Lakemacher, Daniel - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Okay, good. Okay.

0:05

Tell me when you're rolling.

0:08

Interviewer

We're rolling.

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Interviewer

Okay, good afternoon.

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-

Good afternoon.

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Interviewer

We are very grateful

0:15

to you for participating

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in the Witness to Guantanamo project.

0:17

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:20

and involvement with detainees who were held

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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 are creating an archive of stories so that people

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in America and around the world will have

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a better understanding of what you and others

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have observed and experienced.

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Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo.

0:45

And by telling your story, you are contributing to history.

0:49

We appreciate your courage and willingness

0:53

to speak with us.

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If anytime during the interview you would like to take

0:57

a break, just let us know and we'll take a break.

0:59

And, if there's anything that you say

1:01

that you wanna retract just let us know

1:04

and we can remove it.

1:05

I'd like to begin with some general background

1:08

information including your name.

1:09

-

Sure. I'm Daniel Jared Lakemacher.

1:12

Interviewer

And your hometown?

1:15

-

I grew up in Woodstock, Illinois.

1:18

Interviewer

And your birth date and age?

1:20

-

I was born on May 3rd, 1983, so I'm 27.

1:23

Interviewer

And your marital status.

1:27

-

I am married, just celebrated my eighth anniversary.

1:30

Interviewer

Happy anniversary.

1:32

-

Thank you.

1:33

Interviewer

And your nationality?

1:34

-

I'm American born.

1:36

Interviewer

Education?

1:38

-

I'm currently in college.

1:40

I've attended Moody Bible Institute for a brief year

1:41

and then I've also attended

1:45

the College of Lake County in Illinois and I'm currently

1:46

at Shimer College in Chicago.

1:48

Interviewer

And your current occupation?

1:52

-

I'm just a full-time student at the moment.

1:54

-

Okay, I'd like to begin with how you got involved

1:57

in the military and then we can move into how you became

2:01

a hospital corpsman, but maybe

2:04

you could just address how you first got into the military.

2:06

-

Sure. I was 22 when I enlisted.

2:09

So I had been, tried college for a little bit,

2:12

but at a Bible school, didn't really work out,

2:16

ended up getting married,

2:18

needed to find a job and start doing the adult type things.

2:19

And I was working at a job for a corporate

2:24

insurance company and figured that, you know what,

2:27

I'm young, I'm a patriotic guy,

2:29

I wanna do something more active than just cubicle life.

2:32

So I decided to enlist.

2:36

Interviewer

Were you a little nervous about enlisting,

2:39

'cause it was after 9/11?

2:41

So were you worried about where you might be sent to?

2:43

What could've happened?

2:46

-

That was actually a large factor in my mind

2:46

is that I had thought about it when the wars first started,

2:49

both the Afghanistan War and the war in Iraq.

2:54

And just with my background, was very pro-military,

2:57

very religiously affiliated and so it was like two

3:00

things I could do to make, you know,

3:04

everybody proud would be either be a pastor

3:06

or join the military.

3:08

And I, when the wars first started I thought stuff

3:10

would be over and done with so quickly

3:13

as it originally got portrayed,

3:15

but by the time I had joined and trained

3:17

and everything there'd be no fight left to go see.

3:18

So after few years of that not having happened

3:22

and wanting to do something different,

3:25

that was actually the fact that a deployment would be

3:27

in the works was a reason why I did join.

3:30

Interviewer

What year did you join?

3:33

-

It was 2005.

3:34

Interviewer

And when you say you have

3:36

a strong military background, what does that mean?

3:37

-

Just that the,

3:39

in my family the military is held in very high regard.

3:41

Like I said, I mean,

3:45

there are two things to do to make people proud,

3:46

either going to ministry or going to the military,

3:48

just kind of that classic Americana. (laughs)

3:50

Interviewer

Did you think of yourself

3:53

as going into the ministry possibly too or becoming

3:54

a chaplain in the military?

3:56

-

I never thought about the chaplaincy,

3:58

at least not that I recall.

4:01

I did attend Bible College and so originally

4:03

out of high school, I was figuring I'm going that route.

4:05

Got sidetracked with just life in general and marriage

4:09

and then came back around to joining the military.

4:12

Interviewer

So could you describe what happened

4:15

when you first joined, where you received your training in?

4:17

-

Sure.

4:21

I started at the Navy's only boot camp,

4:22

right now that's in Great Lakes, Illinois.

4:25

So I was there for about two months for boot camp.

4:27

And then my follow on training was

4:29

Hospital Corps School to become a hospital corpsman.

4:32

And that also took place in Great Lakes.

4:35

Interviewer

Did you choose to become

4:38

a hospital corpsman?

4:39

-

I did, that was part of my original enlistment contract.

4:40

Interviewer

And why'd you choose that?

4:43

And can you describe exactly what that profession entails?

4:45

-

A hospital corpsman is kind of the Navy's equivalent

4:48

of a medic.

4:50

So it covers both dentistry and all general medicine.

4:52

I did choose that because I figured it would be useful.

4:57

My mother was a nurse.

5:01

I knew there's a bunch of other technical training

5:02

fields at the Navy offered that I'd heard from a lot

5:05

of people didn't necessarily have carry

5:07

over into the civilian world,

5:09

whereas I figured that the skills I'd pick up being

5:11

a corpsman, you know,

5:13

would be useful in life in general no matter what.

5:15

And would also have the greatest possible carry over.

5:18

Interviewer

And what kind of skills do

5:22

they train you in?

5:23

-

It was actually a little bit more limited

5:25

than I had anticipated I guess.

5:27

So it's, I mean you go through in Corps School, you know,

5:30

all your basic CPR, basic first aid, you know,

5:33

putting in an IV, doing basic sutures and things like that,

5:37

but it was really broad.

5:41

And the other thing that they had started

5:44

while I was there was the self-paced program,

5:46

where you would just be given a set

5:50

of books and like some computer materials

5:53

and online training materials and then you'd go

5:56

through and test out on things as quickly as you could.

5:58

I've always been a good test taker so I completed

6:02

what used to be like a four-month training course

6:05

in like two months.

6:07

Probably didn't benefit myself in terms of how much

6:09

I actually retained, but being in a student status

6:12

when you're in the military,

6:16

at least in the Navy isn't always the most fun position.

6:18

You're kind of the lowest person on the totem pole.

6:20

So everyone is eager to move

6:24

on from that and actually become, you know,

6:25

go to the fleet, become an actual player in the game here.

6:27

And so it was something that,

6:31

since I could go through it more quickly,

6:32

I took advantage of that.

6:34

Interviewer

And where'd you go next

6:35

when you finished that training?

6:37

-

Another choice I had, I had high enough grades,

6:39

was that I could choose a follow on training, a specialty,

6:42

what the Navy calls a C school.

6:46

And the C school that I picked was

6:48

for a neuropsychiatric technician.

6:50

So essentially like a mental health tech.

6:53

I opted for that 'cause I had taken an AP psychology

6:56

class back in high school,

6:59

was probably one of the most interesting courses

7:00

I'd ever taken.

7:02

I figured that I was really good at interacting

7:04

with people and so that would be something that would

7:06

be most to my advantage.

7:09

Interviewer

What kind of training was necessary

7:10

to become a mental health tech?

7:13

-

There was another school that I went to

7:14

in Portsmouth, Virginia,

7:17

at the Naval School of Health Sciences.

7:18

I think that was another about four-month training

7:21

that took place there.

7:24

It was a lot more practical, at least to say, than,

7:25

you know, the psychology class I had taken.

7:30

So, much more about how to actually deal with people

7:32

on a psych ward, psychiatric ward.

7:35

How to do an intake interview, some of the formalities.

7:38

Some of the things in terms of talking

7:43

to people professionally that I took for granted,

7:45

but I guess others didn't have as much experience in.

7:47

And so that was, you know,

7:51

learning some of the basic medications

7:53

and medication administration, you know,

7:55

dealing with people who are suicidal or homicidal.

7:59

Things of that nature are very, very hands-on,

8:02

a lot of, you know, role-playing, practicing the stuff

8:04

and there was a psych ward right there as well

8:07

at the Naval Hospital where we do training at.

8:10

Interviewer

Did you enjoy that work?

8:13

-

I did.

8:15

Again, I found the training to be less

8:16

than challenging and somewhat cursory.

8:19

But I really always enjoyed interacting with patients.

8:23

Maybe not every interaction, but in general,

8:28

the principle of working with people in that way

8:30

is something that I did enjoy.

8:33

Interviewer

And you were comfortable working

8:34

in a psych ward?

8:36

-

I was. It was definitely an eyeopening experience.

8:38

Interviewer

How so?

8:42

-

Just seeing the range of what can go wrong

8:44

with the human psyche, that,

8:48

never before in life had I, at least that I knew of,

8:53

encountered somebody who was having auditory

8:55

or visual hallucinations.

8:58

And, to see somebody who's not acting and not playing

8:59

and maybe even has a level of insight to recognize

9:02

that their hallucination is not

9:05

there because it doesn't fit with the rest

9:08

of their conception of reality and that they could

9:10

be telling you that and be really struggling

9:12

and yet that to them that sensory experience

9:14

is just as real.

9:16

It definitely flips your, at least for me,

9:19

it flipped my perspective on the range of capabilities

9:22

of the human mind and just how different it could

9:27

perceive things and how sometimes off the mark it could

9:29

be compared to reality.

9:32

Interviewer

Did they tell you why they were giving

9:35

you this training?

9:36

-

I mean, ultimately to be somebody who is working

9:39

on a psychiatric ward.

9:42

So to be able to be equipped to do that was pretty

9:45

much the explanation.

9:48

Interviewer

You understood that?

9:49

-

Mhm, mhm.

9:49

Interviewer

So when you finished that training,

9:51

how long was that training?

9:52

-

About four months.

9:54

Interviewer

And it was all in the same location

9:55

at the same work.

9:57

-

Correct.

9:57

We did also do a couple trips out to a state facility

9:58

as well, to see some even more severe cases,

10:03

I guess you could say.

10:08

In that, you know,

10:10

people weren't held in long-term care

10:11

there at the Naval Hospital.

10:13

So just to see some things that had progressed

10:17

in a different way,

10:19

we went to a state facility in Virginia.

10:20

Interviewer

You weren't permitted to give

10:23

out medications, of course,

10:24

even though they explained medications to you.

10:25

-

In training we never did medication administration.

10:29

But that was something where we would not be

10:34

the determiner of the medication,

10:37

but we could actually be the ones who give the medication.

10:40

Interviewer

If you instructed to.

10:43

-

Mhm, exactly.

10:44

Obviously, like, narcotics in particular,

10:46

only the nurse has access to.

10:48

And so the nurse would be the one to take that out.

10:52

Oftentimes the nurses would be the ones

10:53

to administer those as well, but if instructed you could.

10:55

Interviewer

So when that training completed,

11:00

what happened, what'd you do next?

11:02

-

I got assigned my first permanent duty station,

11:04

which ironically enough, join the Navy, see the world,

11:06

didn't happen, I ended up back

11:10

at Great Lakes and working at the bootcamp

11:11

where I had just been through like a year

11:15

before by that point and working at the recruit

11:17

evaluation unit, which was essentially

11:22

the psychiatric screening tool for recruits.

11:24

Not every recruit gets screened

11:29

from a mental health standpoint.

11:31

But, I guess maybe like a, well,

11:33

probably not even a third end up receiving that,

11:37

either because their drill instructor,

11:39

whereas the Navy calls them their RDC, refers them

11:42

or a chaplain refers them or somebody

11:46

from medical refers them for a psychiatric screening.

11:48

And I worked at the clinic that handled those screenings.

11:51

Interviewer

And how was that experience?

11:55

-

Again, it expanded my understanding of the world

11:59

in that it was,

12:03

there were so many people that would go

12:05

through there and unlike a, you know,

12:08

the experience I'd had on the ward, where, okay,

12:10

you've got a dozen people on this ward

12:12

and you're seeing them day in and day out, each day,

12:15

I mean, we would sometimes have 50 people that would

12:18

go through that clinic.

12:20

So we're just doing interviews back to back to back to back

12:23

and just seeing a lot of the backgrounds

12:25

that these people had coming into the Navy

12:30

were truly horrible.

12:32

And so many of the people were so clearly joining

12:35

as a means of escape.

12:39

Interviewer

In joining? What do you mean in joining?

12:41

-

In joining the Navy, in other words,

12:42

abusive situations that they were trying to get out of,

12:43

or I mean that,

12:46

particularly with young women that was regularly the case,

12:47

that the young women that we were interviewing

12:53

for a psychiatric screenings had, you know,

12:55

been victims of abuse, whether in the family,

12:57

whether with a boyfriend and they saw it as their way out,

13:01

to get out of town, to get out of that situation,

13:05

was to join the Navy.

13:07

Interviewer

Would that be a reason

13:09

for the Navy to reject them or did the Navy care

13:10

if that's why they want it?

13:12

-

Conflicting things there, ultimately

13:17

there was a team of civilian psychologists

13:20

that I worked with, clinical psychologists,

13:22

and they would provide recommendations.

13:25

The commanding officer of the base would be the one

13:27

who has final discharge authority.

13:30

Most of the time that person would follow

13:33

the recommendation of the psychologist.

13:35

Not always.

13:38

Simply having that kind of an abusive history

13:40

and that motivation or reason for joining would not

13:42

be criteria for discharge though.

13:44

Interviewer

And your job,

13:47

did you have an opinion at the end of your interview?

13:50

Was that part of your job or was your job

13:52

just to fact-find, get information?

13:54

-

It was more so to fact-find.

13:57

Sometimes, it depended on time to some degree too.

14:01

I found that to be interesting to try and, you know,

14:04

when I had the opportunity,

14:07

be able to hypothesize potential diagnoses, and then,

14:08

I liked, that was, you know,

14:14

part of what I enjoyed most was then going

14:15

when there is opportunity to actually talk

14:16

with the psychologist, talk through the case,

14:18

give my thoughts and opinions and then see

14:22

what he or she ultimately concluded.

14:24

But it wasn't a requirement where you had to end

14:27

every intake before passing

14:30

on to the psychologist with your proposed diagnosis.

14:33

Interviewer

And how long did you work there?

14:37

-

That's, that was,

14:40

the only other permanent duty station that I had

14:41

in the Navy.

14:44

It was from there that I ended up deploying

14:44

to Guantanamo Bay.

14:47

Interviewer

How long had you been

14:48

in before you were deployed to Guantanamo?

14:49

-

Let's see, it would have been about a year.

14:51

Let's see, I got there in 2006.

14:56

I left for Guantanamo in July of 2007.

14:59

So yeah, just over a year.

15:05

Interviewer

Did you know you were gonna be sent

15:07

to Guantanamo before you were sent in?

15:09

-

I did. I had actually been really itching to go.

15:12

Interviewer

To Guantanamo?

15:16

-

Because that was kind of the only deployment

15:18

opportunity open to me.

15:20

And, to be able to advance and, you know,

15:22

move up in the ranks and have some more respect around

15:26

the base it was very important to have deployments.

15:29

With my specialty, you know,

15:31

very few people who were psychiatric technicians

15:34

were being necessarily deployed

15:37

to Iraq or to Afghanistan,

15:38

but they were regularly going to Gitmo.

15:42

Interviewer

Why?

15:46

-

I don't know,

15:50

I mean there was a Behavioral Health Unit down

15:51

at Gitmo that, apparently,

15:53

at that point in time the Navy had been tasked

15:56

with manning that.

15:59

And so, there's a limited number of psychiatric technicians

16:00

in the Navy in the first place and then essentially

16:07

adding a whole new clinic when that opened up down

16:09

at Gitmo made a requirement that pretty much everybody

16:12

was kind of cycling through there who had that specialty.

16:16

Interviewer

Was it designed for the detainees

16:20

and for the service members down there or?

16:22

-

No, the BHU, is what they're referred

16:25

to as Behavioral Health Unit, which was located behind

16:28

the wire was just for detainees.

16:31

Interviewer

Ooh, so you knew that you were

16:34

being trained to be able to engage detainees.

16:36

-

Yes.

16:39

When that, yeah,

16:41

when we got to that training, most definitely.

16:42

Interviewer

What kind of training did you get

16:44

to deal with detainees?

16:45

It must have been different from the training you got.

16:48

-

It was. It was very different.

16:50

It took place

16:52

out in Fort Lewis, in Washington and it was

16:53

for about two weeks.

16:57

They actually have out there

17:01

an entire mock-up facility,

17:05

I see the nodding, you've heard this before,

17:08

of the detention center,

17:11

at least some parts of it down there.

17:12

And so, looking back on it now,

17:15

I just see so clearly how it set the tone

17:19

for what would later happen down at Gitmo.

17:21

What we would do is we would, you know,

17:28

one of the things we would do there would be

17:30

practice medication administration, and they had

17:32

these contractors who were playing the role

17:35

of detainees and doing everything in their power

17:38

to scare you, to startle you,

17:43

to be mean to you and everything else.

17:45

And it was set up almost as if it's

17:47

some kind of game,

17:53

but a game in which you're very much in danger in terms

17:54

of trying to administer this medication

17:57

to the detainee and that's your job,

18:00

that's what you're supposed to do,

18:01

but at the same point in time, you know,

18:03

these contractors would do everything in their power

18:05

to be able to latch onto you, get an arm, get a finger,

18:07

get something, you know, startle you,

18:09

make you drop it, whatever else.

18:13

And so, a lot of the training focused very much on

18:15

setting it up as if this was going to be

18:23

an extremely hostile interaction in which your life was

18:25

in danger every single time.

18:28

You know, they said, you know, every time that,

18:31

bean hole was that word that they're referred

18:33

to the area where you pass, like,

18:35

trays or medications or whatever else through the door

18:37

of the cage or the cell.

18:40

And they said, anytime that bean hole's open

18:43

or anytime you're in front of, you know,

18:45

one of their cells, one of those cages,

18:48

you have to be on your guard.

18:50

So, it created this hyper sense of alertness.

18:53

And also the expectation that it was not going to be

18:59

a pleasant interaction no matter what.

19:02

So, like, repeatedly we would have

19:04

to successfully administer medications

19:06

to these contractors without having them be able

19:08

to grab us and, you know, it went over, you know,

19:11

very detailed, like your whole posture in front

19:14

of the bean hole, how you're facing, you know,

19:17

what arm you have where, you know,

19:21

what your stance is, everything else,

19:22

all about giving the medication and then

19:26

checking, okay, do you have the typical

19:28

things you do as a corpsman in terms of right medication,

19:31

right patient, right method, everything else.

19:34

That stuff we'd been over before,

19:37

but applied now in this scenario where, you know,

19:39

people are pounding on walls and screaming

19:42

at you and cursing you out and everything else,

19:44

and now you're supposed to do that again and not get

19:46

attacked in the process.

19:49

So that was a large part of the training,

19:53

as well as again and again drilling

19:57

through Operational Security, OPSEC, was the buzz word.

19:59

And from the time we got there is, you know,

20:05

pretty much drilled in that you're not to talk

20:09

to anyone about this.

20:11

Not to talk with anyone about what you're learning here,

20:13

what you're doing, what we're preparing for.

20:16

Undoubtedly, probably you've already told your spouse

20:19

or whoever else, but really wouldn't,

20:22

told not to even tell, necessarily, extended family

20:24

about the fact that you're going to Gitmo or other people.

