CBS
Friday, December 8, 2006
Like most soldiers serving in Iraq, Joe Darby just wanted to
go home when his time was up. But blowing the whistle on his unit
members for abusing Iraqi prisoners changed all that, and now
the former military police specialist lives in an undisclosed
city with his wife, still worried for their safety.
"I worry about the one guy who wants to get even with me,
and that one guy could hurt me and my family," says Darby.
That one guy could be from his hometown of Cumberland, Md., where
many in his unit lived.
What were his friends and neighbors saying about him after they
learned he gave photos to authorities showing U.S. soldiers, some
from Cumberland, abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison? "He
was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down and the U.S.
military. Basically, he was no good," Colin Engelbach, commander
of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, says he heard townspeople
say. It was hard on Darby. "These were people who knew me
since I was born….my parents' friends, my grandparents'
friends, that turned against me."
Says Engelbach, "I agree that his actions…were no
good and borderline traitor." He understands Darby was reporting
a crime. "But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I
wouldn’t."
There was a time when Darby was frightened enough of those buddies
to sleep with a gun. Right after giving military authorities the
pictures, the investigation began and he was worried that some
of the accused might find out he had turned in the pictures and
could retaliate. "[The accused] still had their weapons…unlimited
access to the facility and me the whole time," Darby tells
Cooper. "[I] slept with a pistol under my pillow, loaded,
with my hand on it and cocked it….Every night."
Darby relaxed a bit when the abusers were taken off base, but
was shocked when, after 60 Minutes II broke the story, then-Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mentioned his name in front of Congress.
To keep him safe, the military flew him out of Iraq. But when
he landed back in the states and asked to go home, officers told
him he wouldn't be safe there, either. "[An officer] said,
‘Well, son, that’s not an option.’ He said the
Army Reserve had done a security assessment of the area and 'it’s
not safe for you there. You can’t go home.’"
Engelbach concurs with the assessment. "There were a lot
of threats, a lot of phone calls to his wife…because [Darby’s
actions] really did put our troops in harm’s way, more so
than they already were." Instead of home, they went into
the protective custody of the military for months.
Bernadette, his wife, was extremely frightened and is now frustrated.
"It’s not fair that we’re being punished for
[her husband] doing the right thing.”
Both lived around Cumberland their entire lives and may never
be able to return, but it doesn’t change Darby’s mind
about what he did. "They broke the law and they had to be
punished. I have always had a moral sense of right and wrong and
I knew that…friends or not, [the abuse] had to stop,"
he tells Cooper.
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