mickeyd
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
The following information was provided to me by a long-ago military acquaintance of mine. It appers as though being in a military prison be it in Iraq or North Vietnam or USAF training facility, is no picnic for the folks locked up.
Wed May 5, 2004 3:42 pm
Subject: Fairchild pow interrogation training:
I served in special intelligence units
during and after the end of the Vietnam war era and flew combat crew missions
throughout Asia. Flyboy training was interesting. After attending several air
crew survival, and Escape and Evasion (EE) schools, I wound up at "Fairchild" in
the pow camp. I saw airmen jumping up and down on an American flag and urinating
on it -- the camp guards had them doing it under duress. I was sleep deprived
and starved. Put into a small box upside down, somehow I figured out how to turn
right side up. So they took me out and sleep deprived me some more. And then
they locked me in a black box in which I could not stand up straight, nor sit
down. I remember hallucinating that there was a cot in the corner of the black,
dark room, and I kept trying to lie down. The guards were laughing at me because
they heard me as I kept banging my head in to the wall where I thought an army
cot was situated. Sometime later, a slot opened at the bottom of the door. I was
ordered to bend over, and stick out both of my hands. The guards put a metal
canteen cup in my hands, and poured in a dribble of gruel, a sardine fish head
and some broth. When I tried to retrieve the cup, I found I could not pull it
through the door because the old-fashioned metal canteen cup was too tall and
the slot was too low. I put my hand over the top of the cup, turned it sideways
and pulled it through the slot, losing about half of "my food" on the floor. One
of the guards bellowed "Hey look at this stupid animal. He thinks he is clever."
And he kept repeatedly yelling "Animal!" at me through the locked door. As long
as he was on the other side what the **** did I care? They then took me out of
the box and made me stand naked in a cold room for several hours and continued
to yell at me. They ridiculed my body shape and my sex organs. Every time I fell
over they threatened me and made me stand up again. I then was dressed and sent
to special interrogation. An American air force officer of Hawaiian descent
(didn't know that at the time) was dressed as a North Korean officer. He
interrogated me in Korean... "Kegup moyah? Irum moyah?" (What's your rank?
name?) etc, using bellicose language. He then made me sit on a pointed wobbly
stool that poked into my ass. He ranted at me and accused me of fostering
bastard children (not true), and he accused me of homosexual sex (not true). He
was yelling and screaming and shaking in my face, and then, I lost it and just
started laughing out loud. He got so mad and flustered, he punched me in the
face and broke my nose, and knocked me down. I was dripping blood in rivulets
down my chin and on my shirt. The interrogation was halted and a real air force
flight surgeon was summoned into the room to inspect me. He declared that my
nose was broken but that I was "OK." I received no medical treatment. Instead,
the guards took me to the prison camp yard and stuffed me down into a small hole
underground until the prison camp was "liberated" several hours later and I was
freed to American custody. In the end, they told me that this is what would
happen to me -- but only worse -- if I got "shot down" due to hostile action, or
had to "bail out" over hostile or denied territory. I sometimes think about
those terribly realistic training days in the "POW camp," as well as my combat
crew air missions (ancient flying history), and I've come to the conclusion that
those interrogators actually enjoyed their work just a bit more than too much.
And whether it's the Screw running the prison cell, or the Airman flying the
impersonal mission, or the Grunt in the LZ, it is quite easy to de-humanize
others...
Wed May 5, 2004 3:42 pm
Subject: Fairchild pow interrogation training:
I served in special intelligence units
during and after the end of the Vietnam war era and flew combat crew missions
throughout Asia. Flyboy training was interesting. After attending several air
crew survival, and Escape and Evasion (EE) schools, I wound up at "Fairchild" in
the pow camp. I saw airmen jumping up and down on an American flag and urinating
on it -- the camp guards had them doing it under duress. I was sleep deprived
and starved. Put into a small box upside down, somehow I figured out how to turn
right side up. So they took me out and sleep deprived me some more. And then
they locked me in a black box in which I could not stand up straight, nor sit
down. I remember hallucinating that there was a cot in the corner of the black,
dark room, and I kept trying to lie down. The guards were laughing at me because
they heard me as I kept banging my head in to the wall where I thought an army
cot was situated. Sometime later, a slot opened at the bottom of the door. I was
ordered to bend over, and stick out both of my hands. The guards put a metal
canteen cup in my hands, and poured in a dribble of gruel, a sardine fish head
and some broth. When I tried to retrieve the cup, I found I could not pull it
through the door because the old-fashioned metal canteen cup was too tall and
the slot was too low. I put my hand over the top of the cup, turned it sideways
and pulled it through the slot, losing about half of "my food" on the floor. One
of the guards bellowed "Hey look at this stupid animal. He thinks he is clever."
And he kept repeatedly yelling "Animal!" at me through the locked door. As long
as he was on the other side what the **** did I care? They then took me out of
the box and made me stand naked in a cold room for several hours and continued
to yell at me. They ridiculed my body shape and my sex organs. Every time I fell
over they threatened me and made me stand up again. I then was dressed and sent
to special interrogation. An American air force officer of Hawaiian descent
(didn't know that at the time) was dressed as a North Korean officer. He
interrogated me in Korean... "Kegup moyah? Irum moyah?" (What's your rank?
name?) etc, using bellicose language. He then made me sit on a pointed wobbly
stool that poked into my ass. He ranted at me and accused me of fostering
bastard children (not true), and he accused me of homosexual sex (not true). He
was yelling and screaming and shaking in my face, and then, I lost it and just
started laughing out loud. He got so mad and flustered, he punched me in the
face and broke my nose, and knocked me down. I was dripping blood in rivulets
down my chin and on my shirt. The interrogation was halted and a real air force
flight surgeon was summoned into the room to inspect me. He declared that my
nose was broken but that I was "OK." I received no medical treatment. Instead,
the guards took me to the prison camp yard and stuffed me down into a small hole
underground until the prison camp was "liberated" several hours later and I was
freed to American custody. In the end, they told me that this is what would
happen to me -- but only worse -- if I got "shot down" due to hostile action, or
had to "bail out" over hostile or denied territory. I sometimes think about
those terribly realistic training days in the "POW camp," as well as my combat
crew air missions (ancient flying history), and I've come to the conclusion that
those interrogators actually enjoyed their work just a bit more than too much.
And whether it's the Screw running the prison cell, or the Airman flying the
impersonal mission, or the Grunt in the LZ, it is quite easy to de-humanize
others...
