26 April 2009
 
American Values

("SERE-Trained" Patch Available for purchase in the Coffee Mess, on completion)

Seven-six-eleven-five-nine-an'-twenty mile to-day -
Four-eleven-seventeen-thirty-two the day before -
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
                                    - “Boots,” by Rudyard Kipling
 
It is a long time ago now, and a lot of water over the board since. It is still clear in my mind, though. The scratchy music was done for the night and the California dawn had burned off, and the low humidity meant that the chill soaking water was mostly gone. We were all tired beyond measure, dirty and hungry.
 
The guards had told us in Pidgin English that the training was not going well and that we might be held into the indeterminate future. It had happened before, they muttered, and could happen again.
 
There was a pot of plain oatmeal on the fire and it had been tantalizing, bland though it might be, and then a boot kicked it over. Things did not look like they were going to turn out well.
 
Then, suddenly, the camp PA crackled to life with the strains of The Star Spangled Banner, and a crisp American flag was run up the flagpole. We were back home. It was over.
 
Tears ran down my face. I knew I was being manipulated, just as we had been for the past week, and I hated it, and still the tears came.
 
There was a bus, and a wonderful shower that I will never forget any more than the Chinese Opera or the “Boots” chant, over and over.
 
We were not done, though. There was a mandatory debriefing at the Base Theatre to explain what had happened to us, and why.
 
To ensure our attendance, we were informed that no-shows would repeat the curriculum.
 
They had our full attention. During the presentation, certain code words spoken by the SERE Staff while in the camp were translated to inform us on how we did in compliance with the Code of Conduct during our interrogations.
 
No paper records were kept. It was quite informative, and maybe the best training I have ever received outside of marriage.
 
A man- you can find his name if you look- gave us an astonishing account of his values during his period of captivity with the Vietnamese. He was known to camp officials as “The Incredibly Stupid One,” for his astonishing performance while in the bag.
 
He was a Seaman Deuce, the story went, too junior to know anything worthwhile. He had been blown from the deck of his cruiser on the gun-line off North Vietnam and washed ashore. He cheerfully agreed to cooperate with his captors, but claimed he could not read nor write; had bad vision; just happened to have a method to memorize all the names of all the POWs, and accepted early release to get the list back to America in his head.
 
On his return, he was able to provide the names and personal information on about 256 other POWs as well as revealing the conditions in the prison camps, which was used in the Paris Talks. The torture of the POWs was suspended.
 
I did not believe the story for a second, but listened to him tell it in awe. I think he was sent in to do exactly what he did- a clandestine mission that required more courage than anything I can imagine. I think he volunteered to become a POW!
 
I think I went to Las Vegas after the briefing was done, which is about as far from being War Criminal #5 as it is possible to get in this life. Then back to Japan to re-join my squadron. The times before and after SERE are gray as a Kanto Plain winter, but those weeks at Warner Springs are still memories bright and crisp.
 
The lesson I took away from the whole thing was that there were definitely some things in life that are worse than death.
 
We had only a few POWs in the next decade or two I was on active duty. A couple Navy guys shot down in the Bekaa Valley; a couple Army helicopter guys who strayed north of the DMZ in Korea. That led to a series of trips to Pyongyang, one of which I made, and the realization that I would prefer to be dead than their captive.
 
A couple dozen more POWs in the Gulf War, including Scott Speicher, who is still missing.
 
SERE training stood them all in good stead, except for Scott, who was inadvertently declared Killed in Action, which removed any incentive for the bad guys to produce him later, alive.
 
Then came the attacks of 9/11. I was working at the Original Headquarters of one of those agencies at the time. Everyone’s job had changed with the attacks. I was trying to align capabilities against new threat vectors, or that is the best I can do to explain it. There were bad people taking captives and murdering them in the most graphic manner imaginable.
 
My professional values were scandalized, not to mention those as an American citizen.
 
In the course of all that, and against the backdrop of the wild adventure in Afghanistan we knew as Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, I came to work with a gangly DO operative. He had been following the Mujahadeen for years, since the Russian War.
 
He had protested the way we walked away from the Muj, and he had stayed engaged with and then against them as interested faded and the Freedom Fighters morphed slowly into the Taliban.
 
He was always in trouble with his superiors, telling inconvenient truths. His most recent reprimand had been for questioning one of the Bad Guys before 9/11 while pretending to be a member of a different Service, one that did not have the codified prohibitions on harsh treatment the way our people did.
 
Imagine for a moment: it turned out that he was the one in trouble, not the killer from whom he was trying to elicit information. His frustration was palpable.
 
It was a looking-glass world. When DCI George Tenet had the President sign the memo that “took the gloves off,” there was widespread relief. You could feel it all through the building.
 
I wasn’t sure things were going right, despite the apparent success in Afghanistan. There were reports flying around about the attack on the tall building on the West Coast, and critical points in New York City. I did not have a need to know where they came from, and did not care.
 
They say that you know when to retire, and it is true. I left active duty in September of 2003, honored to have served and proud of what I had accomplished. I was also thoroughly done with my part in it all.
 
It was a year or so later that I thought about “Boots,” and Chinese Operas again. In 2005, The New Yorker magazine alleged that military psychologists had adapted the SERE curriculum for use against the Bad Guys. The program reportedly went back to the days immediately after the attacks, to the beginning of the Afghan War in October of 2001.
 
The New Yorker claimed SERE personnel were at Bagram Air Base in November.
 
I don’t know anything about that, nor if the techniques and tactics from SERE are what are being used on the detainees. Looking at the declassified Top Secret memorandum from the Justice Department, though, the things that were approved- stress positions, slapping, and the water-board were all right out of the SERE-C handbook.
 
If you were looking for a program that had a proven record of effectiveness with minimal physical damage, you would be hard pressed to find another one that well documented, right off the shelf.
 
Is it right? I don’t know. I have had all these tactics used on my body, or observed them first hand, and I am just fine, thank-you.  I will confess to a certain aversion to small confined spaces, bitch-slaps and Chinese Opera to this day.
 
Was it different for the Bad Guys? Of course it was. One of the High Value captives apparently got the water-board 186 times in one month. It seems like he was going for the Jihadi John Wayne award.
 
Any SERE graduate could have told him there is no percentage in that.
 
The President says that the use of SERE methods betrayed American values, and of course I agree with him that we should be nicer people. I would remind him though, that the tactics were developed as a humane if unpleasant inoculation against real torture elsewhere.
 
The West Virginia National Guard troopies who manned Abu Graib were never intended to have access to a specialized curriculum, but once things got rolling at Bagram the word clearly got around.
 
The gloves are going back on now, and I suppose we will only find out if this is the right way to go when kinder and gentler tactics fail, and a lot of us die.
 
When it happens- and I am convinced it will- the failure will at least it will be in accordance with one set of American Values. You know the one I am talking about; it is where the other guy has to hit you first to justify a response.
 
That already happened, didn’t it?
 
Oh well. There is something else we will have to talk about. Funny how you can't finish one thing before there is another to deal with.

The swine flu thing coming out of Mexico has the genetic characteristics of three species mixed up in it: humans, pigs and chickens. They say it might be the one with enough elements to go pandemic and get us all.
 
I had a chance to meet SARS, when that disease represented the 2003 version of The End of The World, but we can get to that tomorrow. I hope.
 
In the meantime, try to stay indoors, and avoid crowds and capture.
 

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com