Imprisoned vets tell their war stories for history

Interesting tidbits that contradict the notion that the military has ever been able to change the gang mindset:

By DAVID DISHNEAU – 22 hours ago

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — As U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam in early 1974, Seaman Apprentice Frederic D. Jones was fighting his own battles.

The cocky Baltimore teenager spent nearly three months AWOL in the Philippines. There, he said, he played cat-and-mouse with shore patrol while fending off a murderous drug dealer, romancing the sister of a militia leader and robbing other servicemen to feed his heroin habit.

Eventually caught, Jones negotiated an honorable discharge but couldn't stay clean. An armed robbery spree in 1995 got him a 45-year sentence in the Maryland Correctional Institution near Hagerstown.

While Jones, now 52, is locked away from society, his war story has been preserved for posterity. He is among the first incarcerated veterans to tell his military service tale to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.

Video recordings of more than 30 inmates at the medium-security prison are archived at the library's American Folklife Center, along with those of nearly 60,000 other veterans. Just one other prison, the Fairton Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, N.J., has collected veterans' stories, said Bob Patrick, director of the Veterans History Project.

Congress created the oral history program in 2000 to document the personal wartime experiences of American service members. The library doesn't try to verify their stories, but The Associated Press confirmed the service records of the inmates mentioned in this report.

Patrick said that by recognizing their roles in history, the project dignifies the service of veterans who take part. Jones was so proud of his videotape that he had a copy sent to his elderly mother.

"She was so overjoyed and surprised," he said.

Since any veteran, no matter how decorated or disgraced, can contribute to the archive, Jones' story was as welcome as that of any admiral. And it's hard to imagine one more colorful.

On his nearly 90-minute recording, Jones recounts his adventures as a "young, wild, impulsive," 18-year-old in and around the Subic Bay Naval Base. There, he said, a female gang called the Black Stockings helped him steal cash and watches from drunken sailors and aided him in avoiding a drug dealer he had wronged.

"I ended up getting a contract on my life," Jones says. "I felt like I had never left home."

Jones, who is black, said he enlisted in the Navy seeking structure and style — he liked the bell-bottomed uniforms — but he quickly grew disenchanted by the racism and drug use he found.

"I'd had my own preconceived ideas what the military was — I mean straight-up, strict discipline," Jones says on the video, made a year ago. "The drugs, the gang mentality — it was all right there in the military. It was a big letdown."

In a June interview with the AP, Jones said he doesn't blame the military for his mistakes but has found in prison the sort of discipline he had expected from the Navy. Behind bars, he and 58-year-old John E. Barba, who is serving a life sentence for robbing and murdering a methamphetamine maker, have become co-chairmen of the prison's veterans history committee.

Guided by materials from the Library of Congress, they have become such skilled interviewers since last fall that they and prison librarian Mary Stevanus, who spearheaded the history project, hope to produce a how-to booklet or video for other veterans groups, in or out of prison.

"What you're looking for is the meat of the stuff," said Barba, who served domestically in the Navy from 1970 to 1974. Working together, he and Jones conduct informal "pre-interviews" with their subjects, making notes of compelling material "so when they're giving their interview, we can dive in," Barba said.

They extracted a harrowing account from Ronald L. McClary, 62, of his experience under fire as a fresh-faced Marine in Vietnam. On his video, the burly inmate, seated before a large U.S. flag, recalls his daily "search-and-destroy" missions.

"Every day, you would look at one of your buddies and wonder who wasn't going home today or who was going to get killed today. Everybody knew it was going to be somebody," said McClary, who is serving 12 years for the second-degree murder of his wife in Baltimore 2005.

He recounted a firefight in which two buddies were killed.

"Three rounds went off. The first round hit Amos in the head. Amos fell. When Amos fell, Cope looked around and looked down at Amos. The second round hit Cope in the head. And I seen it. I told you, three rounds went off. Cope was to my left. Amos was to my left, and then there was me. You cannot tell me today the third round wasn't meant for me. But I was down. I was eating dirt."

Ordered by his lieutenant to get up and charge the enemy, McClary fired two shots before his gun jammed. "I had to get back down," he says on the video. "I've never been so scared in all my life."

Jones said he feels privileged hearing such stories.

"These guys have kept this stuff to themselves for 40 years," he said. "You'll see one guy that actually breaks down and cries. I mean, these are hardened criminals and he breaks down and cries on his video."

About 226,000 of the national's 25.1 million veterans were in prison or jail in 1998, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics' most recent report on the subject.

Matt Davison, chairman of an incarcerated veterans project for New York-based VietNow National, a veterans advocacy group, said most inmate vets he's met are proud of having served — and many feel remorse for having done something dishonorable.

