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The Prison Officer Podcast
The Prison Officer Podcast is a place where prison officers and correctional staff share their experiences, discuss leadership, cope with stress, and learn survival strategies for one of the toughest careers out there. Hosted by Michael Cantrell, this podcast delves into the lives, dreams, and challenges faced by those who work inside the walls of our nation’s prisons. It features interviews, insights, and discussions related to the unique and demanding world of corrections. Whether it’s overcoming difficult leaders, understanding rehabilitation, or addressing misconceptions about incarcerated populations, the Prison Officer Podcast provides valuable perspectives from professionals in the field.
The Prison Officer Podcast
103: The Human Stories of Military Justice and Rehabilitation - Interview w/James Cummings
From the corridors of military prisons to the unique challenges of civilian life, our guest Jimmy Cummings shares an extraordinary journey filled with unexpected twists and turns. A retired Marine with a commanding presence in military corrections, Jimmy opens up about his early struggles in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that led him to the Marines, meeting his wife in Okinawa, and the trials of transitioning back to civilian life—only to find his way back to the Corps. His insights offer a rare glimpse into a world of discipline, camaraderie, and the often-overlooked aspects of military life.
Our conversation takes a thought-provoking turn as we discuss the nuances of the military justice system, touching on court-martials, prisoner rehabilitation, and the transformative power of correctional custody programs. Jimmy's personal anecdotes about leading these programs, both in the U.S. and Japan, shed light on their potential to change lives.
Listen in as Jimmy and I recount how our careers crossed, supervising one of the most murderous inmates in prison history, Clayton Fountain.
You can contact James here: jimmymitsuko@icloud.com
Check out Michael Cantrell's books here:
Keys to Your New Career: Information and Guidance to Get Hired and Be Successful as a Correctional or Detention Officer http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFWYSFMK/ref=nosim?tag=prisonoffic05-20
Finding Your Purpose: Crafting a Personal Vision Statement to Guide Your Life and Career http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW344T4B/ref=nosim?tag=prisonoffic05-20
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Take care of each other and Be Safe behind those walls and fences!
In more than 28 years of corrections, I have used or supervised Pepperball hundreds of times. Now, as a master instructor for Pepperball, I teach others about the versatility and effectiveness of this Pepperball system. From cell extractions to disturbances on the rec yard, pepperball is the first option in my correctional toolbox. One of the most dangerous times for officers is during cell extractions. One of the most dangerous times for officers is during cell extractions. Pepperball allows officers to respond with the lowest level of force and still be effective and ready if the situation escalates. The responding officer controls where the projectiles are aimed, how many projectiles are launched and how rapidly they're deployed. This allows the response to be tailored to the moment. To learn more about Pepperball, go to wwwpepperballcom or click the link below in the show's information guide. Pepperball is the safer option first. Well, welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. My name is Michael Cantrell.
Speaker 1:Today I have a guest, jimmy Cummings. He's a retired Marine who spent 21 years working in corrections in the Marine Corps. He's retired as a commanding officer at the Brig in Okinawa, which for layman's terms that's a warden. So he still lives in Japan and I'm interested to talk to him about that also. We're going to talk to him about his life and career and we might even have a little conversation. We're going to talk to him about his life and career and we might even have a little conversation. Him and I have crossed paths with the same notorious inmate and so we may have a discussion about that also. But I'm really happy to have him on the podcast and excited to hear his take on, you know, corrections in the military. We had Warden Fuel on here one time and he talked a little bit about the Army, but you were over there on Okinawa and in the Marines, so it should be a little bit different. I'm interested to hear. So welcome to the podcast, jimmy. Can I call you Jimmy?
Speaker 2:Sure absolutely.
Speaker 1:Okay, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you.
Speaker 1:I start all these interviews the same. I like to learn about people and tell me where you grew up what that was like, and then for you it was going in. The same. I like to learn about people and tell me where you grew up what that was like, and then for you it was going in the military. That's how you got in corrections, but was that a choice or you know kind of tell me how you got into that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I grew up in Scranton, pennsylvania, irish Catholic family, went to Catholic school up until the eighth grade and then I went to public school. Didn't do well in school If they had the diagnosis of ADHD back in those days I would have been diagnosed as ADHD, never knew that I had it until later on in life. But got in some trouble at school, got thrown out of the Catholic school and high school and then I was in the public school and then I went till I was 16 years old and I quit school and I was working for the city. Then I said, hey, I'm going nowhere and decided I wanted to go in the military. Vietnam was still going on and I was fine with going to Vietnam if I got the orders. So I went down to the recruiter and I wanted to go into the Seabees. So I went to the Seabee recruiter and he said can't take you, you're high school dropout. And the Marine recruiter happened to be in earshot and said, hey, come on over and talk to me, we'll take you. So I went in on a back. Then you could go in on a two-year contract.
Speaker 2:So I was 17 and went to Parris Island First time I ever flew in my life and arrived at Parris Island and my whole world was turned upside down. I bet Absolutely. I learned a lot, found out who was in charge and it certainly wasn't me. I went through boot camp and graduated boot camp. Then they sent us to Camp Lejeune to advanced infantry training. I was an 03-11, a grunt to advanced infantry training. I was a 0311, a grunt and we finished the infantry training and then was able to go home on leave and then back to Camp Lejeune to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, and was deployed to the Mediterranean. We have a battalion of Marines floating around 365 days a year and we do operations on Crete, sardinia and places like that and you're out there for six months. Then came back to the Camp Lejeune and then the battalion broke up and I got orders to Okinawa.
