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It was cold. Desert cold.

Posted on by mjgranger

It was cold.  Desert cold.  Probably in the low 70’s, but after a day near 100 in the shade, it was cold.  Some wore their uniform to the shower, some went in PT’s.  Almost all went wearing flip-flops.

There is no light (light discipline, don’t you know?).  You cannot see.  You’ve been this route so many times before you could do it with your eyes closed, so it doesn’t really matter.  Your body is on auto-pilot anyway, counting the steps without you, and then up the stairs of the trailer (you’re lucky; on this FOB you have a trailer).  Your arm reaches up, your hand turns the knob and FLASH!  You’re blinded by the light.

The trailer is air conditioned.  You freeze.  Shivering, you wait for the water to warm up.  It never does.  You suck it up, quickly poking in, and then out of the water.  You soap up.  Liquid ice rinses you off . . . until: “Hey, that’s not cold.” “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!”

The scalded parts of your body are red.  As you stumble out of the trailer, and the door self-closes behind you, you almost fall down the stairs because now you are completely blind.  The large gravel hurts under your flimsy .99 cent PX flip-flops.  The siren goes off.  You run to the bunker, losing a flip-flop on the way.  Now the gravel REALLY hurts.

The mortars fly in.  One here.   One there.  You feel the WHOOSH of the concussion, and the sound is right next to you, but it could be a mile away.  You’re either dead, or you’re not.  You remember your first “incoming” in-country.  You waited for the all-clear.  And you waited.  Until it occurred to you that there was no such thing as “all clear” in-country.  It’s never safe.

You make it back to your hooch.  Fall into your bed (you have a BED, not a cot in a tent, like you had for six months out THERE).  It’s so soft.  Your head hits your pillow, or does it?

Your mind wanders.  Instantly you are alone, in a space craft, small as an Indy car, tight, but cozy.  You’re warm now, and it’s dark, but you see the stars through your canopy, some rushing by, some so far away they look still, very still.  You focus on one, one far away, and it’s blue, and green, and white.

You are getting sleepy in your dream.

You feel a warm tingle, an excitement almost.  You know . . . you are going home.  And you weep.  You weep as only you can when you’re alone, and feeling alone, amidst a billion stars.

As you remember having set the auto-pilot, cryogenics takes over.  You feel safe, and warm, and good.  Home.  You’re going home.

“Captain!”

“Who said that?”  You whisper a scream.  You keep your eyes closed, because you know if you open them, well, it won’t be good.

“Captain!”  The drill sergeant-like voice roars.

You know who said it now.  And you still don’t want to open your eyes.

The fist of the drill sergeant-like voice is now pounding on the door of your hooch.

You know they know you know.

“Damn!”  What did I forget now?

“Mail.”  The voice is sane now.

You fly out of bed, open the door and snatch the letter.  “Letter?”  It’s smooth.  It’s cool.  The blast of heat from outside says it’s nearly midday.  You slept.  You slept hard, for the first time since . . . .

You don’t have to read the return address.  The smell tells you who it is and you just sniff it.  The envelope flies off the  folded page inside, and there it is:  Cursive, perfect, writing.  Curled and curved beautifully; and slanted just so.  The words don’t even matter.  You crumble around it, pressing it to your nose and face, letting it become part of you, tears staining the page.

“I Love You,” it said.  “I Love You,” you say.

It’s so hot it hurts to hold your 16.  You hate wearing the Nomex gloves because, well, damnit, because it’s just too damn suffocating is all.  If you’re not in a fire-fight . . . you’re not in a fire-fight.  You’re back on the FOB, how long now, weeks?  Out THERE.

You have to take a convoy in to Anaconda to coordinate some psych services for the boys who saw their buddy die yesterday.  You need a ”Team” or a member of a team.  You could do it yourself, but you know you’re not a professional at it.  But you could do it.  Sit there, looking at them looking at you.  Blank stares, but stares full of . . . full of a lifetime, or at least a life.  A life taken, snatched; kidnapped under fire, under explosion, under blood.

The trip takes four weeks, or an hour, or somewhere in between.  It doesn’t matter because you’re there now.

You walk around aimlessly, but find who you’re looking for.  Tell them what you need to tell them, and then walk into the MWR.  It has the feel of a renovated airplane hangar.  The inner room is a theater, pitch as a moonless night.  Outside the room, sit/lay grunts.  They are dusty, dirty, sweaty.  They are toast, from the toaster of the bright orange heat tab in the sky.  You know that “tired.”  You have been that tired.  You are that tired.  You go into the theater and seek refuge.  You seek protection.

