In 1974, I was 14 years old when I was sent to Green River Boys Camp. As soon as we arrived, A-Group came running to the car shouting ?You thinking AWOL?? as they were jerking me from the vehicle. I had no clue what they were talking about, so I replied ?no?. To my reply, they responded with ?Bullshit!? All of this shouting continued as we were scurried to the Clothes Room, where my clothing was ripped off of me and I was issued state uniforms. Then they rushed me to the Tool Room to give me a GI haircut. They never stopped shouting ?You thinking AWOL??, and ?You think you?re cool??, ?You ain?t cool!? etc. This was horrifying, but there was much worse ahead. The first night they asked me about the crimes I had committed. Because I didn?t know what they were referring to, they ?grouped? on me. Grouping is twelve to fifteen members standing around you in a circle and screaming things like ?face up? meaning to confess to something or confess that something is bothering you. Nothing was bothering me, nor did I have anything to confess. The counselor had my group take me to the shower. They forced me to scrub the floor tiles a wood handled scrub brush in each hand. As I was made to scrub using both hands, group members had their feet pressed against my behind, making sure that all my weight was pressed onto my arms. As a young boy, having never done anything like this, I could only support my weight for a few minutes ? needless to say how much pain I was in at this point. When I couldn?t hold myself up any longer, the group members took turns holding me up by my shirt collar, which made breathing extremely difficult. This torture went on for about two hours! I begged them to stop asking what they thought I had done. I told them I was hot and could not breathe. The Counselor then ordered the group to cool me off and they proceeded to throw buckets of cold water on me. This continued for still another hour before the Counselor told the group to ask me if Gary and I broke into a church. I answered ?yes? hoping to end the torture. They had me confess to several things that I hadn?t done. At about two AM, they finally stopped, and gave me some dry clothes for bed. I believe this incident was the closest I?ve ever been to death. I couldn?t get out of bed for two days; for them not to make me get up reveals how bad off I was. It didn?t take me long for me to figure out why Gary had lied about breaking into the places he confessed to. I learned that the purpose for grouping was to inflict enough pain on us to pressure us to confess to something we had done wrong, or something that had been done to us, even if we had to make something up. For example, grinning or smiling was a sign that we were thinking mischief? If we were caught smiling, a group member would be required to point us out, and then we were to tell the group why we smiled. We weren?t allowed to say we were smiling because we were thinking of something positive, we had to say we were thinking of something negative, like ?I was physically abused by my father,? or ?I sexually abused my sister,? or something else radical. The whole process was insane. Since most boys that age don?t have experiences of this sort, we had to make up things with nothing real to confess. And then we played hell to remember the many lies because we had to exchange life stories with every group member. One around midnight, when we got out of big group (group with our Counselor; little group was having group without our Counselor), our Counselor, Mr. Courtney told us to go get Curtis in C-Group out of bed and find out why he wanted to get my brother to sell drugs for him. Curtis didn?t even know my brother or me as he was from East Kentucky and we were from West Kentucky. But Gary had been caught smiling and told his group the reason he smiled was because he was feeling bad about Curtis and him going to solicit my brother to be a drug dealer. Unfortunately, Curtis was unaware of this diabolical lie. Anyhow, we have Curtis outside in his underwear after midnight scrubbing; asking him why he hated my brother with me knowing this was all a lie. I still had to act like I was furious at Curtis and Gary for wanting my brother to do such a thing, because if I hadn?t acted upset, Mr. Courtney would tell the group to find out why I didn?t care about my brother. We all had made-up stories ready to use for when we were grouped on. But if we someone else used us in their story, and we didn?t know how to play along, we were screwed ? just like I was my first night and like Curtis was this time. Finally after two hours, Mr. Courtney let us give Curtis enough information to allow Curtis to confess. Hence, Curtis then had to explain why he wanted to make my brother a drug dealer. After about three hours, Curtis confessed that his daddy used to beat him and because of that, he was feeling bad and that made him want to get my brother to sell drugs. Then we were allowed to release Curtis. As he stood up, the skin on his knees peeled off. After three hours of torturing Curtis for this story that any sane person would know was obviously made-up, we were allowed to turn him back over to his group. Yet, it wasn?t over for either of us. He then was required to confess to his group why he wanted my brother to sell drugs, and I was required to express to my group how hurt I was that Curtis and Gary wanted to use my brother like that. This is the hell we had to endure every day, even up until three AM and getting up at 5:30 to start the next day. We were always treated as a group. If