Barba said most of the inmates he has interviewed for the history project express gratitude that they were able to serve.

In one video, white-haired World War II vet Lee D. Gerhold, doing 50 years for arranging an ex-wife's murder, grips his cane and says, "I'm thankful to the country for accepting me."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9n1Ye7SDv159D3bV6AB7oBef4hAD93SMC48B

Divided Loyalty for military gang members

• I am an American Soldier.
• I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.
• I will always place the mission first.

These lines start the Soldier's Creed. They also (if tested) would end the military careers of many gang members.

When examining the various aspects of gang life, loyalty within the gang organization often receives little or no attention. It is important that this concept be recognized, since violence is often a forced product of the underlying assumptions that hold street gangs together (Ruble & Turner, 2000), and violence is something that the military trains most service members to respond to (and sometimes deliver).

Loyalty becomes an issue in many organizations, but nowhere is it more critical than in the public service sector. The military and police departments across the United States have been infiltrated by gangs who seek access to weapons or sensitive information regarding investigations (Witkowski, 2004). The threat to these organizations does not come from the traditional worker.

Those in the military who are trained to fight in battle are not the only positions in which the loyalty of a gang member would be an issue. Those who control the finances and personnel assignments, as well as those who oversee logistics shipments can exploit their positions for the gang's benefit. Those in and affiliated with policing and corrections may have access to criminal records, prisoner assignments, and transportation.

The indoctrination phase of these institutions cannot be compared to that used by the gang, and those holding dual positions (a member of the gang and the military or police) should be watched. They will not be intimidated by drill instructors. They will not admit their gang affiliation to investigators. They will not brag to their co-workers that they were able to join the military even though they were gang members.

Some military installations brief new arrivals and their family members on the dangers of gangs. Periodically, military installations will conduct tattoo inspections or publish local addresses situated near military installations of known gang hangouts that are considered off-limits to military personnel (Witkowski, 2004). Despite these briefings, many military leaders publicly deny the existence of gang members in their organizations, or at a minimum deny that their presence in the organization is a problem.

Nonetheless, members of nearly every major street gang, including the Bloods, Crips, Black Disciples, Gangster Disciples, Hells Angels, Latin Kings, The 18th Street Gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Mexican Mafia, Nortenos, Surenos, Vice Lords, and various white supremacist groups, have been found throughout private and public sector employment, and even the U.S. Military. They are present in most branches and across all ranks of the military, especially the junior enlisted. Estimates of their effect on and participation in these areas are hard to obtain because many gang-related incidences are un-reported or exclude references to gang affiliation and there has been no record of a Department of Defense survey to locate military gang members.

Gang members often enter the workforce at the lower levels, but some may work their way into more career-oriented positions. Many join the military to escape their current environment or troubled gang lifestyle. Others may enlist in the military as an alternative to incarceration; to receive combat training; to obtain access to weapons and supplies; to learn basic first aid and medic skills that can later benefit their gang; or to take advantage of opportunities to commit crimes; and to recruit new members for their gang.

Those who enter the military to leave the gang lifestyle have a perfect opportunity. But those who enter the military to establish connections for drug running and weapons trafficking also have an opportunity. None of the military departments have an effective strategy for 1) identifying and 2) tracking the reformation of gang members, or truly 3) cracking the code. Current law prohibits only "active" participation, which means that those who enter or are sent to learn tactics or make connections would not be seen as active. We learned (again) with the war on terrorism that young men are quite capable of hiding their intentions.

Perhaps we should allow gang members into the military. To do so without oversight, though, is a mistake.

What do you think?

References

Ruble, N. M., & Turner, W. L. (2000). A systemic analysis of the dynamics and organization of urban street gangs. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 28(2), 117-132.
Witkowski, M. J. (2004). The Gang's All Here. Security Management. Arlington: May 2004, 48,(5) 95.

Can you prevent membership in organized criminal groups if you are the SecDef?

With more than 750,000 criminal street gang members in the United States (approximately the population of Austin, TX), government officials at all levels are searching for ways to restrict the negative impact of gang-related activity on the community. Many of these attempts have been challenged in the courts, in academia, and the media, having been deemed overly broad in scope, though specifically limiting solutions have been used with some success.

H.R. 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 Section 544 - became law (Public Law 110-181), and requires the Secretary of Defense to prescribe regulations to prohibit the active participation of military personnel in street gangs.

The bill was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President back in January, yet here we are, more than six months later, with no changes to military policy on gang membership.

It didn't take that long to pass the USAPATRIOT Act.

Perhaps we are being more careful. Or, perhaps we are trying to see if denial works yet . . .


Gangs aren't a new blip on the radar screen -- over twelve years ago, the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense were told, "Gang-related activities appear to be more pervasive than extremist activities as defined in Army Regulation 600-20."

This was from an investigative Task Force formed in response to an Extremist-related killing that was looking to see if there was a problem with Extremists in the Army. The task force visited 28 major Army installations in the United States, Germany, and Korea during January and February 1996. After conducting over 7,000 interviews and 17,080 written surveys, the task force concluded that there was minimal evidence of extremist-group activity in the Army . . .

They did note there was more of a “security concern” with street gangs.


They said "Yes, But . . ." when responding to the Secretary. Their response essentially was "Yes, there are a few more of those hate-mongers in the military, but there's a related problem that you really ought to pay attention to -- street gangs!"

That's akin to inspecting a car for someone who asked you to see if the car needed belts, tires, fluids and you respond with, "Yes, we need to schedule all that, but you need to know that the tread on your front tires is dangerously low." Or, imagine asking a private investigator to see if your spouse is visiting the racetrack and he responds with, "She bets on the horses about once a week, but she visits a hotel room with a different guy every Tuesday and Friday while you are working."

Do you wait twelve years to process this new information?

So here we are twelve years later, Congress AND the President agreed with the Task Force's report, and after six months . . . nothing. The NFL gets it, why not the Secretary of Defense?

What's it going to take?

Soldier charged again for alleged role in 2006 gang-beating death

By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, June 27, 2007

Army Pvt. Bobby Morrissette has been charged again for his alleged role in the 2005 gang initiation beating death of a fellow soldier.

On Tuesday, Morrissette, 25, was charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, participation in gang initiation rituals, indecent acts, impeding an investigation, impeding trial by court-martial and willfully disobeying an officer, according to an Army news release.

An article 32 hearing has not yet been scheduled for Morrissette, said Denver Makle, a spokeswoman with Joint Multinational Training Command. Morrissette is assigned to the 1st Cargo Transfer Company in Grafenwöhr, Germany.

In October 2006, Morrissette was charged with murder and other related charges in relation to Army Sgt. Juwan Johnson’s death.

Morrissette, who then faced a maximum possible sentence of life in prison without parole, became the first of several Kaiserslautern-area soldiers and airmen charged in Johnson’s death.

Johnson died of multiple blunt force injuries on July 4, 2005, after an alleged initiation ceremony into the Gangster Disciples.

In previous cases, witnesses have testified that as many as 10 former and current soldiers and airmen beat Johnson for six minutes during the initiation near Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In June 2007, Morrissette’s former commanding general dismissed and withdrew all charges against Morrissette to comply with a military judge’s ruling.

The judge disqualified 21st Theater Sustainment Command lawyers and commanders from the case for not following protocol during the investigation into Johnson’s death.

The disqualification surrounded a December 2005 interview of Morrissette in which prosecutors and investigators did not follow proper procedure.

To date, two soldiers and one airman have been convicted in Johnson’s killing, and one soldier was acquitted in the matter last year. Army lawyers who will prosecute Morrissette have attended some of the previous hearings and courts-martial surrounding the Johnson case.

"Military defense attorneys are always detailed for such cases," Makle wrote in an e-mail. "It is unknown at this time whether (Morrissette) will choose to be represented by civilian counsel as well."

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&

What exactly makes a gang member a gang member?

In the previous post (Gang members don't belong . . .) we referenced the ongoing conversation over at the Modesto Bee.

Here's the recent thought provoking dialog update:

What exactly makes a gang member a gang member? Sounds like a lot of stereotyping going on. You could consider a bunch of Marines with USMC tattoos consider gang members when they are hanging out together right? - FigMutant

It's not at all about stereotyping -- though many gang members and their political supporters often try to play that shell game.

A concise and agreed-upon definition has yet to be found in the study of gangs, though most scholars agree that a gang is a group of two (or three) or more individuals who form a loosely organized group (or remain together as a group) with one of the primary purposes of that group being the continued commission of criminal acts. Gangs vary greatly in size, geography, criminal sophistication, modus operandi, and their impact on the community or communities. As noted earlier, there is much diversity in gang membership. All races and ethnic backgrounds are included.

Ball and Curry (1995) suggested an heuristic definition for gangs, and offered: a "spontaneous, semisecret, interstitial, integrated but mutable social system whose members share common interests and that functions with relatively little regard for legality but regulates interaction among its members and features a leadership structure with processes of organizational maintenance and membership services and adaptive mechanisms for dealing with other significant social systems in its environment" (p. 9).

More simply, a gang is a group of individuals who 1) agree to commit crime 2) on a regular bases, and 3) one of them does something to further the commission of the crime. This definition contains the essential elements needed to prove the criminal charge of conspiracy in most jurisdictions. Gangs can be seen as criminal organizations because they are, for the most part, in violation of the various conspiracy laws in our country.

