For informational purposes I’d like to share a POW’s view of the “American Gulag.”
Jerry Coffee was a POW for several years at the Hanoi Hilton. He writes a weekly
article for a little MidWeek newspaper that is delivered free to all residents
of Oahu. Coffee now travels the world as a motivational speaker.
SO YOU THINK GITMO IS A GULAG?
by Jerry Coffee
"On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the
temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking
with cold. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot,
but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since
the day before"----Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois,
June 15, criticizing detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay
Senator Durbin likened the American guards at Guantanamo to "Nazis, Soviets
in their gulags, or some mad regime of Pol Pot or others."
I was held in one of those prisons in North Vietnam for seven years. The
following is an excerpt from my book, Beyond Survival, and bears upon the so
called “torture” of the Muslim Jihadists at Guantanamo:
I had just been put before a firing squad for giving only my name, rank,
serial number and date of birth to an interrogator in the countryside soon after
my capture. The firing squad had been a bluff.
“So you think we are through with you!” The officer in charge barked an
order to the guards who untied my arms from behind the tree. The release of the
pressure on my broken arm was almost as excruciating as its application. They
shoved me back across the dirt courtyard to the edge of a drainage ditch. One
of the guards, with his rifle butt between my shoulder blades, forced me down to
my knees and finally flat on my face in the dirt. They tied a rope around my
upper arms very tightly until it cut off the circulation. Then with his foot
behind my neck he cinched by upper arms together behind me. The strain and pain
on my shoulders and injured arm was unbelievable. I could feel the cartilage
pop in my sternum and shoulders. Then they threw the remaining length of rope
over the limb of a close by tree and hoisted me up taut against the trunk of the
tree, my toes barely able to absorb the weight of my body. The officer jutted
his face close to mine: “We will see! We
will see”.
My left arm began to throb and hurt as much as my broken arm. The pain
came coursing through my arms wave after wave. The muscles in my thighs and
calves burned as I strained to be on my tip toes. After 20 minutes or so my
mind became so enmeshed with the pain I was aware of nothing else. From
somewhere came the guttural sounds of a wounded animal, grunts and sobs. It was
me.
The two guards returned with renewed determination, ready to begin the
real fun and games. The tree was on the slope of the ditch and I was on the
uphill side. But now they began pushing me around the tree to the downhill side
where my feet were completely off the ground. I cried out! I cursed and I
yelled and I kicked at them. One of them retrieved the filthy rag that had been
my blindfold during the firing squad charade and began stuffing it in my mouth
as a gag. With the rag only halfway in, he used the barrel of his rifle to
shove it all the way. I was aware of the crack and sting as he broke off one of
my front teeth.
My cries and curses were but growls and gurgles lost in the wad of
cloth. As I kicked at them they simply used the momentum of my thrusts to swing
me in a circle to the downhill side of the tree. I was a tether ball for their
sadistic game. My thoughts were so fragmented: pain…code of conduct…what
type of aircraft?..what aircraft carrier?..pain…
and more pain! “Oh, God, please help me to do what I need to do here. Make me
strong. Help me through this, Lord. Please!”
They kept playing with me, laughing, taunting. The bastards were
enjoying this. I was soaked with sweat, my arms below the knotted rope were on
fire. My shoulders seemed to be coming apart, and time stood still: their
faces, the canopy leaves of the tree over the courtyard, the huts of the hamlet,
the sweep of the rice paddies as I swung across the downhill arc of the
tree-----all just a swirling manifestation of my pain.
Suddenly, with a spike of agony the swinging was arrested and I was
staring into the contorted face of my inquisitor as if through a vermillion lens
of pain. He picked gingerly at the rag in my mouth, unraveled it and dropped it
to the ground.
“Well?” he said. His eyes narrowed. I was shaking my head “No, no!” as
I heard a reluctant, raspy voice whisper, “RA-5C. USS Kitty Hawk.” The voice
was my own.
That night as I lay in the dark on a pile of musty straw I came to the
sobering realization that Lt. Jerry Coffee, professional warrior, had let go of
his preconceptions of victory and defeat, and that in my confusion and shame it
hadn’t even occurred to me that I had just been brutally tortured. And thank
God, at that point, I didn’t know there would be much more to come.
At Guantanamo, the prisoners (who would slit our throats if given the
chance) have air conditioning, flushing toilets, copies of the Koran in 13
different languages, three “Proper Muslim-approved” meals a day, Red Cross
observers, soccer balls, five prayer times a day, complete medical care and
clean surroundings.
Senator Durbin, are you serious?
For me and my fellow American POWs who spent many long years in a filthy
hell hole—
often in solitary — a thin broth twice a day as meals, a bucket for a toilet
and brutal torture, Guantanamo is the Ritz Carlton.