Retired Special Forces LTC Recalls His 1964 Torture Training at Fort Bragg, NC.

By Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Marvin, US Army Special Forces (Retired), Author of "Expendable Elite - One Soldier's Journey Into Covert Warfare"
 
    Immediately after commanding the memorial tribute at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in honor of President John F. Kennedy on the day he was assassinated, I volunteered for Special Forces. Knowing how much my best friend, Green Beret SFC Gerard V. Parmentier, admired the just slain President, inspired this action.
 
In the spring of 1964 I attended SF Officer's training at their Smoke Bomb Hill training center at Fort Bragg, NC. When the instructors began discussing covert operations they told us how they were "compartmentalized" with regard to chain of command so that the mission itself could readily be denied if need be. In particular; assassinations, terrorism and sabotage were covert operations using all volunteers, with no documentation, always compartmentalized and highly classified. Significant also was the fact that those who volunteered for covert operations were instructed not to concern themselves with the Geneva Conventions, International Law, International Human Rights Treaties or any other regulation or ruling entity. "You will be on your own to do what is necessary in your judgment to get the job done" was what we were told at the time. 
 
Torture was something used to loosen tongues, understanding that torture may get you answers that the person being tortured thinks you want so you will quit the torture. My own feeling at the time I was in a position as the commander of SF Detachment A-424 with an Independent Operation (An Phu, South Vietnam 27 Dec 65 thru 2 Aug 66) was that the prelude to physical torture to captured men or women included a warning that any effort on the person's part to give false information to satisfy the need to provide the interrogator with what he or she thought they wanted to hear would result in an end to their life. If you know what you are doing and if the enemy is convinced that you are in complete control he or she will give you the "straight scoop" as I put it. I used electricity in my camp to loosen tongues and, when I personally questioned the four female terrorists my CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) soldiers had captured near Khanh-Binh I had them (one at a time) strip to the waist and I would then press the wire leads against each breast and give her a shot of "juice." You can read about the (not in detail or as specific as what I just wrote) interrogation of those women in my book Expendable Elite - One Soldier's Journey Into Covert Warfare.  
 
During training at Fort Bragg we used electricity on each other so as to understand that technique. It was understood that the method of torture would be up to the senior Green Beret and, though I now believe that torture should not be utilized under any circumstance, I was ready, willing and able to use any method because that was the charge to me. 
 
I understand that no other Green Beret is going to back me on what I now report to the world - but what I write is the truth. In fact the Special Forces Association, apparently "inspired" by the CIA and wanting to hide the truth of what really happens in covert operations, brought together some of my own men who had served with me to sue me, hoping vainly to force my book off the market. Thankfully it was the truth that they themselves corroborated on audio tape and in writing prior to the publication of the book, Expendable Elite-One Soldier's Journey Into Covert Warfare that convinced the jury what we had written and published was pure fact. The trial, which took place the end of January 2007 in the Federal Courthouse in Charleston, SC was a total victory by a unanimous verdict of the jury. If you would like a signed copy of the Victory Edition of my book please send a check for $25.00 to LTC Daniel Marvin at P.O. Box 538, Cazenovia, NY 13035-0538 and let me know who you want the book made out to. 
 
Please write your Senators and your Congressman and demand that I be called to testify to what this is all about. Let's get the truth out into the world so we can clean up our military and our government. I have two grandsons in the military - a paratrooper in Iraq and a security specialist in the Air Force here in the US. I pray daily that they have good leadership above them and I pray that some day our White House has the caliber of President this nation deserves.

My book, Victory Edition, Expendable Elite - One Soldier’s Journey into Covert Warfare is also available and may be ordered on line at http://www.trineday.com/ or by calling the publisher at 800-556-2012.

*****

WHAT IS THE PSYCHE OF A GREEN BERET?

Written by a man who lived and breathed it - LTC Daniel Marvin, USA (Retired)
Author of Victory Edition, Expendable Elite - One Soldier's Journey Into Covert Warfare

This is TRUTH proven in Federal Court!

As the U.S. Military establishment continues to expand the numbers of Special Operations personnel that would be available for TOP SECRET covert operations should we demand certain controls and limits on their use or abuse? Yes - we must. Should we preclude illegal operations being secretly foisted on our Special Operations' warriors, demanding they obey without question and maintain total secrecy regarding illegal operations they have direct knowledge of forever? Indeed we must!

