Interview with Maj James D. Sides

ISBN: 1288538367

Author: Holmes, Jeffery

Condition: New

Major James D. Sides, a military police officer who graduated from the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in June 2007, sat for this interview by fellow MP officer and CGSC student Major Jeffrey Holmes to capture the former's experiences in the Global War on Terrorism. The first section details some of Sides' background history, such as where he's from, where he went to college and the various Army assignments he's had up to the time of the interview. The second section covers Sides' role as commander of the 988th Military Police Company during the increased force protection conditions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The 988th is a combat support MP company and is home based at Fort Benning, Georgia. More specifically, he discusses the challenges of going to force protection condition (FPCON) Delta and "locking down" Fort Benning - which was previously an open base with no security fence around the perimeter and 12 distinct entrances - and also conducting searches of all vehicles entering the post. The third part covers his experiences, still as the 988th commander, when it was deployed for almost five months to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to conduct security operations for detainees recently captured in Afghanistan. In January 2002, his company was one of the first to deploy to Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) to conduct this mission and was in charge of, among other things, the security for what was termed the "interrogation hut" at Camp X-Ray. Sides explains why it was "almost a godsend" that they had a variety of non-lethal ammunition and also discusses some innovative techniques employed to move detainees from their cells to the interrogation areas and back. In addition, he shares a story about how the revelations of one detainee in particular may have thwarted a planned terrorist attack on the city of Seattle. "When people are critics about GTMO and us having the detainees down there" Sides said, "I always think of that example, that we potentially could have saved thousands of people in Seattle." The last section of this interview covers Sides' July to December 2003 deployment to Djibouti as a member of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, during which he served as the protocol officer and also as the deputy task force commander's aide-de-camp.