April 2, 2003

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  Note: I wanted to post this hours ago, but my son had the phone tied up for most of the afternoon & all evening. Short of me unplugging his line & screaming at him (which I easily could have, because of the news I just got, but really don’t want to do), I can’t get him to listen right now. Even though I told him I had phone calls I needed to make when I returned from the mailbox, he continued to play an online Game Cube RPG. I tried to make the calls on my cell phone, but by then, it was too late. How does a parent get a thick-headed kid to listen anyway?

  
  

   

  
  

       My heartfelt blessings go out to US Army Pfc Jessica Lynch of the 507th Maintenance Co. She was recovered through a Special Forces mission, as a POW of the Iraqi when her supply caravan was ambushed. She will be going through ‘de-briefing’ by the military, which can be just about as emotionally devastating as what a suspected criminal goes through during an interrogation.

  
  

       Any victim of violent crime can understand what I am saying above. I personally sat in a detective’s office for 8 hours, after being released by Andrews AFB ER for injuries sustained to my face in a beating by an assailant in a home invasion. I had only had about an hour’s sleep before the incident & was not permitted to sleep for that entire next day. I was also not permitted privacy, except in the toilet. Why do they do this to victims of violent crime? I asked! Answer… “We need you to be able to remember as much & as detailed as you can about the events. With the passing of time, those details can disappear or become blurred…” a natural process of the psyche protecting the individual from the emotional pain. For me, those details have only begun to blur in recent years, even though that happened to me almost 17 years ago.

  
  

       The worst thing about my questioning during those 8 hours was that the detective alluded to the possibility that the assault was from my ex-boyfriend (my son’s dad) in a domestic dispute. What I was telling him about that had happened to me was at first disbelieved… in other words, he thought I was lying!

  
  

       What Jessica will go through will be much worse than what I dealt with when questioned. They will want details of everything she told her captors, to determine if she divulged information she shouldn’t have, with or without undue influence.

  
  

       In the service, we are trained that if we are captured, we should only tell them our name, rank & serial number (SSN since about 1980). They warn us that if we ‘chat’ with our captors about our lifestyles or family, those things will be used against us by the captors. Most servicemembers like to carry a picture of family members in their wallets. An enemy captor can use that picture to emotionally torture the prisoner, threatening death to the family, etc. Most of the torture a POW experiences is emotional. In these days of the ‘Information Super-Highway’ (WWW), it would take captors very little time to track down personal information about the prisoner to use against that prisoner. I could paint a specific scenario, but I won’t, out of deference to Jessica & all other POWs, former & current.

  
  

       Another tactic of captors is the torture of depravation. This could be by limiting food to water & bread, which lacks enough protein to keep the person 100% healthy. Also used is sleep-depravation, which causes the mind to lose its capacity to function with complete clarity, opening the door to ‘brain-washing’ effects & confusion.

  
  

       I once had the opportunity to listen to a talk (I refuse to call it a speech, since it was so personal) given by LtC Coffee, a former Vietnam POW. He was held for over a year. He told us that there were a few things that kept him going, even though he dealt with poor health from malnutrition & poor sanitation. To supplement what the captors fed him (along with the other prisoners they held), he caught & ate the cockroaches that entered his cell. I don’t recall if he mentioned about any rats becoming fodder, but if one entered his cell, I’m sure it would have.

  
  

       Coffee exercised daily to keep his muscles from atrophying. He was permitted an English-language Bible, which he read daily, although there was no other printed matter allowed in. LtC Coffee had been an avid golfer prior to his capture, so another focus of his, to keep his mind from succumbing to the emotional anguish of imprisonment was to practice his golf swing in his mind. He was a mediocre golfer prior to capture, but the first time he played once he regained his freedom, his swing had become so good that his handicap dropped to nearly nothing (from a high handicap)! He also focused on family… memories of pleasant events.

  
  

       As the saying goes… “Anything that doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.” Jessica… God Bless You!!! I had almost two hours of physical & emotional torture during my home invasion, with about 4 more emotionally torturous hours in ER & 8 more in the detective’s office. I empathize with you & the others! White Light & Blessings to you!

  
  

       Tonight, I am dealing with strong, warring feelings. That of ‘fight or flight’ & total despondency. I’m on a fence of two sides, neither one any good. After 7 years of honorably serving this country in the US Navy & dealing with severe emotional trauma sustained during that time (one aspect mentioned above), I am being denied, after nearly 2 years of waiting, an increase in my disability rating, based upon  a single entry by my VA shrink from 2 years ago, as well as my own neglect of submitting the details of a radiation exposure I suffered aboard a nuclear submarine. Although the latter is my fault, I clearly have an issue with the VA Disability Adjudication office dismissing my entire mental health record by the same physician based upon a single entry, dated prior to my cancer diagnosis. They also dismissed his report submitted to them upon THEIR request after my filing!

  
  

       I don’t like either side of the fence, but right now, I don’t know where to turn. This was a major hope to lift me (& my son) out of the dismal realities of poverty… a hope for something better for my son. As always happens to me, I find out this stuff AFTER it’s too late to call any office in question (4 PM, when they closed) & every personal contact I’ve tried is unavailable. So, I sit here, crying, downing beers to keep me from going off the deep-end. Aloha…

  • 4:55 am
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