Hard to Read--But Should be Read
by ELLEN NESSUNO
None of Us Were Like This Before by Joshua Phillips (Verso Books, 2010) is not easy to read – not because of style, which is eminently readable journalism, but because of the content. But for that very reason, we recommend that you do read it.
Phillips is a journalist who has reported from Asia and the Middle East and is no newcomer to war and its many horrific consequences. He started to report material for a book and documentary film on interrogation and torture, but meeting with the family of Sergeant Adam Gray caused him to change focus from what was done to detainees to its impact on those who were involved in the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
Phillips started out by interviewing former detainees through the Middle East and Afghanistan and heard from them how they were mistreated, and sometimes tortured. In spring of 2006, Phillips met soldiers from Battalion 1-86 who were not trained interrogators, but tankers. Yet, when Battalion 1-68 had captured Iraqis in 2003, they started a small jail where they terrified the detainees with mock executions, punishing physical exercise, sleep deprivation, and water torture.
Sergeant Gray committed suicide at age 23 after a nearly one-year tour in Iraq. He had returned to the US, went to a base in Alaska for more training, and was found dead in his barracks in August 2004. The Army ruled his death accidental, but his family was convinced that something significant had happened to him, based on the change in him upon return from Iraq. Phillips wanted to get to the bottom of it, too, particularly after the suspicious death of Jonathan Millantz, another Iraq combat vet. Both young men were tormented by their own abusive actions and by witnessing abuse of many prisoners. Both of them spiraled down into a world of drugs and mental illness. None of Us Were Like This Before documents much of what they experienced.
Phillips discovered that ordinary soldiers, not only CIA agents or prison guards, were expected to engage in interrogation and torture. Adam Gray told his family that soldiers in his battalion performed water torture by pinning down detainees and pouring water other their mouths and noses to make them feel as though they were drowning. Detainees were also tied by their hands to the highest rung on the prison bars and kept hanging there for a couple of days without food, water, or sleep. Jonathan Millantz told Phillips that solders kept detainees up all night with loud noise and physical exercise. As a medic, he was charged with checking prisoners’ vital signs to make sure they were not dying.
In spite of what they had experienced, both Gray and Millantz had wanted to continue as soldiers – as they had dreamed since childhood - but the memories of their experiences were so tortuous to them that they drank and drugged to hold the images at bay. In both cases, even if their deaths were due to accidental overdoses (which is still questionable), the real question is what drove these formerly committed soldiers into depression and substance abuse.
The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) was initiated by Congress to research PTSD in Vietnam vets. The study produced a little publicized finding: “abusive violence” perpetrated by soldiers resulted in a high correlation with diagnosed PTSD, and that torturing POWs could have even greater impact than combat violence.
While it is important for abusers to get help quickly, their same prevents them from reporting what they did and seeking help. Soldiers can also fear the retributive actions the military may takeagainst them for confessing their misdeeds. This particularly creates a quandary for medical personal such as Millantz because the Department of Defense compels military medical personnel to report prisoner abuse, per a regulation passed in 2006. Phillips quotes Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College: “The first step … is to recognize the … conditions they put these boys through. …It requires us to acknowledge that we asked things of soldiers that went well beyond asking them to fight on behalf of their country…”
Once again, the military attempts to deny the effects on soldiers of wars with dubious missions and unacknowledged criminal actions. Perhaps Eli Wright, who went through combat medic training with Millantz, best expressed the sad reality of the effects of war when he told Phillips after Millantz’s funeral, “We lost more guys in my unit after we got back from Iraq than we lost in Iraq as a result of suicide, reckless behavior, ODs, whatever else. And those guys didn’t die in honor of their service. They didn’t die as patriots and defenders of freedom. Those guys died because they were trying to drown out and hide from the reality that that war had dug into their hearts.”