The Ghosts of November

Thirty Years

2008-11-08T14:55:00.002Z

Thirty years is not really all that great a period of time in the grand scheme of things. Oh, it is half my life and I know I will be lucky to see another 30 years on this earth, but in the history of the world it is the snap of a finger.

Aside from 2008 being the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, it also marks a never before reached milestone in the 232 year life of our young republic. The United States of America has elected a non-white president for the very first time. Listening to the election night coverage on NPR and hearing Obama declared president-elect, I was overwhelmed with pride in my country. I never thought this day would occur in my lifetime.

Then I wondered what Rev. Jim Jones would have said. I wondered what his reaction would have been. Would he be amazed that just half a century after Rosa Parks refused to take a seat in the back of the bus our country would elect a black man as its leader?

What happened in Jonestown 30 years ago is a horror we shall never forget. What happened in the USA last Tuesday night was a monumental event we shall always remember.

Epilogue

2008-09-22T13:37:00.002Z

Epilogue

“It is remarkable how insane and unimaginative Utopias have generally been… The possibility of essential progress is bound up with the tragic possibility that progress and human life may one day end together… Mortality has its compensations: one is that all evils are transitory, another that better times may come.”
Jorge Santayana

It is an understatement to say the Jonestown Massacre had a profound effect in my life. Practically everything that has occurred in it since I spent nine days in Guyana that November of 1978, can be directly attributed to changes in my psyche and philosophy that began evolving in Jonestown.

I was raised in a Christian home by a Baptist mother who, late in my fifth decade of life, still attends the church in which I was raised, when she is physically able. She lives in an adult living community less than 50 yards from that church. My brother is a trustee there.

As a child, I participated in Christmas and Easter pageants in that church. In high school, I gave a sermon on youth Sunday. I attended a Christian College after graduating from high school. I was the epitome of a big time Christian.

But church is a place I am suspicious of now. For me it isn’t a place of solace and peace, but a potential cause of pain and suffering. I have become suspect and cynical, not trusting churchmen and constantly finding my distrust being validated when someone my mother respects, like Jim Baker or Jimmy Swaggart fall.

I am still haunted by the ghosts of November. While they don’t cause me to behave strangely or lose sleep during the anniversary dates of their deaths anymore, they affect me nevertheless. I see them in the eyes of children as young as four-years-old, begging on the street corner of Lagos, Nigeria. They were with me during six years of living on the streets as a homeless derelict and even today, after I brought myself back to the respectable world of the employed, I see them in the eyes of the homeless panhandlers in Indianapolis.

I survived 635 days in a combat zone so I know I can persevere through the worst of circumstances. Yet, the experiences of Vietnam, watching my fellow soldiers die in my arms, helping amputate limbs and getting knee-deep in blood and gore was nowhere near as traumatic to me as the nine days I spent in 1978 in that twilight zone called Jonestown.

To those of us who were part of that infamous event known as the Jonestown Massacre, the past 30 years since it occurred have flown by. It’s hard to believe that many of the people who read this book weren’t even born when the events described in it occurred.

I lost contact with almost all the other people who participated in the task force. Eric Vega did get in touch with me by e-mail when he stumbled across my blog quite by accident. In June 2006, I had the opportunity to meet his lovely wife and him when I went to San Diego. He seemed unaffected by the nine days he spent carrying body bags in the hot Guyanese sun 28 years before. But I suppose the same could be said about me. Our wounds are not obvious but they are there.

Eric is still a medical records specialist. He works in a VA hospital. He has a lovely wife and seems to be living a happy life. We went to dinner while I was in San Diego and we discussed good times in the 601st Medical Company and in Panama, but we did not talk about Jonestown.

The Jonestown Massacre was one of the biggest news stories of 1978, possibly of the entire century. It still stands as the largest mass murder/suicide in history. I use the term “murder/suicide” because it is obvious the infants and small children were not given a choice in the matter. In fact, many researchers feel the majority of the victims of Jonestown were murdered.

Conspiracy theories abound regarding the truth about what happened in Jonestown three decades ago. To some, it simply represents nothing more than a social experiment that went terribly awry. Others opine that members off the Army’s elite Special Forces perpetrated the deaths and still others insist that Jonestown, by its very nature, was destined to self-destruct.

Much of the mystery surrounding Jonestown and the deaths that occurred there is due to the government secrecy and reticence of government agencies to declassify documents or respond to Freedom of Information Act requests in a cooperative and timely manner. Fielding McGehee of The Jonestown Institute has been successful in obtaining documents and tapes of radio transmissions, telephone conversations and sermons from the government and he provides transcripts to the public.

Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University, is the author or co-editor of more than half dozen books on the Peoples Temple. She lost two sisters and a nephew at Jonestown. After the remains of her loved ones and other American Jonestown victims were returned to Dover, Delaware, Ms. Moore and her family had some difficulty and unpleasant experience dealing with the U.S. government. Her essay, Last Rights, outlines these problems and is found in the appendix.

While Jonestown seemed to be an isolated albeit incredibly horrifying event in human history, the mass murder/suicides were the precursor to several other events that occurred on a smaller scale.

· On December 13, 1990, 12 people died in a ritual in Tijuana, Mexico, after drinking fruit punch tainted with industrial alcohol.
· In 1991, Mexican minister, Ramon Morales Almazan, and 29 followers suffocated after he told them to keep praying and ignore toxic fumes that filled his church.
· In October 1993, 53 Vietnamese tribal villagers committed mass suicide with flintlock weapons in the belief they would go directly to heaven.
· On April 19, 1993, 84 Branch Davidians led by David Koresh, died in a fire and shoot-out with out-of-control federal agents near Waco, Texas, ending a 51-day siege of their cult compound.
· In October 1994, the burned bodies of 48 Solar Temple members were discovered in farmhouse and three chalets in Switzerland. At the same time, five other bodies, including an infant’s, were found in a Solar Temple house north of Montreal, Canada.
· In December 1995, 16 Solar Temple members were found dead in a burned house outside Grenoble in the French Alps.
· On March 23, 1997, the charred remains of three women and two men were found inside a house in Saint Casimir, Canada. All were members of the Solar Temple.
· On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 men were discovered in a mass suicide near San Diego. These members of the Heaven’s Gate cult also believed their deaths would lead to their rebirth and future life with aliens.
· In March 2000, a bizarre cult led by a defrocked Catholic priest and a prostitute, committed mass suicide/murder when more than 1000 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments in Uganda, were killed after being doused with a flammable liquid and being locked in the sanctuary of a church that was burned to the ground.

Many cult experts predicted an upsurge in cult-related deaths as the year 2000 approached. Fortunately, the mass murder/suicides in Uganda seem to be the only instance in the new millennium. The absence of any more mass deaths tied to religious cults since 2000 must be counted as a good sign.

Thirty years following the Jonestown Massacre, what happened in that isolated jungle enclave is still a matter of curiosity. There remain more questions unanswered than answered and as long as there are survivors or people who knew survivors, as long as there are people who went there for the clean-up and their children and grandchildren who have heard their awful stories, there will always be questions about Jim Jones, the People’s Temple and the Jonestown Massacre.

The Jonestown Institute, part of San Diego State University, has done much to keep the issue alive. It publishes an annual newsletter, The Jonestown Report, which is available on line. Dr. Rebecca Moore, its director, has been an invaluable contributor and resource for this book. As the thirtieth anniversary of the tragedy draws near, a play about Jonestown has been written and performed in various parts of the country.

The People's Temple: Docudrama by Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh and Margo Hall opened in May of 2005 in Berkely, California. Fondakowski also directed the two hour 55 minute play.

The play has been described as The Laramie Project of Jonestown and it has played as far east as Minnesota. "Temple" was the brainchild of Z Space Studio Artistic Director David Dower, who commissioned "Laramie" head writer Fondakowski to take a similar approach to the Peoples Temple story (the apostrophe in the title is meant, in part, to distinguish the play from the actual church).

Marshall Kilduff, a San Francisco Chronicle editorial writer who covered City Hall and the crime beat during his long tenure at the newspaper said of the continued thirst for information about the People’s Temple, including the docudrama, “What hangs me up were the people under Jones… as a reporter, I encountered Jones a number of times. I always walked away, shaking my head at the sublime strangeness of him and his entourage.

“None of his inner circle smiled. Banter, sports scores, the weather -- none of my brilliant conversation-starters ever worked with this deadpan crew. Whenever I talked with Jones, temple members would call me later, sometimes late at night. Jim appreciates your interest in his work, the callers said, but he doesn't want it in the paper.

“Who were these guys? It became my biggest wonder. It's also what the Berkeley Repertory Theatre play "The People's Temple'' zeroes in on, too. It's a big, unmade bed of a stage drama filled with dozens of personal accounts stretched over three hours.

But the play avoids giving answers to any of Kilduff’s questions. He said that as a reporter, he pursued Jim Jones and people he knew were killed in the final hours of the temple’s existence. He said, “I wrote a book about it all and then walked away. I thought I had a grasp of what went on.

“But the final summing up never made me feel easy. Take your pick among the common explanations for Jonestown: The followers were all crazy; Jones turned nice folks into demonic zombies; they were idealists driven mad by a merciless world. Add in race, faith-healing and the hey-whatever California culture. You could fashion your own answer and then fold it up and put it away.”

But as Kilduff came to know the survivors, he had to reevaluate his cookie-cutter ideas of the past. They didn’t work. He came to know the survivors personally. They joined the temple for a myriad of reasons. Some liked its leftist socialist slant. Others were there because for the interracial qualities. Some liked the security of living in a disciplined and regulated society. Some joined because other family members did, not out of any doctrinal or dogmatic beliefs.
The play makes it clear, the survivors had reasons to both like and hate Jones. As Kilduff says, “They seem to be marked by guilt and shame that won't wash away. More than a quarter of a century later, they are still trying to figure out how it happened.”

Razor grass, vines and a few wild daisies cover the site of Jonestown today. A fire in the early 1980s literally destroyed the cottages and the weeds and other tropical flora growth eventually obliterated all signs that humans once occupied this space.

Residents of Port Kaituma, where Congressman Ryan and four others were murdered, remain suspicious of strangers visiting the area. People from Nigeria and South America come into the area claiming to be considering one project or another. This newfound multiculturalism, reminiscent of Jones' dream of a Utopian multiracial society, is not welcomed by villagers whose collective psyche was scarred by the mass suicide.

The town as has more than quadrupled in size and population since the Jonestown massacre. Most of the 7,000 residents are native Amerindians and descendants of African slaves and East Indian indentured laborers imported centuries ago to Britain's only colony in South America.
An interior covered by impenetrable jungle and dissected by snake-infested rivers prevented the Guyanese government from monitoring Jones' activities, and accounts for a different kind of lawlessness today.

Port residents complain that President Bharrat Jagdeo's government, preoccupied with growing anarchy in the capital, Georgetown, is not doing enough to prevent foreigners stealing Guyana's wealth. Locals say, Brazilians and Venezuelans who have joined a gold rush often mine without permits and smuggle their gains across unpoliced borders.

Others complain the government is too trusting of foreign churches and missionaries. Baptist pastor Dean Runyon, from Cleveland, Ohio, has gathered more than 400 followers in four years for his church, which offers services and helps with small community projects.
"Why I came to Guyana? That's a long story," says Runyon, hurrying to a sermon and referring other questions to his parishioners. "I have nothing to hide, though."

"Pastor Runyon is no Jim Jones," said parishioner Raymond Wong, 32. "He preaches the word of God, but that's it."

Few churchgoers are old enough to remember Jonestown.[1]

Jonestown survivor and former pastor of the temple’s church in Los Angeles, David Wise lived as a fugitive until the year 2000.

“I was thoroughly investigated by the FBI. They informed me that I was no longer “wanted” anywhere. Apparently charges against me were dropped after the Jonestown deaths, and I never knew it. Over the years I had done some research to find out what parts of the Jonestown story were true, and which were not, since I hoped to confirm that no Mafia contract had really been taken out on me. I was especially interested in the involvement of the FBI or the CIA. By providence or by fluke I eventually made personal contact with some of the Green Berets who landed in Jonestown and finally felt I had most of the story.”

During his 24 years on the run, Wise did most forms of blue collar work as well as white. He is a carpenter, plumber, electrician, and mechanic. He worked as a dance teacher and stunt man. He was a singer in Las Vegas, manager of a radio station in Maine news director of one in Kansas.

Jackie Speier is running for the office of Lieutenant Governor in the state of California for the 2006 election. She is currently a Democratic State Senator representing Burlingame south of San Francisco and was a legislative assistant to Rep. Leo Ryan and accompanied the congressman on his trip to Guyana.

Ms. Speier includes that experience in her campaign material. The introduction to her campaign website begins with these words: “In 1978, I dared to survive what should have been a fatal shooting. While on a congressional fact finding mission in Guyana, our party was ambushed by followers of the Reverend Jim Jones. I was left for dead and spent 22 hours on the tarmac waiting for help to arrive. It is this defining moment that helped me fully appreciate the importance of fighting… fighting for what you believe in and the essential importance of never giving up, no matter what the odds against you. It taught me that we all must strive to make a difference.”

In December 2005, Eddie Mills, the son of Al and Jeannie Mills, was detained by California police in connection with the murder of his parents and sister Daphene almost 26 years earlier. A few days later, the prosecutor in the case declined to press charges, and Eddie was released. He has since returned to Japan where he lives with his wife and two children.

Al and Jeannie Mills – who were known as Elmer and Deanna Mertle during their years in Peoples Temple – left the church in 1974 and became two of its most vocal critics. They founded the Human Freedom Center as a refuge for other Temple defectors and were active in the Concerned Relatives organization which was founded to focus media, political, and government pressure on Jim Jones. Because of their defections and their high-profile campaigns against him, Jones often lashed out at the Mills, calling them traitors and threatening retribution against them.

The three members of the Mills family were shot in their Berkeley home in February 1980, more than a year after the deaths in Jonestown. Nevertheless, their murders raised the fear that Temple “hit squads” – ex-members who would supposedly avenge the deaths in the Jonestown community against its perceived enemies – had become active. Those rumors dissipated when the police turned their attention to Eddie as a suspect.

The initial investigation was eventually shelved, but early in 2005, the police re-focused their attention on Eddie, who was 17 at the time and who was in the house when the shootings occurred. He was left unharmed. According to several surviving members of the Mills family, the police asked them to turn over any evidence they may have of Eddie’s involvement. Family members answered police questions, but – since they maintained their belief in Eddie’s innocence – felt there was no evidence to turn over to officials.

The reason for the renewed “cold case” investigation was unknown, since apparently no new evidence was uncovered, nor have advances in forensics technology assisted in reviewing existing evidence. Nevertheless, Eddie was arrested at the San Francisco airport on December 3 upon his return to the U.S. for the first time in several years. He spent several days in the Redwood City jail before being transferred to the East Bay. On December 8, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence, and Eddie was released.

Records released during the U.S. Senate's examination of newly-confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts revealed that - while working for the Reagan White House in 1983 - the young attorney had harsh criticism of slain Congressman Leo J. Ryan.

Five years after Ryan was assassinated at the Port Kaituma airstrip in Guyana during his fact-finding tour to Peoples Temple facilities in Georgetown and Jonestown, Congress awarded the California Democrat a posthumous gold medal for his service. Ryan remains the only congressman killed in the course of his duties in American history.

Roberts' view of the legislator was not as charitable as those of Ryan's former colleagues. In a November 18, 1983, memo to then-White House counsel Fred Fielding, Roberts wrote: "The distinction of his service in the House is certainly subject to debate, and his actions leading to his murder can be viewed as those of a publicity hound." The attorney added, however, that there were no legal problems with Reagan signing the legislation authorizing the award of the Congressional Gold Medal.

Roberts' comment was in a memo among 420 documents which the National Archives released to Senators looking into the nominee's background during the summer of 2005. Denice Stephenson, archivist of the California Historical Society, published a book of primary source documents about Peoples Temple entitled Dear People.

Former Temple attorney and Jones' confidant Tim Stoen asked former religion reporter - and longtime Temple antagonist - Lester Kinsolving for forgiveness earlier this year, apologizing for his role in the Temple's campaign to discredit the newsman. Stoen, who eventually left the Temple and joined his wife Grace in an unsuccessful effort to retrieve John Victor Stoen from Jonestown, helped the Temple to organize pickets around the San Francisco Examiner, where Kinsolving worked, following a series of negative articles in 1972. He also filed a libel suit against the writer over the same articles.

In his letter of February 11, 2005, Stoen said that he had been wrong - and that Kinsolving had been right - about the Temple. Stoen wrote the letter a few weeks after Kinsolving had a heart attack, an event which Stoen said was the impetus for the letter.

Tim Stoen is currently the financial crime prosecutor for Mendocino County. Kinsolving is a talk show host for a radio station in Baltimore and a member of the White House press corps.

The time is fast approaching when there will be no more need to update this epilogue. With most of the People’s Temple and other principles in this drama either passed or very old, there is not much news to come out of the Jonestown Massacre. Hopefully, we all will remember, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it,” and never let another Jonestown happen again.
End

[1] AP, Paisley Dodds, Decades after Jonestown Massacre, villagers distrustful of new foreign influences, 18 November 2002.

Chapter Twelve

2008-09-22T13:31:00.002Z

Chapter Twelve: The Party’s Over

“Once and for all I push away the clouds from my eyes.
I can see misery and pain all about me.
Suddenly I am where I began,
still too weak to help the underprivileged of our world.
My responsibility and what am I doing?
Naught!”
[1]

While Bernal and the rest of the team saw to the offloading of our equipment and supplies, I went to a telephone to call the charge-of-quarters (CQ) so he could dispatch a vehicle to transport us back to the unit. It was a little after 0330 hours. Sanborn was the unit armorer, but didn’t have access to the arms room since he accompanied us to Guyana. I asked the CQ who had the keys to the arms room. He told me the company’s executive officer, First Lieutenant Elias Canasta had them. He was not my favorite officer in the unit.

“Well, please call the XO and let him know we are back so he can come in and sign the weapons back into the arms room when we arrive,” I directed the CQ.

Canasta and I had not hit it off from the very beginning, when he became the platoon leader of my ambulance platoon at Fort Gulick on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone. He was a very strict, inflexible, authoritarian leader with no sense of humor. He was conservative, a staunch and stodgy Roman Catholic, originally from Columbia, with a habit of making rash decision that usually were, in my estimation, wrong.

About half hour after I first talked with the CQ, a follow-up phone call assured me the vehicle would arrive at the terminal momentarily. Before terminating the conversation, I asked if Lieutenant Canasta arrived yet at the company.

The CQ paused a few seconds and said, “He said he’d be in at 0800 hours and y’all are to wait until he gets here.”

“He what?!?” I asked incredulously. The CQ repeated what the lieutenant had told him, adding this time that he didn’t appreciate being awakened at that hour of the morning.

Major Burgos and Captain Skinner had left in the brigade surgeon’s vehicle and I had no one to back me up. I told the CQ to give me the lieutenant’s home phone number. He reluctantly complied.

I immediately called the XO. He answered the phone with, “What do you want now?”

“Good morning lieutenant, I hope I didn’t disturb your beauty sleep,” I said snidely.

“Who is this,” inquired the arrogant XO.

“This is Specialist Six Brailey, just back from Jonestown, Guyana, with five men who need to turn in their weapons and go home and take a bath,” I replied lightly.

“I expect you’ll be at the company before we arrive from Howard. We are leaving in about ten minutes.”

“I told the CQ I’d be there at 0800 hours and that’s when I will be there,” Canasta stated.

“Listen you sorry piece of shit, I’ve always thought you were fucked up asshole, and you just proved it,” I shouted into the telephone. “As far as I am concerned you are an arrogant little snot who wouldn’t make a pimple on a decent NCO’s ass. We are tired, smelly and hung over and we don’t need any shit from an asshole the likes of you!”

“What did you say?” screamed Canasta into the phone.

“You heard me you insipid weasel. You’d better hope we never go to war because you’ll be dodging bullets from both sides you fuck!” I taunted. “You are such a sorry excuse for an officer I didn’t expect you’d drag your sorry ass into the company at this hour of the morning. We’ve all known how much you suck. The troops will be talking about your sorry ass forever!” I concluded forcefully.

“I’ll see your ass in the orderly room, Specialist Brailey!” Canasta spit into the telephone.

I quietly hung up the phone’s receiver and smiled at my men who had been listening intently to my end of the conversation. “The XO says he’ll see me in the orderly room fellas,” I announced as they continued to stare at me with an astonished look on their faces.

Our truck pulled up in front of the company dayroom. I told the driver to secure the vehicle in the motor pool and go to bed. We would unload the equipment tomorrow.

The team picked up their personal gear and stacked it against the building. We already decided since it smelled so bad, no one would dare steal it. We then walked enmass into the dayroom.

As I expected, Lieutenant Canasta was standing there awaiting our arrival. His face was beet red. He was having some difficulty containing his rage. The keys to the arms room were in his left hand. I walked directly up to this young officer who I had successfully goaded in to coming to the company at 0430 hours instead of 0800. I rendered a proper salute with my right hand and at the same time, relieved him of the arms room keys with my left.

Tossing the keys to Sanborn, I kept my eyes on Canasta, “Thank you for coming in to the company at this ungodly hour lieutenant,” I said, “We certainly appreciate it.”

I felt Canasta seething as I said to Sanborn, “Mike, go open the arms room and receive the weapons from the men.” He and the rest of the team started for the stairs.

Finally the outraged Lieutenant spoke, “Would you care to say to my face what you told me on the phone this morning, Specialist Brailey?” asked a barely under control Canasta.

“No sir, I don’t think so. My words served their purpose so I find no need to repeat them,” I stated calmly to the fuming lieutenant.

“What, aren’t you brave enough to say them to me in person? Don’t you have balls enough to say them?” screamed the young officer as he tried to goad me into disrespecting him in front of witnesses.

In a calm manner, I started to respond, “Like I said, sir, there is no need for me to…”

“YOU ARE NOTHING!” yelled Canasta. “YOU ARE NOTHING!” he screamed again, apparently so angry his brain was unable to conjure up more painful epithets.

“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” I said in a building voice and paused. The CQ and his runner quickly caught the reason for my hesitation and immediately left the room, closing the big metal fire door behind them.

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” I repeated in a calm voice, “You are a fucking asshole.”

Canasta looked around the room for witnesses and when he didn’t see any, he spun around and strode toward the orderly room in defeat. As soon as he was gone, the CQ and his runner returned.

“I heard that. What’s gotten into you Jeff?” he asked.

“Oh,” I replied, “The only way I could get him to come into the company at 0430 hours was to rile him up on the phone by calling him a bunch of names. I beat him and he’s pissed.”

“Man, you’d better get in there and apologize,” said the timid CQ.

“You are probably right,” I replied walking toward the orderly room.

As I entered the hall where the company offices was located, I saw Lieutenant Canasta sitting behind his desk, feverishly writing on a yellow legal pad. I knew he was writing me up, preparing a report on the names I called him. He appeared to savor each word he put on the paper. It seemed almost a sin to interrupt the obvious fun the XO was having composing a list of all my acts of disrespect and insubordination. But I interrupted his reverie anyway.

I calmly approached the front of Canasta’s government issue metal desk, stood straight and stiff at attention, rendered and held a proper military salute and said, “Sir, Specialist Brailey wishes to apologize for his disrespectful and insubordinate behavior. I said a lot of bad things to you on the phone that I knew would upset you and cause you to come into the arms room. I know I was wrong, but my men were tired and smelly. I was hung over and…”

I would have continued, but as I stood there, pouring my heart out apologizing, holding my unreturned salute while I was talking, the XO continued his scribbling and totally refused to acknowledge my presence or even return my salute. Seeing I was getting nowhere with this prim little sissy of an officer, I dropped my salute and bent down so my head was right next to his and said, “But if you aren’t man enough to accept my apology, the fucking asshole stands.”

I executed an about-face and went to the arms room to turn my side arm in to Sanborn. While I was in the arms room, Mike said not to worry about the XO. No one will admit hearing my half of the conversation and he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

I wasn’t so sure. When Canasta was a second lieutenant and new to the unit, I had really pissed him off and now he was the company XO and I was antagonizing him again. I was a little worried that the ice was getting pretty thin under my feet. After I turned in my .45, I went home to my family, took a long hot bath and called First Sergeant Art Phillips for advice.

The sun was just rising in Panama when I called Top that morning. He was glad we were home and told me to come over to his house for a beer. I related the events that occurred between Canasta and me and he told me to forget what happened and not to worry. I don’t know what Art Phillips had on Canasta, but the incident of disrespect and insubordination were never mentioned again.

First Sergeant Phillips saved my butt on several occasions during my 20 year career. I first served under him as a private-first-class in Vietnam. My indiscretion with Lieutenant Canasta was the last time he had to pull my buns out of the fire.

A few days after returning from Guyana, Phillips called me into his office. It was around 1000 hrs. He looked at me quizzically and asked if I or any of my men had done anything wrong while we were on the Joint Task Force. Having already briefed him on the sexual exploits of the young studs on my team, I asked him if he thought that might be the reason for the inquiry. Top said that was doubtful. Then he told me our team’s presence was required at the local Army CID office at Albrook Air Force Base.

We all loaded into a gamma goat ambulance and drove the two miles to the CID office. When we arrived we met all of the soldiers from the brigade who were on the task force. They were sitting on the lawn all around the building. No one seemed to know why we were there.

My five subordinates and I reported to the receptionist and she checked off our names and told us to wait outside. Finally, after about 90 minutes, my name was called.

I walked into the building and was greeted by a young man who had “U.S.” where everyone
else in the Army wore their rank. It was the CID’s way of intimidating soldiers by not letting us know what rank our inquisitors are. He directed me to a room that was furnished sparsely with a small table and three chairs. Another CID agent was waiting for our arrival.

The two introduced themselves but didn’t reveal the reason for our meeting. Then I was read my rights under Article 32 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The words started with the familiar, “You have the right to remain silent…” My two interrogators seemed to accept my contention that I had no reason to be silent because I didn’t do anything illegal in Guyana. They said they only had a few questions to ask me. I told them to go for it.

“Did you bring anything back from Guyana that you did not take there with you?” questioned the CID agent who had met me out in the reception area.

“Yes, a bottle of Banks Beer, unopened, a bottle of DM Gold Label Rum, a can of mixed nuts, a can of Fritos, some cancelled Guyanese stamps and some photographs.

The ears of the second agent pricked up when he heard the word “photographs.” “Where did you get these photographs from?” The story of how I acquired the 20 Polaroid photos from the young Guyanese man in the Matthews Ridge bar was the truth, so I told it.

“Are you sure you didn’t steal those photos from Jonestown?” I was asked.

“Quite sure was my immediate and terse reply.

“What are these pictures of,” one of the CID men asked. I told him about each photo and the fact that I paid ten American dollars to the young man who shot the photographs. I also told the agents I had a signed receipt that I had the young man sign so I could verify ownership should I decide to sell the photos to the media.

“Where are these photos now?” the older of the two agents asked. Tiring of playing their game, I decided to stretch the truth and said I sent all but one to my stepfather in the USA and asked him to try to sell them to Newsweek magazine.

“Why did you keep that one picture?”

“I thought it had no commercial value.”

“We want to see the picture.”

“It’s in my quarters, I live right next door in the Corozon housing area, I’ll go get it for you,” I volleyed.

“No,” said the older CID agent, “We’ll drive you over there.”
I could see my house from the CID office. It would take longer for us to drive out the Albrook gate and into Corozal, but the CID wanted to keep me in custody for some reason.

So the two soldiers with the U.S. insignia instead of rank insignia on their uniforms drove me to my quarters. I got out of their car and walked to my front door. I unlocked it and started inside, followed by the agents. I turned and told them to stay outside unless they happened to have a search warrant. I locked the door and went into my bedroom. I took the picture that showed a beehive. The photo along with the receipt I had the foresight to have the photographer sign was all I needed to defuse the situation.

Upon returning to the CID office, I insisted they provide me with a receipt for the photo and receipt I gave them. After this was accomplished, I was told I was free to leave.

Outside I learned that several of the task force members had been forced to return brochures and campaign buttons with pictures of Jim Jones face on them that they had picked up in Jonestown. This angered me and I decided to go to the Staff Judge Advocate’s office at Fort Amador to complain about the CID’s witch hunt.

After providing facts about the afternoon’s activities at the CID office, one brave captain attorney called the Provost Marshall and suggested he stop this illegal search and seizure immediately. The CID did stop the inquiry and most of the soldiers who lost their souvenirs got them back. Major Burgos was required to return the training microscope he liberated, however.

Months passed. In 1979, the soldiers and American residents of the Canal Zone were more interested in the treaty negotiations between Panama and the United States than what happened in Jonestown. Those of us who had participated in that bizarre mission tried to dismiss the horrible memories associated with the savage massacre. Try as one might, the indelible recollections of that haunting experience were not easily repressed.

I did pretty well, immersing myself in my work to block Jonestown out of my conscious mind. I thought I was doing great until the second Sunday in November of 1979. I was walking through Balboa, the Canal Zone city outside Panama City. It was early morning. I was passing near the bakery when the overpowering sweet smell of freshly baked pastries enveloped me. I began to perspire and then to shake uncontrollably and before I knew it, I was vomiting on the sidewalk.

The sweet smell of the Balboa Bakery, that I had enjoyed several times a month for three years, on this particular morning, reminded me of the odor from the 913 bodies that littered Jonestown a year before.

I made my way home as quickly as possible after my embarrassing experience in front of the bakery. For he next two weeks or so, my life was in shambles. It was difficult to sleep at night and when it finally came, it was disrupted by vivid and awful nightmares. My screams shattered the sleep of my spouse and children many times the second and third weeks of November 1979.

My relationships with family members and associates alike were very tenuous during this time. I was unusually moody and emotional. Then, as quickly as they visited me, these foreign feelings and strange behaviors abated. The next seven months passed uneventfully. I was transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Life was good. I enjoyed fishing excursions to the nearby wildlife refuge and leisure time with my family. Things were going well, until mid November when I started getting weird again.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was a victim of a type of post-traumatic-stress-disorder called anniversary syndrome. Psychologists refer to it as a type of PTSD that affects the lives of sufferers around the time of the year some very traumatic event occurred in the lives. It doesn’t need to be a particularly dangerous or long event, just one that was shocking to the person.

Once I realized what was happening to me each November, and the cause, it was easy to have a therapist help me work through it and control its symptoms. Putting everything into perspective and understanding that the event causing the syndrome was a minute slice of a much bigger life, helps us except the tragic event as just another part of history, not the present and certainly not the future.

The Jonestown experience did have a permanent effect on my life. The sign that hung over Jim Jones’ throne at the pavilion flashes through my memory and affects my feelings about many social and political events from my views and actions regarding the war in Iraq to how I deal with bigotry and race relations.

1 Deborah Layton, Seductive Poison, 30-31

Chapter Eleven

2008-09-17T13:35:00.002Z

Chapter Eleven: Party Animals

“The world rolls round forever like a mill; It grounds out death and life and Good and ill; it has no purpose, heart, or mind, or will.”
James Thompson

By 1600 hours, November 28, our final day in Guyana, I was gratefully reunited with my team from Matthews Ridge. Sanborn was able to join us and was almost back to full strength after receiving two liters of fluid by IV. Our little group was fairly isolated during the entire mission and even now, we sat in an unfamiliar terminal, separated from the rest of the task force.

The other soldiers from the Canal Zone who had been working in Jonestown, also sat in another area of the huge abandoned terminal. The GREGG soldiers were absent, still working with their comrades who had been working at Timheri Airport for the week, processing the bodies they received from Jonestown. Yoder and Vega, from our unit, were still working with the GREGG soldiers.

For Sanborn, Fielder, and Bernal, this was the first time they had an opportunity to get a whiff of the scent of death and they were a little green around the gills. Our Air Force radiomen and the two Army fuel specialists we worked with all week also had to get used to the smell. They soon said their goodbyes and left us to find the other soldiers from their units that stayed at the airport while they went forward with us.

It was not very long before our little group was joined by Yoder, Vega, Captain Skinner and Major Burgos. The final body bags had been processed and placed in aluminum caskets. All the different units and groups of soldiers seemed to gather in small groups throughout the terminal. They seemed to be doing essentially what the rest of us started doing earlier in the evening, decompressing after the most stressful week of our lives.

It was interesting to participate in a process that was in different stages in groups across the huge abandoned terminal. The scenario seemed to be the same for each individual group of service men and women. At first meeting, they greeted one another and took their places sitting on or lying against their duffle bags. For the first hour or so, most sat there and simply stared silently into space. Smokers smoked, nonsmokers chewed gum.

Very little chatter could be heard from these pods of people scattered throughout the expanse of this huge building. They stared, they smoked, they apparently contemplated the awful events they had witnessed and/or participated in over the past several days. Everybody, for the most part, sat there in silence trying to make some sense of a tragedy of such enormous proportions that they could not have even conceived of it before it actually happened.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, conversations erupted. They originated with simple, almost rhetorical statements, said to no one in particular, made one at a time by members of the group. There was no order in which people spoke. There was no formal moderator or facilitator. There didn’t seem to be a specific target for the individual comments.

It was as if people were simply saying whatever was in their tired mind at the moment. They seemed to be testing the waters, to see if other people they knew shared the same bizarre thoughts they were feeling, thoughts they never had before, thoughts that scared them.

There was no cohesion or common thread to the phrases being made. The words were personal testimonies of how each of us was effected by events that could drive anybody mad and they became evidence that while we had been through a lot the past eight days, we still maintained our sanity. It was a positive sign that we still retained our humanity after enduring a most inhuman experience.

To me, it seemed like a bunch of bullfrogs sitting around the pond as the sun goes down. Before the daylight begins to fade, the pond is silent, the creatures of the night just awakening to begin their day. Soon darkness falls and one frog emits a single, familiar “ribit.”

There is a long pause and from another lily pad comes a “ribit” that is seemingly unrelated to the previous burst of sound. Then other frogs in different parts of the pond, add their unrelated “ribits’ to the flow of sounds. Before long the entire pond is alive with a cacophony of unrelated frog talk.

Members of our team made their individual comments to no one in particular. There was a pause between each one, followed by another soldier making his or her apparently unrelated verbal contribution. Before long, even the shyest, most introverted soldier, spoke his or her mind, to no one in particular.

This unscripted improvised oral exercise soon became cathartic. As a group, we all had shared basically the same experiences, yet we had different feelings and reactions and responses we needed to have validated and appreciated. We were a lot like the soldier who watched helplessly as his buddy die horribly and violently in the armored personnel carrier accident in Panama.

At first, we could not talk about it because it was totally foreign to the normal comfortable experiences of our daily lives. It was like a horrible nightmare we had to endure 24 hours a day for more than a week. We slowly and individually contemplated our experiences, then began to verbalize our feelings, if only to ourselves. Soon we all opened up and shared our private feelings and thoughts, embellishing them and adding to the comments of others until we were able to face the awfulness of the previous week in a therapeutic manner.

The beer and rum provided by the State Department, while meant to show appreciation for a mission accomplished, actually acted as medication that facilitated conversation. While not intended for this purpose, the medicinal value of the alcohol cannot be overstated. It helped us all talk about and come to grips with the reality of what we had seen and done.

No one knew what time we would be leaving Timheri Airport. We were told that U.S. Air Force C-130s were on their way from Howard Air Force Base to lift us out of this place of death and take us back to the normalcy of our tropical paradise.

By 1800 hours, the entire task force was in the terminal awaiting transportation either to their bases in the USA or Panama. The beer and rum was flowing freely and all but a few of the service men and women in that terminal were partaking of it. The graves registration types joined us in this party. The booze, in a very real way, chased the spirits of the ghosts of Jonestown from our memories, at least for the moment.

Recollections of my final evening in Guyana are less than vivid. When you are extremely physically tired and emotionally drained, very little alcohol is needed to make you forget the bad things you have experienced. My mind is impaired by the mixture of beer and rum and a very concerted effort I made to repress the memories of events that nearly destroyed some of the task force members, Not a few of us came to drink more than we should and had psychological problems they attribute to the Jonestown experience.

I do recall that almost every member of the task force that came from Panama indulged in the booze the State Department provided that night. The more we drank, the more we forgot and the rowdier we became. A week’s worth of stress was relieved by half an evening of drinking. Frankly, I believe this was the best medicine for the bad disease to which we had been exposed.

By 2200 hours, the beverages were, for the most part, consumed, except for the full bottles of Banks Beer and DM Gold Label Rum many of us packed away for souvenirs to enjoy back home. By 2200 hours the majority of our contingent of nearly 200 soldiers were either asleep or close to it because of the sheer physical exhaustion of the work of the past week and the anesthetic effect of the alcohol they consumed.

Major Burgos sat in a seat next to me. He was nodding off, fighting the effects of too much rum and too little sleep. I noticed he had a wooden crate in the seat next to him that I did not see when he arrived in country.

“What’s in the box, Doc?” I asked, making conversation.

“Shhhh,” said Burgos, holding two fingers up to his lips. “It’s a microscope. I liberated it from Jonestown.”

The infirmary in Jonestown had a very sophisticated and expensive training microscope with two eyepieces. The brigade surgeon decided that since everyone in Jonestown was dead, they’d have no use for this piece of medical equipment.

I don’t believe Major Burgos considered the procurement of this instrument worth thousands of dollars theft. After all, the military has a long history of obtaining supplies that were in short supply through what is euphemistically called a “midnight requisition.”

When I was in Vietnam our evacuation hospital “procured” air conditioners for our wards through similar unorthodox and imaginative means. Major Burgos intended to use this training microscope to enhance the capabilities of the laboratory technicians assigned to the 601st Medical Company. Unfortunately, this microscope was the catalyst for a witch hunt that the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) would conduct when the task force returned to the Canal Zone.

While the brigade surgeon and I discussed the acquisition of the new piece of medical equipment, two C-130s from Howard Air Force Base arrived to take us home. The two big birds taxied from the runway to just outside the old terminal building. The crew shut down their engines and within a few minutes, walked into the terminal. Both aircraft commanders, bird colonels, appeared shocked by what they saw.

Here were nearly 200 service men and women who were obviously far from being fit to fight, and by Air Force standards, unfit for flight. Our odor was extremely disgusting to the uninitiated. It didn’t bother us any longer, but these two officers definitely were not members of our exclusive club. The fact that most of us were in various stages of inebriation, did not bring joy to these two stern Air Force officers. One of them asked loudly, “Who’s in charge here?”

A slightly drunk Colonel Gordon, using all the strength he could muster under the circumstances, stood up and slowly, but steadily, walked to his sober Air Force equal, and said in a dignified voice, “I am in charge.”

“We cannot fly this bunch of drunks in U.S. Air Force aircraft,” the commander stated resolutely.

“You not only can, you will,” said Colonel Gordon with as much strength and conviction as his Air Force counterpart.

The two stared at each other for some time. Then Colonel Gordon took the irate Air Force officer aside. Although I couldn’t hear what was being said, the two colonels had a serious and earnest conversation. They stood, shook hands, and the two Air Force officers went back to their aircraft.

Later, I learned that Colonel Gordon related to the Air Force colonel all the terrible and stressful experiences of the past week. He told him that although we were, for the most part, in no condition to “make a movement,” he would brief us all and ensure we all behaved properly during the five hour flight back to Panama. The Air Force colonels talked to their crews and one came back into the terminal to talk with Colonel Gordon one more time. It appeared the decision was made to carry us all back home despite our collective slovenly and drunken conditions.

Colonel Gordon called the noncommissioned officers in charge (NCOIC) of each unit together for a briefing. He explained the Air Force had strict regulations that all passengers on their aircraft be sober. While he had to admit to the aircraft commanders that very few, if any, of his charges would pass a sobriety test, he would ensure everybody would act in a professional manner. The good colonel then directed the NCOs of the brigade to ensure his promise to the reluctant Air Force colonels was kept.

I was fortunate, with only five enlisted and two officers to worry about, my group was smaller than most. Major Burgos and Captain Skinner were officers and gentlemen and I expected they would have no problem displaying the proper demeanor during the trip. In fact, Skinner was actually sober. Burgos was fairly inebriated, but he held his liquor well.

My other enlisted personnel were all extremely well lubricated with Guyanese beer and rum. The most difficult task I would have to face in helping Colonel Gordon keep his promise to the Air Force would be to get these five people onto the aircraft safely. Once they were seated and strapped in to their seats, I was confident they would all sleep like babies until we touched down at Howard Air Force Base.

Sanborn had slept for some time and once I was able to fully awaken him, he became a capable escort for Sam Bernal, who was the most unsteady of our group. Mike was much bigger than Sam and had no trouble securing both him and his gear in the aircraft. In fact, he was soon belted into his seat and he quickly resumed the deep sleep he was enjoying before making his tipsy trek to the aircraft.

Vega would have won the prize for being the most unsteady on his feet had we been able to awaken him. As it was, Yoder and I carried the little medical records specialist to the aircraft. Both he and Bernal snored loudly for the entire five hour flight.

Fielder was able to make his way to his seat on the C-130 and buckle himself in before nodding off to dreamland. Captain Skinner, Specialist Yoder and I accompanied Major Burgos onto the aircraft. The commander and specialist walked on either side of the surgeon. I brought up the rear, carrying the soon-to-be controversial microscope.

To the credit of all the men and women of the 193rd Infantry Brigade who made that trip from Timheri Airport to Howard Air Force Base early in the morning on that November 29, everyone behaved themselves very well. No one vomited and there was not the least bit of rowdiness during the flight.

No one told us that a surprise awaited us at the Air Force base at 0330 hours when we finally arrived back in the Canal Zone. The new 193rd Infantry Brigade commander, General K.C. Luer, had prepared a somewhat elaborate ceremony on the tarmac to mark our return. The Army Band was present and playing as the big rear doors of the C-130s opened. The general stood on a makeshift stand with a podium, waiting to give the returning troops words of congratulations for a job well done.

What no one who had planned the reception anticipated was the condition of the participants of this thoroughly repugnant and disgusting mission. All of us, while not aware of the odor ourselves, smelled extremely bad to noses that had not been exposed to the aroma of death for the past week. This included the band members who quickly caught a good whiff of our “Jonestown Perfume” and lost the ability to perform the march music they had been practicing for the past week without gagging or puking.

While General Luer did not seem to mind making his speech under these adverse conditions, the hung over honorees were less prepared to listen to him. Not only did we smell bad, we hadn’t bathed or shaved in over a week, I had a splitting headache, and the only voice I wanted to hear was my wife’s while she was scrubbing my stinky body in the tub.

Every member of the task force honored by General Luer, his entourage and band that early morning, stumbled unceremoniously out of the aircraft and made their way too the terminal. We quickly became the building’s only occupants, as Air Force personnel who worked in the terminal evacuated to the outside and fresh air. General Luer made a few comments as we passed by his podium, then stood stock still as he watched the entire contingent walk past him and enter the terminal.

The party was over and the hard job of telling our families and friends about our experiences was about to begin. Everyone who participated in this mission had change in some way, and our lives after Jonestown would never be the same.

Chapter Ten

2008-09-17T13:27:00.002Z

Chapter Ten: “The Final Dance With Death”

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Albert Schweitzer

After my astonishing run-in with the inebriated Army doctor, I felt the need for a cold Banks Beer. At this point in my military career, I had been a medic for 10 years and never before encountered a physician who was noticeably drunk on duty. To the credit of doctors in the Army, I never saw one in my second decade of service either.

It had been a stressful nine days. Fortunately, the State Department arranged for the entire task force to enjoy some of Guyana’s finest brew on this the final day of the mission. It was preparing to throw the mother of all after-mission parties.

One hundred and forty four cases of Banks Beer were stacked on one wall of the tired old Timheri Airport terminal. Blocks of ice had been chopped and placed on top of and among the cases of brew. In addition to the beer were bottles of Gold Label Rum, the pride of Guyana’s distilling industry. This may be the smoothest rum in the world. True connoisseurs of fine rum would never dream of ruining a drink of DM Gold Label by contaminating in with ice or Coca Cola.

Perhaps it was no wonder the clearing platoon doctor was drunk. Guyana was an alcoholic’s paradise. What with a bottle of beer costing 20 American cents after bottle deposit and rum being so mellow its almost a substitute for sex, the liver of any overly imbibing visitor to Guyana must be in constant overload and in danger of shutting down.

And here were 3,456 bottles of the best beer in the country and more than 200 fifths of rum waiting to be shared by a couple of hundred tired and stressed-out soldiers who didn’t need an excuse to party. If everyone were to equally partake in their fair share of the bounty, each member of the task force would have drunk 17 bottles of beer and a bottle of rum over the next eight to ten hours. Thankfully, the embassy remembered to provide mixed nuts and canned Fritos Corn Chips. Heaven forbid we should do all that drinking on an empty stomach.

I was standing in the middle of the fairly empty, abandoned old terminal building, drinking a cold Banks Beer and missing the guys I had left behind in Matthews Ridge a few hours earlier. Major Burgos and Captain Skinner had left to go to a meeting. I was a stranger here, having left Timheri on November 20 before most of the troops working there had arrived in-country.

As I tried hard not to feel lonely, a jeep entered a wide doorway at the far end of the huge open building. It quickly arrived where I was standing and its driver and lone occupant, a black American Quartermaster Corps officer, with the last name of “Major” stenciled on his uniform, asked me to get him a beer.

I ambled over to a wooden case, removed a piece of ice embedded on a bottle of Banks, and used one of the dozens of church keys tied to the cases to pop the metal cap from the cold brown glass bottle. I walked over to the young officer and said, “My name is Brailey, Spec. 6 Brailey.”

“I can see that. Major Major,” he said, taking the beer with his left hand and offering me his right to shake.

“Haven’t seen you around Brailey,” said the friendly and unpretentious officer.

“No sir, just got here. I’ve been forward.” I replied.

“Forward? You been to Jonestown?” questioned Major Major.

“Yes sir, Jonestown a few times. Mostly Matthews Ridge,” I said.

“Well, I guess dead bodies don’t bother you then.” The major said in more of a statement than a question.

“No sir, not really. I’ve seen and smelled enough of them lately,” I said flatly.

“Good,” said Major Major enthusiastically. “Want to get your picture in the papers?”

“I guess so.”

“Hop in,” said the Quartermaster Corps officer, patting the passenger seat.

I climbed into the jeep, and before I had a chance to settle in, Major Major threw the vehicle into reverse, did a quick half turn, jammed the jeep into first gear and tooled out of the terminal toward the tarmac.

We raced toward the flight line where trucks and tired soldiers could be seen waiting for the incoming Jolly Green Giants and the last full body bags from Jonestown. When the two big metal birds landed, the first part of the task force’s mission, recovery and evacuation of the remains from Jonestown, would be completed.

The soldiers waiting on the hot tarmac that afternoon had spent the past eight days offloading bodies from H-53 helicopters. While not as gross as the job of bagging the remains from where they lay rotting in the unforgiving sun, this job still was no picnic. The body bags were not all airtight and the smells and fluids of those who died ten days earlier fouled the air and everything else in the proximity.

International photo journalists with their still and motion picture cameras mingled with the soldiers as they waited. This moment represented the last chance for them to record the climax of the military mission sent to clean up of the biggest mass murder/suicide the world has ever known. During their Jonestown coverage, most of these professional news photographers saw the worst side of humanity and mastered the art of detaching themselves from the catastrophic event they were covering.

Cliff Yoder, a lanky white country boy from rural Pennsylvania and Eric Vega, a teenaged soldier from Puerto Rico, had come to Guyana to record the admissions and treatment of any survivors of the massacre. As medical records specialists, they were simply clerks, more accustomed to manning a typewriter than a machine gun.

Unfortunately, the day we arrived in Guyana, we learned there were no survivors. The task force had no need for clerks, but there was a major need for strong backs and arms to lift body bags from the helicopters to the trucks that delivered them to the area where the GREGG soldiers were placing them in aluminum caskets.

So Yoder and Vega spent their eight days at Timheri Airport shuttling body bags. Day after day, they had nothing more to look forward to when they woke up than the backbreaking, nauseating chore of carrying Jonestown’s dead from one conveyance to another in the sweltering tropical heat.

At the beginning of the operation, the bodies in the bags were of adults, often requiring two men to lift them from the H-53s and carry them to the waiting trucks. When two men work together, it makes the performance of a painful and difficult task easier. They have someone with which to talk, commiserate and generally pass the time with.

But as the days went by, the big bags bore smaller and smaller bodies – the mothers who had killed their offspring, the teens and adolescents whose deaths followed the younger children and finally the younger children themselves. For a day-and –a-half, the body bags contained toddlers, babies and infants, human remains that were so small, that often three or more were placed in one bag to conserve the waning supply. Even those bags filled with more than one child could be carried by a single soldier.

When a dirty job is performed by one person, the time usually used to socialize and communicate with a work partner is still there and must be filled. Most of the men working on the Timheri Airport tarmac that final day of the mission filled their work time with day dreams or memories. There mission for the past week had been to rid incoming helicopters of their rotting human cargo. Many of them had reached their breaking points.

This was not a good time to be going it solo, with only very personal thoughts and recollections of the grossly disturbing scenes and tasks of recent days. Deprived of the opportunity to easily express their thoughts can only add to the depression they create.

Although they couldn’t see the contents of the dark brown-black they carried, the soldiers knew there were children inside and their minds took them back to the children who were an important part of their lives. That was a heavy psychological burden.

Eric Vega was a sensitive 18-year-old soldier from Puerto Rico. He had been in the Army less than a year when he received orders assigning him to the 601st Medical Company in the Canal Zone. He was excited about serving in a Latin American country.

A few months after arriving at the unit, Vega found himself at Timheri Airport, carrying dead bodies from a helicopter to a truck. Less than a year out of high school and this teenaged soldier was receiving a cruel and aberrant initiation into adulthood. And on this final day of the mission, Eric was carrying the final bodies to be evacuated from Jonestown, those of innocent children, brutally murdered by their mothers on the orders of a totally deranged would-be savior – the Reverend Jim Jones.

Most of the soldier carrying the bodies from the helicopters that final day held them away from their bodies, at arm’s length, to keep the smelly contents from soiling their already dirty beyond cleaning uniforms.

Unbelievably, young Vega was hugging the body bags as he removed them from the H-53s that had brought them to him from Jonestown. He looked like a big brother, holding an injured sister close as he carried her to safety.

Tears streamed down the cheeks of this emotional young man who sensed the bodies he was carrying were no older than his little nephews and nieces in Puerto Rico. Vega walked ghostlike, from helicopter to truck, the small occupants of the vinyl bags engulfed in his arms. At the truck, he almost seemed reluctant to relinquish his burden. Once unencumbered, he seemed to quicken his step as he returned to the Jolly Green Giant to grab one more young victim and almost reverently, lovingly carry it back to the waiting truck.

A French photographer noticed Eric’s unique way of carrying these special body bags across the tarmac. Eric seemed to disregard the awful odor wafting from the bags or the vile liquid contents that frequently dripped from them. The photographer could not have known the young soldier’s motivation for acting as he did. Nor could he Vega was experiencing. But he did know a great photo opportunity when he saw one.

So the observant photojournalist, armed with a Nikon camera that possessed all the bells and whistles, stalked young Vega as he turned from the truck and walked back empty handed to the helicopter waiting with its body bags of infants and toddlers. As the young Puerto Rican soldier tenderly lifted the next vinyl bag containing infant corpses into his arms and turned, his lips seemed to be moving slightly. Eric seemed to be saying a prayer, or perhaps talking to the anonymous baby inside the bag.

His eyes were nearly closed. Tears streamed without embarrassment down his ruddy cheeks, leaving clear channels on his grimy face. His step, which had quickened when he placed his last burden on the truck, had become deliberate. It was as if Eric was trying to communicate with the spirit of the child that once inhabited the small body inside the bag he carried.

Without so much as an ounce of shame for the intrusion he represented into Eric’s private moment, the photographer walked backwards in front of the emotion-filled medical records specialist. The lens of his camera was less than four feet from Eric’s face. The incessant sound of the Nikon’s motor drive marked the frames being shot of this poignant moment. He was intent on capturing the stark humanness of Eric’s private grief. The photographer wanted the world to see a day from now, a week from now and for all, in its newspapers, news magazines, history books, what he was viewing at this moment.

And as Vega moved slowly toward the truck, with the precious contents of that body bag held tightly against his chest, he didn’t acknowledge, nor do I believe notice the reporter or his expensive camera assaulting him, invading this most personal pain-filled moment. Neither did I fully comprehend the drama in which Vega had become a star and which was about to come to a surprise ending.

Major Major saw what was happening. He watched it all. He empathized with the grief Vega was displaying and despised the crass and uncaring attempt of the photographer to win a Pulitzer Prize. The unorthodox Quartermaster officer was more than angry. He was enraged. So incensed was he at the photographer’s vulgar intrusion into Vega’s private grief, that he took a very impulsive and startling step.

Major Major visibly out of control, raised up the body bag he was carrying and swung it at the unsuspecting French photographer. The bag must have contained a child of about 13-years-old or perhaps two or three younger children whose combined weight would have been about equal to a young teen. He lifted the bag high, took a half turn to the right and swung it with great force, striking the totally surprised and shocked photographer square on the side of his face.

Upon impact, disgusting body fluids were expelled from the bag. The expensive Nikon was ripped from his hands and went crashing to the hot tarmac. The photographer fell, landing on his buttocks, joining his damaged camera. Looking up at the obviously angry American officer staring intently down upon him, the photographer did not speak, but the terror in his eyes said he was confused as to why Major Major knocked him down.

The angry officer stared at the fearful photojournalist for what seemed like five minutes and then bent down next to him, put his mouth next to his ear and asked quietly, “Man, ain’t you got no fuckin’ sensitivity?”

The incident seemed to momentarily take all the confidence and jocularity out of Major Major. He picked up the body bag he had just used as a weapon, carried it to the waiting truck and leaned back to watch me place the bag I was carrying on the truck.

I turned to look at the seemingly angry officer. He regained his composure as quickly as it had originally escaped him.

“Who are you anyway?” I asked.

“I’m in charge of the graves registration team,” he responded, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Want to see where we live?”

Hopping back in the major’s jeep, we drove to a small building on the far edge of the tarmac. Hundreds of aluminum caskets were stacked nearby, shining brilliantly in the sun. I had not seen so many plain metal coffins in one place since I was at the airbase in Da Nang in 1970.

As we exited the jeep, I quickly became aware of all the flies. While Jonestown had more than its share of the pesky common insect, the number at Timheri Airport on this day must have exceeded the fly population in Jonestown a million fold.

Suddenly, the entire time I spent in Guyana seemed like a sick surreal dream. The stress and unrealness of the past week was compressed within my brain and I lost all concept of time or the division of days. The memory of my experience and what I witnessed in Jonestown continues to be painful even 30 years after the event.

Knowing the flies had used the corpses of Jonestown for sustenance and too lay their eggs, made me even more queasy as I swiped at these incessant insects. Four young company grade officers from the GREGG team obviously felt as I did. They were seated in a jeep with several pieces of mosquito netting thrown over it to provide them with a temporary respite from the flies as they ate their c-ration lunches.

Not 30 feet away, seated on an open fly-infested bench, sat a bedraggled and totally unkempt specialist fourth class. He also was eating his lunch, but without benefit of mosquito netting. The young soldier’s entire body was covered in flies, which he didn’t make the slightest effort to shoo away. Hundreds buzzed around his head, landing at will on his uncovered face, hands and arms as well as parts of his body protected by clothing.

Not only that, flies covered the tin can from which he was eating, walking on the entrée with impunity, without any sign of objection from the human diner. Rather than shooing the flies away, the young soldier seemed oblivious to their presence.

Suddenly, Major Major noticed something that was further amiss with the hungry young troop. I had not picked up on it,, but as soon as the quartermaster officer asked the soldier about it, I was surprised.

“James, what’s that body doing under your bench,” the officer in charge of the GREGG team asked incredulously as he noticed a full body bag under the hapless soldier.

Without skipping a beat, James looked up at the major, took a bite of his c-rations meal and matter-of-factly stated, “Taking it home for a souvenir, sir.”

“James, pick up that bag and put it where it belongs,” barked Major Major.

The GREGG soldier with the desire to take a piece of Jonestown home with him shrugged his shoulders in resignation. He put his spoon into his nearly empty can of c’s, placed the can on the bench, stood and grasped the body bag with both hands and dragged it to where several other bags were waiting to be placed in caskets.

When he returned to his bench, James sat down, picked up his food, watched as a half dozen flies flew out of the can and then resumed his meal.

“My troops,” said Major Major, “they do a good job, but sometimes they act a little weird.”
The smell at Timheri Airport seemed much worse than the odor at Jonestown. At least in the jungle commune, it rained daily and the tropical fauna no doubt provided pleasant natural aromas to neutralize the smell of death. There were no trees or lush vegetation at the airport or soil for the body fluids to seep into, only black tarmac that cooked and dried the body fluids under the hot sun.

Yet the GREGG soldiers went about their tasks oblivious to the olfactory challenge the rest of us faced. This was just another day at the office for them. For the infantry, medical and other support troops who came from the Canal Zone, it was the most unpleasant duty one could serve.

Chapter Nine

2008-09-10T13:13:00.002Z

Chapter Nine: “He has a heat Rash”

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
Thomas Paine

I served in the U.S. Army for 20 years. I spent time in several poor countries but Guyana was perhaps the most impoverished nation I ever visited. There is one sure sign of a country’s wealth or lack of it – the amount of litter you find along its roadways.

The more prosperous a people, the more litter that is accumulated along its highways. Nigeria has tons of trash everywhere. The country is basically one big trash dump. Now there are a lot of poor people in that West African nation, but there are a lot of wealthy ones too.

Matthews Ridge, Guyana has got to be one of the poorest places on earth. Every bit of waste in the small town was recycled, not out of any great concern for the environment, but out of necessity. Empty tin cans became patches for leaky roofs or walls. Waste paper was collected and used to start cook fires.

Matthews Ridge is a formerly bustling town built near what had become depleted bauxite minds in northwest Guyana, near the frontier border with Venezuela. During its heyday, some five years before the arrival of the Jonestown Agricultural Commune in 1976, Matthews Ridge boasted a population of more than a 1000 miners and their families.[1] By the time Jonestown’s residents perished in the mass murder/suicide, the town had shrunk to about 250, mostly Amerindian residents.

The main industry of the former mining town became subsistence farming and by 1978, the farmers and their families were barely surviving. Sadly, there were more bars in Matthews Ridge than all other businesses combined.

Our aid station was set up at an airfield three miles south of Matthews Ridge. The only people living at that location was a garrison of 20 or so Guyana Defense Force soldiers who lived and worked in three small buildings situated on a small mesa overlooking the black tarmac runway. We shared a small corner of the flat hill with the GDF troopers.

There was one small building on the edge of the tarmac. It was little more than a shack with a large overhanging roof, used to shelter travelers from the weather, be it the incessant heat of the tropical sun or the persistent showers of the two four-month rainy seasons of the region. Our Army fuel specialists took over this building as their fuel station.

Two signs adorned the shack. One announced the name of the town to any transients passing through who weren’t sure where they were. The other told travelers to the region they had entered a malaria area and were required to check in with the local Malaria Control Office.

We interacted daily with the GDF soldiers whose mesa we shared and the civilians of the small town down the road. Since our daily fare of c-rations quickly became boring and the locals had never seen such foods, we managed to trade some of our military-issued meals for locally produced bread and cheese. Freshly baked Matthews Ridge bread and native cheese was still a cold meal, but at least it was a different and tasty change to our diet.

But something happened on Thanksgiving Day that made our already cordial relationship with the soldiers and civilians even friendlier. By 1800 hours, we realized our promised Thanksgiving hot dinner was not going to materialize. The thought of eating beans and franks for Thanksgiving instead of the promised turkey with all the fixings was depressing to say the least.

Our Air Force communications sergeant radioed the task force headquarters at Timheri Airport to inquire about the promised and eagerly anticipated first hot meal in Guyana that failed to appear on our table. The duty officer at headquarters promised to look into the matter. Some 30 minutes later, he informed us that apparently there had been a snafu in the delivery of our Thanksgiving dinner and the duty officer promised he would rectify the situation. He said for us to look for arrival of a holiday dinner with all the fixings the next morning. He then asked how many people were at our location and we answered honestly, eight.

The next morning, Sanborn and Bernal, two famous gourmets, were waiting impatiently at the airfield shack. Finally, at 0900 hours, a UH-1 helicopter dropped out of the sky. The bird’s crew chief motioned for Sanborn and Bernal to approach the aircraft and the two soldiers, walking briskly, bodies crouching to avoid the rotor blades, did just that. They picked up two big boxes and had to make two more trips to the chopper to pick up four more containers of food.

Six large boxes of Thanksgiving dinner for eight servicemen? We were hungry and looking forward to the promised feast, but this was a little much!

The rest of the team bound down the hill to the shack. We all brought the boxes back to the aid station. Sanborn opened the first box. It was like kids opening presents on Christmas morning. “Half pints of milk! There must be a hundred of them,” said Sanborn.

“These two boxes got TV dinners, Jeff,” said Bernal. “How many?” I asked.

“Eighty eight, I count 88,” said Fielder.

“Bunch of fruit and nuts in this box,” said Sanborn.

Snafus are not isolated incidents in the Army, but rarely is a foul up followed by a snafu as positive as this one was. We were blessed with 80 extra meals.

Sanborn and Bernal wanted to dig in and pig out. They wanted to see how big of a dent eight hungry soldiers could put in this huge cache of food. Saner heads prevailed however, after Fielder suggested we invite the local GDF garrison and some of the locals, mostly female of course, to partake in our Thanksgiving Day feast. Some of the kids were already hanging around and Fielder told them to go round up their friends for a celebration. I walked over to the GDF outpost and invited Sergeant Harper and his comrades to our holiday dinner.

So on November 24, 1978, a day after the football games were played and most Americans were finished digesting their Thanksgiving feast of the day before, eight American servicemen, far from home, taught two dozen Guyanese Defense Force soldier and twice that many local teenaged girls about one of their country’s most popular holidays. I guess the meal was not unlike the first Thanksgiving celebration more than 300 years earlier, when the colonists invited the Native Americans to share their bounty.

This gesture, which in reality was actually a way to keep good food from being wasted, solidified the friendships we already formed with the soldiers and young people of Matthews Ridge. What had begun purely by serendipity with John Wayne bars on Monday, was cemented on Friday by Specialist Fourth Class Randy Fielder, who, I’ve got to believe, did so with some degree of calculation. The young man had become very friendly with not just a few of the black beauties of Matthews Ridge during the short time he was there.

Although they had little of value to share with us, the people of Matthews Ridge gave us more than they realized. They were among the kindest and most generous folks I ever met. From the man who walked three miles from his home to the airstrip with me on that dark night, to the friends Sanborn and Fielder made, to Pauline’s grandfather and mother, everyone we came in contact with represented the finest in humankind.

One night, while I was sitting in Mrs. Pool’s bar drinking a cold Banks Beer, a young man approached me. As he took the seat next to mine, he pulled a handful of Polaroid pictures from his pocket and spread them on the bar in front of me. He told me he had shot the photos around two weeks earlier, while visiting Jonestown.

The young man was fairly clean cut. He could easily have passed for an African-American on any college campus in the States, save for his obvious Guyanese accent.

I looked began looking at the pictures before me and asked questions as I viewed each one. The minister of transportation and other politicos appeared in a few shots. The local GDF commander was in some others. A smiling Jim Jones was usually in each shot that had dignitaries in it. There were some photos that showed Jones alone with a tree or a prop. There was even a picture of a bee hive. The Jonestown band was in one of the pictures and happy dancing teenagers were in another. These images made me wonder out loud what could have caused these seemingly free-spirited American expatriates to participate in the mass murder/suicide that took their lives.

After studying and discussing each of the instant photos with the friendly owner of them, I restacked the lot of them and handed them back to the young man.

“No,no,” he said, sliding the stack back in front of me. “They are for you, a gift.”

“Oh no,” I replied, realizing the potential value of the photos. “I could not take them.”

“Please, I wish you to have them,” he said.

Not wishing to offend this earnest young man, I told him I would take the photos only if he allowed me to pay for the film. In the United States, Polaroid film was quite expensive. I could only imagine how much of a financial investment these 20 pictures might represent in Guyana.

Finally, after several minutes of protest, the young man accepted my offer of 10 American dollars for the 20 photos. After arriving back at the aid station that night, I reviewed the set of pictures and decided to try to sell them to the news media when I returned to Panama. I didn’t realize at the time the grief these Polaroids would cause me.

The duty at Matthews Ridge became so routine that boredom was the biggest challenge we had to overcome. The anticipated poisoning victims were long dead before we even arrived in Guyana. The few medical problems experienced by the GREGG team and their support personnel in Jonestown were easily managed by the Special Forces medic on the ground there.

Our days were filled with administrative duties and “make work” tasks. We inventoried supplies and equipment more in those nine days than we did in the previous nine months in Panama. I made a few day trips into Jonestown, more as a diversion than to accomplish any mission-essential task. We all became competent radio operators by assisting the two Air Force communication specialists.

Our own Mike Sanborn became the only actual medical emergency our aid station cared for during the entire nine days we stayed at Matthews Ridge and this happened on our last day at the airstrip.

It was the morning of November 28, the final day the GREGG team would be in Jonestown. The remains of all the adult victims and two-thirds of the children had already been removed from the commune. We had been alerted early that morning that an aircraft would arrive in the early afternoon to transport us and our equipment to Timheri Airport in Georgetown.

As soon as Bernal, who was on radio watch, informed us of our move out order, we broke down our supplies and equipment. Specialist Fourth Class Michael Sanborn, 20-years-old and endowed with more muscle than common sense, removed his field jacket and olive drab t-shirt and took down our two tents. So intent was he on going home, he didn’t heed my warning to put his shirts back on and to slow down.

Within an hour, Sanborn was noticeably ill. He perspired so profusely that his trousers were thoroughly soaked in sweat. He appeared very weak and pale. I ordered the young medic to sit in the shade of our sleep tent that was still standing. His skin was cool and clammy and his blood pressure was extremely low.

I also noted that Sanborn’s entire torso and arms were covered with small, red, raised lesions. He obviously was suffering from heat exhaustion complicated by miliaria rubra, or what is commonly called “prickly heat” or “heat rash.”

Either problem alone can be easily managed. While heat exhaustion is a debilitating medical problem, when properly treated with rest and oral fluids, it is quickly reversed. However, when complicated by maliaria, which inhibits the sweat glands from functioning to cool the body properly, the combination of conditions constitute a possible life-threatening medical emergency.

I instructed Randy Fielder to cool Sanborn with tepid sponge baths and to offer him as much cool water as he coud drink. I told Sam Bernal to prepare an intravenous infusion of normal saline for Sanborn while I went to the radio to consult with our brigade surgeon, Major Burgos, at Timheri Airport.

Once we contacted the task force headquarters, the communications specialist there told us to wait while he sent for a doctor from the medical clearing station that was set up there. After about ten minutes that seemed like an eternity, the distant voice of a physician I didn’t know came through the speaker of our radio. While the quality of the voice was understandable, the doctor’s speech had an unmistakable slur to it that told me the good doctor had been imbibing at this early hour of the day.

“Thish ish Doctor Winston, how can I hep you?” said the tinny voice.

“Say ‘over,’ sir” prompted the communications specialist at the airport 150 miles away. “Over,” added the physician, obviously unfamiliar with radio protocol.

“Doctor,” I said, “I have an otherwise healthy, conscious 20-year-old Caucasian male with symptoms of severe heat exhaustion complicated by miliaria rubra of the trunk and arms.”

Worried that the quality of the radio speaker might cause the already mentally impaired physician to misunderstand what I was saying, I spelled the condition phonetically, “That’s miliaria, MIKE-INDIA-LIMA-INDIA-ALPHA-ROMEO-INDIA-ALPHA, over.”

There was a long pause from the Timheri Airport end of the radio call. I continued with my message: “His temperature is normal, pulse is 122, respirations 32, blood pressure 92 over 40. I have begun cooling the patient. We are giving him oral fluids and having him lay in the shade with his legs elevated. We have just started an IV of normal saline. Do you have any other instructions? Over.” The words were presented over the radio in slow distinct segments so the radio man could copy them down.

“What did you say he hash?” queried Doctor Winston.

“Say ‘over,’ sir,” coached the exasperated radioman.

“Over.”

“He has heat exhaustion and miliaria, I spell phonetically, MIKE-INDIA-LIMA-INDIA-ALPHA-ROMEO-INDIA-ALPHA, over,” I replied clearly and slowly. There was another long pause.
After what seemed like five minutes, but what was probably more like two, Doctor Winston’s beery voice boomed over the speaker of our radio. “Have him rest. Give him water to drink and start an IV. I want you to bring the patient here. Over,” he said in a slurred but authoritative voice.

While the Air Force communications sergeant arranged an air evacuation for Mike, I met quickly with Sam and Randy. Most of our equipment and supplies had already been packed and palletized. There was nothing left to do but take down one tent and wait for transportation to arrive. I told my two comrades I would accompany Sanborn to the clearing station at Timheri Airport.

Within 30 minutes, an Army U-21 arrived to transport Sanborn and me out of Matthews Ridge. While winging our way toward the airport, 150 miles away, I noticed the speed of the aircraft was well into the red warning area on the control panel speed gauge. I told the pilot that our emergency was not so severe that he had to risk flying faster than was safe, and he told me to take care of my patient and he would take care of flying the plane.

We did arrive safely at Timheri Airport. Medics from the clearing station sent down from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, met us and took Sanborn to a waiting field ambulance for transport to the medical units Admission & Disposition Section. I saw Captain Skinner and Major Burgos standing in an open doorway at the old terminal building, so I walked over to them to give them a report.

As I related the details of Sanborn’s heat injury and the difficult time I had communicating with the clearing station physician, an obviously soused Army lieutenant colonel physician approached and asked if I was the medic who brought the patient with the heat injury. I acknowledged I was and the arrogant doctor with the drinking problem looked at me and said derisively, “He doesn’t have malaria, he has a heat rash!”

All I could manage to respond was, “Yes sir, thank you sir, I’ve learned a lot from you today.” The tipsy doctor turned around and stumbled back to his clearing station.“He’s been like this every day,” said Major Burgos, by way of explaining Doctor Winston’s behavior.

[1] Tim Merrill, Ibid.

Chapter Eight

2008-09-10T13:07:00.002Z

Chapter Eight – “Wait until they open this one in Dover

“The workings of the human heart are
the profoundest mystery of the universe.
One moment they make us despair of our kind,
and the next we see them in the reflection
of the divine image.”
Charles W. Chestnut

Guyana is located on the northeast shoulder of South America. It covers about 83,000 square miles and is bordered by the countries of Venezuela to the northwest, Brazil on the west and south and by Surinam on the east. The northern border is the Atlantic Ocean.

All but about 30 percent of Guyana is made up of tropical rain forest. The country is located just north of the equator. It rains 80 to 100 inches a year and the temperatures are usually in the high 80s and 90s during the day.[1]

Guyana is said to be one of the most beautiful countries in South America, with many rivers and waterfalls. But for most of the Americans taking part in this mission, beauty is not what they remember about Guyana.

Although the jungle that surrounded Jonestown was abundant in fauna and rich in exotic flora, the natural beauty of the country was overshadowed by the ugliness and horrible stench that accompanies mass death. Extremely bloated bodies, deformed by so many hours of exposure to the heat of the tropical sun that they sometimes literally burst, depositing copious amounts of their putrid, foul-smelling contents to the ground, have a tendency to strike one blind to anything lovely.

As soon as the entire GREGG team was together, all the soldiers working in Jonestown were briefed by Colonel Gordon. The preliminary work of identifying and evacuating the remains commenced. Jonestown was divided into grids and the bodies found in each individually numbered section were catalogued and tagged. Graves registration soldiers were team leaders of three to five man teams, consisting of infantry soldiers from the 193rd Infantry Brigade in the Canal Zone.

With teams of soldiers fanning out in all directions from the pavilion where the majority of the bodies lay, the full extent of the carnage became evident. Many who participated in this unique mission thought the identification process alone would be next to impossible. Comparatively few of the 913 bodies bore the homemade ID bracelets many family members attached to their wrists before ingesting the poisonous concoction that killed them and even fewer had been identified by Odell Rhodes and his team of Jonestown survivor volunteers.

The condition of the bodies four days after the mass murder/suicide made further visual identification impossible. Jim Jones was one of the few whose features and clothing provided enough proof of identity that the team felt confident when the put his body in the body bag. He was among the first to be catalogued.

This inability to identify more victims was very disconcerting to the GREGG soldiers whose lives were dedicated to the processing of human remains after catastrophic events and who prided themselves on being able to identify most of the bodies at any mass death site.

In wartime, the ID tags worn by the combatants invariably provide positive proof of identity. In today’s modern military, service members’ DNA is collected, catalogued and kept on file, ensuring there will never be another unknown soldier. In airplane crashes and natural disasters like Katrina, that involve the loss of many lives, wallets and jewelry often can be used to place a name to a victim.

But the remains of the residents of Jonestown posed the GREGG team had never encountered in such huge numbers. Very few of the dead carried wallets or wore jewelry. By Tuesday, the bodies were badly bloated with heads resembling those of severely hydrocephalic children. They were in such an advanced state of decomposition, recognition was impossible. The skin color of almost every victim was a dark blue-black, making it difficult to determine even the ethnicity or race of a corpse.

The fact that nearly everyone who perished was either Caucasian or African-American and they now shared the same color was a strange irony because the man they followed to their eternal grave, Jim Jones, remained recognizably Caucasian. It was as if members of the Peoples Temple finally achieved a form of equality in death and the evil pastor who masterfully orchestrated their demise did not share. Jim Jones, who preached racial equality from pulpits in Indianapolis to Ukiah and San Francisco all of his life, in the end became the only person in his flock that did not achieve it.

Name tags were sewn into most of the clothing worn by the residents of Jonestown. Unfortunately, the communal lifestyle makes for the sharing of wardrobes. Many of the dead wore clothing with three or four different names, none of which actually were their own.

The task of identifying the bodies was more foul than placing the remains into the body bags. During the identification process, bodies had to be individually checked, pockets turned inside-out and any ID bracelets read and recorded. This meant handling and touching each rapidly decomposing remains, many of which already displayed millions of eggs lain by the incredible horde of flies drawn to the scene. Maggots covered the entire area where the Jonestown dead lay.

One common form of life usually found wherever death occurs in the tropics was conspicuously missing from the skies over Jonestown. One can only speculate about the absence of buzzards or vultures. These scavenger birds are as common in the warmer climes as cardinals in Missouri.

Perhaps these birds that feed off carrion and keep the environment clean, realized the men, women and children of Jonestown died from the ingestion of a deadly poison. We may never know what caused the buzzards to stay away from Jonestown, but for me, an old tropical soldier and long time resident of South Texas where the big birds are common, their absence added to the surreal scene.

The first attempts to pick up the bodies by grasping their heads and limbs and lifting them into the body bags, more often than not, caused a limb or two, or even the head, to become disconnected from the bloated liquid-filled torso. When this happened, a foul, thick, serous fluid would stream from the body part being held by a hapless soldier and an even larger amount would flow from the torso as it landed on the ground. Because the bodies were in such close proximity to one another, it wasn’t long before the soil in Jonestown became a muddy mixture of dirt and smelly body fluids.

I sat in our aid station at Matthews Ridge as the first bodies were being bagged. I was grateful to be breathing fresh, non-polluted air and was even happier the prevailing winds flowed towards Jonestown, 14 miles to the northeast.

In Jonestown there was no escaping the odor. Men and women who a week ago were anticipating a Thanksgiving with family and friends were hard at the job of tagging and bagging bodies where they lay and then loading them onto the same flatbed trailer used a few days before to carry Peoples Temple assassins to Port Kaitumba to kill a congressman and some of his entourage. A tractor then pulled the loaded trailer to the landing zone at the adjoining soccer field.

The bodies were then placed directly onto the Jolly Green Giants and flown 150 miles to Timheri Airport. They were then put on trucks for a short ride to an area where the would be logged in and placed in aluminum coffins for transport to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Every hour, the U.S. Army communications specialist in Jonestown radioed the number of bodies that had been bagged in that time. Our U.S. Air Force communications station at Matthews Ridge received the tally and kept a running total, relaying the data to task force headquarters in Timheri Airport.

The first hourly report said fewer than 10 bodies were bagged. A similar count came in for hour number two. Then, when we were expecting the hour three total to come across the radio, Jonestown sent us what we thought was an unusual request.

“Tell HQ we need snow shovels,” was the curt request. Snow shovels? Guyana is a tropical country that has never seen snow. Now they wanted as many snow shovels as we could provide them. A call for six dozen of the cold weather implements was dutifully relayed to the task force headquarters at Timheri Airport. From there a call went out to the U.S. Air Force Base in Charleston South Carolina for snow shovels. The first shipment of snow shovels reached Jonestown within six hours of the original request.

With the arrival of these simple tools, so alien to this region of the world, the process of placing the rotten remains into body bags was streamlined considerably. Usually six or eight soldiers, three or four on each side of the very fragile body, lifted it in unison, a foot or so off of the ground. Two other soldiers then slid an open body bag under the suspended corpse, snow shovels were lowered, and the remains gently deposited into the body bag.

This procedure sounds simple, but it wasn’t always successful. Body fluids continued to flow freely from orifices and breaks in the skin, creating a gooey, slippery, smelly mess. Sometimes a heavy head, swollen to twice its normal size, slipped from the shovel and fell to the earth with a thud after being severed from the fragile neck.

After employment of the snow shovels, there was a definite and noticeable increase in the GREGG team’s productivity that was reflected in the numbers. By the end of Day One, nearly 100 bodies were evacuated to Timheri Airport.

Wednesday, Day Two of the processing, found almost 300 more bodies processed and evacuated from Jonestown. Those of us who stayed at Matthews Ridge, away from the gruesome scene being played out in Jonestown, found the figure curious. On Monday, didn’t the GDF tell me 400 Americans had perished in the massacre? Here it is two days and 400 bodies later and the GREGG team reports it’s barely scratched the surface. I decided to take a ride to Jonestown.

From the air, it was obvious a number of bodies were gone, especially on the fringes of the area where they had lain. Upon closer observation, it was obvious the figured provided by the GDF was a gross underestimate. After evacuating the remains of about 450 residents, most of whom were adults, the bodies of teens and adolescents were found beneath where the adults had lain after ingesting the cyanide-laced fruit drink that quickly killed them.

Much speculation has been made by the original discrepancy in the number of dead. The first released numbers took into account the GDF estimation coupled with the fact that only 400 passports were found. Members of the GREGG team, who had first hand, hands on experience in Jonestown learned how that estimate was so wrong.

It appears the infants and toddlers, who had the poisonous potion forced down their throats by their mothers using needleless five and ten ml. syringes. Their convulsing bodies were placed on the bottom of a rather large but fairly shallow concave area next to the pavilion. Larger children followed the younger ones in death and lay themselves on top of the little ones. Next came preadolescents and adolescents, making up more layers of victims. Then the teens took their last drink on earth and their place among their friends and siblings who died before them.

While all the younger residents of Jonestown were dying, some of the mothers were encouraged by Jones to join their offspring, so the distraught parents began joining the deadly act of communion. The senior citizens were the next group Jim Jones commanded to drink the devil’s brew. These people became part of a pile that was not discerned as a pile because of the concavity of the terrain. The last group to participate in the white night was the able bodied members of the cult, men who had carried out Jones’ dirty work. Those who held weapons on the others while forcing them to drink the deadly Flav-or-Ade. Most of their bodies were found on the periphery of the mass of dead in the concave area.

November 23, 1978, was Thanksgiving Day, perhaps the most miserable one ever spent by the 100 or so American troops who had been in Jonestown retrieving the remains of their dead countrymen. By now, the evacuation process had become old hat and the GREGG soldiers and the troops from Panama who were assigned to help them were getting a little goofy. They began creating harmless diversions to make this tedious work in the hot sun more bearable.

One team of baggers raced against another to see who could fill the most bags in an hour. Kool Aid jokes were making the rounds and some of them were pretty sick. These politically incorrect jokes forever but falsely stigmatize the beverage as the drink of choice in Jonestown. One talented GREGG soldier with a musical inclination composed a song about Jonestown in his spare time. Needless to say, it didn’t make the top 40.

There was a rather young crew chief on one of the U.S. Air Force Jolly Green Giants. The airman appeared to be in his late teens or perhaps 20. Everyone commented on how nervous the young airman appeared each time his bird came in to receive body bags.

It was obvious that this crew chief’s discomfort was caused by a fear of the dead, so one day, the GREGG team loaded a body bag that contained a living, breathing soldier onto his helicopter. Once the bag was on the deck of the aircraft, the contents of the bag came to life and wriggled about the deck of the helicopter.

Seeing an animated body bag rolling on the deck of his aircraft, the scared crew chief peeled off his helmet and earphones and jumped out of the chopper. The young man had to be physically put back onto his bird. He didn’t appreciate the practical joke one bit.

Even the jokes, impromptu contests and songs could not take the minds of the Americans in Jonestown that Thanksgiving off of the football games and related parades they were missing. They also missed Mom’s home style turkey dinner with all the fixings and even the holiday fare served at the mess halls in the Canal Zone and stateside bases.

The troops in Georgetown and Jonestown did enjoy their first hot meal since the mission started on that Thanksgiving day. It was in the form of Swanson’s TV dinners, heated at Timheri Airport and flown to the troops in the field.

By Friday Jonestown was back to its normal routine and the evacuated body count reached 650. The absence of body bags brought the operation to a temporary halt. More were quickly flown in from the United States. Most of the adult victims had been removed from the village by this time. The GREGG team was shocked to realize the remains that were left amounted to mostly children. There were around 270 little corpses still left in Jonestown to process. Sadly, most of the massacre’s youngest victims were the last to be processed, were never identified and now occupy a mass grave in a plot at the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California.

Since body bags were in short supply and the remains of the babies were unidentifiable, the resourceful GREGG personnel began placing the remains of two or more children in one body bag. By this time, the job was getting exhausting and even the most dedicated mortuary affairs specialist was ready to clean up and go home.

On November 26, 1978, by the time the last Jolly Green Giant of the day lifted from the Jonestown soccer field, all but about 50 of the massacre’s victims had been evacuated out. The next time one of these big birds lifted out of Jonestown, the 913th body and last member of the Peoples Temple would leave the damned commune.

November 27 marked our last day in Guyana and the official end to the mission that brought more than 200 American servicemen and women to this tropical country that seemed a million miles from home. I stood on the hot tarmac at Timheri Airport, thinking of how this country that I had never heard of before would be remembered by most of my generation. It will always be the place where the Jonestown Massacre happened, at least in my mind.

I watched as the last helicopter that left Jonestown touched down. I remained an observer as extremely tired and thoroughly stressed out young American soldiers began removing the last remains.

The repetitive robot-like movements of these men and women as they picked up body bags from the helicopter, walked to the tailgate of a nearby truck and deposited their human cargo, was punctuated by their masklike faces, completely devoid of any emotion. Their uniforms were soaked with body fluids and sweat, damaged beyond repair.

As I gazed upon the scene, Colonel Gordon, the gruff no-nonsense joint task force commander approached. “Brailey,” he barked as he returned my salute, “Did y’all bring a psyche tech with you from Panama?”

“No sir,” I answered. “Why?”

‘They were trying to put that dead go-rilla into a body bag,” he claimed.

Jones had a huge chimpanzee he kept in a cage near his cottage. He called him “Mr. Muggs.” It was rumored that small children were placed in the cage with the old primate as a form of punishment.

During my first tour of Jonestown, a week earlier, I saw Mr. Muggs. He had been shot to death. That dead chimp smelled much worse than any of the human remains.

Gordon went on, “They kept tryin’ to push that big go-rilla’s shoulders into the body bag but they just couldn’t get it zipped up. I watched them for a few minutes until one of them graves registration guys was gonna hack its shoulders off with a machete.”

“Hold it, I commanded,” said Colonel Gordon in a loud voice to replicate the one he was using in Jonestown, “Why are you gonna hack that go-rilla up?”

“Because he won’t fit into the body bag, sir,” came the respectful reply from the ringleader of the practical jokers.

“But why are you putting him in a body bag anyway?” came the exasperated question of the colonel.

“Why sir? WHY? Just wait until they open this one in Dover!” was the devilish reply of the leering GREGG soldier.

“Gordon said he looked down at the group and said, “Look men, I don’t mind you playin’ a joke on them folks up in Dover. But I won’t let you mutilate that poor go-rilla just to fit him into a body bag.”

Colonel Gordon said he watched the four GREGG soldiers work for several more minutes trying to stuff Mr. Muggs into the bag. Then he walked away, shaking his head and believing Mr. Muggs was left behind in Jonestown.

In the first edition of this book, written in 1998, I reported that Mr. Muggs was the only Jonestown resident who came to Guyana from the United States who remained in Guyana. I was wrong. The mortuary affairs specialist who opened a body bag at Dover that was occupied by a go-rilla told me the truth after he read my book.

[1] Tim Merrill, Ibid.

Chapter Seven

2008-09-03T13:20:00.002Z

Chapter Seven – Innocent Detachment

“How fascinating is death, the extinction of life. One moment here and the next gone. The light put out and only the empty bag of the body left”
Unknown

The lengthening shadows of the tall trees on the western edge of the clearing that the pioneering Peoples Temple members cut out of the thick Guyanan jungle to create Jonestown told me that my first day in this place of death would soon be drawing to a close. I was grateful to be ending my tour of the compound with LT Abbott. In the waning light, a huge U.S Air Force Jolly Green Giant appeared in the eastern sky. Soon, the first off several helicopters that would be used to transport Jonestown’s dead to Georgetown landed in the soccer field and began depositing passengers and cargo. The clouds had dissipated and the sun had sunk below the tree line, but the daylight was not noticeably diminished at that time of the evening.

It was obvious that the residents of this American enclave literally carved out of the dense South American rain forest were denied the opportunity of enjoying the beauty of a tropical sunrise or sunset as long as they began and ended their day in Jonestown. The tall trees blocked any semblance of what could be considered a horizon and the sun was high in the sky before it reached the cleared area where the village sat. Sunset came every day long after the shadows of the trees completely covered the ground and long before daylight left the rest of the region.

I watched as the members of the GREGG team collected their personal gear and equipment from the still running helicopter and deposited it in a central point along the edge of the soccer field. Six tough and extremely professional soldiers from the U.S. Army’s Special Forces who had accompanied the mortuary specialists stood not far from me, heavy rucksacks on their backs and M16 rifles in their hands. After a quick meeting and survey of the immediate area, these men fanned out to learn the terrain and look for vehicles and other equipment that may make the jobs of the GREGG soldiers easier.

By now, I had completed the shocking tour of Jonestown and was discussing the distribution of the malaria prophylactic medications with the Green Beret medic whose fellow team members were providing security and assistance to the GREGG team in Jonestown. Since generators, fuel and light sets had been brought in on the Jolly Green Giants that had, by this time, departed, no one was worried about the impending night that was quickly enveloping the jungle enclave.

Three of the Special Forces troops were preparing the generators to light up the night. Someone wondered out loud if this would help dissuade the ghosts of the recently dead residents from haunting the soldiers this first of eight nights they were to spend as uninvited guests in their town.

The commune had become eerily quiet. The GREGG soldiers, settled in to their sleeping area, were having a meeting with their platoon leader. The GDF soldiers were far enough from our location that their voices were inaudible, although some did seem to be engaged in animated conversations. As my medic friend and I finished up our business, we observed the scene around us. While the surrounding jungle teemed with the sounds of awakening wildlife, mostly birds and other small creatures of the night, the entire environment was free of any human originated sounds.

Suddenly, without warning – a loud snap! It was somewhat reminiscent of a rifle being fired, and it came from a large barnlike building nearby. Before any of us could hit the dirt, as was our immediate inclination, the sound of the Jonestown generator could be heard as it started and the outside lights of the commune became illuminated.

“Photo electric cell,” murmured one of the Green Berets to no one in particular. Our generator was puny and unnecessary after discovery of the sophisticated and powerful system already operating in Jonestown.

The GREGG soldiers and the Special Forces soon settled in for the night. Their living area was set up what the NCOs of the task force hoped was upwind from the mass of bodies near the pavilion. By November 20, the smell was almost unbearably sickening, especially to the uninitiated infantry soldiers from the 3/5th Infantry Battalion from Fort Kobbe, in the Canal Zone of Panama. My Green Beret friends from Fort Gulick stoically tried to present an image of calm and control despite their unfamiliarity with the awful stench of death.

None of the GREGG personnel were heard to complain about the odor, or anything else, for that matter. It almost was as if it was expected, something that came with the job, an element they would have felt strange if it was missing. It was further evidence they were in the zone. No matter how ugly or difficult things got, these amazing soldiers, whose main mission in the military was to serve the dead, took things in stride. They seemed silently proud to be unaffected by sights and smells that made other, less-prepared soldiers physically ill.

It was interesting to observe the various men and women who made up the GREGG team. Viewing them from afar, I was most impressed with their professionalism.

According to the Ode to the 92M, written by Tommy Boullier, director of the Mortuary Affairs Center at Fort Lee, “They surround themselves with sorrow, tragedy and grief, and call it their job. They do it willingly, ‘not for themselves, but for their country.’ The words dignity, reverence and respect are more than just words, they are their creed.[1]

Charles Huff claims to have been one of seven Special Forces soldiers who were alerted on November 18, 1978, that Congressman Le J. Ryan was killed.[2] He and these other six soldiers were sent to Jonestown, says Huff, arriving five or six hours after they left Fort Gulick.
Huff further avers he was in Jonestown the night of the 18th of November.[3] This was impossible. Congressman Ryan was killed around 5:15 PM.[4] Ironically, residents of Jonestown began their murder/suicide spree between 5:15 PM[5] and 6:00 PM.[6] The last deaths occurred between 7:45 PM and 9:45 PM.

While there is some confusion over who alerted the U.S. government of the massacre, the announcement could not have reached the Canal Zone until after 9:45 PM. the earliest Odell Rhodes could have made it to Port Kaitumba on foot. This gives Huff and his six companions two hours and 15 minutes to travel from Fort Gulick in Panama to Jonestown in Guyana.

The fastest way to travel between these two points is to fly in a helicopter from Fort Gulick to Howard Air Force Base, about a 55 mile trip west. Then Huff would have boarded a military transport plane from Howard, fly approximately 1200 miles east to Georgetown, Guyana, passing over Jonestown, arriving at Timheri Airport. From Timheri, Huff would need to fly in another helicopter 350 miles west to Jonestown. It would be daylight November 20 when I arrived from Panama.

Even if a U-21, the Army’s fastest military aircraft, carried Huff and his team directly from Fort Gulick to Jonestown, the flight alone would take more than two hours. It is physically impossible for Huff and crew to leave Panama after being informed of the massacre and and arrive in Jonestown on the 18th.

If Huff lied about when he arrived in Jonestown, his entire story must be suspct. I have been unable to find any evidence that a Special Forces soldier named Charles Huff was even a member of the task force.

I cannot say for a fact that Charles Huff was not in Jonestown before I was. Six Special Forces soldiers disembarked from the first American helicopter to land in Jonestown on November 20. I do know that for a fact because I was on the ground waiting for their arrival and had been there four hours. I believe I was the third American soldier to enter Jonestown and the first to receive a comprehensive tour of the village.

Huff also has made the statement that 16 members of the task force committed suicide within a year of the end of the mission.[7] I have only been able to validate three suicides by task force members and this was through anecdotal information.

It’s difficult to believe any of the GREGG troops would have taken their own lives. The soldiers who talked to me at the end of the mission were, to a man, and woman, proud of their performance under the most severe conditions. “This job is like any other job in the Army, you do it right, you feel the pride of a job well-done,” one told me.

At times, the detachment of the GREGG soldiers bordered on bizarre. Whether this was evidence that the soldier was employing some type of psychological defense mechanism or perhaps we were the odd ones, the fact is the two separate groups of soldiers each thought the other acted strangely.

On November 21, just as the GREGG team was preparing to begin its mission, an American television news crew arrived unexpectedly in Jonestown. Since the GDF was tasked with keeping the curious public and press out, no one was quite sure how these journalists got into the commune. A public affairs officer from the Southern Command in the Canal Zone, a lieutenant colonel, was on the ground in Jonestown. Colonel Gordon asked him to meet with the media.

The idea was to get the unwanted press to leave as quickly as possible so the Army flack agreed to allow the crew to interview one member of the GREGG team. The reporter chose one of the two female members, a pretty blonde from South Carolina. She and a black soldier, who happened to be from Guyana originally, were opening bundles of body bags at the time.

Both of the women were young, 19 or 20 at the most. Both seemed enthusiastic about what lay ahead. It wasn’t a nervous excitement. It was more like the energy exhibited by a lawyer at his first trial or a rookie state trooper issuing his first speeding ticket.

While his crew set up to film the interview, the reporter prepared the cute young 92M for the interview. He told her the type of questions he was going to ask and told her to just be herself and pretend she was talking to a friend and to answer him in a clear, normal paced voice.

The blonde GREGG soldier didn’t seem at all nervous. She asked if her parents in South Carolina would see her on the news and the journalist assured her they would. This seemed to make her beam as the reporter and she discussed what station was the local network affiliate in Columbia, where she lived.

The public affairs officer reminded the soldier that she was representing the United States Army. He said, “I know you will conduct this interview with dignity and professionalism.” The cute blonde assured the nervous officer she would.

The interview was about to start. The shot was set up in front of the area where the team was opening bundles of body bags and other supplies that would be used to perform the mission. Everybody was in place. Sound and light were checked.

The lieutenant colonel stepped behind the camera man. He folded his arms across his massive chest and a broad smile came to his face. Obviously, the military PR man felt he made the right decision.

He seemed to be in a reverie. I watched him and imagined what was going on in his mind. I am sure he was envisioning a great recruiting coup, a pretty blonde soldier who will cause young American men to rush to the recruiting office and sign up.

Everything was going so well. The girl was stunning. She wasn’t all that articulate, but her voice wasn’t bad and her answers appropriate. The Army flack became even more confident that he made the right decision.

The reporter’s next question turned what had started out as a sunny day into a monumental cloudburst. The young blonde soldier stood erect, waiting for one more question. It came:
“I imagine this is a pretty traumatic experience, for you, a 19-year-old kid from South Carolina, to have to come down to this steamy jungle and bring the bodies of all these dead Americans home,” opined the journalist.

“Oh no sir, I am really looking forward to it,” said the bubbly private-first-class, beaming brightly. “I wasn’t in the Army in time to go to the Canary Island disaster, so this is the first chance I’ve had to work with real bodies. I am really looking forward to it.”

A look of horror came over the public affair officer’s face as he saw his military career flash before his eyes, along with his chances of making bird colonel before he retires. The reporter stared at the young soldier, unprepared for her response and unable to formulate an appropriate follow-up question. Colonel Gordon simply watched the scene quietly without reaction.

I feel that deep down inside, the task force commander understood and appreciated this young woman’s enthusiasm and in a way was proud of her. Later I heard him ask the reporter if that comment would be on the evening news. The answer was, “No way!” The lieutenant colonel, who was also watching the exchange, breathed a sigh of relief.

That evening on the reporter’s network newscast, he was seen doing a standup that was accompanied by footage of the dead residents of Jonestown waiting to be taken away and the living GREGG soldiers preparing to do just that. The cute blonde soldier from South Carolina never had her moment in the spotlight. Her parents never saw the interview. The GREGG soldiers that had been working in the background never indicated they thought her answer was anything less than normal.

Dispassionate and innocent detachment provide psychological protection for the men and women whose job it is to handle the bodies caused by natural and man-made catastrophes. Our young blonde soldier seemed to be imbued with a healthy dose of detachment. With the passage of nearly 30 years since the Jonestown Massacre, one might wonder if she remained in the military and if she maintained her innocent detachment throughout her adult life.

The GREGG team and its Special Forces contingent spent a restless and sleepless Monday night in Jonestown. While the Green Beret from the Canal Zone were familiar with the strange and exotic sounds emanating from the jungle that night, the troops sent down from the United States to collect the remains of American expatriate cult members, were not. Animals and birds of the night signaling one another in the darkness, became foreboding and unknown wild creatures. Fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear.

At this early stage of the Joint Task Force’s humanitarian mission, it was felt many of the residents of this American enclave had taken to the jungle around Jonestown to avoid participating in the Peoples’ Temple final deadly ritual. The ever-alert Green Berets kept a close watch on the fringes of the clearing in which the commune was built along with the encompassing tree line.

They were looking for any survivors who may find their way back to Jonestown. The sounds the soldiers hoped to hear from the jungle were not the normal noises of the animals, insects and birds, but the alien human cries for help from anybody who survived the evilness that consumed so many of their family and friends.

The only human sounds heard that night were from the men and women who were visitors in this city of the dead. The handful of Jonestown residents who had managed to escape into jungle were rescued by Sunday morning. Some had walked the railroad tracks to Matthews Ridge to the south. A smaller number, including Odell Rhodes, took their individual chances walking along the dirt road and railroad tracks that led to Port Kaitumba, five miles to the north of the carnage.

The GREGG team was troubled by the sounds made by the denizens of the jungle. Unaccustomed to the strange animal calls of the tropical rain forest, with imaginations that were more dangerous than reality, they spent much of the night, opining and arguing about the identification of the native fauna. The Special Forces troops who had difficulty sleeping spoke only of the macabre and unbelievable scene of horror and death.

The dead residents of the doomed commune were no cause for fear by those with hands-on experience processing actual cadavers, all believed that once they became lifeless, they lost their ability to feel or inflict pain.

This was not a superstitious group of young American soldiers. They did not fear ghosts or spirits, for they shared the belief that death was a final and finite end to existence for the mortal body, formerly inhabited by a living being. They had seen and heard the natural and unnatural results and consequences of death but never had experienced the super natural.

The six Green Berets who shared the Jonestown experience with the GREGG soldiers that night did have reason to fear the dead residents of the enclave. Terrorists or anyone else bent on causing harm to the task force members present that night, could very easily use the corpses as camouflage and infiltrate the very areas the living of Jonestown now occupied.

With so many bodies lying in every direction from where the American troops were bivouacked, all a dedicated terrorist would need to do would be to advance ever so slowly among the corpses, stopping and lying stone still on top of or beside them as he inched his way toward anyone he wished to harm. So, while the Green Berets didn’t actually fear the nearly 1000 dead Jonestown residents who surrounded them, they remained very wary of any movement by living human beings who might want to wreak havoc on the American troops.

Rumors already circulated that the cult had “hit squads” that had taken to the jungle in search of last minute defectors who were unwilling to participate in the final sacred ritual ordered by Reverend Jones. By this point, the U.S. Embassy was well aware of the contact Jones had with the Soviet Embassy during his nearly two years in Guyana. It also was common knowledge that the Cuban government provided a great deal of technical support to Guyana’s Marxist government.

The GREGG troops feared the animals and the Green Berets feared the dead. To the former, the dead represented normalcy and the jungle creatures posed a danger. To the latter, it was the dead that represented peril and the animals, birds and insects of the jungle that created a bit of normalcy in a world gone mad.

The deep darkness of the night was finally defeated by the first gray shadows of the dawn as the sun intruded on the eastern sky. The whining engines of three U.S. Army UH-1 helicopters barely could be heard as the choppers accompanied the sun on its westward journey. Working all night at Timheri Airport, soldiers from the 195th Infantry Brigade efficiently assembled the metal birds that had been transported from Panama as cargo inside U.S. Air Force C-130s. By 0330 hours on November 21, the crews of the helicopters were going through their preflight checks in preparation for their 150 mile flights to Jonestown.

At the same time, more troops sent from Fort Lee were waking up and packing their personal gear so they could ride the newly assembled Hueys into Jonestown. Colonel William Gordon, the Joint Task Force commander, also prepared to join the advance party, with his small staff from the U.S. Army Southern Command in Panama.

The three olive drab helicopters took off from Tiheri Airport in Georgetown, allowing for an estimated-time-of-arrival in Jonestown to coincide with the first light of day. And now, in the early morning of November 21, the American troops who were already on the ground arose from their abbreviated rest. Lying under poncho liners that kept them dry from the thick early morning dew, they slowly acclimated their senses to place and time. They heard the familiar sound of the whop, whop, whop, of the approaching choppers and knew the first of many demanding days was about to commence.

With the arrival of the rest of the GREGG troops came the first day of actual recovery of the human remains that littered Jonestown. Nine hundred and thirteen people who had lost their lives three days earlier were waiting. They were still a long way from their final resting places and would be the objects of an intense identification and evacuation effort. The identification process had begun Sunday, before any American troops arrived in Jonestown.

Odell Rhodes and a few other survivors who were resourceful or fortunate enough to be spared from the massacre, returned to this place of horror on Sunday to assist the GDF and Guyanan government officials in the identification of the already badly bloated bodies. They did the best they could, often only being able to offer nicknames or first names of their former friends.

The names were then scrawled onto pieces of cardboard that were attached to the bodies. This effort, by people who must have been in shock and scared to death, was admirable, but it was too little too late. If the deceased had not already fashioned their own bracelets and placed them on their wrists before they died, chances were identification would not occur for many days or weeks at Dover Air Force Base.

The helicopters dropped off their passengers and immediately took off and began slowly crisscrossing the sky above the surrounding jungle. Jonestown reverberated with the rhythmic roar of the chopper engines punctuated by booming voices on the aircrafts’ loud speaker systems, urging any survivors who fled into the bush to come out, all was safe.

The helicopters swept the area for about three hours, landing only for fuel at the airfield at Matthews Ridge. The search for more survivors turned out to be an exercise in futility. The dozen or so survivors had been out of the area before the task force even arrived.

This was a puzzling turn of events for the American rescuers. The GDF told them there were approximately 1000 people living in Jonestown, yet only about 400 passports had been found.

The task force was convinced more than 500 Peoples Temple members had avoided the massacre, yet only a handful came out of the jungle. No one knew their fate at the time but within a few days, it became very clear.

[1] U.S. Army Mortuary Affairs Center, Ode to the 92M, retrieved July 11, 2004 from http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/mac/ode.htm.
[2] Freedom Magazine, Viewpoints, retrieved July 12, 2004 from http://www.freedommag.otg /English/vol2704 / viewpoints.htm.
[3] Ibid; Alternate Considerations of Jonestown and the Peoples Temple, Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories About Jonestown, retrieved July 12, 2004 from http://jonestown.sdsu.edu./About Jonestown/Articles/conspiracy.htm.
[4] John Peter Nugent, White Night, (Rawson Wade Publishers, New York, 1979) 196.
[5] Ethan Feinsod, Awake in a Nightmare, (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1981), 188.
6 John R. Hall, Gone from the Promised Land, (Transaction Publishers, New Brunawick, NJ, 2001) 280.

[7] Freedom Magazine, Ibid.

Chapter Six

2008-09-03T13:14:00.002Z

Chapter Six – Graves Registration

“Let us so live that when we come to die
Even the undertaker will be sorry.”
Mark Twain

Dr. Steven E. Anders, a physician who serves as the historian for the U.S. Army Quartermaster General, wrote an excellent history of the Quartermaster graves registration mission that appeared in the Quartermaster Professional Bulletin of September 1988. It provides the best chronology of the development of mortuary affairs as it exists in the U.S. Army today.

During the early 1800s, it was the Quartermaster officers, the storekeepers of the Army, who cared for the dead. There wasn’t any regulation assigning them this important job. It apparently became their responsibility because “someone had to do it.”[1]

These officers, assigned to the forts along our young country’s frontier, constructed cemetery plots, buried the dead in marked graves and kept fairly uniform records of burial. This was acceptable, as long as the Army stayed near the fort and was not in some far away region of the territory. The practical experience these officers received and the methods they devised in no way prepared them for the challenge of handling massive combat casualties resulting from large scale conflict. At this point in our nation’s history, its military had not even thought to address a formal policy to react to that contingency.

The Mexican War of 1846 to 1847 changed all of that by providing the Army’s first real test to care for its war dead. To put it bluntly, it failed the test miserably.

General Zachary Taylor ensured the dead were properly collected and buried on the battlefield following his victory at Buena Vista. However, he neglected to mark the site of the graves on his official report. The locations of these long lost makeshift cemeteries containing those Amer4icans who fell at the Battle of Buena Vista have never been found.[2]

During the same war, General Winfield Scott landed troops at Vera Cruz and marched them to Mexico City. Hundreds of American soldiers died and were buried along the march route. Only a few dozen graves were ever located after the war, and none of the remains in them ever were identified.[3]

With the U.S. Civil War came the foundation of the Army’s Graves Registration mission. This one conflict caused more combat casualties and accounted for more battlefield deaths than all the nation’s other major wars combined. The public expressed a greater concern for the soldiers on both sides whom were fighting in this war, perhaps because it was fought where they lived.

While concern for the dead was evident during the Civil War, the methods for burial did not immediately change. The dead, on both sides, were almost always buried by details of soldiers chosen at random. The graves were dug at or very near the scene of battle. After the armies left, the temporary markers identifying the grave sites and remains were left to deteriorate, leaving little chance for family members to locate the exact resting place of loved ones.[4]

Another problem that contributed to the proper identification of remains buried after the battle was that often, prisoners of war made up the burial details. These captured soldiers were somewhat less than motivated to accurately and permanently mark the gravesites of their enemies. Often POWs were illiterate and could not properly mark the graves despite their best intentions. During the fighting at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse, around 1,500 were killed. Fewer than 400 graves were ever identified.[5]

On May 4, 1864, when the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River and entered Virginia, the soldiers were horrified to find the bleached bones of others who wore the blue in battle the year before, lying exposed on the ground. Many of the grief-filled soldiers methodically searched through the remains hoping to discover clues that would provide positive identification of fallen friends.[6]

They searched for marks on clothing and equipment, evidence of fatal wounds and peculiarities of tooth structure during their often futile quests. These methods of identifying the remains of the dead would become part of the standard operating procedures for future graves registration soldiers.

Finally, before moving into the wilderness, the living troops who were concerned about their dead comrades, took time to bury their remains. The fear of being and “unknown soldier” was constantly on the minds of the combat troops during the Civil War. While the War Department had yet to even think about issuing identification tags to its troops, many of them began to carry things on their persons to ensure they would be accurately identified should they fall mortally wounded on the battlefield.[7]

Many soldiers carried identification markers fashioned from wood. Others wore medallions around their necks that bore their names and other identifying information. Prior to attacking the Confederates at Mine Run in the winter of 1863, the men of the Union Army’s Fifth Corps wrote their names on pieces of paper and pinned them to their uniforms. Despite these individual unofficial efforts, the remains of only about 58 percent of the soldiers who died in the Civil War were ever identified.[8]

The U.S. Army establishment of that day did not appreciate the need for some form of permanent identification for combatants, nor did it understand the obvious need for specially trained units and personnel who could properly care for war dead. Only once during the Civil War, after the Battle of Fort Stevens, outside Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1864, did a group similar to the modern mortuary services company come into being.

Captain James M. Moore, the newly appointed commander of the Quartermaster Cemeterial Division took a group of his personnel to the site of the fighting after the battle ended. For the first time in history, Moore’s team systematically searched for and recorded the remains and personal effects of fallen soldiers and was able to identify everyone that had been killed.[9]

While it took decades for subsequent graves registration units to match the accomplishment of Captain Moore’s team, the Civil War did motivate the Army to clearly designate the Quartermaster Corps as the official entity responsible for caring for war dead. Between 1866 and 1870, the Cemeterial Division transferred the remains of almost 300,000 soldiers to 73 newly created national cemeteries.[10]

Almost three-and-a-half decades after the Civil War, during the Spanish American War, Graves Registration was to become more professional. As a result of experiences in Cuba, it was determined that successful identification of remains depended mostly on shortening the time span between death, original burial and registration of graves.[11]

Chaplain Charles C. Pierce, who established the Quartermaster Office of Identification in the Philippines, formalized some of the basic principles and techniques needed to identify war dead. He recommended that soldiers wear an “identity disc,” and he supported the establishment of collection points where mortuary records could be gathered, filed, checked and corrected.[12]

In 1913, new regulations established a firm commitment by the U.S. Army to identify and bury all war dead. The regulations required filing detailed maps of all gravesites at the time of the initial burial to make the process of disinterment more efficient. By 1917, the War Department required all combat soldiers to wear identification (dog) tags.[13]

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing requested establishment of the first Graves Registration (GRREG) Service during World War I. Chaplain Pierce, by then long retired from active military service, was recalled to duty two decades after his establishment of the Office of Identification in Manila, Philippines.[14]

His job was to train GRREG troops and units at the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot. By October 1917, Pierce’s headquarters was moved to Tours, France, from where 19 Quartermaster GRREG companies were dispatched to every sector of the combat zone.

While the headquarters of the Graves Registration Service consolidated and preserved mortuary records and maintained cemeteries at the rear of the battlefield, the GRREG companies supported the troops on the line. The dedication and espirit de corps of these soldiers, whose mission was to care for those comrades who had eternally lost their capability to soldier any longer was extraordinary. These men often took incredibly dangerous risks in their efforts to ensure proper identification of fellow soldiers who had fallen. General Pershing wrote about one unit in the spring of 1918:

They began their work under heavy shell fire and gas, and, although troops were in dugouts, these men immediately went to the cemetery and in order to preserve records and locations, repaired and erected new crosses as fast as the old ones were blown down. They also completed extension of the cemetery, this work occupying a period of one-and-a-half hours, during which time shells were falling continuously and they were subject to mustard gas. They gathered many bodies which at first had been in the hands of the Germans and were later retaken by American Counterattacks. Identification was especially difficult, all papers and tags have been removed, and most of the bodies, being in terrible condition beyond recognition.[15]

During World War I, the relatives of fallen U.S. servicemen agreed to have the remains of their loved ones interned in the country where they had fallen. President Theodore Roosevelt encouraged this alternative by requesting that his son, Quentin, be buried near the ground where he was killed. “Where the tree falls, let it lie,” were the poetic words Roosevelt used as did many other grieving American families.[16]

Eight cemeteries had been established in Europe by the end of World War I. Six were in France, one in Belgium and one in Britain. Approximately 30,000 of America’s dead from that war are buried in those cemeteries. More than 47,000 bodies were returned to the United States for reburial at the conclusion of World War I.[17]

During that war, the percentage of unknown remains was around three per 100 bodies recovered. This still was not acceptable to the families of nearly 2,400 men who perished in The Great War and were never identified. But graves registration was becoming more scientific and systematized. Future conflict would challenge the talents, perseverance and ingenuity of the GRREG personnel in ways they never have been challenged.

More than 250,000 Americans died and were buried in temporary cemeteries around the globe during World War II. On the continent of Europe alone, the remains were interned in over a million-and-a-half square miles making the recovery process extremely difficult. Newer and more devastating weapons often made those killed in combat unrecognizable.[18]

A graves registration company in World War II consisted of 260 enlisted men and five officers to support three combat divisions. One platoon was assigned to each division, and each platoon had two sections, a collecting squad and an evacuation squad. These companies collected, evacuated, identified and supervised the burial of the dead. They also collected and properly disposed of personal effects and selected sites for temporary cemeteries.[19]

The work performed by the GRREG teams in World War II was just as stressful and hazardous as that done by their predecessors in World War I, if not more so. During the fierce battle for Anzio, graves registration soldiers were forced to take shelter in freshly dug graves.[20]

During the D-Day invasion, men from the GREGG Company who were with the First Army, gathered bodies from the beaches, ocean and inland, actually extricating them from submerged landing craft. By the end of the second day of the invasion, one platoon had buried 437 dead American servicemen.

After World War II, most graves registration units were disbanded and most overseas GREGG services ceased to exist. This created an enormous problem in June of 1950, when war broke out in Korea. Only the 108th Graves Registration Platoon in Yokohama, Japan was available to deploy to Korea during the emergency buildup. The platoon consisted of 30 men, most of who were without combat experience.[21]

Other GREGG personnel were rounded up from the 565th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Five men were attached to the three combat divisions deployed to Korea, the 24th 25th and 1st Cavalry. They were ill-supplied. The fluid tactical situation made recovery of remains extremely difficult. A centrally located Army cemetery could not be set up, so separate divisional-level cemeteries were established instead[22]

By the fall of 1950, these cemeteries were forced to be closed down due to a renewed and intense communist offensive. The dead were then evacuated to more secure rear areas and then sent to Japan for subsequent processing and shipment to the United States.

This was the first time in American history that a mass evacuation of combat dead took place while hostilities were still being conducted. By the end of January 1951, nearly 5000 bodies had been removed from temporary cemeteries in Korea to a newly formed central identification unit (CIU) in Japan.

By mid-1951, this had become standard operating procedure. A 72-acre United Nations was opened in Tanggok, Korea, along with the Eighth Army’s Central Identification Laboratory. During the last two years of the conflict, refrigerated railroad cars transported remains from forward collecting points to Tanggok. A pattern developed that had the bodies of the US Korean War dead recovered and returned to the USA within 30 days.

The Vietnam War was America’s’ longest conflict and the proficiency of the army’s GREGG units improved considerably when compared to their performance in all prior wars. This war had less unaccounted for dead. Helicopters allowed remains to be evacuated from the battlefield in a matter of minutes, rather than in many hours or days.

Combat units became responsible for initial recovery. Two well-equipped mortuaries were established in Vietnam, one in Da Nang in the north and one in Tan Son Nhut near Saigon in the south. Positive identifications were made in these facilities using new laboratory methods along with fingerprint and dental comparisons.[23]

By the end of the war in Indochina, only 28 bodies of American soldiers remained unidentified. By 1984, the remains of but one serviceman continued to be classified as “unknown.” On Memorial Day of the year, the remains were interned at the “Tomb of the Unknowns” at Arlington National Cemetery.[24]

Fourteen years later, in 1998, the identification process had become so accurate and sophisticated that positive identification of this Vietnam War unknown soldier was made through DNA testing. The now-identified Air Force pilot’s remains were returned to his hometown for burial.[25]

More recently, U.S. Army mortuary specialists have served humanity and their fellow soldiers in Somalia and Bosnia as well as both Iraq wars and Afghanistan. As wars and rumors of wars continue to persist, the special services of these very unique men and women remain in demand.

The U.S. Army Mortuary Affairs Center at Fort Lee, Virginia is Once again busy training new 92-Mikes, the Military Occupational Specialty assigned to mortuary affairs specialists. The center trains more than 250 soldiers a year to become mortuary specialists and provides professional training and continuing education to NCOs and officers who have already been working in the mortuary field.

The 54th Quartermaster Company of Fort Lee, Virginia provides the mortuary affairs teams operating in the southeast Asian countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Virtually all of the American military casualties from that theater of operations, are flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the same mortuary that the 913 Jonestown dead were taken to.

The mortuary section from the 16th Field Services Company of the 240th Quartermaster Battalion, from Fort Lee had the mission to assist in the identification of the Jonestown dead. The team consisted of 12 enlisted personnel and one officer. They were augmented by mortuary sections from Fort Bliss, Texas and Fort McClellen, Alabama. Mortuary services specialists from the FBI, State Department and all the other military services rounded out the quickly formed task force. They worked for a week and identified approximately half of the remains. Infants and children represented the majority of those bodies the task force could not identify.[26]

The three dozen or so men and women soldiers who made up the GREGG team deployed to Guyana were also from Fort Lee. When they went to Jonestown, they were operating according to procedures found in the U.S. Army Field Manual 10-63-1, entitled Graves Registration Handbook. This now obsolete publication was last issued in July 1986.

The Joint Humanitarian Task Force to Guyana was the largest recovery operation ever performed by GREGG troops. Eighteen months prior to this mission, the remains of around 530 civilians who perished in a horrible airplane crash at Teneriffe in the Canary Islands were collected, processed, identified and evacuated by some of these same 92-Mikes. Jonestown represented a challenge about twice as large and much more physically daunting than the one they faced in the Canary Island disaster.[27]

Tommy Boulier, Director of the Mortuary Affairs Center at Fort Lee, has written an accurate description of the Mortuary Specialists (92M):

92Ms are often thought of as cold and unemotional. They are human though, with feelings and emotions like everyone else. But they can’t die with each remains that they handle. Often they hide their true feelings, just to get through the day. Inside are scars and wounds, invisible to the eye, silent grief to be dealt with on a personal level on another day. These wounds often go untreated because it isn’t macho to say it bothers them.[28]

From 1988 to 1991, actor Michael Boatman played Graves Registration Specialist Samuel Beckett, on ABC’s celebrated television series, China Beach. The show was about the lives of service men and women working in a field hospital near Da Nang during the Vietnam War. Beckett was the first graves registration specialist to be portrayed in a television series.

I was a medic in Vietnam, not all that far from Da Nang. I worked for over a year in an evacuation hospital and I saw more than my share of death. But the humanitarian mission to Guyana in 1978, was the only time in a 20 year military career, that I had a chance to associate with graves registration (mortuary) specialists and observe them closely during the performance of their work. They were not like Beckett.

The men and women in Jonestown and at the Timheri Airport near Georgetown were not as serious and solemn as Beckett. While they performed the gruesome tasks that faced them with efficiency and professionalism, they exhibited wry and quick senses of humor. Yet they remained respectful of the remains they were responsible for. They brought honor to the jobs they performed.

Of course, Jonestown was a mass death scene of unduplicated proportions. The events that happened there occurred in an extremely hot tropical climate that in and of itself caused all sorts of complications and created the potential for many other serious problems that fortunately never materialized.

In the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s Oral History Program, oral surgeon, Colonel Kenton Hartman stated, “…those 913 sets of remains deteriorated very rapidly in that tropical climate. So removing the bodies and bringing them back to Dover… was a massive relocation effort.[29]”

“It took a lot of Air Force personnel and Army people to recover the bodies and transport them up here. The remains were in just unbelievable degenerative condition. They had completely skeletonized some sets of remains… in a period of one week. You could take a skull, for example, and just literally wipe the flesh right off of it. It had turned to a paste-like compound. It looked like mud.

“The odor was just horrendous. There was no way to control the odor. People working with this disaster not only had an overwhelming psychological difficulty of facing that many dead people, but the condition of the remains.”[30]

Hartman, who worked with the GREGG team at Dover Air Force Base, went on to report about the maggot problem. “There were maggots just crawling out of all these bodies. And out of frustration, some people went out and bought 50 pound bags of slaked lime, the type you put in outdoor johns, and they would throw it on the body… We found out about it and put a stop to it, because its been our policy, we always do full body x-rays as well as dental x-rays on every set of remains. That slaked lime just wiped out the radiographic image; you couldn’t take x-rays of these bodies. So they stopped doing that.

“Other people took fuel oil from the diesel engines, and poured fuel over them, to try to keep the maggot population down. Nothing worked. Eventually, people became conditioned after a couple of days, and just literally gutted it out and were able to complete the operation.” [31]

In Guyana, it was a tribute to the leadership skills of the NCOs who led the various participants in the task force and to the physical conditioning of those soldiers assigned to this repugnant mission, that only one member experienced a minor injury. They demonstrated a mental strength as well, accomplishing an ugly assignment without any noticeable residual damage to their bodies or psyches. Undoubtedly, for many members of the task force who were not trained mortuary specialists, the nine days in Jonestown left lasting psychological scars.

While I will tell you some rather bizarre stories in later chapters, I won’t comment on the overall psychological health of the members of the GREGG team, except to say, they seem to be very special people to be able to do what they do.

The GREGG soldiers did exhibit what many would characterize as “sick” senses of humor. To a normal person, their actions may seem macabre and grotesque, but they only mirrored the environment they were working in.

David Granirer is a speaker, trainer, therapist and comic from Vancouver, Canada. He teaches workers how to manage stress through humor. Laughter and frivolity can help people cope.[32]

I do not think I will ever forget the GREGG soldiers who had the task of bringing the residents of Jonestown home. This book has been written to honor their service to humanity and the honorable, yet humor-filled way they accomplished it.

[1] Steven E. Anders, M.D., With All Due Honors: A History of the Graves Registration Mission, Quartermaster Professional Bulletin, September 1988.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Florence Cannon, Our Honored Dead, The Quartermaster Review, May-June 1952
[5] S. Anders, Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] F. Cannon, Ibid.
[8] CPT Richard W. Wooley, A Short History of Identification Tags, Quartermasters Professional Bulletin, December 1988.
[9] S. Anders, Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] F. Cannon, Ibid.
[12] S. Anders, Ibid.
[13] CPT R. Wooley, Ibid.
[14] S. Anders, Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] F. Cannon, Ibid., MAJ William R. White, Our Soldier Dead, Quartermaster Review, May-June 1930.
[18] S. Anders, Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid
[22] Ibid, COL John D. Martin, Homeward Bound, Quartermaster Review, May-June 1954.
[23] Mortuary Affairs Activies, Republic of Vietnam, retrieved from http://www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil//mortuary/MA-Vietnam.htn, July 10, 2004; S. Anders. Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum, “Duty to the Fallen: The Army’s Mortuary Mission,” retrieved from http://qmmuseu.lee.army.mil/ma_gallery.html/history , July 10, 2004
[26] Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Oral History Program, Subject: Dr. Richard Froede, Interviewer: Charles Stuart Kennedy, October 27, 1994.
[27] Frank Wright and Maria Russo, 16th Field Services Company Helps Identify Bodies
[28] U.S. Army Mortuary Affairs Center, Home Page, retrieved Aprul 21, 2004 from http://www.quartermaster/army/mil/mac/.htm
[29] Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Oral History Program, Subject: Colonel Kenneth Hartman, DDS, Interviewer: Charles Stuart Kennedy, October 27, 1994.
[30] Ibid
[31] Ibid.
[32] David Granirer, Humor in the Workplace speaker, retrieved from http://www.granirer.com/1-Jimok.htm on July 11,2004

Chapter Five

2008-08-27T13:15:00.002Z

Chapter Five: “I don’t want to go down there”

Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death.
Major General Robert S. Johnson

I’ll admit it. I was a reluctant witness to the Jonestown Massacre and would not have set foot in the enclave that bore Jim Jones’ name if I had any say about it. Hell, on November 18, 1978, the whole country of Guyana was the last place I wanted to be.

When Captain Skinner and Major Burgos returned from their short helicopter tour of Jonestown, the brigade surgeon instructed me to gather up enough malarial prophylaxis drugs to supply the hundred or so American soldiers who were scheduled to arrive in Jonestown within the next several hours. I quickly assembled the kit and Burgos directed me to board the helicopter he and my commander had just disembarked from. It was still sitting at the end of the runway with its rotors spinning. I was to fly into Jonestown to oversee the distribution of the anti-malaria medications to the troops who would be working there.

I was relieved when I first heard our medical aid station would be set up at Matthews Ridge, some 20 miles from the gruesome death scene. I had no desire to work around all those people who had killed themselves. I tried to convince the brigade surgeon to allow me to send Bernal or Fielder to accomplish this relatively simple task.

“No,” Major Burgos said firmly, “You are the senior medic, you will go.”

A light rain began to fall from a deeply overcast sky as I gathered my personal gear and the drug kit. Although it was the rainy season in Guyana, the precipitation was not as intense here as it was on the northeastern coast where Georgetown was located.

The awaiting helicopter was an American Bell 310, or in the lingo of the United States Army, a UH-1 or “Huey.” After saluting the GDF pilot and co-pilot in the traditional palm-down American Army style, it was interesting to note they responded with the British palm-up salute, a reminder that Guyana was once a colony of Great Britain. The chopper was devoid of seats, just as the Guyanese airliner that brought us to Matthews Ridge was.

The pilot informed me he would be taking off as soon as supplies for the GDF soldiers guarding Jonestown arrived. Within minutes, a battered old civilian truck pulled up alongside the helicopter. Two large, whole, unwrapped fish along with a bag of rice and some fresh vegetables, were deposited onto its deck.

I jumped into the chopper as the pilot and co-pilot strapped themselves into their seats. Thankfully, they offered me a helmet equipped with a microphone and ear pieces so we three could communicate easily during the short flight.

The pilot cranked up the engine while his co-pilot checked gauges. After engine run-up, we quickly became airborne, heading toward a place with more dead human bodies scattered about than any other place on earth I had ever been to. The thought that I soon would be the first member of the Joint Humanitarian Task Force to set foot on this killing field was very disconcerting. I truly wondered how my constitution and psyche would react to the sights and smells that would be assaulting me in a few short minutes.

The rain continued to fall relentlessly and our altitude was not all that high when we entered the cloud bank that was producing it. Speeding through the thick blanket of dark gray clouds in that small aircraft felt a lot like riding in a car through pea soup fog at over 100 miles per hour. It was impossible to see anything beyond the helicopter windshield. It was equipped with radar and an altimeter that seemed to be operational, so there was little danger of hitting a tree, crashing into a mountain, or being hit by another aircraft – I hoped.

To keep it light and demonstrate I was confident in their skill as pilots, I engaged in small talk with the GDF officers shuttling me to Jonestown. “Why is the helicopter painted a bright international orange rather than the traditional green, brown and black of American military choppers that operate over jungles?” I naively inquired.

“Easier to find us if we crash in the jungle,” deadpanned the pilot.

That made perfect sense but was not very reassuring to this passenger taking his first ride in a GDF helicopter over one of the thickest jungle forests in the world. The co-pilot smiled and assured me that neither he nor the helicopter commander had ever crashed.

Within a few minutes, we arrived over Jonestown and the pilot began his descent from the gloomy disorienting clouds. It was comforting to be able to see the ground once again. We were about 1000 feet over the community when we broke through the clouds.

“Where are all the bodies?” I asked, trying to sound as confident and professional as I could.

“Right down there, mate,” replied the co-pilot.

I told the two GDF flyers it was difficult to make out the individual bodies from this great height and before I finished getting the words out of my mouth, the pilot maneuvered the international orange GDF helicopter in a rapid descent to a hover about 150 feet above the pavilion.

From this lower elevation, what had appeared to be piles of trash in a landfill from 850 feet higher, was easily recognized as a mass of hundreds of bodies in multicolored clothing. Arms, legs and heads extended from bodies so bloated the formerly loose fitting shirts and trousers that were so comfortable to wear in the tropics were skin tight against the gas-filled bodies. Even the severe prop wash of our helicopter rotors hovering overhead did not make the taut clothing flutter.

It looked exactly like a scene from a macabre horror film, but the bodies below were not elaborate mannequins placed on the ground by some Hollywood set designer and his artistic assistants. Nor were they movie extras in make-up waiting for the director’s signal to rise up and begin walking in yet another remake of Night of the Living Dead.

They were the quickly rotting remains of dead humans, men women and children, who until a few short days ago, had been living breathing beings with dreams and aspirations that probably were not all that different from my own.

I learned much later that for the past two years and more, most of these people had been living a miserable existence, but at least where there is life there is hope. There was no hope left in Jonestown that rainy November day, only horror, and I said out loud, to no one in particular, “I don’t want to go down there.”

“I don’t blame you, mate.” The audible reply to my rhetorical question jerked me back into the present.

Within a minute or so, we landed in a large expanse that was to become known as the soccer field. The Guyanese no doubt called it a football field. No matter what its name, I had no desire to leave the chopper that felt like a protective cocoon.

At this moment, the Bell 310 GDF chopper was the only aircraft on the ground in Jonestown, but within a day, this field would become the busiest airport in Guyana, save the Timheri International at Georgetown. Jolly Green Giants would be shuttling American soldiers and their supplies into Jonestown and taking full body bags out, in the most bizarre military airlift in the history of the United States Armed Forces.

As unpleasant as Jonestown was, it was a relief to disembark from that small helicopter. The short ride through dark rain-filled clouds had been disorienting. The unfamiliar and pungent odor of the fish, while not as unpleasant as the aroma exuded by Jonestown, was a little sickening. I had to squat on my haunches, again without a seatbelt, to keep the fish’s natural juices from soaking my uniform. Little did I know at the time, all my uniforms would be discarded and burned at the end of this mission anyway. It was impossible to wash the scent of death from them.

I would have preferred the smell of fish to the putrid odors that penetrated my nostrils once the helicopter door was slid open. The bodies had been lying in the sweltering tropical heat for three days at this point. The temperature during the day on Sunday had been nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the rain, the thermometer was hovering at over 90 on the third day.

If you have never experienced the awful aroma of mass death produced by hundreds of rotting bodies in close proximity to one another, there is no adequate way to describe it with words. The best mind picture I can paint, and this is admittedly insufficient, is to ask the reader to close his eyes and think of the most grossly overpoweringly sweet scent you can imagine and combine with the foulest most flatulent odor you can ever recall. Then consider that you will be required to smell this completely disgusting, maggot-gagging aroma 24 hours a day for the next nine days and your imagination will not even come close to the smell endured by the soldiers working with the dead of the Jonestown Massacre.

The sickening sweetness of death was overwhelming. The tropical heat and humidity seemed to enhance it. Although there was a light breeze blowing through the enclave almost all the time, it was not capable of removing the fetid odor of death and replacing it with fresh air.

Nothing but time seemed to rid the olfactory senses of the assault of death. Its odor literally permeated the skin no matter how many times we bathed or what soap we used. What is worse, long after the smell left my body, even when friends and family denied smelling it, I still did. Clothing and military equipment could be burned and reissued, but only time could repair the damage the smell of death did to the human senses.

Some of the GDF soldiers at the soccer field that day wore kerchiefs over their mouths and noses. I tried it and the cloth had no affect whatsoever on lessening the odor. It only added to the claustrophobic feeling of being smothered by the kerchief as well as death’s aroma.

When the rest of the American contingent began arriving, some tried wearing their Army issued protective (gas) masks. They reported the odor of the dead permeated even the fiber filters of those masks made to protect soldiers from poisonous gases and biological agents.

I looked around at the faces and uniforms of the men I saw in Jonestown as some of them removed there rations from the GDF helicopter I arrived in. I saw no one but Guyanese around me. A GDF lieutenant approached me and we exchanged salutes. His name was LT Abbott and he was in command of the 20 or so troops who were guarding Jonestown since the morning after the massacre.

LT Abbott seemed tired and drawn. His speech was a monotone most of the time. He seemed emotionless, devoid of feeling. The young officer seemed to be suffering what World War I soldiers called “shell shock.” In later wars, the condition was called “combat fatigue” or “combat stress.” In my war, Vietnam, the nomenclature became “post-traumatic-stress disorder.”

“Are you alright, lieutenant?” I asked.

“What, oh yes. …haven’t slept since I don’t know when. None of us have really… difficult to sleep here,” was Abbott’s disjointed reply.

“I was told by your commander you would be coming. You are the medic they sent, correct?” asked the lieutenant, seemingly more in control.

“Yes, yes sir, I am,” I replied.

“Your colleagues have yet to arrive, I am told they should start flying in an hour or two from now,” Abbott informed me. I acknowledged the information and we stood staring at one another for a moment or so.

“Your captain and the surgeon did not have time for a tour, but you do. Would you care to see Jonestown?”

I really did not relish the tour but was very cognizant of the fact that this was an historical event. It occurred to me that I was now part of it. I had no idea at the time what affect the Jonestown Massacre would have on the rest of my life, but I agreed to take LT Abbot’s tour.
From where we stood, at the edge of the soccer field, row upon row of neat white cottages on stilts could be seen. They were freshly painted, some with bright blue or red trim, but most of them all white.

The open-air pavilion was about 100 yards away. It had the familiar tin roof of most buildings in Guyana and even the most gentle of rains played the tin like a drum. The structure was held up by bark trimmed logs and crossbeams made of timber. The logs were painted brown and the crossbeams white. Most of the bodies were in or near the pavilion.

Wooden walkways led from the pavilion to two buildings about the same distance from where I stood. A huge metal building containing at least one tractor with a flatbed trailer attached to it was near the soccer field.

“Those two cottages are the infirmary and Reverend Jones’ home,” Abbott informed me. “The tractor and trailer were used by the assassins who killed the government man for your country on Saturday,” he added.

“I’d like to see the infirmary,” I said.

“I have someplace else I want you to see first,” Abbott said with a serious look on his face.

He beckoned me to follow him. By the intent in his step and the look on his face, it was obvious this tired but handsome black officer already had an itinerary for my tour worked out in his mind.

As we passed rows of stilted cottages with neatly manicured yards, a few bodies were strewn here and there, not in large groups, singly and in twos or threes. They looked not unlike rag dolls little girls had tossed aside after tiring of playing with them. I often wondered if that wasn’t what happened that November 18 in Jonestown. Did the maniacal cult leader, Jim Jones, tire of playing with the brainwashed members of his congregation?

As he approached the open doorway of one of the cottages on the edge of the jungle, he directed me inside with a resolute, almost angry voice.

“I brought you here first because I wanted to show you Americans weren’t the only ones to die here. These are my countrymen. They were shot – murdered.” The lieutenant flatly stated.
In the stifling one room cabin, I saw several bodies, perhaps a half dozen. Each obviously was shot at close range, with a heavy-gauged shotgun. They were all blacks.

“What were so many Guyanese doing in this American commune?” I asked the lieutenant.

“I’m not certain. Maybe some of them worked here. Perhaps some had family members who did. They may be local residents who chose a most inopportune time to visit their neighbors,” he surmised.

The next stop was the commune’s radio tower. We ascended a vertical wooden ladder and entered the platform. It was on stilts that were 20 or so feet high, not unlike the guard towers I was familiar with in military camps in Vietnam.

A lone, Caucasian former member of the People’s Temple lay on the floor, a pad and pencil in his long-dead hands. It appeared the unknown man had taken the poisonous brew and began making a written record of his physical reaction to it. After three short paragraphs of increasingly difficult-to-interpret handwriting, this man’s final thoughts became illegible as the convulsive affects of the cyanide overtook him.

Climbing down from the tower, LT Abbott proceeded to take me to Jim Jones’ cottage. Although I had never seen a picture of the man in life, in death, he had the appearance of a leader. His shirt and trousers were black. That alone separated him from the rest of the dead. The strikingly strange position of the body, lying on the steps of his home, arms outstretched and sightless eyes wide open, Jones’ seemed to be appealing to the God he denied until the end.

Jones’ body did not fall at the steps he was now resting on. Marks on the ground indicated it had been dragged from about 20 feet away. His arms appeared to be stiff in rigor mortis, however, a Time magazine photo taken later, but while the corpse was still on the steps, showed the left arm resting over Jones’ head, the right one lying at its side, obviously after rigor left the body.

A bullet hole was on one side of his forehead. There was little blood around the hole. I didn’t move the body, but I didn’t notice any sign of an exit wound. I don’t particularly remember seeing a pool of blood on the ground from where the body was removed. I specifically looked for powder burns or residue around the entrance wound. There was none. This indicated to me Jones had been murdered and did not commit suicide as initially reported by the US government and the media.

Abbott stepped into Jones’ home, carefully avoiding touching his corpse. I followed. Lying in front of an open empty safe was a dead woman, also shot, through the mouth. I believe this woman to be Ann Moore, the nurse who had allowed Odell Rhodes to avoid death when he accompanied her to the infirmary to fetch a stethoscope for Dr. Schact.

On a bed in a room to the right was another dead woman. She lay on her back and although the front of her blouse had a good deal of dried blood on it, I noticed no apparent wounds. I believe this was Maria Katsaris, Jones’ mistress.

Mysteriously, the only children I saw during the tour were two little boys lying on the floor of Jones’ cottage. We know now that Kimo Prokes and John-John Stoen, children Jones’ claimed to have fathered, lived there.

The sight of the two children combined with the stench of death and the obvious enormity of what occurred here just two days earlier was incredibly shocking. My stomach was in a sorry state, ready to expel its meager contents and definitely not ready to replace it any time soon.

My head was swimming. Although the odor was no better outside the house, I had to escape its confines and at least put my face into the light breeze that was wafting through the commune. The rain had ceased, but the dark overcast sky indicated it could begin again at any time.

Our next stop on this bizarre tour of a literal city of the dead known as Jonestown was the infirmary. As a medic, this was the facility I was most interested in. Empty pill bottles and injection vials littered an otherwise clean floor. Many of the labels on the drug containers read ‘Librium,’ ‘Valium’ and sodium Phenobarbital.

The clinic boasted a modern x-ray machine and a sophisticated training microscope with two eye pieces. Other instruments and medical equipment were equally state-of-the-art. There were no bodies in the infirmary itself, but it was the first place I requested to visit and, because I was a medic, LT Abbott knew I would be interested in seeing it.

I didn’t stay very long there, but long enough to see Larry Schact’s medical degree on the wall. I wondered out loud how a man who studied for years to become a healer could have allowed himself to become an integral element in this gross insult to humanity. LT Abbott didn’t reply.

Interestingly, an organization of medically-oriented ham radio enthusiasts called the Medical Amateur Radio Council (MARCo) made up of physicians and dentists mentioned Dr. Schact in its April 2004 newsletter.[1] It appears he joined the council in order to take advantage of the medical advice and expertise of some of its members.

Historian, Joseph Dieckman, a researcher with the Jonestown Institute, has found numerous reports of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) violations by radio operators of the People’s Temple. FCC Case Number 77-R-71 was opened on August 25, 1977, many months after the initial violations were sent out.[2]

There were four members of the People’s Temple that had amateur ham radio licenses issued by the FCC. They included Albert Touchette [WB6MID (/8R3)], who operated in Jonestown; Paula Adams [WB6MNH (/8R1)] the operator in Guyana’s capitol of Georgetown; Elton Adams [WD6DVI] and Benjamin Bowers [WA6DTJ], who each operated in San Francisco.[3]

The United States Regulations regarding amateur radio are found in Part 97 of the US Codes. All of the violations Dieckman cited are found in the FBI’s RYMUR files.

Of the four radio operators, Bowers had the most reported violations. They included: No control operator present at time of operation; Exceeding maximum input power to the final amplifier; No station log/station log unavailable for inspection; Failure to notify at 10 minute intervals, Transmitting business traffic; Transmitting false, deceptive or unauthorized call letters; Failure to identify as required; and, Operating outside authorized US amateur band limits.[4]

Touchette and Adams had far fewer violations. Most were for operating their radios outside of approved bands, a violation of international radio operation regulations.[5]

According to MARCo, Dr. Schact was a sadist. “Louie,” who was the medical technician who worked at the Jonestown clinic with Schact said, “He didn’t like to use an anesthetic for suturing. If you asked for any pain relief, he stated you were not strong. Only natural childbirth was allowed in Jonestown.[6]

“He was a terrible doctor,” charged (Dale) Parks, who was one of Schact’s assistants in Jonestown. “He had no compassion, but members of his church saw the 30-year-old Dr. Schact as a modern-day Albert Schweitzer. When he first came he was totally strung out on drugs. He could not even carry on a conversation. He even had trouble remembering his name.[7]

Because he abandoned his internship, Dr. Schact lacked clinical experience. He turned to MARCo for help. The colony began using amateur radio for all communications outside the enclave since no telephones were permitted.

Jones himself would sometimes use the radio, using fictitious names. Sometimes he called himself “Al,” the name of the station’s licensee. However, he usually relied on female radio operators and Touchette, the station’s licensee. His name appears alongside other Jonestown murder victims and could very well have been the man I saw in the radio tower.

MARCo member, Bill Otten, [now KC9CS, formerly WD9AMW] recalls his conversation with “Al” one evening on 20 meters. “Early in March of 1979,[8] I was sitting in front of my radio on a cold northern Illinois evening. I was scanning up and down the 20 meter band and a station caught my attention. It was in Guyana, a country I had not yet logged toward DXCC, so I listened for a while. It soon became apparent that the station in Guyana was talking to another station in San Francisco, and as I was listening, I was intrigued, because nothing substantial was being said. I recall mentioning to my father that the stations I was listening o were being very vague, almost as if drug transactions were taking place over the ham bands.

“I returned to the radio and WB6MID/8R3 came back to my call. I told him I was a wildlife biologist researching upland game and habitat in northern Illinois. Several days later, I tuned the radio and once again found the Guyana station, but this time it was being operated by a distinctly different voice and he did not recall our conversation of a few days earlier. This time, I asked for the operator’s name and a QSL card. His name was Albert Touchette.”[9]

The operator of Bill’s first contact identified himself as the director of a compound in the jungles of Guyana. “I run the mission,” he stated. Apparently he was Jim Jones himself, a fact later substantiated by the FBI. In November, some months later, Bill and his wife were on a trip when they heard the sad news of the deaths of more than 900 people.

Contacts with the Jonestown station by W6JZU (now Robert Smithwick, W6CS) were equally cryptic, consisting solely of passing traffic or arranging phone patches between Jonestown and the San Francisco temple, through a station identifying itself as WA6DTG, operated by a “Martha Bown,” or “Debbie Evans.”[10]

From the log of W6JZU: “Typically, the WB6MID/8R3 station operator talks to a WADTJ in San Francisco. WB6MID is licensed to Al Touchette of Redwood, CA. They often start up about 14.300 kcs (the band edge at the time), then they would move up to the high end to 14.345. They often used a coded expression such as ‘Let’s take a break for 15 minutes,’ and then they would move further up and out of the band 15-20 kcs. When out of the band they used coded call signs with the same voices and not amateur call signs. Both the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League) and the FCC became aware of this bizarre operation, but were limited to what action to take since the principal station was outside the United States. All letters admonishing this illegal operation were ignored.[11]

MARCo member Don Key (K0IND) confirmed this style of operation after monitoring the station over several months. “At the time of the Jonestown Massacre, Laurence Eugene Schact, MD, submitted an application himself for MARCo membership. He listed his call signs on the application as being WB6MID/8R3. When this proved to be incorrect (the holder of that call sign was Albert Touchette) he was never granted MARCo membership. His application is dated March 9, 1978 and the massacre occurred eight months later on Nov. 18, 1978.[12]

Amateur radio was used extensively to maintain communications. Every evening, about sunset, the three stations would talk with each other, sometimes for hours at a time. Every now and then, they would break in on the MARCo nets and describe some medical problem that Dr. Schact encountered.

Responding to such requests was routine for MARCo, but it was the elementary nature of the questions that first alerted MARCo members that things were not quite right in Jonestown. Members’ concerns increased when some of the questions asked seemed so simple that even people on the lower levels of the medical field normally would be able to answer. MARCo members provided radio medical consultations on broken bones, skin rashes and other tropical problems one would expect to find in a jungle and agricultural environment. In addition to Schact, there were two registered nurses and a radiological technician in residence in Jonestown.[13]

It was not only the simplistic nature of the questions that raised eyebrows. Jonestown operators would talk in such confusing and inappropriate terms that nobody listening could tell what they were talking about. They would sometimes not put sentences together, just quote a few words or say things that had no relation whatsoever to what they had just finished saying.
For example, when the figure “35,000” was worked into conversations, that number did not seem to have a reference to what they were talking about. It was later learned that they were ordering a $35,000 Caterpillar tractor to be sent from the US. The word “tractor” was never used.[14]

Schact was a drug abusing young man when Jones originally chose him to be the cult’s physician. He paid for Schact’s undergraduate and medical school educations. Schact went to Jonestown in 1977.[15]

The tour of Jonestown continued. As we left the infirmary and were walking toward the pavilion where the main mass of fallen bodies were located, the unmistakable sound of incoming H-53 helicopter could be heard in the distance.

“That must be your comrades,’ LT Abbott said, “Shall we continue?”

“Yes,” I replied flatly and without enthusiasm. I didn’t know how long I had been on this bizarre tour, but I knew it had to end soon.

I noticed many of the bodies seemed to lie in family groups and several dozen that I saw wore handmade identification bracelets fashioned of paper and transparent tape. The lieutenant surmised and I agreed, the residents had made these primitive bracelets to facilitate identification by authorities so loved ones could easily claim them when they arrived in the United States. Unfortunately, by this time, the bodies were so bloated that the bracelets were actually imbedded in the skin and most were unreadable.

A few minutes after the Jolly Green Giants landed and shut down their engines, LT Abbott and I concluded our tour. I had seen Jim Jones, seemingly pleading to the God he defied, rejected and mocked until the end. I saw his wooden throne-like chair with the sign overhead that read, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I saw the pot of bubbling purple brew, made from Flav-Or-Ade, not the grape Kool-Ade erroneously reported by the media. The deadly poison contained in it, had been forced down the throats of babies and little children with needleless syringes by the very mothers who had given them life. The instruments of their death were littered all around.

I saw dogs and a large chimpanzee that had been shot and killed and I wondered why all these mammals had been executed and yet two beautiful blue macaws sitting on their perches had not. Those birds were the only living things left in the enclave, except for the pigs away from the main part of Jonestown.

Perhaps the masters of these dead animals killed them out of mercy, or they though they would also be united with their pets in the great hereafter Jones promised was awaiting them. Perhaps the macaws were allowed to live so they could bear witness to the insanity that struck Jonestown. If that was the purpose these they were spared, they didn’t make good witnesses. Not a word passed from these parrots’ beaks.

LT Abbott showed me what he wanted me to see, so he could satisfy himself the world would know it wasn’t just Americans that died at Jonestown. I was a witness to the carnage, I am sure so someday I could report what I saw in this place. I saw far more than I desired to see. Even worse, I saw far more than I would ever be able to forget.

When we walked back to the soccer field, two of the US Special Forces troops who had arrived in the Jolly Greens already managed to get the tractor attached to the flatbed trailer and was shuttling big bundles of brownish-black plastic body bags from the H-53s to a staging area near the pavilion. I approached another Green Beret soldier, a medic I knew from Fort Gulick, Panama. I asked him if he was going to be based in Jonestown and he said he was. He agreed to take the drug kit of anti-malarial pills and distribute them to all the soldiers who arrived at the site.

Some of the soldiers that arrived were from the Graves Registration (Mortuary Services, as it is called now) Company at Fort Lee, Virginia. There were a couple of dozen of them, clustered around a junior grade officer, apparently being briefed about the mission. These soldiers from the States coordinated with the well-trained and highly disciplined Special Forces troopers. Although the soldiers from Fort Lee appeared to be ordinary soldiers, it takes a special breed of person to carry out the indescribably difficult mission of the Graves Registration soldier. They surely are the unsung heroes of this and many missions the get involved with.

LT Abbott returned to tell me the GDF helicopter I arrived in would be back shortly, bringing fresh troops to relieve some of his tired men. He asked if I was ready to return to Matthews Ridge.

“I was ready to get back to my men as soon as I arrived, thanks for the tour,” I said as I shook Abbott’s hand.

He gave me a week smile and said, “I wish I could say it was my pleasure, but at least it was a pleasure to meet you,” he replied.

With the sound of the GDF Bell 310 in the distance, I saluted LT Abbott and waited for the helicopter to land. It did and eight young Guyanese soldiers in clean freshly pressed uniforms disembarked from it. Eight of their counterparts, uniforms sweat-stained and smelly, who preceded them and had the grim task of guarding the Jonestown dead since Sunday morning, eagerly prepared to load out. There were no noisy greetings or high fives between these two groups of soldiers as was the custom when American troopers performed similar exchanges. Instead, the signs of fear and trepidation on the faces of those just arrived and relief on those leaving told the story.

I gratefully joined the departing soldiers as did a small nervous Caucasian American in a white shirt and dress slacks. I didn’t see anyone but uniformed American service men and women disembark from the incoming helicopters, so I assumed he was in Jonestown before I arrived. He carried an unpainted wooden crate without a top. It was filled to overflowing with what appeared to be official documents.

I nodded to the shaky guy in the dress clothes. He returned the silent signal of greeting and pointed to the .45 caliber pistol on my belt. “Is that thing loaded, soldier?” asked my jittery countryman.

“Wouldn’t do me much good without ammo, would it friend?” I replied.

Sidling up to me so he could not be easily heard by other ears than mine, he motioned me to draw even closer so he could tell me something in confidence. “If anybody tries to take this box away from me, shoot them,” he ordered softly and seriously, then he quickly stepped onto the helicopter.

I jumped in and sat next to him. The chopper still was not configured with passenger seats, so the ten of us sat on the floor.

I put my mouth to the crazy guy’s right ear and said in a voice loud enough to be heard by him alone over the roar of the huge aircraft engine, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not,” he replied flatly, staring at me with his most convincing ‘I am dead serious’ look.

“Look buddy,” I said to the little man in what I hoped was an equal tone of seriousness, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what you have in that box that is so valuable, but whatever it is, there is no way I am going to risk spending one night in a Guyanese lock-up because I shot someone who was trying to take that box away from you.”

I turned an faced the GDF soldier sitting across from me. The helicopter lifted off and I watched the jungle get smaller as we ascended higher in the waning light of my first day in Guyana. Fortunately, he and his seven comrades had just spent the most stressful 36 hours of their lives, the only living beings in a village of 900 plus dead bodies. They were exhausted and didn’t seemed to be the least bit interested in the conversation I was having with the weird American bureaucrat or the box he was now sitting on.

“I’m from the American Embassy in Georgetown,” my mysterious new associate informed, no doubt believing I would be impressed. “I’ve been here since yesterday gathering these documents. They are very sensitive, we can’t let them get into the wrong hands,” he told me in a forceful yet panicky voice.

“Let me make myself very clear to you sir,” I said to the alleged State Department man, “I don’t care if you are Rocky J. Squirrel I am Bullwinkle the Moose. I don’t care if you are President Jimmy Carter himself, I don’t care if Ivan and Natasha try to take those papers from you, unless I feel our lives are in danger, this pistol stays holstered.”

“Give it to me then,” he half ordered and half begged in a squeaky little voice. Genuine fear showed in his eyes when he removed his shades so he could see in the withering sunlight.
“Listen, I don’t know you and I don’t like you. This .45 is going to remain in its holster, and if anyone draws it out, its going to be me and if you keep fucking with me, it is you I will be shooting, I yelled at the probable CIA clerk.

About this time, the pilot began his descent. I looked down and realized we were not landing at the Matthews Ridge airstrip. With the impending landing at some other destination than the one I thought we were going to, our conversation ended.

Although it was nearly dark, it was obvious we landed at Port Kaitumba, the location where the Ryan Party was ambushed. The scene must have looked much as it did on Saturday night, when the assassinations took place.

The eight weary GDF soldiers departed the helicopter here. It was now Monday night, almost 48 hours to the minute since the carnage occurred. The planes that were to take the congressman and his aide, concerned family members, defectors and the press, were still on the tarmac, their skins pock-mocked with bullet holes.

Later I learned the plan Larry Layton and his hit squad developed called for assassins to board each aircraft.[16] When the planes were airborne, a gunman on each was to kill its pilot thereby causing a deadly crash into the jungle below.

The plan was botched when the gunmen began firing from the flatbed trailer as it approached the aircraft. No one will ever know what would have happened in Jonestown that night on November 18, 1978, had the quickly devised plan been carried out successfully. Could the Jonestown Massacre have been averted if the planes were reported missing and no one was aware of the foul play? As it was, the botched assassination plan was the catalyst for the biggest mass murder/suicide in history.

The man from the embassy and I were the only passengers on the Port Kaitumba to Matthews Ridge leg of the helicopter trip. By now, we were enveloped in total darkness and we each sat on opposite sides of the cabin. I was determined to keep as much space between myself and this odd, nervous American. I regarded him as one might a weird, off-the-wall relative with whom one does not want to be seen with in public.

Captain Skinner and Major Burgos were standing at the refueling point when the chopper finally landed at the airstrip. The helicopter would fly on to Georgetown after departing Matthews Ridge. My commander approached the helicopter as I slid the door open and jumped out.

“How’d it go?” he yelled in my ear over the din of the helicopter. “Mission accomplished,” I
replied tersely, “Are you leaving, sir?”

“Yeah, Doc. Burgos and I are going back to Georgetown. We will work out of there. You’ve got everything under control here. Call us if you need anything,” Skinner shouted over the chopper’s engine.

“Watch out for that little squirrelly guy on the helicopter,” I warned my commander. “He’s some kind of spook or something. Wanted me to shoot anyone who tried to take his damned box from him.”

Captain Skinner did not reply. Perhaps this was because I referred to the other passengers diminutive status and it made him feel more self-conscious of his own. Maybe he knew something I didn’t. At any rate, he turned towards the helicopter, staring intently at the State Department man as he watched Major Burgos hop into the passenger cabin and then turned around, sat and pulled himself in.

I watched the international orange GDF bird lift into the starless night until its running lights disappeared in the low clouds. Then I strode up the hill to our aid station, hoping at least one of the guys was thoughtful enough to set up my cot and roll out my sleeping bag. They were. I never saw the man from the US Embassy again and I never learned what his name or function was.

Monday, November 20, 1978 had been one of the most bizarre days of my life, but the weirdness was just beginning. The next eight days would test the credulity and strain the sanity of many of the Americans performing this very strange and most unmilitary mission.

[1] Medical Amateur Radio Council, April Newsletter, Retrieved April 2004 from www.smbs.buffalo.edu / med/marco/index2/html.
[2] E-mail from Joseph Dieckman, Subject: FCCPT Document Attached, dated July 10, 2004.
[3] Joseph Dieckman, The FCC Investigation of Amateur Radio Usage of the Peoples Temple, Research Paper, 2004.

[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Medical Amateur Radio Council, April Newsletter, 2004.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Note: Bill Otten told Josef Dieckman in a 2004 conversation that the year should have been 1978. Dieckman related this information to the author in a telephone conversation on June 26, 2004.
[9] Medical Amateur Radio Council, April Newsletter, 2004
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] FOIA, Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 176; John Peer Nugent, White Night, 144-147.
[16] FOIA, Ibid., 157, 260.

Chapter Four

2008-08-27T13:07:00.002Z

Chapter Four: John Wayne Bars and Other Treats

Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a god.
Jean Rostand

No sooner had my team begun to set up our aid station and sleep tent than the children and teenagers of the nearby town arrived to stare at us. It was the first time they had ever seen American soldiers and airmen and as word of our presence spread, the number of curious onlookers multiplied. The ethnic breakdown of Guyana is mainly blacks, East Asians, mostly from India, and Amerindians who are indigenous to the country.

The group of locals watching us was made up mostly of blacks and Amerindians. All were female and all were teenagers. Girls seemed much more curious and bolder than the boys and we did not see any male teens until their sisters returned later in the day.

Two delightful almond-colored young ladies drew closer to me as I sat on a larger rock and began opening my C-ration meal. This particular box contained turkey loaf, canned peaches, peanut butter and a small tin that contained crackers and two candy discs, euphemistically called “John Wayne Bars.” The candy got its name during the Vietnam War. It was an ironic honor for the macho super patriotic actor who had never served a day in the service, but killed a lot of Japanese and Germans on the silver screen.

As I used the P-38 that always hung around my neck to open my main course, the two curious girls looked on intently. Although very hungry myself, out of courtesy, it seemed appropriate to share my meal with them. I handed a John Wayne Bar to each cutie.

The girl sitting to my right introduced herself as Pauline when I told her my name and asked for hers’. She studied the aluminum foil wrapper that encased the round disc of chocolate imbedded with tiny bits of almonds and crunchy nougat.

“What is this?” Pauline inquired in a crisp British accent.

“Why it’s candy,” I replied.

“What form of candy?” she asked, still studying the wrapper.

“It’s a chocolate bar,” I answered. Almost before I finished my sentence, Pauline eagerly peeled the foil wrapper from her John Wayne Bar and literally stuffed the entire disc into her mouth., ravishing it in a single bite. Her silent little friend did likewise.

“What’s the matter with you girls?” I asked as they greedily licked tiny slivers of candy from around their lips, “You act as if you’ve never eaten chocolate before.”

“I have not,” came Pauline’s response in that accent I found so enchanting when emitted from the mouths of these pretty Amerindian girls.

“Oh come on! Doesn’t your mother allow you to eat sweets?” I asked suspiciously.

Pauline simply looked at me and said, “We don’t have chocolate in this country.” That simple explanation sounded unbelievable to this American who took chocolate and many other things for granted. A Guyanese Defense Force soldier standing nearby talking with Fielder, overheard my conversation with Pauline and confirmed her statement.

“It’s a luxury,” he said. “Guyana has a problem with its balance of trade so we don’t import luxuries if we can help it.”

Word quickly spread around Matthews Ridge that the American soldiers staying at the airfield had chocolate candy. Soon every female teenager in the region was visiting us, hoping to be lucky enough to cadge a John Wayne Bar or one of the less desirable treats found in C-rations.

It nearly got out of hand. The girls were becoming more daring in their attempts to befriend an American service man who would be willing to give them chocolate bars. Fielder, a young, virile and not unattractive African-American soldier had more than his share of young ebony beauties willing to bestow favors on him for candy. I have talked to GIs who, from other times and during wars experienced the same thing.

Captain Skinner and Major Burgos remained with us at Matthews Ridge during that first day, but as night fell, both returned to Timheri Airport where the command structure of the task force was located. During the first few hours we were at the airstrip, they flew into Jonestown for a brief tour.

With the two officers gone, it was up to me to maintain order. Sam Bernal was not a problem. Like me, he was an old married guy with kids. Fielder and Sanborn were another matter altogether. Not yet 21 years of age, neither had complete control over his hormones.

But they were well-disciplined and knew they would endure my immediate wrath and perhaps be disciplined under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if they were anything but discreet. So for these two soldiers, discretion definitely became the better part of valor.

Two aviation fuel specialists from the Canal Zone were located at the airstrip with us. They had three huge hard rubber bladders of jet fuel used to refill aircraft shuttling supplies into and bodies out of Jonestown.

The fuel specialists were a Sergeant E5 and a Specialist Fourth Class. As a Specialist Sixth Class, I was the ranking noncom at the site and that, in effect, made me their supervisor. The sergeant was an older more stable guy. His assistant was very interested in the local social scene.

Rounding out the personnel at our little outpost were two Air Force Communications specialists that provided us with a communications relay link that allowed Jonestown, thru us, to talk anywhere in the world. It was staffed by a young NCO and his airman assistant and once we were operational, these two were the busiest men at the airstrip.

They had to insure the radios were monitored 24 hours a day. During daylight hours, when recovery operations were being conducted, an hourly body count was transmitted to Timheri Airport from Jonestown via our relay. At night, there was very little radio traffic and we could make radio calls anywhere in the world.

On Thanksgiving, we all made brief calls to our families. That was one of the few pleasant memories I remember from those traumatic days.

The natives were very friendly, especially the teenaged girls with their craving for chocolate. Our young studs began bragging about their romantic conquests to air crews that arrived for refueling. Although these guys were far from trolls, they attributed their success with the ladies to John Wayne Bars. It wasn’t long before word got out to the command center at the airport that Brailey’s guys were getting laid for chocolate bars.

It was no secret that some of the men at Matthews Ridge were having sexual trysts with some of the local girls. Beside my standing order to use discretion, I also advised them to use condoms. I had no idea that word of their extracurricular activities had reached the hallowed halls of Joint Task Force Command.

One day, an Army U-21, an aircraft similar to a Lear jet, landed at the airstrip. This was not unusual. Curious officers often made the trip from Georgetown, just to see the sights. Most of the time they would board a helicopter at Matthews Ridge and fly into Jonestown, or they would make a cursory inspection of our aid station, have a cup of Gator Ade with us and then leave as quickly as they came. These officers rarely announced their itineraries, so we never knew when they might visit.

On this particular morning, I believe it was the day before Thanksgiving, the 193rd Infantry Brigade’s Transportation Officer arrived. She was a willowy first lieutenant with long legs who actually looked great in Army fatigues. LT Thomas was a free spirit who enjoyed joking with the troops. This day proved to be no exception.

As I saw the cute lieutenant descending the stairs of the aircraft, I recognized her and decided to trot down the hill to greet her. As we approached one another, I saluted smartly, “Good morning Lieutenant,” I offered.

Returning my salute just as crisply, she replied, “Good morning Specialist Brailey,” and tossed me the large brown distribution envelope she was carrying.

As I caught the bulky package, 1LT Thomas smiled at me coyly and said, “Tell your guys to have a good time on me.” The envelope was chock full of John Wayne Bars.

Before I could think of a snappy comeback, the playful officer marched back up the steps of the waiting U-21. A few seconds later, she looked down at me from one of the aircraft’s round windows. Several Guyanese children were playing nearby, among them Pauline and her friend. I opened the envelope of C-ration candy and began distributing them among the kids, much to their delight.

I turned toward the aircraft which had yet to begin its taxi for take-off. As I dispensed the last of the John Wayne Bars to a couple of the smaller children, I saluted toward the lieutenant and walked back up the small hill to my aid station.

It was no exaggeration that a few of our soldiers at Matthews Ridge were fraternizing with some of the local girls and were giving them John Wayne Bars. However, I do feel to say they were receiving sexual favors for the candy is a little far fetched. These guys were red blooded American soldiers in their late teens and early twenties. They would be doing horizontal coed exercises with or without the chocolates.

One reason the sexual mores of that region of Guyana were so liberal is because of the sparseness of the population there. Matthews Ridge was close to the border with Venezuela, one GDF sergeant told me. The women of the town, be they single or married, were encouraged to be fruitful and multiply in order to lend legitimacy to some border disputes between Guyana and its neighbor.

And these young women who were between adolescence and adulthood were beautiful and flirtatious. Take Pauline for example. She was a lovely 15-year-old Amerindian girl with a body that would make any 21-year-old swimsuit model in the USA envious. Maybe it was the diet or the fact that they had to walk virtually everywhere they went, while Americans have more than they need to eat and would sooner ride in a car to the corner convenience store than walk to it, but the girls of Guyana seemed to grow up faster.

The children who visited our site day after day were made up of mainly Amerindians. I asked Pauline if she and her friend went to school.

“I don’t anymore. The other children were mean to me and my mother and father said I don’t have to go back,” she replied.

“Mean to you. How?” I inquired. Pauline explained that some of the bad boys would dip her pigtails in ink or cut them with scissors. She also said they would cut her dresses and she didn’t have all that many dresses.

Fifty-one percent of the population of Guyana were descended from immigrants who came from India. People of African or partial-African descent made up 42 percent and only four percent of Guyanese descended from the indigenous or native population. The remaining three percent of the Guyanese people came from Europe or China.

The Amerindians in Guyana were broadly grouped into coastal and interior tribes. The coastal Amerindians are Carib, Arawak and Warao, whose names come from the three language families of the Guyanese Amerindians. Interior Amerindians consisted of seven tribes: Akawaio, Arekuna, Barama River Carib, Macusi, Patamona, Waiwai, and Wapisiana. The tribes living near Jonestown included the Barama River Carib, Akawaio, Arekuna and Patamona. They all shared the Carib language.

It turns out there was a great deal of racial bigotry and prejudice against the Amerindians by the two predominant ethnic groups. This, alas, seemed to be the case in every country I traveled and visited in during my 20 years in the Army. Indigenous peoples around the world were usually considered inferior to the larger ethnic groups.

Sergeant Harper, a gregarious Guyana Defense Force supply sergeant whom I befriended popped into our sleep tent the second evening we were in country.

“Would any of ya like ta go ta town an’ slot some puss?” he asked with a big grin on his face.
“What’s that you say?” I responded, thinking his thick and unfamiliar accent kept me from properly understanding his question.

“Do ya wanna go ta town an’ slot some puss,” the exasperated Sergeant Harper asked slowly. He saw by the look on my face that what he was asking still really did not register.

As we all looked on, he made a circle with his left thumb and index finger and pushed his right index finger in and out of the hole made by the first and second digits of his left hand, repeatedly saying, “Slot some puss, slot some puss, slot some puss.”

Embarrassed that Harper had to use familiar, but vulgar international sign language to make me understand his question, I stupidly asked, “Are there any bars in Matthews Ridge?”
Slapping me on the back, he shouted, “Ya Mat-ewes Ridge got plenny bahs, mon, plenny wimmin too!”

So that night I made the command decision to leave Fielder at the aid station with one of the communications men and the aviation fuel NCO. The rest of us piled into Harper’s nine passenger Land Rover. As we sped away from the GDP outpost for our first off duty mixer with the local population, Sergeant Harper gave us strict instructions to meet at the vehicle at 11 PM. He said that was around the time the town’s generator ran out of fuel, effectively cutting off all electric power until the next morning.

Sergeant Harper took us to Mrs. Pool’s Bar. She was a large, funny black lady with a wonderful personality that fit right in with the perpetual smile on her face. After introductions were made all around, I put a 20 dollar bill on the bar and told Mrs. Pool to let me know when I ran out of money so I could replenish the drinking fund. Since a bottle of Banks Beer, the national brew of Guyana was $1.20 with the dollar returned when you returned the precious bottle, (there were no bottle factories in the country at this time) we managed to drink all night on 20 dollars.

As I was seated at the bar, sipping on an ice cold beer while Sergeant Harper and my new friend, Mrs. Pool explained the culture of Guyana to me, my little friend Pauline stuck her head through the doorway. There were other children in the bar younger than she, so I motioned for Pauline to come and join us. She simply shook her head and said, “I cannot,” and kept watching us.
I tried to verbally coax Pauline into the establishment, saying, “Come on in, I’ll buy you a cold drink.” She replied simply, “I cannot.”

Seeing I was getting nowhere fast, I excused myself and went out on the porch. “What would you like to drink?” I asked, thinking she’d say ‘orange’ or ‘root beer’ or some other soft drink. I was wrong.

“I’ll have a Banks please, and one for my brother Frank,” was her reply.
“You are too young to drink beer,” I said emphatically to this 15-year-old Amerindian girl.
“I am not!” was her equally firm and defiant response. I looked to Mrs. Pool and Sergeant Harper for guidance and they both indicated it was no problem for Frank, Pauline’s 17-year-old brother or Pauline to have a beer. So the proprietor of the little bar opened three frosty bottles of Banks and I carried them to the porch where Pauline, her brother and I spent about an hour in conversation.

They told me Mrs. Pool wouldn’t allow Amerindians into her bar. It was then I realized all the children and local patrons of the establishment were black. I learned that Frank was the eldest sibling of 13. His father worked for the government, and as usual, was away, but his mother, grandfather, brothers and sisters all were at home.

“You must come meet my family,” suggested Pauline.

“Another time, perhaps,” I said.

“No, now,” she said impetuously.

“I don’t want to impose.”

“No, my mother was excited to earn Americans were in Matthews Ridge. She has never met an American,” Frank explained.

“How far away from here is your house?”

“Just up the ridge a bit,” said Pauline as she jumped from her seat and grabbed my arm to pull me up.

As I told Sergeant Harper of my plan to meet Pauline’s family, Frank begged off, saying he had somewhere else to go. As I left, the GDF supply sergeant reminded me of the 11 PM deadline for the return trip to the airstrip, some three miles away.

“We won’ be waitin’ mon,” he said with a laugh.

“I’ll make it back by 11, I replied.

Pauline took my hand and led me to a trail that took us exactly where she said it would – up the ridge – straight up. I was getting a practical lesson in the main geological feature that gave the town its name. Although Pauline and her family lived less than a mile from Mrs. Pool’s bar, it as if I was climbing Mount Everest. By the time we reached her house, my legs ached fiercely and my uniform was drenched in sweat. Young Pauline looked as fresh as she did before we began our trek.

Her mother was very nice, a much older version of her daughter. She probably was only half dozen or so years older than me, yet she seemed tired or shy, perhaps both, all at once. Her hair was a beautiful black color without any streaks of gray. Her hands were much more calloused and worn than mine, but then again, she probably lived a harder life than I. It can’t be easy trying to raise 13 children who were born during a 17 year period.

While her mother made tea, Pauline and I played with the other children. While we were getting to know each other, their grandfather silently strode into the room. He was a quiet and dignified gentleman with more white hair on his head that black. The old man had a professorial look to him and he literally spoke the King’s English.

I noticed the home was a simple but clean structure made mostly of plywood and two by fours. The roof, like every other one in Matthews Ridge, was fashioned from tin. Furniture was sparse and utilitarian. Although I was not given a tour of the residence, it seemed to consist of a great room where the kitchen, dining and socializing area was, surrounded by rooms that apparently were bedrooms.

The entire family and some inquisitive neighbors who dropped by, seemed happy and honored to have met their first American. I certainly enjoyed their sincere and friendly hospitality. I met all the children, one by one. The British accent they all had seemed so incongruous coming from people dressed simply in Amerindian garb.

The one topic we did not discuss was the event that brought me to their town in the first place: the mass murder/suicides in nearby Jonestown. Perhaps Pauline’s mother and grandfather thought the subject would embarrass me.

I checked my pocket-watch and saw it was nearly 10:20 PM. It was time for me to start down the ridge to meet up with rest of the guys. I always wore a pocket-watch in tropical countries because the wrist variety invariably gave me a rash within a day or so due to the heat and humidity.

“That’s a fine timepiece,” said Pauline’s father. It was a silver colored Timex that cost me less than 10 dollars at the Post Exchange in Panama.

“Would you like it, sir?” I asked the old man, hoping the watch could serve as a small token of gratitude for the wonderful visit I had with Pauline and her family.

"Oh no, I could not possibly take such a fine gift,” he said. I told Pauline’s grandfather I had another just like it at home and would not miss this one.

He then asked me if there was anything I wanted from Guyana. Recalling how colorful and intricate the nation’s postage stamps were, I told the old fellow my daughter collected postage stamps and would love to receive a packet of cancelled ones from his country. That Christmas and for the next few years after, Suzanne, my oldest daughter, would receive an envelope full of cancelled Guyanese stamps around Christmas.

My engaging conversation with Pauline’s grandfather and Sergeant Harper’s parting words that the Land Rover would leave for the airstrip when the generator ran out of fuel weighed on my mind. I was anxious to catch up with my soldiers and Harper because my aching legs were not looking forward to a three mile hike home, not after climbing a mile up Matthews Ridge and a mile back down.

As Pauline and I left her home for the less strenuous trek down the ridge, the power suddenly went off, cloaking the entire town in instant darkness. The constant whirr of the faraway generator was replaced with silence and the chorus of sounds from the insects and animals in the Jungle was more obvious. Kerosene lanterns began to appear in some windows, causing eerie shadows to appear on the moonless night.

“I though the power went off at 11 PM,” I said to Pauline.

“It stops when the petrol runs dry,” she answered.

We continued down the ridge and to my distress, the next mechanical sound I heard was the Land Rover starting up. I could see its headlights off in the distance, but was not close enough to hail Sergeant Harper without disturbing anyone who went to sleep earlier. I knew I was in for a long walk back to the airfield, in pitch black conditions, on an unfamiliar dirt road surrounded by jungle, in a strange country.

As we passed one of the only two story buildings in the town, its windows lit by flickering lanterns, I said to Pauline, “I’m not looking forward to my walk back to the airstrip.”

“Do you want to go in here?” she asked, pointing to the two story building.

“What is that building?” I asked.

“It’s the hotel,” was Pauline’s short reply. I learned later that the hotel in Matthews Ridge boasted less than 10 rooms for visitors to the town.

“I can’t stay here tonight. I am the boss man at my camp and I have responsibilities back there, so I must trek to the airstrip,” I explained.

Taking my hand in hers and stroking it intimately, she said in a very provocative voice, “I don’t mean for the whole night.”

I was flabbergasted. “Pauline,” I almost shouted as I retrieved my hand from hers, “You are only 15-years-old.”

“I may be 15, but in Guyana I am a woman!” was her hurt and sharp reply that I would never forget.

As we stood together in the darkness, outside the only hotel in Matthews Ridge, I tried to explain to Pauline that in America 30-year-old men do not make love with children half their ages. This woman-child, with a body as sexually appealing as any I’d ever seen, was extremely offended. She turned in a huff, and before I knew it, disappeared into the dark tropical night.

I found my way back to the airstrip with the help of a friendly Guyanese man who offered to accompany me on my walk in the dark. When he offered to help me, I thanked him and told him I could get back there myself.

“There are snakes that come out at night that will kill you before you can take two steps,” the Good Samaritan replied.

Thinking I may be getting set up for a mugging, or worse, I said, “I’ve got a powerful .45 caliber handgun to protect me from animals,” pointing to the holstered sidearm on my belt.
“You won’t have an opportunity to use your gun,” he told me, “these snakes are practically invisible in the dark.”

I decided to take my chance getting mugged by this affable little Amerindian man, rather than running into a deadly serpent while alone on this frontier track. We reached the aid station in a little over an hour, after listening to big cats screaming in the not-so-distant jungle. Except for some small nocturnal rat-looking large rodents, we didn’t see any other animals.

I thanked my new friend and guide profusely offering him some Gator Ade, the only drink we had that was palatable. He declined saying he must get back home. I then gave him four C-ration meals to repay him for his trouble. When he looked at the contents of just one meal, he shook my hand vigorously in thanks saying, “This one box will feed my wife and two children for one meal,” he said solemnly as he repacked the tins and packets back into the box.

The next morning, I related my experience with Pauline to Sergeant Harper. He gave me a hearty laugh and said, “She right ‘mon. Dat gal ain’ no virgin. Ya shudda bed her down now. Dat gal like a wildcat, ya know.”

Harper also told me that the government actually encourages the girls and women of the region to be fruitful and multiply, just as my troops had been told by the young girls they were having sex with.

The United States military had journeyed to a strange country on an unreal mission. It’s a place where girls, barely out of adolescence were encouraged to make babies, beer bottles cost five times what their contents did, and the children never ate chocolate. Yet compared to some of the other events I was to experience in Guyana over the next week, these things didn’t seem so strange after all.

Chapter Three

2008-08-20T13:24:00.002Z

Chapter Three: “We aren’t prepared for this”

“Death is king of this world: ‘tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.” George Eliot

I hated it when a patient died, especially if he or she was young and vital. Children affected me the most, so innocent and so new to this state called “life.” I saw my share of people die – old men from cancer, young men from motorcycle accidents or wars, children from illness and abuse. As a medic, you get immured to death, at least most do.

I tried to take death in stride. I didn’t fear my own death, to me it was just another stage of life, perhaps, I hope, not even the final one. But to see a baby die before he was able to say its first word or a child, before she went to her first school dance or had her first adolescent crush, or a 19-year-old soldier, his legs amputated at the hips, who you spent weeks keeping alive and you did it, you defeated an inevitable death, until he committed suicide days after being sent back home, because he always wanted to be a cowboy. Those deaths I couldn’t take in my stride.

I felt strongly about people who died for no good reason, especially when they are helpless or coerced. I still do. Before I arrived at Jonestown, I was confused, not understanding what happened there. When I left Jonestown and returned home, I was still confused, and pissed off.

I’m not sure when the 193rd Infantry Brigade Emergency Operations Center received the first notification that something terrible had happened to several hundred Americans living in the jungle of Guyana, but I was informed by First Sergeant Arthur Phillip at about 9AM, November 19. I was preparing breakfast for my family when a phone call alerted me that my presence was immediately required in the company.

I was the chief wardmaster of the clearing platoon, 601st Medical Company and it was not unusual for a meeting to be called on a Saturday or Sunday, particularly if medical assets were needed to respond to some natural disaster. I was not sure what calamity caused this meeting to be called, but I was quite certain it was not a hurricane or earthquake as none had been reported on the news. Usually Phillips would have given me a heads up as to the topic of such meetings. This time, he did not.

My weekend uniform was usually shorts, sandals and a colorful T-shirt, which I quickly from into Army issue tropical fatigues. The familiar battle dress uniform (BDU) that is now worn by soldiers was not yet in the inventory.

I did finish making the pancakes, my specialty, before I left. I kissed my children and wife goodbye, not knowing if I’d be home any time soon, expecting I would not. Being veteran Army brats and a dutiful military wife, the family took my departure in stride as it had dozens of times in the past.

Arriving at the company, I noticed the brigade surgeon’s and company commander’s cars in the parking lot. It was most unusual for the surgeon to be present at an initial pre-deployment briefing. The scene of the commander’s office was somber. The faces that greeted me were not the ordinarily jovial ones exhibited by these professionals. Even when a soldier’s weekend is interrupted by some emergency or disaster, he usually maintains a sense of humor. Obviously some major crisis was brewing.

“What’s up sirs?” I said, addressing my commander, Captain Richard Skinner and the brigade surgeon, Major Victor Burgos.

Burgos was a seasoned Army doctor and an excellent manager. Board certified in Emergency Room Medicine, he was aware of all the standard policies, procedures and protocols and he operated by them. Hell, he wrote some of them. Once, when a tracked vehicle fell from a bridge during a training exercise, gruesomely killing one of its occupants, I watched him adroitly treat one of the soldiers who saw his buddy’s head crushed before his very eyes.

The young soldier luckily had no physical injuries, but he was a psychological mess. Brought into the clearing station on a litter, the young soldier stank from soiling himself. He was shaking so badly, he could not smoke a cigarette unless someone held it for him. The stricken young trooper could not or would not talk. After assessing his condition, Major Burgos told me to admit the soldier to the holding ward, clean him up and get him a bed.

“Don’t you want to send him to Gorgas [Army Hospital] for psychiatric evaluation?” I asked Burgos.

“What’s the philosophy behind treating a psychiatric casualty in combat, Brailey?” he said responding to my question with a question.

“Treat him as close to the front line as you can and get him back to duty as quickly as possible,” I responded. In combat, psychiatric casualties recover better if they are allowed to return to their units and comrades as soon as possible.

“But this isn’t combat, doc; this is a field training exercise,” I said, “Do you think the philosophy applies here?”

“Of course it does,” said the brigade surgeon. “We train like we fight. In a few hours that soldier will be able to hold his own cigarette, will be talking to the other patients in the holding ward and will be eating dinner. By tomorrow morning, I expect I’ll be sending that young man back to duty.”

I wandered back to the holding ward tent later that afternoon. The soldier who was nearly catatonic after witnessing the horrible death of his comrade, was sitting on the edge of his cot, smoking a cigarette. He held it by himself, with little shaking. He still was not very talkative.

A few hours later, the soldier was eating his dinner and telling anyone who would listen about the terrible tragedy that brought him to the clearing company. The next morning, less than 24 hours after his trauma, the young man was anxious to get back to his unit and performing his duties.
I told Major Burgos I was impressed by the recovery of the initially unresponsive soldier. He took it in his stride and asked me if there were any lessons to be learned about human behavior as a result of this tragic accident. His point was well taken. I learned a lot about medicine from this brilliant young physician, but on this November 19, even he didn’t know what we should do, and his bewilderment was disconcerting.

Burgos looked intently at the three men in the room with him. First Sergeant Art Phillips and I went way back. Eight years earlier, he was my wardmaster in an evacuation hospital in Vietnam. Strong of mind and body and as proficient in medical skills as any noncommissioned officer I ever served with, Art continues to this day to be my good friend.

Captain Richard Skinner was the company commander of the 601st Medical Company. He was a no-nonsense Medical Service Corps officer. Very short in stature, Skinner had a serious inferiority complex we all thought was related to his height, but Dick Skinner was one of the most competent and accessible company commanders I ever served under.

I was the third person Burgos was looking at. As a specialist sixth class, I was the lowest in rank of the quartet. However, I was a Vietnam War veteran with two tours under my belt and one of only a handful of NCOs in the company with any combat experience. Having served in the 601st Medical Company for two years and four months as of November 1978, I was in charge of the Admissions and Disposition section of the clearing platoon, which was comprised of the emergency room and medical wards.

Burgos told us what little he knew about our mission, which basically was not much. “A bunch of Americans living in the country of Guyana have attempted mass suicide by taking poison… maybe 400 to 500 people: men, women and children. We don’t know what they took. We don’t know how many are still alive, if any. We are going to be part of a task force to go there, assess the situation, assist the survivors, and bring the remains of any dead out of Guyana.”
I looked at Burgos and said, “Sir, we aren’t prepared for this.” Nothing in our combined experience could prepare us for the shocking hell of Jonestown.

A medical clearing company was made up of around 112 soldiers. It had a capacity of 100 patients and the capabilities of most small hospitals: an emergency room (called A & D), wards, a laboratory, x-ray department and operating room. The clearing company was designed to function under combat conditions. Traumatic injuries, not mass poisonings, were the types of casualties this medical unit was set up to receive.

Bullet wounds and broken bones, even multiple cases of certain medical conditions such as cholera and typhoid fever, malaria and heat injuries were old hat for medical soldiers. The protocols for these cases were standard and the soldier-medics of the clearing company trained for such contingencies.

All Army medical facilities were capable of caring for a small influx of poison cases, be they food borne or purposely ingested cases. However, mass poisonings were not commonplace. Aside from the importance of identifying the poison, having the proper medication to treat the condition was essential and no antidotes were normally kept in massive quantities.

The universal antidote for poisoning was activated charcoal mixed in water. We had plenty of water but were not sure we could locate enough charcoal to treat 400 to 500 poisoning cases. Even if we could locate the proper antidotes in an adequate amount, what condition would any survivors be in once we arrived at their remote jungle location some 1450 miles away?

We were being tasked with an unusual and unique mission and we had to do the best we could with limited resources to accomplish it. Major Burgos was determined to put together an antidote kit that could be used to treat any survivors. Selecting a team to provide that treatment and to care for any injuries or other casualties that might occur, incidental to the mission, became my responsibility.

Fortunately, the 601st was blessed with some highly competent soldier-medics to choose from. Sam Bernal was another specialist sixth class practical nurse like me. Although fairly new to the unit, he was a quiet and introspective but demonstrated much talent and skills.

Randy Fielder, a specialist fourth class “mini-charlie” was another team member. A mini-charlie was an experimental medic, one who completed the first half of his practical nurse training and then was assigned to a medical unit where, over time, he would receive the second half. This was to be the Army’s answer to the high attrition rate of Army practical nurses.

The Army had lost “full-charlie” practical nurses to the civilian sector in droves. The short-lived program lasted less than two years, however, the short Charlies just couldn’t replace their more educated, trained and experienced predecessors.

That said, Fielder was a very resourceful soldier. A 19-year-old kid from the ghetto, Randy could drive any vehicle in the Army inventory and he was not afraid of work. He also was quite a schemer, very resourceful at “Midnight Requisitioning,” that age-old method of procuring equipment and supplies in an unconventional and expedient manner. Further, of all the younger soldiers in the 601st, he was one of the more well-liked by higher ranking NCOs and he fit well into the composition of our team.

Mike Sanborn was a specialist fourth class as well. He was a 91A10 combat medic. As big and strong as an ox, Sanborn could be counted on to get the job done, no matter how great the hardship. He reacted well in bad situations, especially the occasional bar fight in the brothels that Panama City were famous for. The more difficult the mission the harder this motivated young soldier worked to accomplish it.

It was decided that Captain Skinner and Major Burgos would also be on the team. The final two soldiers to make up our group were specialists fourth class Eric Vega and Cliff Yoder. They were medical records clerks who would be needed to track the survivors treated by our contingent.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, we were told there were no survivors of what would soon be called, The Jonestown Massacre. Vega and Yoder remained in Georgetown as part of the labor force that unloaded the remains of 914 American citizens from the helicopters that lifted them out of the jungle death camp presided over by Jim Jones.

We quickly assembled the supplies and equipment we would take on the mission, checking each item. If it was a drug, we made sure it wasn’t outdated. We made sure our sterile packs were also in date and undamaged. Everything was palletized and transported by truck to Howard Air Force Base, north of the canal, next to Fort Kobe. By the time that task was completed, it was mid-afternoon. The team members were sent to their respective quarters to pack their personal gear and equipment and say goodbye to their families.

Captain Skinner instructed me to insure each member of the team received a .45 caliber side arm and a standard issue of ammunition. Since Sanborn was our arms man and was a single soldier, living in the barracks, I tasked him with the mission of preparing to issue the weapons before our formation at 1800 hours.

We didn’t know how long we were going to be gone, but it was a safe bet we would not be spending Thanksgiving with our loved ones in Panama. Although soldiers are notorious for missing holidays with their families due to official duties, this was my first major one away from mine in the seven years we had been married.

I went home for a while to catch a bite to eat and say one last farewell to the wife and kids. They were melancholy but not surprisingly stoic. Mai and I were raising them right, trying to make them be independent. I suppose you could say since they were all the offspring I had, I was a feminist and wanted them to never have to depend on a man for anything.

My oldest daughter, Suzanne, was born in Hue, Vietnam, during my second consecutive tour there. The other two girls, Jennifer and Deborah, were born at Fort Dix, New Jersey, exactly 364 days apart, on February 21st 1974 and February 20th, 1975. Suzy’s birthday is February 18, 1971, so group birthday parties were the rule and celebrated on Valentines Day until the girls became old enough to negotiate their own individual birthday party contracts.

The food for our family Thanksgiving feast was already in the house. First Sergeant Phillip and his wife said they would look after our families health and welfare while we were away, as was most Army units’ tradition when some of their soldiers were away on a mission. The Army did take care of its own.

After stowing some toilet articles and other items I neglected to pack earlier, I kissed the crew goodbye one more time and made my way back to the company. Weapons were issued, a short accountability formation was held, duffle bags inspected and my team was loaded on a deuce and a half utility vehicle and transported to Howard Air Force Base. We were quickly loaded onto one of three C-130 cargo aircraft for the five hour flight to Timheri International Airport, Georgetown, Guyana.

The C-130 was a flying workhorse. On aircraft configured to carry passengers and cargo together, the passengers usually sat in red, nylon strap seats and the cargo, palletized materials, jeeps and the like, was stowed down the middle of the aircraft.

Many people who had difficulty sleeping on commercial aircraft, especially in coach, had no trouble sleeping in the netting of a C-130. The hammock-like seat, the constant loud drone of the aircraft’s mighty Pratt and Whitney or Boeing engines all worked better than Sominex to put me to sleep. Even today, traveling around 12,000 air miles a month in business class, I find the memories of those long C-130 flights when I was in the Army, very fond memories indeed.

There really isn’t much of anything else to do on one of those long flights in a military aircraft. The loud engines make conversation next to impossible unless you can read lips or know American Sign Language. Reading is difficult without the convenient overhead light on a passenger airliner. Sleep is the next most logical option.

The cloudless night sky courtesy of the dry season which was just being ushered in, made the twinkling stars overhead look like the ceiling of a planetarium. The entire contingent of men and women on the aircraft were understandably anxious, however. The fact that we were embarking on what turned out to be one of the most unusual missions in the annals of military history added to our uneasiness.

We knew the stars were out there. We saw them when we embarked on the aircraft. Now, nothing could be seen outside the cabin but darkness. I guess this was one of the few times in my military career I truly felt like a mushroom: kept in the dark and fed bullshit. Only this time, we didn’t even have the B.S.

The sun was a thin red line on the eastern horizon as we landed at Timheri Airport. Even though we were experienced and acclimated tropical soldiers stationed in Panama, the stifling humid heat of the South American country was overwhelming as the Air Force crew opened the huge back hatch of the aircraft. Unlike the weather we left on the Isthmus of Panama, Guyana was in the middle of its rainy season.

Upon disembarking from the Hercules C-130, we were assembled in what was an old and obviously long unused terminal building. One look across the expanse of crisscrossing tarmac runways, about a half mile away explained why: there was a gleaming new terminal on the other side.

I don’t know if we were purposely segregated from the civilian population of Georgetown, but I suspect we were. So there would be no ambiguity, the Task Force Commander, US Army Colonel William Gordon, told all the troops, “Anyplace in this country except where you are now standing is off limits. That means you leave this hangar and you are wrong.”

These orders were not unusual, and once we realized the international, political, social and cultural implications of what happened in Jonestown just two days earlier, these rules made perfect sense. Interestingly and unbeknownst to us, hundreds of journalists from around the world were camped out at the new terminal. They were forbidden to venture to our side of the runway.

That didn’t stop some enterprising tabloid photographers from aiming their long telephoto lenses in our direction and snap away until they run out of film. A pulp magazine from New York City quickly drafted a “special edition” about what it termed the “Jonestown Tragedy. It appeared to be quickly slapped together and published within days of the event. A very grainy photo of myself walking with Bernal, Sanborn and Vega adorned its cover.

We arrived just before dawn, the 20th of November. The victims of the murder/suicide had lain where they fell or were placed after ingesting the deadly potion that killed them for about 36 hours.

The tropical heat is not kind to formerly living tissue and after this length of time in the sun and its stifling heat, Jonestown was undoubtedly a very unpleasant place to be. This was the main topic of discussion as we ate our breakfast of C-rations and waited in the early morning sun to see what our next move would be.

Colonel Gordon was the G2, Intelligence Officer, for the United States Army Southern Command. Although I was unaware of it at the time, the temporary task force he commanded consisted of officer and enlisted men and women of every branch of the Armed Forces and US Coast Guard.

There was a contingent of mortuary specialists from Fort Lee, Virginia. A clearing platoon from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, similar to my unit in Panama, set up a medical treatment facility at the airport.

Green Beret soldiers from the 3/7th Special Forces Group at Fort Gulick, and infantrymen from the 3/5th Infantry Battalion at Fort Kobe, aviation fuel specialists from Fort Clayton, all in Panama were part of the task force. Air Force communications specialists and fixed and rotary wing aircraft from various Army and Air Force facilities in the States and overseas, rounded out the troops Gordon commanded. He also had staff officers from The Coast Guard and Navy, making the Joint Humanitarian Task force to Guyana a truly multi-corps entity.

The colonel was an old soldier of about 60 years of age in 1978. His demeanor was always professional without appearing aloof. He was easy to talk with and obviously enjoyed leading soldiers, not a common task performed by a staff intelligence officer. Unquestionably he was a good leader as well, who enjoyed all the perks and mantels of being in charge. Gordon was jovial, when he wanted to be, which was most of the time and he was effectively stern when he needed to be, which gratefully was not often. When he talked, the soldiers he commanded listened and reacted appropriately.

Mrs. Gordon and I were members of the Ancon Theater Guild back in Panama. Colonel Gordon and I knew each other socially but this was my first opportunity I had to be in his chain of command.

One play Mrs. Gordon and I were in together was Night Watch, an old mystery suspense drama that starred Elizabeth Taylor in the film. Mrs. Gordon did not have the leading role and mine was very minor. Since we had time on our hands, she and I made a habit of trying to make the leading lady laugh in the same scene every night.

The actress would look out a window. In the script, she was to see a murder and scream. For two weeks we tried nearly every piece of slapstick and stupid silent humor to make her crack and laugh instead of scream. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, on the final performance, we accomplished our goal. But it took me, a goofy 29-year-old NCO, necking and petting out of the view of the audience, but definitely in the actress’ line of sight, with this matronly colonel’s wife to do it.

I assumed Gordon was privy to all of the intelligence information being provided by the United States government about Jonestown and what happened there. Maybe Major Burgos was also briefed and knew almost as much as the colonel did. It is probable that even Captain Skinner was in the loop, at least to some degree. I do know that none of the enlisted personnel, including myself, received one official briefing about what occurred in Jonestown on November 18. We didn’t even know what conditions were like there at the moment and I for one would enter Jonestown in a few short hours.

After lounging around the empty old terminal for a couple of hours, we were finally told our medical team would leave soon. Bernal, Sanborn, Fielder, Captain Skinner, Major Burgos and myself would be going forward to Matthews Ridge, the closest air field that could accommodate large military aircraft. It was 20 miles south of Jonestown.

A Guyanese commercial airlines plane that normally holds about 30 passengers had been configured to carry cargo. By that I mean, all of its seats save for the pilot’s and co-pilot’s had been removed. None of the Huey Army helicopters we brought from the Canal Zone had been assembled yet. The big Air Force “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters being shuttled to Timheri Airport had yet to arrive.

Anyone who served in Vietnam or the Gulf Wars holds a fond memory of these beautiful, big, loud helicopters. Their sole mission was to rescue downed aircraft crews and GIs on clandestine ground operations behind the lines.

The Air Force had deployed two squadrons of H-53s to Indochina. One was stationed at Da Nang, South Vietnam and the other at NKP, Thailand. Together they made over 2600 “combat saves.” While rescuing the fortunate 2600, the two gallant squadrons sustained the loss of 65 of their own crew members.

Until our own aircraft could fly, we had to rely on the Guyanese government for long distance air transport. The small yellow and white Guyanese Airways aircraft taxied over to where our pallets of tents and materials were sat on the hot black tarmac. I noticed the number “747” on the side of the plane, but the only resemblance it bore to the huge aircraft produced by the Boeing Aircraft Corporation was that it had wings.

After loading our pallets into the aircraft, we were told to get in ourselves and find floor space to sit anywhere we could. This was the first time I ever rode a fixed wing aircraft without out a seat belt. Hell, we didn’t even have seats.

We had placed our cargo along the floor of the plane and it appeared to be evenly distributed. Neither the Guyanese pilot nor his co-pilot asked for our weights or the weight of our pallets. When I asked if they wanted that information, which I did have, they declined and said, “Not to worry.”

The aircraft seemed to take forever to get airborne. I was seriously concerned that we were incredibly overweight and this evening’s news in the USA would have a report about the six soldiers from Panama that died in an overweight aircraft that crashed as it tried to go to Matthews Ridge from Timheri Airport. After we successfully landed at the airfield at Matthews Ridge, to a man, each of us voiced the same concern going through our minds at the same time.

Matthews Ridge was a small bauxite mining community about 20 miles southeast of Jonestown. The accessible bauxite ore had long been extracted from the mines around the previously bustling frontier town, so by November 1978, it was in severe decline.

The quaint little town did boast a well-maintained tarmac airstrip about three miles away though. This was to be our base for the next eight days.

We landed at the isolated airstrip just before noon. After the mighty Guyanese Airway 747 landed, it taxied to the end of the runway where a Guyanese Defense Force outpost was located on a small mesa.

We offloaded our supplies and equipment and carried it about 40 yards up a small hill to another flat area below the outpost. It was an ideal place to pitch our tents. After exchanging introductions and pleasantries with some of the Guyanese soldiers, we decided to eat one of our C-ration meals for lunch. This gave us a chance to meet some of the local citizens of Matthews Ridge and share our meal with them.

C-rations were the staple food for the American fighting man since World War II. They came in a case that contained 12 individual meals. Each was in its own cardboard box, which contained individually sealed items in cans. The meals were opened with P-38s, small can openers. Several came in each case and soldiers often war them on the necklace their ID, or dog tags were on.

The official US Army Quartermaster’s description of Vietnam War Era C-rations read The Meal, Combat, Individual, is designed for issue as the tactical situation dictates, either in individual units as a meal or in multiples of three as a complete ration. Its characteristics emphasize utility, flexibility of use, and more variety of food components, that were included in the Ration, Combat, Individual (C-Ration) which it replaces. Twelve different menus are included in the specification.

Each menu contains: one canned meat item; one canned fruit, bread or dessert item; one B unit; an accessory pack containing cigarettes, matches, chewing gum, toilet paper, coffee, cream, sugar and salt; and a spoon. Four can openers are provided in each case of 12 meals. Although the meat item can be eaten cold, it is more palatable when heated.

Each complete meal contains approximately 1200 calories. The daily ration of 3 meals provides approximately 3600 calories.

Meat choices included beef steak, ham slices, ham and eggs, turkey loaf, beans and wieners, spaghetti and meatballs, beefsteak with potatoes and gravy, ham and beans, meatballs and beans, chicken and noodles, meatloaf, spiced beef, and my personal favorite, boned chicken. Fruits included fruit cocktail, applesauce, peaches and pears.

There was also an assortment of crackers, peanut butter, jams, cheese spreads, fruit cake, pound cake, pecan roll, white bread and cookies. Candies, made up of solid chocolate discs, colloquially known as “John Wayne Bars,” cream chocolate, coconut chocolate, and cocoa powder rounded out the gastronomical delights known a C-rations.

While American soldiers were constantly complaining about the bill of fare served in the field and would often bring all sorts of tasty condiments to “soup up” their meals, the residents of Matthews Ridge never had tasted such food and enjoyed the American meals immensely, especially the John Wayne Bars.

Chapter Two

2008-08-20T13:13:00.003Z

Chapter Two – Death in the Tropics

“Every major horror in history was created in the name of an altruistic motive.”
Ayn Rand

I spent 20 years in the US Army and I cannot recall a congressman or senator ever being killed in the line of duty. Presidents, yes, even one during my life time. Federal Judges have been assassinated, one in San Antonio, where I once lived. I believe this was the first congressman to be assassinated in office and it was a sad and scary time for America.

The fact that it happened in an avowed Marxist country in South America, Guyana, was disturbing to me. It was already known the poor backwater nation relied on Cubans to run its infrastructure. Doctors and other medical personnel from Cuba were assigned to its hospitals. I wondered if the Cubans had anything to do with this killing. No one I worked with or knew ever even heard of Jim Jones and his People’s Temple.

Congressman Leo J. Ryan was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on May 5, 1925. Before being elected to the United States Congress in 1973, Ryan had been a California state assemblyman for ten years and was mayor of San Francisco in 1962.

Ryan’s friends and enemies alike agreed he was brash and flamboyant. He was not afraid of a fight and spent much of his political life drawing attention to and trying to correct social abuses. After the Watts riots in 1965, Ryan, then a state legislator, went there and became a substitute teacher to investigate conditions in the black community. Because he wanted to be totally anonymous, he assumed a false identity.[1]

In 1970, Ryan again went undercover with a different name and had himself sent to Folsom Prison to discover what life there really was like. In 1978, Ryan planned to go undercover as a Postal Service employee during the Christmas season to investigate complaints of bad working conditions.[2] Ryan did not live to see Christmas 1978.

By late 1977, Congressman Ryan had received dozens of unbelievable reports from constituents concerning the bizarre behavior of Reverend Jim Jones and the strange goings-on in the People’s Temple. Unfavorable magazine articles had been published about Jones and he was in a custody battle over a six-year-old boy he claimed was his son.[3] Most members of the church’s congregation had moved to Jonestown, Guyana. By June 1977, Jones had left the United States for the refuge he hoped would be provided for him in the isolated commune his followers had built in the jungle.[4]

By the fall of 1978, defectors from the People’s Temple and Jones’ detractors were deluging Ryan with requests for action. Charges were made that Americans were being held against their will in Jonestown. Reports of terrible conditions abounded, making it impossible for Congressman Ryan to ignore the desperate pleas of his constituents.[5]

In November 1978, Ryan organized a trip to Guyana.[6] His entourage included a small group of journalists and a few concerned relatives of People’s Temple members who were living in Jonestown.

These were the enemies most hated by Jones and his faithful followers: the dissident family members who had maligned him and his organization, the evil American press that had so willingly spread the lies of the defectors, and the biggest evil of all, the United States government in the form of a cocky and self-important congressman who seemed to enjoy making headlines.[7]

At first, Jones steadfastly refused permission for the Congressman’s group to enter Jonestown. People’s Temple members living there had written to Ryan, begging him not to visit because they felt sure he was intent upon destroying their way of life. Ryan refused to back down or be dissuaded, and Jones very reluctantly finally agreed to a short visit.[8]

Congressman Ryan’s party arrived in Jonestown late in the afternoon on November 17, 1978. During several meetings, they heard most residents praising conditions in the commune and expressing their desire to remain there.[9] However, on the second day of the visit, some newsmen found living quarters that were full of senior citizens lying in beds set up two or three inches from one another.[10] The media representatives were denied access to the other cottages they asked to visit, instead being led to accommodations that had been prepared for their inspection prior to their arrival.

The discovery of the poor living conditions led to other revelations. Notes were slipped to the congressman and members of his party by residents of Jonestown who desired to be taken to the United States. November 18 was not a good day for Jim Jones. His dreams were turning into nightmares. Sixteen residents of Jonestown had expressed a desire to leave Guyana. More overcrowded conditions were discovered by nosy newsmen.

As the visit neared the end, NBC news reporter, Don Harris, upset Jones as he asked incessant questions about guns, mind control, physical punishment and controlling recalcitrant residents with drugs.[11] It must have been obvious to the embattled cult leader that some of the other residents of Jonestown were talking about things he did not want the world to know.

Tensions continued to mount. As the 16 dissident residents prepared to leave, one of Jones’ most trusted lieutenants, Don Sly, grabbed Congressman Ryan from the back and held a knife to his neck.[12]

“Goddamn it motherfucker, you are not going to…” Sly started to shout as he was tackled by Mark Lane and Charles Garry, lawyers for the Temple, and others. Ryan was slightly wounded during the incident, as was Sly.[13]

Despite the altercation, Ryan told Jones his report would be a positive one. He said he had not seen any coercion being used to keep people in Jonestown.[14] As the Ryan party left for the airstrip, a black pall hung over Jonestown. One woman could be heard screaming because her husband and children were among the 16 leaving.[15]

According to recently declassified FBI affidavits and witness statements, Larry Layton, a member of the People’s Temple who was very loyal to Jones, managed to convince Congressman Ryan’s assistant, Jackie Speier, that he desired to leave Jonestown.[16] Some of the defectors expressed concern that Layton was a plant and up to no good.[17]

Upon arrival at Port Kaitumba, a defector, Dale Parks, insisted Layton be searched for weapons. “He will get on the airplane and blow it up,” Parks said.

Jim Cobb, one of the Concerned Relatives Group that had journeyed from California to Guyana with Ryan to try to convince their loved ones to come back home, feared Layton was armed and insisted he be searched.[18]

Layton was searched for weapons and none were found. This eased the stress of some of the defectors, but others kept close watch on him while he shook hands with a group of spectators who had gathered at the airstrip. One defector claimed Layton had been handed a pistol while shaking hands. However, this was never proven.[19]

When the Ryan party of family members, defectors and media arrived at the Port Kaitumba airstrip, everyone jumped from the truck and their luggage was removed. Congressman Ryan met with the news media and explained the commotion that had taken place back in Jonestown When Don Sly attempted to assault him.

A small plane arrived at the strip and Larry Layton made a concerted effort to be on that aircraft. Speiers advised him that because he was not one of the original defectors, he must wait for the next plane. Layton then pled his case to the congressman himself, stating he would be the best source for information about Jonestown because he had been a member of Jones’ inner circle. Ryan concurred and Layton was scheduled to leave on the first aircraft.[20]

Before that airplane left, a second, larger one arrived. At the same time, some of the defectors noticed a trailer being towed by a tractor. On it were about half dozen armed men. Layton entered the smaller plane. He pulled a pistol and fired it inside the aircraft.[21] Parks wrestled the gun from him and Layton fled.

The defectors quickly sounded the alarm that assassins had come to gun them down. The trailer pulled by the tractor circled the aircraft as the men on board it fired on people waiting to get on the airplanes.

An unidentified female defector reported hearing bullets pierce both sides of the aircraft just after she boarded. Patty Parks, Dale Parks’ mother, was shot in the head and died instantly. The shooting lasted up to 10 minutes.[22]

After the shooting stopped, all able-bodied men from the group deplaned to attempt to assist the wounded. They were lying all around the two aircraft. Congressman Ryan and several journalists were found under one of the planes. They appeared dead.[23]

FBI documents indicate there were three or four Guyanese Army personnel located at the airstrip, camped out in a tent by the Guyanese Defense Force aircraft they were guarding. They assisted the survivors to hide out, providing them with three stretchers. While first aid was rendered to Jackie Speier and NBC soundman Steve Sung, Larry Layton approached the group and was told to leave.[24]

Killed in the airstrip assault were Congressman Leo J. Ryan; NBC correspondent Don Harris; NBC photographer Bob Brown; San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson; and People’s Temple defector, Patricia Parks.

Larry Layton served over 20 years in prison for the murders. The other assailants are all dead. They included Wesley Karl Breidenbach, Eddie Joe Crenshaw, Stanley Brian Gieg, Ronal DeVal James, Ernest Jones, Robert Edward Kice, Thomas David Kice, Ardell Touchette, Anthony Simon, Ronald Talley and Joseph Wilson. A last assailant was never located, making the total number of attackers, including Layton, 13.

Crenshaw drove the tractor that carried the attackers. Eye witnesses, who included defectors, identified Tom Kice, Albert Touchette and Joseph Wilson. They were armed with a .45 caliber pistol, rifle and shotgun respectively.[25]

Within an hour or so after the Ryan party left Jonestown for Port Kaitumba, an assailant,
possibly Layton, arrived back in Jonestown to report his attempt to stop the defectors by killing all members of the Ryan party along with the defectors was unsuccessful.

He approached Jones, who was still sitting on his wooden throne in the pavilion, and carried on a short, whispered conversation with him.[26] One can only speculate on what Layton said to his leader, but by Jones’ reaction, obviously, the news was not good.

Layton returned to Port Kaitumba. There, Parks removed a handgun from him and attempted to shoot the Jones lieutenant whom he was convinced had led the attack. But the gun was empty. Parks detained Layton and turned him over to the Guyanese militia men saying, “This is one of the son-of-a-bitches that did the shooting. Please hold him. Put him in jail. I took his gun.”[27]

According to an essay by Frank Bell, one of Layton’s lead attorneys in his first trial in 1981, “…Larry was not guilty of the charges against him. He did not conspire to kill or attempt to kill Congressman Ryan or Richard Dwyer, the Chief of Mission, as the charges claim. His conviction was a miscarriage of justice. I was certain of this at the time and I remain certain of it now.”[28]

This is not to say Larry was blameless. He did some things that were wrong and that cannot be totally excused, even by his mental and emotional fatigue, or the brainwashing, or his mental status at the time. He admittedly posed as a defector and was determined to send a message to others in the Temple and elsewhere, and to prove his loyalty to Jim Jones and People’s Temple, by shooting the pilot of a small plane taking other defectors out of Guyana at the end of Ryan’s visit.

“His was to be a suicide mission in which the plane would take all of its occupants to their deaths. Yet Larry knew nothing of the plot, which was hatched by Jones and others at the same time, to kill Ryan and others at the airport where they were gathered to leave. When the small plane failed to take off at the airfield, Larry shot people in the plane before he was disarmed.[29]

Bell was involved in Layton’s initial parole hearings in 1991 and also was involved in a campaign asking President Clinton in his final days at the White House to grant him clemency. The noted California attorney also joined in Layton’s final parole petition in 2001. However, everyone involved in that campaign understands it was the testimony of Vern Gosney, one of Layton’s victims and now a police officer from Hawaii. He flew from the islands just days after September 11 to appear on Layton’s behalf. Larry Layton finally won his freedom, being released in April 2002, after 18 years in prison.

Immediately after being given the news of the assault at Port Kaitumba by Larry Layton,
Jones called for a White Night. He ordered the commune’s physician, Larry Schact,[30] and his nurses to prepared the deadly brew that soon would be used to kill most of the residents of Jonestown. Then the maniacal cult leader turned on his tape recorder and methodically began calling upon his congregation to assemble together for the final time.[31]

The chilling audiotape Jones made that November 18, 1978 as the final ritual of this religious group was enacted is shocking in its content; but it does give us some insight into why 913 Americans would, for the most part, follow the dictates of a madman and willingly take their own lives.

At the beginning of the tape, Jones is heard explaining why it is necessary to partake of the potion that will kill them all. He exhorts hid followers to participate willingly in a dignified manner.

He does receive some resistance, primarily from women. However, the scene becomes a bizarre exercise in democracy. Some members of the group balk at Jones’ solution, others agree with him, and all the while, the cult leader seemingly encourages the debate.

In the end, Jones wins out and the mothers of babies and toddlers are directed to begin forcing the cyanide-laced concoction down their throats using syringes without needles. Any mother who held out hope this was another rehearsal quickly and horribly realized it was not as they watched their babies begin to convulse and froth at the mouth violently.