Speaker 2:So this was 1971. I'm in Okinawa and I was with Kilo 34 over there infantry and loved the island, loved it so much. I met my wife over there in 1971 and we got we got married. So I was 19 years old, married my wife. I stayed till 1973 and then um got orders for discharge. I went to treasure island and vietnam was still going on at that time. I had uh, I had volunteered when I before I met my wife. Uh, when I was in three four in okinawa, I had volunteered to go to vietnam. But uh, the first sergeant, uh, when orders came in from the battalion, quotas would come in and uh, the first sergeant, he'd send the shitbirds down there to vietnam so the other marines he'd keep. You know, he had to fill a quota and and the shitbirds were the excuse, the terminology. The shit birds were the ones that got the, they got, they got, they got the quota. So I didn't get it but luckily, thank God, you know and I met my wife and married and then went back to Treasure Island.
Speaker 2:It was discharged from the Marine Corps, went back to Scranton and things weren't working out as far as trying to find a job. I tried to get in the state police. That wasn't happening and I was working for my uncle at a brewery there delivering beer, and I said, you know, I had it better in the Marine Corps and thank God that when I did get out, a reserve recruiter came to my house and said to me, why don't you come down to the reserve unit? And I said no, no, I've had it, I'm ready, that's it. And he said no, why don't you just come down? So I went down there and they said what do you want to do? It was a Marine Corps transportation squadron and they said I said, well, I want to be a truck driver. So they made me a truck driver.
Speaker 2:I stayed in the reserves for three months and said no, I'm going back on active duty. So I went down to the recruiter and said I want to go back on active duty. I was a corporal then and he said okay, we're going to put you back in the infantry. I said, no, I don't want to go back in the infantry. He said what do you want to do? So on the recruiter's office they have this, what they call an MOS chart. That's all the occupational fields that are throughout the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2:And I looked at the one and I said I want to be a polygraph operator. Well, the closest I got to the polygraph was the second deck turnkey at the brig at Camp Lejeune. They made me a corrections man. So that's how I got in corrections. I never thought of corrections, never entered in my mind anything about it. So I report to Camp Lejeune and I'm at the brig at Lejeune. We had two brigs and a brig is a prison and we had 450 inmates in the brig that I worked at and then the other brig was about. It was probably about a half a mile away from us. We had about 250. We almost had a a TO battalion of people locked up because Vietnam, vietnam was still going on, yeah, and we we had some criminals that were were were locked up. So I they put me up on second deck, turnkey and I didn't know shit from Shinola about corrections or anything else. I hadn't even been through pre-service training yet. They just put me, you know, ojt, up there on the second deck, turnkey.
Speaker 2:And I'll share a story with you. This is you know. I'll share a story with you. This is you know. I hear you many times when you're talking to people who said what was your first experience when you went into the walls and so forth? Well, this place was. It was like a zoo, the stuff that was going on.
Speaker 2:And I remember sitting in that turnkey cage and the sergeant was bringing prisoners down from administrative segregation. Those were allowed to go down to the chow hall to eat asap, and he was taking them down and on the way back up one of them said you motherfucker or something like that, and he brought them all back in. And then he came out to me now this guy was a seasoned marine, he was a sergeant, been to vietnam, he was a tough son of a gun. And he comes back out to me and he said write up a report shit. I didn't hear. He said write up a report shit got it. This is what he said. So I wrote the report shit up, get into him. And I said you know, sergeant I? I said I didn't hear the guys, I don't feel good about this and don't want to do that. And he looked at me and he said how long you been here? I said three days. He said you're going to be thinking a whole lot different after this, you know. And that was it. And he was it and he was right. It took about a month or two months and the mentality I could find myself changing to it was us against them. That was the mentality that I was getting into, along with the other guards that I worked with and so forth. Then I got promoted to sergeant.
Speaker 2:I was in charge of a dormitory, had about 70 inmates in that and worked that, and then worked other security jobs, then got orders to Okinawa. So in 1974, we had two brigs in Okinawa, one for pretrial and the other for the sentenced prisoners. And this is in 1974. And when I got there I was a dorm supervisor and I was a senior dorm supervisor, so I was in charge of the other dorm supervisor. We had four dormitories. We had about probably about 175 prisoners all together and I really liked the dorm setup.
Speaker 2:I liked that you could look down one end and even the prison that we're in, even the head area was all completely opened. So you could just envision, the mess deck was in the middle of the prison and the four dormitories all surrounded it and you could see from the mess deck. You could see into all of the dormitories, you could see into all of the head areas, the showers, the crappers and everything else. So there was no blind spots and it was good for sanitary purposes. It wasn't the greatest. Somebody could be on the crapper while you're eating your lunch and so forth. And then I enjoyed that, working the dorms and working with the inmates and stuff.
Speaker 1:Just trying to wrap my head around it. So security levels what are you guys dealing with? I mean, is this dorm, is this like what I would call medium security, or is this high security inmates? Do you have bars and doors somewhere where you're putting the worst of the worst and everybody else is in the dorm? How does that work in the military breaks?
Speaker 2:Okay, we had a sure we had seg, we called it seg. And in seg, you had a sure, we had SEG, we called it SEG. And in SEG you had ASEG and you had DSEG. Aseg was administrative segregation, dseg was disciplinary segregation. So the DSEG disciplinary segregation was a closed-faced, solid steel door and all you had was the food tray and that was it. There was no window or anything else. It was completely closed, closed face door and it was hell back there. And so the prisoners, the punishment that they could be given by the commanding officer, they could be given disciplinary segregation, restricted diet. I don't know if the Feds had that system or the states they could put them on a restricted diet, not for health reasons, for disciplinary reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some places do the food loaves, and that's what's a restricted food diet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so we could put them back there for 15 days disciplinary segregation and 15 days on that restricted on that restricted diet and then administrative segregation. That's we kept all the cats and dogs and stuff. They could be max custody prisoners back there too. The dormitories, pretty much we had back then we called I don't know you ever use the this was they changed it.