on person did wrong, we were all punished. So we were all constantly punished since things little natural things such as smiling was considered wrong doing. The staff at Green River twisted their motives by claiming that we brought punishment on each other. This obviously was not true. We quickly learned that no matter what we did, the staff will always found a reason for us to torture someone daily. Most days, several group members were tortured with tactics such as thought previously mentioned. The second time I was tortured was because I had a toothache for approximately a week. It was abscessed and I was in severe pain before they had me seen by a dentist. He gave me Penicillin for the infection and Darvocet for the pain and told me to stay inside until returning to have my tooth pulled. That night in big group our Chaplin told the group to find out why I was manipulating the group by not working. Even though I informed them that the dentist had ordered me to stay in, the Chaplin insisted that the group find out why Mandel was manipulating the group, which started them to group on me, and force me to scrub the floor. When I could endure no longer, I tossed the brushes. This was a dumb move, since I already knew what would happen if I refuse to scrub; the group stands me up, bends me over to where my hands are a few inches from the floor, and someone holds my knees while others put there weight on your back. This caused severe pain in my legs in a matter of seconds as I begged to scrub, but the group held me in this position until the staff member was convinced that I was ready to scrub again. I have had pain in my legs ever since. I don?t know what happened to my legs, but the pain has never gone away. It is very difficult to sleep, even today, because the pain is worse when I lie down. My second wife talked me into seeing a doctor in 1987 to see if he could find out why my legs were always in pain. The doctor asked if I had ever injured my legs. I told him no and I couldn?t bring myself to tell him what had happened at Green River. We were in school four hours a day, and worked another four hours of the day. I acknowledge that the teachers took no part in our torture as they seemed to be nice people. Daily, we each would retrieve a shovel, axe, and a pick from the Tool Room and then we walked about one and one half miles down River Road, where we dug up stumps. The stumps were previously dug around, causing the holes to be filled with ice and freezing cold water, since the temperature was below freezing. We stepped down into the icy water to dig up and chop the stump until it could be turned over and buried. On returning to camp the group had to wash our tools and cloths before going inside, in the time it took us to do that our cloths would be frozen. This was my first day introduction to work at Green River. The group working beside us had a group member with a bloodied face tied to a tree. The forms of torture they had come up with were designed not to leave marks on us, although when a staff member was mad enough, marks didn?t matter. On a particular day, E-Group made the mistake of permitting visitors to see some of what was really going on. As they burst through the door, Raymond Berry?s shirt was torn open revealing his black and blue left side as many ribs must have been broken. At first, I was thankful that our parents saw this, but when they turned back around and I saw the horror in their eyes, I was truly sorry that they had witnessed this. Later, when Raymond went AWOL and the cops pursued him, he drove his stolen car into a river and drowned. It was common knowledge that he committed suicide since he drove the car into the river when he saw the police approaching him. He probably had no desire for further help after experiencing the help tactics of the Green River staff. At the time, I didn?t feel sorry for him. I believed he was better off because he had been grouped on for weeks and death seemed so much better then the torment he would have encountered if he had been sequestered. One person I?ve corresponded with has suggested that by making us participate in torturing others, we became too ashamed to talk about it. I don?t know why it is so difficult for me to talk about it. I have been silent except for one incident I told my second wife in 1985 when my brother died from cancer. Afterwards, I started thinking of Larry Rittenour, another boy that went AWOL during my stay at Green River. The Superintendent had another camp member and me to torture him on the way back after he was found. The Superintendent, Mr. Thompson, instructed us to find out why Larry went AWOL. Larry responded that his sister was dying of cancer and that he wanted to see her. The pain in his eyes and his tears made it obvious that he was telling the truth, but Mr. Thompson had us to beat him all the way back to camp. After all these years, I have never gotten Larry?s pain out of my mind. By 1992, I was having nightmares and flashbacks of Green River. Many children don?t survive these behavior medication camps as is exposed by web sites such as ParentAdvocates.org or Coalition against Institutionalized Child Abuse. But for those of us that do survive, we never become normal mature adults, for a part of us will always be those little helpless children being tortured. Death seems our only escape...
After all these years, I still live in the reality of yesterday, and cannot understand why this country carelessly continues to allow children?s lives to be permanently damaged?
Mandel Crittendon