It is pitch as a moonless night.  Quiet as a mouse, except for the voices coming from the screen, and the soft gentle chorus of snores.  There are no seats left, and everyone is . . . asleep.

Detainees Earned No Extra Legal Privileges

Posted on by mjgranger

Over 400,000 lawful Prisoners of War were held in the United States during World War II without one call for extra legal privileges for them.  Habeas corpus was suspended then for dry foot German saboteurs, who were captured, tried by military commission, and then most executed, all within four weeks time.  Why is it then, when all Americans have been targets for Islamist extremists since the death of Marine CPL Stephen Crowley in Islamabad, Pakistan, back on November 21, 1979, when he was murdered by one when the U.S. embassy there was stormed by bussed-in radicals (later to be funded by Osamma bin Laden) on false news reports the U.S. had seized the mosque at Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, and after Iranian “students” had seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran weeks before, on news that the Shah of Iran had been allowed into the United States for treatment of an illness, and fast forward to today, when we have troops in 75 countries (including those we defeated in WWII), CIA in over 90 countries, and Diplomatic Security Service in over 200 countries, that we pay so much attention to a comparative handful of UNLAWFUL COMBATANT Islamist extremists who want to kill us?  These detainees BROKE Geneva Convention rules, and our own Law of Land Warfare (US Army Field Manual 27-10 Warfare http://ac-support.europe.umuc.edu/~nstanton/FM27-10.htm ) during war time, and BY LAW have earned NO EXTRA LEGAL PRIVILEGES.  Also BY LAW, they can be held “until the end of hostilities.”  Where is the sanity in even discussing what should become of them?  They have ZERO rights, according to LAW.  But, because they are held by the benevolent, kind, generous, and moral United States of America, they are treated within the spirit of Geneva, and in accordance with DoD policy (by which they have due process rights – see Military Commissions Act  http://www.defense.gov/news/commissionsacts.html ), and in accordance with U.S. Army Regulations governing the care and treatment of detainees. All Gitmo detainees are lucky to be alive, let alone realistically hoping to receive extra legal privileges.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have told me on two separate occasions, once in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and once in Iraq, that “nobody does [detention operations] better than the U.S.”  The detainees are at Gitmo so long as they either pose a risk or are suspected of having valuable information that may aid us in our effort to win the Global War on Terror (Struggle Against Islamist Extremists).

What’s it like to take care of people who want to kill you?

Posted on by mjgranger

“Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior”

“Hard as it is to believe, one of the most significant stories of the post-9/11 age is also one of the least known, life at Gitmo, the detention facility for many of the world’s worst terrorists. Few individuals are more qualified to tell this story than Montgomery Granger, a citizen soldier, family man, dedicated educator, and Army Reserve medical officer involved in one of the most intriguing military missions of our time. Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay is about that historic experience, and it relates not only what it was like for Granger to live and work at Gitmo, but about the sacrifices made by him and his fellow Reservists serving around the world.”

Andrew Carroll, editor of the New York Times bestsellers War Letters and Behind the Lines

Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay, or “Gitmo: The Real Story,” is a “good history of medical, security, and intelligence aspects of Gitmo; also, it will be valuable for anyone assigned to a Gitmo-like facility.”

Jason Wetzel, Field Historian, Office of Army Reserve History

Then U.S. Army Reserve Captain Montgomery J. Granger found himself the ranking Army Medical Department officer wiht the Joint Detainee Operations Group (JDOG) on a joint mission like no other before it; taking care of terrorists and murderers just months after the horrors of September 11, 2001. Granger and his fellow Reservists end up running the JDOG at Guantanamo Bay’s infamous Camp X-Ray. In this moving memoir, Granger writes about his feelings of guilt over leaving his two-day-old son, Theodore, his family and job back home.  While in Guantanamo, he faces myriad torturous emotions and self-doubt, at once hating the inmates he is nonetheless duty bound to care for and protect. Through long distance love, and much heartache, Granger finds a way to keep his sanity and dignity. Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay is his story.

Montgomery J. Granger is a three-time mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Ret.) who resides in Long Island, New York, with his wife and five children. Granger is the author of “Theodore,” a personal narrative published in the 2006 Random House wartime anthology, “Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front in the words of U.S. Troops and their Families.”