Les Jones

News > Tennessee Guardsman on Gitmo Prisoners

The Tennesseean interviews John Krenson, a Nashville deacon and national guardsman.

"I worked with people who had worked at Gitmo earlier, I worked with people who worked at the primary detention facility in AFG, and I visited that facility many times. I saw detainees (many times on their prayer rugs, other times reading, other times talking when they were not allowed to). I saw the interrogation rooms. I worked with the soldiers and the leaders who ran this place.

"I know those operations fairly well, and I got to know the people who ran those operations — both active duty and reservists. They are normal Americans. They are good decent people who believed in what they were doing. Americans — including Sen. Durbin — can be and should be proud of them.

"Be assured the worst of the worst detainees are the ones at Gitmo. It took a lot of effort to get a detainee shipped over … . They are no victims. … Their victims are most often Afghan villagers who have risked their lives simply to vote or are construction and aid workers from around the world who are assisting Afghanistan to modernize and develop. The detainees at Gitmo are the ringleaders and verified trigger-pullers in these incidents.

"This is serious business with tens and hundreds of thousands of lives at stake. People have already lost lives because we've released Gitmo detainees. I read those reports, when they were captured — a second time. I can't print the words we used in AFG when we found out a soldier died at the hands of a terrorist released from Gitmo. Gitmo didn't make them want to kill again. Their release allowed them to kill again."