Speaker 2:We used to use the term close custody we had. We had base paroleeses that were billeted outside the prison. It was like minimum custody. They could move around inside the institution cleaning up and so forth. Then you had medium custody. They're the ones that we would send outside to on working parties under guard side to do work and stuff. And then we had close custody. Close custody remained inside, then had max custody, which were the max custodies, were all kept back there in segregation. Interesting enough, you know. Later on you know we can talk about our, our prisoner that we had at the fountain in common, the commanding officer beknownst to me. He decided that he was a close custody prisoner but opted to put him in the dormitory, which was a mistake. Wow, and, yeah, I had, he was in my.
Speaker 1:Is this after he was sentenced?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It sure was.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go ahead and we'll step into this a little bit. Since we've talked about it, let me give a little bit of history. So Clayton Fountain was a he had went in the Marines. He got mad at his sergeant because the sergeant had apparently written him up for wearing workout clothes in the mess hall. They got in an argument so Fountain went, took a pistol apart, slipped it out of the armory, took it over to they were on the Philippines, I believe and he stepped out on a place for shore leave where they had that, used the pistol to take a shotgun from a security officer a Philippine security officer and then walked up and shot Sergeant Wren.
Speaker 1:After the military sentenced him, he was kind of and we'll talk a little bit about what you saw there because I don't know about this part but they sent him to feds and he ended up killing three more inmates and a federal correctional officer. After that. I mean we kind of refer to him as a prison serial killer because I mean he had five bodies on him by the time. You know he was passed away. So tell me about Clayton Fountain at that time. I mean that was fresh, that was. You were right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was transferred down to us from the Philippines, you know, for pretrial confinement. First they only kept him in the Philippines for a short period of time and they transferred them down to us and we put them back there in a segregation unit, aseg. He was back there at ASEG and then the commanding officer had this idea he was going to put them on mess duty, which which was not a good decision. And he put him on mess duty. And now envision you've got the four dormitories open where anybody that's on the mess deck can see into all the dormitories and the mess deck. You had cast iron picnic tables. They're cast iron, these things. These things were about a half an inch thick metal and they were bolted to the deck and they were ideal. I mean, you couldn't lift them up even if they weren't bolted to the deck. They were so heavy.
Speaker 2:Judy, as a dorm supervisor I got off around 2230. We tucked the prisoners in for the night and then off we'd go, the dorm supervisors. Well, the next day I didn't come in until 1400. The next day I think it was in the morning Mountain decides he's going to take on some guard, he jumps up on the cast iron picnic table and he's got the old swabs. You know, you have the metal and he detached the swab from the metal and he had the metal and he had the broom and he's threatening to kick ass and everything else. Well, they sent in a riot team. They took him down. Else, well, they sent in a riot team, they took them down.
Speaker 2:Back in those days we still employed non-corrections folks. We had what we call FAPRs. They were from the infantry. So these guys weren't training corrections or anything else. These guys were just hardcore grunts. Some of them were non-vets and stuff.
Speaker 2:So they got Fountain down and they kept twisting the leg. The leg didn't twist anymore and it broke. So they had to take him down to the hospital. They had to cast him up. So the next day I came on at 1400 and I'm in the dorm and then the duty warden. He came and he said we need your help in SEG. I said what's up? He said Fountain, he's tearing up the cast and we damn sure don't want to take him back down to that hospital again. So we had to go back there, put him in a four-restraint. Back then you could do that Put him in a four-restraint and just tied him down. He did. Eventually he ended up back in the dormitory again. I had him. He was one of the best workers I had, I mean as far as like I'd put him in that head to clean and everything else and he worked well, but he just had this way about him the temper and just extremely dangerous. So he did about nine months with this.
Speaker 2:Then, when he was sentenced, we transferred him back to Leavenworth. And while he was at Leavenworth that's the military prison, I think they call it the United States Disciplinary Barracks we transferred him back there and then he worked himself, I think in the medium custody or something, and he made a homemade shank and he had put it to an army guard's throat. It was going to kill him unless he gave him access to the rotunda house there that controlled all the movement of the tiers and stuff and they kept weapons in there. He got a weapon. He started shooting the place. One guard lost his eye. Then they had a sniper team come in and they had the infrared dot and Fountain saw the dot on him and he surrendered.
Speaker 2:And that's when they went out to the feds and said, hey, look at, this guy's a bad actor. Would you take him off our hands and the feds were very kind enough to take him and they transferred him to Leavenworth Federal Prison and that's when he tied in with the Aryan Brotherhood and he tied in with Silverstein. They became bosom buddies and then, you know, years went by and I lost touch. What was going on with him. But then it's probably about oh, I was back, I was Camp Lejeune. I was the brig officer back there, like a deputy warden and some big shot from the Federal Bureau of Prison. He was a reservist. His name was, I think, turner, cecil Turner. Does that ring a bell?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was the warden. Marion was one of the places he was warden at.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, okay. So he came in 80, that would have been probably 85. He came to Camp Lejeune to do his two weeks reserve duty. So they, they, my boss, the commanding officer. He went on leave and then and Turner took the place over and we got talking and he just I don't know how he got talking about Fountain. He said, oh, you knew Fountain. I said, yeah, I had him when he was first locked up. And then he said well, let me tell you what he's done, he's progressed. And he told me about you know, what had happened at Marion and he said that in fact he was one of the ones that did the investigation. And he said they transferred him out of there as quick as they could for fear the guards were going to kill him, him and Silverstein, and then I guess he was transferred into the medical facility. That's where I go. Maybe that's where you picked him up.
Speaker 1:They built the cell at the Federal Medical Center, him and Silverstein killed two officers, robert Hoffman and Merle Klutz, and they did it on the same day. Silverstein got out first. I had somebody uncuff him and pass a shank through the bars and then he stabbed, silverstein, killed. So yeah, and a few hours later they came up off lockdown and Fountain did the same thing and got a shank from another guy and then stabbed Hoffman, robert Hoffman. So we lost two federal officers within a few hours at Marion and so they ended up building a cell at Federal Medical Center in Springfield, missouri, for Fountain. And then they built a special cell at Leavenworth for Silverstein, but Fountain and everybody forgets about this I mean Klutz was his or Hoffman was his fifth murder, not even including the officer he shot in the eye at USDB and all the people that were hurt up till then.