20:27

Interviewer

Why?

20:31

-

Looking back now,

20:34

I see it as a very concerted effort to isolate you

20:35

from everyone else in your life,

20:41

such that you were going to unquestioningly go

20:44

along with this scenario set up in the way

20:47

that they had arranged it.

20:50

That's very much subjective opinion,

20:53

that's not as if that was given as the stated purpose.

20:55

But I mean I think I can see pretty clearly now

20:58

that that's what was going on.

21:01

Interviewer

Did they tell you these people were

21:04

the worst of the worst, if you will,

21:06

and did you hear that every day?

21:08

-

Absolutely. These people, and it didn't stop at you.

21:10

I feel so foolish.

21:16

I've told this story a couple of times,

21:18

but at the time it just scared me so much.

21:20

But one of the things we had been told,

21:24

now it just seems like idiocy.

21:25

But like our senior,

21:28

I think it was a senior chief said that the top

21:30

enlisted person had told us a story about how, you know,

21:32

every time you're on the block you need to be

21:36

on your guard and not just with your physical body

21:38

but with information and with what you're saying.

21:42

One of the things that they had was block names.

21:45

So a nickname that you would use, you know,

21:48

when you were in front of the detainees

21:50

and that they would refer to you by,

21:52

so that your real name was never known.

21:54

So we got told the story in which this guard, you know,

21:57

hadn't been paying attention or had been,

22:01

not being the on spot sailor that he was supposed

22:03

to be and so he had let slip or somebody else had let

22:06

slip his last name.

22:09

And then within a matter of, you know, a week,

22:11

a couple of days, something like that,

22:14

one of the detainees had called them over and had

22:16

been asking this guard,

22:20

you need to find out why your wife is late going to school.

22:23

And, you know the guy was just like, you know, whatever,

22:28

shut up, blew it off,

22:30

but it kind of got into his head and so,

22:31

supposedly he had called up his wife and he had said,

22:34

you know, he had asked her, "Were you late

22:38

dropping the kids off at school?"

22:41

And she was kind of like well,

22:43

"Yeah, how do you know that?"

22:45

and it's supposedly,

22:48

the whole thing was that he had let his last name slip

22:51

so this detainee had communicated with somebody

22:54

on the outside and there was some Al Qaeda operative

22:56

in the United States who was now watching

22:58

this guy's family and they had to go

23:00

into witness protection.

23:01

And like I said, I mean it's laughable now,

23:03

but at the time, you know, you've been isolated,

23:06

you're told not to be talking about this with people

23:08

and this has been hyped up and you've got

23:10

these contract people who are trying to get

23:13

you and you're told that's what this is gonna be all about.

23:14

And, you know, you're, like, reminded,

23:16

September 11th, these are the people responsible,

23:19

they'll stop at nothing.

23:21

And you hear a story like that and I felt scared.

23:22

I really did.

23:26

I mean I took that to heart, like, okay, this is no joke.

23:28

These people are for real and not just my safety,

23:31

but my family's safety is potentially on the line

23:35

here depending upon what goes on and these people

23:38

mean them harm.

23:40

And so that very much affected my perspective

23:43

and that was before I'd even been down there,

23:45

before I'd even met a single detainee.

23:48

Interviewer

So, did you take it very seriously

23:50

when you were going through this training?

23:52

You knew these men were contractors,

23:54

but you were still frightened of the interaction

23:56

with them as well?

23:58

-

I mean that's, it was a toss up,

24:01

in the sense that sometimes you couldn't help but laugh,

24:04

because you know this isn't real,

24:09

they're not actually going to hurt you and yeah,

24:11

they're just playing this part.

24:13

And then you've also got your, you know,

24:15

the senior people above you,

24:18

the officers and senior enlisted, you know, telling you,

24:20

you've gotta take this seriously, this is no joking matter.

24:22

One of the things that, you know,

24:26

went to the effect of us as medical staff,

24:29

taking this seriously, at least for me,

24:32

was we had like a one day training

24:34

with these army hand-to-hand combat instructors.

24:37

And we're a team of,

24:41

it was all medical people who were going through this.

24:42

So we weren't training there with the guards.

24:44

We had our own training,

24:46

I believe the guards training was longer.

24:48

And so, you know, we've got like a,

24:51

one of our lead officers was like an ophthalmologist.

24:53

And then we've got, you know,

24:55

psychiatric technicians who were not even generally

24:57

of the corpsman, were like the non-touching

24:59

hospital corpsman and there was other corpsman

25:04

throwing ideas and stuff like that all the time,

25:05

always touching patients.

25:07

We were like, no, no, no, you know, this was not us.

25:08

Should we go to this self-defense,

25:11

hand-to-hand combat class, which again, looking back on it,

25:13

the only thing that I could see that we gained

25:17

from that is to instill in us that we knew

25:20

absolutely nothing about how to defend ourselves

25:22

in a hand-to-hand combat situation.

25:24

I mean, they, like, give us this knife and they're, like,

25:26

one of the instructors would be like, "All right,

25:30

now rush me with the knife."

25:31

And we'll practice, and then they flip

25:33

you over and you'd be down and they'd be like,

25:34

"Okay, now you take, you know,

25:35

now I'm going to rush you with the knife

25:38

and you try that move."

25:39

No! Nobody's doing this stuff right.

25:41

And they're like, here's how you parry it, chop.

25:43

It was useless in terms of actually learning anything.

25:46

And yet, again, walking away after the class,

25:50

it was kind of fun and people were laughing

25:53

while we were going through this.

25:54

And yet afterwards it's like thinking, all right,

25:57

if one of these guys is ever out of his shackles

26:00

or whatever else and I'm standing there, I'm toast.

26:02

(laughs) So again, it didn't seem like it had

26:06

much practical benefit and yet left me, you know,

26:08

with that feeling of, okay,

26:11

I don't feel very well prepared for this.

26:12

And of course, you know, they gave the notorious,

26:15

not only are these guys bomb makers and this and that,

26:17

they're also going to be top-notch in terms

26:21

of hand-to-hand combat so this is why you need

26:22

to know this stuff,

26:24

'cause they're gonna know what they're doing.

26:25

And again, you know, I'll say,

26:29

almost laughable now and particularly after I met

26:30

the some of detainees, some of whom were very elderly and,

26:32

you know, definitively crippled.

26:36

And, but again, setting me up for going in there,

26:38

it had an effect.

26:42

Interviewer

Say, am I right to say you were

26:43

very apprehensive after those two weeks

26:45

on your way to Guantanamo?

26:48

-

Oh, absolutely.

26:49

And I mean, I know I wasn't alone in that either.

26:50

It's just, there were any number of us who thought

26:55

that it felt very rushed.

26:57

Interviewer

You wanted more training?

27:00

-

The training, exactly.

27:01

Interviewer

You wanted more training to be prepared

27:03

so that you wouldn't get...

27:04

-

Yeah.

27:05

So that we did not feel like we constantly had

27:06

the situation under control with how it was made

27:09

out with practicing with these contractors.

27:12

Interviewer

So your colleagues were also really afraid?

27:16

-

I would say so, for the most part.

27:20

I mean, you've got the machismo element that's still

27:23

a part of the military but,

27:26

I mean I definitely had some conversations with people

27:27

in which they expressed as well,

27:30

how confident do you actually feel in doing this?

27:33

And any number of people, myself included, said that we were

27:35

told that ultimately if you feel

27:39

like your safety is on the line then you can opt not

27:41

to deliver the medication.

27:45

You feel that your safety

27:47

is potentially compromised and we were just like, oh,

27:49

I'm gonna like, you know,

27:51

look down the tier here and be like,

27:53

I think my safety is potentially going to be compromised.

27:55

Make a little notation

27:57

in the detainees chart and move on.

27:59

Then things didn't actually end up happening that way

28:03

but I explicitly had that conversation with somebody

28:05

about doing that very thing with how he felt

28:09

after this training.

28:11

Interviewer

Did you ever interact

28:13

with the contractors outside of the role playing,

28:13

where you'd see them at a bar at night or?

28:16

-

No, no.

28:20

They, (laughs) I mean they seemed to take

28:22

their roles pretty seriously.

28:23

I mean, they were like, all scruffy looking,

28:25

scraggly guys for the most part,

28:27

from what I remember of them and, I mean...

28:30

Interviewer

Were they white guys or were they?

28:33

-

What's that?

28:34

Interviewer

Were they American white guys

28:35

or where they...

28:37

-

From what I remember most of them were white.

28:40

I just remember, like,

28:43

we would take breaks and there's sometimes I saw

28:43

them 'cause you can't help but notice them,

28:46

they're wearing the orange jumpsuit

28:48

to imitate the detainees.

28:49

And so they'd be like half,

28:52

have their orange jumpsuits half pulled down

28:53

and they're like sitting over having their own smoke

28:55

break but there was never any interaction that I saw.

28:57

Interviewer

And they played their role

29:01

with you even if you weren't sure that it was real,

29:03

they acted real with you.

29:06

-

Oh, they did, yeah.

29:08

You know, I don't know if that was part of it, is that

29:10

they, to be more effective in their role.

29:13

I had never thought about that before but maybe

29:16

they weren't supposed to interact with us

29:18

in the off time, and-

29:20

Interviewer

Do you know if they were, who they were,

29:21

if they were contracted from the CIA or FBI or?

29:23

-

I have no idea.

29:26

I was just gonna say,

29:28

we had our own little barracks where we all

29:29

stayed together on the base.

29:31

I assume those guys were sleeping out in town or somewhere.

29:32

I don't know.

29:37

Interviewer

And were there women in hospital

29:39

corps, people too?

29:41

-

Yes, absolutely.

29:42

We were a mixed group, the medical group on the whole.

29:44

Interviewer

And did the women respond

29:47

any differently from the men to any of this training?

29:49

-

Honestly, I think it was fairly similar.

29:54

Similar hesitations about stuff.

29:59

I mean, these are all women who've been

30:02

in the Navy for at least a few years and it's like

30:04

that alone kind of changes some of the,

30:08

I guess more stereotypical, you know, femininity, like,

30:12

ooh, I don't wanna get dirty or whatever else.

30:16

I mean that's been long gone from boot camp I would

30:19

say onward so, I mean,

30:22

I never thought about there really being

30:24

a difference between the men and the women,

30:26

at least during the training.

30:28

When it came to actually interacting with detainees,

30:29

there were definite differences, but...

30:32

Interviewer

Well, we can go into that.

30:34

So, is there anything else about the training

30:35

that we should know about before we talk about getting

30:37

on the plane to go to Guantanamo?

30:40

-

That's really all that I'm thinking of at this point.

30:48

Interviewer

And so, could you describe the day

30:50

you got in the plane?

30:53

I mean you said you were apprehensive.

30:53

Could you tell us about that day and you arriving

30:55

in Guantanamo and?

30:59

-

Well, we were going all the way up

31:00

from Fort Lewis in Washington down to Gitmo.

31:01

And, it was just, it was a long day of flying.

31:05

Let's see, that day, no, that,

31:11

there was one part of that in the training,

31:12

we had ended up on a cargo plane in transport

31:14

which is that, the only time I've ever done that,

31:17

being a passenger on a cargo plane,

31:19

that was an experience in and of itself.

31:22

Interviewer

Why?

31:23

-

I don't know,

31:24

that was the flight arrangement they had made for us.

31:25

Interviewer

Why is that an experience?

31:27

-

Ooh, 'cause you don't have seats or anything.

31:28

(laughs) So...

31:31

Interviewer

Could that have been similar

31:32

to the kind of plane that the detainees were

31:34

taken to Guantanamo?

31:36

Do you know?

31:38

-

I honestly don't know.

31:39

Interviewer

Did that plane have a second level

31:41

where people could stand above and look down?

31:42

Did you notice?

31:45

-

That one did not, no.

31:46

Interviewer

And did your wife know you were going

31:48

to Guantanamo that day?

31:49

-

That day, yes she did.

31:51

Interviewer

Was she worried for you?

31:54

-

I think she was to some degree,

31:56

but I mean, I definitely hadn't shared with her,

32:00

in the manner in which I just did with you,

32:04

at that point in time about just what we were

32:07

going through, about the apprehensions that I had.

32:08

I mean, I was drinking the OPSEC

32:13

medicine seriously and religiously.

32:16

So, I don't think she had much of an idea the level

32:18

of hesitation that I had felt about it.

32:22

Interviewer

Okay.

32:25

Why don't you take us then to the plane

32:26

and landing in Guantanamo?

32:27

-

I honestly don't remember anything too

32:30

significant about that.

32:32

I was, you know, still kind of excited.

32:33

It was huge change in temperature.

32:35

I've never been a fan of that much heat or humidity.

32:38

So I wasn't necessarily liking that from the get go,

32:41

but you fly into one side and then you have to take

32:47

a little ferry over to the other side.

32:50

And I do remember,

32:54

it was, by the time we actually got

32:59

over to where our barracks were,

33:01

which were not far at all from the camps.

33:03

I suppose I should not air quote

33:09

that the whole time, I just,

33:10

I have tried to change my own language to some

33:12

degree because I just think it's such

33:14

a misrepresentation to call prison facilities like that,

33:15

camps, but that's the terminology they use.

33:19

So, and it was nighttime and we were on these buses

33:22

and that was the very first time that I saw

33:26

the actual detention facilities.

33:31

So there's a, it's still an active

33:34

Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

33:38

So the, far and away the majority of the base

33:41

is not devoted to the detention operations,

33:43

at least in terms of geographically.

33:48

And so there was an initial two levels of behind the wire.

33:50

There's one part of the base itself that's segmented off,

33:54

and then even within that segmented off section

33:57

of the base, there's actually

33:58

when you're officially behind the wire and within one

34:01

of the camps.

34:03

So we had gone through the additional ID check,

34:06

'cause you need a different type of ID to even get down

34:10

to that other section of the base.

34:13

And we had, you know,

34:15

been on a big school bus and gone through that

34:15

and everyone had gotten quiet at that point.

34:18

So we came winding down this road.

34:21

And then the first thing you see are these guard

34:24

towers like perched everywhere and they've got

34:26

the spotlight going across in different directions.

34:28

And I just remember thinking that this was like

34:33

something out of a movie.

34:35

And yet I was really going to go in there and behind there,

34:38

you know, not visible from our little bus route

34:41

through to our own barracks

34:44

where supposedly some of the most dangerous people on earth.

34:47

And it just seemed kind of surreal at the time.

34:51

Yeah, just I mean, you've got a dark night,

34:55

you can see the ocean in the distance,

34:57

the spotlights rolling around and then I remember

34:59

getting past, they have these, the Humvees that patrol,

35:03

with 50 cal on top

35:07

and seeing that, and it's like,

35:09

again, hospital corpsman psychiatric technician.

35:11

I've been far from any of the machinery of war,

35:14

so to speak.

35:17

It's like, okay,

35:19

now I'm really in a military environment here.

35:20

There's a guy that just drove by with a group of people

35:23

in a Humvee and there's guys

35:27

with guns that are ready to be shot and they're up

35:30

in these towers, peering their spotlights around,

35:34

and I was like, "Okay, this is the real deal."

35:36

Interviewer

And the next morning,

35:40

what happened the next day?

35:42

-

We still had more orientation and training to do.

35:44

I don't remember if it was the very next day

35:48

that we actually went into the camps for the first time.

35:50

Interviewer

You had more training,

35:54

the same kind of training you had at Fort Lewis?

35:55

-

Not really training like the, we had to get

35:57

access to their computer systems for down there.

36:00

A couple of things like that.

36:05

I think we had just like temporary IDs initially,

36:05

we had to go through, I think there was even some more,

36:08

like, paperwork we had to sign about,

36:11

one of the things that they had emphasized was

36:13

how they could look through anything on your computer

36:15

when you go to leave.

36:19

So all the stuff about where not to be

36:22

taking pictures, where you can take pictures.

36:25

It didn't strike me as the most beautiful place

36:29

to be taking pictures anyway.

36:31

But training about like iguanas and how it's like

36:33

a crime in Cuba to, you know,

36:38

kill an iguana or something like that

36:40

or the reverse.

36:42

Cubans all kill the iguanas and they're trying,

36:44

the Americans are trying to save the iguanas

36:45

so you're not allowed to touch them or mess with them.

36:47

I mean, not very much stuff of consequence

36:49

but we had a few more days like

36:52

that before we actually started

36:55

like job shadowing people for our roles.

36:58

Interviewer

Could you describe that?

37:01

-

That is the one thing that I will say is the,

37:04

when you're really trained is when you're actually

37:07

with somebody who's been there for about six months,

37:09

they're on their way out, you're their replacement,

37:12

and they're walking you through how stuff is actually done.

37:14

Which in reality was a whole lot simpler than anything

37:19

had been made out to be in the training up in Fort Lewis.

37:22

Every time you walked on the tier,

37:27

there wasn't like crazy pounding and poo being slung

37:28

and stuff like that.

37:31

Not that they were actually slinging anything up

37:33

in Fort Lewis, but we had heard stories.

37:35

And so it was, people were a lot more relaxed in terms

37:39

of actually administering the medication.

37:42

It was clear that there was some level

37:44

of relationship between detainees and corpsmen,

37:47

and even detainees and guards.

37:50

And so, it became like, okay,

37:54

this is something that's manageable.

37:56

I'm not gonna get my ear bit off if I lean down

37:58

to listen to what this guy is actually saying that, oh,

38:01

he wants ibuprofen and, you know,

38:03

not Tylenol or something like that.

38:05

So that was like the reality check that, okay, this is...

38:10

I'm not going to die instantly the minute this begins.

38:14

Interviewer

How long did you shadow

38:19

before you took over?

38:20

-

I think it was about a week, I don't remember exactly.

38:22

Interviewer

And that week really relaxed you,

38:25

I mean you began to feel like...

38:27

-

It did much more so.

38:28

Well, particularly when you're just literally

38:30

following somebody, like, first three days

38:32

or something you're literally just following them.

38:34

And so you're not even having to worry

38:38

about doing anything.

38:39

They're just kind of talking you through

38:40

what's going on beforehand and then

38:44

you're just standing there watching.

38:45

It was, felt a little bit awkward knowing that, like,

38:48

you know, clearly the detainee was like checking

38:51

you out to see, you know, who's this, oh,

38:53

another wave of people.

38:55

At the same point in time,

38:58

the corpsman was given a brief on, okay,

38:59

this guy won't talk to you or this guy will always

39:04

request the translator.

39:06

This guy will always try and get you to give him such

39:09

and such and you can't do that.

39:11

Things like that.

39:14

Interviewer

Did you work in the psych ward

39:16

the first week too?

39:18

Did you go all over the whole camp?

39:19

-

That was, the psychiatric technicians were based

39:22

out of the BHU,

39:26

the Behavioral Health Unit, which is located right

39:27

behind the medical facility.

39:30

So what would happen is

39:33

you'd have a couple of different responsibilities,

39:37

responsibility for the detainees actually in BHU.

39:39

There were cells that were in BHU which was kind

39:44

of like viewed as the inpatient facility.

39:47

Interviewer

That's not the isolation ward, BHU?

39:51

Is it, was it an isolation ward or why were they in BHU?

39:53

-

Because they were determined to be very much

39:57

either a risk to themselves or more seriously sick

40:01

in terms of mental health.

40:06

Interviewer

Okay, so there's BHU

40:09

and then what else is there?

40:11

-

And there were just like, I wanna say eight cells in BHU.

