Posted on 03/26/2009 2:57:42 PM PDT by lowbridge
Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks had been a guard at Guantánamo for about six months the night he had his life-altering conversation with detainee 590, a Moroccan also known as "the General." This was early 2004, about halfway through Holdbrooks's stint at Guantánamo with the 463rd Military Police Company. Until then, he'd spent most of his day shifts just doing his duty. He'd escort prisoners to interrogations or walk up and down the cellblock making sure they weren't passing notes. But the midnight shifts were slow. "The only thing you really had to do was mop the center floor," he says. So Holdbrooks began spending part of the night sitting cross-legged on the ground, talking to detainees through the metal mesh of their cell doors.
He developed a strong relationship with the General, whose real name is Ahmed Errachidi. Their late-night conversations led Holdbrooks to be more skeptical about the prison, he says, and made him think harder about his own life. Soon, Holdbrooks was ordering books on Arabic and Islam. During an evening talk with Errachidi in early 2004, the conversation turned to the shahada, the one-line statement of faith that marks the single requirement for converting to Islam ("There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet"). Holdbrooks pushed a pen and an index card through the mesh, and asked Errachidi to write out the shahada in English and transliterated Arabic. He then uttered the words aloud and, there on the floor of Guantánamo's Camp Delta, became a Muslim.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...

Sucker.
That’s the best reason I have heard yet for closing Gitmo. [sarc]
If not before, then right then he should have been pulled off duty.
I can always tell by the title if the dying media wrote the article. Bash US or promote Islam all good to them.
I figured that he must have holes in his head. Photo proved it.
So has he also accepted the requirement of Wahabbiist Islam that Muslims must convert the infidel, or kill him, if he refuses to convert?
He should have been fired and charged with passing contraband to an inmate.
Nice earlobe...
This is disturbing and another reason why its important to keep these vermin offshore instead of letting them into American prisons where they could influence ordinary American street criminals or even guards.
Shoe Bomber Richard Reid is just one of thousands of cons that have become jihadi in the joint.
Retard
Time to put him on the other side of the cell door.
Spineless. Read his background.
Guy had a 1” thick tin foil hat (thinks Bush had colluded with 9/11 attacks) and had delved into a lot of New Age stuff. Was tattooed with a motto about being driven by demons. He’s the only guard, to Newsweek’s knowledge, that ever did this.
Not even worth a raised eyebrow, but perhaps some Christian prayers would be in order.
When I was a Marine, they had a little something called a “blanket party” that sounds tailor-made for this fella....
we should stop taking prisoners
There is a huge amount of proselytizing going on in the prisons.
This idiot allowed himself to be conned by the enemy. He is a disgrace to America.
They are needed, so we are told, for getting information. But once you do that you can’t just, like, kill them.
Here’s the good news: when this retard is sent to hell he will have plenty of good reading material. Newsweek went to hell a long time ago.
Why in the heck would the army assign this nut to guard Gitmo?
What’s wrong with his ear LOL
Excellent question. I wouldn’t think we would want more nuts at Gitmo than what we capture and send there already.
Well , it is easy to see how he got his security clearance.
If conservatives used a weirdo like this to make a case, Newsweek would would say that they were exploiting the mentally vulnerable.
“But then, Holdbrooks is a contrarian by nature. He can also be conspiratorial. When his company visited the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Holdbrooks remembers thinking there had to be a broader explanation, and that the Bush administration must have colluded somehow in the plot.”
“his parents were junkies and he himself was a heavy drinker before joining the military in 2002helps explain what he calls his “anti-everything views.” He has holes the size of quarters in both earlobes, stretched-out piercings that he plugs with wooden discs. At his Phoenix apartment, bedecked with horror-film memorabilia, he rolls up both sleeves to reveal wrist-to-shoulder tattoos. He describes the ink work as a narrative of his mistakes and addictions. They include religious symbols and Nazi SS bolts, track marks and, in large letters, the words BY DEMONS BE DRIVEN. He says the line, from a heavy-metal song, reminds him to be a better person.”
“On his first home leave, he got engaged to a woman he’d known for just eight days and married her three months later. With little prior exposure to religion, Holdbrooks was struck at Gitmo by the devotion detainees showed to their faith.”
“Within months, Holdbrooks was released from the militarytwo years before the end of his commitment. The Army gave him an honorable discharge with no explanation,”
“Back in Phoenix, Holdbrooks returned to drinking, in part to suppress what he describes as the anger that consumed him. Holdbrooks divorced his wife and spiraled further. Eventually his addictions landed him in the hospital. He suffered a series of seizures, as well as a fall that resulted in a bad skull fracture and the insertion of a titanium plate in his head.”
Well isn’t that special.
And now, for balance, what the MSM will never cover:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/usnews/060801a.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7355515.stm
Gackkkk. A goofball like this might simply let the prisoners loose.
It was just too much for him, nothing to do, he lost his mind.
This idiot would have joined whatever cult got hold of him first, it just happened to be TROPAL in this case.
I do think a lot of these fools (John Walker, Richard Reid and this clown) aren’t stupid; they just have an absolute lack of critical thinking skills. They’ve been told by are school system to “just think about it!” instead of actually doing some research on both sides of an issue.
Like I said, absolute fools who who are driven by what they want instead of reality.
Fraternization is a crime punishable by Courts Martial.
And that’s all I have to say on the topic...
I do not count it likely that even Obama would let Gitmo mix with general population of any prison.
But some prison personnel are weird. They would be the ones to watch.
So his line of command, knowing they’d get in trouble too, just say oops and bump him out the door with a pat on the back.
He looks so nirvana’d out under that lush greenery.
Omar Khayyam poetry anybody?
There is very little under that skullcap...
That would rightly be called collaborating with the enemy. Bad juju.
Naaah... the great Omar Khayyam is all about sex, love and getting drunk.
This guy is a Wahhabi now... they get pleasure from slittitng throats and blowing up themselvees.
MOONBAT!
“You can’t beat somethin’ with nothin” .”
That’s what happens when people who are essentially empty-— relativists, secularists, post-Judeo-Christian, etc. — come in contact with religious conviction, even a conviction which is erroneous or even delusional.
The Soul, like Nature, abhors a vacuum.
Some would say he was like a clean-swept house that attracted new tenants; and you can read more about that at Matthew 11:24-26.
They should have put him in another cell, for fraternization with the inmates. His job was to guard them, not hold long and meaningful, or meaningless as the case may be, conversations with them.
something does not smell right to me.
1.) Why did they let this obviously unstable guy near the place to begin with?
2.) Where was his commanding officer when all this fraternizing with the enemy was going on?
3.) I’d like to jerk a knot in that earlobe.
what a clown
When an Oprah like figure converts to Islam America will become a Moslem country. It is only a matter of time. The West seems to be sick unto death. I hope I’m wrong.
Maybe this guy is a plant to infiltrate Al-Queda, but that would probably be too optimistic.
Anyone who does that Ubangi earlobe disfigurement is akin to those that split their tongues.
Mentally deranged.
That's what it takes to join the false religion political cult of Islam, but should be screened out from guarding terrorists.
You have a lot more confidence in President Obama than I do.
He’s a loser of the first order. From the article:
“When his company visited the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Holdbrooks remembers thinking there had to be a broader explanation, and that the Bush administration must have colluded somehow in the plot.”
I’d just like to tell the loser to FOAD. BTW, is it any surprise that the rag newsweek holds him out as a hero? /SPIT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.