Speaker 1:That was his fifth murder and they just kept tacking. Oh well, there's another life sentence, there's another, and nobody ever dealt with it. I have a little bit of a heartache over the whole fountain story because I watched it at the end when he was being paraded around. Of a heartache over the whole fountain story, cause I watched it at the end, uh, when he was uh being paraded around and being loved on by it. Sorry if I get a little wound up, but I got to watch that monk that wrote the book come in there and got to watch uh, big wigs come in there and treat him like he was a celebrity, uh, and to me he's just a five-time murderer, you know. But that's interesting. But yeah, that's where I ran into him was the medical center and that's where he died in 2004 or 2005 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was. Then, mike, let me ask you a question. With that, I read the book. Did he make those changes? According to the book, toward the end they said he had no infractions or anything. Did he, you know, because I was shocked? I was shocked when I read that, you know. Did he soliciting for money to work on his doctorate's degree in theology or something?
Speaker 1:I said what the hell's going on? Yeah, they paid for his college. They would come in and visit him. You've got to take a look At this point. He's older and they're treating him like a celebrity.
Speaker 1:So if he did have and it was only minor infractions, we did not touch him. You had to slide a door to get to the door, to put his tray in a box, so there was no way for him to actually get to staff, to go to rec. We had to roll another door that would let him over there and close it behind him. So there was never staff touching him. So he didn't have the opportunities and for minor infractions that he did, they'd sweep that stuff under the rug. Well, we don't want to get him upset. And so, yeah, he didn't get write-ups, he didn't get stuff. But I used to have a I won't name him, but I used to have an AW, a warden, who thought he was a psychologist, who would come back there and order me to break security protocols by putting a chair and opening both those tray slots so that he can sit there and have lunch with Fountain. I read that.
Speaker 2:I read that in a book.
Speaker 1:Just the most irritating thing I've ever done in my life to treat him like that. You know nobody here and I'm going to go off a little bit, but where were these monks? Nobody went and took care of the families you know, of the officers or even the inmates. It wasn't Fountain's place to decide whether or not it was time for those three inmates to die. I don't know what type of inmates they were, but that's not his place. And then what about Sergeant Wren's family? They never did anything for those people, but they were in there passing money and paying for college and making a big deal out of him. It was kind of sick to watch there.
Speaker 2:Were you there when he passed.
Speaker 1:I was working there, yeah.
Speaker 2:He died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1:unfortunately he died of a heart attack quietly in his cell. They were doing rounds and he was dead.
Speaker 2:I had heard that back to Marion with that, that this is a good point. And I saw this in corrections and I'm sure you did too, with complacency where guards sometimes you know they start to just take things for granted. And then there was a Sally port cell in front of it, then the cell next to it and then a Sally port in front of. I heard that they had kind of gotten complacent and left the Sally port cells open so they can get into, getting in and out a lot faster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was rec time. You're moving bunches of inmates, so you just open them all up so that you can you get in there and you don't have to take as much time. And you've seen it, I've seen it.
Speaker 1:We're staff taking shortcuts. That complacency is always what gets us in trouble. If we're doing our jobs and we're doing it at the level that we can, rarely do people get hurt because we've got the security in place. We've got hundreds of years of policy and post orders that have been based on problems or things that went wrong and we learned from. So if we follow those post orders, if we follow those policies, rarely do we have problems. But we all know about complacency.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I'm as guilty too At times I have to remind myself to take don't take things for granted. Just start questioning again, start questioning again, start looking at stuff. I told I would tell the guards, I would say to them hey listen, you think your post that you're on, whatever it is, is just it's a no, nothing post and it's not important, and all that. Let me tell you something it's a no-nothing post and it's not important, and all that. Let me tell you something If an inmate escapes through your post, your post now has become the most important damn thing in there. So don't take your job in corrections for granted, any job where you're working there.
Speaker 1:You know it's an important position that you're in, so let's go back. I mean I hate to get off there. That's just kind of my pet peeve.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's interesting because there's not many people that knew him or had contact with him, but he was a dangerous, dangerous individual.
Speaker 1:He was an asshole when I knew him. I mean, he wasn't like Mr Nice Guy, oh, no, no, no, no. He was smiling when they'd come visit him and then when he'd leave, he was calling us every name in the book and he got fatter. That's one more thing. I'll kind of say this, and I don't know if it's kosher or not, but there's going to be people that know what I'm talking about. He put on a lot of weight and when I got to Springfield I heard some of the old guards say that they were giving him extra trays. And I'm like what the hell are you giving him extra trays? Well, if he's fat, he won't fight as much, and that was kind of the thought. So they wanted to keep him fattened up. So he wasn't, because he used to be in really good shape. He exercised, and when he was doing all that killing he was in great shape, and so that was kind of their way of here give him an extra tray, let him fatten up. And he was.
