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 ...
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 2002—helps 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 military—two 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.
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!
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