310
before we move on to.

2471
01:47:34.310 --> 01:47:35.143
<v Lady>Not just one,</v>

2472
01:47:35.143 --> 01:47:37.295
most of the soldiers that you were with,

2473
01:47:37.295 --> 01:47:39.900
were they also National Guard or where do they come from?

2474
01:47:39.900 --> 01:47:42.060
<v ->A lot of soldiers from The National Guard,</v>

2475
01:47:42.060 --> 01:47:45.260
a lot of soldiers from the regular army,

2476
01:47:45.260 --> 01:47:46.700
the ones that were from the regular army

2477
01:47:46.700 --> 01:47:48.450
were from actual MPU units.

2478
01:47:48.450 --> 01:47:50.260
The ones from The National Guard units

2479
01:47:50.260 --> 01:47:52.540
were from combat arms units that were

2480
01:47:53.710 --> 01:47:56.593
quote unquote reclassified as block guards.

2481
01:47:57.430 --> 01:48:00.940
A lot like us, like tankers or as a unit of tankers.

2482
01:48:00.940 --> 01:48:02.650
I assume that we were brought in mostly

2483
01:48:02.650 --> 01:48:05.950
because we were useless as what we did.

2484
01:48:05.950 --> 01:48:08.130
Our equipment would not let us be artillery men

2485
01:48:08.130 --> 01:48:09.970
or tankers in Iraq or Afghanistan

2486
01:48:09.970 --> 01:48:13.800
because the rigors of keeping, you need new tanks

2487
01:48:13.800 --> 01:48:16.080
and those things, even brand new tanks will break down

2488
01:48:16.080 --> 01:48:17.100
in the desert all the time.

2489
01:48:17.100 --> 01:48:20.010
A 1980s tank will not work in the desert at all.

2490
01:48:20.010 --> 01:48:22.500
So we had no jobs in the global war on terror

2491
01:48:22.500 --> 01:48:25.060
except to burn trash and to be block guards.

2492
01:48:25.060 --> 01:48:27.260
And that's what they did with The National Guard is like,

2493
01:48:27.260 --> 01:48:31.925
devious up, give us all new jobs and fill is cocked

2494
01:48:31.925 --> 01:48:32.770
throughout the whole global war on terror.

2495
01:48:32.770 --> 01:48:34.433
Just fill in all these little jobs

2496
01:48:34.433 --> 01:48:37.400
that they couldn't give to third country nationals.

2497
01:48:37.400 --> 01:48:41.260
And so there was a lot of national guard there.

2498
01:48:41.260 --> 01:48:46.260
The Navy deployed a whole like 100 chiefs, all E7s.

2499
01:48:47.120 --> 01:48:49.980
I don't know what their game plan with that was,

2500
01:48:49.980 --> 01:48:51.450
like one day there was all of a sudden

2501
01:48:51.450 --> 01:48:54.440
just a whole bunch of E7

2502
01:48:54.440 --> 01:48:57.250
standing around who all were supposed to operate

2503
01:48:57.250 --> 01:49:01.040
as like normal block guards to do the jobs of what

2504
01:49:01.040 --> 01:49:04.395
E3s and E4s and E5s.

2505
01:49:04.395 --> 01:49:06.400
And so here's these people that are used to being

2506
01:49:06.400 --> 01:49:09.180
all rank and file, and now they're signing up

2507
01:49:09.180 --> 01:49:11.980
and coming to me every day to be escort teams.

2508
01:49:11.980 --> 01:49:15.070
And they're, I'm telling them what to do

2509
01:49:15.070 --> 01:49:19.070
and was typically really to not military about it.

2510
01:49:19.070 --> 01:49:20.390
The Marines sent people to,

2511
01:49:20.390 --> 01:49:22.430
and I was not military enough for them

2512
01:49:22.430 --> 01:49:23.820
'cause I'd gotten used to people

2513
01:49:23.820 --> 01:49:24.780
and they'd gotten used to me.

2514
01:49:24.780 --> 01:49:26.670
So I could kind of just be like,

2515
01:49:26.670 --> 01:49:29.480
hey, here's this thing, go do this.

2516
01:49:29.480 --> 01:49:33.500
I've got 150 things to do at any one minute.

2517
01:49:33.500 --> 01:49:35.500
So I don't have time to stand at parade rest

2518
01:49:35.500 --> 01:49:37.280
and do the yes Sergeant no Sergeant thing.

2519
01:49:37.280 --> 01:49:39.480
I'd just gotten rid of it immediately.

2520
01:49:39.480 --> 01:49:40.990
And people hated it for a while.

2521
01:49:40.990 --> 01:49:43.060
And then I kind of just charmed my way

2522
01:49:43.060 --> 01:49:45.410
into the position of just being, it was accepted.

2523
01:49:45.410 --> 01:49:46.510
I was good at what I did,

2524
01:49:46.510 --> 01:49:48.860
everybody knew that when I was on, it worked,

2525
01:49:48.860 --> 01:49:49.693
everything worked,

2526
01:49:49.693 --> 01:49:52.610
it moved and they just accepted like, all right,

2527
01:49:52.610 --> 01:49:53.443
he's a share head

2528
01:49:53.443 --> 01:49:56.370
but whatever, he makes this one place work.

2529
01:49:56.370 --> 01:49:58.600
It's really crappy job, whatever.

2530
01:49:58.600 --> 01:50:01.730
So, but these chiefs just never adapted to it,

2531
01:50:01.730 --> 01:50:03.357
They'd just come in and they'd be like.

2532
01:50:03.357 --> 01:50:04.720
"You can't talk to me like that."

2533
01:50:04.720 --> 01:50:06.300
And that's, I'd be like, oh, well, I mean

2534
01:50:06.300 --> 01:50:07.730
how do you guys handle it in the Navy?

2535
01:50:07.730 --> 01:50:09.180
You feel free to inform me.

2536
01:50:09.180 --> 01:50:10.830
I'll stand however you want me to stand

2537
01:50:10.830 --> 01:50:12.440
and tell you whatever I need to tell you

2538
01:50:12.440 --> 01:50:15.710
but I still need this person moved from here to here.

2539
01:50:15.710 --> 01:50:17.850
Like, that's all I'm saying is like this.

2540
01:50:17.850 --> 01:50:19.410
I didn't come up with this.

2541
01:50:19.410 --> 01:50:23.570
I didn't make this job, I didn't make this assignment.

2542
01:50:23.570 --> 01:50:26.670
I just, I'm here, you're here, we're all here,

2543
01:50:26.670 --> 01:50:27.920
we're all doing what we're supposed to do

2544
01:50:27.920 --> 01:50:30.020
and now what I'm asking you to do

2545
01:50:30.020 --> 01:50:31.800
is take this person from here to here.

2546
01:50:31.800 --> 01:50:33.920
And if you need to be patted on the shoulder,

2547
01:50:33.920 --> 01:50:36.470
treated like your rank and time

2548
01:50:36.470 --> 01:50:38.660
is worth fucking anything to me, then I'll do it.

2549
01:50:38.660 --> 01:50:39.790
I'll do the song and dance.

2550
01:50:39.790 --> 01:50:42.620
I don't want to but I'll do it for you while you're here.

2551
01:50:42.620 --> 01:50:45.360
But it just caused endless amounts of drama

2552
01:50:45.360 --> 01:50:46.193
'cause I'd forget

2553
01:50:46.193 --> 01:50:48.210
and then we'd have that conversation

2554
01:50:48.210 --> 01:50:49.560
over and over and over again.

2555
01:50:49.560 --> 01:50:53.090
And they'd always dressed me down and do the whole, like

2556
01:50:53.090 --> 01:50:55.190
they try to put me in front leaning respite,

2557
01:50:55.190 --> 01:50:56.240
which is pushups.

2558
01:50:56.240 --> 01:50:58.530
People would be like drop down and give me 20.

2559
01:50:58.530 --> 01:51:03.070
And then my, I had like a superior NCO

2560
01:51:03.070 --> 01:51:03.950
who was an E7

2561
01:51:03.950 --> 01:51:06.840
who was there to basically handle situations like that

2562
01:51:06.840 --> 01:51:10.870
to be my flag guard against situations exactly like that.

2563
01:51:10.870 --> 01:51:13.140
And he'd always just open up the window and he'd be like,

2564
01:51:13.140 --> 01:51:14.690
that's my art.

2565
01:51:14.690 --> 01:51:16.210
You don't tell him what to do.

2566
01:51:16.210 --> 01:51:18.020
So then I'd be like, oh, okay.

2567
01:51:18.020 --> 01:51:19.810
So he's yours and he's like, yeah,

2568
01:51:19.810 --> 01:51:21.210
nobody makes him do pushups.

2569
01:51:24.065 --> 01:51:25.530
The leadership that was directly in charge of me

2570
01:51:25.530 --> 01:51:27.980
was really fantastic during the whole thing.

2571
01:51:27.980 --> 01:51:32.980
Basically, they were like my, they were my defenders

2572
01:51:33.290 --> 01:51:36.480
so that I could be weird Chris, and just get my job done.

2573
01:51:36.480 --> 01:51:38.680
And they knew that from the get-go

2574
01:51:38.680 --> 01:51:39.780
that they didn't understand me,

2575
01:51:39.780 --> 01:51:42.150
didn't wanna deal with me, but they knew that I could do

2576
01:51:42.150 --> 01:51:45.010
what they needed done and I could do it well

2577
01:51:45.010 --> 01:51:47.330
and better than anybody else that they could have in there.

2578
01:51:47.330 --> 01:51:48.230
And I was really smart.

2579
01:51:48.230 --> 01:51:49.130
They all acknowledged

2580
01:51:49.130 --> 01:51:51.763
that that's where I should be in this camp.

2581
01:51:51.763 --> 01:51:54.210
And they just did a really good job

2582
01:51:54.210 --> 01:51:56.480
of covering up for me during that.

2583
01:51:56.480 --> 01:51:59.290
So I never really had to deal with the reality

2584
01:51:59.290 --> 01:52:03.010
that I was otherwise just a totally shitty soldier,

2585
01:52:03.010 --> 01:52:05.173
not good at what we were supposed to do.

2586
01:52:07.510 --> 01:52:10.600
<v Interviewer>So could you just describe how it was</v>

2587
01:52:10.600 --> 01:52:13.810
when you left Guantanamo, a year was up

2588
01:52:13.810 --> 01:52:15.460
or was there some other reason why you left?

2589
01:52:15.460 --> 01:52:17.680
<v ->Yeah, the year was up, our deployment was over.</v>

2590
01:52:17.680 --> 01:52:19.050
It kind of just came,

2591
01:52:19.050 --> 01:52:24.050
it was like we'd all, the date changed a million times.

2592
01:52:24.430 --> 01:52:26.060
They kept it very loose.

2593
01:52:26.060 --> 01:52:28.980
It was anywhere from October to December.

2594
01:52:28.980 --> 01:52:30.580
We ended up leaving in the end of October

2595
01:52:30.580 --> 01:52:32.210
we found out like two weeks in advance.

2596
01:52:32.210 --> 01:52:35.090
So from the moment that we found out we were coming home,

2597
01:52:35.090 --> 01:52:37.370
that every minute was just like that clock

2598
01:52:37.370 --> 01:52:40.550
just like (groans) ground down to a hall.

2599
01:52:40.550 --> 01:52:41.920
I remember sitting in that office

2600
01:52:41.920 --> 01:52:46.920
and just being like, oh God, 12 hours in here.

2601
01:52:47.280 --> 01:52:49.770
12 hours is just so long.

2602
01:52:49.770 --> 01:52:52.670
Psychologically that last two weeks

2603
01:52:52.670 --> 01:52:54.870
I felt all of that time.

2604
01:52:54.870 --> 01:52:56.310
I mean, it's not like 12 hours

2605
01:52:56.310 --> 01:52:57.710
was easy to get through before

2606
01:52:57.710 --> 01:53:00.800
but there is this kind of like, where else am I gonna be?

2607
01:53:00.800 --> 01:53:03.270
But then all of a sudden there was like we're going home.

2608
01:53:03.270 --> 01:53:05.057
So then I knew everywhere else where I could be.

2609
01:53:05.057 --> 01:53:07.730
And I was, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

2610
01:53:07.730 --> 01:53:09.570
I was like, I'm gonna ride a bike, I'm gonna see women.

2611
01:53:09.570 --> 01:53:11.880
And I'm like just like be in a place

2612
01:53:11.880 --> 01:53:14.120
where there was women that are not in uniform

2613
01:53:14.120 --> 01:53:16.157
was like so exciting to me.

2614
01:53:16.157 --> 01:53:17.790
And I had a girlfriend online.

2615
01:53:17.790 --> 01:53:19.330
I was really excited to like go home.

2616
01:53:19.330 --> 01:53:20.663
She lived in Tennessee.

2617
01:53:22.569 --> 01:53:24.610
I was pretty sure that we were gonna be in love forever.

2618
01:53:24.610 --> 01:53:25.443
We were not.

2619
01:53:28.460 --> 01:53:29.293
<v Interviewer>So did you get,</v>

2620
01:53:29.293 --> 01:53:31.250
were you then released from the military

2621
01:53:31.250 --> 01:53:32.130
when you went back home?

2622
01:53:32.130 --> 01:53:34.900
<v ->No, we got three months off after we got home.</v>

2623
01:53:34.900 --> 01:53:37.910
I got on unemployment, which lasted for six months

2624
01:53:37.910 --> 01:53:40.090
and then after that three months, we were right back

2625
01:53:40.090 --> 01:53:43.300
and I'll be in Michigan drilling one weekend a month.

2626
01:53:43.300 --> 01:53:44.160
And that's how I lived out.

2627
01:53:44.160 --> 01:53:46.523
The rest of my military experience is,

2628
01:53:51.524 --> 01:53:54.120
I know I was never promoted, but I was,

2629
01:53:56.240 --> 01:53:57.290
what do they call it?

2630
01:53:58.379 --> 01:54:00.320
They call it, like a win year promotion.

2631
01:54:00.320 --> 01:54:02.670
They changed my job title to ammo team chief.

2632
01:54:02.670 --> 01:54:06.070
And so all of a sudden I was acting like a Sergeant

2633
01:54:06.070 --> 01:54:08.270
on an E4s pay, which I hated

2634
01:54:08.270 --> 01:54:09.103
'cause I just didn't want,

2635
01:54:09.103 --> 01:54:11.290
all I wanted to not do was act like a Sergeant.

2636
01:54:11.290 --> 01:54:12.490
I would've taken the pay,

2637
01:54:12.490 --> 01:54:14.050
but I didn't wanna act like a Sergeant.

2638
01:54:14.050 --> 01:54:16.260
So they gave me the worst of both worlds is to pay me

2639
01:54:16.260 --> 01:54:19.340
like E4 and then give me the responsibility.

2640
01:54:19.340 --> 01:54:23.030
So, and that was just for like control of the ammunition

2641
01:54:23.030 --> 01:54:25.560
that we would fire on the howitzers, which is bullshit

2642
01:54:25.560 --> 01:54:27.360
And I just ended up doing everything myself

2643
01:54:27.360 --> 01:54:29.700
'cause I couldn't trust the people around me.

2644
01:54:29.700 --> 01:54:31.230
One guy was a chronic smoker

2645
01:54:31.230 --> 01:54:33.970
and there's cordite explosives everywhere,

2646
01:54:33.970 --> 01:54:38.350
bags, giant bags of stuff that launches 100 pound rounds,

2647
01:54:38.350 --> 01:54:40.490
18 miles down the road.

2648
01:54:40.490 --> 01:54:41.990
So it's like this guy

2649
01:54:41.990 --> 01:54:43.590
couldn't stop smoking cigarettes around him.

2650
01:54:43.590 --> 01:54:44.670
I slapped him in the face

2651
01:54:44.670 --> 01:54:47.960
like a handful of times just being like wake up now,

2652
01:54:47.960 --> 01:54:50.860
like we are, you could blow us up.

2653
01:54:50.860 --> 01:54:54.310
I mean, and that was it for just weekends.

2654
01:54:54.310 --> 01:54:57.360
Lots of anxiety about waiting for my phone calls,

2655
01:54:57.360 --> 01:54:59.000
like waiting for that next raging bull

2656
01:54:59.000 --> 01:55:00.070
'cause it's like, I knew it.

2657
01:55:00.070 --> 01:55:03.450
I knew it was coming, but we got really lucky in that

2658
01:55:03.450 --> 01:55:06.100
they detached the rest of our unit.

2659
01:55:06.100 --> 01:55:08.430
They sent, they only sent half of us to Guantanamo

2660
01:55:08.430 --> 01:55:11.660
'cause the other half of us were new enlistees

2661
01:55:11.660 --> 01:55:14.080
that were in basic while we were gone.

2662
01:55:14.080 --> 01:55:16.813
And people who had gotten out of this deployment,

2663
01:55:16.813 --> 01:55:20.220
there's a lot of like, they had a pretty minimal cap.

2664
01:55:20.220 --> 01:55:24.320
So there was like a whole, everybody that could flee fled.

2665
01:55:24.320 --> 01:55:26.000
And then while we were gone,

2666
01:55:26.000 --> 01:55:28.530
we were all like, oh, those shit bags

2667
01:55:28.530 --> 01:55:30.170
couldn't even come on this deployment.

2668
01:55:30.170 --> 01:55:31.880
And we just talk endless amounts of shit.

2669
01:55:31.880 --> 01:55:36.290
And then right when it was coming up for time for us to go,

2670
01:55:36.290 --> 01:55:40.630
the government was like, hey, other half of the 119

2671
01:55:40.630 --> 01:55:44.040
that we left behind, you guys are gonna to Iraq

2672
01:55:44.040 --> 01:55:46.800
and they split them up and send them everywhere all over

2673
01:55:46.800 --> 01:55:49.890
to a bunch of different prisons and those guys.

2674
01:55:49.890 --> 01:55:53.947
So basically our unit was technically deployed

2675
01:55:53.947 --> 01:55:57.490
until like 2006.

2676
01:55:57.490 --> 01:56:00.210
We are on some kind of deployment roster.

2677
01:56:00.210 --> 01:56:03.880
So we got really lucky in that

2678
01:56:03.880 --> 01:56:07.420
'cause they sent enough people to Iraq,

2679
01:56:07.420 --> 01:56:09.030
that was finally like,

2680
01:56:09.030 --> 01:56:11.860
they wouldn't send our detachment 'cause we were too small.

2681
01:56:11.860 --> 01:56:13.710
The Guantanamo detachment was too small

2682
01:56:13.710 --> 01:56:15.480
to fill anything for them

2683
01:56:15.480 --> 01:56:17.940
but they were doing some wild and wacky shit back then

2684
01:56:17.940 --> 01:56:21.430
like taking weird little groups of five or six people

2685
01:56:21.430 --> 01:56:23.510
from different units all over the nation

2686
01:56:23.510 --> 01:56:26.240
and jamming them into one giant national guard unit,

2687
01:56:26.240 --> 01:56:27.300
sending them into Iraq

2688
01:56:27.300 --> 01:56:30.610
and then rebreaking them up into God knows which ways.

2689
01:56:30.610 --> 01:56:32.430
And sending them all over the place again too.

2690
01:56:32.430 --> 01:56:35.330
They've been doing some really crazy mobilization cycles

2691
01:56:35.330 --> 01:56:36.833
with national guards, so.

2692
01:56:38.170 --> 01:56:39.850
<v ->So then you got out in what?</v>

2693
01:56:39.850 --> 01:56:41.230
<v ->2007.</v>

2694
01:56:41.230 --> 01:56:43.211
So I had one year

2695
01:56:43.211 --> 01:56:45.810
of like possible deployment time basically.

2696
01:56:45.810 --> 01:56:47.740
And as soon as that year came up,

2697
01:56:47.740 --> 01:56:50.740
I was I was also up for review, for medical review

2698
01:56:50.740 --> 01:56:55.140
for like where I was at the military does a pre,

2699
01:56:55.140 --> 01:56:57.720
you get out kind of medical tests.

2700
01:56:57.720 --> 01:56:59.770
And I went back in and I was like,

2701
01:56:59.770 --> 01:57:01.620
they started asking me questions,

2702
01:57:01.620 --> 01:57:02.530
do you use drugs?

2703
01:57:02.530 --> 01:57:04.490
And I was like, every day I do, I can't stop.

2704
01:57:04.490 --> 01:57:05.950
Like, I was just honest with them.

2705
01:57:05.950 --> 01:57:08.500
I was like, I've told you, I told you before that

2706
01:57:09.343 --> 01:57:11.310
and they were like, when did you tell us this?

2707
01:57:11.310 --> 01:57:15.610
Like, how has this been on record this whole time?

2708
01:57:15.610 --> 01:57:18.890
So they go back and they pull out all of my file

2709
01:57:18.890 --> 01:57:20.943
and they go through it and I can,

2710
01:57:20.943 --> 01:57:21.776
I'm just watching this guy go through.

2711
01:57:21.776 --> 01:57:25.800
And he's like, oh my God, oh my God, they deployed you,

2712
01:57:25.800 --> 01:57:26.850
they deployed you?

2713
01:57:26.850 --> 01:57:28.800
Like and I was like, yeah, they deployed me man.

2714
01:57:28.800 --> 01:57:30.640
Like, of course they deployed me.

2715
01:57:30.640 --> 01:57:31.640
They deployed everybody.

2716
01:57:31.640 --> 01:57:33.157
And he's like what?

2717
01:57:33.157 --> 01:57:33.990
They said that they shouldn't.

2718
01:57:33.990 --> 01:57:34.823
And I was like

2719
01:57:34.823 --> 01:57:37.260
maybe that's a conversation we should have had back in 2004.

2720
01:57:37.260 --> 01:57:38.602
Don't you think?

2721
01:57:38.602 --> 01:57:39.500
Like I was pissed, I was so irate.

2722
01:57:39.500 --> 01:57:41.650
I blew up on the sky.

2723
01:57:41.650 --> 01:57:46.340
He sent me back home with a paperwork,

2724
01:57:46.340 --> 01:57:48.600
a paper that said basically like,

2725
01:57:48.600 --> 01:57:51.370
we have totally fucked the situation up,

2726
01:57:51.370 --> 01:57:53.100
this person is undeployable,

2727
01:57:53.100 --> 01:57:55.140
cannot touch a rifle, cannot touch a weapon,

2728
01:57:55.140 --> 01:57:58.810
can not touch anything, do not ever like,

2729
01:57:58.810 --> 01:58:00.830
this, like basically they were just

2730
01:58:00.830 --> 01:58:03.830
like trying to prepare me to get kicked out of the military

2731
01:58:03.830 --> 01:58:05.210
on psychological grounds

2732
01:58:05.210 --> 01:58:09.030
'cause I had admitted to doing acid and Mescalin

2733
01:58:09.030 --> 01:58:13.270
and cocaine and mushrooms and weed smoking every day

2734
01:58:13.270 --> 01:58:15.190
before I'd gone to Guantanamo Bay

2735
01:58:15.190 --> 01:58:19.180
and then continuously put in other psychological things

2736
01:58:19.180 --> 01:58:22.360
that totally confirmed that I was on a heavy drug diet

2737
01:58:22.360 --> 01:58:24.740
throughout the entire time I was in the military,

2738
01:58:24.740 --> 01:58:26.700
that I was suffering from huge issues

2739
01:58:26.700 --> 01:58:28.470
that I'd had suicide attempts.

2740
01:58:28.470 --> 01:58:30.920
All of this stuff is in my pile of papers.

2741
01:58:30.920 --> 01:58:33.860
And nobody had ever realistically looked at it

2742
01:58:33.860 --> 01:58:36.510
and said this person is undeployable.

2743
01:58:36.510 --> 01:58:38.510
They just always said, we need the bodies.

2744
01:58:38.510 --> 01:58:39.500
You're fucking going.

2745
01:58:39.500 --> 01:58:41.100
You're they'd call me a bitch

2746
01:58:41.100 --> 01:58:42.880
'cause I was trying to get out of it.

2747
01:58:42.880 --> 01:58:44.200
Sorry to use the terms that,

2748
01:58:44.200 --> 01:58:45.980
but to stick to the reality,

2749
01:58:45.980 --> 01:58:49.409
I'd prefer to use exactly what they said, you know?

2750
01:58:49.409 --> 01:58:52.400
So there was a lot of hate

2751
01:58:52.400 --> 01:58:54.260
about me trying to get out of the deployment.

2752
01:58:54.260 --> 01:58:56.330
And it was just, it was just.

2753
01:58:56.330 --> 01:58:58.400
<v Interviewer>Did you see a psychologist in Guantanamo?</v>

2754
01:58:58.400 --> 01:58:59.910
<v ->No, they had.</v>

2755
01:58:59.910 --> 01:59:01.707
Before I left because of all the paperwork

2756
01:59:01.707 --> 01:59:03.670
and psychological complaints I've made

2757
01:59:03.670 --> 01:59:05.100
prior to my deployment,

2758
01:59:05.100 --> 01:59:06.670
they had said that to be there,

2759
01:59:06.670 --> 01:59:09.220
I would have to be on medication and seeing a psychologist

2760
01:59:09.220 --> 01:59:11.160
but that that was my commands responsibility

2761
01:59:11.160 --> 01:59:13.940
to make sure that that happened and then we got down there.

2762
01:59:13.940 --> 01:59:16.070
I never followed it up, they never followed it up,

2763
01:59:16.070 --> 01:59:17.210
I didn't want the pills.

2764
01:59:17.210 --> 01:59:19.990
So nobody ever did anything with it.

2765
01:59:19.990 --> 01:59:22.100
Basically. It just got, it was a non,

2766
01:59:22.100 --> 01:59:23.040
it was a forgotten issue.

2767
01:59:23.040 --> 01:59:25.830
The only person that checked in on me

2768
01:59:25.830 --> 01:59:27.280
that cared about this was,

2769
01:59:27.280 --> 01:59:31.610
it was one NCO who I respect more than anything

2770
01:59:31.610 --> 01:59:34.470
who is like a golden light of rationality

2771
01:59:34.470 --> 01:59:38.300
who I think probably was on my page

2772
01:59:38.300 --> 01:59:41.110
but was really proud of being a soldier.

2773
01:59:41.110 --> 01:59:43.270
He came from a really kind of trashy family

2774
01:59:43.270 --> 01:59:45.190
and it meant a lot to him to be a soldier.

2775
01:59:45.190 --> 01:59:46.820
And he's a really good NCO.

2776
01:59:46.820 --> 01:59:49.400
And he made me write a list of all the things

2777
01:59:49.400 --> 01:59:50.770
that I wanted to live for

2778
01:59:50.770 --> 01:59:53.040
and all of the things that I wanted to do

2779
01:59:53.040 --> 01:59:54.420
and really took me under his wing

2780
01:59:54.420 --> 01:59:58.453
and kind of became the one person that was like really,

2781
02:00:00.190 --> 02:00:02.670
I don't know that really actually cared about that

2782
02:00:02.670 --> 02:00:05.050
and push me to get into the psychologist's office

2783
02:00:05.050 --> 02:00:07.340
but then never pushed too hard,

2784
02:00:07.340 --> 02:00:09.530
but checked in on me.

2785
02:00:09.530 --> 02:00:12.940
He was really the only NCO or person from our unit

2786
02:00:12.940 --> 02:00:14.300
that really gave a fuck about it.

2787
02:00:14.300 --> 02:00:15.940
Everybody else.

2788
02:00:15.940 --> 02:00:17.030
The only thing that they said

2789
02:00:17.030 --> 02:00:18.840
when they were presented with the paperwork

2790
02:00:18.840 --> 02:00:20.090
that came from the psychologist

2791
02:00:20.090 --> 02:00:21.690
that said that I should not send them

2792
02:00:21.690 --> 02:00:25.250
was my commander took the paper and the guy next to him,

2793
02:00:25.250 --> 02:00:28.700
our platoon Sergeant said, what'd you tell him you're gay.

2794
02:00:28.700 --> 02:00:30.270
And then that's it,

2795
02:00:30.270 --> 02:00:31.560
that's all that was ever said about it

2796
02:00:31.560 --> 02:00:34.080
and then my commander basically said,

2797
02:00:34.080 --> 02:00:36.400
well this isn't gonna fly, I'm gonna deploy you anyway

2798
02:00:36.400 --> 02:00:39.440
and that's what happened?

2799
02:00:39.440 --> 02:00:41.470
<v Interviewer>Did people take drugs in Guantanamo?</v>

2800
02:00:41.470 --> 02:00:42.430
<v ->No.</v>

2801
02:00:42.430 --> 02:00:44.180
I found out later that they did.

2802
02:00:44.180 --> 02:00:46.860
I was looking like a fiend while I was down there.

2803
02:00:46.860 --> 02:00:49.520
There was Jamaicans and every Jamaican bus driver,

2804
02:00:49.520 --> 02:00:52.810
every hair cutter, every person, I was like,

2805
02:00:52.810 --> 02:00:53.870
yo you got any weed?

2806
02:00:53.870 --> 02:00:57.910
And then everybody was like, man, you can't, I can't,

2807
02:00:57.910 --> 02:00:59.760
like there's no way I'm gonna,

2808
02:00:59.760 --> 02:01:02.570
no, I can't even say anything to an American soldier.

2809
02:01:02.570 --> 02:01:04.400
Like if I lose this job, I'm fucked man.

2810
02:01:04.400 --> 02:01:08.330
Like there's no, nobody here is gonna give you drugs.

2811
02:01:08.330 --> 02:01:13.140
And, but later I heard stories that people

2812
02:01:13.140 --> 02:01:15.680
had been getting meth and weed shipped in.

2813
02:01:15.680 --> 02:01:17.310
Meth was a big problem in our unit.

2814
02:01:17.310 --> 02:01:21.340
And that people were taking like hardcore drugs

2815
02:01:21.340 --> 02:01:23.670
the whole time that we were there and I'd never known.

2816
02:01:23.670 --> 02:01:25.650
And everybody knew that I was like a drug fin.

2817
02:01:25.650 --> 02:01:28.330
So I got, I remember getting really off

2818
02:01:28.330 --> 02:01:31.490
when I found out that this one guy in our unit had been,

2819
02:01:31.490 --> 02:01:34.320
he said that he'd been smoking weed the whole time.

2820
02:01:34.320 --> 02:01:35.710
And I froze the conversation.

2821
02:01:35.710 --> 02:01:37.780
I was like, what are you talking?

2822
02:01:37.780 --> 02:01:41.240
Wait, all the time, you had it the whole time.

2823
02:01:41.240 --> 02:01:42.840
You know that I wanted some, like

2824
02:01:42.840 --> 02:01:44.347
why didn't you ever say anything to me?

2825
02:01:44.347 --> 02:01:46.210
And he's like, I thought she'd go crazy, man.

2826
02:01:46.210 --> 02:01:47.660
I didn't want you to smoke my weed.

2827
02:01:47.660 --> 02:01:48.900
And it's hard to get it down there.

2828
02:01:48.900 --> 02:01:51.120
So I didn't wanna like share.

2829
02:01:51.120 --> 02:01:52.670
I got really pissed off at him.

2830
02:01:54.110 --> 02:01:56.410
<v Interviewer>So maybe we (indistinct)</v>

2831
02:01:56.410 --> 02:01:57.980
<v ->But sorry, one thing about that,</v>

2832
02:01:57.980 --> 02:01:59.880
but drinking all the time,

2833
02:01:59.880 --> 02:02:01.470
booze is cheaper than milk down there.

2834
02:02:01.470 --> 02:02:03.790
So we drank on the blocks.

2835
02:02:03.790 --> 02:02:06.110
We drank in the camp.

2836
02:02:06.110 --> 02:02:08.400
All a lot of people would make cocktails

2837
02:02:08.400 --> 02:02:11.450
in their camelbacks the backpacks with liquids in

2838
02:02:11.450 --> 02:02:12.590
them that you can drink from a host.

2839
02:02:12.590 --> 02:02:14.900
They would come to work with straight whiskey

2840
02:02:14.900 --> 02:02:17.380
in those things, they would come to work wasted, drunk,

2841
02:02:17.380 --> 02:02:18.710
that they would get drunk

2842
02:02:18.710 --> 02:02:21.140
and then do things like duct tape me to the bed,

2843
02:02:21.140 --> 02:02:24.330
huge drinking problems, huge, a lot of booze in that camp,

2844
02:02:24.330 --> 02:02:26.500
huge involvement of booze in the violence,

2845
02:02:26.500 --> 02:02:30.320
booze violence combination thing going on as well.

2846
02:02:30.320 --> 02:02:32.730
There is a lot of whiskey breath

2847
02:02:32.730 --> 02:02:34.180
during a lot of those earths.

2848
02:02:35.096 --> 02:02:36.800
So there is a relationship there.

2849
02:02:36.800 --> 02:02:39.771
We had way too ready access to booze.

2850
02:02:39.771 --> 02:02:41.157
<v Interviewer>And nobody seemed to care?</v>

2851
02:02:41.157 --> 02:02:43.490
<v ->Nobody had any, we had no leadership.</v>

2852
02:02:43.490 --> 02:02:46.510
There was nobody, everything.

2853
02:02:46.510 --> 02:02:48.690
They broke everything down and split everything up

2854
02:02:48.690 --> 02:02:51.180
so that nobody, the most you're ever reporting to

2855
02:02:51.180 --> 02:02:55.550
is like your section chief was probably also a drunk in E5

2856
02:02:55.550 --> 02:02:57.716
like one rank above you

2857
02:02:57.716 --> 02:03:00.380
and the problems were so endemic

2858
02:03:00.380 --> 02:03:03.570
that it's like you had good NCOs and bad NCOs.