I write this based on my personal experience as a Special Forces officer - a Green Beret who commanded a TOP SECRET portable atomic weapon team in 1964 and a TOP SECRET Independent Operation in An Phu, South Vietnam in 1966. The mission in An Phu included the first attacks into the enemy safe-havens that President Johnson provided the enemy along the border with and inside of Cambodia. Perhaps the unilateral aborting of a TOP SECRET mission that would have ambushed and assassinated Cambodian Crown Prince Norodom Sihanouk in June, 1966 that resulted in our government attempting to kill me, my Special Forces "A" Team and more than 400 South Vietnamese Irregulars, sending a heavily armed South Vietnamese Regiment to attack my camp. These missions are covered in detail in my book Expendable Elite - One Soldier's Journey Into Covert Warfare."

Of special interest to the reader is the fact that my publisher and I were taken to court by the Special Forces Association (no doubt inspired by and funded by the CIA) in January 2006 when they tried in vain to prove that my book was, in their words, "100% lies." Instead we proved it to be a truthful book that told of TOP SECRET operations "they" did not want the world to know about!

People should know where I was when, like a human robot, I eagerly and without question participated directly as an "operative" in government sponsored illegal activities perpetrated by certain powers against any individual, government or activity who would attempt to disrupt the absolute rule of our "hierarchy."

Documented and corroborated testimony of what I had done during 21 years of military service that was of an evil or illegal nature now serve as the foundation for my crusades to uncover evil in our government - because the truth matters. Those of us who have the will to, must act courageously and with integrity to bring out in the open for the public to digest and demand action by our government to cease illegal operations and to stand accountable for past acts. We must include direct first-hand knowledge of what happened in Dallas on 22 November 1963 and in succeeding days, months and years, as those same forces within our government who conspired to kill our president continue to do what is "necessary" to silence those who would bring forth evidence to prove the who, what, when and where of the conspiracy and to judiciously disrupt actions taken to cover them up.

The conspiracy must be brought to light, the perpetrators punished, and justice meted out. I believe if another decade passes without full disclosure of the facts it will render the potential for justice to be meted out in these matters practically impossible. As time drags on it will be outright fear that silences witnesses who are aging and who may desire to voluntarily withdraw from the fray in order to shield loved ones from danger. Caution may very well prevail against the integrity and courage of witnesses now willing to come forward, including Dennis David, Jerry Willsey and myself. We may one day in the not too distant future reach an age when we put first and foremost in our minds what forces can be brought to bear to silence us. I know what they are capable of - I was one of them.

That fact alone keeps the flame of the fire of promise kindled and is the foundation for a fearless and continuing demand for action. The reader must understand what it is that resides within the heart, soul, and psyche of a man trained to be a military assassin, terrorist and saboteur. I do what I can to inform the world of the truth of certain heinous deeds and evil actions perpetrated by powerful men (even within the military hierarchy) whose drive for power and hunger for influence and monetary gain dictate their actions, direct their paths and cause them to turn on honorable people and to foster, even develop and direct, illegal, even murderous actions, which deny the citizens of this once great nation their constitutional rights and safeguards.

Within hours of John F. Kennedy's assassination, I volunteered for U.S. Army Special Forces training and was drawn into circumstances and forces that seemed to fit my warrior-like psyche, compelling me to strive to be one of those who I believed that JFK admired - The men who wore the Green Beret!

Within five months of his death I graduated from the Special Forces Officer's Course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. By mid-April '64 I had been fully indoctrinated in the basic fundamentals of unconventional warfare, civic action, special demolitions, martial-law, assassination techniques, and terror tactics. I had earned the right to wear the coveted Army Green Beret. Unknown to my wife, family, or friends outside Special Forces, I would soon be involved in clandestine missions which often included doing what most rational human beings believe to be unacceptable, even despicable. My penchant for danger was not solely the product of the school at Fort Bragg. It began much earlier in life. I was born, raised, and thrived in an arena of adversity, doing my best when under extreme physical and psychological stress. I sought danger, bored with the norm. Born at home in Detroit, Michigan on October 10th 1933, with only a welfare nurse attending, my older
Brother and I were raised during the Great Depression by our gritty, hard-working, loyal Mother when jobs were few and far between, particularly for a woman. My good-for-nothing father, with a 16 year old girl in tow, left my mother the day I was born, forced to witness my birth by my tough Aunt Magdalene. Day old bread, soup lines, and door-to-door begging for vegetables and canned goods were a necessary means of survival for us. Love and hope was sufficient to keep us going. I was five when Mother decided Chicago would be a better place for us to live.

