Torture aboard the
USS Belleau Wood

 

Terry Helvey was an Operations Department "Enforcer" aboard the USS Belleau Wood.  Allen Schindler called the Enforcers "gangs"--the units attached to every department of the Belleau Wood, whose job it was to rid the ship of undesirables.  Generally, this was accomplished by "punishment beatings," as the Irish term them.  However, Helvey limited himself to roughing up sailors targeted for discharge.  Gays were a special category of undesirable, in that Enforcers themselves would determine who was, and was not, gay. 

As his training and preparation to be an Enforcer, Helvey observed Air and Engineering Department Enforcers torture a sailor for not bathing.  This incident occurred in late June or early July 1992.  The sailor was kidnapped and gagged, then dragged to the showers, where the gag was removed.  He was then stripped naked; held down under streams of extremely hot water; and pumiced with wire brushes. 

From this demonstration, Helvey drew the desired conclusions:  that the power of the Enforcers (who had just involved him in torture) was real; that they were the true "law" within the Navy, with power exceeding that of those who had supposedly criminalized such conduct.  More basically, if torture was not wrong, then nothing was wrong.

[From Letter of Bruce Tyler Wick, Esq., to Captain R.A. Johnson, USN, Force Judge Advocate, Commander Naval Reserve Force, New Orleans, dated 29 December 1998.]

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