First hand testimony that the Dems lie about Iraq:
07/08/2004
BETHLEHEM, PA — It's not the war in Iraq that haunts Lt. Col. Dennis J. McGlone. It's the contention surrounding it.
The Army Reserve officer returned from Iraq in March after heading two prisoner of war camps there.
McGlone, 56, of Bethlehem, leads the 744th Military Police Battalion. He's served in the military for 35 years. He works full-time as a reserves supervisor in West Hazleton. He has two daughters and three grandchildren.
A career military man, he's upset by misconceptions about the war, the insurgencies and the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad.
McGlone didn't work at Abu Ghraib. He oversaw Camp Whitford at Talil Air Force Base, south of Baghdad, and later Camp Cropper, a facility for high-value detainees at Baghdad International Airport, where about 55 members of the "black list" of former high-ranking Iraqi officials of the Saddam Hussein regime are held
"The American public perceives that the entire country is in turmoil," McGlone said. "There are only pockets of insurgents. I never felt threatened up close. We were there for a purpose and it was just and right. I was honored to work with a country in its infancy of democracy."
He added that the military police conducted themselves with honor. The military police provide security and assistance to ailing Iraqis. They help people in need of medical attention.
"They are doing a tremendous job over there," he said. "There were a very small number of people involved (in the prisoner abuse)."
McGlone said he never witnessed any crimes against prisoners, nor would he have ever condoned it.
McGlone did tour Abu Ghraib, and the memory of the experience lingers.
Abu Ghraib was a notorious prison under the old regime.
"I visited the death chamber," he said. "It was a chilling feeling. It was sterile, steel and concrete. There were two gallows with steel trap doors. The death cells were not even 6 feet by 6 feet. They couldn't even lay down in them. They were put through a lot of mental torture."
Abu Ghraib held a reputation long before the coalition forces invaded Iraq.
"Abu was in horrible shape and completely looted of its infrastructure," he said. "There was no electricity, water, windows. Anything that was not nailed down was taken by the looters. You could see right from the start it would have a problem."
The soldiers in his command 15 miles away at Camp Cropper, he said, worked diligently to ensure that prisoners received the basic needs: food, water, housing and medical attention.
In fact, the medical attention was the best that some had ever experienced, they told the guards.
Prisoners could write loved ones letters and get mail from the outside. And they didn't spend all their time behind a cell door. They were allowed outside for daily exercise. This prison received high marks from the Red Cross, McGlone said.
"The prisoners were compliant," he said. "There were never any runaway riots or uprisings. They could even raise complaints to the guards and we would investigate. At the same time they knew this is not a Holiday Inn, this is a prison."
Security remained a constant concern. The prisoners were highly educated and many spoke English fluently. Guards tempered their conversations, so they wouldn't divulge too much personal or military-related information.
"These were intelligent people," McGlone said. "They survived 35 years. They were quite capable of taking something one person said and twisting it to another person to gain more information."
His tour of duty included humanitarian expeditions. The Iraqi children melted his heart. Barefoot, they would flock around soldiers wearing broad smiles and asking for candy. McGlone kept treats in his pockets for those occasions.
"The kids you could just scoop them up and bring them home with you," he said. "I have two granddaughters, so the girls especially. You realize you can't adopt them."
His soldiers did adopt a girl's school. They solicited donations from family, friends and church groups back home for new clothing, school supplies, soccer balls, ceiling fans and medical supplies. The troops reluctantly participated at first until they realized the rudimentary conditions the children suffered, he said.
Several incidents changed McGlone's view of life. One includes watching a medic change the bandage of a recent amputee.
"It was pretty pulpy and bloody, but I forced myself to watch the procedure because I didn't want one of my soldiers to go home missing a limb."
No one under his command received any serious injuries, and he's grateful for that.
McGlone said he did experience a near miss while traveling in a convoy visiting prisons. They were driving off an expressway when an improvised explosive device went off, between his vehicle and another. It was a control-operated device, which means someone had to push a button to detonate it.
No one was hurt.
But it shattered the vehicle's windshield.
"The explosion was not like in any movie," he said. "It was the loudest bang I had ever heard, and then we were enveloped in thick, black smoke for about 10 seconds. My immediate reaction was to get out of the truck, but that's the wrong thing to do."
The enemy has a reputation for peppering explosion sites with machine guns to kill anyone alive, he said.
He walked away shaken, but unharmed.
"When you go back and have a cigarette, and you don't smoke, you realize that you hit the lottery that day," he said. |
