The American Military Tortured Me
By Rolal Leahcim Nareik
Posted On June 08, 2005

We were driven onto the island in a bus late at night. They drove us all around the island before we could get off. I later learned that the reason for this tactic was to disorient us and to make escaping more difficult.

Immediately after the bus came to a stop military personnel boarded the bus and the verbal assaults which seemed to never end, commenced. We were kept awake for the rest of that night and through the next day. While we waited on line for shots and other medical procedures the verbal abuse continued. Some of us were so exhausted we fell asleep standing up.

They took the clothes off our backs and made us all wear the same clothing. Handing out the clothing was a military woman who screamed and cursed at us worse than any of the men. This was most humiliating.

Next they shaved our heads. Then they made us fill out forms in freezing cold room while they mocked us. To eat we got a sandwich which was half frozen. There were other food items included with the sandwich but the men in uniforms confiscated them.

One of the men with me was so afraid of the military men in charge that he didn’t ask to go to the bathroom and just urinated on himself. This brought the scorn of the military men and the entire group was punished for the act of the individual.

Often we were made to stand stiff and straight for what seemed like hours while the blazing sun beat down on our hairless heads. If we moved even to wipe the sweat from our eyes the military men became ferocious. Coughing and sneezing were also forbidden. We were forced to shave our beards daily. Some of us were even given the added humiliation of being required to shave twice per day.

Frequently we would be sent to a sand pit and forced to do “exercises” in it as the unclean sand got in our ears, mouths and eyes. Occasionally we would get a shower after the pit but showering only lead to more verbal abuse and degradation. Prior to showering we were stripped down completely naked in front of dozens of other men including the military men in charge of us. The showers were overcrowded and the men in charge continued to hurl insults.

We were herded around the island like cattle. At every stop we were told how worthless we were. Even during meals, the verbal abuse was constant. We were given but a few minutes to eat. The portions were tiny and barely edible.

Often meals were immediately followed by calisthenics which occasionally caused vomiting. Daily we were forced to sit in a contorted cross-legged position where much of one’s weight rests upon his feet and ankles. The pain was severe. Usually my legs went numb and I had trouble standing up when finally we were permitted to do so.

On one occasion we were all forced to jump into water above our heads, even those of us who couldn’t swim or who were deathly afraid of the water.

We were given a approximately 2 minutes every night for prayer but the yelling and cursing immediately preceded and followed prayers and we were not given any privacy to pray. Once a week we were allowed to worship with others on the island like us but we were forbidden to speak to the others present and we were verbally abused before and after. One of us was caught reading the holy book when he was not supposed to be. A military man ripped the holy book from the man’s hands and tore it to shreds.

We were also responsible for cleaning the bathroom to include the humiliating task of cleaning the pubic hairs of other men out of the toilets. Scrubbing the disgusting shower floor while on all fours made our knees ache and bruise. Some of us were required to clean up after the men in charge which was most degrading.

This abuse continued everyday for months that seemed to last as long as decades.

Anti-war zealots, so-called human rights organizations, certain politicians and members of the media would use the term “torture” to describe the events chronicled above. However, the acts of so-called “torture” occurred while I was a Marine Corps recruit on Parris Island, SC in the summer of 2000.

By merely excluding a few facts from the narrative and spelling my name backwards (my real name is Kieran Michael Lalor) a reader can be completely mislead. The events described above actually occur in boot camp, but taken out of context they appear far more extreme than they are in reality. Sleep deprivation, embarrassment, verbal abuse, and discomfort have been hallmarks of boot camp for all of the military services for decades. No one with any credibility denies that this type of tough training is an effective and necessary method of turning undisciplined young people into the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines that comprise the greatest military force in the history of mankind.

If similar tactics can be used to keep prisoners in-line or to generate innocent life saving intelligence, certainly such tactics are legitimate. To put discomfort and humiliation under the heading of torture, obscures and diminishes the horrors of actual torture like Saddam Hussein’s regime perpetrated on its own people or what the communist North Vietnamese did to American servicemen.

The Abu Ghraib prison guards need to be held accountable and punished not for embarrassing terrorists but for posing for and taking pictures while on the job when a reasonable person should know that such photo opportunities were unbecoming a soldier and that publication of the pictures would undermine our war effort.

Draping an Israeli flag over a captured terrorist and having women sit on a detainees lap has been described as torture. This is ludicrous. How as recruit I would have loved to trade arm-aching push-ups for a little flag draping. As far as having women sitting on laps; I’d like to see a survey of how many of our boys at Fort Bragg or Parris Island or Great Lakes would object to that.

What is most puzzling is that so many of our elected leaders, journalists, and self-proclaimed peace activists are willing to let true torturers who rape, meme, cripple, and brutalize off the hook, by stretching the definition of torture to the point where it is meaningless while unfairly demonizing the U.S. government and the American military and shamelessly abetting our enemies.

Mr. Lalor, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is the founder and executive director of the Eternal Vigilance Society. For more information, visit www.eternalvigilancesociety.org.

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