Chaplain Unger is from MCCDC Doctrine Division. He's been in Iraq for the

past four months.

30 May 2004

Dear Friends,

This is my third letter from Iraq. I have been working myself into the

right mood to do this. Today is the day. In my last two letters I have

leaned toward being as upbeat as possible. This time will be different;

today I want to talk about Memorial Day, but I will start off by giving my

perspective on the Abu Ghraib prison problem.

First off, the investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib

began back in January. That is why the first court martial was ready for

trial in May. The senior people here knew about the investigation; the

rest of us didn't. By the time the media "broke" the story, the

investigation was almost done and the soldiers who had committed the abuses

had already been rotated home.

Second, I (we) don't see all the news coverage that you in the states see.

I do see some Fox News and CNN. Fox editorializes toward the right wing;

CNN is the voice of the anti-war movement. I wonder that if CNN had been

around in 1942 we might all be speaking German and Japanese. I can tell

you this, everything I have heard on CNN is so biased, negative, and

out-of-touch that I will never watch CNN for the rest of my life. That

being said, when the rest of us found out about the abuses we were shocked

and sickened. I think maybe more so than people back home because we are

here; these are the people I see every day. The people I see every day

who are going out to fix: schools, hospitals, reservoirs, power plants, and

sewer systems. They do these things risking sniper fire and hidden

explosives. These soldiers are not a handful of bad apples like those at

Abu Ghraib, these soldiers number into the thousands. Now think for a

second, how much have you seen about that on the news? I believe Abu

Ghraib should have been reported, but when I see the fixation of the media

on the actions of a few, when the courage shown in reconstruction and the

restraint shown in combat by thousands of our people is never shown, I

believe this is inexcusable. For the real story of what our people are

doing here, go to www.cjtf7.com/index.htm < link << link .

Click on Coalition News and then

Humanitarian Efforts.

Third, what happened on that cellblock of Abu Ghraib is what happens when

leadership is not out walking around. That is true in the military or in

college dorms. I haven't seen it reported in the news, but other soldiers

turned in the soldiers who did this. If the dirt bags that committed those

abuses had been turned loose among the troops here it would've been ugly.

I haven't heard any comments about them coming from soldiers that didn't

express a hope that they would get the maximum punishment. A few leaders

need to get demoted too.

As per the "outrage", if you were "outraged" by this, good. I was.

However, I would like to ask Arab governments and our own media elites,

"Were you just as outraged by what happened under Saddam? If so, you

didn't show it."

Here is what people need to understand: the interrogation of prisoners of

war is a little tougher than what the typical thug gets by the local

police. I went to Survival, Evasion, Rescue, and Escape (SERE) School back

in 1995. I am more proud of completing that course than anything I have

ever done. Also, I would never do it again. After playing hide and seek

with "bad guys" in California in March, we all got caught, knocked around,

froze, went hungry, sleep deprived, threatened with worse, and then

interrogated. Here's the deal: when interrogation is done correctly,

people don't break so much as they leak. (The purpose of SERE is to teach

you how not to leak. That is the classified part of the school.) The

interrogator wants them to leak in a way so that the prisoner doesn't even

know he is leaking. When someone breaks, as opposed to leaking, they

usually give out a data dump of gibberish and then physiologically shuts

down. A good interrogator avoids that. If you hurt them or scare them too

badly, they quit leaking. Interrogators ask the same question about ten

times, ten different ways. Disoriented people leak and they don't even know

it. What most Americans think of when they think of POWs being

interrogated is what they remember of our pilots in North Vietnam. The

abuse our people went through in Vietnam wasn't to get intelligence; it was

to exploit them for propaganda purposes. I mention this to put the term

"abuse" in context. When a terrorist here in Iraq or jaywalkers back in

the states report jailhouse "abuse," what does it mean? When we catch a

guy red-handed restocking his weapons stock and question him, withholding

his TV privileges isn't enough. He won't be happy, but neither will he be

destroyed or scared for life. He will tell his buddies, "I didn't tell

them anything." In fact he will have told us a lot.

As I said, I had to work myself into a mindset to talk about this. To work

around horror without out letting the horror seep into your soul is a

spiritual battle. This week I worked with a National Guard soldier who had

to clean up after a convoy of civilian aid workers were killed when an

Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off on the road into Baghdad. He is

a carpenter in civilian life, but this week he was out on a highway picking

up arms and legs while watching out for snipers. He was cleaning up after

monsters. Some other young Americans were put in charge of guarding

monsters and then became monsters. Care of the soul is serious business.

That is part of the reason why I became a Navy Chaplain.

The other reason is the people. The folks I have known in the military are

more interesting to be around than anybody else I know. This leads me to

Memorial Day. Earlier this month I went to Camp Cooke at Taji. (To lend

perspective, Taji is really north Baghdad; I am in west Baghdad.) The 39th

Brigade (Arkansas National Guard) is stationed there. I didn't know any of

them, but I wanted to see my home-state Guard here in Iraq. So I badgered

my way into flying up there for two days. They are stationed in the old

Iraqi army air defense school. Unlike downtown Baghdad, the old air

defense school was turned into rubble. It is getting better, but it was

like living in a junkyard.

Their first month in Iraq was tough. These soldiers patrol the roughest

part of Baghdad. While I was there, the Chaplain of the 39th told me this

story: One of the old troopers who came was a 52 year-old Sgt. who had

already done his 20+ years and had retired. But his son was in the 39th,

and when the father found out they were coming over here, he reenlisted.

On their first week in country, Camp Cooke was attacked by rockets and the

first rocket that landed killed the father.

I was born in 1958 and came of age when the Vietnam War and the anti-war

movement were both in full swing. It has taken me years to put this into

words, but I believe that as bad as that war was, the legacy of the

anti-war movement was worse. The anti-war movement gave rise to the moral

superiority of non-involvement and non-commitment. While that may have

worked to help draft-dodgers sleep at night, it's not much of a strategy of

how to go through life. Taken to its logical conclusion the message is:

don't commit to your county, don't commit to your spouse, and don't commit

to your kids, church, or community. Don't commit to cleaning up your own

mess or any cause that demands any more from you than rhetoric.

This was the mindset in which our country was firmly stuck. Until 9/11,

some woke up. Kids came down and joined the service. To the dismay of

some of their teachers, parents, and the media elites, they came down here

and raised their hand in front of the flag. And they are still coming to

the shock of the non-committers. The Marines have more enlisting than

their two boot camps can handle.

And we are all here together for Memorial Day 2004. Old National

Guardsmen, grandfathers, and single moms, Texans and Mexicans, Surfers and

Rednecks. A few weeks ago an Illinois National Guardsman, mother of

three, was hit six times, saved by her body armor, but lost part of her

nose. She stayed on her 50 caliber, firing on the bad guys, protecting the

convoy. She said she was thinking of her kids and the guys she was with.

Commitment is love acted out. It is sad that the non-committers missed

that. They and their moral high-ground haven't been near a mass grave. The

kids I see and eat with every day still want to help this country, in spite

of getting shot at while doing it. That is love acted out. You either get

it, or you don't.

During my time in Iraq I won't be able to see any of the Biblical sites

that are here. But a few weeks ago in Taji I got to stand on some holy

ground, where a father died when he went to war just to be with his son.

Sincerely yours,

Steven P. Unger

LCDR, CHC, USN