Speaker 2:He was pretty good sized. You know, that's something real quick. I never. Now I know some of my fellow people that I work with in corrections. They'll take a stance to this because they were big weightlifters themselves. But when I took over that prison in Okinawa at first, I got rid of all the weights. I said to hell with them. They're not going to have the weights because they're going to get stronger, they're going to bulk up, they're going to intimidate, they're going to bulk up. So I don't know why we allow them to have to have the weights. I can understand cardio things and stuff like that there, but not those damn weights where they can bulk up and they can become like monsters feds got rid of it.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you exactly what year, but we had had enough people killed with a 50 pound weight on the yard that finally they, they pulled the weights off the yard, the loose weights. But yeah, when I walked into missouri, penn the first time there was a weight pile, that was just amazing and there were giants of inmates that lived on that weight pile biggest man I've ever seen, you know. And luckily they wouldn't get in trouble because they were so busy trying to steal enough protein or pay somebody to steal enough protein out of the kitchen and work out that they would stay out of trouble so that they wouldn't lose, you know, their food or their, their privileges. But uh, every once in a while there'd be a fight and somebody would take a 45 pound weight and crush somebody, you know. And finally pretty much everybody, I think, has gotten rid of those, I think.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, back to where I. So when I went to Okinawa and I was working the dorms, then the commanding officer decided okay, cummings, I want to make you a consular. Well, I didn't want to be a consular, but I had no choice. He says Cummings, you're going to be a consular. Well, I didn't want to be a counselor, but I had no choice. He says Cummings, you're going to be a counselor. So he made me a counselor.
Speaker 2:And then I was working at a caseload of about 40 inmates and stuff and didn't the punishment, the CO. Sometimes I just didn't feel we were getting the backing by them. You'd write up a report, shit and so forth, and they'd get a slap on the hand or they just weren't getting the punishment that they really deserve, which that's a tool for us. You know, if they, you know when they screw up and with the report, if you do put them on report. But they were. You know, I don't want to say they were trying to be good guys with the inmates, but they didn't get the punishment that they should have gotten. And I said to myself by God, if I ever get in the position of being in charge and everything else, by God, I'm going to back those guards up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me a little bit about, because I think people don't understand when inmates military inmates are in military prison, they're still under the military code of justice, they still are under everything, and so military prisons are ran a little bit different. Do you feel like you have more control?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely, Because military inmates I mean, I respect you guys immensely Just the people that we dealt with there is nothing in comparison to what your experiences are and the people that you're dealing with. We just get a little tiny, tiny bit of that, but these people in the military, they have some form of discipline. Even though they're bad and so forth, there's still some form of discipline, so you can run the institutions more stricter, okay, and that's something that I believed in. I heard you talking to the warden it was yesterday, I think, from Kentucky. Yeah, parker, he was in Ohio. Yeah, parker, I really enjoyed that. Yeah, I would love to meet that guy. I really enjoy it. I just like the way he operated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a really nice guy. So let me ask a dumb question, because I don't know the answer to this. So if you get in trouble with military justice, are you automatically getting a discharge, or did you hold guys who had the opportunity to do a certain amount of time low-level stuff even and still go back into the service or stay in the service? Was that an option, or is it always a dishonorable or a?
Speaker 2:discharge. No, no, no, they depending on what the court was like if they went to a. We had. We had three courts in the military justice system. You had a summary court marshal, and a summary court marshal is a very minor court marshal where they could give you up to 30 days in the brig but there's no discharge attached to it or anything, so you can go back to active duty. Then the next court-martial you have is a special court-martial. That's where they can give you a max of up to six months confinement. Back then they could give you up to six months confinement and they could give you a bad conduct discharge, bcd, and if you got a BCD, that was it you were going to. After you did your time, you were going to get out, you were going to be sent home and the last court martial you've got is a dishonorable discharge and that's where they can go all the way up to the death sentence with a dishonorable discharge. But to answer your question, yes, we did. Back in those days we did have prisoners that were going back to duty even if they got a bad conduct discharge. That's where we started in corrections. It was called restoration. This is for prisoners that were going back to duty and I did that at Camp Lejeune.
Speaker 2:I ran that when I was enlisted. I was a staff sergeant and I was in charge of that particular program and that's kind of like a semi-boot camp. We kept them in there for about three weeks. I had my own dormitory with about maybe 30 of them in there and I'd take them out of the brig. We did training, marine Corps training, run the hell out of them and all kinds of military things like that. And if they did well in there, then that report would be forwarded back to their battalion commander and he could suspend even a bad conduct discharge. He could suspend it and they could go back to active duty. That was back then. But, mike, these days, no, everybody, they're out After they've finished their time. They don't give them a second chance these days.
Speaker 1:I just wonder because it seems like they would be harder to control because they had. Not only are they in jail or the brig, but they've had everything taken away from them. They're going to lose their status, they're going to lose their, and I think that type of inmate would be harder to control.
Speaker 2:Oh they are. We had in Okinawa when I was the commanding officer. There we could keep, we could house them for up to a year. Okay, if they received a sentence of a year or less, I could house them for up to a year. If they received the sentence of a year or less, I could house them for up to a year. Beyond a year, we transferred them back to Camp Lejeune and Camp Pendleton where they housed them for up to five years and then, beyond five years back then we would transfer them to Leavenworth where they could spend the rest of their life at Leavenworth.
Speaker 2:But a lot of our inmates, even at Leavenworth, were still, for whatever reason, I don't know why, but they wanted to go to the federal prison. A lot of them did because they could get out quicker in the federal prison system than they could in the military system. We had a system back then which was really bad, where if you went to your court-martial and you received let's say you received six months confinement and a bad conduct discharge, well, in military corrections, if the sentence was under a year, they got five days good conduct time for every month. Okay, feds work that way. Yeah, they got five days. So when you computed their release date, you'd commute that in there. When you computed their release date, you'd commute that in there. If they got a year sentence, five, it'd be 60 days. So their minimum release date would be that it's a practice 60 days from their military sentence. But that's another thing you could do as a commanding officer. If they screwed around and everything else, boom. You could take that good conduct time away from them. Right, so they'll spend longer in there. They won't get out early. So that's another tool that you could use. But the system backed in wasn't good because if the person received the bad conduct discharge, you couldn't transfer them back home. I mean, they get released from the brig and they'd be waiting around the unit until they could transfer them back home. Because they couldn't transfer them until they took final action on their discharge and, as a result, you'd have a guy that was forfeiture of all paying allowances. He doesn't have a penny in his pocket. Now he's hanging around the base on restriction with no money and they'd re-offend.
