Army Interview of Army Lieutenant Colonel re: Handling of Wounded Detainees

IFIT -35 -122 411114111Interview

Hi. This is SergeantA
Command Historian's ffice. Today's date is 21 May. The time now
is 20:32. I'm here at Camp Buka. The time is local time Kuwait

and I'm here interviewing Dr.ASir, could you
please spell out your first and last name?A

Q:Awith the 377th Theater Support

k9 CIO 2-111111111 11.111.111 11111111111.11.11. • ..110/01114/890
4:A

And sir could you please state your duty position and unit.

I'm a Lieutenant Colonel. I am the physician for the 530th MP
battalion but here at Camp Buka in Iraq, I'm serving as the 800th
Brigade surgeon, the acting surgeon.

Q:
A

And do you belong to the 89th Regional Support Command in
inaudible)?
Correct.

Q:
A

All right, so I have to read off some boilerplate language if
that's all right. Do you understand that the tape and the
transcript resulting from this oral history to be retained in the
United States Army Reserve historical research collection and/or

(inaudible) military history crew, will belong to the United States
government to be used in any manner deemed in the best interest of
the United States Army as determined by the command historian or
representative? Do you also understand that subject to security
classification restrictions, you may be given an opportunity to
edit the resulting transcript in order to clarify and expand your
original thoughts? The United States Army may provide you with a
copy of the edited transcript for your own use subject to any
ossification restrictions.

That's fine.

Q:A

Good deal. Thank you, sir. In that case, let's go ahead and begin
the interview. If you could sir, please provide a brief biography
of our military career.

OK. I was originally drafted in 1969 for the Vietnam War and,
again at that time, I was in graduated school and the same week
that I finished a master's degree, I was called on to active duty
to Fort (inaudible), California. And had a basic training there
and then immediately went into infantry, 11th Bravo, AIT Advanced
Training at Fort Ord ((sp?)). Upon completing the infantry
training, my entire unit and one other unit that was in sequence
with us, we were all sent to Germany, to Frankfurt. And at that
time, I was able to switch out of the infantry and work in a
child's psychiatry clinic at a general hospital in Frankfurt.
Completed that duty, came home and got out of reserves for a couple
of years and then went back for a PhD and while I was doing my PhD,
I went ahead and came back into the Army Reserves, still enlisted.
Then, after my PhD, I went ahead and got a direct commission as a
LDS Chaplain. And after being a university professor for a few
years and still saying the army reserves as a chaplain, I decided
to go to medical school and upon completion of medical school,
switched over to the medical corps. I continued to work last 22

years to serve with the, it was 82nd field hospital in Omaha,
Nebraska (inaudible). It is now changed over and it's called the
4223 US Army Hospital. And I served Desert Storm with that unit 12
years ago.

OK. Did you handle EPWs at teat time, sir?
elm Only wounded ones.A(Aaudilke) hospital and the

Q:A

w4s in,' a
EPWs we saw came off helicopters.

OK, so, you can go ahead and continue.

um' And then, served with the 31st cash ((sp?)) hospital and then f?r the duration of the Desert Storm war, and then returned home and stayed with the 4223 US Army Hospital living in Utah and commuting to Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska for drills. And then, this last January, with a two day warning, I was called up to report back to duty on January the 24th, 2003.
: And you reported to Fort Riley?

I reported recently to Omaha, stayed there two days doing some
paper work, processing in. And then we reported to Fort Riley,
Kansas. I spent 78 days at Fort Riley, Kansas. We were there so
long because we were originally going into Turkey and then on into
Iraq with the 4th MP division and all of our equipment got placed
on 40 ships along with their equipment and Turkey kept playing
games, couldn't make up their mind whether they were going to let
us in or not. Finally at the end, they said no. And then the war
started, and it took about a month for those ships to get sent to
Kuwait.

Q:A

OK, if I could go back a little bit. So, you went to Fort Riley on
the 26th and you joined the 530th MP battalion as the battalion
surgeon

1MM Right. They were also out of Omaha. My reserve unit is in
Omaha and the 530th MP battalion is in Omaha. So I was crossed
over to that unit. Both units from Omaha.

:A

Q:A

All right.
U-V-

But I live inA

Q:A

Okay so you were crossed over to the 530th. When you arrived at
Fort Riley on January 26th, how did the in processing go for you?

MEN The same as Desert Storm. It was just a lot of lines and
eventually we started helping them. We had medics and we sped it
up. Our medics started giving shots and we sped it up somewhat by
being able to help. Help with lines. Spent several days doing
that.

Let's see. Those medics, they're from your battalion?
AIMMI Right.
And had you met them before and how many were you commanding?
No. Six medics and there was a physician's assistant. Captain
NoLOYL-

Q:A

So physician s assistant. Is that a doctor as well?
111111116 A PA-
Oh a PA'
Yeah.

Q:A

1 ,1309
Q:A

Okay. And so you guys helped the staff in Fort Riley. Were they
overwhelmed then?
Yeah, just you know, a thousand people, trying to get them
through. Just big lines.

And compared to Desert Storm, was it more efficient, less
efficient?
Ammo Pretty equal. Well both of them, again--it was interesting.

You do it in an auditorium and I--before I did it at Fort Pole
((sp?)), Louisiana and, very similar. There's the same tarp, I
swear was on both gym floors and the same tables and everything
else. I think quite efficient, for the thousands that they're
doing. No, I had no problems with it.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Good deal. Now, what about the training you received at Fort Riley

because you had never dealt with Enemy Prisoners of War before,
so..

.

I think it was interesting for me because always in the
military, the last 20 years or whatever, I've been a physician.
And so it was interesting to be in the unit where I went to staff
meetings, as one of the staff, and to be with soldiers. And to see
how the army is ran, I'd never seen it before. I'd always been with
doctors who were laid back and other people were running it and
everything else. For example, both times that I've been promoted
to a Major and a Lieutenant Colonel, I never showed up. I just
came to drill each time and it's, oh you're a Major now, oh you're
a Lieutenant Colonel, I never even filled out paper work. And so
to go from that into being with soldiers and then the 530 is a very
excellent unit. You know, excellent leadership, and I give credit
for it coming out of the Midwest. And so, I've lived in Omaha for
nine years, so I'm not from there so I could rank on this unit.
But very organized, very hard working--good leadership and good
troops. And so it was interesting, for 78 days we planned this
camp. To the nth detail. And the day room, on the floor, they
took tape, master tape, and at the scale, mapped out this prison.
And they would argue for like ten hours where to put one tent. And
the latrine would be worth 20 hours of arguing. And this thing was
that planned, that thought out. And so it's kind of disappointing
to come here to see this place.

Q:A

Okay, actually, if you could sir, could you go ahead and describe a
little bit of detail, what the plan was? You were going to be
called up with the 4th Infantry?

Amu. Yes, the 4th Infantry division had gone into Turkey, was
landing in a port there, and then it was several hundred miles
through the mountains. They were coming through here, they called
our brigade and then the northwest Iraq, in a small town called
Telpfar, which is west of Mosul, is a town of Telefar--next to this
town was a big airport. And why that airport's there, I have no
idea. And on the--we saw satellite figures and everything else,
the detailed map. And I can tell you this now, it was secret.
Where we went to set up this large (inaudible) unit, about 90 miles

0 1 e.i 3 1 0

in Iraq. And so we would follow straight in with the (inaudible)

coming right in with it.

