Home > Near Reservists’ Base, Disappointment at Accusations of Abuse
Near Reservists’ Base, Disappointment at Accusations of Abuse
by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 4 May 2004By SHERRI DAY
UMBERLAND, Md., Stop anyone in this quaint town surrounded by mountains, and they will have an opinion about the war in Iraq and recent accusations that Army reservists abused Iraqi prisoners.
"I’m a little disappointed," said Dixie Long, an office manager at Allegany College, as she strolled through downtown on Sunday. "We were going over there to rid the bad leaders. It upsets me a little bit that some of our people would go over there and act just as bad."
The abuse accusations roil conversations here unlike perhaps any other place in the nation. That is because the reservists at the center of the controversy are based about six miles south of here. Nearly everybody in the region is discussing the situation.
At a local McDonald’s, where Bob McGreevy, 72, gathers with his friends every morning to have coffee, many said they were appalled by the reports.
"They should put those guys on the front line, and let them fight or die," said Mr. McGreevy, a retired postal worker who said he was a prisoner in the Korean War. "That stuff goes on, but you don’t take pictures like these guys did."
Accusations of prisoner abuse surfaced last week when the television program "60 Minutes II" broadcast pictures of military police officers posing with Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a prison west of Baghdad. In the photographs, many of the prisoners appear to have been made to pose naked while American soldiers looked on. In one picture, several naked Iraqi prisoners are piled on top of each other in a pyramid while a military policeman stands nearby smiling. In another, a military policewoman poses with a thumbs up near an Iraqi man apparently masturbating.
A military report found a pattern of abuse at the prison, particularly on Tier 1-A, where reservists guarded prisoners who were to be interrogated by military intelligence officers. Six members of the 372nd Military Police Company, which is based in Cresaptown, are facing courts-martial in the incidents, which were said to have taken place last fall. President Bush and Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade, which includes the unit, have denounced the acts.
For one resident of the region, Ivan L. Frederick, the incidents have been especially burdensome. His son, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, 37, is one of the reservists who may face a court-martial and has been detained by the United States military in Iraq since January, Mr. Frederick said.
Mr. Frederick has had trouble sleeping and eating in the last month and has lost 20 pounds, he said.
Mr. Frederick, 76, lives in Oakland, about 50 miles northwest of Cumberland, and is in contact with his son almost daily by e-mail and at least once a week by Web cam. When Mr. Frederick spoke with Sergeant Frederick on Sunday morning, he said he could tell that the increased publicity surrounding the case was beginning to wear on his son.
"He’s really depressed that they’re not getting on with this and getting him back home," said Mr. Frederick, cradling the pages of a diary his son wrote about incidences of abuse that he says he witnessed at the Iraqi prison. "He says, `There’s no way I’ll get a fair trial over here.’ "
Mr. Frederick added: "I’m sure that when all the stuff comes out they’re going to find that the military was wrong. I don’t believe my son would have done anything mean unless it was a direct order. He says he didn’t do any of those things he is accused of."
In one of his journal entries, Sergeant Frederick wrote that he questioned "such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in females’ underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell."
"I questioned this and the answer is, this is how the military intelligence wants it done," Sergeant Frederick wrote.
Although Sergeant Frederick works as a civilian as a correctional officer in Virginia, neither he nor his father believes he was adequately trained by the military to handle prisoners of war.
Stan Carder, a school custodian, disagrees. Like many Cumberland residents, he is a military man. He served with the 372nd Military Police for nine years before retiring in 1998.
"They went through basic training and military police school," said Mr. Carder, 52. "I’m sure all of them had a good Christian background. That doesn’t make it right. The final judgment is in the hands of God and the military."
Tom Hopwood, a taxi driver, also refrained from judging the accused reservists. He said that was someone else’s responsibility. "I put four years in the Air Force; my time is in," he said. "We pay people and have people in office to take care of it."
Lee Fiedler, Cumberland’s mayor, said the accusations of abuse had brought unwanted attention to this town of about 22,000, particularly since none of the accused reservists actually live in Cumberland. The unit draws its members from West Virginia, northwestern Maryland and Pennsylvania.
"We want this to be handled and handled correctly," said Mr. Fiedler, who described the area as heavily Republican. "We’re a community that has faith that this will be a proper investigation. We think the group, in all, has done a good job."