2859
02:03:03.570 --> 02:03:05.270
And you knew when you were working well

2860
02:03:05.270 --> 02:03:06.380
that works both ways.

2861
02:03:06.380 --> 02:03:09.900
Good NCOs being like NCOs that would also be drinking

2862
02:03:09.900 --> 02:03:12.520
and that you knew you could drink with.

2863
02:03:12.520 --> 02:03:14.150
And the rosters would be put out in advance.

2864
02:03:14.150 --> 02:03:16.000
You know who you're working with,

2865
02:03:16.000 --> 02:03:18.500
you know who is acceptable to do certain things around.

2866
02:03:18.500 --> 02:03:20.842
So they would plan things that,

2867
02:03:20.842 --> 02:03:23.450
and the goody two-shoes NCOs were always pinpointed.

2868
02:03:23.450 --> 02:03:24.840
Nobody wanted to work around them.

2869
02:03:24.840 --> 02:03:28.580
And they were put with like the units would select them

2870
02:03:28.580 --> 02:03:33.100
and put them in there, like goody two-shoes little sections

2871
02:03:33.100 --> 02:03:35.070
and, or try to get rid of them entirely send them

2872
02:03:35.070 --> 02:03:37.530
to other missions because everybody was weary

2873
02:03:37.530 --> 02:03:40.590
about having another Abu Ghraib situation

2874
02:03:40.590 --> 02:03:43.510
where somebody would say like, whoa,

2875
02:03:43.510 --> 02:03:45.760
flag on the play here.

2876
02:03:45.760 --> 02:03:47.180
Like we didn't want that.

2877
02:03:47.180 --> 02:03:49.580
That was always on people's tongues is like

2878
02:03:51.200 --> 02:03:53.220
'cause we knew we were doing stuff like it.

2879
02:03:53.220 --> 02:03:55.310
I mean, I've seen things that look a little bit

2880
02:03:55.310 --> 02:03:57.510
like those pictures, maybe not as drastic.

2881
02:03:57.510 --> 02:03:59.420
And we definitely would never take pictures.

2882
02:03:59.420 --> 02:04:01.030
You'd never get a camera into that place.

2883
02:04:01.030 --> 02:04:02.280
They'd searched you like,

2884
02:04:03.740 --> 02:04:05.630
one kid from our unit tried to bring

2885
02:04:05.630 --> 02:04:09.370
a computer chip in one of the little zip drives,

2886
02:04:09.370 --> 02:04:11.220
they weren't super popular back then.

2887
02:04:12.120 --> 02:04:13.950
He tried to bring one of those into the camp

2888
02:04:13.950 --> 02:04:16.100
and they kicked him out of the camp for a week

2889
02:04:16.100 --> 02:04:17.680
while they tried to figure out what to do with them

2890
02:04:17.680 --> 02:04:19.950
and eventually sent him off to work at a different job

2891
02:04:19.950 --> 02:04:21.990
like, 'cause they made such a big deal

2892
02:04:21.990 --> 02:04:24.533
about operational security stuff, so.

2893
02:04:26.810 --> 02:04:28.110
<v Interviewer>You sort of said things</v>

2894
02:04:28.110 --> 02:04:31.130
similar to have a grade talking about.

2895
02:04:31.130 --> 02:04:33.770
<v ->Just violence is the way we treated the detainees</v>

2896
02:04:38.920 --> 02:04:40.570
<v Interviewer>Minis that asked you about</v>

2897
02:04:40.570 --> 02:04:43.870
when you met the detainees outside subsequently

2898
02:04:43.870 --> 02:04:46.917
and the one man with the one arm.

2899
02:04:46.917 --> 02:04:47.750
<v ->Terrick.</v>

2900
02:04:47.750 --> 02:04:48.950
<v Interviewer>Terrick, can you tell us a bit about that</v>

2901
02:04:48.950 --> 02:04:52.720
or how that happened and your experiences then?

2902
02:04:52.720 --> 02:04:56.480
<v ->Yeah, it's kind of a long chain of events like I said.</v>

2903
02:04:56.480 --> 02:05:00.110
In the winter of 2007 in December,

2904
02:05:00.110 --> 02:05:03.880
I joined this group called Iraq Veterans Against the War.

2905
02:05:03.880 --> 02:05:06.170
I'd heard about it, I had a girlfriend at the time.

2906
02:05:06.170 --> 02:05:07.820
Her name is Jamie, we were together

2907
02:05:07.820 --> 02:05:09.240
and our relationship was failing

2908
02:05:09.240 --> 02:05:12.440
'cause I cheated on her and lied a whole lot.

2909
02:05:12.440 --> 02:05:14.987
And it just was really like super acting out

2910
02:05:14.987 --> 02:05:17.710
and like being super crazy

2911
02:05:17.710 --> 02:05:19.990
like other persona and being really angry

2912
02:05:19.990 --> 02:05:21.770
and she was like what in the fuck is going on with you?

2913
02:05:21.770 --> 02:05:24.450
You've got two sides and I can't tell what's going on.

2914
02:05:24.450 --> 02:05:25.283
You need help.

2915
02:05:25.283 --> 02:05:28.020
Like she really wanted to work through it with me.

2916
02:05:28.020 --> 02:05:32.550
And she was the only thing that would like make me see it

2917
02:05:32.550 --> 02:05:34.480
as like a problem that I needed help with.

2918
02:05:34.480 --> 02:05:37.460
She was the only person that would make me like

2919
02:05:37.460 --> 02:05:39.660
actually even deal with the fact that I was a veteran.

2920
02:05:39.660 --> 02:05:41.360
Other than that, I was just trying to be a hipster.

2921
02:05:41.360 --> 02:05:43.760
I was just trying to be out of the military

2922
02:05:43.760 --> 02:05:45.060
and not have to deal with it

2923
02:05:45.060 --> 02:05:46.410
and not have to think about it

2924
02:05:46.410 --> 02:05:48.110
and not have to deal with the reality

2925
02:05:48.110 --> 02:05:50.410
that I'm different than everybody else I see all the time.

2926
02:05:50.410 --> 02:05:51.933
I wanted to be like them.

2927
02:05:53.570 --> 02:05:55.140
So I promised her that I would get help.

2928
02:05:55.140 --> 02:05:56.410
So I started looking around

2929
02:05:56.410 --> 02:05:59.060
I found this group called Direct Veterans Against the War

2930
02:05:59.060 --> 02:06:00.193
and I thought, well,

2931
02:06:01.380 --> 02:06:02.920
we'll check this out, see what's going on.

2932
02:06:02.920 --> 02:06:04.960
Maybe this will cover

2933
02:06:04.960 --> 02:06:06.590
'cause I don't wanna talk to a therapist.

2934
02:06:06.590 --> 02:06:07.920
I don't wanna talk to a psychologist.

2935
02:06:07.920 --> 02:06:08.790
I don't want pills.

2936
02:06:08.790 --> 02:06:10.520
I know I don't wanna go to the VA.

2937
02:06:10.520 --> 02:06:12.680
I don't wanna be treated like a demographic.

2938
02:06:12.680 --> 02:06:14.483
I don't want all of this shit.

2939
02:06:14.483 --> 02:06:17.610
I just want a place where I can talk with people about this.

2940
02:06:17.610 --> 02:06:20.200
So I went and I met a bunch of other veterans

2941
02:06:20.200 --> 02:06:23.070
and I realized that, yeah, this is really

2942
02:06:23.070 --> 02:06:24.900
where I can kind of get my head straight

2943
02:06:24.900 --> 02:06:27.930
is around other people that are coming from the same place

2944
02:06:27.930 --> 02:06:32.534
that I can trust that know if not

2945
02:06:32.534 --> 02:06:34.650
what Guantanamo is all about,

2946
02:06:34.650 --> 02:06:36.330
what this war is all about.

2947
02:06:36.330 --> 02:06:37.163
And it's all connected.

2948
02:06:37.163 --> 02:06:38.680
It's all the same shit is what I saw,

2949
02:06:38.680 --> 02:06:42.010
is that everybody everywhere saw the same racism

2950
02:06:42.010 --> 02:06:45.419
and acted under the same constraints as I did basically.

2951
02:06:45.419 --> 02:06:50.419
And they asked me if I wanted to testify in winter soldier.

2952
02:06:50.930 --> 02:06:53.510
I don't think that they really understood what was,

2953
02:06:53.510 --> 02:06:56.700
like what my constraints were with like the legal thing

2954
02:06:56.700 --> 02:07:00.300
'cause up until the day of nobody asked me anything.

2955
02:07:00.300 --> 02:07:03.020
And then right before I was supposed to walk onto the stage,

2956
02:07:03.020 --> 02:07:08.020
they were in a little line and somebody goes, all right now,

2957
02:07:08.040 --> 02:07:10.370
so you guys are talking about prison camps,

2958
02:07:10.370 --> 02:07:13.480
so did anybody ever sign anything like a Non-disclosure Act?

2959
02:07:13.480 --> 02:07:16.260
And I was like, oh yeah, we had to,

2960
02:07:16.260 --> 02:07:17.300
we had to sign one of those.

2961
02:07:17.300 --> 02:07:19.530
And they were like, oh, oh,

2962
02:07:19.530 --> 02:07:21.247
well you can't go do this.

2963
02:07:21.247 --> 02:07:23.727
And I was like, try to stop me.

2964
02:07:23.727 --> 02:07:26.743
Just went out on stage and was like,

2965
02:07:28.240 --> 02:07:30.680
basically I remember sitting in front of the mirror

2966
02:07:30.680 --> 02:07:32.930
just like total, like game time.

2967
02:07:32.930 --> 02:07:34.397
Like I was ready to walk out of there

2968
02:07:34.397 --> 02:07:35.993
and handcuffs day.

2969
02:07:35.993 --> 02:07:39.090
I had no idea what to expect when you,

2970
02:07:39.090 --> 02:07:40.780
I hadn't heard anything

2971
02:07:40.780 --> 02:07:43.780
about anybody that had like broken the Non-disclosure Act.

2972
02:07:43.780 --> 02:07:46.620
I hadn't heard anything about what would happen.

2973
02:07:46.620 --> 02:07:48.840
I could only guess and imagine.

2974
02:07:48.840 --> 02:07:51.787
And well, the people that I'm talking to,

2975
02:07:51.787 --> 02:07:53.210
a lot of the same people that put these people on cages

2976
02:07:53.210 --> 02:07:54.043
in the first place.

2977
02:07:54.043 --> 02:07:56.610
So I was really kind of like, well

2978
02:07:56.610 --> 02:07:58.560
what rules do they apply to?

2979
02:07:58.560 --> 02:07:59.550
Obviously none.

2980
02:07:59.550 --> 02:08:01.280
So I can't sit here

2981
02:08:01.280 --> 02:08:03.440
and try to rationalize the well how this beast

2982
02:08:03.440 --> 02:08:06.870
is gonna relate to me 'cause they could do anything.

2983
02:08:06.870 --> 02:08:09.510
They have the possibility to do anything that they want

2984
02:08:09.510 --> 02:08:10.370
with the situation.

2985
02:08:10.370 --> 02:08:13.179
So I just went and did it

2986
02:08:13.179 --> 02:08:16.000
and then got really paranoid about how that,

2987
02:08:16.000 --> 02:08:17.330
like what would happen.