Speaker 2:Camp lejeune, for example, there was this is a good story. There was this prisoner. His name was priest, and priest was really one of the dumbest prisoners that I think I've ever encountered. He should have been selling insurance or something. He just he just didn't have it to be a criminal. So, priest, he breaks into the PX at Camp Lejeune through the air conditioning duct, he drops his ID card in the air conditioning system and then takes off with the goods and all that stuff. But the ID card's there. So when the investigators went in they found the ID card. It and they found the ID card.
Speaker 2:So he comes into the brig, he goes to court and he receives like a four month sentence. So he's sentenced to four months. Right, bad conduct, discharge, same system. He gets released. He's hanging around, no money. Well, him and his buddy, they get drunk, they go down to the Marina on the base, they steal a boat and they're trying to go to Cuba. And they, they ran the boat up on a sand dune. The police caught him and they brought them back to the, to the brig to lock him up in pretrial confinement.
Speaker 2:So, commanding officer, he was a lieutenant colonel and tough guy, but a good man. And priest comes in and colonel says to him do you know who I am? He said, yes, sir, you're the commanding officer, because he'd been in the brig before. You're the commanding officer of the brig. He goes, you're right. And he says do you know whose boat that was that you stole? He said no, sir, he said it was mine. This guy was a loser, worst luck, bad luck. And then he had another inmate because we had the two prisons.
Speaker 2:So this one inmate gets out through the mess deck and he jumps in a dipsty dumpster. You know what a dipsty dumpster is? The dipsty dumpster is those big metal things they throw garbage in and everything this garbage, can you know, with thick metal and stuff, and they have to use like a. They have to use a special dump truck that comes down. It's got like a forklift and it lifts the dipsty dumpster up and dumps it into the, into the garbage truck.
Speaker 2:So this inmate, he literally he gets in the dipsty dumpster because he knows the garbage gonna, the guy's gonna come. He's in the dipstick dumpster because he knows the garbage the guy's going to come. He's in the dipstick dumpster. So the garbage truck comes in. It puts the forks in, lifts it up, dumps it in there and now the guy that's driving the garbage truck, he pushes the button to compress it. Now this guy's in the back there, right, and he's compressing. He's lucky, he didn't compress it all the way, but he's crushed in there with all the garbage. So he leaves the gate, the compound. But what does he do? The garbage truck goes to the other brig, goes to the other brig, pulls into the compound. By the time this inmate works his way through the garbage to get out, he jumps out and he starts running to find out that he's in the compound of the other prison.
Speaker 1:The lifetime of stories there.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's stories. Yeah, you too, you got some stories. So anyway, I went to God no, god, no. And then I went to I was running what they call that restoration, you know where prisoners, they're going back to duty.
Speaker 2:And I was a staff sergeant and this captain that I work for, he said I'm putting you in for warrant officer. I said, sir, I don't want to be a warrant officer, I like what I'm doing. No, he said. He said I'm going to put you in for it. I said, okay. So he put me in for it and I didn't get picked up, but I didn't care because I really didn't care. I was, I love what I was doing, I really enjoyed it. So the following year he said I'm putting you in for it again. I said, sir, and he said I'm putting you in for it. So he put me in for it and this Gunny and I, we said, hey, we need to get out of the break, let's let's go to the drill field.
Speaker 2:So we both volunteered to go to the drill field and the Gunny's orders came in and I wanted to be in the same class with him and I called my monitor, which is up in Washington, and I said, hey, where are my orders for the drill field? He said I can't touch your book right now because it's at the warrant officer board. I said when does the board get out? He said in a week. I said well, as soon as it gets out, cut me the orders. He said okay, the board got out and I got Tank that.
Speaker 2:So I went to Quantico, virginia, to the Warrant Officer School officer training course down there, sure, and finished that and then they gave me orders to the brig in Okinawa, which was ideal. My wife's from here and came to Okinawa in 1979. And, uh, I was at the brig for about a month and this full bird colonel said to me he had an Irish brogue, he puts his arm around me and he goes oh, mr Cummings, how would you like to be the officer in charge of correctional custody? Correctional custody is something that the state I don't know if the feds ever went to. It was shock incarceration.
Speaker 1:Some of the states have. Did you ever see that program? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Okay. So correctional custody is basically that it's shock incarceration. So if a Marine goes to nonjudicial punishment that's a minor punishment, not court martial system or anything like that a nonjudicial punishment the commanding officer can give him up to 30 days correctional custody and he goes through like a boot camp. It's hell for 30 days. So this colonel wraps his arm around me and he says to me Mr Cummings, how would you like to be the OIC of correctional custody? I said sir, sir, I want to be the brig officer. He said no, no, mr Cummings, you're going to be the OIC of correctional custody. I said okay, sir. He said don't put your hands on them and don't let your staff put your hands on them. I said no, sir, I won't.
Speaker 2:So I'm up there about a week and the place is out of control. The captain that is not a corrections guy, that had it. He was an alcoholic and all he would do for the whole year that he was there he'd have the driver take him down to the airport on the base and just watch the planes, you know, come and go. He couldn't wait to get back to the States. So I took it over and the place was just out of control. They were doing stuff there that you know. Somebody was going to jail and I remember the words of the colonel and my senior enlisted guy that they assigned me was 55 years old. He made the landing of Okinawa at 17 years old. Walter Balibus he was a gunnery sergeant made the landing. I was 28 years old. This guy made the landing of Okinawa.
Speaker 2:So he's my staff in COIC and I'm into the program a week and I get a call from my duty and he says, sir, one of them jumped the fence last night. I said what happened and he told me and I said no, something's up. So I went in with the gunny and we're questioning them and they said he just took his cartridge belt off and just jumped over the fence. I'm thinking bullshit, you know what. And then I get a call from the investigators. They're saying I was a warrant officer, then Warrant officer, you're going to have to bring these corporals down there. Your awardee we call them awardees your awardee turned himself into us down here and he's been assaulted and so forth.
