In July and August 2005, ‘Sergeant A’ of the 82nd Airborne spoke with the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch about the treatment of PUCs, ‘Persons Under Confinement,’ in Iraq. “From August 2003, the sergeant was stationed at Camp Mercury, a ‘forward operating base’ close to the town of Fallujah… As he explained, ‘To *fuck a PUC* meant to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To *smoke* someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. …On their day off, people would show up all the time. Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustrations you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport. The cooks were all U.S. soldiers. One day a sergeant shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke they guy’s leg with a mini Louisville Slugger that was a metal bat. He was the fucking cook. He shouldn’t be in with no PUCs. …People would just volunteer just to get their frustrations out. We had guys from all over the base just come to guard PUCs so they could fuck them up. Broken bones didn’t happen too often, maybe every other week.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld, Page 191