2988
02:08:17.330 --> 02:08:19.730
I stayed in my apartment with my girlfriend

2989
02:08:19.730 --> 02:08:22.910
for a couple of weeks staring out the window,

2990
02:08:22.910 --> 02:08:24.930
and then nothing ever came of it

2991
02:08:24.930 --> 02:08:26.407
except that people started calling me

2992
02:08:26.407 --> 02:08:28.730
and they wanted more and more and more interviews.

2993
02:08:28.730 --> 02:08:32.750
Everybody wanted to get on the Guantanamo Bay thing.

2994
02:08:32.750 --> 02:08:34.870
So I was like, at first I was so excited,

2995
02:08:34.870 --> 02:08:36.570
I was like, yes, people wanna know about it.

2996
02:08:36.570 --> 02:08:39.590
I'll show, I'll tell, I'll do everything I can,

2997
02:08:39.590 --> 02:08:42.540
I'll express everything I've got, like what a great window.

2998
02:08:44.993 --> 02:08:49.000
And I feel like I really kind of lost my head

2999
02:08:49.000 --> 02:08:49.870
during that period

3000
02:08:49.870 --> 02:08:51.640
because media is really limited

3001
02:08:51.640 --> 02:08:53.490
to what they want from us to say,

3002
02:08:53.490 --> 02:08:58.490
what I realized that there's a whole world of things

3003
02:08:59.070 --> 02:09:00.610
that people want out of this.

3004
02:09:00.610 --> 02:09:03.240
They want the torture stories,

3005
02:09:03.240 --> 02:09:06.380
they want their concept

3006
02:09:06.380 --> 02:09:08.650
of what Guantanamo is to be validated

3007
02:09:08.650 --> 02:09:09.960
and they want it to be very simple

3008
02:09:09.960 --> 02:09:11.910
and they want it to be very cookie cutter and precise

3009
02:09:11.910 --> 02:09:14.600
and they want it to be exactly like they think it is.

3010
02:09:14.600 --> 02:09:16.420
And I found that I could never explain to people

3011
02:09:16.420 --> 02:09:18.590
that it's not anything like, you'll never imagine it.

3012
02:09:18.590 --> 02:09:20.310
It's like trying to imagine what hell is like,

3013
02:09:20.310 --> 02:09:21.143
it's totally different.

3014
02:09:21.143 --> 02:09:22.363
You can't imagine what.

3015
02:09:23.220 --> 02:09:25.860
I spend my life imagining what nine years

3016
02:09:25.860 --> 02:09:27.750
inside of a cage feels like

3017
02:09:27.750 --> 02:09:30.530
and I know that I'll never understand that

3018
02:09:30.530 --> 02:09:32.960
but to a certain existential degree,

3019
02:09:32.960 --> 02:09:34.580
I feel like I've got a good understanding

3020
02:09:34.580 --> 02:09:36.640
of what that does to your fucking head,

3021
02:09:36.640 --> 02:09:39.040
but people outside of that good luck,

3022
02:09:39.040 --> 02:09:42.340
you've probably spent the most time that I know of anybody

3023
02:09:42.340 --> 02:09:44.790
like gathering multiple different stories

3024
02:09:44.790 --> 02:09:45.623
from different angles.

3025
02:09:45.623 --> 02:09:46.620
And I'm sure you can understand

3026
02:09:46.620 --> 02:09:48.540
how complicated this whole thing is now.

3027
02:09:48.540 --> 02:09:52.220
So it's like these conversations don't happen in 15 minutes.

3028
02:09:52.220 --> 02:09:53.400
They don't happen in soundbites.

3029
02:09:53.400 --> 02:09:55.870
They don't happen short and sweet

3030
02:09:55.870 --> 02:09:58.480
and they don't affirm what you think.

3031
02:09:58.480 --> 02:10:03.480
They open up a whole new world of despair that people don't,

3032
02:10:04.403 --> 02:10:06.820
I have found don't want it to challenge.

3033
02:10:06.820 --> 02:10:08.130
Anyway, so long story short,

3034
02:10:08.130 --> 02:10:10.480
got into this whole world of public speaking

3035
02:10:10.480 --> 02:10:14.060
and was pretty disillusioned

3036
02:10:14.060 --> 02:10:16.060
with the whole thing pretty quickly

3037
02:10:16.060 --> 02:10:20.670
but then I got contacted from (indistinct) by email.

3038
02:10:20.670 --> 02:10:21.770
And he basically said,

3039
02:10:22.620 --> 02:10:26.150
hey, I'm a former detainee, I've been released.

3040
02:10:26.150 --> 02:10:27.107
I live in England

3041
02:10:27.107 --> 02:10:30.720
and this whole time that I'd been out,

3042
02:10:30.720 --> 02:10:34.510
like I basically thought nightmare circumstance,

3043
02:10:34.510 --> 02:10:36.360
worst case scenario I'm on the street

3044
02:10:36.360 --> 02:10:39.270
and some buddy sees me, I don't remember any faces.

3045
02:10:39.270 --> 02:10:40.390
So I would never see any,

3046
02:10:40.390 --> 02:10:44.830
I'd felt like I would never see anybody and go, holy shit,

3047
02:10:44.830 --> 02:10:46.940
you were a detainee in Guantanamo Bay.

3048
02:10:46.940 --> 02:10:50.553
Like that never ever crossed my mind that that could happen.

3049
02:10:52.570 --> 02:10:55.490
And then I got contacted by mom and I was like,

3050
02:10:55.490 --> 02:10:58.070
wow this is really a chance to like,

3051
02:10:58.070 --> 02:11:00.470
confront what has become a nightmare to me.

3052
02:11:00.470 --> 02:11:04.010
Like I really wanna see how this goes.

3053
02:11:04.010 --> 02:11:07.740
And we started setting it up.

3054
02:11:07.740 --> 02:11:09.110
I remember he called me one time.

3055
02:11:09.110 --> 02:11:11.120
And the first time we'd like talked by voice.

3056
02:11:11.120 --> 02:11:11.953
He called my phone.

3057
02:11:11.953 --> 02:11:13.740
I was all like drunk.

3058
02:11:13.740 --> 02:11:15.050
It was 10 o'clock in the morning.

3059
02:11:15.050 --> 02:11:16.590
I was like waking up with a hangover.

3060
02:11:16.590 --> 02:11:17.630
And I was like, hello.

3061
02:11:17.630 --> 02:11:19.954
And he's like, this is (indistinct)

3062
02:11:19.954 --> 02:11:23.080
And I was like, oh, wow.

3063
02:11:23.080 --> 02:11:28.080
I remember feeling like a deadness where I thought

3064
02:11:28.231 --> 02:11:29.570
that a more profound feeling should be.

3065
02:11:29.570 --> 02:11:33.660
Like that there should be something really magical

3066
02:11:33.660 --> 02:11:34.493
about this occurrence

3067
02:11:34.493 --> 02:11:37.040
but that there for me was a certain amount

3068
02:11:37.040 --> 02:11:41.490
of just kind of white noise, where my emotions should be

3069
02:11:41.490 --> 02:11:43.640
which is a fairly familiar feeling to me by now,

3070
02:11:43.640 --> 02:11:47.090
I've felt more than anything,

3071
02:11:47.090 --> 02:11:49.058
a lack of feeling around a lot of things

3072
02:11:49.058 --> 02:11:49.891
that I used to know,

3073
02:11:49.891 --> 02:11:51.780
a lot of feeling for since I've been deployed.

3074
02:11:52.810 --> 02:11:55.890
And definitely you really felt that

3075
02:11:55.890 --> 02:11:57.210
with that initial connection

3076
02:11:57.210 --> 02:12:02.040
and then also when we first met together,

3077
02:12:02.040 --> 02:12:03.603
I started doing it,

3078
02:12:03.603 --> 02:12:05.003
and I also kind of felt like

3079
02:12:06.710 --> 02:12:09.770
something was not clicking in my head emotionally

3080
02:12:09.770 --> 02:12:14.360
about the matter but I went to England

3081
02:12:14.360 --> 02:12:15.720
and started to do this tour.

3082
02:12:15.720 --> 02:12:19.320
It was 2022, two are dates in 24 towns

3083
02:12:19.320 --> 02:12:22.480
that we were gonna drive around in with Omar

3084
02:12:22.480 --> 02:12:25.640
and (indistinct) and Sammy L Hodge

3085
02:12:25.640 --> 02:12:27.170
was supposed to come as well

3086
02:12:27.170 --> 02:12:30.140
but he was detained, not detained, oh my God, not detained

3087
02:12:30.140 --> 02:12:32.760
but his passport was denied

3088
02:12:32.760 --> 02:12:35.113
or his Visa was denied or something like that.

3089
02:12:37.740 --> 02:12:41.540
And on one of the first couple of nights,

3090
02:12:41.540 --> 02:12:44.630
we were at the friends meeting hall.

3091
02:12:44.630 --> 02:12:48.640
I was kind of like acclimating to (indistinct) who

3092
02:12:49.890 --> 02:12:52.133
was a little cold and distant at the time.

3093
02:12:53.100 --> 02:12:54.888
not necessarily like the warmest

3094
02:12:54.888 --> 02:12:58.070
welcoming party I could have imagined

3095
02:12:59.690 --> 02:13:04.690
and feeling really like an idiot for being where I was for

3096
02:13:07.900 --> 02:13:10.520
'cause I could tell, like after this event,

3097
02:13:10.520 --> 02:13:12.577
was the first time that I'd sat next to these people.

3098
02:13:12.577 --> 02:13:14.430
And as the words came out of my mouth,

3099
02:13:14.430 --> 02:13:18.897
I knew that it was a really privileged

3100
02:13:21.260 --> 02:13:23.330
and stupid thing to think

3101
02:13:23.330 --> 02:13:27.910
that my story next to these people's stories

3102
02:13:27.910 --> 02:13:32.073
really had anything of value you like this is it.

3103
02:13:33.430 --> 02:13:34.520
I don't know how to explain this

3104
02:13:34.520 --> 02:13:36.480
but I felt really humbled,

3105
02:13:36.480 --> 02:13:41.403
I guess, is the word to the point where it was really like,

3106
02:13:42.340 --> 02:13:43.400
oh God, what am I doing?

3107
02:13:43.400 --> 02:13:44.850
And this is one of the first speaking events

3108
02:13:44.850 --> 02:13:47.590
that we had is like how am I gonna sit here

3109
02:13:47.590 --> 02:13:50.070
in front of thousands, upon thousands,

3110
02:13:50.070 --> 02:13:54.040
upon thousands of people and to see how people reacted to it

3111
02:13:54.040 --> 02:13:56.370
where they were like fascinated with my position

3112
02:13:56.370 --> 02:13:59.310
but could seem fucking not to be bothered

3113
02:13:59.310 --> 02:14:01.870
by the fact that I'm sitting on a panel

3114
02:14:01.870 --> 02:14:03.840
with people that had been detained there.

3115
02:14:03.840 --> 02:14:06.548
It's like they have all these questions for me

3116
02:14:06.548 --> 02:14:09.263
but they don't want, didn't want anything

3117
02:14:09.263 --> 02:14:10.840
that they didn't have this connection

3118
02:14:10.840 --> 02:14:12.590
with the guys next to me.

3119
02:14:12.590 --> 02:14:14.880
And I just felt like such,

3120
02:14:14.880 --> 02:14:16.370
that whole month just felt like

3121
02:14:16.370 --> 02:14:17.750
such a freak show environment.

