Consequence (30 page)

When I read Lagouranis's essay, I am ashamed.

11.2

On December 11, 2006, I submit an opinion piece to the
Washington Post
about interrogation. Four days later it is accepted for publication. I tell Karin there will be consequences for making my Iraq experience public. I say, “People aren't going to be happy.” She says, “As long as you think it's the right thing to do.”

Karin and I sit in the house on Bonus Hill and have one of the first discussions about Iraq either of us can remember. I admit for the first time that I hung up on her from Abu Ghraib, that hearing her voice was just too painful, that somehow it made me realize I was doing something wrong. So I shut her off. Karin tells me how she felt helpless, how everything she did seemed wrong, how there was nothing she could do for me from home. But she promises to stand behind me now. She doesn't care what anyone else thinks. It's the right thing to do.

In late 2006, writing an article about something like sleep deprivation is dangerous. Many Americans are still under the impression that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention program. Two more years will pass before the vice president of the United States tells the world that he ordered waterboarding. Two years will pass before he says, “I thought it was absolutely the right thing to do.” Eight years will pass before the U.S. Senate releases a report on torture and the country learns about the technique called rectal rehydration.

But in 2006, I think I may go to jail for what I am about to say. And I think it is exactly what I deserve.

11.3

The
Washington Post
piece appears on February 9, 2007. In it, I describe nightmares and screaming, and I make reference to sleep deprivation in Fallujah. I say I witnessed and participated in other abuses as well, and I'm struggling with the consequences of my actions. I say that oppressive prisons create enemies, and that there is more to be learned about what went on at Abu Ghraib.

The piece appears on the
Post
's website the night before it goes to print. Karin and I sit in bed with our separate computers and monitor the newspaper's homepage. My essay appears just before midnight. The first email message appears at 12:20 a.m. It says, “Thank you.”

When we wake up the next morning there are more than two hundred messages in my in-box. One of them asks, “Are You Gay?”

Karin wakes up for work. We have breakfast and laugh about the email questioning my sexuality. We read it over and over again.

Eric,

I just read your sad story. You sound like Richard Simmons. Butch up, Sally.

At noon, I receive a phone call from Army CID. They want to come speak with me in Bethlehem. They'll be out first thing tomorrow morning. It's a Saturday. I stop answering emails.

11.4

The next morning, ten minutes before the appointment time, the CID agent calls and asks that we conduct the interview at the local police station. He's using “change of scenery,” an interrogation tactic. I used it at Abu Ghraib.

I ask which police station. He says, “Bethlehem.” I say, “Township or city?” He doesn't know. He pauses, tells me to hold on for a minute, and then asks someone where he is. I recognize the voice in the background. It's the supervisor of the records room at the Bethlehem Police Department. The CID agent asks whether I need directions. I say, “No, I've been there before.”

A friend connects me with a lawyer. The lawyer offers to accompany me to the police station. I decline. He says, “Don't sign anything.” I thank him for the advice. For the first time since losing my job to a heart condition, I return to the City of Bethlehem Police Department.

11.5

At the front desk, I sit and talk to the sergeant on duty. He was one of my training officers, one of the good ones. We talk about the current condition of the police department and the number of new officers who have been hired. We talk about the CID agent. He says, “How much longer should we make the asshole wait?”

I meet the CID agent in one of the interview rooms in the back of the station. Police headquarters is in the basement of city hall, so there are no windows in any of the rooms. He asks me to close the door. I decline. He says it will be easier to conduct the interview with the door closed. I ask him whether I'm under arrest.

The door remains open and the interview proceeds. When it's over, the agent hands me a pamphlet entitled “Initial Information for Victims and Witnesses of Crime.” He says, “I'm required to give this to you.” I read the first paragraph:

Introduction: We are concerned about the problems often experienced by victims and witnesses of crime. We know that as a victim or witness, you may experience anger, frustration, or fear as a result of your experience. The officer responsible for Victim/Witness Assistance at your installation can help.

11.6

When I get home, I speak with the lawyer again. I tell him I didn't sign anything in my meeting with CID. I tell the lawyer I intend to cooperate. He says this is the right thing to do, but he also says it makes sense for me to have legal representation. He says, “Rest assured, these guys don't care what happens to you.”

The CID agent calls again. He wants me to come to Washington, D.C. The Department of Justice wants to talk to me. He says, “This thing goes all the way to the top.” I call the lawyer back.

In Washington, I meet with the lawyer in his office on K Street. The law firm is enormous. It occupies multiple floors. Two lawyers are assigned to my case. They will walk me through the initial stages of the process. If it goes to trial, a new team will be assigned. The head of the law firm stops by to pay a visit. He says I have nothing to worry about and I should listen to his lawyers. He says, “None of our clients have ever gone to jail.”

We take a break. The lawyers order lunch. They sit with the head of the law firm and talk about their families. They talk about a search committee and a new pastor. The head of the law firm and one of the lawyers attend the same church. They are Presbyterians.

The lawyers arrange a meeting with representatives of the Department of Justice. I agree to cooperate with the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

11.7

I spend the spring of 2007 dealing with the fallout from the
Washington Post
piece. By May, I've received more than three thousand emails. The op-ed appeared on numerous blogs and was reprinted in a number of newspapers and publications throughout the country. Messages from readers continue to flow in. Someone sends me
Rolling Stone
. There's a chart called “Threat Assessment.” It's inserted into an article about the decline of evangelical Christians in politics. The left side of the chart is labeled “With Us.” The right side of the chart is labeled “Against Us.” I'm number two on the “With Us” side, just below the North Dakota Senate, which has voted to repeal a 117-year-old law that made premarital cohabitation a sex crime. Just below me on the “With Us” side is Karl Rove, who endorsed illegal immigration by saying, “I don't want my seventeen-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas.”

