Jeremy Jennings - Meeting Tony Blair

 

 

All right. On my first shift as a guard on the mental health block at Camp Delta, Guantanamo, there was a man locked in the rubber room, banging his head repeatedly on the glass window of the door, and bleeding from his forehead and rattling it on its hinges. This went on for some time until I started to worry, he was going to do some serious harm to himself. And so, I alerted the medical staff, and the sergeant of the guard, and they told me, “That guy, he's just trying to get your attention and he's manipulating you, so ignore him.” So, I followed my orders, but I thought to myself, if my job here is not to keep the detainees safe, then what is my job? 

 

I joined the Army National Guard in 2000 after seeing a commercial on TV with young guys my age doing the sorts of army stuff I had dreamed about doing since the one year I was junior ROTC in high school. But I grew up in a military family, and I had some idea what active duty was like and what real war might be like. I didn't want to be a real soldier. So, I thought I could join the guard, I could train as a real soldier, but I wouldn't have to be one. 

 

And then, 9/11 happened. I found myself on guard duty at the Golden Gate Bridge. As time went on, some of us were pulled off that mission and sent to Afghanistan. And then, the war in Iraq started, and more of us were pulled off and sent to Iraq. And eventually, my unit was activated and we were assigned to detainee operations in Guantanamo Bay. 

 

When we got there, the camp commander told us, “This is the front line of the war on terror. We're getting good information and we're saving lives. And make no mistake, these guys are highly trained Taliban and Al-Qaeda commando guys. They know how to resist our interrogation, they know how to organize inside a prison, and they know how to manipulate you. And if you give them the chance, they will try to kill you.” 

 

This made us all very nervous, because were not a military police unit. We were field artillery. We were trained to shoot the enemy from long distances. But this was our mission, so we were going to do it the best we could. 

 

The first time I walked inside that prison, gate after gate locked behind me and I passed through row after row of concertina wire until I felt like I was locked inside there with all the rest of them. And it was terrifying. Every time, it was terrifying. 

 

The prison was constructed of steel shipping containers that had been chopped up and reassembled with steel diamond plate and wire mesh to create open air prison blocks that held about 50 detainees each. And every time we went inside that place, we put tape over our name tags on our uniforms, and we put a patch over our unit insignia that said MP. And every time we interacted with the detainees, we wore rubber surgical gloves. And the number one rule was to not socialize with the detainees. You don't talk about the weather. You don't talk about sports. You only talk about camp business. As time went on, some of those detainees did live up to what the camp commander had told us about them, but the majority did not and this was troubling. 

 

One night in the barracks, I confided in my roommate, and I said, “This mission seems crazy, man. It doesn't feel like what we're doing is right. In fact, it feels like what we're doing is wrong.” And he says, “Yeah, man, I know. I feel the same way. But isn't that how it's supposed to feel when you get sent off to do war stuff?” We never talked about that again, because the last thing you want your fellow soldiers or your commanders to think is that you're a terrorist sympathizer. 

 

And eventually, I was assigned a special mission inside the camp as a guard on the mental health block. And there, the rules were inverted. We were encouraged to socialize with the detainees and get to know them, establish a rapport, so that we could manipulate their behavior and keep everyone safe. 

 

And on that block, there were a number of permanent residents. There was the man in the rubber room. There was another man who saw ghosts of his dead family in genies. There was another man who just paced back and forth in his cell all day long. And the only time he ever spoke to me was when he asked me for a soccer magazine. And at night, when he laid down on his bunk, you could see the paint worn off on the floor where he had been stepping all day long. 

 

But down at the end of the block, near the entrance, there was a guy we called Tony Blair. Some previous shift had given him that nickname as a cruel joke. But Tony Blair was a decent guy. He spoke pretty good English, he knew a bunch of rap songs, he knew a bunch of jokes and he was good at imitating the guards. 90% of the time, he was no problem at all. And if Tony Blair liked you, he would insist on giving you a fist bump through the wire mesh of his cell when he saw you and call you his homeboy. 

 

But one day, Tony Blair came back from interrogation and he had changed. He got very depressed and he started acting out. And I asked him, “What happened, Tony Blair?” And he said, “The interrogators had told him crazy things and that he didn't think he was ever going home.” And as the staff and the other guards retaliated against his behavior, I couldn't do anything to protect him, but at least I didn't have to join in and treat him like an asshole. 

 

But one night, when I was walking the block, I came to his cell, and he was twisting up his bedsheet into a rope, and he was threading it through the steel mesh of his wall and preparing to hang himself. I'd seen this before, and it was my worst nightmare as a guard to have a detainee kill themselves on my watch. So, I panicked. Didn't know what to do at first. I thought maybe I could run down to the end of the block and grab the suicide kit with the keys to open his cell and the scissors to cut him down, but I didn't want to leave him there long enough to hurt himself. 

 

So, I just stood there and I said, “Tony Blair, come talk to me. Just come to the door. Come talk to me.” Eventually, he did come to the door. And I said, “Tony Blair, what's going on? Why are you doing this?” And he just looked at me and said, “Because I'm never going home,” and he went back to preparing the noose. I just kept pleading with him. I said, “Tony Blair, come back. Come back to the door and talk to me. Just talk to me.” 

 

So, eventually, he did come back to the door and talk. He just looked at me and he said, “I won't kill myself if we're real friends.” I said, “Of course, we're real friends. We're homeboys.” And I offered him a fist bump, but he refused it. He said, “No, if we're real friends, then we should shake hands like real brothers.” And I thought to myself, “This is what the camp commander was talking about. Tony Blair has been manipulating me. And as soon as I open that bean hole and I give him my hand, he's going to stab me with a steel welding rod that the welders had left inside the prison when they built this place, and that we had found on cell searches.” 

 

But another part of me thought, “Tony Blair is not a killer. He's just given up.” And so, I opened the bean hole and I gave him my hand, and he still refused it. He said, “No. Not with gloves, but like real brothers.” So, I took my gloves off and I gave him my hand. [sobbing] He just held it with both his hands, very gently, and he didn't say a word. He just looked at me. I don't know how long we stood there, but for the first time, I felt like I'd done something right in that place. And then, he quietly let go of my hand and he turned around, took the sheet down, laid down on his bunk and went to bed. 

 

It wasn't long after that night that it was my last shift on that block. I walked down past his cell like I usually did. I said, “See you tomorrow, Tony Blair.” And I never saw him again. [sobbing] I spent four more years in the army after that. 

 

The last year, they held me over my contract, sent me to Iraq for a year. And so, when I returned, I had no obligation left to the military. I just walked away. But I never forgot about those detainees. I was curious, and I found some Freedom of Information act documents, and I searched through them and I found who I thought Tony Blair was. And I discovered that they had never charged or convicted him of anything and that they had released him. I don't know when and I don't know where they sent him. I just hope he made it home.