3122
02:14:17.750 --> 02:14:19.700
But anyway, long buildup

3123
02:14:19.700 --> 02:14:21.900
to the story of meeting Terrick.

3124
02:14:23.760 --> 02:14:25.500
After the first event I was outside,

3125
02:14:25.500 --> 02:14:29.630
chain smoking cigarettes, just what became my habit

3126
02:14:29.630 --> 02:14:32.780
of like escaping outside of the nearest exit

3127
02:14:32.780 --> 02:14:35.610
and then finding a corner to smoke in a shadow by myself

3128
02:14:35.610 --> 02:14:36.930
and just be alone.

3129
02:14:36.930 --> 02:14:40.760
I had a whole hat and face ensemble that would,

3130
02:14:40.760 --> 02:14:44.020
I changed my clothes right after everything

3131
02:14:44.020 --> 02:14:45.640
so that nobody would know who I am.

3132
02:14:45.640 --> 02:14:48.040
And I just sit outside and smoke and listen to what

3133
02:14:48.040 --> 02:14:50.730
like the chatter that people would have to say.

3134
02:14:50.730 --> 02:14:52.040
And I remember I was like smoking

3135
02:14:52.040 --> 02:14:54.660
and kind of zoning out and staring across.

3136
02:14:54.660 --> 02:14:57.710
And all of a sudden, like I see this dude on the other end

3137
02:14:57.710 --> 02:15:00.963
of the stairwell and this big building.

3138
02:15:02.230 --> 02:15:05.610
And it just was like a flashlight,

3139
02:15:05.610 --> 02:15:07.920
just a total memory flash.

3140
02:15:07.920 --> 02:15:11.330
I just knew that that was him, that that was Terrick.

3141
02:15:11.330 --> 02:15:16.330
And that like, that night he actually drove,

3142
02:15:16.471 --> 02:15:18.970
I walked over and I introduced myself.

3143
02:15:18.970 --> 02:15:22.000
I didn't say anything about the first time we'd met.

3144
02:15:22.000 --> 02:15:23.860
I didn't know if he remembered or not.

3145
02:15:23.860 --> 02:15:27.190
And he offered to drive me

3146
02:15:27.190 --> 02:15:30.210
to where we were having a post speech dinner

3147
02:15:31.886 --> 02:15:34.720
and he was really like, nice

3148
02:15:34.720 --> 02:15:36.650
and like was super like what I mean,

3149
02:15:36.650 --> 02:15:38.120
we're really glad that you came

3150
02:15:38.120 --> 02:15:41.440
and really more so than other people wanted to talk with me

3151
02:15:41.440 --> 02:15:45.780
about converting to Islam which was a big theme

3152
02:15:45.780 --> 02:15:47.960
along the whole thing is like me converting to Islam

3153
02:15:47.960 --> 02:15:49.980
is was like a goal that they all had.

3154
02:15:49.980 --> 02:15:53.709
And I knew it and they were really seedy about it

3155
02:15:53.709 --> 02:15:54.750
but we eventually worked it out

3156
02:15:54.750 --> 02:15:59.130
in that I'm more or less fulfilling in Islamic life.

3157
02:15:59.130 --> 02:16:00.530
I just really liked some drugs.

3158
02:16:00.530 --> 02:16:04.930
And also I've got different notions of premarital sex

3159
02:16:04.930 --> 02:16:06.900
and that's about it really.

3160
02:16:06.900 --> 02:16:10.551
Other than that, I mean I kind of,

3161
02:16:10.551 --> 02:16:12.920
I live mostly by their code.

3162
02:16:12.920 --> 02:16:14.960
A lot of things that they take very seriously

3163
02:16:14.960 --> 02:16:17.970
like possessions of stuff and like their relationship

3164
02:16:17.970 --> 02:16:21.660
to the world or to the existential

3165
02:16:21.660 --> 02:16:24.470
or to the God or whatever,

3166
02:16:24.470 --> 02:16:26.903
I'm pretty in line with a lot of that stuff.

3167
02:16:26.903 --> 02:16:28.700
I just don't call it anything.

3168
02:16:28.700 --> 02:16:29.900
Anyway, we worked it out,

3169
02:16:29.900 --> 02:16:32.760
but he drove me there that night to that dinner.

3170
02:16:32.760 --> 02:16:33.940
It was really weird.

3171
02:16:33.940 --> 02:16:36.250
I felt like I kept it all to myself

3172
02:16:36.250 --> 02:16:38.780
like this experience of like, I didn't wanna tell him,

3173
02:16:38.780 --> 02:16:39.820
I didn't wanna talk to him about it.

3174
02:16:39.820 --> 02:16:40.980
I didn't wanna,

3175
02:16:40.980 --> 02:16:43.580
'cause he was the one person that I'd always thought

3176
02:16:43.580 --> 02:16:46.590
like that's the face that I don't wanna see in the street.

3177
02:16:46.590 --> 02:16:48.380
Like this is the person

3178
02:16:48.380 --> 02:16:52.170
that I don't wanna have to deal with,

3179
02:16:52.170 --> 02:16:55.940
and he's driving one armed and on the cell phone

3180
02:16:55.940 --> 02:16:57.670
and then shifting, he has a stick shift.

3181
02:16:57.670 --> 02:17:01.480
So he's like in Europe and I'm just like,

3182
02:17:01.480 --> 02:17:02.930
this is so fucking weird.

3183
02:17:02.930 --> 02:17:04.010
This is so weird.

3184
02:17:04.010 --> 02:17:06.410
Like I'm in the wrong side of a car

3185
02:17:06.410 --> 02:17:07.243
with a one-armed

3186
02:17:07.243 --> 02:17:11.024
former detainee who was talking on the phone in Arabic

3187
02:17:11.024 --> 02:17:14.850
and occasionally trying to tell me to become Islam

3188
02:17:14.850 --> 02:17:19.850
or a Muslim, and I'm in Europe,

3189
02:17:19.890 --> 02:17:22.200
like what in the fuck is going on?

3190
02:17:22.200 --> 02:17:24.930
And we got to dinner and we sat down and him and I sat

3191
02:17:24.930 --> 02:17:28.760
and we ate and like halfway into the meal.

3192
02:17:28.760 --> 02:17:31.040
I said, do you remember me?

3193
02:17:31.040 --> 02:17:33.020
And he said, "Yo, I remember you."

3194
02:17:33.020 --> 02:17:34.720
And I was like, I remember you.

3195
02:17:34.720 --> 02:17:37.412
And then that was it.

3196
02:17:37.412 --> 02:17:40.050
We were just on the same page from then on out.

3197
02:17:40.050 --> 02:17:42.210
We didn't say anything about it.

3198
02:17:42.210 --> 02:17:46.660
It's just that just, we both right then just totally

3199
02:17:46.660 --> 02:17:50.430
made eye contact and realized that that moment was a moment

3200
02:17:50.430 --> 02:17:52.540
for both of us, and yeah.

3201
02:17:56.277 --> 02:17:57.220
<v Interviewer>You're still in touch with him?</v>

3202
02:17:57.220 --> 02:17:59.720
<v ->He sends me occasional emails,</v>

3203
02:17:59.720 --> 02:18:03.990
but I've find that our communication is not, I don't.

3204
02:18:03.990 --> 02:18:05.930
No, no, no, we're not really.

3205
02:18:05.930 --> 02:18:09.710
He works on some projects and he keeps in touch with them.

3206
02:18:09.710 --> 02:18:12.960
They're all very by the book

3207
02:18:12.960 --> 02:18:16.583
I guess you could say the book being the Quran.

3208
02:18:18.540 --> 02:18:21.220
One thing that I have a difficult time

3209
02:18:21.220 --> 02:18:23.230
communicating with a lot of the detainees

3210
02:18:23.230 --> 02:18:28.230
because of what has now become an overwhelming obligation

3211
02:18:29.790 --> 02:18:34.360
to the rigorous, moral and ethical codes

3212
02:18:34.360 --> 02:18:36.010
of the Quran.

3213
02:18:36.010 --> 02:18:39.440
They have dependent upon it for so long

3214
02:18:39.440 --> 02:18:43.156
and dependent upon their belief in God for so long

3215
02:18:43.156 --> 02:18:48.156
that it's like, I mean it's like a card house.

3216
02:18:50.550 --> 02:18:52.100
If you take that one card out,

3217
02:18:52.100 --> 02:18:53.460
the whole thing's gonna fall over

3218
02:18:53.460 --> 02:18:54.850
and you can see it from a mile away.

3219
02:18:54.850 --> 02:18:57.160
And that's how I always admired

3220
02:18:57.160 --> 02:18:59.200
how the detainees kept their heads together

3221
02:18:59.200 --> 02:19:00.510
for the most part, most of them.

3222
02:19:00.510 --> 02:19:02.010
Some of them lost their shit.

3223
02:19:02.010 --> 02:19:03.050
Like Terrick lost his shit,

3224
02:19:03.050 --> 02:19:04.910
There was a guy in the psych ward that lost his shit.

3225
02:19:04.910 --> 02:19:06.580
A lot of people lost their shit

3226
02:19:06.580 --> 02:19:09.530
but a lot of people kept themselves really dignified

3227
02:19:09.530 --> 02:19:10.780
and really hopeful.

3228
02:19:10.780 --> 02:19:13.860
And really just like Alice.

3229
02:19:13.860 --> 02:19:15.850
Alice is gonna come and everything's gonna be okay

3230
02:19:15.850 --> 02:19:17.940
'cause this is just how the world goes

3231
02:19:17.940 --> 02:19:20.140
and the world is beautiful.

3232
02:19:20.140 --> 02:19:24.300
And this is just the play of a Muslim

3233
02:19:24.300 --> 02:19:25.640
and this is what we have to do.

3234
02:19:25.640 --> 02:19:27.970
These are the sacrifices that we have to endure

3235
02:19:27.970 --> 02:19:29.730
for our cause.

3236
02:19:29.730 --> 02:19:31.210
And I always respected that

3237
02:19:31.210 --> 02:19:35.740
but at the same time, I am not only,

3238
02:19:35.740 --> 02:19:37.130
I'm not gonna say I'm an atheist

3239
02:19:37.130 --> 02:19:39.440
'cause I believe in God, but I hate God

3240
02:19:39.440 --> 02:19:42.350
and I don't, I think he's an asshole

3241
02:19:42.350 --> 02:19:43.720
and that he's never coming

3242
02:19:43.720 --> 02:19:48.720
and that we've been created to be horrible creatures

3243
02:19:48.880 --> 02:19:50.760
where we've become horrible creatures all on our own.

3244
02:19:50.760 --> 02:19:52.480
I don't care to differentiate between them

3245
02:19:52.480 --> 02:19:55.570
but I don't see God as some benevolent creature

3246
02:19:55.570 --> 02:19:57.140
who is gonna come and save anyone.

3247
02:19:57.140 --> 02:20:00.360
And I doubt that if there is a heaven

3248
02:20:00.360 --> 02:20:03.920
that any of us are getting in and if there is a hell,

3249
02:20:03.920 --> 02:20:06.650
it's probably here on earth, this is probably it.

3250
02:20:06.650 --> 02:20:11.650
And on those points and including the drugs and the sex

3251
02:20:11.970 --> 02:20:16.080
and everything else, we really don't see eye to eye.

3252
02:20:16.080 --> 02:20:19.730
So it's hard to, it feels like walking on eggshells

3253
02:20:19.730 --> 02:20:21.040
on a lot of conversations

3254
02:20:21.040 --> 02:20:24.120
'cause I wanna be respectful of their space,

3255
02:20:24.120 --> 02:20:27.330
but on some of the key issues

3256
02:20:27.330 --> 02:20:32.053
like who is our creator and how is the planet really run,

3257
02:20:33.020 --> 02:20:34.540
we disagree entirely

3258
02:20:34.540 --> 02:20:38.980
and those things will, if we, if either of us change,

3259
02:20:38.980 --> 02:20:41.313
it'll unravel all of our existences, so.

3260
02:20:42.900 --> 02:20:43.733
So don't know.

3261
02:20:43.733 --> 02:20:45.410
I find communication with them very difficult,

3262
02:20:45.410 --> 02:20:48.723
but at the same time, while we were traveling around,

3263
02:20:50.200 --> 02:20:52.710
the common stuff that we have in common, the camp,

3264
02:20:52.710 --> 02:20:55.790
you know is stuff that we talked about a lot.

3265
02:20:55.790 --> 02:20:58.560
And there is a lot of stuff in Islam that we did share.

3266
02:20:58.560 --> 02:20:59.960
And we talked about that a lot,

3267
02:20:59.960 --> 02:21:01.633
like especially more them and I,

3268
02:21:03.030 --> 02:21:04.580
probably had the closest bond

3269
02:21:04.580 --> 02:21:07.070
and then Omar and I also had a very close bond

3270
02:21:07.070 --> 02:21:08.650
and Gerald was,

3271
02:21:08.650 --> 02:21:11.536
I don't know if you've had a chance to meet General Omar.

3272
02:21:11.536 --> 02:21:16.536
He's a whole other person whom I respect entirely

3273
02:21:17.680 --> 02:21:21.680
but he's almost impossible to talk to about anything.

3274
02:21:21.680 --> 02:21:23.050
I remember we went to the art,

3275
02:21:23.050 --> 02:21:25.750
the Tate Museum in London together,

3276
02:21:25.750 --> 02:21:28.787
and this just as a general kind of like

3277
02:21:28.787 --> 02:21:31.509
Gerald versus the world now.

3278
02:21:31.509 --> 02:21:34.460
He was just looking at art and he was like

3279
02:21:34.460 --> 02:21:37.430
I don't understand you white people and your problems,

3280
02:21:37.430 --> 02:21:38.890
like this is,

3281
02:21:38.890 --> 02:21:41.350
he speaks like he has a really strange accent too.

3282
02:21:41.350 --> 02:21:44.680
So this is all kind of like an English ization

3283
02:21:44.680 --> 02:21:46.200
of what he was trying to say,

3284
02:21:46.200 --> 02:21:48.390
but it's like I don't understand all of this stuff.

3285
02:21:48.390 --> 02:21:49.570
This is all bullshit.

3286
02:21:49.570 --> 02:21:52.510
Like, I mean, I don't, there's a war going on

3287
02:21:52.510 --> 02:21:55.230
and he's the first person to always say like

3288
02:21:55.230 --> 02:21:57.300
there are still people detained right now.

3289
02:21:57.300 --> 02:21:59.330
It's like, there's no conversation

3290
02:21:59.330 --> 02:22:03.270
that you can have with him where he doesn't immediately say

3291
02:22:03.270 --> 02:22:05.310
my brother is in jail for no reason,

3292
02:22:05.310 --> 02:22:07.250
my friends are in jail for no reason,

3293
02:22:07.250 --> 02:22:08.450
we don't have time to bullshit,

3294
02:22:08.450 --> 02:22:09.610
We don't have time to dick around.

3295
02:22:09.610 --> 02:22:10.770
We're here for a reason.

3296
02:22:10.770 --> 02:22:13.394
We're here to talk about this and to,

3297
02:22:13.394 --> 02:22:15.590
we've got to fix this place,

3298
02:22:15.590 --> 02:22:18.680
it's like he has got a fire or had a fire.

3299
02:22:18.680 --> 02:22:20.170
I hope he still has this fire

3300
02:22:20.170 --> 02:22:22.100
'cause I don't know what Gerald would look like

3301
02:22:22.100 --> 02:22:23.020
without that firearm

3302
02:22:23.020 --> 02:22:25.030
'cause I don't know.

3303
02:22:25.030 --> 02:22:27.860
He really suffered a lot while he was there.

3304
02:22:27.860 --> 02:22:32.710
And, but I definitely admired him a lot for that

3305
02:22:32.710 --> 02:22:35.130
but it's like every time it got off subject,

3306
02:22:35.130 --> 02:22:38.000
he was like, Guantanamo detention.

3307
02:22:38.000 --> 02:22:39.910
what do we do, What do we do, what do we do?

3308
02:22:39.910 --> 02:22:41.560
You know, it's like, he's really,

3309
02:22:42.730 --> 02:22:45.833
really thumping the book on that one, so.

3310
02:22:50.390 --> 02:22:51.826
<v Interviewer>Just a couple more questions.</v>

3311
02:22:51.826 --> 02:22:55.340
One is, so, are there some things I didn't ask you

3312
02:22:55.340 --> 02:22:59.780
that you wanna just cover before we close and (indistinct)

3313
02:22:59.780 --> 02:23:02.910
<v ->Well, I mean, not really,</v>

3314
02:23:02.910 --> 02:23:05.953
there's a lot of things that you've brought up

3315
02:23:05.953 --> 02:23:07.300
that other people have not

3316
02:23:07.300 --> 02:23:09.280
that I feel like this is the first time

3317
02:23:09.280 --> 02:23:11.450
I've ever heard anybody referenced them.

3318
02:23:11.450 --> 02:23:13.280
I know that's the first time I've talked

3319
02:23:13.280 --> 02:23:14.953
about a couple of these things.

3320
02:23:19.520 --> 02:23:22.527
I feel like, I mean, mostly,

3321
02:23:25.640 --> 02:23:29.510
I guess I would just like to add a little bit of perspective

3322
02:23:29.510 --> 02:23:31.570
from where I'm at now and how I see things

3323
02:23:31.570 --> 02:23:33.250
instead of talking about it retrospectively,

3324
02:23:33.250 --> 02:23:35.600
I'd really kind of like to just.

3325
02:23:35.600 --> 02:23:36.433
<v Interviewer>Everything I asked you, there's any word?</v>

3326
02:23:36.433 --> 02:23:41.340
<v ->Okay, I mean, now that this wiki leaks thingy drops</v>

3327
02:23:44.146 --> 02:23:45.569
not that I think that it had to drop

3328
02:23:45.569 --> 02:23:48.010
for people to really care about it

3329
02:23:48.010 --> 02:23:50.080
but I don't know if something happened to me

3330
02:23:50.080 --> 02:23:52.210
that has really formalized my rage

3331
02:23:52.210 --> 02:23:55.690
about the situation with the coming of this information

3332
02:23:55.690 --> 02:23:56.810
and to see these documents,

3333
02:23:56.810 --> 02:24:00.170
to see that everything that I'd always suspected

3334
02:24:00.170 --> 02:24:02.720
that I didn't really give myself the credit

3335
02:24:02.720 --> 02:24:04.250
to fully believe

3336
02:24:04.250 --> 02:24:08.340
but that I felt like was going on was true.

3337
02:24:08.340 --> 02:24:10.240
As a 19 year old, I figured it all out.

3338
02:24:10.240 --> 02:24:11.160
It was all bullshit.

3339
02:24:11.160 --> 02:24:12.430
They were all just brown people

3340
02:24:12.430 --> 02:24:14.320
that they grabbed up and thrown into cages

3341
02:24:14.320 --> 02:24:17.110
for no good reason and they kept him there for a long time.

3342
02:24:17.110 --> 02:24:19.320
And I am so pissed.

3343
02:24:19.320 --> 02:24:22.730
I rate with this government, with these people,

3344
02:24:22.730 --> 02:24:27.730
with these moneymaking people that just will hurt anyone.

3345
02:24:28.240 --> 02:24:29.440
They've ruined my life.

3346
02:24:29.440 --> 02:24:33.000
They've ruined the lives of all of my friends,

3347
02:24:33.000 --> 02:24:34.100
and thousands of people.

3348
02:24:34.100 --> 02:24:36.050
And they've ruined the lives of all of these detainees

3349
02:24:36.050 --> 02:24:38.280
and given us a disease that will never go away.

3350
02:24:38.280 --> 02:24:41.630
And they did it all for lies.

3351
02:24:41.630 --> 02:24:42.463
It was all for lies.

3352
02:24:42.463 --> 02:24:43.340
It's always been a lie.

3353
02:24:43.340 --> 02:24:44.670
It's always been a big fucking lie.

3354
02:24:44.670 --> 02:24:46.130
They lied to us about everything.

3355
02:24:46.130 --> 02:24:48.770
They lied to me about the terrorists,

3356
02:24:48.770 --> 02:24:50.610
they lied to me about my college benefits

3357
02:24:50.610 --> 02:24:52.530
which I stopped getting.

3358
02:24:52.530 --> 02:24:53.640
They did nothing but lie.

3359
02:24:53.640 --> 02:24:57.550
I did nothing but offer myself to them, to this country,

3360
02:24:57.550 --> 02:24:59.210
to this glorious idea of country

3361
02:24:59.210 --> 02:25:01.330
and they did nothing but lie to us

3362
02:25:01.330 --> 02:25:02.930
and get us to do despicable work

3363
02:25:02.930 --> 02:25:06.170
so that they could make benefit, they could bank on it.

3364
02:25:06.170 --> 02:25:10.190
And then, and you know

3365
02:25:10.190 --> 02:25:12.920
it's totally ruined my concept of what America is.

3366
02:25:12.920 --> 02:25:17.920
This is no longer the country that fought the Nazis

3367
02:25:18.520 --> 02:25:23.520
and was the standard of democracy and goodness,

3368
02:25:23.708 --> 02:25:25.983
we have become an evil rotten system.

3369
02:25:27.098 --> 02:25:30.850
The legal structures that we have enacted in our country

3370
02:25:30.850 --> 02:25:33.180
to provide a democracy,

3371
02:25:33.180 --> 02:25:35.210
that bullshit term we throw around

3372
02:25:35.210 --> 02:25:36.940
that we're trying to take everywhere,

3373
02:25:36.940 --> 02:25:38.820
we've completely bastardized in the process

3374
02:25:38.820 --> 02:25:41.280
of creating the detention policy.

3375
02:25:41.280 --> 02:25:44.510
It has been wifed with errors from the beginning

3376
02:25:44.510 --> 02:25:47.087
and every human rights lawyer,

3377
02:25:47.087 --> 02:25:49.870
every, just lawyer, a lawyer,

3378
02:25:49.870 --> 02:25:51.360
like people that know the law

3379
02:25:51.360 --> 02:25:55.090
or have come out and said, this isn't,

3380
02:25:55.090 --> 02:25:55.923
I mean there's no way

3381
02:25:55.923 --> 02:25:58.100
that you can even put this transparently down on paper.

3382
02:25:58.100 --> 02:26:01.760
It's like half the people you got have been tortured.

3383
02:26:01.760 --> 02:26:03.810
None of this evidence is admissible.

3384
02:26:03.810 --> 02:26:06.160
You don't even have in evidence for half of this shit.

