Round Robin

January 11. 2008

Change is good. For most of us this means a planned change can recharge our lives. Sometimes it’s as easy as rearranging the living room furniture, or buying a new car. But sometimes it can be a big change, like a new job or new place to live. But for inmates change is usually gut wrenching, often chaotic, and certainly stressful. And I’m talking now about inmates in America where I’m used to the ins and outs of how it works. But here in Iraq when they decide it’s time to slap an inmate with some unwanted change they go to the slam-bang extreme. And we call it a Round Robin.

Every few months someone way up the food chain puts together a list of inmates from 3 or 4 different facilities. I’m sure it’s based on a lot more things than are apparent on the surface. But as far as I can tell they just decided to pick names out of a hat and move them to a different place. We, prison “A”, sent our guys to prison “B”. Prison “B” sent their guys to prison “C”, and “C” sent their guys to us, etc. There were roughly a hundred bodies moving per prison. It’s all done in one day and it’s all facilitated by the US Army, by that I mean they did all the transporting.

So a select few of us “volunteers”, (i.e. FNG’s), went over to the prison at 3 am. We had all the restraints and jump suits boxed up and ready, and we had previously moved the selected inmates to a certain unit throughout the week in preparation so that when we rolled in at O-dark-30 to get these guys out of bed they were all already in the same place. The ICO’s are supposed to do all of the work, but we Advisers were split up to oversee each stage of the process to make sure our Iraqi counterparts were doing a thorough job. I was on the “Search Team”, and it was my job to make sure that the inmates only carried what they could fit into a 1 gallon zip-lock bag, and that they got carefully strip searched before getting suited up in new long johns and jump suits. I should first say that the Iraqi version of a good search is far lacking to even the worst search done in the states. It basically consists of a quick look at a semi-naked body, (because to look upon a man’s whole naked body is a cultural no-no for Iraqi men, and even then the inmate is only required to strip down to his skivvies and his junk won’t get checked unless something is suspected to be hiding there…), a cursory glimpse of his property, and then a strong arm escort to the next step in the process. So at first we were stopping every single guy and telling the ICO’s to “look here”, and “look there”, and “check there”, and “look under that”. (You figure out what I told them to look under..) But after a while we found it was taking too damn long to get them moved along and we were under a time restraint because the Army convoy was going to show up soon and we didn’t want to make them wait. So by about the 25^th guy we were shuffling them along at a nice, steady pace, and it’s safe to say there were about 65 inmates who could have successfully smuggled a Sherman Tank out that night. One thing that we made sure of though was that no one got out with more personal property than they could fit into the zip-lock bag. By the end of the movement there was a pile of junk on the floor that could have stocked the shelves at any Wal-Mart. I give the ICO’s credit for not taking any crap when an inmate tried to plead that he just had to have that gallon of perfume or that pound of dates. They just took it and threw it on the floor and shoved the inmate on down the line and never batted an eye at the schmuck who’s just lost his extortion earnings. And the rare inmate who tried to argue got whacked on the back of his head in the same fashion your mom used to hit you after you asked one too many times for a piece of candy in the grocery store check-out line.

Did I mention that it was cold? It was easily 30 degrees and the unit we took them from emptied out into a courtyard, which is where we stripped them down to their skivvies and shower shoes, gave them new long-johns and a jumpsuit, and then finally put them in handcuffs, belly, and ankle chains. Once that was all done all that was left was waiting for the Army to show up. It took about another 45 minutes for that, so these guys are standing around outdoors, shackled, and basically in bare feet. I couldn’t help but wonder how inmates back home would react to this kind of treatment. And then what they’d do when after they mouthed off, “Hey, you can’t do this to me”, or, “Hey it’s freaking cold out here…I aint stripping down to my skivvies!”, I smacked them on the back of the head like I used to do to my little brother? I shouldn’t be smiling at this prospect, I know. But come on…

So then the Army rolls in HOT with a bunch of Hum-Vee’s and 3 of these giant armored RV’s that reminded me of a steel armadillo on wheels. And these are MP’s who do not take crap off anyone, much lees Iraqi felons. Oh yeah, and I forgot to say that all the inmates were blind folded before moving out of the courtyard and into the Unit’s outdoor sally port area, (which was still muddy and had standing puddles of water from a previous rain.) Then the MP’s pat searched every single inmate again, including making them take off their sandals. So these guys were standing there blindfolded, in the cold mud, getting mauled by Americans, and were scared shitless I’m sure. Then they were herded into lines of 10, told to grab the belly chain of the man in front of them, and shuffled off to load onto the “Steel Armadillo”. From there, the Army convoyed them to BIAP where they were put on planes and flown to destination A, B, or C. They were gone by 645 or so and we were then told to go home and get some chow and some sleep and be back at 3pm to help receive the group coming in.

The inmates that came in that evening were brought by the Army and looked pretty haggard. These guys had to stay blindfolded the whole damn time they were traveling, and I know damn well they never even thought about taking a bathroom break. So once they got to us and we took off their blindfolds and chains I know they must have been damn happy they weren’t being delivered directly to the gates of hell. Gives the phrase, “A change will do you good”, a whole new meaning.

We are doing it all over again next month.

-Jim Franks