In December 2001, Major Douglas Smith, an Active Guard Reserve soldier, was mobilized along with the 160th Military Police Battalion - an enemy prisoner of war/civilian internee unit - for service in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Over roughly the next year, the 160th - for which he served as the joint detainee operations officer - was in charge of running Camp Delta, located at the U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and with guarding some 600 detainees. Later, for the better part of 2004, Smith deployed to Iraq, again with the 160th, and as the operations officer helped run the theater detention facility of Camp Bucca. In this interview, Smith discusses the challenges associated with integrating and training field artillery soldiers and other MPs to guard detainees at Camp Delta and critiques and comments extensively on the mobilization training his unit received. In addition, he reflects on myriad communications difficulties; on the escort duties his unit was responsible for, ensuring the safe transfer of detainees back and forth to Abu Ghraib Prison; and on the problems caused by what he calls “horrific record keeping” at Camp Bucca.

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