The Military: In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s

The Military: In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s: "In theory, the battalion's specialty was guarding enemy prisoners of war, a task that was expected to be a major logistical problem. In fact, an Army report said few of the 1,000 reservists of the 320th had been trained to do that, and fewer still knew how to run a prison. They were deployed so quickly from the mid-Atlantic region that there was no time to get new lessons.

"You're a person who works at McDonald's one day; the next day you're standing in front of hundreds of prisoners, and half are saying they're sick and half are saying they're hungry," remembered Sgt. First Class Paul Shaffer, 35, a metalworker from Pennsylvania. "We were hit with so much so fast, I don't think we were prepared."

The battalion — including insurance agents, checkout clerks, sales people and others — ultimately would follow a grim trajectory into the episodes of prisoner abuse that have shocked the nation. "