“I worked at Guantanamo Bay for 13 months. Was it right? Was it wrong? I don’t know. That’s political. It was a thing I had to do. I worked in the mental health ward. I can’t tell you specifics – they gave us a security briefing on that. There were some good times, and there were some bad times. It was just a job. It was where I was. I could have just as easily been in Hawaii.
I worked with people as close as I am to you. They had no problem with telling you that they wanted to kill you. You remember the Stanford Prison experiment? I was living it. It was all about having power over people. Some people had it, and others didn’t.
The biggest take away I had was being patient with people. If you treated them nicely, they had no reason to be angry with you. So that’s what I did. The cell mates didn’t just sit there: they laughed, they learned English from us. You know how religion is 50, 60, 70 percent of our lives? Everything they did was based on their religion.
I think it was hardest on my wife. I was busy. She was worried about my safety, but I couldn’t tell her things. I’ve never considered the possibility of going back there again.”
Humans of William & Mary 