Speaker 2:I said oh shit, that's not good, this is not good, this is not good. But anyway, thank God we came through it and those guys that had done that I got rid of them as quick as possible, moved them along. They weren't suited for corrections, so I had that program for five years. It's a good program. I mean you can really turn Marines' lives around. In fact it was such a good program that the Navy, the ships out at sea, they heard about it. They would literally the captain of the ship would sentence the guy to 30-day CC. They'd bring the ship into Okinawa only for the purpose of dropping the guy off and then 30 days later they'd come back and they'd pick him up and he got like a little Marine back.
Speaker 2:It was a good program.
Speaker 1:That was a shock for a Navy guy to get dropped off in a Marine.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, that was a shock and a half and it was really a shock for the unit, like when the Navy they got him back and they just couldn't believe it. You know he was like a Marine. He was, you know, yes, was a good Mike. It was a good program. And then the last year they made me the CO of the brig, the brig that I, that fountain, was in. They made me the CO and then I picked up captain, went back to Camp Lejeune as the brig officer That'd be like the deputy warden and had that for about oh no, I'm sorry, yeah, had that for about a year. And then the general, they wanted to start a correctional custody program at Camp Lejeune. So they knew that I had the experience of running the one over there. So they had me set it up and set it up from scratch with the, with the great staff that I had, you know. And then, you know, after that I went back to be the brig officer back there.
Speaker 2:Then, luckily, I got a call from our op field sponsor, which was a lieutenant colonel corrections guy, and he had told me he was going to leave me alone and let me stay at Lejeune. But then he said he came. He said, jim, we're going to have to move you to Pendleton. They're having some problems out there. And I said, sir, you told me you're going to leave me alone and you kept telling me to chill out, chill out, chill out. And I said now you want to bring the junkyard dog out and you want me to go out there to Pendleton. You're going to Leavenworth, which one do you want to go to? I said, well, I damn sure didn't want to go to Leavenworth, out there with the army and stuff and all the years that I'd been in corrections it'd be like old home week seeing those inmates that are out there. So I said, all right, I'll go to Pendleton.
Speaker 2:And luckily enough, the commanding officer over here in Okinawa. He had got passed over from promotion. So I came over to take over for him and when I got here he had had three internal escapes on his three-year duty there. And you'll find this interesting the way the place was designed. They could have designed it as a max facility if they wanted to, but the CEO at that time he designed it like a minimum security facility. There was very few bars on any of the windows. It was a nightmare.
Speaker 2:My predecessor. He had three internal escapes and you know, some of it was due to complacency, some of it was due to the locking system just wasn't strong enough. So I briefed the general and I told him. I said, colonel, I can't guarantee I'm going to have a seat. I need bars, I need more bars. So this, this colonel, he was a-star general and he was a tough guy and he said all right, and millions and millions of dollars, mike, they came.
Speaker 2:Maintenance came to pre. Have you ever seen bars prefab? When they make them from scratch? Holy God, that's a, that's quite a. They were there for six months, months of doing nothing but that those bars To move the project along. We sent inmates in there to work with them too. It was so labor intensive but finally got the whole place barred up and I never had an escape on my watch in the five years that I had it.
Speaker 2:And then, as the CO of the brig in Okinawa, I worked very closely with the Japanese prison system. I would meet with the warden with the Japanese prison system. I would meet with the warden of the Japanese prison once a month and we would talk about the incarcerated, what they call SOFA status prisoners. Have you ever heard a term before SOFA status. It's an abbreviation for status of forces agreement. So it's an agreement between the host nation and the military. They call it SOFA. So when a military person comes to Okinawa or his family comes to Okinawa in their passport, they stamp it with a SOFA stamp. That's their visa to be in Japan.
Speaker 2:So if a person was a SOFA status person when they committed a crime, the Japanese have the first go-so on crimes, even on base, even on base. So if you had a murder on base or a rape or something serious, the Japanese are the first. They have the first go. They have the first go. Or they can say all right, we're kicking them back to you, we're kicking them back to you, but you've got a guarantee that they'll be at court on such and such a date.
Speaker 2:Well, most commanders, they'll lock them up, they can put them in our brig. This is a nice thing that a commander can do. He doesn't have to have a charge or anything else. He just puts in there under status of forces agreement with the host nation, or I forget exactly what the words. He puts in there, but there's no magistrate hearing, no magistrate hearing. So he could keep that. That guy could be locked up for six months until his Japanese court, and the courts take a long time in Japan to go. So I would go down once a month and we'd have a meeting and then I would go through the prison with the warden and I'd go back there and see those inmates. And so it was established a good relationship with different wardens. They have a great system, the Japanese.
Speaker 2:They have a great system.
Speaker 1:I would picture it as very controlled, very controlled. Their culture seems very controlled in what they do. The prison's the same way, huh.
Speaker 2:Mike, absolutely, in fact, if you ever come over here to visit me, I'll take you down there and I'll show you some of their facilities. There's two and they literally it is so controlled. But the nice thing about a Japanese prison it's a little bit. I mean they're very controlled, like I'll give you an example. I mean they're very controlled, like I'll give you an example. They can only, in one week, they can only write a letter, one or two letters, and they can only have three pieces of paper. Okay, now, if the paper is two inches by two inches, that's one piece of paper. If the paper is 12 inches by 24 inches, that's one piece of paper, if the paper is 12 inches by 24 inches.