Even the hopeless screams of the mothers could not stop the carnage. Hearing them loudly grieving, Jones told the mothers to follow their babies in death. It was the only merciful thing to do. As they and the older children and teens took the poison, some willingly, others forced, the young mothers joined them. After their cries were silenced by death, the senior citizens were assisted by the remaining able-bodied residents, to participate in this macabre communion.

Finally, with the children, mothers and seniors lying dead at their feet, the remaining adults were given small paper cups of a foaming purple liquid they would use to join friends, neighbors and relatives who preceded them in death.

The contrast of these 913 American lives in Guyana to the activities my family was participating in that November 18, 1978 is bizarre. While Congressman Ryan and his party of concerned family members, journalists and defectors were riding in a truck toward mayhem and death at a small airstrip at Port Kaitumba, Guyana, some five miles north of Jonestown, My family and I were driving the five miles or so from Kobe Beach to the Corozal Army Housing Area where we lived.

As the maniacal Reverend Jim Jones was prodding his flock to commit the final revolutionary act of mass suicide, my wife was feeding our three daughters their supper and I was on my way to pick up the babysitter who would safeguard them while my wife and I went to the casino at the Granada Hotel for our bimonthly gambling spree.

As mothers in Jonestown forced a deadly poison down the throats of their children and carefully laid them on the ground to die, the mother of my children was lovingly bathing them, putting on their pajamas and tucking them into their beds. I had no idea that by the next morning, I would be forever connected to this group of now-deceased Americans 1450 miles away in Guyana and that our activities the night before had contrasted so sharply.

We went to the casino that Saturday night just as we had twice monthly since my family joined me in Panama. We conducted our regular recreational ritual at the same time the residents of Jonestown were practicing a ritual they had been rehearsing for well over a year. They were conducting their ritual for the final time.

Life in Jonestown was better than death, but not by much. It was especially bad for those forced to work in the fields for long hours day after day under the hot tropical sun. They worked virtually seven days a week.

The children of the commune didn’t have it much better. While school attendance was less strenuous than the labor their parents performed, the disciplinary measures meted out to youth deemed in need of punishment was brutal and abusive.

Children like 11-year-old Nawab Lawrence were taken to a dry well. A rope was placed under their arms and tied. They were then thrown into the dark hole, while adults playing “monster” grabbed at their arms and legs.[32]

Other punishments imposed on children as young as 12-years-old included being put in a three feet by six feet plywood box and being kept there for weeks at a time with nothing but a can for a toilet. Children as young as six had to perform hard labor and were kept in Cottage #11, so crowded it was dubbed the “slave ship.” Beatings by the security force were commonplace.[33]

Is it any wonder many of the able-bodied people said they welcomed death and forced it upon their children. To some, including Deborah Layton Blakely, white nights brought the prospect of peace.

Odell Rhodes, one of the few survivors of the Jonestown Massacre, graphically described to reporters the horror he witnessed in Jonestown as Reverend Jim Jones summoned his faithful congregation to their final white night.[34]

“They started with the babies,” Rhodes told journalist Charles Krause. He told him that most of the adults who drank the cyanide-laced Flav-Or-Ade did so willingly.

Larry Schact, Jonetown’s doctor, and his nurses mixed the deadly potion. Rhodes said the mothers poisoned their own children before taking the drink themselves. Several who tried to escape the mass suicide ritual were herded back into the center of the pavilion where the poisonous brew was forced upon them. This was before the mass killings and suicides began.

Rhodes then reported, “It just got out of order. Babies were screaming and there was mass confusion.” He confirmed it took about five minutes for the victims to die from the cyanide.

Young and old, black and white, all grouped themselves near family members, often with their arms around one another, waiting for the cyanide to take affect, according to Rhodes. Despite the cocktail of other medications and drugs that were mixed with the cyanide, Rhodes reported those who partook of the poison would go into convulsions. Their eyes would roll up, they would gasp for breath and then they would be dead.[35]

Apparently Doctor Schact was not as knowledgeable of the effects of the psychotropic drugs he added to the evil brew as he was the poison he used to kill the residents of Jonestown. If the tranquilizers and sedatives were meant to stave off the horrible convulsions that mark a cyanide death, they didn’t do their job. While it would have taken 15 minutes, at a minimum for them to work, the cyanide killed in less than five.

Rhodes watched this final white night in horror. He was desperate to escape but knew if he panicked and fled, the poison would be forced down his throat as it had been to others. But when Schact said he needed a stethoscope, Rhodes saw his opportunity to get away from the center of the mass suicide/murder activity and he volunteered to accompany a nurse to the infirmary, about 300 feet away.[36]

The fortunate Rhodes told Krause the armed guards let him through with the nurse. He hid under a building when she went into the infirmary to collect the stethoscope.

By 7 PM, all sound had ceased in Jonestown. No one could be heard whimpering, no gasping for breath. Even the barking dogs had been silenced by their now-dead masters. The entire murder/suicide of over 900 people had taken place in less than two-and-one-half hours.

As the sun began to set, the eerie silence became disarming. The voice of Jim Jones, usually heard live for at least six hours a day over the loud speaker system and on tape during other times, was never to be heard in Jonestown again. Blessed silence had replaced the maddening sounds of crying children and wailing mothers. The dogs had all been shot, hence their silence.

Still Rhodes waited for several minutes before leaving his sanctuary. Were there other unseen enforcers wandering silently through the enclave seeking stragglers like himself who wanted to live? He listened intently for any sound of human origin. After 20 minutes or so of only normal jungle sounds, Rhodes slowly crept out from under the cottage that hid him.[37]

Suddenly a single gunshot penetrated the unnatural silence. Rhodes instinctively dove back under his cottage and waited, hoping he had not been discovered.

Within a short time, surely no more than two minutes, four more shots rang out, “BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.” They seemed to be fired more out of frustration rather than at a target or enemy. Rhodes continued to wait it out.

A few minutes later, another shot rang out. This one was not as loud; in fact, it seemed to be muffled. It was the last of about six shots to be fired in about as many minutes.[38]

Rhodes slowly left his sanctuary for the final time, venturing out into the compounds. Death was everywhere he looked. Bodies, mostly lying in groups, could be seen in every direction.

He walked to Jim Jones’ cottage and found the charismatic leader lying face up, his black eyes staring intently at the dark tropical sky. A small hole from a gunshot wound could be seen at his temple. There was no firearm near his body.

Rhodes went into Jones’ cottage where he found registered nurse, Ann Moore, apparently dead from a gunshot wound to the mouth; the muffled shot. A pistol lay at her side.

Investigators and journalists who were told of this account by Odell Rhodes, surmise Jones, realizing the agonizing death cyanide causes, ordered Moore to shoot him. A devoted follower who would do Jones’ bidding without question, Moore complied.

Once she took the life of the man she worshipped, Moore held the pistol in the air and fired four consecutive shots in anger or frustration. We also know Ann Moore drank the cyanide-laced potion because it showed up in the autopsy performed on her remains in Delaware. She apparently had second thoughts of her own about dying from cyanide and decided a bullet was preferable.

Initially reported to have committed suicide by the U.S. government, the lack of powder burns on the gunshot wound to Jones’ temple make it extremely unlikely. I examined Jones on the 20th of November. There were no powder burns.

Rhodes walked wearily from Jonestown to Port Kaitumba where he alerted Guyanese authorities to the tragedy that befell his community and friends a few hours before. The next morning, a contingent of Guyana Defense Force troops was dispatched to Jonestown to verify Rhodes’ bizarre story.

News of the events that occurred in Jonestown on the afternoon and evening of November 18, 11978 took a very short time to filter out to the rest of the world. When it did, the United States government reacted with uncharacteristic speed. On November 19, military troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Fort Lee, Virginia, Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, and the Panama Canal Zone, were put on alert for movement to Guyana.

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Speculation was unrestrained. Rumors of hostile cult members hiding in the jungle waiting to ambush us ran rampant. Why were these Americans living in Guyana and why did they choose to take their own lives? Was this mysterious crisis being perpetrated by the Russians or Cubans who were known to have close relations with Guyana?

The rumor mill ground out every possible scenario. All too soon we were to witness the aftermath of what grotesque carnage had been wrought against 913 souls by the twisted but persuasive mind of one Reverend James Warren Jones.

[1] John Peer Nugent, White Night, 90-95
[2] Ibid.
[3] Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy, New West Magazine, Inside the People’s Temple, July 1977.
[4] U.S. House of Representatives, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy Report of a Staff Investigative Group to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 15, 1979.
[5] Ibid; Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project Transcripts, Tape Number Q736, Press Conference via ham radio from Jonestown to reporters in San Francisco, Spring 1978.
[6] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 135.
[7] Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project Transcripts, Tape Number Q323, Ryan visit discussed, November 11, 1978; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 135.
[8] Ibid, 260; Jonestown Audiotape Number Q050, Ryan visit discussed, November 14 or 15, 1978.
[9] Ibid, Jonestown Audiotape Number Q048, Ryan Speaks to Jonestown, November 17, 1978; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 20-21.
[10]John Peer Nugent, White Nights, 190-191.
[11] Ibid, 192.
[12] Ibid; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 261, 369-370
[13] Ibid; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 66.
[14] John Peer Nugent, Ibid, 194
[15] Ethan Feinsod, Awake in a Nightmare, 181
[16] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 67
[17] Ibid, 74.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid, 60-61, 214-215.
[20] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 75
[21] Ibid, 95
[22] Ibid, 85
[23] Ibid, 73-75, 214-216.
[24] Ibid, 228-229, 247.
[25] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) B-1-F.
[26] Ethan Feinsod, 177; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 191.
[27]Ibid, RYMUR (Jonestown) 383.
[28] Frank Bell, Larry Layton and the People’s Temple: Twenty-five Years Later, Alternative Considerations of the People’s Temple website. Retrieved June 25, 2004 from http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/About /Jonestown/Personal Reflections/bell.htm.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid, FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown) 115.
[31] Jonestown Audiotape Number Q042, so-called Death Tape (see App III).
[32] Kenneth Wooden, The Children of Jonestown, (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1991) 7.
[33] Ibid
[34] Charles Krause, with Lawrence M. Stern, Richard Harwood and the staff of the Washington Post, Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account, (New York, Berkely Publishing, 1978)
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid; Ethan Feinsod, Awake in a Nightmare, 202.
[37] Ibid, 204-205.
[38] Conversation with Jim Hougan regarding his interview with Odell Rhodes, August 1, 1978, New York City, NY.

Chapter One

2008-08-16T14:04:00.003Z

Chapter One – Life in the Tropics

“Whatever you do you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Daddy, Daddy, we missed you,” screamed my oldest daughter Suzy, running and jumping on me as soon as I closed my car door.

Jennie, three, although less animated than Suzy, hugged her father, too. Debbie just cried.

I had just spent 10 days in the jungle. We played war games, getting attacked by the Opposing Forces (OPFOR), “guerillas” from the fictional Latin American country of Rio Bravo. I would never have admitted this to my wife, but I enjoyed the field: sleeping on a cot, trading shots with bad guys played by Green Beret soldiers, the best the Army had to offer, even, picking up stakes – day or night -and moving our unit three or four times during the training.

Despite all the training and hard work, life in Panama was idyllic for the American soldiers of the 193rd Infantry Brigade and their families in the late 1970s. A contentious and unpopular war in Southeast Asia ended a few years earlier, and the isthmus was a great place to recover from any psychic or physical trauma it caused. Unlike Vietnam, Panama had peaceful pristine beaches where we didn’t need to be armed to enjoy an hour of fun in the sun. Panama was the home of tranquil sports like fishing, a pastime that relieved the tension and stress of war. The notion of an assignment with family members in country accompanying the soldier was far better than the depressive isolation caused by an solo assignment in a combat zone.

The Canal Zone, 55 miles long, intersected the Isthmus of Panama at its narrowest points. Called the “Big Ditch” from the time its construction began in 1904 until it was completed 10 years later, this wonder of the world was bounded by lush green jungle most of the year, but from mid-November to February, the short dry season, the jungle turned brown and often caught fire.

Situated between Costa Rica, Central America’s oldest democracy, to its northwest and Columbia to its southeast, Panama was bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast and the Pacific Ocean to its southwest. The land changes from tall and majestic volcanic mountains as you travel from Costa Rica to Panama’s capital, Panama City on the Pacific side of the canal, to the thick, nearly impenetrable jungle of the Darien if you headed toward Columbia.

It was not unusual during the periods of fire in the jungle near our house, to wake up, step outside and discover all sorts of incompatible fauna lying on the lawn in exhaustion after fleeing the flames in the jungle. Various snakes, coatimundi, three-toed sloths, white-faced capuchins, iguanas and other indigenous beasts rested in the grass, still green and moist from its nightly watering.

Among old Canal Zone hands, Panama was known as the best kept secret in the Army. Military duty was the same the world over, but the environment in which a soldier works and plays makes all the difference. The temperature was always balmy. In November 1978, the long rainy season was waning and Canal Zone residents were eagerly waiting Thanksgiving and Christmas. The two holidays were also anticipated because they signaled the commencement of the short, but enjoyable dry season.

Field duty in Panama was always an adventure. The jungle was full of dangers to man and pet, from the fer de lance, coral and bushmaster snakes that kill several Panamanians a year to urticating caterpillars, scorpions and poisonous toads that can be detrimental to the curious dog. It teemed with other animals like toucans, howler monkeys, green iguana, and spider monkeys that could only be viewed in zoos at home. The Poinsettia plant, so familiar at Christmas in North America, grew tall as a tree in Panama. Mango trees and banana plants were as plentiful as apple trees in Oregon and the exotic black palm tree protected its sweet fruit with two inch long spines in its trunk.

Many soldiers took time during field exercises to participate in hobbies, some of which were pastimes that could be performed in very few duty stations around the world. Photography was popular and shooting the creatures that lived in the jungle, like the large variety of parrots, the rarely seen tapir and the elusive jaguar, with a long lens on a 35 mm camera may have been a common hobby but the subjects were most uncommon to us.

I collected the fragile and rare orchids that grew high in the trees of the rain forest. No, I didn’t climb these trees, I would look for one that had fallen and carefully harvest the flowers.
When I left Panama in 1980, my patio looked like an orchid shop. My favorite was the ada orchid, with its spidery-like yellow orange flowers and exotic fragrance. I also had the rare brassia and some clowesia. All in all, I left more than two dozen specimens on my patio for the next occupants to enjoy.

My wife collected the butterflies that either were indigenous to Panama or migrated through every year. Big blue morphos, the diminutive eurema daira, the orange/black Erato Heliconian, and the blue/black two barred flasher were just four of the hundreds of species Mai captured. She would carefully dry and preserve them, then mount them in a glass frame.

When the weekend arrived, there were a variety of recreational activities for soldiers and their families to participate in. The Army ran boat rental facilities on Gatun Lake, a body of water formed by the Madden Dam to create the waterway that ships travel through to get from the canal locks on the Atlantic side to the locks on the Pacific end of the canal. It was a rare weekend when there were boats left to rent by those who enjoyed fishing for the plentiful, pretty and delicious peacock bass.

Others would seek out smaller species of fish, the beautiful tropicals that inhabited the streams and lagoons of Panama. I kept three aquariums, all with fish obtained in the wild: convict and pastel cichlids, banded tetra, spotted hatchet fish, and a live bearer known as the merry widow were among my collection.

The Pacific Ocean provided incredibly intricate and fragile shells. Several members of the 601st Medical Company and their families were hooked on collecting live specimens. During extremely low tides, called minus tides, that usually occurred at night, shellers would walk out to places normally covered by many feet of water and gather up specimens seldom seen closer to shore. Once caught, the meat was carefully picked out and the shell was cleaned and coated with oil. Some of these shells were very valuable.

The beaches were plentiful and majestic. Americans could be found in droves on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the isthmus, enjoying the surfing that some were famous for, seeking lobster in the rocky reefs near some of the beaches, or just tanning in the sun or swimming in the sea.

Not only was Panama known for its abundant free time activities, the living quarters, for the most part, were superior to Army housing in other parts of the world. They were spacious. Most were air conditioned, and the yards in the housing areas were like gardens with Majesty Palms lining the streets.

Often between houses, one would find huge, colorful poinsettias and bougainvilleas or smaller palm trees like the spacious areca. Elephant ears were common plants along the houses. Intermingled with flowering bromeliads in the beds and another species of bromeliad, the staghorn fern, in the trees.

Our neighborhood, Corozal, was next to Albrook Air Force Base and just south of Fort Clayton. Centrally located on the west bank of the Canal Zone, Corozal was very convenient to schools, shopping and the shuttle bus that would take family members without transportation anywhere they needed to go. The commissary where we purchased most of our groceries was just down the hill, making it easy for my wife to shop, since she didn’t have a driver’s license. The edge of the jungle came up to my yard, allowing my three daughters to watch the animals that would come out of the wild in the evening to feed on the mango tree in our yard.

Kinkajous, small primates that resemble teddy bears, dined in our tree every night. Coatimundi, cousins to the American raccoon, would brazenly approach children eating snacks and brazenly take the food from them if they refused to share their treats.

The youngsters of the neighborhood shared the mango tree’s bounty with these animals. Exotic tropical fruits also were eaten with delight when soldier-parents brought them home from the jungle or when they were purchased in the local market. Other foods were plentiful and reasonably priced, especially for the more daring who shopped in Panama’s Central Market. Although they were not inspected as well as meats in America and were not maintained in wrapped packages in refrigerated displays, steaks could be had for about 38 cents a pound. Fish was even less expensive and more abundant.

My three girls, thrived during the years they lived in the Canal Zone. After having wintered at Fort Dix, New Jersey, before joining me, they appreciated the freedom of being able to go outside and play without having to bundle up in several layers of clothing. The children, who often experienced colds, sore throats and earaches when we lived in the United States, In Panama they were virtually illness-free during our four year tour. The country literally seemed like an elixir for them.

Life in Panama that November was good. On the 18th, it was particularly good. My daughters were ages 7, 3 and 2. Their names, respectively, were Suzanne, Jennifer and Deborah. I didn’t know it at the time, but that day was going to be the most significant one in my life.

It took me five years and several sessions with an Army psychologist to get the events of that day out of my mind. They would return to literally haunt my dreams around Thanksgiving and stay with me for two weeks or so.

In the meantime, I became obsessed with the evil side of religion. The world is full of religious cults, some of them healthy, the vast majority that are benign and some that are very dangerous. The identification and study of this last group of cults became a daily activity for me. I joined the appropriate organizations and subscribed to the pertinent magazines. I was an active member of the Cult Awareness Network until it was infiltrated and taken over by adherents to an organization that, while admittedly is a cult, I believe fits into the benign category.

Who would believe a day in the life of a complete stranger, whom I never met or even heard of, would have such a profound affect on me? A man mind you, who was almost 1500 miles from me and who was spending his final day on earth; a man who was having probably the worst day of his life, while mine was looking bright and sunny. It was Saturday and my family and I were going to the beach.

While I was packing my family into the car for the short ride to Kobe Beach, a man in black three countries away was trying to keep what he considered his family from falling apart. We sang children’s songs as we made our way to the beach in the black 1965 Peugot 504 I purchased for $500 four months earlier at the lot in the Canal Zone the government allowed us to buy, sell and trade. Thanksgiving was a week away, the turkey was in the freezer and all the fixings were in the pantry and refrigerator.

The man in black had been trying for two days to show his family in its best light. Persecuted and misunderstood, he was quickly reaching the end of his rope as he listened to the visitor he reluctantly allowed to enter his home, knowing full well it was his downfall the ominous visitor sought.

Arriving at the clean white sandy beach at Fort Kobe, the girls rushed to play with their friends while their mother and I brought the beverages and foods to the picnic table already staked out by one of her friends. High fives and greetings all around were the first order of the day, as about a dozen other soldiers who were married to Vietnamese war brides greeted me. The only time we all got together was these almost bimonthly outings. Other than that, we were each in different units on different posts, some as far as Fort Sherman, on the Atlantic Side.

At about the time we were gathering together, the man in black was calling his people to a meeting. Minutes before, less than 20 of his brothers and sisters and some of their children had been taken out of the family compound by the visitor from the United States government. There was a crisis in the family, one the man in black was certain would doom it forever.

Meanwhile, at the beach, the delicious aroma of various ethnic dishes intermingled with the smell of barbecue that Command Sergeant Major Sargent was sweating over. The children were playing volleyball and getting wet at the ocean’s edge, under the watchful eyes of several lifeguards. The adults were getting set to play cards, Spades for the men and Bai Tu Sac for the women.

Where the man in black was, the odor was one of fear and no one was playing. Crowded into the communal pavilion, the family members weren’t hungry, they were scared. There was a drink being prepared for every member of the family, one that some would partake of voluntarily, others with final relief, but most with reluctance and trepidation, spurred on by men with guns. You see, there was no playing with the man in black. This was a bizarre last communion that would soon mark the end of this very large family.

Of course, you realize the man in black and the awful creator of my horrendous annual November nightmares was Jim Jones and his family was called the People’s Temple. On that November 18 in 1978, while my family enjoyed the bounty and beauty of the tropics, Jones’ family finally attained peace, a peace that was long in coming, but a peace nonetheless.

My children and their friends anxiously anticipated the Thanksgiving holiday which was only a few days away. The poinsettia tree that towered over the side wall of our house was bursting with beautiful red blooms and the pleasant dry season was just beginning. Everyone’s spirit was merry.

This was my family’s third November in Panama and this pre-Thanksgiving outing to Kobe Beach had become a minor tradition to the families with American dads and Vietnamese moms. While our children played volleyball or swam, their parents sat at picnic tables playing cards.

The wives played a Vietnamese game that had red, blue, yellow and green cards with Chinese symbols on them. Bai Tu Sac, or Chinese Checkers, was a Vietnamese card game played with 112 little cards with orange backs. Often played whenever Vietnamese Army wives got together, the game was a social activity for most but an obsession for many, who played marathon games on a weekly basis. The husbands played the perennial favorite of all soldiers in the field, Spades.

Some of the more politically-minded of the dads were engaged in animated discussions about the “Panama Canal Giveaway” that was in the news. The expatriates who had come to “The Zone” to make a new life were furious at President Carter for threatening their way of life by proposing to turn the Canal Zone over to the Panamanians.

The issue didn’t matter much to me and my military friends. As soldiers and the family members who follow them on assignments around the world, this was just one more duty station in a career of new places to get used to.

While life in Panama was as good as it gets, and even though the duty was more desirable than in most other places, it wasn’t all fun and games. A soldier’s mission in peace time is to prepare for war, and that takes a lot of hard work.

As the medical unit that supported virtually every American infantry unit and school in the Canal Zone, the 601st Medical Company spent much of its time in the field and away from their families. If the unit’s field hospital was not actually set up providing emergency medical treatment to the sick and injured, its field ambulances were providing medical evacuation support.

By 1978, we were part of an all-volunteer force and the Army was becoming more soldier-oriented. It was an army that cared about the health, welfare and comfort of the troops and their families. This concern for those of us residing in the Canal Zone and serving our country was in sharp contrast to the lives of some of the 1000 or so other American citizens who had journeyed to an alleged tropical paradise beginning in December 1973.[1] Jonestown was approximately 1450 miles[2] from Panama, but it may as well have been a million light years away.

James Warren Jones, who became known as the Reverend Jim Jones, was born in Lynn, Indiana on May 13, 1931.[3] In the 1950s and 60s in Indianapolis, Jones gained a reputation as a charismatic preacher and clergyman.[4] By 1963, he had his own religious congregation, The People’s Temple Full Gospel Church. This incredibly dynamic orator, led his interracial congregation with amazing feats of faith healing[5], awesome visions and miraculous advice he said came from extraterrestrials.

Jones moved his congregation from Indianapolis to rural Ukiah, California, in the early 1960s after reading that this region of the United States would be relatively safe from nuclear attack.[6] He was convinced that Indianapolis would be a major target of the Soviets when the inevitable nuclear war between the USA and USSR occurred. He convinced most of his simple parishioners to share his fear.

Indianapolis was home to Fort Benjamin Harrison at the time. The Army post trained journalists, photographers and finance specialists. Although now closed, the US Army’s Finance Center is still located there.

The move to Ukiah, where Jones formed the People’s Temple, soon was followed by another move, this time to San Francisco.[7] He became a major social and political force, establishing a free clinic and drug rehabilitation program. Jones was appointed chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority in 1976.[8]

Rev. Jones was the darling of liberal politicians. He attended functions for and supported Democratic Party candidates from the local level all the way to presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. He had his photo taken with Rosalyn Carter on at least one occasion.[9]

But soon Jones was being attacked by former members of his church.[10] The charges could not be ignored and his political cronies and connections could not support the besieged cult leader. He was accused of child abuse, misappropriation of the property of some church members and even the stealing of the children of some members.[11]

Deborah Layton Blakely, a former Jones confidant, in an affidavit to the US Justice Department taken on June 15, 1978, reported the reaction he had to these accusations. Blakely belonged to the People’s Temple from August 1971 until May 13, 1978. She was financial secretary of the church until she went to Guyana in December 1977.[12]

“During the years I was a member of the People’s Temple, I watched the organization depart with increasing frequency from its professional dedication for social change and participatory democracy. The Rev. Jim Jones gradually assumed a tyrannical hold over the lives of temple members,” wrote Blakely.[13]

Jones regarded any disagreement with his dictates to be “treason.” According to Blakely, he labeled any person who left the church a “traitor” and “fair game.” He is said to have maintained that punishment for defection from the organization was death. Severe corporal punishment was frequently meted out to temple members, giving the death threats a frightening air of reality.[14]

Jim Jones began seeing himself as the victim of a conspiracy. His identity of the conspiracy would change frequently, depending upon whatever vision of the world he had on a particular day. He told members of his congregation that because he was their leader and he was a victim of a conspiracy, they too were targets.

He told black temple members that if they did not follow him to Guyana, they would be put in concentration camps and killed. According to Blakely, “White temple members were instilled with the belief that their names appeared on a secret list of enemies of the state that was kept by the CIA. They believed they would be tracked down, tortured, imprisoned and subsequently killed if they did not flee to Guyana.”[15]

By 1978, more than 1000 Americans who believed strongly in Jim Jones had left their homeland and journeyed to the supposed sanctuary of Jonestown. People who hear of this emigration for the first time wonder how apparently normal and intelligent adults could be taken in by such delusional thinking.

Jones was a master of deception and control. At temple meetings, he would talk nonstop for hours, his charismatic and forceful voice carried over a loud speaker system in the auditorium of the church building. His lieutenants would walk through the room waking up any members of the congregation who dared fall asleep during these marathon orations.[16]

The egomaniacal Jones claimed to be the reincarnation of Moses, Lenin and even Jesus. He claimed he had divine powers and could heal the sick, that he had extrasensory perception and could tell what people were thinking. Jones even made the outrageous claim that he had powerful connections all over the world with the likes of the Mafia, the Soviet government and Idi Amin.[17]

The Blakely affidavit states, “When I first joined the temple, Reverend Jones seemed to make clear distinctions between fantasy and reality. I believed that most of the time when he said irrational things, he was aware that they were irrational, but they served as a tool of his leadership. His theory was that the end justifies the means. At other times he appeared to be deluded by a paranoid vision of the world. He would not sleep for days at a time and talk compulsively about conspiracies against him. However, as time went on, he appeared to be genuinely irrational.”[18]

Life for the transplanted Americans living in Jonestown, 1450 miles from where I lived and worked in Panama, was very different from that which my family and I enjoyed. The vast majority of Jonestown residents worked in the fields from 7 AM to 6 PM, six days a week and on Sunday from 7 AM to 2 PM.

Blakely reported, “We were allowed one hour for lunch. Most of this hour was spent walking back to lunch and standing in line for our food. Taking any other breaks during the workday was severely frowned upon.”[19]

While food in Panama was plentiful and inexpensive, in Jonestown, meals were extremely basic and not very nutritious for most residents. According to Blakely’s affidavit, “The food was woefully inadequate. There was rice for breakfast, rice water soup for lunch and rice and beans for dinner. On Sunday, we each received an egg and a cookie. Two or three times a week we had vegetables. Some very weak and elderly members would receive one egg per day.”[20]

Jim Jones enjoyed a much better diet than the members of his flock. Claiming he had problems with his blood sugar, he dined separately and ate meat regularly. Jones had his own refrigerator, well stocked with food.

The two women who lived with Jones, Maria Katsaris and Carolyn Layton and the two small boys who shared his quarters with him, Kimo Prokes and John Stoen, dined with other members of the cult. Blakely does report that these four individuals were in better health than the other residents because they were allowed to eat from Jones’ refrigerator.

“In February 1978, conditions had become so bad that half of Jonestown was ill with severe diarrhea and high fevers. I was seriously ill for two weeks. Like most of the other sick people, I was not given any nourishing food to help recover. I was given water and tea to drink until I was well enough to return to the basic rice and bean diet,”[21] reported Blakely.

Blakely also stated in her affidavit, that as financial secretary, she knew the temple received over $65,000 in Social Security checks each month. “It made me angry that only a fraction of the income of the senior citizens in the care of the temple was being used for their benefit,”[22] she wrote.

Jonestown had a very sophisticated state-of-the-art loudspeaker system that Jones used for up to six hours a day to broadcast his thoughts, threats and orders to every corner of the commune.[23] When he was particularly agitated, he would rant and rave for longer periods without stopping. He could be heard in some of the oppressively hot fields where the residents of Jonestown toiled during the day. At night, his loud voice would prevent his tired congregation from sleeping. Often after work, there were also meetings at the pavilion that lasted up to six hours. Jones seemed to be infatuated with his own voice and prophetic message.

Jones’ paranoia caused his daily harangues and nightly meetings to be frightening affairs indeed. He was obsessed that his place in history had been irreparably ruined by the media. He felt their ridicule had caused him to lose an honored position in world affairs. He often complained that he was lost.[24]

Blakely reported, “There was constant talk of death. In the early days of the People’s Temple, general rhetoric about dying for principles was sometimes heard. In Jonestown, the concept of mass suicide for socialism arose. Because our lives were so wretched anyway and because we were so afraid to contradict Reverend Jones, the concept was not challenged.”[25]

Mike Prokes, a dissatisfied follower of Jones and one of his enforcers, kept a diary. He was a survivor of the mass suicide/murder. Prokes notes were part of a collection of records that were sealed after the massacre at Jonestown. The contents of the records were opened in September 1988.

“I don’t know how much longer I can take it,” wrote Prokes. “I mean the witchcraft. I feel like I am being programmed. I enjoy the violence when I do it, but sometimes, like right now, I feel sorry that I did it.”

“I think I am going to end it all with my .38; I only wish I could see my brains blow out.”[26]

Ironically, Mike Prokes died a few months after the Jonestown Massacre. During a news conference, he pulled out his .38 and shot himself in the head.[27]

Jones would declare a “White Night” or state of emergency as often as once a week. This was ushered in by the blaring of the loudspeaker system that would awaken the entire population of Jonestown. Jones’ trusted lieutenants would move from cottage to cottage and make sure everyone was responding. All the residents would gather in the pavilion for a mass meeting where they would be informed by Jones of some new crisis.[28]

In her affidavit of June 15,1978, almost five months prior to the mass suicide/murders, Blakely wrote, “During one ‘white night,’ we were informed that our situation had become hopeless and that the only course of action open to us was a mass suicide for the glory of socialism. We were told that we would be tortured by mercenaries if we were taken alive. Everyone, including the children, was (sic) told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes.

“We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Reverend Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands. Life in Jonestown was so miserable and the physical pain of exhaustion was so great that this event was not traumatic for me. I had become indifferent as to whether I lived or died.

“We would be told that the jungle was swarming with mercenaries and that death could be expected any minute,” reported Blakely.

These “White Nights” were bizarre rehearsals for the real moment when Jones would have his doctor and nurses dispense a potion of cyanide combined with strong anticonvulsants, sedatives, hypnotics, tranquilizers, and muscle relaxants mixed, not with grape Kool-Ade from the United States as popularly reported, but with Flav-Or-Ade, a powdered drink mix manufactured in the United Kingdom.

Two very different groups of Americans were living in the tropics that November. Less than 1500 miles from each other, one group lived in a place called the best kept secret in the US Army. The second group of nearly 1000 was living in a better kept secret, Jonestown, Guyana. One group was enjoying life in a tropical paradise, the other group living lives that could only be described as hell on earth.

Events that occurred on the 18th of November 1978, would inexorably connect members of these two groups. As traumatic as what occurred in Jonestown was to its American expatriate residents, the trauma ended that evening for most of them. For those of us who were ordered to report to Guyana from military posts around the western hemisphere, the trauma was yet to begin.

[1] Ethan Feinsod, ibid, 100; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 151-152
[2] Bali and Indonesia on the Net, How Far is IT?. Retrieved June 23, 2004 from http://www.indo.com/distance.
[3] David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, The People’s Temple and Jonestown, (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2003, I.
[4] John Peer Nugent, Ibid, 10-19.
[5] John R. Hall, Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History, (New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Publishers, 2001) 41-45.
[6] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), ibid, 50; David Chidester, ibid, 6.
[7] John R. Hall, Ibid, 69.
[8] Ibid, 169-170
[9] Ibid, 168; Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts, Tape Number Q799, Tape Number Q622; Deboral Layton, Seductive Poison, (New York, Doubleday, 1998) 65.
[10] Jeannie Mills, Six Years with God, (New York, A&W Publishers, Inc, 1979)
[11] Jeannie Mills, Ibid.
[12] Deborah Layton, Ibid.
[13] Deborah Layton Blakely, Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakely Re the Threat and Possibilities of Mass Suicide by Members of the People’s Temple, June 15, 1978. This affidavit was written within four weeks after Deborah Layton’s escape from Jonestown and became front page news across the country. Six months later and just four days before the tragedy, Deborah was giving testimony before State Department officials, requesting help for the 900 held against their will in Jonestown, Guyana.
[14] ibid
[15] Ibid
[16] Ibid
[17] Ibid
[18] Ibid
[19] Ibid
[20] Ibid
[21] Ibid
[22] Ibid
[23] Ethan Feinsod, ibid, 188; Deborah Layton, ibid, 178.
[24] Deborah Layton Blakely, ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] U.P.I., Jonestown ‘diary of the dead’ resurfaces, September 18, 1988.
[27] Ibid
[28] Deborah Layton Blakely, Ibid.

Prologue

2008-08-16T13:46:00.003Z

Prologue

“Shotgun,” shouted Suzy as my wife, Mai opened the passenger door of my black 1965 Peugeot 504.

“Your mom has shotgun,” I reminded my 7-year-old, the oldest of my three daughters, as she reluctantly climbed in the back seat.

There was nothing in the air that would make me feel Saturday, November 18, 1978 was anything but a typical autumn weekend day.

I spent the morning packing the little French car with beach balls, towels, blankets and all the other paraphernalia that were requisite for a fun day at the beach on the Pacific Coast. Mai put the finishing touches on a carrot cake she baked the night before.

“Don’t forget the chau ya,” I said, my mouth watering just thinking of my wife’s Vietnamese spring rolls. “How many did you make?”

“I make hunert fifty, like you say,” she replied in her pidgin English. A naturalized U.S. citizen seven years out of Vietnam, she still didn’t speak her second language very well.

Our bimonthly outings were for the express purpose of socializing and spending quality time with other families in which the spouses were Vietnamese married to American servicemen.

This not only gave our wives friends who have a common culture, but who could act as a support group during the frequent extended absences of their husbands.

Several hours after our picnic, I led the Brailey clan in song as my 13-year-old sedan carried us over the Thatcher Ferry Bridge back to our house in the Corozal Army Housing Area.

“B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-oh,” were words even my youngest daughter, Debbie, age two could recite. As the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, and my kids sang at the top of their lungs, I was reminded how perfect our day at the beach had been.

An hour later, Mai tucked our two youngest daughters snugly into the bed they shared. I was on my way to pick up Tanisha, my first sergeant’s daughter, who had agreed to baby-sit that night. Suzy, who was a little older than Jennie and Debbie, was allowed to stay up an extra hour to play Chutes and Ladders with her 15-year-old sitter, whom she considered her dear friend.

Twice a month, on the first Saturday following our bimonthly payday, my wife and I hit the casinos of Panama City, Panama, where I was stationed as an Army nurse. Each of us, armed with $20, invaded a popular gambling house in one of the city’s hotels and played until the money ran out or we became too tired to play. We rarely retreated in fewer than three hours and sometimes left victorious, with quite a bit more cash than with which we arrived.

More 1,450 miles away in the jungles of Guyana, the Rev. Jim Jones, founder of The Peoples Temple, dealt with unwelcome visitors who were finishing a two-day stay at Jonestown, the agricultural collective named for him. A tense and extremely contentious exit briefing was conducted between the cult leader and Leo Ryan, a congressman representing the Oakland area of California. Ryan was in Jonestown on behalf of concerned family who complained that relatives who were members of the cult were prevented from leaving.

After the congressman left the commune, Jones gathered his flock at the town’s pavilion for yet another “White Night,” a reaction to the catastrophe the official visit had become. The day probably was the worst of Jones’ life. It certainly would be his last.

While my children were cared for and nurtured, Jones ordered the mothers of his Peoples Temple to kill their children. The systematic annihilation of more 900 people took place as my wife and I prepared to spend an evening out a local casino. My life never would be the same.

I sometimes still get a chill when I think about the parallels between my life and that of Jim Jones: where we were born and raised, our spiritual paths and our roles as leaders.
I was born and raised in the small village of Niantic near New London in southeastern Connecticut. Jones was born and raised in the rural town of Lynn near Richmond in the east central Indiana.

Religion was a strong influence during our childhoods. I attended a Christian College, Barrington in Rhode Island, with the intention of becoming a clergyman. Jones became an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ religion.

Each of us sought religious truth, particularly when we were younger. My journey took me from the Baptist Church to the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Assemblies of God, back to the Baptists and even some non-Christian beliefs such as Buddhism and Ba’hai to Deism. Jones’ journey began in mainstream churches like the Church of God and Methodists and ended tragically after he formed his own alternative religion.

We each became leaders. I reached the rank of master sergeant in the Army, leading young men and women who chose to serve their country as medics in the US Army. Jones led his own church and his own brand of radical socialistic communism in which he was the god.

While I was in college, I volunteered in black drop-in centers in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. I now live in Indianapolis where Jones began his ministry, founding a church that was uniquely, for its time, multiracial. He was a champion of the poor and particularly of blacks.

Drugs played a significant role in both our lives and for about the same reason. I took Ritalin in Vietnam as a way to increase my alertness and stamina during the many times we had to work up to 30 consecutive hours during mass casualty situations. Jim Jones abused “uppers” so he could muster enough energy to conduct marathon sermons and hour upon hour verbal tirades against his flock.

Unlike Jones, my abuse of Ritalin lasted less than six months, and I didn’t consume sedatives to counteract the effects of the speed and allow me to sleep. Jones’ as proven by autopsy, took many pills that affected and changed his mental status and may have caused him some degree of paranoia. Enough Phenobarbital was found in his body to kill someone who was not addicted and accustomed to that amount of the drug in his system.

I was stationed in Panama from 1976 to 1980. My unit was the 601st Medical Company. It was actually a “clearing company,” the closest medical facility to the front lines in combat. We had the capability to perform surgery and the ability to house sick and wounded soldiers until they could be evacuated to a larger, more secure hospital or recovered and were sent back to duty.

The main mission of the 601st Medical Company in 1978 was to support the 193rd Infantry Brigade. This primarily involved setting up field treatment facilities during the jungle exercises in which the brigade’s three infantry battalions regularly participated. There also were other U.S. Army assets in Panama, including a Special Forces battalion and the Southern Command’s School of the Americas at Fort Gulick and the U.S. Army Jungle Operation Training Center at Fort Sherman for which the 601st frequently provided support. The medical company spent a great deal of time in the jungles of Panama.

A couple of times a year, soldiers from the 601st Medical Company were given the opportunity to help the civilian population. This frequently involved trips to the far reaches of Panama’s most sparsely populated regions like the San Blas Islands, home of the Kuna Indians, to bring medical and dental services to the indigenous population. The Panama Defense Force provided us with jungle survival training and accompanied us to the local villages.

This practically was a holiday to medics tired of the same routine day after day – physical training in the morning, followed either by maintenance of supplies and equipment or formal classes and training in common soldier tasks or topics on the specifics of their particular job.

The islands were in the pristine Caribbean Sea. Their beaches were white, tropical fruits like mangos, bananas and coconuts grew prolifically, and there were no PT or work formations. What more could a soldier want?

During the Vietnam War, these missions to civilian communities were called MEDCAPS (Medical Civic Action Program). The soldiers of the 601st enjoyed going on MEDCAPs. The missions gave them something to do out of the ordinary, to help and interact with the local population and to simply get away from the everyday routine of soldiering. They also made the medics feel worthwhile because they were doing what they were trained to do, instead of playing war games. MEDCAPs were useful and rewarding. They were for me until November 18, 1978.

That evening started out typically for most of the residents of Jonestown, Guyana. Jones shouted “White Night, White Night, White Night” into the microphone that carried his charismatic forceful voice throughout the enclave of freshly painted cottages the group of American expatriates built in the jungle of Guyana.[1] The residents responded to the call of their pseudo-messiah as they had dozens of times in the past.

The mentally imbalanced leader originally left the United States to avoid legal troubles caused by a group of dissident former members known as the Committee of Concerned Relatives and the United States government, which was investigating Jones and the People’s Temple on many fronts. Jones also perceived the media as his enemy. Their relentless pursuit of the preacher perhaps represented the immediate catalyst that caused Jones to attempt to escape scrutiny by fleeing to Guyana.[2]

The first White Night took place on September 9, 1977, about 14 months before the final one.[3] Jones shouted “White Night, White Night, White Night,” into the microphone that broadcast his ominous voice throughout the enclave. Workers in fields outside the range of the loudspeakers were alerted by three gunshots.[4]

The entire population of Jonestown made their way quickly to the pavilion whenever these mandatory emergency meetings were called. The members knew Jones would inform them of some new, potentially deadly plot or some impending assault against Jonestown and would tell them what to do.

Jones had time and again warned his flock that the day would come when the American CIA would invade the sanctuary they had fashioned far from their homeland. Sometimes several times a month, the residents of Jonestown responded to their leader’s call to practice a form of ritual mass suicide he seemed to promise would result in their reincarnation.[5] He also said when they returned, these martyrs would live in a better world. Jones’ devout followers obeyed outrageous dictates as if they were in a hypnotic trance.

Occasionally, when Jones’ followers partook of the fruity tasting brew intended to take their lives, they slept for a while but did not die. A sedative sometimes was used during the rehearsals in place of the deadly cyanide Jones had standing by for use in the real show.

But November 18, 1978 was not just another dress rehearsal. Instead, it represented the final act of Jones’ bizarre play. It was the sole performance, played out by many unwilling, but mostly cooperative, members of his huge cast. The play was destined to open and close this night, the lives of the actors ended by the ingestion of deadly poison rather than the benign sedative used during rehearsals. The play was to be remembered though, painfully by those who knew and loved the cast and would miss them. It was to be curiously remembered by those who became intrigued, puzzled and shocked when they learned of the tragedy. It was to be hauntingly remembered by those who cleaned up the theater after the actors were gone, following the final act. I was one of them.

[1] Ethan Feinsod, Awake in a Nightmare: Jonestown, the Only Eyewitness Account, (New York, WW Norton & Co, 1981), 120; FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), 364 pp., BQ 89-495, p191, p242, p290.
[2] John Peer Nugent, White Night: The Untold Story of What Happened Before and Beyond Jonestown (New York, Rawson, Wade, Publishers, Inc. 1979), 44-45
[3] FOIA Federal Bureau of Investigation RYMUR (Jonestown), p 242
[4] Ethan Feinsod, ibid.
[5] Mary McCormick Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown, (Syracuse,, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1998) 8, 9, 51

2008-08-13T19:30:00.002Z

The Ghosts of November

Memoirs of an Outsider Who Witnessed the Carnage at Jonestown, Guyana

Jeff Brailey

This is the first installment of my revision to the book that was published in 1998. I will add chapters at least once a week.

Introduction

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to pick up the phone, but my new wife was on call and it had to be answered.

Ann, my new bride and I were enjoying a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast with strawberry preserves, bacon and sausages, freshly squeezed orange juice for her and copious amounts of steaming hot coffee for me. I prepared it, of course, and it would have been breakfast in bed had the morning not been so beautiful.

The sun was shining and it was my second favorite time of the year in San Antonio: Winter, which is much more like Spring in New England, where I was born. We also lived in a rich old neighborhood, a guarded and gated community, one of the first in San Antonio. Many called it the original Dominion of the Alamo City, referring to by far the ritziest neighborhood in South Texas.

Wed in early February 1998, at a private ceremony at home, where we wore traditional African outfits, my bride and I usually ate at least one meal a day on our patio, weather permitting. The portable telephone was on the table. Ann owned a skilled home health agency and usually took call at least once a week.

The phone rang and I answered it on the second ring. An unfamiliar male voice came on the line.

“Hi, my name is Jim Hougan and I am trying to find Jeff Brailey,” a voice on the other end declared.

“Well, you found him,” I replied.

“The Jeff Brailey who was Jonestown, Guyana?” he asked.

I had not talked about my experiences in Jonestown in years. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I wanted to hang up the phone. Catching my breath, I felt the past ten years of relative peace from the post-traumatic-stress-disorder that had plagued me almost annually since 1979 disappear.

“Yes, how did you find me,” I wanted to know.

“Your name is on the list of soldiers who were on the task force,” he replied.

Hougan and I spent 20 minutes on the phone. He asked a dozen questions about what I saw and did in Jonestown. At no time during the conversation did I mention the names ‘Jonestown’ or ‘Jim Jones,’ but I did graphically describe the horror I witnessed for nine days in November 1978. My new wife looked on with an incredulous look on her face.

By the time Jim and I finished talking, I agreed to participate in his documentary film project. He told me he would be in touch to discuss a time and place for me to be interviewed. Signing off, I put the telephone down, drank the dregs of my now cold coffee, sat back and sighed.

“What was that bizarre conversation all about?” my wife asked, her eyes as large as quarters.

“Some film producer asked me to appear in his documentary about Jonestown,” I answered.

“You were in the cult?” she cried out, a look of fear on her face.

“No, I was one of the soldiers sent to Guyana to recover and return the remains of the Americans who died in Jonestown,” I explained.

My bewildered new spouse shrugged her shoulders and asked why I never told her I was

there when we were dating. I told her that I felt Jonestown was not an appropriate topic of discussion while I was courting her. Besides, I thought I successfully put that small but extremely emotional traumatic event in my life behind me.

That night, we retired to bed as usual. Within a couple of hours, I was awakened by my wife’s vigorous shaking of my shoulder. I asked why she woke me up and she answered that I was screaming in my sleep like a banshee.

They’re back.” I stated quietly.

“Who are back?” she asked.

“The ghosts, the ghosts of Jonestown. They used to plague me every November. Now they re back and it’s only February,” I replied.

Fearing the return of the PTSD symptoms I told her had been under control for nearly 15 years, my wife suggested I write a book about my experiences with the Joint Humanitarian Task Forces. With that seed of an idea, The Ghosts of November was conceived and by October of 1998, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, the first edition of this book was published.

This second marriage was short-lived. I would like to think the Jonestown experience had nothing to do with my ability to remain in a healthy wholesome marital relationship, but I may be wrong.

Ann did everything she could to help me conform to her expectations, we traveled extensively, ate often at the best restaurants and made the social scene. She even financed the publishing of this book the first time I wrote it.

For a time, following Jonestown, I hated God. Then I came to disbelieve he even existed. Ann attempted to get me right again with the church, but after seeing the death and destruction wrought in the name of religion that Jim Jones orchestrated, I sincerely had nothing but hatred for the Christian God, no matter how many times they tried to explain how this loving, supposedly omnipotent being could not or would not intervene. This caused a big rift between

Ann, a hardshell Baptist and myself.

Eventually, my behavior became so obnoxious and unacceptable, she decided the only logical thing for her to do at time was divorce me. I really couldn’t argue with her logic. My second marriage lasted less than a year.

My first marriage, to a beautiful Vietnamese girl I met in 1970 while serving in Vietnam, lasted 24 years. We raised three daughters together, got them out of the house and on their own, then grew tired of each other and decided to expand our own horizons. She started seeing a boyfriend who was Vietnamese and younger than me. No skin off my nose, at least as far as I was concerned. But she went kind of bonkers when I started dating Ann, Oh well, as they say.

My first wife, Mai, was of simple peasant stock. She never went past the third grade in school for two main reasons – she was a girl and in her culture, girls had to work; and, she really didn’t care for school anyway. When I met Mai, she was the house girl for her “aunt and uncle” in Hue. With a petite and curvaceous body and skin as soft as a feather, she reminded me of a porcelain doll.

Mai spoke little English and my Vietnamese lexicon consisted of a few phrases and terms. Rather than making our relationship more tenuous, this lack of a common language cemented it. You see, her uncle, the electrician of the evacuation hospital I was assigned to in Phu Bai, 12 miles down Highway One from Hue, had tired of teaching me Vietnamese during my lunch hours and breaks. He pawned his house girl on me as tutor. I’m afraid Mai taught me Vietnamese better than I taught her English.

We had a wonderful eight years or so together. Married in 1971 and divorced in 1995, that unfortunately means we both made each other fairly miserable for 16 years. But that’s a story that will be told in another book.

My second wife was as different from my first as is humanly possible. While Mai was a simple country girl who never rode an elevator until I met her, Ann was an articulate, intelligent, tall and sophisticated black woman. We met in 1996. She was seeking someone to assist her with her business and after we met, I was seeking a more intimate relationship with her.

Ann owned a few businesses, a home health agency and a women’s health boutique and clinic in San Antonio, and a adult assisted living home in Little Rock. She also received a quarterly check from the remaining partners in her dead husband’s medical clinic in New York City. That business alone would have kept her financially comfortable, however, Ann was very ambitious and knew how to make money. In fact, it was almost a hobby of hers.

Bankrolled by my second wife and written originally as an act of catharsis, another major reason this project became important to me was the realization that a whole generation of young people have never heard of the People’s Temple, Jim Jones, or the massacre. This became apparent when three college students who attended a talk I was giving at a book store asked if it was a true story.

The act of ritual murder/suicide in which 914 Americans took their lives in a jungle enclave called Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978, represented the largest such event in modern times. It has been compared in scope to the mass suicides of fanatical Jews on Masada in Israel some two thousand years earlier.[1]

Many cult experts felt the Jonestown Massacre, as it came to be known, was a precursor to similar ritual suicides that would occur leading up to the new millennium. We do know there were a few groups that committed mass suicide subsequent to this tragedy, and there also were some ritualistic mass murders in Africa that exceeded the number killed in Jonestown by some four-fold.[2]

There continues to be a great deal of interest in the Jonestown Massacre almost 30 years later. With all that in mind and considering first edition copies of this book are in great demand, I decided to write a revised edition.

Although the basic facts of the book remain the same, there are a few major theories and discoveries that have been uncovered. As far as I know, I continue to be the only member of the Joint Humanitarian Task Force sent to Guyana to remove the bodies of the American members of the People’s Temple killed there who has written about it. This book then, represents the only account of event that occurred in Jonestown during the nine days following the massacre.

Although the names of some of the soldiers have been changed, the events reported in this book all occurred as stated. The reader must remember that when I first wrote The Ghosts of November, I was relying on 20 year old memories that had been repressed in the recesses of my mind as a defense mechanism to protect myself from the trauma I witnessed.

My original purpose in writing this book was as a cathartic exercise. I experienced a form of post-traumatic-stress-disorder known as “anniversary syndrome” for several years following my participation in the Joint Humanitarian Task Force. The nightmares that would herald the return of this annual November event began prematurely one February night in 1998 after I had discussed participating in a documentary project.[3]

This is a true story that must be told so our children and theirs understand that such evil does exist in the world. For like the words of Jorge Santayana that hung over Reverend Jim Jones’ throne in the pavilion in Jonestown, I agree, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

In this revision of the book that was originally published in 1998, I have used the true names of most of the characters. The one exception is Lieutenant Canasta, whose identity is kept secret for reasons that will be obvious to the reader. With that exception, every word of this story is true.

Jeffrey Brailey
Indianapolis, Indiana
November 18, 2006

Word Count: 1920

[1] Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 55-59, in H. St. J. Thackeray, trans. Josephus, 9 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1968), IX:45
[2] Internet Crime Archives, Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, Retrieved June 21, 2004 from http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/uganda.html
[3] Arts & Entertainment, Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (Investigative Reports), Saturday, November 14, 1998, 3:00 to 4:00 PM, ES

Revised Edition Will Be Published Here

2008-08-04T14:13:00.002Z

Today is August 4, 2008. Twenty-nine years, eight months and two weeks ago, 913 Americans lost their lives in what, at that time, was history's largest mass murder/suicide. In 1998, I wrote The Ghosts of November.

I finished revising my book over a year ago. I tried to find an agent to represent my work. I gave up after making over 100 inquiries. I was equally unsuccessful in personally locating a publisher.

Unfortunately, the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre is quickly approaching and it is too late to get the book published before that November 18 date. With my ability to write and type deteriorating due to Parkinson's Disease, I have decided to publish the entire revised manuscript here on this blog.

I will begin this task in September and hope to complete it by the anniversary date. Please come back then and read it. If you know anyone else who may be interested in the b ook, please refer them to this blog.

Thank you.

I am Back

2007-11-20T14:50:00.000Z

I have been receiving an average of four emails weekly regarding the Jonestown Massacre from an array of different people - historians, scholars, students, the curious, etc. I have yet to find an agent interested in representing the revision of The Ghosts of November. Despite this, my correspondence tells me readers are more curious than ever about this event that occurred 30 years ago next November.

I have decided to offer the book in a serialized version for periodicals. I will provide 22 articles of approximately 2500 words each or 11 articles of about 5000 words each. If you would like to see The Ghosts of November serialized in your hometown newspaper, please contact me and I will try to arrange it.

If you are an editor and want to use the serialization of my book, please contact me at wordworks2001@yahoo.com.

2007-08-04T14:39:00.001Z

It is with deep regret, that due to some significant lifestyle changes, I will no longer be publishing this blog. I will however, continue my Wordworks2001 blog which may be found at

http://wordworks2001.blogspot.com

Jonestown: The DVD

2007-07-22T16:39:00.000Z

Scott Butki has written an excellent review of Stanley Nelson's documentary, Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple. The film also has been nominated for an Academy Award. While there has been fairly consistent interest in the massacre that took place in Jonestown 29 years ago this November, as we approach the 30th anniversary of the horrific event, I think it is safe to say, curiousity in what happened at that jungle enclave before many of the people reading this posting was born, has never been higher.

My book, The Ghosts of November: Memoirs of an Outsider Who Witnessed the Carnage at Jonestown, Guyana, originally published in 1998, is the only account written by a member of the task force sent to Guyana to recover the remains of the 914 Americans who perished there. I have meticulously revised it, included footnotes and an index and more than 20 photographs.

November 18, 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the massacre, an appropriate time for my revision to be published. As of yet, I have been unable to find an agent or editor interested in doing that. I will self-publish it as I did the first edition, if I must. However, I would prefer the more traditional route to publication this time.

If you know an agent or publisher who may be interested in this project, please have him or her contact me.

A Memorial to the Children

2007-07-15T02:46:00.000Z

November 18, 2008 will be the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre. Dr. Jynona Norwood, lost family members that day and has been working toward the construction of a permanent memorial to the children that were murdered. Here is her story:

My name is Jynona Norwood, CEO of Cherishing the Children/Guyana Tribute Foundation. I am writing you today regarding the 913 American citizens who perished in the Jonestown Massacre. Although, I was never a member of Peoples Temple, we lost 27 family members in the Jonestown Massacre and 17 were youths. Among them were my loving mother, Fairy Norwood and a 3-month-old cousin, Charles Henderson, Jr. I rescued/kidnapped, my son from my family as they were raising him while I traveled and preached as an evangelist. These loving people were the kindest and bravest most selfless people you would have ever wanted to meet. Our loved ones were deceived! They were held in captivity by Jim Jones and we now need your help in remembering them.

We need your support and presence to erect the Cherishing the Children Healing Memorial Wall in memory of the 276 children, their families, Congressman Leo Ryan and the UPI news crew who perished in this incredible act of violence. The survivors and surviving families of Jonestown have resolved, with the public's help, to erect this memorial. The monument will be placed in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California where 406 bodies lay in a mass grave who are mostly children. In the spirit of those who honored the tragic passing of their loved ones in events such as the Jewish Holocaust, the Columbine shooting, the Vietnam War and most recently, the tragedy of 9/11, we envision the erection of this wall in memorial to the Jonestown Massacre. The children in the photographs at the top of this letter perished in Jonestown without a fighting chance and we must say "Never again........gone but not forgotten."

Although the donations have come in slowly over the years, the monies, which remain in escrow for the Cherishing the Children Healing Memorial Wall, still continue to gain interest. Senator Dianne Feinstein appointed the late police psychologist, Dr. Chris Hatcher to the surviving families for counseling. Dr. Hatcher became the first signature on the memorial wall bank account, along with former Human Rights Commissioner Rev. Eugene Lumpkin. Rev. Lumpkin was appointed by then Mayor Frank Jordan as our liaison to San Francisco City Hall. Dr. Hatcher and Rev. Lumpkin joined me as we opened the Jonestown Memorial Wall Fund with our own money. We have always had four signatures on our bank account. Also, it is mandatory that two signatures are required in order to remove any funds from the account. The Jonestown Memorial Wall Fund account is always available for public viewing.

We are not a part of any other groups who are collecting monies for any type of memorial in the name of the Jonestown victims. The staff remains vigilant in their efforts to erect the wall, which will have a three-fold purpose: To honor the sanctity of the innocent lives that were lost; to raise public awareness that you never give up your ability to think for yourself; and to question everyone and everything!

I implore you by making two requests:

1) To help us erect this Historical Memorial Wall by making a donation.
2) Contact your friends, business owners, corporations to make a donation of granite, inscribers or a contribution. We are 501(c)3 tax-deductible.

A percentage of the funds will be donated to students in building their future by giving scholarships to college or technical school. Jacque Behar is our scholarship director. You can send all donations to: KAIPERM (FCU) 2101 BROADWAY ST., OAKLAND, CA. 94612 attn: SHARON or you can send all letters with your sentiments about the victims with or without your donation to DR. NORWOOD, PO BOX 3330, HOLLYWOOD, CA. 90078.

Check out Dr. Norwood's website and give a donation. Let's get this done before the 30th anniversary is history.

My July Fourth Message

2007-07-04T21:58:00.001Z

The biggest reason Bush Must be Impeached.

Common Properties of Potentially Destructive and Dangerous Cults

2007-07-01T21:20:00.000Z

The late psychologist, Margaret Singer, was a cult expert. Here are her signs of a potentially destructive and dangerous cult.

The cult is authoritarian in its power structure. The leader is regarded as the supreme authority. He or she may delegate certain power to a few subordinates for the purpose of seeing that members adhere to the leader's wishes and roles. There is no appeal outside of his or her system to greater systems of justice. For example, if a school teacher feels unjustly treated by a principal, appeals can be made. In a cult, the leader claims to have the only and final ruling on all matters.

The cult's leaders tend to be charismatic, determined, and domineering. They persuade followers to drop their families, jobs, careers, and friends to follow them. They (not the individual) then take over control of their followers' possessions, money, lives.

The cult's leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life. For example, the flying saucer cult leaders claim that people from outer space have commissioned them to lead people to special places to await a space ship.

The cult's leaders center the veneration of members upon themselves. Priests, rabbis, ministers, democratic leaders, and leaders of genuinely altruistic movements keep the veneration of adherents focused on God, abstract principles, and group purposes. Cult leaders, in contrast, keep the focus of love, devotion, and allegiance on themselves.

The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behavior of its members. Cults are likely to dictate in great detail what members wear, eat, when and where they work, sleep, and bathe-as well as what to believe, think, and say.

The cult tends to have a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be open and honest within the group, and confess all to the leaders. On the other hand, they are encouraged to deceive and manipulate outsiders or nonmembers. Established religions teach members to be honest and truthful to all, and to abide by one set of ethics.

The cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. However, their sole purpose is not to grow larger; such groups have the goals to better the lives of their members
and mankind in general. The cults may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain mere claims, or gestures. Their focus is always dominated by recruiting new members and fund-raising.

The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.

Remember the Past

2007-06-28T14:56:00.001Z

It seems Mike Peters' influence has reached South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Arizona. I don't believe he has very large congregations in these states, but from what I have been able to learn, they are very loyal.

One of the reasons I wrote and have revised The Ghosts of November was to warn people about the proliferation of dangerous doomsday cults and alternative religions, like the Peoples Temple. Jim Jones had a sign over his throne in the Jonestown pavilion from which he directed the deaths of 913 of his followers and their children. It read "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

I believe it is imperative the members of Mike Peters' Churches around the country are made aware of what happened in Jonestown Guyana 29 years ago. Please make this your priority as well. You may be saving lives.

Rogue Messiahs

2007-06-27T17:16:00.000Z

I have just finished reading Rogue Messiahs, a book by Colin Wilson. Leaders like David Koresh, Jim Jones and Mike Peters, all have several traits in common. A major one is the use of sex as salvation. Jones was known for his sexual proclivities, sharing himself with men as well as women. Interestingly, he only chose people of his own race to have sex with. Is that a sign of some subtle racism in this man who claimed to champion the poor and down trodden?

Koresh had sex with many of the women in his sect. He often complained that it was a real chore and sacrifice for him. Some of his wives were 16 years of age and younger.

Mike Peters obviously has some sexual issues, especially when it comes to intimate relations between the husbands and wives of his group. Like Koresh and Jones before him, one of Peters' main games is to have the wives degrade their husbands. Often Peters takes trips accompanied by some of the wives, never by their husbands, apparently.

Messiahs are nothing new. The Christian church was hardly a few hundred years old before they began coming out of the woodwork. Mike Peters appears to be only the latest version of these frequently mentally disturbed men, and sometimes women, who have become self-proclaimed representatives for God, and often say they are God himself.

I have received some emails and comments from former members of Peters' Church in Indianapolis. Most fear him and many feel he may be the next cult leader to order his followers into oblivion a la the drinking of Flavor-Ade as they did in Jonestown 29 years ago.

Anyone contemplating being led by or following Mike Peters to their own deaths really should read Rogue Messiahs. It may just pop their cult bubble and make them realize how foolish they have been.

One last note to the Peterites who may be reading this post. Although I am not a Christian, at one time, I was a BTC (if you are one you will know what it means). Consider Mike's order that his followers not associate with non Peterites because they are pagans. Is this what Jesus did? Did he only associate with those who believed in him? Of course not. He went where the sinners were so they could be saved. Mike Peters doesn't want his followers to do the same because then he will be exposed for the fraud he is.

Links

http://www.indianapoliscult.com/allatmikesfeet/welcome.aspx

http://obadiah1317.wordpress.com/tag/mike-peters/

http://tobysthoughts-jtc.blogspot.com/2006/07/regarding-peters-internet-and.html

http://wordpress.com/tag/mike-peters/

http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/18551.html?1143572810

http://noahlot.blogspot.com/2006/08/2-tim-27-reflect-on-what-i-am-saying.html

Another Indianapolis-Based Cult?

2007-06-21T09:10:00.000Z

Indianapolis Magazine has an interesting article in this month's edition. It is the story of Mike Peters and the Church in Indianapolis, a controversial and fairly secretive alternative religion that has been in the city for some time.

Some former members who have left the organization say the leader of the organization is dictatorial and controlling. They have a website that allows dissident members to give testimony to their experiences in the group. http://www.indianapoliscult.com/allatmikesfeet/welcome.aspx

This website warns visitors that home churches or house churches, traditional church meetings, fellowship groups, bible studies, and home schooling groups across the country are falling into cult-like teachings. The leaders in these cult are buying up domain names like housechurch.com and others to draw people to themselves.

I read the magazine article a couple of days ago as I sat in a dentist office waiting for my wife. It was an excellent piece of journalism that was made difficult to write due to the apparent phobia all the church's leadership and members have towards the media.

I hope everyone considering joining a nontraditional church or religious group will read the website listed above. To be fair, here is the Church in Indianapolis (CII) website: http://www.allathisfeet.com/index.html

What do you say, reader? Is CII a cult?

Terrorism's Guyana Connection

2007-06-12T08:51:00.000Z

Alleged Guyanese terrorists were arrested last week for conspiracy to blow up JFK Airport. This may be met with some degree of contempt if not outright hostility in some and perhaps many instances.

Already 140,000 to 200,000 Guyanese live in the New York City area. Richmond Hills, Queens is called "Little Guyana." That's about a quarter of the South American nation's population of 775,000.

Guyana is experiencing serious economic woes and many flee the crime that has become rampant in that country. We live in a climate where immigrants are vilified as intruders here to take away jobs and other economic benefits that some Americans think only a few should be entitled to. Anti-immigrant sentiments have increased, especially after the WTC horrors and just as being Muslim has taken on a certain kind of onerousness, so now being an immigrant is rapidly becoming something many do not wish to be known as.

The alarming thing about this alleged plot is that, if it had managed to be carried through, it would have killed not only Americans (bad enough) but also so many other people including Guyanese from all over the world.

This would have been a most incomprehensible act made even more disturbing to Guyanese people because of the involvement of their own countrymen. Although the plot, thanks to the good work of the FBI, was never allowed to see the light of day, the mere thought of planning such a thing is horrible, crazy, stupid, and shameful.

Not since Jonestown, I think has Guyana been catapulted so ignominiously into the international spotlight. United States Congressman John Murtha expressed the thought on the George Stephanalous Sunday morning TV program that this kind of "home grown" terrorist plot comes as a result of US involvement in Iraq.

Whether that is true or not, I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that the Guyanese people involved have to a degree disgraced the name of Guyana and may well have, at least for now, hurt the honor and pride many Guyanese around the world feel to hail from that land.

Religious Freedom & Cults Writing Contest

2007-06-07T09:01:00.000Z

While I continue trying to find a publisher for The Ghosts of November, I have decided to have a writing contest. The contest will run from today, June 7 and all entries must be emailed to the blog no later than 31 October 2008. The email address to be used is wordworks2001@gmail.com and the essay should be in the message off the email. The subject line of all entries should read "Writing Contest Entry."

The topic of the essays shall be "Cults and Religious Freedom." Essays must be no less than 500 words and no longer than 1000 words. Spelling and grammar do count and the winning entry will be judged by Rebecca Bibbs, author of The Nubian Codex and award winning professional journalist.

Other rules of the writing contest include:

1. The grand prizewinning entry will be published on this blog in November 2008.

2. You must be age 16 or over to enter.

3. Your entry must be an unpublished work by you, and be on the topic "Religious Freedom and Cults." All entries become the property of The Ghosts of November Blog and may be posted on the blog.

4. Entries must be typed and double-spaced. They are to be placed into the body of an email sent to wordworks2001@gmail.com. The subject of the email must be "Writing Contest Entry."

5. Please include the title of your piece on top of the piece.

6. Your essay should be no less than 500 and no more than 1000 words.

7. Send as many entries as you like.

8. Include the following on your entry email:

Title of the entry
Name
Snail mail address
Email address
Biographical facts
i.e. If you're a student: your birthdate; what grade you are going into; the school you attend; your major, if applicable; hobbies; a photo of yourself (no Polaroids or color copies).

The winner shall receive a copy of the first edition of The Ghosts of November, personally autographed by me.

The Chat Room

2007-06-05T18:10:00.000Z

Hey! I went to the blog chat room today for chatters, for the first time. No one was there, so I ended up talking to myself. However, I see a lot of possibilities. Since it is so bereft of chatters, it might be a neat place for star-crossed lovers to have a cyber-rendevouz. If someone wants to communicate with me, send me an email, comment or sign my guest book and we will set up a date and time to get together in the chat room.

As for a regular time for me to be available in the chat room, how does Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 8:00 AM New York time suit you? I'll be in the room for at least an hour, maybe longer if there are hoards of people present and interesting conversation.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2007-05-31T17:34:00.000Z

I am sitting in the Lufthansa Lounge at Lagos's Murtla Mohammed International Airport. In about three hours I will be leaving Nigeria for perhaps the last time. It is a bittersweet parting.

I first came to this West African enigma in 1995 was run by an oppressive military government under the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. By 1999, Nigeria was a democracy and this year, for the first time in its history, a democratically elected government was replaced by admittedly flawed democratic elections. Believe it or not, this represents a great achievement for this fragile country.

I've been working here for 26 months this time, 28 days on and then 28 days back home in Indiana. The changes I have noticed the past two years and two months have been monumental. From the airport which is modern with all of its airconditioning and people movers working, to the people who work for the Nigerian government I deal with on a regular basis.

What I will miss most about this nation are her people. I have made many good friends here, from oil field workers to journalists and writers, to immigrations and customs officers. I shall miss them all.

I have high hopes for this country if it can ever free itself from the greed and tyranny that is implicit with fraudulently run state and federal elections. If the government can start treating those who have nothing in a gentler and more just manner, there is nothing the people of this country can't accomplish.

Farewell Nigeria, if and when I am able to conquer a few of my health problems, I definitely plan to land at this airport again.