40:12

And then, you know, right off from that,

40:19

which is very different from any of the other

40:21

facilities that I saw there,

40:24

that short eight-cell tier just came right onto like

40:27

the office space for all the mental health workers.

40:31

So we had a number of psychiatric technicians like

40:36

myself and then we had one psychologist

40:38

and one psychiatrist and a couple of psychiatric

40:41

nurses as well.

40:45

Interviewer

And did, I'm sorry,

40:47

did you only work at the BHU?

40:48

You didn't work in any other?

40:50

-

No, no, no. Sorry, I was going to get to that.

40:52

So that's like home base.

40:54

And then from there,

40:55

responsibilities to patients that are actually

40:57

on that ward or on that tier.

40:59

And then you would also have regular administration

41:01

of medications around to all the various different

41:05

camps for those who had psychotropic medications

41:07

or other things that they needed.

41:11

Or the psychologist or psychiatrist who would want

41:13

some people to be checked in with daily

41:16

or even multiple times a day by a psychiatric technician.

41:18

For the most part it was usually like a safety check,

41:23

which consisted of asking

41:25

if they're having any thoughts about hurting themselves,

41:27

any thoughts about hurting anybody else?

41:29

Are they seeing anything or hearing anything anybody

41:31

else can't see or hear also, that was the basic rundown.

41:34

Interviewer

And these were men who were

41:38

sprinkled around all the camps.

41:39

-

In various camps. Correct.

41:40

Interviewer

And there were a total of eight rooms?

41:42

Interviewer

That was only in the BHU.

41:45

-

That, I believe it was, I could be wrong,

41:46

it was a small number,

41:48

just that were actually located in that building,

41:51

the Behavioral Health Unit.

41:54

Interviewer

But you went to camp, in one, two,

41:55

three, five, six.

41:58

-

Yes, yes.

42:00

Interviewer

Four, yeah.

42:02

And did you go to the isolation ward too,

42:03

that's a separate, was that a separate?

42:07

-

When you're using the phrase isolation ward,

42:10

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

42:13

I don't know if maybe that's what other people referred

42:15

to BHU as?

42:17

Interviewer

Did you see any situation

42:19

where people were, detainees were isolated

42:21

and couldn't talk to any other detainee?

42:23

In the BHU, could they talk to each other?

42:32

In those eight cells?

42:35

-

It would depend on how they were arranged.

42:38

I mean, they, and most, I never saw, I don't think,

42:42

at most I think there were four people

42:47

in there at one point in time.

42:50

I mean if you have people on opposite ends

42:52

and you're not having their bean holes

42:55

open at the same time.

42:59

I mean that would be,

43:00

they're not really going to have much...

43:01

Interviewer

Chance to converse with each other.

43:05

-

Yeah, exactly.

43:06

Interviewer

I'm sorry I asked that question but-

43:09

-

No, that's fine.

43:11

Interviewer

I gave it to you because I had heard

43:11

it was the term of a mental ward or an isolation ward

43:12

and so, I'm curious as to whether it BHU is what...

43:17

-

I would certainly have to think so.

43:21

(laughs) From what you said that's why I said,

43:23

you know, we didn't refer to it that way, that maybe,

43:25

but that's not the first time

43:29

in which guards refer to something one way,

43:30

and (laughs) we as, you know,

43:34

mental health staff refer to it differently.

43:37

Interviewer

Would they end up

43:39

there after they had been earthed?

43:40

-

Not necessarily.

43:44

And refresh my memory on the earthed.

43:48

Interviewer

The emergency response.

43:53

So when they, there was an issue in the cell

43:55

and the guards would come and grab the detainee,

44:01

often the guards would relay that they would then

44:06

go over, send them over to isolation if there had been

44:09

a violent episode or what was perceived as a violent

44:12

or potentially violent episode.

44:17

-

All right, now I'm thinking that, no,

44:19

there must be a different, I don't know if then...

44:22

Was it in a specific camp that? What it-

44:26

Interviewer

It was in Camp Delta and it must be

44:29

separate from where you worked.

44:35

-

'Cause I mean they would be brought to us

44:36

if they had tried to hurt themselves.

44:38

Obviously, if they had succeeded in injuring

44:42

themselves somehow, depending where they went first

44:44

would be the, you know, the critical,

44:48

criticalness of their situation.

44:50

But after attempting self-harm,

44:53

they would be transferred to BHU, not always,

44:54

but that would be more regular.

44:58

I'm thinking isolation must be something

45:00

within the camp from what you described in terms

45:03

of after like FCE or something like that,

45:06

that they were taken there and...

45:10

I mean, I could see that very easily being the case in

45:12

camp five or camp six, where they would have...

45:16

Interviewer

Separate.

45:20

-

Yeah, isolation room, clearly.

45:21

Interviewer

So, what kind of people exactly did

45:22

you see in the BHU?

45:24

-

There was one person who was there the entire time.

45:28

Interviewer

That was one year while you were there?

45:32

-

I was there for six months.

45:34

So I know most of the guard staff was on a one

45:37

year rotation, most of the medical staff was on six month.

45:39

Interviewer

And the one person who was

45:44

there for the six months, can you describe?

45:45

-

Sure.

45:47

He, and honestly,

45:48

I don't know what I actually think.

45:53

Supposedly he had hallucinations and so he would be

45:55

taking medications regularly and he would

46:00

threaten self-harm at various times or say

46:04

that he was having

46:08

all sorts of

46:12

images of harming himself or he was,

46:13

couldn't help but be thinking about it.

46:16

The reason I say that with some level of hesitation,

46:19

I mean it didn't fit the characteristics necessarily

46:23

of what I've experienced outside of Gitmo in terms

46:26

of somebody who's like that.

46:31

But there's so many differences there.

46:32

I mean, he spoke English, so it wasn't a direct

46:34

language barrier but clearly it wasn't his first language.

46:38

And then, you know, you've got the whole thing of,

46:42

how honest, if ever,

46:45

is this guy being with me for a good reason?

46:46

I never settled on a judgment.

46:51

There were any number of the people that I worked

46:53

with who thought he just preferred living in BHU.

46:55

And so therefore he,

46:59

whenever he got talked about that maybe he was doing

47:01

well enough to be transferred back to one of the camps,

47:03

he'd have another episode or something.

47:05

And then, I mean the other factor that you never know

47:07

in this is, from what I saw of things,

47:11

the non-medical people, the higher ups, I mean,

47:14

it was like a little game of chess in terms

47:19

of where they would move people around and be

47:21

watching what happened and they'd be listening of course,

47:24

and everything else.

47:28

So, I don't know what level of,

47:30

maybe it was just that it was a convenient place

47:33

to house him.

47:35

You know, that was something that happened

47:36

at another point as well.

47:38

Not that we were told directly,

47:40

but there were times where somebody was transferred

47:42

into BHU and they didn't seem to have

47:45

any psychiatric needs.

47:46

So, it was kind of clear that, okay,

47:49

we're just being used as a holding pen.

47:51

That annoyed the some of staff

47:55

of the BHU because anytime they have to be treated

47:57

like an inpatient.

48:01

So they're getting checked on much more regularly

48:02

than they ever would if they were in the camps,

48:05

by mental health anyway,

48:08

and yet they didn't seem to have any mental health needs.

48:10

And so it felt like we were just kind of playing

48:12

this game of babysitting somebody.

48:14

So I don't know if that was a factor,

48:18

but he was there the whole time.

48:19

Interviewer

Were these people in BHU

48:22

also seeing interrogators?

48:24

Were they being interrogated while they were there?

48:26

-

They, not in BHU.

48:29

Interviewer

Not in BHU, but taken out?

48:32

-

Yes, that they would be taken out as well.

48:33

And that's something I never saw any part of.

48:37

I had, you know,

48:40

in talking with detainees they would reference

48:41

interrogations and stuff like that.

48:44

We were never supposed to ask

48:45

about that as mental health staff.

48:46

Interviewer

I feel like,

48:50

why wouldn't you ask about that?

48:51

Were you told that by the military as opposed to?

48:54

-

Yes.

48:56

And that, it was very clear, you know,

48:57

the guard staff isn't supposed to be developing any

49:02

type of relationship with these people.

49:04

Like, they're not even supposed to be

49:08

casually chatting or anything else.

49:09

You put people together for so many hours.

49:12

I think that's, good luck trying to enforce that type

49:15

of rule, but that was supposedly the case, no idle chatter.

49:18

With us it was a little different,

49:22

because normally as psych techs we're all about trying

49:24

to build up rapport with a patient and really

49:28

get this patient relationship going.

49:31

And yet now we have this situation where so many

49:34

things were taboo.

49:39

I mean, we're not to be asking about them,

49:40

them about why they're there or things like that.

49:44

So we're so much more limited.

49:47

And again, like interrogation is one of those things where,

49:49

you know, that doesn't concern you,

49:51

you don't want to be hearing information

49:55

that you're not supposed to be hearing.

49:56

And you don't want to make it seem like you're asking

49:57

or looking for information.

50:01

So if they're gonna talk about you can

50:03

redirect them back onto their mental health,

50:07

as if the two wouldn't necessarily be related.

50:10

And yet, yeah, it was made clear that we were supposed

50:15

to be technicians for these people,

50:20

but at the same point in time, you know,

50:23

we had to be talking them which the guards weren't

50:26

even supposed to be doing,

50:28

but we were supposed to be keeping a distance.

50:29

It just, it felt like a ruse,

50:31

as if the biggest part of our being there as mental

50:38

health was for them, them being the military,

50:42

to be able to brag about how they have all

50:46

these mental health people there for the benefit

50:48

of the detainees.

50:50

I mean, just one of the things that got me, you know,

50:53

almost from the get go of when we were down

50:56

there is in an initial patient meeting and every time,

50:58

one of things you were supposed to be taking

51:00

into account is environment.

51:02

And what role is environment having

51:07

on this person's mental health and their status.

51:09

And yet that seemed like that was just a completely

51:14

absent factor and yet more relevant

51:17

than it had ever been before.

51:19

It was an important factor dealing with recruits

51:21

'cause it's like, okay,

51:23

they've had all their clothes taken away,

51:24

they're, this and that.

51:26

And, you know, those considerations were taken

51:27

into account in evaluating them.

51:29

And here we've got something even more drastic

51:30

and yet that's just, like,

51:33

one part of the assessment that's,

51:35

like, completely negated.

51:37

And so it very much just,

51:41

it left me kind of angered, 'cause it felt like I was just

51:43

spinning my wheels.

51:46

You're kind of going through these motions

51:48

and you're getting annoyed with them as detainees,

51:50

at least I did.

51:53

I saw this with other people as well.

51:54

That we're having to use our time on them,

51:57

dealing with them and yet we're not actually

52:00

doing anything productive to help here or really try

52:03

and assess or fix anything.

52:06

And yet we can't just not do anything either 'cause

52:09

this is what we're being ordered to do.

52:11

So it just, it...

52:14

Interviewer

What exactly did you do?

52:15

Could you describe a day, what exactly you would do?

52:16

-

So the central point was BHU, you'd get a list

52:21

of who all you were supposed to see that day.

52:27

And a lot of the time I ended up working the night

52:29

shift and so have we wouldn't that list of people

52:32

to go see out in the camps.

52:35

But at any point in time, supposedly,

52:38

detainees could request BHU, and have us go out there.

52:40

And that happened on a fairly regular basis

52:44

where a detainee would request to speak

52:46

with somebody from BHU.

52:48

Interviewer

Why would they wanna see someone from?

52:50

-

A large variety of reasons.

52:55

Oftentimes it was to complain about something

52:56

in the camps, and we'd look at them and say,

52:59

"We don't have anything to do with that."

53:03

Like, you know, I didn't get my shower at the time

53:04

I was supposed to be given my shower today.

53:08

And it's, you know, we can't do anything about that.

53:10

Well, they'd call us out there for that anyway.

53:12

Other times it was because they were,

53:17

they wanted to complain about some guard or something

53:20

and "This guard (mumbles)."

53:23

And, you know, again we're, there's, all right,

53:26

redirect the detainee, ask them the safety questions

53:28

and then otherwise just move on.

53:30

So I would say, most of the time it was issues like that.

53:34

I think some of it was, some of the detainees' motivation,

53:39

I'm guessing of course, but was that we,

53:45

even still we would actually talk with them or at least

53:49

I would in a lot more...

53:52

(laughs) A lot more professional and human way

53:54

than the guards or other people.

53:56

So I think some of it might've been for that reason,

53:58

to have an interaction with somebody,

54:00

some of them clearly just wanted to talk.

54:02

And other times there were people who recognized

54:07

that we were, at least in theory,

54:12

there to try and help them and they would be

54:13

feeling very depressed.

54:15

Interviewer

What could you do if somebody came up

54:17

to you and said they were depressed?

54:19

What would you do?

54:22

-

That's what just frustrated me all that much more.

54:26

So I just, I'm somebody who generally,

54:31

genuinely does want to,

54:33

I mean that's part of why I got into it,

54:34

generally do wanna help people and found that

54:36

I could have some level of effectiveness in doing

54:38

that with recruits.

54:41

Particularly the idea of like

54:42

cognitive behavioral therapy and reframing a situation.

54:44

It's like, what am I gonna work with here to try

54:47

and help them reframe the situation?

54:51

Or to, you know, what is... I just felt helpless.

54:53

And so oftentimes I would just listen.

54:58

You know, by the book all that we were supposed

55:02

to be doing was if they're not having any thoughts

55:04

of self harm or anything else, boom, that's it.

55:07

Interviewer

You leave them.

55:11

If they're depressed, that's not a problem?

55:12

-

I mean, you notate it, you write up a note on it, still.

55:13

Anytime we had, yeah, that's another thing,

55:17

important thing to say,

55:19

anytime we had an interaction with a detainee,

55:20

it was supposed to be notated.

55:22

And sometimes those would be multiple pages 'cause

55:25

we were supposed to relate everything that was passed

55:28

back and forth.

55:30

And so that, I mean,

55:33

we would go back and write up a short note 'cause

55:36

there's not anything more to say.

55:38

If they were having thoughts about hurting themselves

55:42

and they wouldn't, the phrase was contract for safety

55:45

or wouldn't say that, "Okay, I'm having these thoughts,

55:51

but I'm confident that I'm not actually

55:53

going to do something."

55:55

They would be smocked,

55:57

which, this, of course, helped somebody so much.

56:00

They'd have everything taken out of their cell

56:03

if they had anything,

56:05

like if they had privileges or things like that.

56:07

That would all be taken out,

56:10

they wouldn't even have their jumpsuit any more.

56:11

They'd just be given this green,

56:14

it really is kind of like a smock, but it's much thicker.

56:16

It's supposed to be padded.

56:19

I mean, I'm guessing from the nodding

56:21

I'm describing something you've heard described before.

56:23

And then that way there's supposed to be no way

56:25

that they can hurt themself any more.

56:28

So that, that's how we're helping out in that situation.

56:31

I don't think I ever

56:38

had somebody smoked.

56:43

It just seemed so futile to me.

56:46

It also seemed like it caused a lot more problems

56:49

for multiple reasons.

56:53

Some of the psych techs would get agitated with people

56:54

or people wouldn't answer them and it was like a means

56:58

of retribution that have they would a detainee smocked.

57:01

"Okay, well, you're not gonna talk with me,

57:04

you're not contracting for safety then, guards,

57:06

we need to get this guy smocked."

57:09

And that, I mean that,

57:14

that's something that irked me at the time.

57:15

I just saw it as unnecessary and immature more

57:17

than anything, from some of my fellow psych techs.

57:20

Because what came into play as well was

57:26

if they wouldn't willingly give over their stuff

57:28

and just put on the smock,

57:31

then an FCE has to be done and they get forcefully

57:33

put into the smock.

57:37

And that was just something that I didn't want any part of.

57:40

Interviewer

So, going back,

57:45

what did you do if somebody said I'm depressed,

57:49

but they didn't show that they were

57:52

suicidal or could cause harm to themselves?

57:55

You pretty much took notes and then left and went

57:57

to the next person.

58:00

-

Yeah, we could pass on to them if they wanted

58:01

to actually meet with the psychologist

58:04

or the psychiatrist, they could put in a request that way.

58:07

Particularly if it's somebody who, everybody,

58:11

I can't remember the basis.

58:16

Everybody through all the camps would meet

58:17

with BHU on some kind of basis.

58:19

I think it may have even been like once a month.

58:22

And then there were some people obviously who were

58:26

like weekly, daily, multiple times a day, it varied.

58:28

So if it weren't, you know,

58:32

one of our regular patients and they weren't on any

58:33

type of medication, we were, of course, not able,

58:35

don't have the legal authority to be prescribing meds

58:38

or anything like that.

58:41

So, I mean, we could notate, okay,

58:43

they're interested in meeting with a psychiatrist

58:46

for a medication evaluation or just listing

58:48

the reasons why they're depressed.

58:52

Otherwise, yeah, there was, as I found, and I don't know,

58:55

maybe a failure on my part,

58:59

there wasn't much ability to be helpful

59:00

in a therapeutic way.

59:05

Interviewer

And am I hearing it right that,

59:08

and if they did express some harm to themselves

59:09

the response would be the smock, pretty much that was it?

59:12

There was a very simplistic response to different

59:16

needs that they expressed.

59:19

-

It was.

59:21

I mean if they...

59:24

If somebody was gonna be smocked,

59:29

there was always a nurse, a psychiatric nurse on duty.

59:30

Like I said, a lot of the time I was working nights,

59:34

the psychologist or psychiatrist wasn't on at night,

59:36

there was a psychiatric nurse who had kind of be

59:39

holding down the fort at BHU.

59:43

And we as technicians would actually be the ones going

59:45

out all the time.

59:47

If it was something, I mean, we were supposed to

59:50

still maintain that sense of the patient in terms

59:55

of do we think this person is still not safe somehow?

59:58

Do we need to set up a watch where there's one person

1:00:02

just in front of, you know,

1:00:06

that person's cell so that instantly, if something happens,

1:00:08

more people can be brought in,

1:00:12

well, theoretically instantly?

1:00:13

That something more could happen.

1:00:18

Interviewer

Were there cameras in any cell?

1:00:19

-

There were... (laughs)

1:00:20

That doesn't necessarily mean everybody is being

1:00:22

watched all the time.

1:00:24

Interviewer

So you could arrange for a guard

1:00:28

standing in front of a cell just to watch?

1:00:30

-

Or what we would also do is one of us

1:00:32

as tech, psych techs.

1:00:35

Interviewer

Might, for eight hours

1:00:39

just stand in front of a cell and watch.

1:00:40

-

Yes.

1:00:42

Interviewer

Really?

1:00:43

Instead of moving the detainee to a safer location.

1:00:44

-

Correct.

1:00:48

Because we wouldn't have the authority

1:00:49

to be moving somebody.

1:00:51

And so, yeah, we would just post up a watch there.

1:00:53

Even on BHU, we had,

1:00:57

there were cameras in all the cells and at times,

1:01:02

if it was thought that somebody was a higher risk,

1:01:05

there was always a guard on that short little tier.

1:01:07

But we would even have a one-to-one watch

1:01:10

with a patient on that tier as well,

1:01:14

where we're literally sitting or standing right in front,

1:01:16

just looking in at them for a shift.

1:01:20

We, thankfully, rotate with that most of the time,

1:01:23

sometimes when we had multiple people on watches like that,

1:01:27

we did have to have more techs,

1:01:30

more psych techs working at a given time,

1:01:33

obviously, to accommodate.