3385
02:26:06.160 --> 02:26:08.720
That other stuff you have or here or say,

3386
02:26:08.720 --> 02:26:10.760
it's like, all of this stuff has been said,

3387
02:26:10.760 --> 02:26:13.160
now the facts are on the table.

3388
02:26:13.160 --> 02:26:16.620
it was a lot of really crappy command decisions.

3389
02:26:16.620 --> 02:26:18.450
A lot of these people should've never been detained

3390
02:26:18.450 --> 02:26:19.993
in the first place.

3391
02:26:19.993 --> 02:26:21.520
A lot of these people should've never been kept in detention

3392
02:26:21.520 --> 02:26:22.830
in Kandahar in bog room

3393
02:26:22.830 --> 02:26:25.630
and all these little miniature camps all over the place.

3394
02:26:25.630 --> 02:26:27.220
And they certainly should not have been

3395
02:26:27.220 --> 02:26:29.430
falling across to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

3396
02:26:29.430 --> 02:26:31.780
And they shouldn't have been kept there?

3397
02:26:31.780 --> 02:26:36.220
And it's like, it's just so super frustrating.

3398
02:26:36.220 --> 02:26:38.250
It was all for nothing.

3399
02:26:38.250 --> 02:26:40.380
And they'll get out of it and nobody will give a shit.

3400
02:26:40.380 --> 02:26:42.306
Nobody's gonna give a shit in time.

3401
02:26:42.306 --> 02:26:43.420
You know, and I hope that people look at this stuff.

3402
02:26:43.420 --> 02:26:45.660
I hope that people take this in

3403
02:26:45.660 --> 02:26:50.600
and realize that this is 2011 baby, it's a whole new world.

3404
02:26:50.600 --> 02:26:54.800
We are going into a whole new dark world of law

3405
02:26:54.800 --> 02:26:58.550
and the imposition of the corporate world into our lives.

3406
02:26:58.550 --> 02:27:00.500
And they have no rules.

3407
02:27:00.500 --> 02:27:01.730
They will stop at nothing.

3408
02:27:01.730 --> 02:27:05.360
It's the Muslims now but like, just like with the Nazis,

3409
02:27:05.360 --> 02:27:06.890
just like what the Abbott said, man,

3410
02:27:06.890 --> 02:27:07.850
they're gonna come for this

3411
02:27:07.850 --> 02:27:08.960
and then they're gonna come for this,

3412
02:27:08.960 --> 02:27:10.180
and then they're gonna come for this.

3413
02:27:10.180 --> 02:27:12.110
And when they're all out of people to come forward

3414
02:27:12.110 --> 02:27:14.730
they're gonna come for you, the freaks and the weirdos

3415
02:27:14.730 --> 02:27:17.070
and just anybody that doesn't fit in with their system.

3416
02:27:17.070 --> 02:27:17.903
And they'll be here.

3417
02:27:17.903 --> 02:27:19.210
If it's 100 years from now

3418
02:27:19.210 --> 02:27:21.370
or if it's 10 years from now, they're coming.

3419
02:27:21.370 --> 02:27:24.700
They're breaking the walls down in the law,

3420
02:27:24.700 --> 02:27:26.700
in the legal system every day,

3421
02:27:26.700 --> 02:27:28.560
they have no one to answer for,

3422
02:27:28.560 --> 02:27:29.630
they've totally proven that,

3423
02:27:29.630 --> 02:27:32.230
they prove it every day that Guantanamo Bay is open.

3424
02:27:32.230 --> 02:27:34.280
They're ruining this country.

3425
02:27:34.280 --> 02:27:36.300
Everything, everything that we've always fought for,

3426
02:27:36.300 --> 02:27:37.770
they've ruined it.

3427
02:27:37.770 --> 02:27:38.750
They've shit on it in a matter of a decade.

3428
02:27:38.750 --> 02:27:43.750
This one fiasco has really destroyed anything

3429
02:27:43.840 --> 02:27:44.673
that we could believe in,

3430
02:27:44.673 --> 02:27:46.530
in like what a democracy is,

3431
02:27:46.530 --> 02:27:50.010
we've made fools of ourselves in front of the whole nation

3432
02:27:50.010 --> 02:27:53.080
and in front of the whole world and in front of God

3433
02:27:53.080 --> 02:27:54.450
that everybody keeps talking about.

3434
02:27:54.450 --> 02:27:56.090
Everybody's so worried about God.

3435
02:27:56.090 --> 02:27:58.660
God, God, God, would do this for God, would do that for God.

3436
02:27:58.660 --> 02:28:00.110
Do we beat people up for God?

3437
02:28:00.110 --> 02:28:01.890
Is that what we do now?

3438
02:28:01.890 --> 02:28:03.210
We put them in cages for God?

3439
02:28:03.210 --> 02:28:05.640
Is that the God that you wanna believe in,

3440
02:28:05.640 --> 02:28:06.690
Christian white world?

3441
02:28:06.690 --> 02:28:10.743
I mean, I don't know it's so just like,

3442
02:28:10.743 --> 02:28:12.100
I just have a lot of emotion

3443
02:28:12.100 --> 02:28:13.800
that's really like kind of clicking into place

3444
02:28:13.800 --> 02:28:17.170
that I felt like I've repressed in the past about this

3445
02:28:17.170 --> 02:28:18.650
'cause I knew it was lies before,

3446
02:28:18.650 --> 02:28:22.010
but I took that out on myself and now I know it wasn't me

3447
02:28:22.010 --> 02:28:24.470
and it's not, I don't have to blame it on me anymore.

3448
02:28:24.470 --> 02:28:25.780
It's not a lie, it's them.

3449
02:28:25.780 --> 02:28:29.020
But what's the saying you're gonna do for me.

3450
02:28:29.020 --> 02:28:29.853
I'm probably just gonna turn it

3451
02:28:29.853 --> 02:28:31.130
into one of these old veterans

3452
02:28:31.130 --> 02:28:32.210
sitting on the side of the street going,

3453
02:28:32.210 --> 02:28:33.690
do you remember Guantanamo Bay?

3454
02:28:33.690 --> 02:28:35.187
It's crazy and secretly title.

3455
02:28:35.187 --> 02:28:38.820
All lies, is just drunk and shitty

3456
02:28:38.820 --> 02:28:41.490
and homeless 'cause no one, when this is over,

3457
02:28:41.490 --> 02:28:44.250
TV's off everybody gets to go home and go to bed.

3458
02:28:44.250 --> 02:28:45.900
Everybody else got to clean their hands of it.

3459
02:28:45.900 --> 02:28:50.460
Now sinners are stuck in the the hell

3460
02:28:50.460 --> 02:28:52.060
of our memories forever

3461
02:28:52.060 --> 02:28:55.850
and worse and Crimea river for the sinners.

3462
02:28:55.850 --> 02:28:59.160
But I mean, the innocent people that live with this forever

3463
02:28:59.160 --> 02:29:03.260
is who my heart really goes out to

3464
02:29:03.260 --> 02:29:05.070
is all of the people that were just

3465
02:29:05.070 --> 02:29:06.840
with their families and detained

3466
02:29:06.840 --> 02:29:10.250
and that we beat thoroughly.

3467
02:29:10.250 --> 02:29:14.470
And that we punched and we kicked, we yelled at

3468
02:29:14.470 --> 02:29:15.590
and we call them sand niggers

3469
02:29:15.590 --> 02:29:17.610
and we called them everything that we possibly could.

3470
02:29:17.610 --> 02:29:20.130
We hit him, we were just really fucking shitty to them

3471
02:29:20.130 --> 02:29:23.490
and they were all innocent every day of every God damn day,

3472
02:29:23.490 --> 02:29:26.560
we went out there and we acted like we wanted to act

3473
02:29:26.560 --> 02:29:29.340
and we did a lot of really miserable things to innocent men

3474
02:29:29.340 --> 02:29:32.860
because we'd been given a flimsy set of orders

3475
02:29:32.860 --> 02:29:34.610
that we wanted to believe 'cause we were violent

3476
02:29:34.610 --> 02:29:35.860
and we wanted to believe.

3477
02:29:36.740 --> 02:29:38.720
The violence that we were enacting was right.

3478
02:29:38.720 --> 02:29:41.410
And it was not, it was never was, it's never been right

3479
02:29:41.410 --> 02:29:42.567
and it never will be right.

3480
02:29:42.567 --> 02:29:44.510
And that nothing will ever rectify that.

3481
02:29:44.510 --> 02:29:46.541
We live with that for everyone now.

3482
02:29:46.541 --> 02:29:49.010
These are the things that we learned

3483
02:29:49.010 --> 02:29:50.870
from the concentration camps of World War II

3484
02:29:50.870 --> 02:29:53.460
that we have obviously not learned our lessons from.

3485
02:29:53.460 --> 02:29:54.720
They try to clean up their act.

3486
02:29:54.720 --> 02:29:57.720
They try to change their demeanor about going about it

3487
02:29:57.720 --> 02:30:00.277
but if you asked me, it's still a concentration camp,

3488
02:30:00.277 --> 02:30:04.860
it's a concentration of a racial minority in a camp.

3489
02:30:04.860 --> 02:30:06.170
I don't know what else to call it.

3490
02:30:06.170 --> 02:30:10.010
I mean, and that's a trick that we learned from the Nazis

3491
02:30:10.010 --> 02:30:11.150
as well as pincher attacks.

3492
02:30:11.150 --> 02:30:13.650
Like when we tried to come in from Turkey and from Kuwait

3493
02:30:13.650 --> 02:30:15.880
at the same time, another Nazi technique.

3494
02:30:15.880 --> 02:30:17.980
It's like, if you ask me this place

3495
02:30:17.980 --> 02:30:19.470
is getting a little hail Hitler

3496
02:30:19.470 --> 02:30:22.410
and and it's all happening under the guise

3497
02:30:22.410 --> 02:30:25.640
of it being this nationalistic patriotic bullshit

3498
02:30:25.640 --> 02:30:29.120
that everybody keeps spewing and it's just not true anymore.

3499
02:30:29.120 --> 02:30:30.450
And it's all been based on lies

3500
02:30:30.450 --> 02:30:32.420
and we've all been turned into fools

3501
02:30:32.420 --> 02:30:34.090
and if we don't start fighting it,

3502
02:30:34.090 --> 02:30:36.190
it's gonna take everything over.

3503
02:30:36.190 --> 02:30:39.540
It's game over, man.

3504
02:30:39.540 --> 02:30:41.920
I mean, sorry, that's just kind of a large emotional

3505
02:30:41.920 --> 02:30:46.920
lump of stuff, but that's my sentiment on this place now

3506
02:30:48.264 --> 02:30:50.350
where we stand, where I stand with it

3507
02:30:50.350 --> 02:30:53.203
and where it stands in my head and my memory, and,

3508
02:30:56.740 --> 02:30:57.673
I think that's it.

3509
02:31:00.280 --> 02:31:03.710
<v Interviewer>Well, we need 20 seconds of quiet time</v>

3510
02:31:03.710 --> 02:31:05.330
and Johnny needs it for room tone

3511
02:31:05.330 --> 02:31:08.220
but I wanna thank you, but I'll thank you again

3512
02:31:08.220 --> 02:31:09.520
when Johnny finishes that.

3513
02:31:11.037 --> 02:31:12.050
<v ->[Man With Low Voice] Begin room tone.</v>

3514
02:31:28.340 --> 02:31:29.590
End room tone.