Q: OK, and what were your plans as a surgeon? I mean, what equipment
were you ordering, what did you need, did they have it all?

With Captain11111111((sp?)) doing it a lot of it because he
was with this unit the 530th so he really led the way on it. But
we picked up some like, $150,000 worth of medicines and equipment
there. Not so much equipment, but mainly medicines at Fort Riley
there and at Fort Riley, the hospital was very gracious, they
helped a lot. So we had in our connexes ((sp?)) and in our medic
bags and everything else, we had medicines as much as we could make
up and carry. The planning was somewhere between 10 and 20,000
prisoners. And with the process, it was my understanding that we
had 13 days to wait before a cash ((sp?)) hospital was going to
come in and set up next to--excuse me, next to us. And so we were
figuring that we were going to run this thing by ourselves for
ablaut 13 days. And I never slept through it, because I just

(inaudible) this could happen. You know, there'd be no surgeons,
on and on, and we'd have wounded prisoners. And I never had--no
nurse, no lab, no X-ray machine, no nothing. And I went out, took
my money and I bought a lamp, this lamp to have because I figured I
could sew people with it in night time. You know, we have no
equipment and we were going to be there, as far as I could tell by
this outline, it was, we were going to follow the 4th ID in, and we
were going to be in for a while. And I was going to be the only
doctor. So I asked for it, I can't remember how many--but they
gave my like 500 body bags or a thousand or something like that,
because I saw that people were going to die. Large numbers were
going to die, with that plan. And as I was interpreting it, they
were throwing us in a position to not have an operating room, no
lab, no x-rays, it's kind of what you do. (laughter) Then have
body bags, you can patch them up.
When you said there'd be wounded people and the aspirin wasn't--

--Yeah yeah, and like I said, there was no nurses, no nothing.
Just medics and the PA, but still, what are you going to do?

And did you participate in the planning of the lay out of the
medical house for the war as well?

Not that much, no, no. Because the cash hospital was going to
come in, you know we talked about how we were going to set up our
area. So, no, we weren't involved in that.

Q:A

Q:A
Okay;. And the days of training that you had, did they give you--did
thet break you on prisoners or handling or anything?
Once again, I saved it, kind out of bat. What I ended up doing
was I volunteered and I worked at the, in the emergency room in
Fort Riley a lot (inaudible). That's just when I'm on time--with
my schedule, if it got slow or I got bored, that's the main thing I
did, just earned my pay.

Q:A
Okay. Good deal.
And they were short on doctors. It was a long 78 days.
(laughter)

And as I understand, as a doctor's tour in theater is 90 days?
IMO Correct. But in the--
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

IMMO, Yeah, yeah. It has to be all your duty stations and there was
one doctor in Fort Riley, doing his 90 days there. And so he came
there about 2 weeks ahead of me and he was leaving about the same
time I left to go over here.

Q:A

Q: !I just want to confirm in case we haven't said it yet, but the
(inaudible) surgeon handles both enemy prisoners and American
soldiers?

01111111 Right, right. Yeah.

All right, so if you could go ahead and describe your flight over
to Kuwait? You left on April 10th.
Right. We left Fort Riley, we stopped several time.
then, 111111111and the worst stop was we
W14\ stopped in Cyprus and we sat on the ground for four hours while we

1\\.` waited on some stewardesses and they wouldn't let us off the plane because theoretically we weren't in an We landed there to get fuel and theAgovernment wasn't in (inaudible) that we were there. And so we couldn't get off the plane. And so then finally, we were on the plane for about 21 hours or so and when we landed in Kuwait City, they still wouldn't let us off the plane because there were so many planes landing that there was no ramps to get people off. And so we sat there in Kuwait for forever. And what was irritating to me was, finally, ten minutes after midnight, we went past an SUV that had some soldiers in it and they took our ID cards and split them and that marked your time. And I'm (inaudible) because I lost the day by ten minutes. And so say I went home on July 10th, they may be flying July 11th because we sat there on that plane--we were on that plane I think more than 24 hours. And when we landed we couldn't off. You may have done the same thing.
Q:
A

Q:
A

I tink they just held you on the plane until it was midnight-

' Everybody was laughing at me because I'd be running up there-­I mean because I'd run up the ramp, I said I am in Kuwait, it's the
10th still. So, when we went from there to this whole Camp Wolf
from the airport and as I was saying before, the only thing bad was
that they put us in an air conditioned tent, which was nice but
that day it wasn't that hot here and it was actually too cold. And
they put us in this large tent, aboutA

of us, and no cots. And
this was again, a little bit after midnight. So we tried to sleep
on the hard floor with nothing. You just lay there on the floor
with' the air conditioning running and being cold. And then we got
up, and they left us there the whole day. And finally that night,
they did a convoy, something like 26 city busses and moved us to 35
miles from Camp Wolf to Arifjan. That 26 miles, what it was, took­-I can't remember--took over four hours. Took almost the whole
night for us to get there. Because they took everybody together,
they made everybody--they loaded up all of our bags in trucks. And

; there must have been--well there were hundreds of troops that they
moved. However many people it takes get into the city---21 or 26

014312
citi busses, you know big passenger busses. That's a lot of troops
and they moved all of us in this massive convoy. Took hours.

Let me ask you something. Since you're with the 530 MP battalion,
I don't believe they brought their subordinate unit so...
1011111, No, no. Just the headquarters unit.

Q:
A

Had the subordinate units joined you at Fort Riley, Kansas?
No, no. They were all, most of them I think were in Fort
Lewis.
:A

Q:
A

OK.
There's a small unit of twelve that work on a processing line.
They showed up, that was it.

And when did you find out that you wouldn't be joining the corps by
the--the going through Turkey?

1111.111 Boy, I mean for weeks and weeks it was a game. The Turkish
government would say, well maybe, we:re going to decide next
Tuesday, next Friday; next Tuesday, next Sunday. They voted
against it, it was voted down by only four people. And then they
said they were going to revote it because the military wanted us to
come and then they e4cted.some president who wanted us here. And
so--actually probably wouldn't end up going.
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

Q:A

MN
OK, so, March then...
It just became more and more the writing on the wall. For a

Q:A

long time, we believed it. I mean, for a long time, people would
keep saying, you know, the government offered them what, 26 million
dollars?

Geez.
(laughter)
fleagi You know, and nobody thought that they would turn down 26

million dollars. Their military wanted us in and the new elected
president wanted us. So it was kind of interesting that nobody
agreed to it.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Now how did this affect your supply situation? Because your medical
supplies are on this ship at the time so...

OMR Right, right. And so we couldn't leave Fort Riley until the
ships started getting unloaded. And they were trying to--in
Kuwait--they were trying to unload the tanks, trying to unload the
fighters first. Although, our stuff was intermixed with theirs. So
I think we kind of had (inaudible). They did have priority over,
so that was the kind of deal on that.

Okay, and you make it to Arifjan April 11th.

1
11111111 Yeah, and yeah, ten minutes into it. And it may even have been
the 12th time we got to Arifjan because yeah. Yeah, it took us so
long. And so at Arifjan--then we sit there, in a hangar, no it
wasn't a hangar. It was these large, large warehouses. And I was
trying to count it, you know looking at the CODs and it's, it's
bigger than that of a football field. In length and it's width. So
and there were hundreds of us in there. And I was kind of going
nuts because you know the war's going on and then we thought we
were going here and I knew they were short on doctors. And I was

Q:A

014313
starting to think, why am I sitting here? And they took an advanced

f^,)party like one or two days ahead of us. And I was going to take
over that but they didn't fill me in on, because I knew they were
dying. You know, they took the chaplain and left me sitting there
and I'm thinking, I need to go to work.

HUM/ interesting. Okay, so you're dying. I suppose seeing a
chaplain would be a good thing but seeing a doctor might be above
it

11111111 Yeah, when you're majorly short on them. So anyhow, we--

Q:
A

Q:
A

--I'm sorry, but who was short on them?
On= This unit was, you know Camp Buka was short on their doctors.

Thank you, that's what I wanted to hear.

IMO The Brits had kind of started this place and then just kind
of, over night, they just start bringing in hundreds and hundreds
of prisoners. And it just rapidly escalated, and the Brits, I
don't know what they had for medical help here but it was gone.
And when I got here, there was only like two doctors.

Q:
A

Q:
A

And at this point, the war had been going on for close to four
weeks.

Min Right, right. So then they had all these prisoners and they
start bringing them in here by mass numbers. But they didn't--they
hadn't mass stuff to providers. That's where I came in here.

Q:A

OK so you came in, there were probably close to 6,000 prisoners.
UMNo there were 6,800.

Right.
:A

iiiii?

And, there were only two British doctors--
--No, no, there were no British doctors. It was, two
Americans. Captain (inaudible) and Major 1111111

Okay.
The only two I can think of. And then--

0 :A
Q:A

And then did they have medical assistants or--
1111111111 TheyA

had medics also and they had a PA. Yeah. Had one PA. So
two doctors and one PA.

Q:A

And that was it?
Yeah.
:A

For 6,800 people.
11.1111111 Plus 1,500 American soldiers.

Plus 1,500 Americans, thank you.
IMO Yeah, yeah. And so it was--and there was another PA here who
was taking care of American soldiers.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Okay.
So you had two divisions of two Pas. For that many--that many
customers.

•A

And is that a normal situation, ratio?

Nah, that would never be normal. And not for the badly
wounded. And so, the day I got here--and it was on this stretcher
here--what (inaudible) day of Iraq, had been shot and imprisoned.

okay.
And so--

0 1 i J 1 4
That was the Palm Sunday riots. I--oh, no, the week after that I
believe.
Yeah, I mean just the--and so the first few days I was here,
to me, was interesting. Part of it. In that--

Q:A

We're gonna go ahead.
11111111 Okay.

Q:
A

Pause the interview here.
(break in tape)
All right, this is Sergeant

Q:
A

Q:A. I'm resuming my

btu.) interview with LieutenantA. The lights have gone out
)I, in the tents, so it's going to be an interesting situation. But
there's no reason we can't do a field interview in the dark. All
right sir, so you were talking about your arrival...
11111101 My first day here, coming into Camp Buka. I wasn't sure where
to work and so I came here, and I think I couldn't find my PA so I
came to the battalion aid station and was working here. And on this
stretcher that we're using as a table here was a dead Iraqi
prisoner that one of the guards had shot, he apparently was
swinging a club at one of the other--one of the American guards.
And so my PA came and picked me up and by this time, it was in the
dark. And we went down to the original prison. And at that time
there was a little overA
prisoners there.

Q:A

The core holding area?

IIIIIIII
P Right, the core holding area which you were unable to see. But
going down there in the dark was, the word I used several times,
was I described it as being surreal in that, under the bright
lights, the prison lights, it was very much different than we had
seen in the daytime. But you had these (inaudible) of compounds,
where the (inaudible) wires stands up. And each compound had about
500 prisoners in it and then there was a narrow lane going in
between them. And so what we did, we started at the end of it and
we had two medical boxes full of antibiotics and IVs and different
things like that. And we'd just drag these down the middle. The
prisoners would just crowd the edge of their compounds and they
were really upset. For one thing, one of them had been shot and I
think a lot of them were aware of that, and then they hadn't been
treated. And the guards who were behind a gate that didn't have a
lock on it. And there was like three guards per compound with a
little wooden gate that wouldn't lock. And these prisoners could
come in, any time, if they rushed it. And a lot of them would have
been shot but they still would have killed you. And so I'm sitting
there, I just left a dead prisoner, laying on this cot here but I
got my (inaudible) on and I went down there, these bright lights.
And these kind of angry prisoners and the effect of it is, it's
like you we're in a World War II, Nazi concentration camp movie.
You've got prisoners, they're kind of yelling, they're crowding the
edge of the fence there and then the smell was just, it was this
horrendous smell. And then just garbage every place. And the
wind, the wind blows against the wire you know and everything else.

ri A r) 4 r -L 4.1
Q:A

The smell and the garbage, is that because the prisoners are being
mistreated? Or why is that happening?
It was just, there was so many of them. And they tried--I mean

111111k had open pit latrines and if you put 1,000 people in maybe
four acres or whatever, there's no way, there's no place to put
anything else. There's no way to clean it.

•A

An what about trash collection?

Part was that it was the wind, we had these sandstorms. And
if everything blows---yeah to me, they could have been after it and
picked it up better. But they're just trying to have--they're just
pretty much coming in nonstop you know. They're feeding them MRE
type meals, they're blowing away.

So it wasn't negligence or mistreatment of the prisoners?
111111111 No, no, no, no. It's just the general situation.
Okay.

And so we were only able to see--we would ask the guards to
give us prisoners who had wounds, who had bullet wounds. And we'd
have them give us a prisoner who spoke English. And all the
compounds had--so we didn't take translators with us. We'd just get
a prisoner out and use them. And so they'd bring out these
prisoners, I don't know how many we saw. Just one after, after,
after, another of these guys--and then somebody else. (inaudible)
been hospital.

Q:
A

Q:
A

The actually had bullet wounds?
Yeah, yeah. You know, stitched up and they'd be all
(inaudible) or infected.
:A

Bullet wounds from that day or?

No, no no. From the war. When they were captured, you know,
they were taken to hospitals or whatever. And had been sewn up and
everything else. But had never been treated there, they'd just
been thrown in jail with all these masses, stitches and--some
prisoners had gaping holes. Just you know, certain wounds you
don't sew up because you're guaranteed infection. If you take a
deep bullet hole wound and you sew up the top of it, that's how you
get (inaudible). And so a lot of these had secondary healing where
you take a while to come up. (inaudible). That's all we did for
days and we'd just do that, and the other day, we'd go back to our
tents. We had no shares, no nothing. We just had the cots and tents
that were out. And I just collapsed, I never took my clothes off,
never took my boots of. Because you're just so filthy dirty and so
tired and there's no way to shower. And then we had these
sandstorms, these tents just shake. We haven't had big sandstorms
like we did five weeks ago. And it's hot. Unless (inaudible) was
hot. Then the heat was a good thing. But there was a lot more
sandstorms, just horrendous.

Q:A
Now how many hours were you working per day--

mg.--God, you'd just. You know, I didn't pay attention to it
because it didn't matter. You know, you're not going home or
anything else. And you just lay down and get up and do it again.

0 1 316
We did that several days and then they got us a good number of

doctors. They started coming in.

Wh re did these doctors come from?
I don't know. You know, Arifjan or whatever.

-A

And what went through your mind. I mean, you're going several days-

Q:A

--The first night, like I said, I walk out of here with a guy
laying her dead, and I go down there in the dark and all of a
sudden, I call it a spiritual experience, I thought I'd died and
gone to hell. It was, that wild. It's hard--I mean the smell, the
visual thing of it. And the lights, these bright lights. And these
prisoners--and the noise of it. You get 6,000 people and you're
going down a lane that's only like 15-20 feet across. You're going
down between 6,000 people and most of them pretty irritated.

Are they talking or yelling?

111101111111 Oh yeah, yeah. They're just making noise. Going, "doctor!
Doctor!" They can all say that. And then we wouldn't see them and
so half of them were mad because we couldn't see them. We could
only see people with infected wounds. We'd change these dressings
and you know, go back the next day and put them on antibiotics and
on and on. And we were irritating a lot of people because we were
doctors and you know, if you had a headache, a backache, you know
whatever, a bellyache, diarrhea, constipation, we didn't see you.
And so, and most of them had that kind of stuff. Their living in
tents on the ground--trust me you don't feel good and whatever. So
we weren't real popular. What was interesting was that real fast
that they could see that we would come back. They'd been told
tomorrow a bunch of times. But the staff (inaudible), they were
just short. But I do think that, I want to say, that for a few
days there or whatever, in my mind, there were like two PAs and two
doctors, I can't think of them. And you can't do it, you can't
handle--

Q:
A

Q:
A

Let me ask you, medics. Were they able to handle some of the minor
stuff? The diarrhea, the backaches, the stomach aches...

No, no no. Because they were helping us do the dressings. No,
no. We only had--they were. It takes one to write in a book, who
we're seeing and what they had and what we did to them. And then
the rest of it would be you know, stuff, taking off bandages and we
took like an IV bag and put a line on it and then we (inaudible)
with that. So that, one person had to have the IV, it's still
water, you know, but and then on (inaudible). They would have them
you know cleaning them and redressing them. Every now and then we'd
be you know, cutting into them, doing cuts and stuff like that.
But, it's just in the dirt, I mean it's just wild.

In the dirt out there or?

MEM Yeah, we were in the dirt. Literally and figuratively. And
then laid down in the dirt. You know, we just go right down this
dirt trail in the compound. There was a trail, it was a
(inaudible). Wide enough for two humvees is all.

Q:
A

And did you have this medical tent set up at the time or?

Q:
A

nj
41:.(
This was, this was our triage. And the Spanish hospital was
here and so if something was bad down there, we had a (inaudible)
to have, we still have it. We load them up in the (inaudible) and
bring them up here. If it's something we couldn't handle, we
brought them up here and if they couldn't handle it here, then they
went over to the Spaniards.

OK and what is the Spanish hospital in relation to yourself? I

mean, what's their role and mission?

IIIIIIIIII They're--they would be more of a level two type thing. They
can do some surgeries--and they've got their big ship out here, it
went off for the first time today.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Oka and what is the name of that ship or?
The name of it?
:A

Yes sir.
I don't remember, I was just on it. I had lunch on it.
(laughter)
(lau hter) That's okay.

And there was an American ship called the Comfort. That was
taking people too, and I didn't understand that. I don't feel they
took many prisoners. I'm not sure. And so with these prisoners at
wartime, I don't know. There was a big British hospital up in
Nasriye that's still there. And so I think--most of these, we're
working on by the briefs, hospital.

Okay and the Spanish--what is level two? Is that, level one is

here?

MI1111111 Right and level two is higher, they've got surgeons and x-rays
and everything else. So they can help us out on, you know, the
more complicated ones. And I failed to mention, you know, they
were here but the problem is, they weren't going down into the
field.

Q:A

They stayed up here.

And so, has there been much use of the Spanish hospital units here?

Yeah, yeah. A fair amount. And so then, by calling then, I
got tasked then to be the acting brigade surgeon. And so then I had
to start interacting between all these people. And that's been my
pain in the butt. Because there for a while, we had two Iraqi
doctors, who, they weren't prisoners and yet they were held down
there. In essence, they were prisoners but they had some other
title. And so we had them helping us. I didn't know they were there
for about five days, geez, I could have used them. So I ended up
having to interface with two Iraqi doctors, the Spanish doctor and
I speak Spanish because I'm a former missionary in South America so
I can speak Spanish. So I'm interfacing with them and then all
these doctors here, and the medics, and the PAs and everything
else, and so. My boon in life is I value going to five meetings a
day. And I spend about half the day going around just seeing that
everybody has feathers that are not ruffled and everybody's
pointing in the same direction. Which sounds easier than it is.

(laughter)Because when you're dealing with doctors and whatever...

Q:A

3 _III 3 8

But now, so now the work becomes more routine. We're down to Or
prisoners and what I do so that I feel like--because I'm critical \?
of doctors who administrate the stuff and don't see prisoners. We
have here in the camp, an area of high security prisoners. These
prisoners don't get to stand up except for a few minutes a day.
They're sitting in one tent withA

guards looking at both ends of
the tent. So these guys are of special interest. These are ones
who, either did something really wrong, or they think they know
somebody who did something really wrong. And so I go see them
every day and that way I feel like I am working as a doctor. And
I'm in a camp now that's probably 125 degrees when I see them. It's
not air conditioned. And this air conditioning--this was my big
battle,i this is my accomplishment for being here, I take credit for
this--is I fought for five weeks to get it air conditioned. Because
we have soldiers that come in with heat problems, and yet a soldier
with a temperature of 125 and the tent's 115, how can you cool it
down if the tent's 115. Our thermometers wouldn't work. You pick
up any thermometers up until--this air conditioning's been here
about three days. You pick up a thermometer out of the drawer, it'd
be maxed out. And you couldn't shake it down because it would just
come right back immediately because it was probably 115-120 degrees
in the tent. And so to take somebody's temperature, you had a hard
time doing it. And then trying to cool them off, you know, you
really couldn't. And your IV would be the same thing. Somebody's
temperature's 105 and you've got an IV that's 120, you're not going
to cool them down very fast. So now we have air conditioning, so
creative accomplishment, I can be famous for that. So, anyhow, so
now it's just more than mundane thing of seeing prisoners everyday
and then we maxed out at about 2,000 American soldiers, about 2,100
and a large group of them left so we're down to probably 1,600
American soldiers. And one of the interesting problems we had here
was a virus that went through the camp, we called it the Buka
plague, it caused vomiting and diarrhea. And some units were hit
extreme]y hard on it. The military intelligence unit had Ilipeople
in, and all 'Oat one time or another had it. And the unit I'm in,
probably I'm guessing maybe 50 percent. And I never had. As
interesting as it is, I work with Iraqi prisoners, I don't wash my
hands like I ought to. I see them, on and on. And I see the
Americans with it, and some people have had it several times. But
at one time, the worst we had it in one day, we had 51 people who
were treated with IVs. It was just a lot, that's a--

Q:A

That is a lot. Now, medical supplies are class what?