1:01:35

But yeah, it was a kind of a watching game.

1:01:37

Thankfully I never saw something bad happen as a result

1:01:42

of that, 'cause it definitely made me wonder,

1:01:47

you can't just open up the cell door,

1:01:48

and let's say he somehow does come up with a shank

1:01:51

and starts cutting himself,

1:01:54

we can't just throw up in the cell door, you know,

1:01:55

the whole procedure has to be followed of getting

1:01:56

a team in there and everything else.

1:01:59

So it did not seem like there was necessarily a ton of hope

1:02:02

if somebody actually had a means to really

1:02:08

do themselves harm.

1:02:11

And I mean, I know, at some point in time,

1:02:14

I wasn't on duty when it happened,

1:02:19

somebody did pretty seriously cut themselves and then

1:02:20

they got transferred over to BHU.

1:02:23

I'm not sure how it all happened.

1:02:26

I didn't actually see it occur.

1:02:30

Interviewer

Were you around when the man

1:02:33

committed suicide or so it was alleged?

1:02:35

-

I was not. I was there shortly thereafter.

1:02:39

I'm not sure how shortly.

1:02:44

But that was one of the things that was talked about a lot.

1:02:44

And they were very serious about those watches then.

1:02:48

I don't know the details of what happened

1:02:55

when those people died in that way.

1:02:58

Because I, with the way in which we ran things,

1:03:03

I couldn't see, if somebody was suspected

1:03:06

of having thoughts of harm or some type of plan like that,

1:03:09

I couldn't see how that could have gone down, you know,

1:03:12

in a similar fashion to what had supposedly happened.

1:03:14

I don't know what of that was changed

1:03:16

because of that in terms of our watch procedures.

1:03:19

I mean, it was super tedious, but, I mean,

1:03:21

people were kept a very close eye on if it was

1:03:27

thought that there was reason for concern.

1:03:31

Interviewer

Had you heard whether, about those three,

1:03:33

whether they actually had revealed they might care

1:03:37

to harm themselves?

1:03:40

Had you heard any rumors?

1:03:42

-

I had not.

1:03:42

Interviewer

And had you heard rumors that maybe they,

1:03:45

there was a homicide instead of a suicide that year

1:03:48

when you were there?

1:03:51

-

I hadn't.

1:03:53

I knew that was the case more so from media

1:03:54

about people conjecturing in that way.

1:03:57

You know, within the camps it's all about honor bound

1:04:01

to defend freedom.

1:04:04

And so even with suicides,

1:04:06

which this was kind of counter

1:04:11

to everything training beforehand.

1:04:13

It was viewed as like if,

1:04:16

the reason we don't want them to commit suicide

1:04:18

is because that's them winning.

1:04:20

And so it was set up in this confrontational way,

1:04:23

which is very opposite to the normal approach I would

1:04:26

have as a psych tech to a patient.

1:04:29

And I don't know how much that personally changed for me,

1:04:33

but definitely, you know, among guards and, you know,

1:04:37

a fair amount of other techs and other people,

1:04:40

it wasn't a matter of,

1:04:42

"Oh, we don't want somebody to get hurt."

1:04:43

It was a matter of,

1:04:45

"Well, this would be bad publicity

1:04:46

and they're just trying to do this to make us look bad

1:04:48

so that's them winning.

1:04:51

So we have to win by making sure that they're not able

1:04:53

to hurt themselves."

1:04:55

Interviewer

That's the sense you got

1:04:57

as you continued there, while you were there.

1:04:59

So, it kind of speaks to my next question.

1:05:02

It sounds to me like you got very frustrated

1:05:05

with your role, and I think you've described

1:05:07

it pretty well, but is it something else you wanna talk

1:05:12

about how that frustration came about?

1:05:14

-

It just, it was...

1:05:22

Personally, I ended up feeling so depressed

1:05:26

and so angry by the whole situation.

1:05:30

It wasn't in the same threatening way in which was

1:05:34

made out from Fort Lewis, but it was still,

1:05:38

I've described it multiple times,

1:05:42

it was just the most hate-filled place that I've ever been.

1:05:44

Like, there was something that almost

1:05:49

felt palpably different when you went behind the wire,

1:05:51

and it was aggravating

1:05:55

because it seemed like there was

1:06:00

no point to what was going on there.

1:06:01

My perspective is now very different than it was

1:06:06

at that point in time, at that point in time,

1:06:09

and this sounds absolutely horrible, but in accepting hook,

1:06:11

line and sinker everything that they had said

1:06:17

about these guys, it seemed like the amount of money

1:06:19

and time and frustration that's being wasted down here...

1:06:23

If these guys are so horrible,

1:06:28

why aren't they just executed?

1:06:29

Instead of us playing these games

1:06:32

and these elaborate facilities,

1:06:33

like camp five and camp six, and some of these,

1:06:38

air locking doors and chambers, I mean,

1:06:40

it was like something out of like a James Bond movie.

1:06:43

And I just, I was left questioning, for what,

1:06:47

like millions of dollars is clearly being poured into this.

1:06:49

These guys are the scum of the earth.

1:06:52

They wanna kill, why are we going to all this trouble?

1:06:54

Why am I going out and asking this terrorist how he feels?

1:06:56

It just seemed like such a mixed

1:07:02

message between the unspoken hate these guys,

1:07:06

hate these guys, hate these guys...

1:07:10

And then we're providing the highest level of medical

1:07:13

care and mental health care and everything else.

1:07:17

And it's like this doesn't add up.

1:07:20

And like internally that just caused so much

1:07:23

frustration and anger for me.

1:07:25

And it was a lot easier to focus that on them

1:07:27

than it was to focus it on something that I was actually

1:07:32

a part of, which was, you know,

1:07:35

the institution of the military, oh, I'm sorry, focus.

1:07:37

It was a lot easier to focus all that anger and hatred

1:07:40

on the detainees than it was to, in a sense,

1:07:43

include myself in those responsible by focusing it back

1:07:47

on myself, the military, the United States government.

1:07:51

Interviewer

So you were angry

1:07:57

at the detainees for what?

1:07:58

-

Essentially not a valid reason,

1:08:02

but for the existence of the situation, for existing,

1:08:04

their existence was causing so much problems,

1:08:09

so much disruptions, life and so much stress

1:08:12

and frustration,

1:08:14

and being away on this little remote piece of desert,

1:08:15

like, island.

1:08:20

And I just, again, like I said, I didn't see a point to it.

1:08:22

It didn't, on the one hand, worst people ever,

1:08:27

on the other hand,

1:08:30

we were providing the greatest level of medical care

1:08:31

that has ever...

1:08:33

These things don't add up.

1:08:34

And there was never,

1:08:35

I don't feel like there was ever any cohesive message

1:08:37

put out as to what was really going on.

1:08:40

Announcer

So while you were there,

1:08:44

you're still convinced that these detainees are

1:08:45

the worst of the worst?

1:08:48

-

I was.

1:08:50

And I think that only fed in more as

1:08:51

I got more angry and turn that towards them.

1:08:57

Then it was all that much more easy to not see

1:08:59

them as human.

1:09:03

Interviewer

Did you have others you could talk to?

1:09:05

Talk this out?

1:09:07

Sounds like maybe you needed some counseling

1:09:08

on that front.

1:09:10

-

(laughs) This is true. Not really.

1:09:11

There is, particularly being a psychiatric

1:09:14

technician myself, there were supposedly,

1:09:17

there was like a couple of psych techs who didn't work

1:09:20

in BHU, but were there for the support of the staff,

1:09:23

the people I knew and the people that I lived with.

1:09:30

And yeah, that definitely didn't seem like a viable option.

1:09:34

And I honestly didn't see how they could have

1:09:38

any different answers than I did.

1:09:40

It was definitely a very extremely frustrating...

1:09:44

Interviewer

Becoming kind of a lonely,

1:09:48

it sounds to me like you were, you know,

1:09:50

you had no one to share these thoughts with, and...

1:09:53

-

Yeah, and I mean,

1:09:56

so many people to didn't seem be bothered by it.

1:09:57

I don't know if it was that my perspective was still

1:10:05

split in terms of trying to make that human

1:10:08

connection with somebody who is supposedly being set up

1:10:11

as my patient.

1:10:14

And I just, I never made the complete break

1:10:15

into just not viewing them as human and as the enemy.

1:10:18

I certainly did consciously,

1:10:25

but the fact that I was left with the level

1:10:27

of frustration and anger and ultimately

1:10:29

depressive feelings myself, that I was,

1:10:32

wasn't something that I generally saw in other people.

1:10:36

I've become very, very,

1:10:39

very outspoken after the fact with a very

1:10:41

different perspective that I have now.

1:10:45

And I mean,

1:10:48

I've had one person who was down there with me

1:10:49

get in contact with me and approach me and say,

1:10:54

you know what, I don't wanna talk about it but I really

1:10:57

appreciated reading some of the things that you've written,

1:11:02

hearing some of what you've said and that you're not

1:11:04

just playing it off in that machismo type way about it.

1:11:07

So I just know I didn't find,

1:11:11

loneliness was definitely a part of it,

1:11:13

because I didn't find that generally

1:11:15

out there or even really at all.

1:11:18

One of the situations that came up that just epitomized

1:11:22

it for me almost more than anything was the middle

1:11:26

of the night, one night,

1:11:29

I'd been called out by one

1:11:30

of our regular patients detainees.

1:11:32

And he said he was feeling depressed.

1:11:39

I asked him, why are you feeling depressed?

1:11:42

And this is, I think it was,

1:11:44

I'm pretty sure it was even in a smock or already

1:11:46

at the time.

1:11:48

'Cause he had whole history of problems.

1:11:49

He had intermittently been actually

1:11:52

in BHU and then other times not, moved in and out,

1:11:54

but he started laying into this whole story.

1:12:00

And this was later in my time there,

1:12:03

where I just would spend more time listening.

1:12:05

And he was explaining how he was so frustrated,

1:12:10

because here he was there and he said

1:12:13

that the interrogators and everybody knows

1:12:16

that he doesn't know anything and that he's not

1:12:18

the bad guy, but if they're gonna let him go,

1:12:21

he said that they want information on my father,

1:12:26

and he's like, and they know I don't know anything,

1:12:31

but they also know that I know information

1:12:35

about where they could find my father,

1:12:39

that could help them find him.

1:12:41

And he's like, I don't...

1:12:42

Was like, I don't wanna get involved in this.

1:12:45

I don't necessarily have a problem with the United States.

1:12:48

And I don't know this guy's whole story,

1:12:50

but he spoke English very well, clearly an educated person.

1:12:54

And he's like my biggest qualm about this whole

1:12:59

situation is like, if I tell them what they want

1:13:02

and I get to leave, which I so badly wanna do, he's like,

1:13:05

I know that my father is gonna end up here

1:13:09

and this place is so horrible.

1:13:11

And even though I don't necessarily agree

1:13:14

with everything my father does,

1:13:16

I don't want him to end up here because I'm here.

1:13:18

But the only way I can get out of here is risk having

1:13:20

him come here.

1:13:24

And I just, I was just sitting there listening

1:13:26

to this and trying to maintain my professional face

1:13:28

and I'll take my notes and I just walked away.

1:13:32

And I was like, what am I supposed to tell a guy like this?

1:13:37

And I don't know.

1:13:41

Maybe he's just completely fabricated this whole thing.

1:13:42

But the reality is I don't have a fricking clue

1:13:46

why this guy is here, and maybe that's word for word truth.

1:13:49

What am I doing?

1:13:55

And I mean, that, to me, just,

1:13:58

it was a very personal interaction.

1:14:00

And I mean, he's somebody I had spoken to many number

1:14:03

of times and I think he appreciated the fact

1:14:05

that I would sit there and listen.

1:14:08

And so in some ways I felt like he had confided in me here,

1:14:12

and what am I doing being the guy on the other side

1:14:17

of the cage if he really is in that situation?

1:14:19

And again, that fed into...

1:14:25

But at that point in time, I just, you know,

1:14:27

I couldn't seem to turn that anger on or that frustration,

1:14:30

really face it towards the military, towards my country,

1:14:34

towards the United States government or anything else.

1:14:39

And so that just became all that much more, you know,

1:14:42

surely he's lying to me and I just hate

1:14:45

these detainees all that much more for causing me

1:14:47

this anguish and everything else.

1:14:49

but looking back on it,

1:14:52

that's something that's played in my mind

1:14:55

over and over again.

1:14:57

It's like, I just, who knows.

1:14:58

I doubt I'll ever meet that guy again.

1:15:01

But if I do and he's out and about all I can do

1:15:03

is apologize for having been a part of keeping him

1:15:06

in there in that type of a situation,

1:15:10

or if he's out on the street,

1:15:12

clearly he wasn't a threat.

1:15:14

Interviewer

Did you trust your instincts?

1:15:17

Would you ever believe the men when they told

1:15:20

you their stories or did you sometimes believe

1:15:24

in sometimes not?

1:15:26

-

Sometimes I believed them, sometimes not.

1:15:29

It was a mixed bag.

1:15:34

I don't know if that just comes from, I mean,

1:15:35

having literally interviewed like hundreds

1:15:37

of people before that,

1:15:39

you do get some sense of people who are being real

1:15:43

with you and people who aren't.

1:15:46

Of course the military would say, well,

1:15:48

these are the most expert liars you've ever encountered.

1:15:49

Interviewer

Was that what they told you?

1:15:52

-

Sure, definitely. That was something that...

1:15:53

Again, from Fort Lewis, they're going to try and play

1:15:59

you against each other.

1:16:00

They're gonna try and play on your own emotions

1:16:02

and everything else.

1:16:04

Interviewer

You couldn't trust your own...

1:16:06

-

Exactly, exactly.

1:16:09

But there were, I think I had just like

1:16:13

with that interaction with that guy,

1:16:18

I had kind of a block to actually accepting things

1:16:22

while I was down there.

1:16:25

I've described it as I got in more of a survival mode,

1:16:27

where I wasn't thinking as critically through all

1:16:32

that I was experiencing and just got into a zone

1:16:36

of doing the job and taking things in,

1:16:39

in hopes that I would get out of there okay

1:16:45

in my own right mind.

1:16:47

And then I didn't know what in the afterwards...

1:16:51

Looking back now? Yeah.

1:16:55

Some of those people I think were definitively

1:16:57

being honest, you know,

1:17:01

there was one guy who was really old,

1:17:03

all arthritic and he didn't speak English very clearly,

1:17:06

so I talked to him through a translator,

1:17:11

and it was supposedly, you know, this Afghan shepherd,

1:17:15

and again, looking back on it now, it's like,

1:17:22

how could that guy have been anything but that,

1:17:25

or the other thing that comes to mind, or somebody who,

1:17:30

he just struck me as so simple

1:17:34

and so straightforward and so pious about his religion,

1:17:37

that sure, maybe at some point in time,

1:17:43

he had an AK in his arms 'cause somebody told them

1:17:46

in his little town or area that an enemy was coming in.

1:17:48

And so there he was,

1:17:52

standing with a gun or something like that,

1:17:52

but this was no criminal mastermind.

1:17:55

And yet that's what had been portrayed as if each

1:17:58

of these guys were.

1:18:01

And it just seems so silly now,

1:18:04

even just I don't think you can necessarily

1:18:07

tell somebody's intelligence straight up by a conversation,

1:18:09

and I don't mean to demean him after all of this,

1:18:12

but such a simple person, you know,

1:18:15

in contrast to the other guy who is clearly educated,

1:18:17

who clearly knew his way around the world,

1:18:19

this guy just didn't get anything.

1:18:22

And I mean, he ended up leaving while I was

1:18:24

there and getting transported back.

1:18:27

So, I mean, even that just seemed

1:18:28

this unexplained disparity, that never...

1:18:32

And no explanation was given to that fact

1:18:36

that the whole time

1:18:40

I'm there that the population is dwindling.

1:18:41

It's like, if these are the worst of the worst,

1:18:44

why are routine flights being made with them

1:18:47

being transported back out?

1:18:52

And there was like, there was,

1:18:53

that was never spoken about, never explained.

1:18:54

And again, one of those things that,

1:18:57

it just it didn't click for me while I was there.

1:18:59

I had that mental block where it just,

1:19:01

it seemed like I had to accept the story that was given.

1:19:03

Like I said, a part of me feels ashamed for it,

1:19:08

but for my own survival and for my own making

1:19:10

it through that time.

1:19:12

After the fact I guess I do wanna throw this in there.

1:19:17

I don't know if you know this or not,

1:19:18

I ultimately ended up being discharged

1:19:21

from the Navy as a conscientious objector,

1:19:23

in large part due to the rethinking of things

1:19:26

that I did after my experience.

1:19:28

Interviewer

I would like to go there,

1:19:30

but I just wanna talk a little bit more about...

1:19:31

-

Sure, absolutely.

1:19:33

Interviewer

Did you see any juveniles

1:19:34

while you were there?

1:19:36

-

I did not.

1:19:37

Interviewer

Or men who were juveniles

1:19:40

when they're first captured?

1:19:41

-

That might have been the case, because, I mean,

1:19:43

operations have been going on there for multiple years.

1:19:46

-

Five years-

1:19:51

-

Five years, yeah,

before I got there, but no, I didn't...

1:19:54

I think we were told that there weren't any

1:19:57

at that time, either.

1:20:00

Interviewer

Well, there were, and they are still...

1:20:01

-

Okay. So there you go.

1:20:03

Because I do, I had remembered having heard about that,

1:20:06

but I didn't actually see.

1:20:09

Interviewer

And did you know that studies have

1:20:12

shown over 80% of the men there have been purchased

1:20:15

by the US, sold by a Pakistani Army since...

1:20:18

You knew that?

1:20:23

-

I didn't know that while I was down there. Absolutely not.

1:20:25

Interviewer

Nobody knew?

1:20:27

-

No, no.

1:20:28

That's information that I came across

1:20:30

when I went searching afterwards.

1:20:34

Interviewer

And while you were there,

1:20:37

you said you couldn't talk to anybody there,

1:20:38

the two people who were there supposedly for you to go to,

1:20:39

you never felt comfortable going to them?

1:20:43

-

I mean, they were coworkers, in a sense...

1:20:45

Interviewer

And what about going to a chaplain?

1:20:49

Had you thought about that at all?

1:20:52

-

No. My opinion of chaplain was not very high.

1:20:55

Interviewer

Didn't think they would help you either.

1:21:01

-

No, not all, and I'm sure there's some

1:21:03

great chaplains out there,

1:21:06

but in large part, I feel like chaplains are out of touch.

1:21:07

Interviewer

Did you meet any chaplains

1:21:11

while you were in Guantanamo?

1:21:12

-

I did.

1:21:14

There was like, I mean chaplains always notoriously

1:21:15

make their rounds or at least they're supposed to,

1:21:18

and they did, but that's not somebody...

1:21:20

Part of that, maybe my past experience and,

1:21:26

you know, leaving behind the fundamentalist

1:21:28

upbringing that I had, but it just

1:21:30

never struck me as somebody who is really taken

1:21:33

all that seriously.

1:21:36

Some of that also may be

1:21:38

the mental health background too,

1:21:40

sometimes characterize them as the pseudo social workers.

1:21:41

So...

1:21:46

Interviewer

And did you feel you could talk

1:21:47

to your wife about what he was going through?

1:21:48

-

No.

1:21:51

Interviewer

The military wouldn't let

1:21:53

you or you didn't wanna burden her with that?

1:21:54

-

That the military wouldn't let us.

1:21:56

I mean, they told us straight up that they,

1:21:58

anything going in or out of that base, they could look at,

1:22:01

they could listen to, I mean,

1:22:04

we were able to make phone calls regularly,

1:22:06

but it was known that, okay, you need to be aware,

1:22:10

anytime you're talking on a phone from here

1:22:12

we can be listening.

1:22:14

And it was made perfectly clear that we weren't

1:22:17

supposed to be sharing anything about what was going

1:22:19

on down there, again,

1:22:21

with how many hundreds of inbound and outbound phone

1:22:23

calls must've been going on, I don't know, but I mean,

1:22:27

that was something that was, again,

1:22:31

I took seriously at the time.

1:22:33

I didn't feel like I could.

1:22:35

One of the, I hadn't mentioned this yet,

1:22:38

one of the off tossed out threats was that

1:22:40

if you do something to slip up,

1:22:44

you're gonna end up in the cell next door.

1:22:46

Interviewer

Who gave you that threat?

1:22:48

-

That was that, our senior enlisted.

1:22:50

And that was something that,

1:22:55

as much as that didn't jive with everything I knew

1:22:58

about being an American and being a citizen

1:23:03

and having rights and having,

1:23:05

and everything else,

1:23:07

when I was down there and I saw just how confined

1:23:10

that place was.

1:23:14

Now, I remember when like,

1:23:15

press would come through and they'd do like the dog

1:23:15

and pony show through certain places at certain times with,

1:23:18

like, hours of preparation.

1:23:21

It's like that...

1:23:24

It seriously made me doubt in my mind that wouldn't be

1:23:26

a feasible possibility, that looking around and all

1:23:31

those different nooks and crannies and places

1:23:35

of where there were people and some secluded off here

1:23:38

and others in the grouping there.

1:23:40

And that the part of me didn't wanna believe,

1:23:42

knew it was an empty threat,

1:23:47

but at the same time it just left

1:23:49

you with that uncomfortable question mark, like,

1:23:50

if I really crossed the line here, would that be possible?

1:23:53

Would there be some story about how, you know,

1:23:58

boating accident and whatever else.

1:24:01

And again, a part of me feels silly for it,

1:24:05

but at the same point in time

1:24:08

when you're in that situation, I mean,

1:24:09

it would seem completely hopeless.

1:24:13

Interviewer

So you, just to confirm,

1:24:16

you saw yourself becoming more paranoid, if you will,

1:24:18

but there was nothing you could do to accept,

1:24:21

like you said, just hunker down and suck it up

1:24:24

until your six months are over?

1:24:28

-

Exactly.

1:24:29

I mean, I got to the point of, like,

1:24:30

counting days and my wife knew there was something

1:24:32

wrong-

1:24:37

-

Why?

-

But she...

1:24:39

-

Just in the way that I talked and I was jilted,

1:24:40

that I wasn't myself.

1:24:47

And she said that even after I came home,

1:24:49

that I, not to this day, but that I wasn't the same person.

1:24:53

Thankfully I was able to take a chunk of leave

1:24:59

right afterwards, and we went up,

1:25:01

got a little cabin out in Oregon somewhere.

1:25:03

And I felt it too, I guess I didn't, obviously,

1:25:05

have the outside perspective like she did,

1:25:10

but she said I did a lot in terms of coming back

1:25:12

into my own, but it was just,

1:25:15

there was so much that made so little sense.

1:25:17

And, I mean, that ultimately came to change my worldview,

1:25:20

but I hadn't been able to process it.

1:25:27

I hadn't felt safe to be able to process it.

1:25:29

Interviewer

So we'll take

1:25:32

you out of Guantanamo in just a minute,

1:25:33

but as the days waned, and it was almost over,

1:25:35

were you getting hopeful of you leaving?

1:25:40

-

Yes, that was like the prize that I was

1:25:43

fixed on all the time, was just getting out of there.

1:25:46

And I just, yeah, I didn't have an answer.

1:25:53

I didn't have an explanation for everything

1:25:55

that I'd experienced, but I just wanted to be away from it.

1:25:58

Interviewer

Just one question.

1:26:04

-

Sure.

1:26:05

Interviewer

Did you speak to any of the guards?

1:26:06

You couldn't confide in a guard either,

1:26:07

you didn't become friendly with guards

1:26:09

because they weren't mental health technicians,

1:26:10

maybe they could hate you in ways that a mental

1:26:13

health person couldn't?

1:26:15

-

I never did.

1:26:18

I mean, we got labeled as the touchy-feely people anyway,

1:26:20

and, not ostracized, but set, I mean,

1:26:26

set in the class that, oh, well,

1:26:30

you actually talk to these people and

1:26:32

almost treat them like they're human.

1:26:34

So you're kind of a different breed.

1:26:35

So, no, I mean, some people did,

1:26:41

other people seem to mix and mingle just fine

1:26:44

and all get drunk together, and that, I mean,

1:26:47

that wasn't me for whatever variety of reasons.

1:26:50

Interviewer

And in the evening or in the day

1:26:53

whenever you weren't working you didn't really hang

1:26:55

out with others, and just kinda...

1:26:57

-

No, I just, I felt, particularly as time went on,

1:27:00

I felt more and more disturbed that nobody else seemed

1:27:05

to be seeing a problem and stuff.

1:27:08

I only saw what, well,

1:27:15

there's a couple more things I would like to talk

1:27:17

about from the time that I was there.

1:27:19

I only saw one FCE, forced cell extraction,

1:27:22

while I was there.

1:27:27

It was in BHU.

1:27:28

And what that entails, like to guards, I mean,

1:27:31

this is what they had trained for,

1:27:35

this is what they had practiced,

1:27:35

everything else was kind of like second nature,

1:27:37

they'd do one of these in a snap.

1:27:38

But to me it was just this shocking and kind

1:27:42

of appalling thing to watch.

1:27:45

I forget exactly how many people are in an FCE team.

1:27:50

I'm pretty sure it's at least six, may even be seven.

1:27:57

I don't remember. I'm sure...

1:28:01

-

Me too.

1:28:02

-

Yeah.

I'm sure if somebody has the exact number, but what,

1:28:03

this one that I saw, what went on is the,

1:28:05

they got a group of MAs, a bunch of guards together.

1:28:08

They geared up in riot gear!

1:28:11

And once this was over,

1:28:15

and that was part of just what blew my mind,

1:28:16

is this was over a styrofoam clamshell meal tray,

1:28:19

detainee refused to give back his clam shell

1:28:25

is what they call them, the the styrofoam meal tray.

1:28:29

And, again, at the time,

1:28:32

rationalizing in my mind instead of seeing

1:28:35

the situation for what it was, it just, it angered,

1:28:37

I was just mad at the detainee as everybody else,

1:28:41

because here he is gonna cause this problem,

1:28:43

it's so simple.

1:28:45

Why don't you just give back the meal tray?

1:28:46

Shove it back through the bean hole!

1:28:47

Save us all this problem!

1:28:49

And so, now looking at it, it's like,

1:28:54

what was I thinking about, but again,

1:28:56

my anger is directed at him at the time.

1:28:57

And now I see it as this,

1:29:01

in a number of ways and a number of detainee behaviors...

1:29:04

They were just grasping for some semblance of control

1:29:10

on their environment.

1:29:13

And it was even something that would result

1:29:14

in them being hurt.

1:29:20

And this is something that's,

1:29:22

I mean that is true of a lot mental health patients who do,

1:29:23

you know, end up harming themselves.

1:29:30

It's an exercise of control in which they can feel

1:29:31

that they are taking action and it's having an effect.

1:29:34

And so I see the connection in that regard,

1:29:38

but even people who maybe didn't meet clinical

1:29:40

definitions for a diagnosis

1:29:44

were exhibiting the same behavior

1:29:47

of doing something just because you would actually have

1:29:51

a difference, even if that difference was negative.

1:29:55

And so this guy, as I look at it now,

1:29:58

he was taking his stand and he was going to affect

1:30:01

his environment in some way.

1:30:05

And so he was not going to give back the meal tray.

1:30:06

And so like this went back and forth a little bit and like

1:30:10

the nurse tried to talk to him and

1:30:15

it wasn't gonna happen.

1:30:18

They didn't just instantly, okay, we're doing the FCE.

1:30:19

They tried to talk about it. And he was standing his ground.

1:30:23

He wasn't going to give it back.

1:30:27

So this team, of guards they've got riot gear,

1:30:28

they're like, they've got stuff protecting their knees,

1:30:33

protecting their elbows, these like plexiglass

1:30:35

little things over their faces and helmets

1:30:38

and gloves, everything.

1:30:40

I'm just, at the time I wasn't putting it together,

1:30:43

but the guy is essentially in there in a bed sheet,

1:30:46

and here they are, and they stop

1:30:49

so that they're going in unison.

1:30:53

So it creates this, down the tier, this just booming noise.

1:30:55

And the first person in line has one of those shields

1:31:00

that you see.

1:31:04

Like when police, say, at a riot or something like that.

1:31:05

So what happens is, I mean,

1:31:09

they get all set up in front and

1:31:11

they have their specific assignments in terms of like

1:31:14

what limb they're all going to hold down,

1:31:17

and just watching, the cell door came open

1:31:19

and the guy just went flying backwards.

1:31:23

'Cause they just, I mean, they just rushed in.

1:31:26

And from what I saw, I can honestly say, like,

1:31:30

people would asked me all the time,

1:31:32

were they just like holding people down and kicking them?

1:31:34

And it's like, I never saw anything like that.

1:31:35

But it was the stuff that was done exactly by the book,

1:31:39

which as far as I saw it,

1:31:42

that FCE was done exactly by the book,

1:31:43

and yet was so over the top and such an excess of force,

1:31:47

six people, riot gear,

1:31:52

a shield that just pummels the guy against the wall

1:31:55

from the start, he crumbles,

1:31:57

and then he's immediately piled on

1:31:59

over a piece of styrofoam.

1:32:04

And that just, I mean, that, to me, again,

1:32:06

I saw that and I, like I said, I didn't,

1:32:13

I wish I could say I had the integrity or whatever else

1:32:16

to process it and recognize it for the horror that it was.

1:32:19

But my anger is directed at him at the time.

1:32:22

But it still affected the rest of my time

1:32:27

there and sent me even more in that zone

1:32:29

that I just, I need to get out of this place and,

1:32:31

whether conscious or not,

1:32:35

I never wanted to be responsible

1:32:37

for that after having seen it.

1:32:39

And so that was, again, in my mind, where I'm never gonna

1:32:41

make the call that somebody needs

1:32:45

to be smocked, unless he's like, got it.

1:32:47

Unless I can clearly see that something worse is going

1:32:51

to happen otherwise.

1:32:54

It's like once was enough with that.

1:32:56

And again, it was by the book,

1:32:59

and that's one of the hard things I have in talking

1:33:02

with people sometimes is they'll be like,

1:33:04

I've been asked to give some talks,

1:33:07

anti-war things, at other events and people

1:33:10

and I wore things were like, well

1:33:13

were they just rampantly violating the rules

1:33:14

and this and that?

1:33:16

No, but that wasn't the problem.

1:33:18

They were following the rules and yet people were

1:33:22

still not necessarily being treated humanely.

1:33:24

Interviewer

Why were you present for that situation?

1:33:29

-

It occurred in BHU. Yeah.

1:33:34

Interviewer

And you were gonna tell us

1:33:39

the second incident, should we take a break

1:33:41

as we're almost running out of time in this quarter?

1:33:44

Can you do that?

1:33:46

Is it a short, second incident?

1:33:47

-

Without verbose, I suppose taking a break

1:33:50

would probably be better

1:33:53

rather than get caught in the middle.

1:33:53

-

Okay. Great.

1:33:56

Okay.

1:33:57

-

Sure.

1:33:58

-

We're rolling.

Interviewer

Okay, good.

1:33:59

So you had a second incident you wanted to share?

1:34:00

-

Yeah.

1:34:02

And this was, in a lot of ways,

1:34:03

even more disturbing than the other,

1:34:05

which doesn't bode well with what I've already described.

1:34:08

And so much of it is just visually based as an impression.

1:34:11

And so I'll do my best.

1:34:18

It's something that's so seared in my mind,

1:34:19

in such a horrible way though,

1:34:24

and that was forced feedings.

1:34:26

I don't think, I don't know if I could have ever

1:34:32

actually done that.

1:34:36

Thankfully, being a psych tech

1:34:39

it was the regular corpsman who were actually doing

1:34:41

most of the feedings with the nurses,

1:34:44

but I saw it occur and it was just, I think,

1:34:48

far and away the most dehumanizing thing

1:34:53

I've actually seen with my own eyes in my entire life.

1:34:55

They have a special chair in which they strap

1:35:00

the detainee into and the,

1:35:04

if the detainee is compliant, it's one thing.

1:35:10

It can be relatively smooth. If not...

1:35:13

And many of the detainees were non-compliant

1:35:18

who were being forced fed,

1:35:21

'cause that was part of the whole thing was

1:35:22

that they were refusing to eat, again, looking back,

1:35:24

exercising that control.

1:35:27

And so then what they would do that,

1:35:29

their whole body is strapped in.

1:35:31

So they don't have the ability to move their limbs

1:35:32

and even their torso at all 'cause they're strapped.

1:35:35

And then they they'd force their head back,

1:35:38

forced their head back

1:35:41

so that creates a straight passage and then drop

1:35:44

a gastro tube into their stomach and feed them, ensure,

1:35:47

and the whole time the detainee,

1:35:50

trying to resist is trying to gag on it,

1:35:52

so that he'll be spitting it back up

1:35:55

so that it won't actually be going down trying

1:35:57

to loosen the tube.

1:35:59

And it just seemed like the most despicable thing,

1:36:01

seeing a grown man with no ability to move in any way,

1:36:06

except for some movement with his jaw,

1:36:12

with his mouth, with his head marginally, they've got,

1:36:15

you know, the head strapped in there as well,

1:36:18

tilted back and this tube just being forced down,

1:36:20

the whole time you can just internally see

1:36:24

he's trying everything in his power to spit that back

1:36:26

out, and just...

1:36:29

Yeah.

1:36:33

And you know, it's something that,

1:36:34

it doesn't compare to seeing a medical procedure done

1:36:38

on somebody or even like seeing old people being

1:36:42

resistant to having a gastro tube dropped

1:36:46

or something like that.

1:36:48

I mean, it doesn't even compare,

1:36:50

a fully healthy fully cognizant man in that situation

1:36:51

and being forcefully fed.

1:36:55

And for the limited interaction I had

1:37:02

with those who were being forced fed in that way,

1:37:08

it was very much something of defiance.

1:37:11

And that was one characteristic of detainees,

1:37:16

there as though there were those who were defiant,

1:37:19

and then there was another that that's jogged

1:37:22

in my mind now as well,

1:37:24

and that's those who were just so totally beaten,

1:37:25

and I don't mean physically beaten,

1:37:33

but their spirits were just broken,

1:37:36

where they really,

1:37:42

they weren't necessarily going to hurt themselves

1:37:44

or try and kill themselves 'cause they didn't

1:37:47

even have the will to try and do something like that.

1:37:49

And I've encountered a couple people like

1:37:54

that in my lifetime who were just that severely

1:37:58

lacking any, anything vibrant in their life

1:38:03

on a psychiatric ward,

1:38:08

but to see multiple people, I mean,

1:38:11

a significant portion, I would say,

1:38:17

of the population there who is in that type

1:38:19

of situation where there was just, there was no hope.

1:38:22

And even on the outside,

1:38:29

looking at it, well, part of me,

1:38:36

it was like, well clearly they deserve it,

1:38:40

at the time.

1:38:42

Par of me, at the same time acknowledge that yeah,

1:38:44

they didn't have a reason to hope.

1:38:48

Here they were...

1:38:51

Some of them, at least according to them,

1:38:56

not understanding why they were there still,

1:38:59

having been told different things but just not getting it,

1:39:04

whether from a cultural perspective, whether from whatever,

1:39:09

not understanding and not having anything

1:39:12

to look forward to.

1:39:17

Interviewer

How could you tell they were broken,

1:39:19

what symptoms or what did you see that gave you that sense?

1:39:21

-

There were still the way

1:39:28

in which they conducted themselves,

1:39:29

that varied by detainee,

1:39:32

in terms of the way that they would talk with you,

1:39:34

the way that they would do their prayers or some of

1:39:37

the other religious things,

1:39:43

or the way that they would even talk about the religion.

1:39:45

And then there were those who,

1:39:49

even if there were still praying,

1:39:51

and some of them had even given up on that, where,

1:39:54

you know, call to prayer would sound,

1:40:00

and they weren't moving for it.

1:40:01

And, you know...

1:40:07

Interviewer

So you were observing physical reactions,

1:40:09

is that why you thought they were broken?

1:40:11

-

Definitely.

1:40:13

Lethargy, and just that the way that they talked,

1:40:14

of course, not always were they speaking in English.

1:40:20

And I know that, obviously,

1:40:24

eye contact is something that can vary for a lot

1:40:25

of different reasons, but body language in general...

1:40:29

People who were, in a lot of ways,

1:40:34

being treated like an animal, being treated that way.

1:40:39

But there were those who lived up to that treatment

1:40:42

and then those who didn't.

1:40:48

And that was another,

1:40:51

just very depressing part of how it being there,

1:40:52

just seeing that.

1:40:57

Interviewer

You think you noticed it then,

1:40:58

you think you took it in then or now it's looking

1:40:59

back that you noticed it?

1:41:02

-

I think it's definitely a much more so looking back,

1:41:04

particularly the crystallization of those thoughts,

1:41:07

I think I felt it,

1:41:09

and to finish out in that different types of detainees,

1:41:13

there are those who are just defiant all the time.

1:41:17

And then there were those who, again, my perception,

1:41:20

but who seemed like in any way possible they were

1:41:24

just gaming the system.

1:41:28

And those were actually the people

1:41:30

who seemed the healthiest.

1:41:32

Those who were defiant just every single time

1:41:37

and every single way,

1:41:40

it was almost as if they were doing it out of routine

1:41:44

and doing it because they didn't know what else to do.

1:41:46

They were just playing to that role.

1:41:48

But those who who seemed the most lively were

1:41:51

the ones that you never know what you were going to get

1:41:55

when you talked with them

1:41:58

the guy spoke fine English, and yet this time

1:42:00

he is saying he's not gonna speak

1:42:02

with you without an interpreter.

1:42:04

And it's like, what's this? Why now?

1:42:05

Or the guy who,

1:42:08

one time he was doing fine and earning their,

1:42:11

through their little privileges system

1:42:14

that I'm sure guards have told you about that I don't

1:42:15

know in and out as well.

1:42:18

And then the next minute, boom, he's back to nothing.

1:42:20

And it's like, well, what'd you do?

1:42:24

And he had to do something,

1:42:25

he had to change it up or he was

1:42:28

working towards something, either trying to move

1:42:33

into a different camp,

1:42:37

all these leveraging things that they're trying to do.

1:42:38

And those are the ones who seemed the,

1:42:42

as weird as it sounds like,

1:42:45

they were handling the situation the best.

1:42:47

At the time I didn't have any level of appreciation

1:42:50

for that, but that's, I mean, the hindsight perspective,

1:42:53

looking back at it.

