Toasts Bart with the Chicano*
Yup, i'm over in Iceland right now. Great
place to stay if you ever get the
chance...the natives are friendly, the bars plenty,
and the landscape beautiful.
Hmmm...Well, I did a 6 month rotation out in
Bagram, Afghanistan back in
2003-2004 (sorry, no can do with the specifics,
Operations security and all that).
During this time, Bagram had the prison for all
the "special" prisoners from that
delightful little war. My unit had the
dubious pleasure of being camped not more
than 100 yards away from this bullet hole filled,
Soviet era building.
Since military deployments are always one of two
things, very hectic or extremely
boring, i had a lot of free time on my hands.
I used this free time smoking and
drawing on top of my comm van. And, you know,
i saw the strangest stuff happening
at the prison. Like, people in civilian
clothes going in, surrounded by big wig military types.
Sometimes they would be in there for only a few
mins, othertimes, hours. One of them,
a spooky lookin little guy, even had a dog with
him. I talked to some of the Army grunt
types that were guarding a gate nearby (you never,
ever, ever talked to the prison guards,
they didn't like it and would threaten you with
arrest if you tried, or so i heard) and they
said that the civilian clothes guys were military
intel types. I thought this was funny,
since my wife in military intel, and she doesn't
wear civvies. So i asked him what they
were doing in there, to which he replied the
classic, "I don't know, and i never want to know."
Now this went on for a couple months, until i
got stuck with night shift. That's when things
started to get interesting. I'd be out
smoking and wishing i had a beer, when i would hear
strange shit coming from the prison.
Sometimes it would sound like shouting, othertimes
it would sound a lot like screaming.
Another funny thing about this prison, sometimes
you would see people being brought in,
but you NEVER saw anyone leave. My Army
guard shack contact told me that most of
the prisoners in their were high ranking taliban
and the occasional Al Quaeda. But one time,
he said, he saw a guy being brought in zip tyed
to a pole, and that spooky guy with the dog
followed him in. My army guard guy told
me, and i can't confirm any of this since i never got
within 15 feet of that prison, that what he was
hearing from his buddies who were guarding
that guy zip tyed to a pole, was that he was
a local warlord type, and was being interrogated
by that spooky guy with the dog.
Apparently they left him tyed to that pole for
a week or so, bringing him food only if he
cooperated. Also they would hose him down
every once in awhile, and this was winter BTW.
The spooky guy with the dog apparently was Albino,
and used the dog as a terror tactic to get
people to break easier. Now, again, i never
saw any of this myself, just rumors. The only thing
i know happened was that i heard those screams
and shouts. But, it makes you wonder doesn't it?
Abu Graib and the recent investigation....a couple
of bad apples.....what was it Rush said?
A prank?
All of the stuff i just told you happened BEFORE
the iraqi war.
Those bad apples musta really gotten around huh?
I got more, but the wife wants her computer back.
Thanks for the email and the symbolic shot of
chicano!
SSgt JB
Dude, thanks for the letter.
I enjoyed reading it - send more of you like.
Your job is to stay safe and get home ASAP.
Maybe you and I will do a real shot of Chinaco some day, under President
Kerry.