Moved here from Survivors of Abuse

Everyone here knows the tough part in all of this ... the surviving.

I appreciate the support, but I don't like it that my words make others cry. Maybe it isn't my words at all, but your own experiences. Either way, it concerns me very much that my injuries make others cry as well. If I had simply let them control me and cry at their threats, I wouldn't have some of the scars I have now.

This attitude that I must win at least the battle of the minds caused me much grief. I should have let the tears flow and let them think they were winning. I saved a lot of tears, almost enough to drown in.

The bosses in the Army recognized my attitude right away, and their job was to break me down so they could put me together in the way they wanted. I wish I had known the rules of the game when I started. It would have been much easier.

During my training as one of the most elite of the elite warriors, I was captured by one of the "pretend" enemy, one of the cadre. The sucker was wearing his cadre uniform or we wouldn't have let him get close to us. As it was, he walked up to us in the wide open and when he was next to us, he said, "You're captured!" .... "What, how can that be? You're cadre."

He pulled a red arm band from his pocket and slid it on his upper arm. See ... I guess I was out of uniform. You're captured." We were so stupid we didn't even fight him. Six of us. We should have just beat the crap out of him and run away. But ... we were brought to a central point and moved by trucks to the POW camp. Stripped naked 100%. A number written on our backs.

Bags were put over our heads and taped shut so we couldn't see anything. Then we were harassed over and over as they tried to put fear into us. (it was a game. training. what's to fear -- I soon found out what's to fear).

They had us lean forward onto our toes, ankles tied and put our hands with wrists tied on a horizontal pole. In the 100 degree sun in a swamp. And stay there.

When fatigue made us fall, we were attacked by two cadre with electric cattle prods ... the precursor of today's Tazers. With ankles and wrists tied, and blindfolded with the sack, it was tough to even stand. Every time I tried to get onto my knees to get upright, shock. Fall back to the ground, shock. Yell out in pain, shock. The idea was to keep us from getting back on the pole even though they kept ordering us to stand up and lean in there.

We were on this pole all day. Of course we fell. Even the strongest fell. If they felt like you were falling too often, the shocks were redoubled and aimed between the legs. I couldn't see it, but I felt blood running down my side down my legs. At first I thought it was sweat, but the swarming flies helped me understand it.

Sometime that day, one of the cadre said to me or to someone else, "You really like this don't you." I tried to attack him even though I was tied and blindfolded. Big mistake. The cadre ganged up on me. Blindfolded and tied hand and foot, they kept stinging me with the cattle prods. All over my naked body. Laughing when they hit my testicles and %#@&#!.

I tried to tear the blindfold off, but others held my arms.

Late in the afternoon we were removed from the pole one at a time and taken to an interrogation room. Blindfold removed. Untied. Water. And in a very friendly way, good cop bad cop, given an opportunity to talk, to tell about our training. about our unit. about ourselves.

And here's where the teacher's "training" paid off. I knew I could keep from talking, no matter what they did. After a few questions I said, "OK, can I have another canteen of water?" They asked if i would talk if they gave me water and I agreed. I drank the entire canteen in one chug a lug and handed it back.

Question. Silence. Question. Silence. Question - whack ... silence on the ground. Cattle prod brought in. And I tried to grab it to turn it on them. Shock. Shock. Shock. Another prod and another. Three of them shocking me all over and laughing at the way it made me jump. Always threatening between my legs and sometimes making contact there.

Question. Silence. "You little b*, you're probably too stupid to know anything anyway. If you want to pass this course, you'd better talk." Silence. (thank you teacher for the early training).

"You little s*, think you tricked us out of a canteen of water, don't you? Let's go back out here and see who tricked who." Back outside where they tied my hands above my head, hanging me from a tree limb with only my toes touching the ground...so they could leisurely stick me with the cattle prod and laugh.

Was this training or abuse? Did it toughen me up for tough assignments or break me down to do their will? I don't know if it helped me complete missions, but I know it has affected my mind forever. Maybe I wasn't as tough as they made me think.

Back on the rack. And so it went for 24 hours or more. And the whole time I'm reliving the days in school with the teacher and the bullies.

I learned from my teacher to never go to battle with holes in my socks. I learned from the cadre to never get captured by enemy soldiers. And this is where I learned how NOT to treat the soldiers we captured. I knew from experience how the torture could turn into silence.

The trainees who did give answers in that little interrogation room flunked the course and were removed that day from the secret training base.

This story does not identify me because they did this to hundreds of soldiers, some on the way back to the ranks and the rest of us on the way into extreme warfare.