So no, the organizations known as the boy scouts, the Marines, and the local police department are not gangs by definition because their primary purpose for existing is not the commission of criminal activity.

Ball, R. A. & Curry, G. D. (1995). The logic of definition in criminology: Purposes and methods for defining "gangs". Criminology, 33(2), 225.

PS -- the above is now a blog post, thanks for the inspiration :-) So here it is . . .

What do you think?

Opinion: Gang members don't belong in the military or our community

A citizen from California is of the opinion that Street criminals and gang members must not be sent to the military. Bert Cook writes, "If they have not previously been good, honorable citizens in their communities, they will not become trustworthy members in uniform."His experience was in the late 1950s . . . has anything changed?

UPDATE: Been in conversation over there (this post, see "read more" below) with thattalldude. Check out his solution to state budget crunches, especially regarding the notion of early release of prisoners.

read more | digg story

Mother of sergeant fatally beaten in gang initiation takes aim at son’s killer, military

Saturday, May 24, 2008

By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes European edition, Sunday, May 25, 2008 Steve Mraz / S&S

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany – Losing a child is like somebody stabbing you in the heart with an ice pick and leaving it in just so they can apply pressure. The ice pick is never ripped out of your heart, just constantly ripped at.

That’s how Stephanie Cockrell, the mother of a soldier beaten to death by fellow troops during a 2005 gang initiation, described the feeling of life without her only child, Army Sgt. Juwan Johnson.

During a court-martial last week for Airman Nicholas Sims, Cockrell told the court she is not proud her son joined a gang hours before his death on July 4, 2005. She wonders how she’ll tell her grandson about the identity of the father he will never meet.

The 28-year-old Sims — who has been in pretrial confinement for 162 days — was sentenced Friday to eight years’ confinement, dishonorable discharge and reduction to the lowest rank for his role in Johnson’s death. However, Sims will serve no more than six years’ jail time because of a pretrial agreement and credit for time already served. On Wednesday, Sims pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, disobeying an order by being a gang member and distribution of marijuana and Ecstasy.

On July 3, 2005, Sims was one of at least six Gangster Disciples who beat Johnson for six minutes during a gang initiation near Kaiserslautern, according to testimony. Two soldiers were convicted last year for their part in Johnson’s death. They were sentenced to 12 years’ and six years’ of confinement, respectively. A third soldier tried in 2007 was acquitted.

Sims’ court-martial, which initially was set to begin Monday, started Wednesday afternoon.
During roughly four hours of questioning Wednesday from the military judge, Air Force Col. Gordon Hammock, Sims detailed his participation in Johnson’s initiation.

Hammock repeatedly sought to determine why things got so out of hand on July 3, 2005.
"I have no idea as to why it escalated to the point that it did," Sims told the judge. "It just got out of control."

Sims, who trained as a boxer in his youth in Queens, N.Y., was asked several questions by Hammock about the ferocity of Johnson’s beating.

"You’re a strong guy," Hammock said. "If you were on the receiving end of that (beating), how do you think you would have fared?"

Sims’ reply underscored the severity of what the 5-foot-3 Johnson went through.

"I don’t see how anybody could have made it out of that," Sims said.

On Thursday evening, Cockrell took the stand to deliver testimony that captivated the courtroom and brought Sims to tears.

Cockrell talked of raising Johnson as a single mother in Baltimore. At times, the former drug addict and current counselor had courtroom spectators laughing. At times, Cockrell had the gallery crying. At times, Cockrell broke down.

The gang, in which Sims said he served as the second-highest-ranking member, fashioned itself as a family that would do anything for its members. Cockrell wondered where those family values were when gang members continued to punch and kick her son, even after he fell and could no longer stand during his initiation, she said.

Just like the other convicted gang members, Sims expressed regret for his actions on July 3, 2005, and what happened to Johnson. Cockrell wasn’t buying it Thursday night.

"Isn’t it funny," she said. "None of them showed remorse until you bring them to justice."
Twice Cockrell was asked if she had anything else she would like to say to the judge, Sims or the court.

She turned to Sims and then the judge.

"I say to you (Sims)," Cockrell said, "how could you beat [Johnson] when you didn’t even know him? I would say to the judge: At what point do we do something different to make sure this doesn’t happen in our military?"

In an intensely emotional moment, Cockrell addressed Sims a final time.

"I hope you feel some remorse for killing (Johnson) because at the end of the day that’s what you’ve done," said Cockrell while sobbing. "You robbed me of not only my son but my best friend."

Seated among his three lawyers, Sims uttered a tearful "I’m sorry."

Sims quietly wept in his chair for minutes afterward.

© 2007 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55087