The back-alleys and roof-tops of south-side Chicago helped to develop my spirit of adventure. At the age of eleven I did not hesitate to train and lead others who shared the same enthusiasm to engage in activities involving great danger, and who joined my private gang, going where proverbial angels "feared to tread." But then, isn't the world full of different types of people? I like the poem by Jean Larte' Guy, titled "TWO ARMIES" that I was given a copy of during guerrilla warfare training at The Special Warfare Center in Fort Bragg, NC.:

"I'D LIKE TO HAVE TWO ARMIES
"One for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements or their Colonel's piles; an Army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.
"The other would be the real one - composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That is the Army in which I would like to fight."

The U.S. Army Special Forces - the elite "Green Berets" - were that "real one" and each and every one of us knew our place in the scheme of things. If the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - the "Company" as we commonly referred to it - needed people for some dirty, dangerous, even potentially suicidal covert mission - it would likely look to us for volunteers. The uninformed or uninitiated think of the typical CIA operative as being one who risks his life daily in the clandestine pursuit of intelligence from those evil forces in the world who would want to do us harm. Not so - In actuality the combined risk to the entire agency only resulted in a total of fifty agency personnel being killed in the line of duty in the first half-century they'd been in business. Hardly characteristic of extreme danger, but it’s true. Why is the honor roll so small? I suggest to you that it is because the people on the ground who do the really dangerous stuff - the killing, the terrorizing, and sabotage - are people from outside the agency. Special Forces personnel such as I, even common criminals loaned to the Company by underworld Mafia bosses, would be used and then maintained on the "rolls" or discarded in one fashion or another when the powers that be considered them "expendable." The late Green Beret Major John Strait put it clear and simple: "They [the CIA] use you like a condom. Once you've served their purpose, they shit-can you." Unconventionally oriented men who naturally gravitate to dangerous work environments and who bare up well under stress, whether from the military or Mafia resource pool, were sought by the agency to do those "dastardly deeds." They would be the assassins, the persuaders, the terrorists for the CIA's intelligence "community." A Green Beret, trained to function in these volunteer roles is more philosophically akin to a Mafia enforcer than would be the educated CIA "handlers," conventional military personnel, or civilians.

Each of the volunteers is, in a sense, a cold-blooded killer. Does it matter who plans the killing, whether the "hit" is for territorial control by the Mob, or a mission said to be necessary to preserve "national security," if that killing is indeed illegal? Assassinations and other deadly clandestine activities are not legal. They should never be used to "defend the national interests" or for any other so-called "political necessity." Each and every man in my Special Forces operational "A" Team in Vietnam was a kindred spirit. Each was strong, brave, resourceful, and a loyal team player who would let nothing interfere with the conduct of the mission.

Most of my men lacked a formal education beyond high school, but to a man they were street-wise and endowed with the ingenuity, common sense and courage essential to perform well in an unconventional military environment. Men who engage in clandestine activities are usually tight-lipped and not likely to discuss such matters with people of dissimilar modus operandi and feel that such talk is taboo around the home. Even when conversing with those who walk the same walk, actual facts relating to a successful "covert mission" are seldom so much as hinted at. There is, after all, no statute of limitations on aiding the enemy, mutiny or murder (See Article 43, US Uniform Code of Military Justice).

I was nine years old when I first experienced the sight and circumstance of a murdered man in "Snake Alley," Southside Chicago, Illinois. He was a middle-age black man and his still-warm body hung from a rope noose tied to a rafter in a garage that opened onto an unpaved alley that served as a "line in the sand" separating blacks from whites in Chicago's south side. Grotesque, yes, but it didn't frighten me. Two years later I formed a small gang of five street-wise, tough boys my age. In the beginning we got together to protect old ladies from thieving high-school-age gangs that roamed Southside Chicago's mean streets in the Great Depression. I led ambushes using Indian tactics gleaned from watching Western movies through a roof-vent atop the Ken Theater on 47th Street. We regularly fought and always won. It got to be "the thing to do" regardless of what our adversaries had or hadn't done to helpless old women. Al Capone, Chicago's own imprisoned and self-proclaimed Robin Hood was then our hero. A typical day would find us skipping school, begging groceries, stealing candy, or jumping roof-top to roof-top from one apartment building to another.

