Word: 372nd
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraqi prison couldn't be further from home for those facing career-ending charges in the scandal. The 372nd Military Police Company, a unit of reservists based in a one-story brick building in Cresaptown, Md., draws most of its members from small, down-at-the-heels towns in the green valleys of Appalachia. Many sign on as teenagers, as England did, to get college benefits. Others, like Staff Sergeant Ivan (Chip) Frederick, are eager to see a bit of the world. Patriotism runs deep in this part of the country, and recruitment ads for the armed services constantly stream...
Members of the 372nd were a tight-knit group that was deployed to Bosnia in 2001, according to Kerry Shoemaker-Davis of Fort Ashby, W.Va., who left the unit that year but whose husband remains with the 372nd in Iraq. After drills, she relates, members would head to the Big Claw bar near headquarters for beer, buffalo wings, karaoke and the raunchy jokes that the mostly male company loved to tell. "Oh, yeah, we would party," she says. "We would take the place over" and often shut it down...
...most senior member of the 372nd facing charges in the Abu Ghraib abuses is Frederick, 37, who has served with the company for 20 years. Frederick was just short of qualifying for a full pension when he was mobilized last year. Married, with two stepdaughters, ages 14 and 18, Frederick has a civilian job as a guard at a medium-security Virginia prison, where his wife Martha also works. His uncle William Lawson describes him as "very laid back" and "a practical joker." Shoemaker-Davis sees him as a "tough guy," used to being in charge: "He has a very...
Unlike some military-police units, which specialize in handling prisoners of war, the 372nd trained mainly as traffic cops. "We would do traffic stops, pulling people over and questioning them," says Shoemaker-Davis. "We never actually did anything you'd use in a prison." Their first assignment in Iraq last summer was in keeping with their training: acting as traffic cops, leading convoys, keeping roads open...
...372nd reservists were assigned duty at Abu Ghraib in October. There, according to Army investigators, the chain of command got badly muddled. Army regulations limit the intelligence-gathering role of MPs to passive collection, but members of the 372nd found themselves fielding requests from military intelligence (MI) officers, who were in charge of part of the prison. In his investigation of the abuses, Major General Antonio Taguba found that MPs were "actively requested" by MI officers and private contractors to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." Taguba took testimony supporting this from several of those...