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Report from The Ft. Knox Stockade, 1966/67

By Mike Wittels

I was a guest of the Ft. Knox Stockade 1966/1967, having refused orders to put on a uniform and report to duty. Convicted by a Special Court Martial, I served its maximum term but was not discharged. Below are two excerpts from my forthcoming memoir.

Into the Woods
I had been re-arrested and re-confined within 30 minutes of finishing my first sentence. This time, I was "branded" with a white band on each arm, thrown into Maximum Security, and scheduled for a General Court Martial. In times of war, the maximum penalty was death. I had been told, though, that I was facing only 5 years in Leavenworth and a Dishonorable Discharge.

On February 17, 1967, after being taken out to the back gate by a turnkey, I was tightly handcuffed and put in the front seat of a truck, squashed between two tight-lipped guards, one of them the driver. They seemed tense. To them, my two white armbands meant I was a dangerous escape risk. They had never seen me before, knew nothing else about me. After a couple of miles, I said my handcuffs were too tight—I wasn't exaggerating; I don't like to complain—they hurt; could they loosen them a little?

"Nope."

I asked where we were going. No answer. We were getting further and further away from the stockade. There were no buildings along the road by now, just trees. I could hear occasional gunfire in the distance. I asked again where we were going.

"Your court-martial."

Both Edward Post, my ACLU attorney, and the investigating officer had told me I was supposed to have an Article 32 hearing before I could get a General Court-Martial. Something was wrong.

While in the Box, I had overheard part of one side of a phone conversation at the Security Desk: "No, ma'am, we don't take them out at midnight to be shot." Did that mean "they" took "them" out at some other time? It was mid-morning.

Although it didn't make sense that I would be shot, much of what had already happened didn't make sense. And there had been plenty of screw-ups, where someone had misread, misheard, or misremembered orders or instructions. In the world of the stockade, things went wrong all the time. What had these guys been told? What did they think they had been told?

Whether this long ride out into the woods was due to a mistake or an attempt to scare me, the shots were getting louder. After a few more miles of nothing but trees on either side of the road, we came across a tiny building. The driver stopped, and the other guard got out and went inside. We waited in the truck. I was still handcuffed, still hearing shots.

Finally, the guard emerged. He strode quickly up to the truck, told the driver something I couldn't hear, walked around to the other side, opened the door, squeezed in next to me, and off we went. Neither guard would speak to or look at me. After about five minutes, we came upon a larger building with some cars in front. The driver pulled up and parked. I was unloaded. Each guard grabbed an arm and marched me inside. A few officers and enlisted men standing around turned to look at me. Post, the civilian lawyer who had agreed to help me, was among them. He asked that my cuffs be removed. One of the guards, after some fumbling, managed to do that, and Post introduced one of the officers as my newly appointed military lawyer, CPT Ross. Post told me I was so late getting there that they had thought I had escaped and were about to put out an all-points bulletin. He wasn't joking: he really didn't know me and, after all, neither my two guards nor I had shown up when we were supposed to. Had I been reported as having escaped while handcuffed and under guard, who knows what would have happened? My concern about being shot may have become a reality.

No More KP (or How the System Works)
January 7, 1967: Diaz was a short, happy-go-lucky kid from Chicago. He looked about 17 or 18. I had talked to him a bit in the yard and found his people were from Puerto Rico. He had been locked up because he had refused a sergeant's order to go on what would have been his third KP duty in a week. That's just too much, he thought, so he said he wasn't going to do it, he just wasn't.

So he got a Summary Court-Martial, and its maximum is 30 days, meaning he'd be out in 25. Three days ago, with only a few days left until his release, he was being marched along with four others to his task for the day. The guard had a shotgun. On the way, the group passed a civilian employee who shouted, "Hey, one of you guys, get that rock outta the road!" Diaz ran out toward the rock. A white prisoner with a pointy chin and a thick Georgia accent yelled, "Hey, Sarge, he's tryin' to 'scape!" The guard, tall, black, new, and scared, wheeled and shot. At twelve to fifteen feet from the muzzle, Diaz was hit by all nine steel slivers the shell was loaded with. Most went clean through. After a delay caused by confusion and mistakes, he was delivered to the hospital a bloody mess and died the next day.

Today, we were all herded into a large, rarely used auditorium. Scratchy, recorded, church-type music was stumbling out of the low-fi speakers. After we were settled, the stockade chaplain told us to bow our heads. He then recited a prayer about how the Lord loves each of us. Everyone. Then he gave a short sermon on the importance of doing our duty. He ended with, "See, men, this is what happens when you don't live by the rules."

Rumor is the guard was given a carton of cigarettes and a day off. Guards had been told that if they let a prisoner escape, they would have to take the escapee's place in lockup.

Mike Wittels, draft and military counselor, 1966-73, author of Advice for COs in The Armed Forces, Military Counselor's Manual, et al, lives in Northern California.