1:42:57

Interviewer

At the time, what did you think?

1:42:58

Did you think they were manipulators?

1:42:59

-

Yes, absolutely.

1:43:01

Those were the ones who seemed most plausible to me

1:43:03

to actually be a threat,

1:43:07

the ones who could be super polite at one point in time,

1:43:12

and then be cursing you out horribly at another.

1:43:16

And then talking to you about such and such guard

1:43:21

or such and such nurse,

1:43:25

or the psychologist at another point in time and trying

1:43:26

to get you to say something.

1:43:30

So, I mean, in some ways,

1:43:34

not necessarily the most aggravating,

1:43:37

'cause it's the ones who are just,

1:43:41

out to get you every time, I mean, that's,

1:43:43

you know what you're getting,

1:43:47

but at the same point in time it's draining.

1:43:48

But yeah, that was

1:43:53

the other type of person, to use broad

1:43:54

categorizations that I found there.

1:43:56

Interviewer

When you took notes,

1:44:00

if you did you ever hear any classified,

1:44:03

what you thought might've been classified information?

1:44:04

Did people ever reveal things to you that maybe

1:44:07

you thought, hey, this is something that maybe

1:44:11

I should give this to higher ups?

1:44:13

-

Not specifically.

1:44:18

I mean, I just,

1:44:20

I tended to just put everything down in my notes

1:44:21

and be pretty thorough.

1:44:24

And I mean, those,

1:44:26

I have no doubt about it that if the higher ups

1:44:29

were interested they would be reading those notes.

1:44:31

I mean, the nurse and the doctor ultimately had

1:44:33

to sign off on them.

1:44:36

So they supposedly were at least read by somebody

1:44:37

that much higher.

1:44:40

And I know that the psychologist and psychiatrist

1:44:42

were involved in actual operations of the camp,

1:44:44

in a way that medical generally wasn't,

1:44:51

in terms of where people are at and things like that.

1:44:55

Interviewer

So you just took notes

1:45:00

and let somebody else...

1:45:01

-

Yeah.

1:45:02

Well, let somebody else, I mean,

1:45:03

there was never anything like,

1:45:04

oh something's going to happen on this October that or,

1:45:05

well, I know about something and I need it...

1:45:10

I mean, the other thing with that, I think, the detainees,

1:45:12

I mean, generally knew who they were supposed

1:45:19

to be talking to and knew who to talk to if, I suppose,

1:45:21

if they had anything or if they were gonna try

1:45:26

and share anything to earn any sort

1:45:28

of reward for themselves.

1:45:30

And they knew us techs were peons,

1:45:32

or somebody who might entertain them for some chunk

1:45:36

of time but we're not even gonna provide them

1:45:38

a new medication.

1:45:40

So don't have much sway.

1:45:41

Interviewer

Going back to the force feeding.

1:45:46

Did you know why these men were being forced fed?

1:45:47

Did you know the history?

1:45:50

-

I didn't know that,

1:45:53

I know there was some kind of matrix

1:45:54

which the detainees knew very well

1:45:56

on how many missed meals and whatever, a time period.

1:45:58

And they would play to that where some would go like

1:46:03

right to like the meal before,

1:46:06

like they would get started on forced feedings

1:46:09

and then they'd take the meal and eat something

1:46:11

out of it and then give it back.

1:46:15

And then then they'd have to debate, well,

1:46:16

do we need to adjust the matrix here?

1:46:20

'Cause they clearly didn't get enough.

1:46:22

And it was always brought back to that same idea, again,

1:46:23

just like with the suicides or self-harming

1:46:27

that the concern is not their health.

1:46:30

The concern is if they manage to somehow hurt

1:46:33

themselves by doing this,

1:46:35

it's bad publicity and there'll be winning.

1:46:37

So we have to force feed them so that we'll win,

1:46:40

so that they don't win,

1:46:43

so that they don't get what they want.

1:46:44

I mean, they were allowed to fast in both,

1:46:48

in accordance, like, with Ramadan and with other times

1:46:54

in which they could announce that they were going to do

1:46:57

a week's fast or something like that.

1:47:00

And that would get acknowledged and I guess accepted,

1:47:03

you could say, by the staff,

1:47:07

but there, I mean,

1:47:13

in general it was very clear that these were the,

1:47:15

those who were being forced fed were of the category

1:47:19

of people I described.

1:47:23

They're just always defiant.

1:47:24

And I couldn't say how, and I couldn't say who,

1:47:27

but there was at least some semblance

1:47:32

of a hierarchy within the detainee population clearly.

1:47:36

And then there were those who just kind of existed

1:47:41

outside of it, outside of that hierarchy.

1:47:43

And it seemed like nobody of consequence was

1:47:48

starving themselves, that this was very much

1:47:54

a minions cause disruption by not eating or by doing

1:47:57

such and such.

1:48:04

And then things like that would happen.

1:48:06

The people who seemed, in my mind,

1:48:08

and I'm not thinking of any one person in particular,

1:48:10

but the players, if you will,

1:48:13

who are orchestrating things were, like I said,

1:48:15

the people that I had described as sometimes they could

1:48:18

be the absolute most polite and other times

1:48:20

just the absolute worst,

1:48:25

those that you never knew what you'd get.

1:48:27

Interviewer

Like they weren't on hunger strikes,

1:48:28

is that what you are saying?

1:48:30

-

From my experience.

1:48:31

Interviewer

Could you tell

1:48:35

who held leadership positions?

1:48:36

-

I don't think I could point to anyone specifically,

1:48:40

other than that there was,

1:48:45

there's two different things, too.

1:48:47

Like religiously, there are those,

1:48:47

sometimes it would change who led the call to prayer

1:48:49

or who started...

1:48:54

I mean, the military plays the music for them,

1:48:55

but who actually initiates

1:48:59

it from the detainee perspective.

1:49:02

And sometimes, when we would have different people

1:49:04

in the BHU tier, it would change,

1:49:06

somebody different would be there.

1:49:11

And then lo and behold, that person is the one

1:49:12

clearly somebody is deferred here and that person would

1:49:15

be the one who leads this.

1:49:19

Interviewer

What, are you saying there might be

1:49:22

some prestige in going to BHU?

1:49:23

-

No, I don't think it was prestige.

1:49:27

I don't think it was prestige.

1:49:31

Interviewer

What kind of medication did men get

1:49:35

if they had mental illness problems?

1:49:39

-

It ran the gamut, anything and everything.

1:49:43

There wasn't a limitation on what was available.

1:49:48

I mean, we even had meds that weren't on island,

1:49:52

abroad into the island,

1:49:55

if they wanted to try something different,

1:49:57

but there was never a time when something wasn't available.

1:49:59

So, I mean, some of the typical ones are

1:50:04

readily prescribed to you like

1:50:06

Seroquel or Ambien or things of that nature.

1:50:08

Some people are on lithium,

1:50:13

nothing unusual in terms of medication.

1:50:17

Interviewer

Were people forced to take the medication?

1:50:20

-

No, no, they were not.

1:50:22

Interviewer

So if they didn't want to take it,

1:50:27

they could, they were left alone?

1:50:28

-

They could refuse, we'd document it as such.

1:50:31

It got elevated when that happened,

1:50:34

in terms of the psychiatrist would have to get

1:50:40

involved and verify what was going on.

1:50:42

Does it need to be a change to the prescription?

1:50:44

Or is there some other type of issue, what's happening,

1:50:47

whereas that would happen if they refused

1:50:51

a medication that they were supposed to be taking,

1:50:56

there were also medications that they could take

1:50:58

PRN as needed.

1:51:00

And then we'd just document

1:51:02

and nothing more happens with it.

1:51:04

So one of the other patients that came to mind who was

1:51:08

on BHU for quite a while before he left

1:51:11

was somebody who must have

1:51:16

had like some type of traumatic brain injury.

1:51:20

I mean, he had misshapen head and scarring,

1:51:23

significant scarring on it.

1:51:29

And again, looking back, it's just like,

1:51:33

what in the world was the purpose of keeping somebody

1:51:36

like that incarcerated, particularly in that fashion?

1:51:40

He was clearly not functioning

1:51:45

at a cognitive level like a normal adult would.

1:51:49

He's somebody who I have no doubt about was,

1:51:54

whether it was your traditional hallucinations

1:51:59

or whether it was something that was

1:52:03

physiologically caused, because of the whatever

1:52:05

brain injury he had had.

1:52:09

I mean, he was somebody who was clearly responding

1:52:10

to external stimuli that was not there.

1:52:13

And so he was another one who left while I was there.

1:52:18

And for months he was there though.

1:52:23

And just, I mean,

1:52:28

such a confused person.

1:52:35

Interviewer

Do you know that he was sent

1:52:38

to another country as opposed to just being moved

1:52:39

to another part of the camps?

1:52:41

-

I'm pretty sure he was sent back to another country.

1:52:45

Interviewer

But you, again, at that point,

1:52:50

didn't make the connection why?

1:52:52

-

Yeah.

1:52:55

What that meant in the larger overall picture

1:52:56

that this was happening.

1:52:59

Interviewer

A couple of things that I don't think

1:53:04

you can answer, but I thought I'd ask.

1:53:05

Some of the detainees we've interviewed said

1:53:07

that they thought that the medical profession

1:53:09

was experimenting on them.

1:53:13

Have you ever heard those kinds of rumors

1:53:14

while you were there?

1:53:17

-

No, I never heard that rumor.

1:53:19

And from what I saw, I don't think that was the case.

1:53:22

That would, okay. I take that back.

1:53:27

I heard that rumor from a detainee perspective,

1:53:29

there were detainees who seem to have a fear

1:53:35

of medication or accepting medications or things

1:53:37

of that nature, particularly vaccinations,

1:53:41

things like that.

1:53:45

I don't think,

1:53:47

unless there's a whole another facility

1:53:51

or something else from the clinic that I saw,

1:53:53

I don't think that was going on,

1:53:58

simply because it didn't seem, not that it

1:54:02

wasn't taking care of people from what I saw as well,

1:54:08

but didn't seem to efficiently enough run

1:54:10

to be conducting any type of medical

1:54:12

experimentation on people.

1:54:15

I didn't see any evidence of that.

1:54:20

But I did hear that detainee fear, so, expressed.

1:54:23

Interviewer

There was a detainee we heard about,

1:54:28

we never interviewed him,

1:54:31

but we heard about somebody called number one.

1:54:31

And that's because he kept calling himself number one.

1:54:34

And apparently he was very,

1:54:36

some people thought he might've been manipulative,

1:54:38

but other thought he was very crazy.

1:54:40

You never ran upon somebody like that?

1:54:42

-

Not self identified as number one,

1:54:44

or even ISN number one.

1:54:48

So...

1:54:50

Interviewer

And do you have any thoughts

1:54:51

on why the medical,

1:54:53

would all the medical personnel given only six

1:54:55

months tours,

1:55:00

or was it just the your particular segment or?

1:55:01

-

No, I'm pretty, from my understanding,

1:55:06

I don't know about all the years that the operations

1:55:08

have been going on,

1:55:11

but that was and continued to be the trend.

1:55:12

Interviewer

But you said that you thought

1:55:15

that the other people who were returning in one

1:55:17

term were there for a year.

1:55:19

-

Correct.

1:55:21

Interviewer

Do you have any idea why you might've

1:55:21

had only a six month tour?

1:55:23

-

Well, I was medical and so all the medical staff

1:55:26

did that way.

1:55:28

I could just conjecture,

1:55:31

and that would be

1:55:32

that the medical staff wouldn't wanna

1:55:33

be there longer.

1:55:40

And that does actually carry some weight,

1:55:41

particularly when you're talking about the physicians,

1:55:43

even more so than the others,

1:55:45

and that could be,

1:55:49

by going that time period,

1:55:54

at least with the Navy and the Navy was running

1:55:57

the medical operations while I was there,

1:55:58

there's different criteria about how a deployment

1:56:00

works and pay benefits that go with that.

1:56:04

And some other things of that nature as well.

1:56:06

And so I think when you're dealing,

1:56:10

particularly with the much higher paid

1:56:12

and licensed professionals that were part

1:56:15

of the medical team, I think that was a factor,

1:56:18

that they could assign them that, and force their hand

1:56:22

into doing a six month rotation

1:56:27

as a deployment, whereas more would be required,

1:56:29

it'd be quite the fuss to try and do it another way.

1:56:32

Again, that's complete conjecture.

1:56:37

I think it really does bear some weight

1:56:39

to it from what I saw of the Navy in general.

1:56:41

But I think the basic answer,

1:56:46

the guard staff were your most base level

1:56:52

of enlisted person.

1:56:57

And the medical staff is more technical,

1:56:58

even on the enlisted side,

1:57:02

and much more technical on the officer side,

1:57:03

people with doctorates and et cetera.

1:57:08

So I think that's what the difference was.

1:57:10

Interviewer

A few more questions

1:57:14

before we leave Guantanamo.

1:57:14

Did psychologists and psychiatrists ever go

1:57:16

to you and ask to consult with you after they read

1:57:20

your notes and they were concerned about a patient

1:57:23

or about a detainee, would come back and?

1:57:26

-

Follow up questions? Sure.

1:57:30

And not very often,

1:57:31

most of the time I think they'd just read

1:57:32

and or just signed, sign the notes, which, I mean,

1:57:35

that's common practice, I mean, on a ward or anywhere else.

1:57:39

Hopefully they're reading it each time

1:57:44

but they're reading a ton of them.

1:57:46

And so most of the time you're not gonna hear back

1:57:47

about it, but yeah.

1:57:50

I mean, there were times where I knew that they had

1:57:51

read it 'cause they asked me something.

1:57:53

"You spent so much time out with so-and-so,

1:57:56

what was his deal?"

1:57:58

You know?

1:58:00

Or do you think you need to go back to see him

1:58:01

even if he doesn't call you out again, or what's your take?

1:58:03

Interviewer

We had heard from some people

1:58:07

that there might've been some sexual issues

1:58:11

while these men were in Guantanamo.

1:58:15

Not exactly sure what that means, but I wondered,

1:58:17

since you did some counseling whether you ever heard

1:58:20

any stories or whether you saw anything that might give

1:58:22

us some insight?

1:58:25

-

None, nobody that I recall ever raised it as an issue

1:58:28

in a counseling type setting,

1:58:32

or called me out to talk about sexual frustration

1:58:34

or anything of the like,

1:58:36

the one thing that I do know took place and this was

1:58:39

kind of laughingly done or accommodated or sometimes

1:58:42

not accommodated because people were being a jerk,

1:58:46

but the corpsman, one of the things that they could

1:58:50

give out PRN, as a needed thing was like a dollop

1:58:52

of lotion, supposedly dry skin or whatever else.

1:58:56

And it was well known that it's not,

1:59:01

that skin wasn't that dry or where the lotion was

1:59:04

being applied was needed for the for that reason.

1:59:05

So that, I mean, that was a very,

1:59:09

very common and very well-known thing that detainees

1:59:12

would ask the corpsman for a lotion

1:59:15

presumably for a no other purpose than masturbation.

1:59:17

So...

1:59:21

Interviewer

That was like a privilege

1:59:22

if they gave him that a lotion?

1:59:23

-

Yeah.

1:59:26

I mean, if it's listed as a PRN, as a needed medication,

1:59:27

as long as they ask for it and the corpsman isn't

1:59:33

deeming it not to be a safe situation,

1:59:35

they're supposed to give them any of their PRNs.

1:59:38

And notoriously just, like,

1:59:42

I talked about with the psych techs,

1:59:43

dynamics buildup between people, where they

1:59:47

get pissy with each other,

1:59:51

on both sides of it or are getting annoyed

1:59:52

or agitated or wherever else.

1:59:54

And so, yeah, there there's definitely times

1:59:56

where I don't think, that I know

1:59:59

of consequence where somebody wasn't given something

2:00:01

that they actually needed,

2:00:03

but where corpsman would be like, fine,

2:00:06

you're cursing at me and they're not actually

2:00:08

threatened in any way and they're just gonna move

2:00:10

on and not give the guy anything or not even hear him

2:00:12

out on what he's asking.

2:00:14

But, so that that's the only type of thing where, I mean,

2:00:18

withheld, not as a formal punishment or formal

2:00:20

reward within the system that they had set up

2:00:23

for running the camps,

2:00:27

but as an interpersonal thing between specific

2:00:28

corpsman and specific detainees.

2:00:31

Interviewer

But detainees, as far as you know,

2:00:33

never really spoke about whatever sexual issues?

2:00:34

-

No.

2:00:39

I mean, there was definitely people

2:00:40

that reacted differently to some of the female guards.

2:00:43

There was one detainee we had at BHU at one point

2:00:47

in time who had only taken medications

2:00:51

from a certain female tech, psych tech,

2:00:54

and tell her she's beautiful and this and that.

2:01:00

But other than that...

2:01:05

Interviewer

Was that acceptable with the military,

2:01:08

accept that and allow her to deliver

2:01:12

to it to him every time?

2:01:15

-

No. Not every time.

2:01:18

It was, I mean,

2:01:20

people would get assigned different detainees,

2:01:21

and if she was assigned to him then so be it,

2:01:24

if not then not, same thing with, I mean,

2:01:27

female guard staff, there are guard staff

2:01:31

at BHU as well as the mental health folks.

2:01:34

And I mean, there are a couple of female guards,

2:01:38

some of which who were liked by the detainees,

2:01:41

some of which who were more disliked

2:01:43

than a average Joe guard, shall we say?

2:01:45

So it went both ways.

2:01:49

Clearly some of that sometimes was of a sexual nature.

2:01:51

That I know of I've never anything more explicit

2:01:55

came about it, then detainees making some comments

2:01:58

like I already expressed.

2:02:01

Interviewer

I guess, if there are any other incidents

2:02:08

or any questions

2:02:11

that I didn't ask you about your experience

2:02:12

in those six months where you can kind of,

2:02:15

move you out of there.

2:02:18

Is there some other angle that I could look

2:02:19

at or we could look at it?

2:02:22

-

I guess I just speak a little more to,

2:02:25

and there's not a specific story attached

2:02:30

with it and that's why some of this stuff is,

2:02:32

I think it's important but it's harder to think of.

2:02:34

And that's just what it was like walking out onto some

2:02:37

of these tiers, what that experience actually was

2:02:41

and how isolating it could be in how different

2:02:44

and varied it was between camps.

2:02:49

So camps five and camp six were ultra modern,

2:02:52

high security facilities where they had these, like,

2:02:56

reinforced steel or iron doors on the cells that had

2:03:00

a little bean hole in it, about waist level,

2:03:04

maybe about that big.

2:03:09

And that could be opened and,

2:03:10

stuff could be put through there.

2:03:13

And then also it was a time where, as a privilege,

2:03:15

it could be left open when something wasn't

2:03:20

just being transferred, to accommodate detainees talking.

2:03:21

And as far as how people were arranged on tiers,

2:03:25

that came into play as well and mattered a whole lot

2:03:29

to the detainees.

2:03:33

And again, looking back on it now,

2:03:34

I can see why that would make such a huge difference,

2:03:36

because from the inside of one of those cells,

2:03:39

if there's not somebody across from you,

2:03:43

even if you are having the privilege of being able

2:03:46

to talk to them, you're not ever seeing anybody

2:03:48

but the guard walking back and forth, because they're not,

2:03:53

I mean they're not going out and

2:03:59

necessarily having rec time together,

2:04:01

sometimes they would in separate cages.

2:04:03

So again, I think it was this camp five specifically

2:04:06

I remember, and this was all coordinated on who got

2:04:09

to go out when, and with whom, and for the detainees

2:04:12

that were kept there,

2:04:16

they couldn't be in the same area together,

2:04:17

but they'd have little fenced in pens,

2:04:20

is the only way to describe it, and again,

2:04:22

harking back to the animal analogy,

2:04:25

they'd like put a soccer ball in there or something

2:04:27

if they wanted, and they'd have this pen which was

2:04:29

just channeling fence on all sides, on the top as well,

2:04:33

that's 12 feet above their head, something like that.

2:04:38

And someone would kick the soccer ball around.

2:04:41

Sometimes they would have the detainee in the pen

2:04:43

right next door.

2:04:47

And that was obviously different privilege

2:04:48

and something that mattered a lot to them.

2:04:51

Other times there were detainees who were only allowed

2:04:53

to rec alone or go out for their recreation

2:04:55

time by themselves.

2:04:58

And nobody else could be out even a couple pens down.

2:04:59

So that, again, just to get to give that impression

2:05:06

of just what this was like, and in taking them out,

2:05:08

what they could do then is they could,

2:05:12

they would shackle the detainee while they were still

2:05:15

in the cell.

2:05:17

So they could have them stick their hands

2:05:18

through the bean haul,

2:05:20

shackled rolls and then they'd have something

2:05:21

at the bottom where they could shackle their feet as well.

2:05:23

And then take them out that way so that they're

2:05:28

theoretically never free and able to do anything.

2:05:33

It was very eerie at times,

2:05:39

particularly at night to walk out onto one

2:05:41

of those tiers and they dim the lights a little bit

2:05:45

and just all these doors closed

2:05:50

and it, again,

2:05:53

seemed like something out of a movie or something

2:05:56

that just was in no way natural like a freaky

2:05:59

science experiment, where you you'd walk down

2:06:02

this pathway with all these doors on your sides.

2:06:05

And that I've seen for movies of prisons,

2:06:09

generally it didn't look like any, 'cause this,

2:06:13

they're not just bars they're something like you see

2:06:15

in the classic movie portrayal of prison,

2:06:18

and different people in these different little stalls.

2:06:20

And it seemed very, very isolated,

2:06:27

that even though they're so close to somebody else,

2:06:30

they can't see them, they can't talk to them.

2:06:34

They don't even necessarily know, I mean,

2:06:37

they establish it anytime, like, the bean holes are open,

2:06:40

who all is there,

2:06:43

if somebody new has been moved on or somebody hasn't,

2:06:43

but how disorienting that would be to have

2:06:47

that be their life.

2:06:52

Interviewer

Did you pick that up

2:06:54

while you were there-

2:06:55

-

No. This was looking back.

2:06:56

So that that's one example.

2:07:01

And then, on a very different perspective

2:07:04

there's the ones who lived in a,

2:07:06

essentially almost like the,

2:07:11

they were a bit smaller in size, if I remember correctly,

2:07:13

like the rec cages and they had a shelter

2:07:16

over their heads but they were just all lined up.

2:07:19

And the, again, it didn't jive with me at the time,

2:07:22

looking back the best thing that I can compare it to, sad,

2:07:27

but is I got a dog from a shelter at one point in time.

2:07:32

And you walk up and down

2:07:35

in front of all these different cages and all the dogs

2:07:37

are barking, some of them are interacting

2:07:40

and you're walking back and forth seeing

2:07:42

which one you wanna pick or which one you wanna take out.

2:07:44

And it was that same type of thing only with humans.

2:07:47

And that was what surprised me, was just,

2:07:52

to some degree,

2:07:59

the variance in their living conditions.

2:07:59

Here, these ones are in this totally climate

2:08:03

controlled ultra secure facility.

2:08:06

And here are these other guys essentially just in kennels,

2:08:09

chain link fence like kennels outside with

2:08:14

a shelter over their heads and all lined up down this row.

2:08:17

So again, just the one thing I did take away at the time was

2:08:23

that it was eerie.

2:08:28

That there was something that felt very,

2:08:31

very strange about it.

2:08:35

Interviewer

But it kind of fit into you being

2:08:37

a little bit afraid too, right?

2:08:39

Because the eerieness didn't help.

2:08:41

Did you have, I think I asked you, I just wanna clarify,

2:08:44

did you have an impression when you first arrived

2:08:49

in Guantanamo that might fit into this description too,

2:08:51

that you wanted to share?

2:08:55

Or did you feel you pretty much covered that?

2:08:57

I mean, was there some impression too,

2:09:00

an eerieness just when you first came?

2:09:03

I know you talked about that first night in the...

2:09:06

-

Yeah. That it was surreal.

2:09:09

That I had left behind the real world and I was

2:09:13

in some place some place different,

2:09:17

that didn't operate by the rules of regular human action,

2:09:19

as I had, human interaction,

2:09:24

as I had known them before and throughout the rest

2:09:26

of my life.

2:09:28

And that it just, that was cut off too.

2:09:29

Just cut off from the rest of the world, as in,

2:09:35

you know there's still stuff going on outside

2:09:40

and you know the outside is aware of this place's existence,

2:09:43

but as if there's no interaction between the two.

2:09:48

Interviewer

Did you meet with any lawyers

2:09:54

while you were there?

2:09:55

-

I never did, no.

2:09:57

Interviewer

And did you meet with the Red Cross?

2:09:58

-

I never did.

2:10:01

Interviewer

And did you actually,

2:10:03

since the medical personnel seemed to stay by itself,

2:10:06

did you actually have conversations with doctors

2:10:09

that were not about Guantanamo, about,

2:10:12

just normal conversations or?

2:10:16

-

Sure. I mean, we would hang out sometimes.

2:10:18

Like they would do some social events for us.

2:10:21

The organized ones were more so than the ones

2:10:26

that I would occasionally go to.

2:10:29

And certainly a lot of people just got together and drank

2:10:31

a whole lot.

2:10:33

Interviewer

Together?

2:10:34

-

Oh yeah.

2:10:36

Interviewer

Did you notice it back then or?

2:10:36

-

Yeah, no, that's something I noticed at the time.

2:10:39

I've never been a fan of,

2:10:41

what I would consider to be binge drinking

2:10:43

and that's definitively what would go on.

2:10:45

People would say that, well,

2:10:49

it's because there's nothing else to do,

2:10:50

so I can't help but think some of it was,

2:10:51

that was other people drowning out

2:10:54

perhaps some of the annoyances that I was trying

2:10:57

to subdue internally and drinking them away.

2:11:01

Interviewer

You think that then, or you think that now?

2:11:04

-

I think that now.

2:11:07

I thought then that it sucks

2:11:11

that much more that I can't just be kicking

2:11:14

it all back and seeming to make a go of things

2:11:17

like everyone else can.

2:11:21

Interviewer

So you saw doctors and psychologists

2:11:23

and psychiatrists also binge drinking.

2:11:24

It wasn't just the corpsman?

2:11:26

-

Drinking. I don't know.

2:11:30

I would refrain from saying

2:11:31

binge drinking specifically in regard to,

2:11:33

I mean there's one psychologist, one psychiatrist.

2:11:36

I don't remember. I remember both drinking.

2:11:38

I don't remember either that I could classify

2:11:40

it as being binge drinking.

2:11:42

Interviewer

Did you ever see people smoke marijuana

2:11:47

or take drugs?

2:11:49

Just to kind of...

2:11:50

-

I heard from somebody that marijuana was

2:11:54

exceedingly hard to come by on the island.

2:11:56

Now, I don't know if perhaps others have said

2:11:59

to the contrary, because I'm guessing

2:12:01

that that's all about who you know and it's not

2:12:03

an open thing.

2:12:05

Like, I'm guessing it wouldn't be quite so easy

2:12:06

in San Francisco to get ahold of...

2:12:09

I know people also,

2:12:14

I know one guy who,

2:12:18

I don't know where he got them, or rather,

2:12:21

I don't know how he got them,

2:12:25

who got some Vicodin from one of the,

2:12:26

another corpsman got some Vicodin and stuff like

2:12:30

that from one of the pharmacies

2:12:33

and used that recreationally.

2:12:34

The other thing that was really, really common was,

2:12:38

and some of this was the alternating with night shifts

2:12:43

and day shifts and stuff like that was people would

2:12:46

take Benadryl and have some drinks in terms

2:12:48

of being able to try and change

2:12:51

varying sleep schedules.

2:12:53

And that's something I know both officer

2:12:56

and enlisted would, that was a known thing

2:12:58

that people would take Benadryl from the pharmacy and that,

2:13:01

I mean, that's not, I can

2:13:03

it's controlled in that it's from the pharmacy,

2:13:05

but not a narcotic, obviously.

2:13:08

Interviewer

You didn't volunteer to do the night shift,

2:13:11

you were just assigned, right?

2:13:13

-

I got assigned at first and then I did volunteer

2:13:16

to stay on it.

2:13:19

Interviewer

Was there a reason to it?

2:13:21

Yeah, that was conscious.

2:13:22

And that was at the time that I wanted less involvement

2:13:24

in what was going on.

2:13:29

And so saw the night shift as being a way

2:13:30

to be less involved.

2:13:32

Interviewer

Well then,

2:13:36

can you take us as the days were waning

2:13:38

and you were leaving and you're looking forward to it.

2:13:41

So on the last day you were there, could you,

2:13:44

how that works?

2:13:48

-

There was just this, I felt that it was kind of tenuous.

2:13:52

Like, I wasn't sure that it was really going to happen.

2:13:58

And there was this fear that something was going

2:14:02

to come up, probably a completely irrational fear

2:14:06

that somebody who's going to come up to keep me there.

2:14:09

I think that was like the biggest thing in my mind

2:14:12

in addition to just the excitement that yes I am

2:14:16

actually leaving here, was just the fear

2:14:18

that something was going to happen.

2:14:21

That does remind me, there is,

2:14:25

towards the very end of my time there was a kind

2:14:27

of a weird incident.

2:14:31

It's just the way I could describe it.

2:14:32

I guess that that's part of what came to mind too,

2:14:34

about the feeling

2:14:36

like something was going to go wrong to keep me there.

2:14:41

One of the psychiatric nurses that I had worked with had,

2:14:43

it's gonna sound crazy,

2:14:49

but one of the detainees in BHU

2:14:50

had been complaining about not having a pillow

2:14:52

or his pillow wasn't any good.

2:14:55

And he was supposed to be able to have a pillow.

2:14:57

And she had just,

2:14:59

she was kind of just her own person and not,

2:15:01

I would say not very well connected with the whole mix

2:15:05

of people in terms of the social life and everything else.

2:15:08

Not that I was either.

2:15:11

And so what she did though she just went and bought

2:15:15

a pillow herself from the NEX, the exchange,

2:15:19

and then brought it back and brought it into the camp

2:15:24

and gave it to the detainee.

2:15:28

And that was a huge deal.

2:15:30

And she was a Lieutenant Commander and she got pulled

2:15:36

out of being in the camps.

2:15:40

And like, we all got this super stern talking

2:15:44

to about maintaining professionalism

2:15:47

in our interactions with the detainees.

2:15:50

And we absolutely could not give them anything.

2:15:53

It wouldn't matter who was a magazine, a book

2:15:56

sheet of paper, that we could, we never, as medical staff,

2:15:58

could make that call ourselves

2:16:03

the individual guards couldn't do that,

2:16:04

all that stuff has to be run through all

2:16:07

these channels and everything else.

2:16:09

And so there was this like whole investigation

2:16:12

that went on with the fact that she had,

2:16:16

I don't know if maybe there was more

2:16:19

to it or something else to it,

2:16:20

that she had given this pillow to the detainee

2:16:22

and had brought that in.

2:16:25

And that was right at the tail end of my time.

2:16:27

And so I suppose that was perhaps that somehow this was,

2:16:31

that this was going to play in.

2:16:37

And I mean, it was said that this went like all the way

2:16:38

up to the Pentagon, that here

2:16:43

a Lieutenant Commander had given a gift,

2:16:44

given a present to a detainee or that there had been

2:16:46

an exchange of an item, an unauthorized item,

2:16:49

and of course keeping it all these terms,

2:16:52

making it out like some little secret plan had

2:16:57

been hatched, but I mean, that was the way it was treated.

2:16:59

And yeah, I don't even recall if she had left with us

2:17:03

or not, because I was so close to the end time

2:17:10

when we were leaving.

2:17:14

I just don't even remember.

2:17:17

'Cause I remember that was one of the rumors

2:17:18

is that she wasn't going to be leaving when the rest

2:17:20

of us were leaving.

2:17:21

I honestly don't remember what happened.

2:17:22

I think my mind had ended up

2:17:25

moving on to other things when I was actually

2:17:26

on a plane and we were taking off.

2:17:29

Interviewer

Do you know how they discovered the pillow?

2:17:34

-

I don't.

2:17:37

I don't know if it was a different type of pillow

2:17:38

or because, I mean, they do it,

2:17:40

part of rec reason for the detainees is that then

2:17:43

they can go through their cells.

2:17:47

So I don't know if it was discovered by a guard that,

2:17:49

and they have tabs on everything that was in the cell

2:17:52

and they're like checking everything

2:17:56

that they're supposed to have.

2:17:58

So theoretically they're checking all

2:17:59

that every time they're going through.

2:18:00

So I don't know if that was how it came up

2:18:02

or what the rationale,

2:18:04

what the method was by which they found it out.

2:18:06

Or if the detainees said something?

2:18:09

Interviewer

And you were officially,

2:18:12

all of you were officially brought together and told

2:18:14

about this incident?

2:18:16

-

In classic military fashion, that they wouldn't actually,

2:18:20

and particularly, here we are enlisted,

2:18:23

they can't be just naming one of our officers,

2:18:25

they didn't name the person or name

2:18:28

exactly what had happened, we all knew, but they just,

2:18:31

you know, we had these whole lectures and trainings on

2:18:35

what we could and could not do in a detainee interaction.

2:18:40

And there had been an incident,

2:18:43

if we're aware of other incidents we're obligated

2:18:45

and this compromised national security and everything else,

2:18:48

you know, here's the people you need to talk to,

2:18:54

we're not gonna get you in trouble.

2:18:56

We just need more information. If you see something.

2:18:57

All that stuff.

2:19:00

Interviewer

When you left, looking back on that day,

2:19:02

do you think you were still thinking these were really

2:19:05

bad people or, you didn't?

2:19:09

-

Yes.

2:19:11

Interviewer

That part hadn't changed?

2:19:13

-

No.

2:19:14

In the time when I was there,

2:19:15

it didn't, even in the ensuing months afterwards,

2:19:17

it still didn't.

2:19:24

I remember I got really angry...

2:19:27

I didn't take it out on her, I had a heated discussion,

2:19:32

but with this woman who had

2:19:36

kind of questioned what was going

2:19:39

on in Gitmo and were people being mistreated there.

2:19:41

And I think I had just gotten so hyper defensive

2:19:44

about that, because I didn't wanna admit to some

2:19:50

of the thoughts that were creeping

2:19:54

in or my conscience taking hold.

2:19:56

And that was months afterwards

2:19:58

that that happened.

2:20:02

But part of it was that nobody

2:20:04

else ever questioned me on it.

2:20:11

And I'm sure some of that had to do with my social

2:20:14

circle at the time, as compared with now, but it was,

2:20:17

you know, people were proud of me and proud

2:20:22

of the fact that I had deployed, and, oh,

2:20:25

sorry I had to deal with those scumbags down there,

2:20:29

and how bad are they, oh they're this bad.

2:20:31

And it was, I definitely played

2:20:34

to portraying them as evil people.

2:20:38

That was still the easier route to go for a time.

2:20:41

Interviewer

So a couple of questions as you left,

2:20:46

you said you went off with your wife,

2:20:47

you got a break and I wanna talk about that for a moment,

2:20:48

but also you were still in the military, right?

2:20:51

-

Yes.

2:20:53

Interviewer

You still had seven more years to serve?

2:20:54

-

Yes.

2:20:55

So I deployed from Great Lakes so I returned

2:20:57

to Great Lakes and went right back to, after my leave time,

2:20:59

went right back to working at the bootcamp base.

2:21:04

Interviewer

Okay.

2:21:08

And that's probably where you then requested this...

2:21:09

When you, I don't wanna get too personal,

2:21:14

but you said your wife noticed a change in you.

2:21:16

Can you tell us what she noticed when you came back, that,

2:21:18

and did that didn't seem to alert you to maybe

2:21:22

something was going on, right?

2:21:25

Or did it?

2:21:27

-

It, she, I mean,

2:21:28

she didn't say it like right off the bat.

2:21:30

It was in the aftermath that she said, yeah, you were,

2:21:33

I was worried.

2:21:36

She had said that she was worried I was so guarded.

2:21:38

That I was clearly depressed and preoccupied,

2:21:43

and that, I just,

2:21:49

that I wasn't letting her in on some stuff.

2:21:51

And not that she ever, the way in which she had planned it,

2:21:54

as if you ever wanna tell me stuff,

2:21:58

I wanna listen but I understand if you don't wanna

2:22:00

talk about things.

2:22:02

And so she had just left it open and I didn't,

2:22:03

initially didn't talk about very much.

2:22:07

Interviewer

The military didn't see any need

2:22:11

to meet with you after you left Guantanamo to have

2:22:13

you talk it out, right?

2:22:16

-

Not anything very specific.

2:22:19

There's protocols in the Navy, anyway,

2:22:21

where you have to go like a health check and you do

2:22:24

meet with, you have to fill out like a questionnaire

2:22:28

or something that you're not having mental health

2:22:31

problems or anything like that.

2:22:34

I mean, again, this is Great Lakes. This is where I work.

2:22:37

I think I did have to meet with a psychologist once.

2:22:40

And even in that meeting, I just,

2:22:44

I expressed my frustration at the detainees.

2:22:46

Here, I'm angry at these people and blah blah blah.

2:22:50

And so, I mean, it was in no way helpful. It wasn't...

2:22:52

Interviewer

No one inquired any further,

2:23:02

they were happy to have you-

2:23:03

-

Correct.

2:23:05

Interviewer

And move on.

2:23:05

-

Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

2:23:07

Like there was no processing,

2:23:09

there was no probing questions or anything of the, like,

2:23:11

it's just like, okay,

2:23:15

well that seems like a normal reaction.

2:23:16

You've been in a hostile situation and, you know,

2:23:20

moving right along.

2:23:24

Interviewer

And so you went back

2:23:28

into your normal routine at the Great Lakes?

2:23:31

-

I did.

2:23:35

One of the things that I think began to change is the,

2:23:38

not nearly to the same extent,

2:23:44

but I treated the recruits even better, I think,

2:23:46

than I ever had before.

2:23:51

I'd never been one to just completely tear recruits

2:23:53

apart verbally like a lot of people do.

2:23:58

And that's kind of what,

2:24:00

according to the Navy, was supposed to happen to recruits,

2:24:01

you know, they get torn down,

2:24:04

that way they can be built back up

2:24:05

to the Navy specifications.

2:24:06

That had never exactly been my thing,

2:24:09

dressing people down verbally,

2:24:11

but not any type of conscious choice,

2:24:14

but I moved even further towards the respecting them

2:24:19

as people side of things.

2:24:25

One of the things that ended up having a big impact was

2:24:29

a friend of mine had recommended

2:24:34

a book that he had read called

2:24:39

the "Lucifer Effect" by Phillip Zimbardo.

2:24:40

And we talked about that some and I had not thought

2:24:43

about the Stanford prison experiment,

2:24:48

though I'd learned about that back in high school,

2:24:52

I hadn't thought about that, that I recall, even once,

2:24:54

while I was down in Gitmo, or even in the aftermath,

2:24:58

until he had mentioned that,

2:25:05

and I did end up picking up that book and some

2:25:07

things started falling into place.

2:25:12

I mean, there was a lot of other things going

2:25:14

on in life in terms of my perspective politically

2:25:15

and otherwise that I was re-evaluating,

2:25:18

but that that's what started to drive it home

2:25:21

with my own personal experiences

2:25:24

in Guantanamo, that I began to see just how much

2:25:26

the people who were in prison down there had

2:25:31

been dehumanized before I had even met them.

2:25:33

And I immediately made the connection at that point

2:25:36

in time with how that happens the recruits coming

2:25:39

into the Navy as well.

2:25:42

And so, I think,

2:25:44

even before it became something conscious,

2:25:48

I had started acting in a different way,

2:25:51

almost in a sense trying to redeem myself,

2:25:54

for the level that I had stooped to,

2:25:58

not in any specific action, but in my mindset,

2:26:02

while I had been down in Gitmo.

2:26:06

Interviewer

And so did you begin to get some

2:26:10

self awareness at that point?

2:26:11

-

I did.

2:26:13

I began to see that, you know what, getting,

2:26:15

thinking that this detainee has a life 'cause he can

2:26:17

get medications 24/7 is really missing the picture

2:26:21

when he's been locked up for years without any trial

2:26:25

or charges or anything else being brought against him.

2:26:29

Yeah. That, those types of insights started sinking in.

2:26:34

And I mean the last for me was accepting

2:26:39

the fact that I was

2:26:44

ultimately, you know, personally responsible

2:26:45

for not having questioned things while I was down there.

2:26:48

And that was kind of the last step of the process for me.

2:26:53

And that was even after I had come to the conclusion that,

2:26:57

in my mind, war can't be morally justified.

2:27:01

The last piece of the puzzle was

2:27:04

where it got really personal.

2:27:06

And I had to admit that, you know,

2:27:08

I personally bore responsibility for having helped

2:27:10

to perpetrate what I view as rights violations.

2:27:14

Interviewer

Have you talked to anybody along the way?

2:27:17

-

The biggest person would be my wife.

2:27:21

I was just, I began to just completely divulge

2:27:24

everything and really be bouncing things off of her.

2:27:28

And that was, you know,

2:27:34

we started processing things together,

2:27:37

'cause we had had a similar background,

2:27:39

we had had a similar perspective and together

2:27:41

our perspectives began to change,

2:27:44

in mine in a more personal way, given my experience,

2:27:47

hers in a more theoretical way.

2:27:50

But that was really the,

2:27:53

she was really the critical person,

2:27:54

the crucial person in terms of working

2:27:56

through these things.

2:27:57

I eventually ended up getting in touch with other

2:27:59

people in an organization called

2:28:02

the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, DC.

2:28:04

They ended up helping me in terms of getting discharged

2:28:08

as a conscientious objector,

2:28:12

through them I began to meet more people

2:28:15

who took a more critical and questioning look at some

2:28:20

of the things that the US government has been doing

2:28:24

and the supposed war on terror.

2:28:28

Interviewer

Was it your idea to become

2:28:31

a conscientious objector?

2:28:33

Did they suggest it or where did that come from?

2:28:34

-

That was my idea.

2:28:37

I was, as time had gone on, I just,

2:28:38

I became more and more sickened by the dehumanization

2:28:43

that I saw in the Navy in general.

2:28:48

And some of that came from being right

2:28:51

there at bootcamp, seeing how...

2:28:53

I mean, there is very much a process for taking people,

2:28:58

stripping them of their individuality and remaking them

2:29:04

to be obedient and to be compliant.

2:29:09

And that bothered me more and more.

2:29:14

And I saw, as I looked at,

2:29:16

began looking at the news in a different perspective

2:29:19

and in a different way,

2:29:21

I saw how that was then affecting the massive loss

2:29:22

of human life that was taking place in war

2:29:27

as those same dynamics were at play.

2:29:30

I definitely had had conversations with other people,

2:29:34

other friends of mine who were in the military,

2:29:37

people who had been in combat and, you know,

2:29:39

was disturbed by some of those conversations.

2:29:44

Like that guy I went to high school with is describing

2:29:47

to me how he put a bullet through somebody's head

2:29:52

and it's just like

2:29:56

things like that were jarring and in conjunction

2:29:59

with all these other questions running through my mind,

2:30:01

it definitely changed me.

2:30:05

So I, a very roundabout way to say it was very much,

2:30:06

it got to the point where I didn't know

2:30:10

about conscientious objection as a valid means

2:30:13

to seek discharge, but I was looking for pretty much

2:30:16

any way to get out of the military.

2:30:19

It ended up being my wife who actually

2:30:22

found out about the Center on Conscience and War

2:30:27

online and said you need to read this stuff.

2:30:29

And I was like, well, I'm an atheist now,

2:30:33

how could I be a conscientious objector?

2:30:35

I discovered that the government at least recognizes

2:30:38

that you can still have an ethical and moral

2:30:41

framework even without religion, thankfully.

2:30:42

So you can therefore be a conscientious objector.

2:30:44

Interviewer

So how long had it been from the time

2:30:47

you left Guantanamo to the time you filed

2:30:49

for a conscientious objector?

2:30:52

-

It was just over a year

2:30:55

between when I got back and when I came

2:31:01

to the conclusion that that's what I was going to do

2:31:03

and it took up a couple of months to put things all

2:31:07

in order before I actually began that process.

2:31:10

Interviewer

How much more military time did

2:31:12

you have at that point?

2:31:14

-

By the time I actually filed,

2:31:17

I had just over a year left on my enlistment.

2:31:19

Interviewer

And you still thought it was worth it?

2:31:22

-

Absolutely.

2:31:24

For me, it was even more so a matter of personal

2:31:25

integrity than it was...

2:31:31

The actual time was important.

2:31:34

I ended up getting out like, I guess,

2:31:36

eight months sooner than I would have,

2:31:38

but it was even more so the taking a stand

2:31:41

for what I thought was right.

2:31:45

Interviewer

Did they make you go

2:31:47

through a psychological exam when?

2:31:48

-

They did.

2:31:50

Interviewer

That was serious this time?

2:31:51

-

That's, it was, it was more comprehensive, but it was,

2:31:53

I knew the person who did it not very well personally,

2:32:00

but I knew who she was.

2:32:04

And I had actually picked her,

2:32:05

that it'd be her who did this, who did my interview.

2:32:07

And it was appropriately focused on, you know,

2:32:10

whether or not there is any issue,

2:32:14

which is according to regulations,

2:32:16

any issue in my mental health that needed to be

2:32:18

addressed or was potential grounds for discharge.

2:32:22

So we didn't go back into it and through other things,

2:32:25

it was thorough but it was addressing that point

2:32:29

as to whether or not I've met the criteria

2:32:33

for any diagnosis at that time.

2:32:34

Interviewer

You mentioned you became an atheist,

2:32:37

did that happen while you were in Guantanamo?

2:32:39

-

I definitely became comfortable with using that term.

2:32:43

I guess that's a very interesting other,

2:32:48

I dunno if you're if you have interest in hearing

2:32:51

about that or not,

2:32:53

'cause, there were definitely some things

2:32:54

there that played into it.

2:32:56

Interviewer

Well, if it changed

2:32:57

your life, I'm interested.

2:32:58

-

All right. All right.

2:32:59

One of the things I drifted, I definitely drifted from the,

2:33:02

drifted and come to question the upbringing

2:33:09

from my childhood, the,

2:33:12

I would say fundamentalist Christian evangelical upbringing.

2:33:15

And in Gitmo, what I saw was

2:33:19

these people that I hadn't encountered before,

2:33:22

because they were just as, some of them anyway,

2:33:26

just as if not more devout in their religion

2:33:29

than people that I had ever known in mine.

2:33:33

And that to me was something new

2:33:39

and that I hadn't experienced before,

2:33:41

because it was always, I was brought up where, you know,

2:33:42

religion was the number one thing in life.

2:33:45

And it, as far as I saw, myself, my family,

2:33:49

and like the people in our church took it more

2:33:54

seriously than almost anybody else other

2:33:57

than the people like us, of course.

2:34:00

And I think that there's truth to that in terms

2:34:03

of how much that affected life decisions.

2:34:06

I don't think that was purely a subjective perspective

2:34:09

in terms of like Catholic or other people who said

2:34:12

they're religious who I met at school and things like that.

2:34:14

Nobody else seemed to take it quite so seriously,

2:34:17

but here I was in Gitmo

2:34:19

and these guys

2:34:23

are in this horrible situation.

2:34:26

And I recognized it as that, like,

2:34:30

even if I thought they deserved it, it was like, well,

2:34:32

this is not happy times,

2:34:34

but they seem more convinced or just as convinced

2:34:38

as anybody I've ever met about Allah,

2:34:41

than I was about Jesus.

2:34:45

-

And I think it has a profound effect when you see

2:34:48

something like that, if you're open to it.

2:34:54

And that's one thing I was open to engaging in my mind

2:34:56

at that time was, well, what does that mean?

2:35:00

If people can be this equally convinced about this,

2:35:05

then they can probably be equally convinced about anything,

2:35:09

which doesn't necessarily mean that the level

2:35:12

of conviction is a, you know,

2:35:14

valid test criteria for the truth of the religion.

2:35:18

One of the things that comes to mind is,

2:35:24

I remember this detainee, like,

2:35:26

praying for such and such to happen.

2:35:31

And that he would be given

2:35:33

like rec time at such and such a time or something

2:35:36

to that effect.

2:35:39

And we have the video cameras and everything else.

2:35:41

And I had talked with him.

2:35:44

And then the guards were talking and they were making

2:35:46

the rec schedule.

2:35:49

And it was like that you're on the outside

2:35:50

and thinking how many times had I been, you know,

2:35:53

not in the same situation in terms of in a prison,

2:35:57

but I'd been praying about something so fervently.

2:36:00

And then I saw it as like an answer to prayer

2:36:03

when something happened.

2:36:06

And the reality was,

2:36:07

there was somebody just making a decision as part

2:36:08

of their daily life that they didn't think twice

2:36:11

about it and it just so happened to coincide.

2:36:12

So that, really, I mean,

2:36:15

it's something simple but it really got through to me.

2:36:17

And I was already open to the fact

2:36:21

that I'm not putting

2:36:24

the stock in this Christianity thing that I once did,

2:36:26

but, you know, I think I still affiliate with some

2:36:31

of those values and I saw that and that's just like, well,

2:36:33

can I have values and do I need to do I need

2:36:35

to necessarily tie them to a religion?

2:36:39

So...

2:36:42

Interviewer

And that was it?

2:36:43

You were convinced that day?

2:36:44

-

It wasn't like an instantaneous deconversion.

2:36:46

I mean, that was just one of the things.

2:36:52

Over time and continuing to see that

2:36:53

and then taking a critical

2:36:57

look at, well, what are some of the things that have,

2:37:00

if these guys, meaning the detainees,

2:37:03

have supposedly done these horrible things related

2:37:07

to their religion, and now I'm looking

2:37:09

at their religion and making this comparison

2:37:11

with Christianity, well,

2:37:13

what are some of the horrible things

2:37:14

that have come from Christianity?

2:37:15

And so all those were comparisons going on in my mind that,

2:37:17

you know, made me comfortable with abandoning

2:37:20

the whole thing.

2:37:23

Interviewer

Did you think even for a moment

2:37:24

that maybe you should convert to muslim?

2:37:26

-

No.

2:37:28

And the reason I say that is because I really did see

2:37:31

it as the same level of conviction, that they were,

2:37:34

you know, I was never put in that position,

2:37:39

so it had different weight that here these guys were

2:37:41

some of them in their minds willing to give up

2:37:43

their lives for their religion.

2:37:45

I, at one point in time in my life had felt that way,

2:37:47

I was gonna move to Bible Institute and I was gonna be

2:37:50

a missionary, a pastor or something

2:37:53

and I will save the world.

2:37:54

And so I felt like that was just at the exact same

2:37:56

level that I had been at.

2:38:00

So it's not that here they've got something more,

2:38:01

they've just got it with a different twist

2:38:06

and maybe there's not validity in the whole thing.

2:38:08

Interviewer

And so had you not been

2:38:12

in Guantanamo, you think you still would have moved

2:38:15

away from the Christian religion?

2:38:17

-

I'm sure I would have.

2:38:21

I don't think it would have happened in the same way.

2:38:23

I don't think it would have been a as quick a process.

2:38:27

Interviewer

Okay.

2:38:33

So going back to, then, when you were leaving the military,

2:38:34

could you just take us there and just...

2:38:39

-

Sure.

2:38:43

We used to say the,

2:38:46

when you file as a conscientious objector,

2:38:48

it's not exactly something that's celebrated

2:38:49

by your chain of command.

2:38:51

So, I mean, the first stuff was,

2:38:54

the senior enlisted trying their best to talk me

2:38:56

out of it and this isn't going to work.

2:38:59

This isn't gonna do anything.

2:39:01

You're just gonna waste your time in trying

2:39:03

to file this application.

2:39:05

And things to that effect.

2:39:08

I was very serious about it though.

2:39:13

And I was not about to be deterred.

2:39:15

And so I, not only did I file my application,

2:39:18

but shortly after I did I started up a blog

2:39:24

to document the process.

2:39:27

'Cause that was one of the things I had found

2:39:30

is I knew nothing about this.

2:39:31

Here I had been for months feeling

2:39:33

absolutely uncomfortable being in the military

2:39:37

because of moral qualms that I now had

2:39:39

about what the military was doing.

2:39:41

And I didn't know about it.

2:39:43

And I certainly didn't know as an atheist

2:39:44

that it could still apply.

2:39:46

I didn't know it was still around, you know,

2:39:47

since Vietnam and that it existed before then.

2:39:49

So I wanted to get it out there.

2:39:53

I also wanted to get my personal takeout there.

2:39:54

So I filed the application.

2:39:59

And one of the things that I had done is I had,

2:40:01

which is kind of not kosher,

2:40:03

I had actually taken it to the,

2:40:06

tried to take it to the commanding officer directly.

2:40:08

It was kind of iffy because

2:40:12

normally there's a specific routing that,

2:40:15

how a request is supposed to be going

2:40:19

through the chain of command.

2:40:22

And they have like this long list of how everything

2:40:23

goes and it's command specific.

2:40:25

They didn't have conscientious objection listed

2:40:29

in there for that request.

2:40:31

So therefore, this, you know,

2:40:32

the person who it's ultimately going

2:40:34

to at the command level is the commanding officer.

2:40:36

So I just took it direct to the commanding officer.

2:40:39

I got an ear full for doing that,

2:40:40

but that got attention along with the fact

2:40:42

that I started the blog.

2:40:44

And my best guess would be

2:40:46

that the officer community

2:40:49

told the senior enlisted to leave me alone,

2:40:53

not to mess with this, just,

2:40:59

we're going to follow this exactly by the book.

2:41:01

And don't try and do anything more here,

2:41:04

this is something that's clearly happening.

2:41:10

Let's not end up with a bad publicity situation by,

2:41:13

you know, you so obviously making life difficult for him.

2:41:16

It became what I viewed as kind of a stalemate at work.

2:41:25

And that by that point in time I had advanced

2:41:28

further in rank.

2:41:32

And I was, I would say,

2:41:32

very well liked by the people who were under me.

2:41:34

I treated them well, maybe standards considering,

2:41:36

in terms of how I ran at that point,

2:41:39

that little mental health clinic.

2:41:42

And so, as long as I was continuing to do my job I kind

2:41:45

of steered clear of the higher ups and they kind

2:41:49

of steered clear of me.

2:41:51

And eventually, it's a lengthy process, the CO process,

2:41:54

but after about four months and a number of interviews

2:41:58

and writing a bunch of essays and being evaluated

2:42:00

by a psychologist and a chaplain and everybody else,

2:42:05

I ultimately was honorably discharged.

2:42:07

Interviewer

Well, that's certainly

2:42:12

the whole military career.

2:42:14

Looking back, is there anything that we can close

2:42:17

with in terms of your thoughts that I didn't ask

2:42:20

or maybe how you see

2:42:24

Guantanamo going forward or any...

2:42:29

Just...

2:42:33

Once you got out of Guantanamo, was

2:42:37

there anything positive?

2:42:39

-

I certainly, I hate to credit it to Guantanamo,

2:42:41

I think I've made a lot of changes in my personal life

2:42:46

for the positive, as a result.

2:42:49

I mentioned the Philip Zimbardo book,

2:42:52

the other thing psychologist I really like and credit,

2:42:54

something to a Stanley Milgrim

2:42:58

with his shock experiments that he had done.

2:43:00

I re-read through that as well.

2:43:02

Something I'd known about previously.

2:43:04

I would say that the number one thing that I took

2:43:07

from my time in Guantanamo, and this could apply

2:43:10

to the military in general,

2:43:13

was that simply obeying authority is not

2:43:16

what defines right and wrong.

2:43:20

And that was the way that I had grown up though,

2:43:23

both religiously and otherwise,

2:43:26

that you're doing right so long as you're following

2:43:28

what the authority says.

2:43:30

And I viewed that as a huge life lesson

2:43:31

that I took from this.

2:43:35

'Cause, ultimately, not that it's an excuse,

2:43:36

but the reason that I ended up being involved

2:43:39

in things that I now view, as I said, as rights violations,

2:43:42

is because an authority was prescribing that I do

2:43:47

it and I followed.

2:43:50

And so that's kind of like the big picture of lesson

2:43:53

I took from that.

2:43:57

As far as with Guantanamo, I certainly hope it closes.

2:43:59

I hope...

2:44:04

I don't know how that would all pan out.

2:44:10

It's not an easy situation.

2:44:13

People's lives, I think,

2:44:15

undoubtedly have been ruined in many, many ways,

2:44:16

in some ways that I'm sure are not repairable.

2:44:20

But the biggest thing that I think needs to happen

2:44:26

is for there to be transparency,

2:44:30

for it to be known exactly who's,

2:44:36

I know to some degree now this is the case,

2:44:38

but it still doesn't have the level of transparency

2:44:41

that I think it should.

2:44:43

Exactly who's down there. Exactly why.

2:44:44

And that there'd be

2:44:48

a very clear process of trying to delineate

2:44:50

what is the just thing to happen,

2:44:54

because no matter what people have done,

2:44:58

clearly the unjust thing is indefinite detention.

2:44:59

At least to me, that is clear.

2:45:02

Interviewer

That's it? Anything else?

2:45:07

-

Yeah. I mean, that kind of sums it up in my mind.

2:45:10

Interviewer

Well, we're gonna take it, 20 seconds.

2:45:13

When Johnny calls room tone just where everyone's

2:45:16

quiet and then we'll call it quits.

2:45:20

But so again, room tone.

2:45:22

-

We're getting it done.

-

And we're back.

2:45:42

-

That was great.

That was really...

2:45:43

Lakemacher, Daniel - Interview master file

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