A Gitmo veteran's comments.
Hugh Hewitt
I interviewed a veteran of Gitmo last hour on the show, and provide his remarks here. I hope you will give his comments as much credibility as you do the e-mail cited by Senator Durbin that prompted him to compare the conduct at Gitmo with the conduct of Nazis, Stalinists, and the Khmer Rouge.
Hugh: Pete in New York is a veteran of Gitmo. Hello Pete, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Pete: Thanks for having me on Hugh
Hugh: When did you serve in Gitmo?
Pete: I was there about two months ago, for a year.
Hugh: Thank you for your service. What say you about Dick Durbin and everything you have been watching over the last month?
Pete:: It has been unbelievable to watch it unfold after having spent a year there. I mean it seems to be a lot of people who don't know a whole lot about what they are talking about, talking about things that may have happened years and years ago. 2002, 2003. If they could see the professional operation that is being run down there today, I think they would take their words back in a second.
Hugh: Pete, which unit were you with?
Pete: I was with the New Jersey National Guard.
Hugh: Did you see brutality at Gitmo?
Pete: I didn't see one bit of it.
Hugh: Are interrogations ongoing at Gitmo?
Pete: Absolutely. The facility is there to gather intelligence.
Hugh: Do they use extremes of hot and cold to gather intelligence?
Pete: That I can't speak to directly, but I can tell you it is nothing that any of us would deem to be inhumane, especially compared to what many of our servicemen and women have been put through overseas.
Hugh: Any violence, in terms of physical brutality of the prisoners you observed?
Pete: Absolutely not. In fact, my men and I spent nine hours on a runway waiting to try and get a detainee to go back home who had refused to do so because he wanted to stay at Guantanamo because he was being treated so well.
Hugh: Food okay for the prisoners at Guantanamo, Pete?
Pete: I think it is better than what my guys got for a year, to be honest with you.
Hugh: You an officer, Pete?
Pete: Yes I am. Second Lieutenant.
Hugh: Are you proud of the way your men conducted themselves vis-a-vis these prisoners?
Hugh: Absolutely. I mean, you've got guys from New jersey who were just, you know, minutes away from the Towers when the fell, who knew family members who died that day. And the professionalism with which they conducted themselves around men who may have been involved in those attacks was extraordinary.
Hugh: Do you feel they are being slandered by these conversations, the Durbin statements, the Minneapolis Star Tribune?
Pete: Oh, sure. It is something that I have come to expect but thankfully we have men and women who are willing to conduct themselves, you know, the right way on a mission no matter what anyone is saying about them.
Hugh: Tell us about the prisoners at Gitmo. Are these killers, or are they misunderstood religiously observant Muslims?
Pete: I tell you one thing, Hugh. I had a soldier in my platoon who spoke fluent Arabic, and so I'd go up in a tower and he'd interpret for me, and I am telling you, these guys are talking about, you know, how much they hate America and how much they would love to kill somebody if they could get their hands on them. These are not friendly guys, and given the opportunity, as I think someone put it, to spend the night at it with a few members of the editorial pages of the Star Tribune, I think that maybe they would take their statements back."
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