The day Mother saw me scoot out our front door carrying a cross-bow I had fashioned from bits & pieces of back alley factory trash; she decided it was time that we move to the country. I maintained my independent and tough nature, ran away from home, hopped freight trains, played around with dynamite, fought with my bare fists and aggressively assumed command of any situation in which I became involved. I enlisted in the U.S. Army when I was old enough to do so without my mother's permission. It was in June of 1952 and the war was on in Korea and I went there as a combat Engineer, building roads and planting or removing mines in support of the 1st Marine Division. A decade later I'd volunteered for and earned my green beret and I was eager to do any job, no matter how heinous, how illegal, or how brutal, so long as it was said to be an action that was critical to our nation's best interests. No different than others, I demanded no proof other than their telling me it was for "the flag." Was it macho? Yes. Was it Intelligent? No. And, perhaps most important to me at the time, was it patriotic? I thought so!

I have since gained wisdom and now question my former motivations since becoming a Christian on the 29th of January, 1984 when my daughter led me to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Since that day I have fought hard to make the truth of our illegal acts public inasmuch as I had become a new person, a man dedicated to the truth. It took time, but my old ways of smoking two packs a day plus ten cigars and hard drinking, became something of the past. The new man in me set about doing what I could to clean up the wounds of past evil actions, subterfuge and corruption. I did recognize the danger inherent with blowing the whistle on clandestine operations of our government of an illegal nature. I know how they use people within and without our government to neutralize, even terminate those who choose to spill the beans about illegal operations. I know because I was once a part of it, one who was asked to terminate certain parties. The most agonizing part of my struggle has been the affect it has had and continues to have on my family as I continue to tell what I know of the evil works of our government. I pray that the efforts of myself and others to bring to light the nefarious actions kept secret for many years, will surely impact the conscience of Americans to the extent that they will demand that justice be done. It is time for action lest we, by inaction or pure cowardice, allow this once great nation to become an "evil empire."

It is now that we must bring the truth to light as it relates to the JFK assassination conspiracy and its continuing cover-up by those within our government who perpetrated the execution of a sitting president. I believe that same group of power brokers was directly responsible for the death of U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Bruce Pitzer and the silencing of many others by whatever means necessary who would have otherwise helped to bring the truth to light. I was asked to kill Pitzer. I thank God I refused. Someone did kill him. He was an innocent man who possessed what the intelligence community did not want made public: the actual photos of the JFK autopsy which prove the Warren Commission Report to be a lie and point to a high level conspiracy. Commander Pitzer was silenced. The people of this nation deserve to know the truth. We must end the silence with an outcry for justice. We must move forward with determination, stay in the battle and fight for the truth to be known and the evil ones punished. I am ready to testify that I was asked by the CIA in August 1965 to murder LCDR William Bruce Pitzer and Dennis David is prepared to testify to his direct knowledge of the wicked rationale behind the CIA's request that Pitzer be silenced. Perhaps the most significant witness is the man willing to go before Congress to tell of having fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll in Dallas, Texas that killed President John F. Kennedy: James E. Files. He is now serving time in Joliet Penitentiary and has come forward since becoming a born-again Christian. Retired Green Beret Master Sergeant Gerald Willsey is willing to testify to having been a part of a TOP SECRET Portable Atomic Weapon delivery team in the mid 1960s with a primary contingency mission to blow the hydroelectric plant at the ASWAN High Dam in Egypt that would have been monumentally disastrous to the population down-river from that dam. It was the same team that I first commanded when the mission was brought to the 6th Special Forces Group by the Intelligence Community.

I urge every American who would want their children or grandchildren to find this world a safer and more God-fearing place in the future to write your Congressional Representative and your Senators and demand that they hold a hearing about illegal government activities and that they invite those who have been a willing part of that, including but not limited to James E. Files, Dennis David, Gerald Willsey and myself to testify. We must protect our future generations and not permit any of our armed forces to be future Expendable Elite!

©2008 LTC Daniel Marvin, US Army Special Forces (Retired)