Fixing Hell by Larry C. James & Gregory A. Freeman

Author:Larry C. James & Gregory A. Freeman [JAMES, LARRY C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO000000
ISBN: 9780446537872
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

Abid and the other JECs were constantly on my mind through June and July as I struggled to figure out how we should handle them, how I could care for their psychological needs as a doctor while fulfilling my duty to my country as a U.S. soldier. That was the type of question that often troubled me as I settled into operations in Abu Ghraib. I could never get away from the human suffering in this place. The screams and desperate faces of those young boys, and the smells of their filthy cages, came to me in my sleep, and they still do. And to this day, when I least expect it, I see the image of that young female interrogator being psychologically tortured by the terrorist in the late night of my first twenty-four-hour period at Abu Ghraib. Sometimes I can clearly see her face and hear her gasping for air as though she were standing right next to me. If I could pick the one thing that was perhaps the most broken about Abu Ghraib, it would be those sailors, soldiers, and marines abandoned when night fell upon them. Rarely would there be any officers or senior enlisted soldiers providing oversight, supervision, or guidance to interrogators in the late-night hours. I knew that it would be an uphill battle to convince many of the supervising interrogators to come out of their cement buildings, stand over the shoulders of these young interrogators, and provide 100 percent supervision at all times.

I eventually asked myself why a supervisor would not want to come and work with their subordinates or provide the necessary oversight. There were really only two or three answers I could come up with. Perhaps fear, desperation, and hopelessness hung over the sand of Abu Ghraib like an early morning fog on a fall day. There was no respite from fear for the troops at this place. Most of us, when we experienced fear, could find a safe haven, a sanctuary—a psychological safe place. The fear doesn’t just go on and on and on. Abu Ghraib lacked the usual things most American boys and girls grew to expect and experience in their lives back home—physical and emotional safety. I could see it in their eyes. As a child my mother’s calm voice soothed me. “Son, it’s gonna be okay. You’ll feel better in the morning,” she would say. No one here had their mothers to reassure them, but soldiers need the same thing from their commanders, the adult, military equivalent of hearing that someone is in control and watching over them and making sure everything will be fine. These soldiers lacked the comfort of their leaders telling them it would be okay. Rather, the leaders would commonly express or show their sense of hopelessness and that things would get worse.

Toward the end of July it became clear to me that this was the answer. Many of the leaders at Abu Ghraib simply did not want to be there. They were angry and depressed, and not hiding it well.

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