Reservists not ready for prison duty, some say

CUMBERLAND, Md. -- Not long ago, they were ordinary people with ordinary dreams. One hoped to become a police officer like her father. Another wanted to go to college after a divorce. Now these reservists from the 372d Military Police are facing criminal charges for abusing Iraqi prisoners in their care. The photos of naked Iraqis and smiling soldiers taken during the abuse sparked a widening international scandal that has embarrassed President Bush and outraged the Arab world.

The way that these reservists -- who had worked ordinary jobs at prisons, chicken factories, a hometown Papa John's pizzeria -- came to be accused of extraordinary crimes has anguished many in the hills of western Maryland where the 372d is based.

In Cumberland and its surrounding hamlets, towns of freight trains, farmhouses, and mobile homes, some suspect that intelligence agents at the prison pressured the soldiers into the abuse, a conclusion supported at least in part by an internal Army investigation. Others cite lack of training or immaturity among ill-prepared reservists as possible explanations.

"I would like to know the reason why," said Sharon Alleva, a 49-year-old Army veteran who served six years in the 372d. She said at least one explanation might be that many of the accused soldiers were "kids," with little training in prison management, who had only committed to minimal military service. "When you are in the regular service, you are used to being uprooted . . . But when you're in the reserves, you think you're playing army."

But two soldiers from the 372d who worked at Abu Ghraib prison and knew the accused said they felt the problem was not a matter of training, but of morals.

"It doesn't matter how much training you had," said one soldier who worked in the section where the abuse occurred after it had happened. He asked not to be identified for fear of offending others in the company. "It's common sense. Yeah, we didn't have much training, but you do what you are told. And if you are told to do that, you should know better."

Interviews with soldiers and family members, news reports, and snippets from the 372d's newsletter, which was published in the local newspaper, paint a picture of a group of soldiers who were only partially prepared for the duty of guarding the most notorious prison in Iraq.

Among the most experienced members of the group of approximately 180 who left for Iraq last May was Sergeant Charles A. Graner Jr., a 35-year-old divorced father of two and former Marine. Graner had worked for years at a county prison and then at the State Correctional Institution, which houses many of Pennsylvania's death row inmates.

In Iraq, Graner was known to keep a camera with him, snapping pictures at all times of mortar attacks, other soldiers, and fuel tanks burning.

Graner is now one of six reservists facing criminal charges, accused of acting in a supervisory role over other reservists during the prison abuse. Like nearly all the soldiers accused of abuse, he worked the night shift in Tier 1, a part of the prison that housed former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and people accused of attacking coalition forces. Photographs of him, smiling in front of a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners, have been broadcast around the world. Guy Womack, his lawyer, did not return several calls seeking comment.

Also in the group was Army Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, 37, who has worked at Buckingham Correctional Center, a medium-security facility, since 1996. The two men knew each other well, and had just been posted together as reservists at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, home to the US Army War College, according to another soldier who had also been posted there.

Frederick is also facing criminal charges, and the report from an internal Army investigation conducted by Major General Antonio M. Taguba gives a graphic glimpse of the allegations, including that prisoners were forced to simulate sex acts.

But the 372d also included young reservists with almost no experience, such as Specialist Sabrina Harman, 26, of Lorton, Va., who is facing charges and has told her parents she took some of the photos so that she would not have to be in them, according to her stepmother, Patricia Harman Since graduating from high school she had wanted to be a police officer like her father and brother, but she "didn't make the cutoff," said Patricia Harman.

After a time working for Papa John's, she joined the reserves to get the training she needed.

"She went away for three months" to boot camp, Harman said. "Then they shipped her out right after she came back."

Specialist Jeremy Sivits, 24 of Hyndman, Pa., also charged, trained as a mechanic before he left for Iraq, according to the Baltimore Sun. "Why was a mechanic allowed to handle prisoners?" the Sun quoted Sivits' father, Daniel, as saying.

Two others, Sergeant Javal Davis and Specialist Megan Ambuhl, also face criminal charges.

And 21-year-old Lynndie England, who is not currently facing charges but appears in one of the most provocative photos pointing at a naked Iraqi man's genitals, had been trained as a clerical worker. England, who married and divorced her high school sweetheart and hoped to go to college, apparently was in that section of the prison to visit Graner, her boyfriend.

One soldier who was not accused painted a grim picture of life at Abu Ghraib. He said he only received one day of orientation and that there were only a few interpreters for approximately 4,000 inmates. Soldiers used two-way radios when they needed emergency language help, he said.

The unit shipped out last May, after 2 months of training at Fort Lee, Va., where they they took classes on the "cultural awareness rules of engagement," according to Gayle Johnson, an officer at the First Army Public Affairs office. The classes included "general information on the handling and treatment of prisoners," she said.

"They did learn about the culture of Iraqis," said Rebecca McClarran, mother of a soldier in the 372d who was not accused of abuse. Among the lessons the male soldiers were taught, she said, was that "men might kiss you" and "no looking at women." Although new military police recruits have nine weeks of basic training and eight weeks of specialized training at US Army Military Police School at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., a few current and past members of the 372d said that was not sufficient.

But a school official said it should have been. "Every soldier that comes for military police training here receives training dealing with prisoners of war, civilian internees, and detainees," he said by phone on condition that his name be withheld. "Every soldier . . . will be trained in the laws of war and how to treat people in their custody in a humane way."