The four of us—two other forensic psychiatrists and a senior enlisted mental health technician—gathered for the convoy on the outskirts of BIAP, the Baghdad International Airport. A line of Humvees, armored vehicles, and gunships gathered. The soldiers were smoking and joking, leaning on their vehicles.

We were en route to Abu Ghraib , eight long miles through one of the most dangerous routes in Iraq. The main supply route we were to travel was “green,” but we still got the warning about explosive devices, roadside bombs, and instructions to point our weapons out the windows of the vehicle.

I had my photo taken with the young female captain who would be driving, and joked to Todd that this might be the last photo with both my legs (Our Humvee was not armored.).

My silly 9 mm pistol pointed out the window for the eternally long twenty minutes it took us to get there. Silly because it would do no good if we were hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) or taken out by snipers. Driving fast, and erratically to avoid the guys who took potshots from bridges, we passed several very large craters, from other bombings.

At last we reached the infamous prison , a large walled compound actually in the suburbs of Baghdad. It had been notorious in Iraq for the torture and execution of numerous Iraqis, under Saddam Hussein. The previous spring, photos of naked prisoners in piles, with female guards holding them on a leash, surfaced.

Since then there had been a change in leadership. The scandals were part of the reason we were there.

The Army correctional personnel who now ran the camp showed us to our sleeping quarters. This was a large empty room with filing cabinets with records of detainee health care. Hooks were screwed into the ceiling .

We set up our cots. It had been ten years, since my Somalia deployment, that I put together a cot, and I, embarrassed, had to ask our NCO to help.

Soldiers were lodged in the prison cells, literally. The cells provided some protection from mortars. These young Soldiers, looking like kids, in gray Army t-shirts, had turned the cells into make shift homes with plywood doors and mink blankets.