An email from the office of former president Bill Clinton arrives, asking for my home address. A week later, Bill Clinton sends me a handwritten note. He uses the word “courage.”

But despite all the praise and attention, I know that the op-ed is not courageous. It is cowardly. Every word, every phrase, and every sentence was crafted to ensure that I did not implicate myself in anything criminal. I provided no names, no specific dates, and no specific locations. The techniques I mentioned were taken straight from the interrogation handbook or from the list of approved “enhanced interrogation techniques.” While I question the morality of my behavior, I do not call for my own prosecution. By my own account in the article, I've done nothing wrong.

As email messages lauding my honesty and courage continue to arrive, I delete them. But there is another kind of email I can recognize by the subject line. Instead of phrases using words like “courage,” “honesty,” and “hero,” there are phrases like “I hope you die.” I don't delete these emails. I read them over and over.

An email arrives that says, “Welcome.”

Welcome to the club brother.

I was in the infantry in Vietnam in 1968. I murdered an NVA soldier who was trying to surrender. I gave the go ahead for two of our artillerymen to gun down these two soldiers. All I had to do was tell them not to but instead said, “Fuck it!” This has been a burden for thirty-nine years and will continue to be so until I die. I don't believe in any religion, I do believe in an Infinite Intelligence and perhaps our punishment is carrying this guilt to our graves. I just want to let you know you have plenty of company. Welcome.

At First Presbyterian Church in Bethlehem, a pastor preaches a sermon about the importance of legacy. He talks about how God works generationally. The consequences of our actions in life are laid upon our descendants. Some families are rewarded, while others are punished. He tells a story about Al Capone's lawyer. The lawyer helped keep Capone out of jail. This made him bad. Later, the lawyer had a crisis of conscience and decided to testify against Capone. This made him good. As a reward, God bestowed a heroic legacy upon the lawyer's son who joined the Navy, became a pilot, and shot down Japanese planes during World War II. Eventually the son was shot down too. He died. They named the airport in Chicago after him.

Karin says, “Is that a punishment or a reward?” I say, “Maybe we shouldn't have a child after all.”

The good days in Bethlehem were short. They ended when I starting writing articles. I'd stopped drinking for a time, but I'm an alcoholic now. I don't sleep. I yell a lot. Mostly at Karin. But at other people, too. I have no job, and no interest in finding one. I rarely attend church. When I do, I'm hungover. At night I think about dying. I wonder how much longer my heart will last. I wonder whether I'll know the time has come or whether I'll just shut off. I wonder whether Ferdinand felt anything, whether he knew. I think about the mortar attack in Fallujah, when Ferdinand pretended he was trying to catch the incoming rounds. He said his death would be a mercy killing. I wonder whether he was relieved when the time came.

Like the decision to leave the NSA, the decision to finally go to seminary in Princeton is made out of desperation. I am unstable. I've made Karin unstable, too. Karin got pregnant during the good days in Bethlehem, but the good days are gone now. We should stay where we are and search for stability. We should focus on our family. We should focus on each other. But we make another mistake and move to Princeton.

 

12

In June 2007, I enter Princeton Theological Seminary's administration building to file paperwork for my veterans benefits. I am early. The office is closed. Other students wait with me. I avoid them. I look at the pictures on the walls. They are black-and-white, taken during the Civil War. There is a grainy photo of Brown Hall with a blurred image of a student walking across the quad. I wonder whether he is a veteran of Antietam or Gettysburg. I wonder whether he knew Andersonville or Camp Douglas.

In a summer language class, I study Greek in order to read the New Testament more effectively. It reminds me of DLI. I settle into a life of muggy morning walks to class, followed by chilly afternoons in the seminary library. I arrive on campus in the early morning, review my homework, attend class, eat lunch in downtown Princeton, and then spend the rest of the afternoon memorizing verb charts and case endings. I return home in the early evening, tell Karin about the day, eat dinner, watch the news, get drunk, and read emails with subject lines such as “Iraq,” “interrogation,” and “torture.”

Mr. Fair, I still have a .45 caliber 1911. I suspect you know the firearm. I'd loan it to you gleefully if you get really depressed. And I'd happily take whatever legal consequence might come my way for having done so. You'd be doing the world a favor by removing yourself from the gene pool. With revulsion at the subhuman you and others like you surely are.

Karin is keeping her job as a chemical engineer. The company allows her to work from the apartment in New Jersey. Occasionally, she travels back to the home office in Allentown for meetings. She spends the night with friends or family. I enjoy the time she is gone. I pretend I'm not married. I pretend I've just graduated from Boston University in 1994 and I've gone directly to seminary. There has been no Army, no police department, and no Abu Ghraib, just a calling to be a pastor. Maybe I'll marry another seminary student. We'll work together at a Presbyterian church where she can run the children's ministry, and I can do something like missions or outreach. But Karin eventually comes home. She looks pregnant now. Our son is due to be born in a few months.

As Greek consumes my mornings and afternoons in Princeton, Iraq dominates what remains of my day. I return home to the apartment and field phone calls from reporters in Philadelphia, filmmakers from Norway, psychologists from Boston, authors from the world of academia, and lawyers looking to sue interrogators who abused detainees in Iraq.

The lawyer from Washington calls. He has scheduled a meeting with the Department of Justice and CID. He managed to secure a limited type of immunity for the meeting. He calls it “queen for a day.” He faxes me a letter from the government.

You have advised me that your client, Eric Fair, wishes to meet with the government for the purpose of making a proffer related to allegations of detainee abuse under investigation by the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the event that your client is prosecuted by this office, the government will not offer as evidence in its case-in-chief or at sentencing any statements made by your client at the meetings, with the following exceptions: