VIETNAM WAR Veteran sheds light on U.S. tactics of mock torture

The victims were pilots and flight crews bound for Vietnam, being trained to resist torture.
By STEPHEN SIFF
and PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NEWTON FALLS -- Television pictures of Iraqi prisoner abuse reminded Vietnam-era vet Edward McGill of the torture he saw decades ago in a training program at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag, McGill showed slide after slide of servicemen being dangled from overhead beams, tied to the ground and inundated with water.
His pictures include images of a small box where, he said, men were required to stay, sometimes for days at a time.
He said the victims were pilots and flight crews bound for Vietnam, being trained to resist torture. But McGill, 59, said the exercises also had an effect on the torturers and guards.
Effect both ways
"They were training pilots, if they get shot down, what to expect," McGill said. "But they were training us, who were guarding them, by osmosis if nothing else, how to torture people."
Several Army public relations officials referred all comments last week to the Army's Special Operations Command in South Carolina. Attempts to reach officials there by e-mail and telephone were not successful.
McGill, a native of Newton Falls, was drafted into the Army in 1965 and assigned to serve as a military policeman at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Stateside, the unit's mission was to guard base headquarters. Deployed overseas, however, their job would have become guarding prisoners of war.
Nearly two years into his enlistment as a military policeman, McGill said he and seven other men from his unit were transferred for two weeks' training at Fort Bragg.
McGill said it was his unit that was assigned to guard the perimeter of Happy Hollow, a mock POW camp on fort grounds.
Trained to resist
Inside, pilots and flight crews bound for Vietman were trained to resist torture at the hands of people he believed to be military intelligence and special forces personnel.
The military police guards were not ordered to participate, but some did, he said.
"I didn't take part," McGill said.
McGill, an inveterate shutterbug at the time, took pictures of everything, from the scenes of torture to smiling group shots to airplanes flying overhead. The color slides were dated and stored sequentially in the original box from the processor, and with processing receipts.
Evidence for servicemen
He said he hoped the shots can be used as evidence on behalf of servicemen charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq.
McGill said his photos demonstrate that torture was not just improvised by a few soldiers.
"It was systematic," he said.
siff@vindy.com sinkovich@vindy.com