Alma I'm not sure what it is. I don't speak Army talk.
Okay. But were you ever short of medical supplies? Was that ever a
concern?

0A
Only the air conditioners. And I fought that, which to me was
a legal issue, had somebody have died. There would have been one
legal battle over that one, as to have you can justify some soldier
dying of a heat stroke. Because people die of heat strokes in

1 "i') 9

Q:A

I'm not quite sure. I've had the runs since I've been here but I
don't think...There was a while, I was up at Garma by Baghdad and I
might have had a light version of it there, because I just felt
nauseous for one day and then the runs for a little bit longer.

1111111.11111 So like I say, now we're just, everybody's just coming up with
rumors as to where the plague's (inaudible). That is the
entertainment of the day, is trying to guess what's going to happen
to this plague.

Q:A

Let's see, 650 prisoners. The war cease fire has...

It's great. And as I mentioned at our staff meeting a couple
of nights ago when you were there, Camp Buka's not going to be a
permanent place. The rumor originally was this was going to be a
humanitarian standard, because you're close to the port, close to
the railroad, close to the highway, close to the Kuwaiti border
with you know, resupply. And with all that, they were going to
make this a humanitarian base. And they say they're not. And then,
you know, they announced this being an EPW camp, not a prison for
bad guys. And yet now, most of our people coming in now are bad
guys. So and then they're building up these small--

Q:A

Bad guys being criminals.

Yeah, yeah. And they're going to leave these prisons now up
north, they want to (inaudible). So and this place has to be
costing an absolute fortune. I don't know why we just wont take
each prisoner and say, here's 5,000 bucks get out of here, stay out

o trouble, we want our money back, and you come out ahead.

Q:A

So now, this hospital--let me ask. How are sick--or how is the

medical treatment done for the Iraqis and then how is it done for
the Americans? And I mean by that, in particular, like sick call,

whe does it begin or is it 24 hours?

Sick call is over here, the 161st has it now but more than
that, very impressively, the 46th engineer group, they had one PA
with like seven medics or whatever, they staffed it, ran it, 24
hours a day, seven days, by themselves.

(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

They did an extremely good job. And every time I'd ask, do
you want help? He said, "nope, we can do it." And then they did an
extremely good job. Which now they left a week ago and the 161st

stepped down.

• And when did the 161st step down?
Probably, two or three weeks ago. Two weeks ago.

Q:A

Okay. Now, did they assist you in your work with the prisoners?
Right. So the way it is now, we have two tents now down at the
new prison, the uh--

-A

The interment facility.

Yeah and the guards bring down the prisoners who say they have
a problem. It's really organized now and we see them in tents,
there's no air conditioning, but we see them in the tents. Some
things that we can't handle there, they need IVs, they need an x-
ray, you know, they passed out, then we put them on a deuce and

they have to bring them up here.

0 1 "-'2

1. ,104,

Okay.
Okay and if they need surgery or whatever, the Spaniards can

111111111hat or even x-ray. Then, for the American soldiers, the 46th
engineer PA handled them, 24 hours a day. Of course, now they have
sicki call seven to ten because this is military police unit,
probably, maybe even a fourth of this compound is working 24 hours
a day, you can't see geez you missed sick call. So I've asked them
to be very, very liberal. That there job's not to say, geez, this
isn't serious enough, sick call into the tent. I've asked them to
be Very, very liberal on it. So we see them there, and up until
yesterday, there's some connexes, which is your metal boxes that
everything's shipped in in the back of a truck. Prisoners who are
in trouble or you know, are causing riots or the rapists, whatever,
they were in those connexes. I would go by and see them, they had
a barbed wire, wood frame on the end of it. And it was getting so
hot, it was probably 130 degrees in there or whatever, it got to be
just too hot. And I believe it was yesterday was the last day that
they took them out of there. And so I made rounds on them too.

Q:A

So, there for a while, we were busy because when they built

116111ii .

the new prison, they had the old one still open, the new one open,
so we were seeing prisoners at the brand new prison, still at the
old one, at the connexes, and then this high security area. It was
kind of--we'd see them in five different areas.

Okay now you said at the interment facility, they're putting in a
tent, and you would see--or medics would see them there.
And the physicians and the PAs.

Q:
A

Cool. Now how was it at the old facility?
We just saw them out on the street.
:A

Q:
A

So 'u would go out to them--

--We just went down the lane, every day. And down the lane,
and they came out there, amidst the sun and the dirt and whatever,
we treated them. So there was no facility or anything else.

:A

Let me ask, how's the Red Cross been throughout this?

They were really interested as to what was going on at the
beginning. You know, the lack of treatment and everything else.
And I feel on the whole, that they were very satisfied. They saw
we were trying, and there were things that weren't done, it wasn't
because we didn't care. You know, if you're short on people,
you're short on people. And then this high security area, that
crossed them, I didn't know it was there. Probably even today,
probably 50 percent of the soldiers here don't know this area's
over here. It's about 200 yards behind the burm over here. Nobody
knows it's even there. And I didn't know it was there and they
weren't being seen. And the Red Cross found out about it and gave
us a check off on that. And so when I went over there, it was like
the second or third day, the Red Cross doctor went with me, and he
complimented this--my interaction with the Red Cross doctor was
that I felt that he was satisfied with what we were doing. So

ri.1t 1..?
KA\

1. IVthere was never, again, if something wasn't done, it was because we

t (JJwere short and on and on. And they had to see it.
So out of, I want to say not quite ignorance, but lack of not being

Q:

informed as opposed to deliberate action...

Right, and just being overwhelmed with numbers and everything
else. And I felt they saw that we were passionate and had every
intention to do good.

Could you give an approximate number of how many Iraqi prisoners
you treated or have been treated medically?
11111111i It'd be in the thousands. Because it was interesting, after
it settled down, we became their entertainment is what I would say.
(laughter)
We were at break. That's why we start to see you know,
headaches, backaches, whatever whatever.

Q:
A

Q:
A

So people who've been in the compound wanted to get out--
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

And I have philosophy that everybody gets a pill. In my own
practice I do that. I don't give out antibiotics, because there are
all kinds of studies, showing that we way over use them. So, if
youhave a backache, you get a Tylenol or an Ibuprofen or whatever,
and I still do it now. I, I mean they hurt, they're bored, they're
sleeping on the grounds, you know, on and on. And they're getting
bit by scorpions and vipers and whatever, so. It's not my job to
say that somebody doesn't hurt bad enough.

Now you talked about scorpions and vipers. What areas or how much

of pest control is handled by you or what advice do you do?

i.
:There was definitely--when we first moved in,(inaudible) in a
24 hour period, two of them got bit. A viper and I think one of
them died. They had to life flight them out of here. And he may
have died. We could never track it down, we couldn't find out
wher;e the guy went to or whatever. So, these are pretty serious.
And then, that was only two. When they moved into this brand new,
brand new area. It's a big area.
A

Q:A

Bi area, hadn't been inhabited by humans before, so vipers--

• Were in there, yeah.
:A

Have any US soldiers been bit by vipers or scorpions?

