Standard Operating Procedure Page #10

---

at that snapshot in time.

You could read emotion on their

face and feelings in their eyes,

but it's nothing that

can be entered into fact.

All you can do is report

what's in the picture.

Somebody caught our administration

with their pants down. That's it.

They're pissed off

at that.

You can kill people

off-camera.

You can shoot people. You can,

you know, blow their heads off.

As long as it's not

on camera, you're okay.

But if it's on camera,

you're done.

You know, torture didn't

happen in those photographs.

That was humiliation.

That was softening up.

Torture happened

during interrogations.

Guys going through interrogation,

and they're dead,

and they were killed,

and they died.

That's where the torture happened.

We don't have photographs of that.

I just thought it was a bunch of

schmuck MPs acting like idiots.

I don't think so

anymore, not at all.

I think you got a bunch

of kids getting shammed.

It's just cover-ups and people

are afraid of culpability

and ramifications of their actions,

so there's nobody saying crap.

Except they're throwing a

lot of people under the bus.

I received a phone call

from a Pentagon reporter who said,

"You were relieved from command."

So I said, "I haven't

heard about it."

I didn't hear from General Helmly.

He didn't call me.

He didn't summon me to Washington D.C.

to be in front of his desk

so he could relieve me.

This is cowardice

of a different kind.

You're afraid to look

Janis Karpinski in the eye?

I got a letter 10 days

later from his office

relieving me from command

of the 800th MP brigade.

My name was a good name in the

military until I did what I did.

My uncle died in Vietnam 13

years to the day till I was born.

My dad has two bronze stars

for valor from Vietnam.

My grandfather's got a

bronze star from Vietnam.

And then I come along

and get involved in that.

That just put that

name in the mud.

You're taught from

the very beginning that

you have to follow

your orders.

And if you don't you're

gonna get in trouble.

And if you do,

obviously you end up in trouble.

You know, it's easy for retired

colonels and generals, and majors,

or whatever to

stand there and say,

"Well, these people should

have known illegal orders

"and they should've stood up to

these lieutenant-colonels and majors.

"And they should-a stood up to

them at the time in a war zone

"where, you know,

lives were at stake."

And it's just kind of

unrealistic to think that...

That that would happen.

You were getting shelled

every day, shot at every day.

Detainees, you know,

putting together shanks,

weapons, starting riots.

You know, this guy blew up,

like, 10 of my buddies.

He needs to get

his behind kicked.

I know what I can do

and I know what I...

And I think I know

what I can't do.

I think I know what I can't do,

but I see these guys doing this

and I see, you know,

the CIA guys coming and doing this.

You know, after a while

it's like, "You know what?

"It's free reign,

just don't kill them."

I was not the same person there

that I am sitting in this chair

or that I was

before I got there.

I don't know what I

could've done different.

I could've said,

"Screw you, I'm not working here"

and just gone to jail for

disobeying an order, I guess.

But, I don't know.

I'm sure everybody can do

something different put in...

I just don't know what I

would've done different,

put in the same

situation.

If I could back all the way up,

I wouldn't have joined the military.

That's what I would

have done different.

It's just not worth it.

You go through all that

trouble to start back

where you were

when you first went in.

Trying to get in school,

trying to get...

It just wasn't worth it.

I just want to

go on with life.

You know, get a job,

raise my son.

I don't think

I have a lot of choices.

Can't change anything, so...

And if I did, then

I wouldn't have Carter.

I mean, I wouldn't trade him

for the world, so...

I wouldn't want to go

back and change anything.

It's how the world turns,

ain't it?

People backstabbing

other people.

Unfairness.

It's drama. It's life.

You live it.

Now I just got to move on.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes