The lead story in the Chicago Reader, a weekly "alternative" paper out last Friday was called:
"How I Learned to Hate the War." It's the story of "Jake" (not his real name) a member of the Chicago Police Department who went to Iraq as a National Guard member. He was an interrogator of suspected terrorists, and the story (By Tori Marlan) makes two points:
How little evidence there is on the guys who get sent to Al Ghraib, and
What hell it is to be a soldier in Iraq.
A few details, and a (not very useful) URL after the jump.
One version (not particularly readable) can be found at Cover
Or you could go to Reader Main Page and see if you're better at dealing with web pages than I am.
Anyway, Jake (not his real name) grew up with Rambo as his hero and served a term in the regular army. He got out, went to college, and joined the police. He signed up for the National Guard, and expected to stay in for the rest of his life. When he was assigned to Iraq, he got leave from the police force, and went. His unit in the Guard were linguists, but not Arabists. They were trained as interrogators before being sent overseas. (More sensible than the reputation of MOS; French majors at least understand that the tranlation into and out of Arabic isn't exact.)
Most of the people he interrogated had been picked up either in sweeps or on the basis of informants. If an Iraqi wants to get even with an enemy, he merely has to pass the word to the Yanks that the enemy is involved with terrorism. When a bomb goes off, anyone running away from teh scene is arrested on suspicion of setting it off.
Jake slowly began to understand the people of Iraq, but his superiors kept objecting to all the guys he released.
Quite a story, if you can find somewhere to read it. The Reader is part of a network of alternative papers, and the story may run in your city's paper soon.