Scorpions, yeah, yeah. Scorpions a lot. And right now, if you
go out there and start moving--the 46 engineers, they had three of
them, they were just signed in. One of them was a big one, it was
black. It was probably six inches long or whatever and it looked
like a big lizard. And the other two were small white ones, the
whites are the ones that get everybody.

(break in tape)A

—
:AAll right, this is Sergeant A

I'm interviewing

ou..t.')-1- Lieutenant We were just talking about some of the
pests and problems that they cause on the post here, scorpions and
vipers.

Now, Major MN one of the traditions here, he killed two
snakes in his tent. One of them was just here about a week or so
ago, it was a big one. And I don't know if anybody ever saw what

014324
kind of snake it was or whatever, but he described one of them as
big. And their area's been there for weeks and weeks, so I don't
know where the heck that thing came from.

Probably swallowing up dogs.

MEN Yeah, yeah. The dogs are the worst thing and we went and
killed a bunch of them.

Q:A

Now, for a doctor I expect wild dogs on post has got to be a major
ost.

Well, they can carry rabies, and fleas and everything else and
they're just mangy dogs. And I feel sensitive to the Iraqi people,
when we leave a bunch of these dogs running loose, I (inaudible)
they could take out a little kid. Some little kid crossing the
field, and you got 700 or 800 dogs. We're not killing them now but
we killed a whole bunch of them. The veterinary people are here
now and you're supposed to catch them alive so they can go kill
thlm. And then some soldier took a rifle and killed some dog,
apparently the whole story is this dog was in between a whole bunch
of soldiers and this kid shot him from a long distance. That makes
a good story.

Q:A

In Arifjan, a soldier was being attacked by a dog, and another
soldier did the right thing, he shot the dog. But he didn't pay
attention to where the other soldier was, he shot from a distance
as well, it went through the dog and hit the soldier, so.

Yeah, yeah. So, anyhow. So that's where we are today. It's
more mundane type thing and my philosophy is that most of these
prisoners are good people and I leave it up to the (inaudible) of
God to pick out the bad ones. I treat them all as if they're good
people and give them respect, and maybe we can stop the violence,
the circle of hatred, it just goes on and on and on.

Q:A

Could I get some statistical information from you? Like numbers
rocessed a day average or, both American and Iraqi.
You know, we have log books on it. I mean, I would have to dig
it out, but we have the books on all of it.
But do you have sit reps that would have that information?

Q:
A

Q:
A

Q:
A

1111111111 Have what?
Sit ation reports?

No, you know, only now this week have they asked us from
Arifjan, have they sent us some papers that we're to fill out now.
Whereas in the past, lucky us, we didn't have to do it. So, yeah we
can pull up all along, day one when we started. The numbers are
kind of confusing because you have different degree of difficulty
of the problems and then different numbers in prisoners. So when
you have almost 7, 1000 prisoners fou have a bigger pool to draw from
than when you get down to 600. And the prisoners are more
complicated. But we have that information, we just have to dig it

out.

All right sir. If it's all right, we might do that later. Now, one
of 'the big problems here at Arifjan is the heat. What do you do to
revent that?
Camp Buka--

Q:A

I'm sorry?
You said Arifjan, here at Camp Buka.
:A

Q:A

Oh, Camp Buka, I'm sorry.

No right now, yeah, that is the overwhelming that controls
your whole day. The thing that affects you because by 8:30 it's 100
degrees. And like the other day, I was walking--we have a
thermometer so I know what it is. I'm not guessing that, boy this
is 120 degrees. No, we have a very accurate (inaudible)
thermometer. The other night, I was just, in my mind, thinking how
cool it was. You just went, I can handle this. Walk by
thermometer, it's 106. It's like, you know, (inaudible) it's that
cool. But in our tent--see my problem is, that in the afternoon I
have a 2-3 hour break between seeing prisoners, and then before I
start these meetings at 4:00 and on and on. But the problem is, I
go back to our tent and, I'm not exaggerating, it's got to be 125
degrees in there. And so about half the time, for a while, I would
just lay on the floor, in front of the door, and just exist. It
just overwhelms you. And now I think I'm getting more acclimatized
to it, it doesn't bother me as much. And it's kind of a mental
thing, now I'm just saying, no, I'm not going to let it bother me.

Now, how about the US soldiers who, you know, some of the soldiers
are in the guard towers, now it's eight hours it used to be 12
hours. Some of those towers are metal so the heat can get pretty
intense. Have there been heat casualties?

No, no. Knock on wood. I can't believe we didn't, I can't
believe it. And we couldn't have handled it if it happened. These
(inaudible)trucks, I mean I had plans to put people in with the
cabbage, the lettuce and the ice. The meat.
:A

Q:A

use, you didn't have the air conditioning.

No, no. A few times we used the Spanish (inaudible). But
somebody, to cool them down, you'd have had to put them in a trunk,
in a (inaudible) truck.

Now, a couple days ago, at one of the meetings, we talked about
that sulfur smell and how it was affecting one of the guard posts,
or the check posts as you say. That to me's kind of a unique
experience. What else have you faced like that?

Imummomp To me, the level of concerns I have for what's going to happen
to us, desert syndrome number two, I feel it is going to come from
what we've been breathing. We were down there in those compounds
breathing that stuff, next to prisoners coughing in your face and
on and on and the wind blowing. These guys are pooping all over
the place and on and on, and I question what's in the air. And
plus the dust, there's a medical problem called silicosis from
breathing dust. And I just question what breathing contaminated
soil and who knows what is in the soil. That's my concern.

Q:A

Speaking of what is in the soil, I have heard rumors that this was a landfill once--11111111Ism It's certainly a landfill all the way around this. But again, this was a tv station.
Q:
A

Okay.

Q:
A

1 4 3 2.
k\\

1111101111, That's what the big tower is, for the tv station. And so, I
would assume that in the immediate area around us--have you been in
to Ukasar ((sp?))?
No sir.
Every inch of it between here and there is a dump. Every inch
of the road is where they haul big trucks in and dump the stuff. So
if this wasn't a garbage site, and they found out on the map of the
prison in our talk, they have this one area called boot hill, this
morning they found seven people with shovels outside of the SUV and
they're burying a new pit. And it is a burial ground, it's right
here on post. Probably a thousand yards from here. And so, so they
bury people here and then when the MI guy was interviewing
somebody, this guy was getting ready to get on the bus and he said,
I feel bad about this, I got to tell you, I know where there are
some landmines, ten minutes from here. So they convinced the guy
to stay over night, and you can drive out there if you want, you
can see them, they got them taped off. These landmines are just
sitting on the ground. Just mass of them. Landmine field just
about a thousand yards from where that new prison was going to be.
So I mean, there's crap around here and I guess (inaudible) goes up
in the air. So I mean, the burial ground's part of it and then if
this was a garbage dump, it is ten feet away. So the area itself,
the main area was a tv station.

4: You mentioned the landmines. Have any soldiers been injured in any attacks or unexploded ordinates or anything like that?
No, not here. They have all over the place, that's a big
concern. Had they built that second prison, there may have been a
good chance that somebody may have, because it was right next to
it. But these things, I saw a picture of it, one of my medics went
on patrol with the guards and they got pictures of it. These
things were just laying on the ground, it wasn't even buried. Or
it was buried then and the wind's blown it off. It's just all over,
it's just funny, I mean you think of a landmine, (inaudible)this
just looks like someone went out there and just started throwing
them around. Tons of them.

And there's, from what I've understood, there's literally tons of
unexploded ordinates surrounding this camp.
Yeah, I've heard of that. The landmines are the most worrisome
I think.

Q:
A

Yeah, an RPG you can see and if you step on it, it might not
explode.
(overla ing dialogue; inaudible)
Yeah, but a whole landmine...

Q:
A

All right, let me see. Let me ask you, doctrinally, has this been
what you expected or have you had to use many field expediencies
here, and if so what?

It wasn't the horror picture that I stayed awake with,
thinking of going through Turkey. Me, being the only doctor with
thousands or hundreds of casualties, and not being seen by anybody.
But it was halfway overwhelming--it came as close to that as I

Q:A

wanted it to. For the first few days, just the mass casualties that
we saw, that were infected and needed to be, you know, wounds
changed and everything else. What I feel good about is that I
feel, this is what I tell the new doctors and PAs next when they
come in, that in your life, you will not help improve the quality
of life and bring comfort to people. But also, you will never be
so uncomfortable yourself. And I feel that. I feel like I have
done more, been able to help more people than I ever did in my old
practice and make life better. You're driving your humvee, if
somebody's walking, you pick them up. You don't do that at home.
And if there's some soldier, it's 115 degrees out, and he's walking
in the sun--and there's a thousand things a day you get to do like
that. And with the prisoners, to just sit there and listen to them
like they're human beings--they probably haven't ever seen a doctor
in life. Giving them care, to me is very unique. It's very, very
touching. Sometimes I've been very, very pleased with that. I feel
I have made the world a better place. And the United States, I
don't make it a better place very much. I don't know if that makes
sense.

It does, it does.

But just, in treating Iraqis as good people, and like I said,
I let God (inaudible) pick out the bad ones, that's not my job.
And also not my job to say who's not sick enough to be seen. I'm
getting paid good money, I'll see them all. I don't care if it's a
headache.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Letts see, have they been appreciative, the Iraqis?
Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean they recognize you here. A

Yeah.

How about the interaction with the prisoners?
1111.11. I've heard many of them speak English, so --
:A

Q:A

Do ou get to talk to some of them and know them?

On the whole, you don't, because that's not real good. I mean
that's -- you know, I mean there's -- what's that -- Stockholm
syndrome or whatever where you -- so no, I never made a goal to do
that or anything else. But I've hired two former prisoners. I
paid for them with my own money. They're my translators. And they
speak very good English. One kid's kind of retarded, and he
doesn't speak that good English, but with these prisoners down at
the:Conex (sp?), these guys are sleeping down there with them, and
they're having a guard fight (inaudible). We've had three severely
mentally ill patients down there. I don't know if you were here

for that or not.
:A

Actually, I heard it was four.

The fourth one was up here, but there was three of them down
there. It was just crazy. These guys had never been here. They
weren't criminals. They weren't prisoners of war. Somehow, they
got released from mental hospitals, and they got swept up and
broT;Ight here. See anyhow, this one guy would help bathe and
everything else, and then the other kid, he was in the (inaudible)
guard (inaudible) Sergeant, but he spoke extremely good English.

(inaudible). So he would help them, but now he stays here some

0143N
place and every morning my PA picks him up and he goes down and

translates for me down there.

So let me ask you -- you said you had four mentally ill patients.
How did you handle them differently from the rest of the prisoners,
or --

Q:A

A:A

Well, they were in the conex, so they weren't handled good. I
mean, these people were probably schizophrenic, whatever. I mean,
these people only talked to the four winds. So, no, there was no ­
-as far as I can remember -- if I had the ability, I would have
thrown them out. I mean, these were people, you know, peeing under
the (inaudible), you know, whatever, whatever. Did they not know
their names, who they were, where they were from, or anything else.
So they had them in conex (sp?) said just to hold them there,
because they cause problems if you put them in --

Q:A

And if they were put in the compound, what would have happened?

A:A

I don't know. I don't think they would have been beat up, or
whatever, but we would have lost them. They probably would have
laid there and -- you know, oh, what's that guy doing back there?

So what happened to these persons?

Q:A

A:A

I got in trouble over this one. We fought this for a week. This
was one of my three battles. One was air conditioning. The other
was getting a helicopter down here. There was a hospital in
Baghdad that said they would take them. And the third was to get
gravel on the road, so finally, after a week of talking about this,
and Major IIIIIIII(sp?)-- have you interviewed her?
No, sir. But I know who you're talking about, the S1 -­Right. Major 11111111works about 20 hours a day, OK? I'm not
saying she's up 20 hours a day. She's working 20 hours a day, fine
tuning, micro-managing every prisoner here, (inaudible) conservated
areas bigger. And so she was helping on this. We got this
hospital lined up, got this helicopter to come down. This was five
or six days ago, to take these people to Baghdad. And I wanted to
go, because I haven't been to Baghdad, and I'm sitting there -- I
work every day of the week, and this would be my trip.

-A

What hour shift do you work, sir? About 12-hour days, 8-hour days?

I go 7:00 til about 10:00 at night. But I'm just checking on
things. Is that work? I'm in five meetings a day. That's work.
Yeah, so I see my own patients, and then I want to know what's
going on.
And you know it's over in 90 days.

1111111111 Yeah.
I expect that helps. All right, so let's go back to --

101111111 OK, so basically there's this long, drawn-out story. So
.any ow, we finally get a helicopter in here, and these guys are to
be here at 7:00, and so I have these prisoners. I get them bathed,
and I have brand new uniforms for them. These jump suits for them.
I get them bathed, get them all clean, get them -- and come up
here. And then -- I'm going down so I can sleep good. So at five
o'clock in the morning, I get up and started rounding these
prisoners up. I get up here and we make the decision let's go

Q:A

0 1 4 3 9
ahead and put them to sleep. So we inject them with haldol (sp?)
and valium. And the helicopter doesn't come. And here, I've put
four psychotics to sleep. So anyhow, then the helicopter, they
called to say -- they didn't tell us. We called them, they say,
well, it's overcast, we couldn't fly. So at 9:30, 9:25, they said
we'll be there in half an hour. When they hung up, we could hear
them. It was a one-minute warning. We've got these four people in
here and the helicopter (inaudible) at about 1,000 yards. We
didn't want them waiting, so we grabbed them, tried to get them out
there (inaudible) -- and I talked them into letting my translator
go with us, who's living down there with them, and he knows them.
They trust him and everything else. So originally, they said no.
Then, OK, you can go. They've got the force. So we get on this
Black Hawk. We go up there, and the unit that's supposed to meet
us doesn't show up, and we landed it at Baghdad International

Airport.
Oh Baghdad International Airport, BIA.

Yeah. Saddam International Airport, that's what they wanted

\:41/4_9„,\y'L to (inaudible). We landed right in front of that sign, it was right there on the runway. The helicopter's sitting there. And the minute they turned it off, when we landed, we said, could you get the 150th MP group and have them come out here. We have the prisoners. And some little cute voice from off the radio said, yeah, we'll do that. Well, they turn off that helicopter then, that shut off the radio. This isn't a car. So we lost our contact. And luckily, here, somebody gave me a radio. I called back and said, it's 170 : degrees and these guys are waking up. It takes four hours to get there and I've got some prisoners that are waking up, and we're sitting on the runway. It's 100 and x degrees, and these guys don't show up. Finally, finally, an hour and 40 minutes later, these guys show up with the dukes that have, and the only thing in my mind is what do I do with these prisoners? Do I put them on there, because this helicopter then needed to leave because we had to get back before dark. And I thought, just take care of ­
-they know where to go, they've got the (inaudible) anything else.
So I get in the helicopter and leave. I take them stuff to stay.
So anyway, it's a long story. So they take off and end up and the
hospital doesn't take them. So here is this MP group with these
four psychotic (inaudible) prisoners, and I came back and Major

was ready to kill me. And legally, you don't do that. You

on t drop somebody off with somebody else. You take them to the
door and sign off on them. So I said, oh, geez, I, oh. You asked
me to be (inaudible), not on this. So anyhow, that was a long
story. Apparently, somewhere, somehow, they got accepted at some
hospital up there. But that was -- gosh. Because I thought I had
done everything so cool. I came back and I gave her a thumbs up,
and oh boy. It wasn't thumbs up. Major A

(sp?) found out 11(.0'‘
that the hospital hadn't accepted them, an there were four
psychotics out there -- she expected me to stay. My thinking was
how am I evergoing to get back from Baghdad? I could have been up

I have a saying, it's nice to be important. It's more
important to be nice.

OK.

1111111111 And I think people need to be nice. I see people short-
tempered, people who don't get along, who take up fits. You're an
authority over these prisoners, and everything else. It's easy, be
nice. And then the saying that I tell them is that you'll never
bring more comfort but you'll never be comfortable yourself. And
it is a comfortable (inaudible). The (inaudible) leaves and the
wind and the dust seem to have dropped way down. There were really
bad:storms. But now the heat. (inaudible).

Q:A

Now is the heat going to get worse, and what's being done to combat
that, as far as --
Nothing. You know, we've got these air conditioned camps
here, but I don't work in them. So it doesn't do me much good.
:A

Q:A

What about the soldiers, are they going to get air conditioning?
I don't think so. I think they'll close this place down in a
month.

That quick.
Yes. They'll start. That's my prediction, about a month.

Q:A

In the meantime, everyone's--

You could die, you're just going to flat out -- because it'll
get hotter. This is the hottest time frame (inaudible). You know,
I think it will be up another four or five degrees. What's funny
is to take a water bottle to wash your hands with it, and it's hot
water. That's the shock, is to wash your hands with that, you
think, you know, I wouldn't turn on the water in the bathroom any
hotter than this, and then that's what you have to drink. You have

no ice. So.

Q:
A

Q:
A

I've done that. When I pick up my camera, it is literally burning

hot sometimes. I'm waiting for it to go out.

1111110111 Well, what I get a kick out of is all of our medicines says
store at under 87 degrees. And we carry these things in these
brown, metal boxes, and I leave them back in the Humvee. When I go
to take them out, that is so hot you can't touch it. It's like an
iron. On top of that box, it has to be -- it's got to be 140
degrees. Maybe it's 150 degrees, and I'm thinking, that's like 60
degrees than that medicine's supposed to be, and I wonder, does
that work? What does that really mean, to store it under 87
degrees? The capsules, they get glued together. The gel caps.
Yes, sir, OK.
They're just fluid.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Now let me ask -- I kind of asked about field expediencies earlier,
like, you know, these are nice stretchers that you have.
They're very good. (inaudible).

Q:
A

So I'm just curious, like -- once I saw an episode of MASH. Very
cheesy, but -- someone needed -- someone's throat had been damaged,
so they got a pen and put it through their -- so what field
expediencies have you had to use, I mean, nothing so dramatic as
that, but --

Just working in the dirt. You're sitting there sticking a
knife plate in somebody in the dirt.

Q:A

How do you try to beat that? I mean, that could lead to infection,

so what do you do --

1111111111Antibiotics, they either went home or they got better. It
just kind of blew my mind that this stuff -- what we did seemed to
work. It was just kind of a shock. You know, but we see them
every day -- normally, in the outside world, you wouldn't see
somebody that often. Here, we made a point to -- we didn't allow
them to go every other day, which in the States you could have
done. We were quite aggressive.

Q:A

Let me ask you something. We talked about prisoners with

de ression. Have there been any U.S. soldiers with depression?

1 Yeah, I've seen one, and there's one who was severe -- that
I'm aware of. They called me, and one of our companies underneath
us. This was a guy who had been cheating on his wife, and on
Mother's Day, this girl contacted his wife. And so when he called
home on Mother's Day -- I don't know if it was the same day, but
when he called home to talk to his wife and wish her a happy
Mother's Day, she had a few words to say to him about the fact that
he's been having an affair. And I don't know if that was the only
affair. And so, yes. He pulled a gun out, and went out on

(inaudible). So, I mean, they got him out of here on the spot.

(inaudible). I mean, he could have killed himself.

Or someone else.

Mainly himself. Mainly himself. So it's interesting -- I'm
seeing, in my unit, probably two (inaudible) males -- soldiers that
are hitting it off with each other.

Q:A

Oh. Oh. Wait a minute.

1111111111111 (inaudible) and they're both very, you know. There's things
you see that you shouldn't see, and then you see somebody good. So
it'g kind of a unique experience, to have people living together,
you know, in close contact nonstop. you know, on and on. So you
see a lot. And to me, it's interesting, this experience of seeing
how the Army ran. And I sit it on four meetings a day, at the
battalion and the brigade level. I've seen people report on and
on. I've never seen that. I'm like the guys in MASH. I just kick
back and it just happens. Now I know how it happens. It happens
because people do a lot of hard work. So I've been impressed.

Q:
A

Q:
A

Let's see. That's a pretty good way to end this interview. Is

there anything you'd like to elaborate, or something I've totally

missed, let me -- you've listed some of your big accomplishments,

you've listed challenges.

No, I'm pleased that I and our medical group and this unit --

11111111,at. we had a purpose, a need that I feel a lot like we met. And I
feel sorry for people that (inaudible) on setting their -- and I
hated it in Fort Lotte (sp?). I was sitting there day after day,
just taking a check. So it was nice to have a mission that was
there and very legitimate, and to have pulled it off. And I feel
that (inaudible). I was glad to be a part of that.

ni4 3 3 4

116--.2.Q:.Yes, sir.
!IL 11111111110: „ They rattle just -- and with the dust. You walk on the floor and. you go, (inaudible) . OK, you can turn it off.
Q:.OK.
END OF TAPE
014 S35E)