Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Problem prisoners in Cuba

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2002 | 8:44 a.m.

CALL THEM DETAINEES, illegal combatants, criminals or POWs, it makes little or no difference to me or most Americans. What does make a difference is that they are treated humanely by our country during the time we hold them as captives.

I'm convinced that the people being held as captives at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba are receiving good treatment. A few hours after he returned from visiting the holding facility in Cuba, I was on the phone with Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons. Gibbons, a combat veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm, told me that he had walked down the middle of the holding area. "The prisoners have showers, good medical care, good food and the opportunity to practice their religion." Gibbons added that they also have one additional ethnic meal a day. "Actually, their living conditions are more comfortable than the hot tents their guards are living in," he told me. While our military people are working in the sun, the prisoners are sleeping in the shade where mild breezes blow through the network surrounding them.

What Gibbons says is important to me because as a pilot he could very easily have become a POW during combat missions over enemy territory. People who have had this experience are more likely to be sensitive to the needs of other prisoners. I wish Sen. John McCain had also joined the members of Congress who visited the captives in Cuba.

What everybody should remember is that we aren't holding a bunch of boy scouts in what is called Camp X-Ray. They are trained and thoroughly indoctrinated as killers with Americans as their primary target. Very simply, killing one of their guards would be an accomplishment earning bragging rights.

As a very young Marine, my first assignment overseas included guarding Japanese POWs in a compound, and in another compound were held war criminals. None of the POWs appeared to be a threat because World War II was over and they would soon be returning home to Japan. Furthermore, they were soldiers who had fought for their country and lost and now had no other place to go but back home. During that time I never saw a POW or a war criminal mistreated. They ate the same dry and canned rations we had, but theirs was supplemented with large quantities of rice.

During the Korean War we learned some tough lessons about the handling of prisoners held on the island of Koje-do. The North Koreans and Chinese being held there took over the compound and were running the operation. In 1952 this eventually required combat troops from our 38th Infantry Regiment and the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment to be brought in and regain military control.

Here are some excerpts from my Second Division history book that describes the situation: "The camp consisted of 17 occupied compounds with a population of approximately 80,000 prisoners-of-war and civilian internees. Because of the large number of prisoners and the limited space, control had been inadequate. Inside certain compounds were Communist organizations which had been plotting mass demonstrations, riots and eventual escape. Prisoners were equipped with many types of homemade weapons: spears, knives, flails and gasoline bombs.

"The climax to the prisoners' efforts was the capture of the camp commander on 7 May. Immediately the 38th Regiment was displaced around Compound 76 as a display of force and was prepared to enter upon order. An ultimatum was given the prisoners to release the camp commander. After 78 hours the captured commander was freed, but the prisoners continued their belligerence."

When control had been regained in Compound 76 the men of my outfit found "grim evidence of the 'kangaroo courts' " the prisoners had conducted. "Prisoners who were suspected of being anti-Communist had been tortured and slaughtered," and so had many who had let it be known they didn't want to be sent back to China or North Korea after the war.

Prison camps loaded with men who don't value life present special problems. They can't be allowed to set the rules and neither can the do-gooders of the world who continually stick their noses into solving problems they don't comprehend.