Speaker 2:That's one piece of paper. So the prisoners I'd go down there and this one prisoner, he was a dirt bag. He said, captain, you know, we appreciate that you're getting papers down here, but can you give us a little bit bigger papers? I said what are you talking about? And he said well, sir, you know. You know, the notebooks that you're giving us are only this big, you know. And he said one page counts as one page, that's it. Can you give us bigger notebooks? And they're very restricted with their food they eat, based on the work job they have.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:How many calories they need have Interesting how many calories they need Exactly. They don't get. Everybody doesn't get the same. If you're, if you're pre-trial, your calories are reduced because you're not leaving yourself. If you're, if you're a sentence prisoner, if you're working in the mess hall, you get so many calories. If you're working outside, you get so many calories. And they got it down to a gnat's butt. They flattened. And the warden? The warden in the japanese prison, he has to go down and sample every meal, every meal, and when you go through there in the chow hall they have to keep for three days the meal that was served refrigerated uh container, the meal that was served for those three days. The meal that was served in a refrigerated container, the meal that was served for those three days.
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:They have to sit. They have to sit and they have to look at the wall. They can't like their cell blocks. They have a what do you call it like a flip thing that goes down like that so you can't be sticking your hand out there.
Speaker 2:Hey guard or anything else Perfect silence, there's no talking. So you flip that switch and that lever comes down. So when a guard sees that he'll come down, what do you need? And that's it. It's very controlling, very strict, but it's a safe environment where an inmate can do their time. They don't have to worry about if they follow the rules. They don't have to worry about being beaten up. They don't have to worry about being raped by another inmate or intimidated by another inmate. It's a safe environment. If I had to do my time, I'd do it in a Japanese prison, in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2:I've always felt strong about this. We that are in the business, we cannot guarantee a safe environment for the inmates that we have in there. We cannot, we cannot. And I say you know society. I've had people tell me lock them, sumbitches up, they shouldn't get anything, and all that. I said. Let me tell you something they still have to be treated, you know, as human beings. I said you start, you know, you start. You know.
Speaker 2:Let's say, a young offender comes in. He got caught smoking marijuana or selling marijuana and he gets a year sentence. Okay, he comes in. Now he's been sentenced, got a year, comes in. He's being intimidated by other inmates, possibly beaten up or worse, he could be raped. Now when this guy gets out, he's pissed at society. He's saying hey, you, you sentence me into this place. I've been victimized, tortured and everything else in here. You know I said we should be able to to provide a safe environment, you know, for them and everything else in here. You know I said we should be able to provide a safe environment, you know, for them and for our staff, but because of the budget, we don't get enough money. We don't have enough programs. There's just not enough money. More needs to be done in the correction system.
Speaker 1:I watched it. You know a lot of that is just it just snowballs for him. Because you'll see and I've seen it, I worked in some pretty rough prisons you get these inmates who come in with a small charge, they've got light at the end of the tunnel, but by the time they get caught up in what's going on, or being threatened or being raped or whatever maybe defending themselves, maybe killing somebody and now you've got this snowball where this guy's going to spend his entire life in prison. So you know there was no chance for them to do better and get out and change. Now they're trapped in that. So yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I would tell when I was giving presentations on the correctional custody system. I'd go around to different units and explain to them that this correctional custody is a good program. You know, it's a punishment authority that you, as the commanding officer, have available to you to send somebody. But don't send somebody that you feel is not salvageable. I said because it's not going to do any good. If you feel the guy is salvageable and everything else, give him that punishment, send them and we can do something with them.
Speaker 1:Don't just send them because you want to get a pound of flesh. So a question that popped up in my head and I don't think I've asked Marine. What do you call a Marine that works in the brig? Is it a correctional officer? Is it a guard? What do you guys refer to them as?
Speaker 2:The manual. As far as the occupational field, it says corrections specialist. Okay, that's what the, that's what the like, remember? Remember? I told you that MOS chart and I said, oh, I want to be a polygraph operator, right? Okay, so you'd have 5831 corrections specialist, 5832 corrections counselor, 5804 Corrections Officer. That's what I was. I was a corrections officer, okay. So we called them corrections specialists. But no, nobody, they still. You know, hey, you're on guard duty. You know you're working SEG, you're working the dorms. You know you're going to be a dorm supervisor, you're going to be a duty warden Names like that. But it was interesting.
Speaker 1:The MHLK guard, or do they ICO or no? No, no Rank rank, rank, rank okay okay, rank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they call them by their rank. Okay, my fault on that. Prisoners are called prisoners if they've been sentenced, and if they're pretrial they're called detainees. Okay so, prisoners if they've been sentenced. And we I think oh, let's see, when I was on, just before I no, not before I retired, maybe a few years before I retired we went before. We used to keep them in their military uniform and then that was nice. We got rid of that. Now we've got orange for sentence prisoners and blue for pre-trial okay, you know I worked with a lot of the guys that worked at the db.
Speaker 1:When they retired they would come over and do another 20 at Leavenworth, a federal prison. So I don't even know. I bet it's probably a quarter or a third of our staff over there at one time had come from the military into the federal system there.
Speaker 2:Did you work Leavenworth too? Not the DB? I worked Leavenworth. No, not the DB. You did, yep.
Speaker 1:Whoa, wow, that's where I started.
Speaker 2:Hot House, the Hot House. I read that book.
Speaker 1:But they used to tell me they did use of forces to give a guy a shave. He wasn't allowed to grow out a beard. So if they were doing that kind of stuff they'd put a team together and shave him or haircuts and stuff.
Speaker 2:So it was kind of interesting to hear those stories from that other side. Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true, that's true. And force feeding them too. We used to force feed them and we used to use it. Back then we were using the four point restraint. You put them on that metal rock and we tied down, you know, with handcuffs, and stuff the legs and the arms.
Speaker 1:We still have it in policy. I think most people are moving into this restraint chair, but we still have it in policy where you can do a four-point restraint. I did a lot of it at the Federal Medical Center because we had inmates who would injure themselves and that's the only way we could stop them from. I mean, I've had guys chew holes in their arms and everything you can imagine at the medical center because we had all the mental health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it reminds me of a funny story had this one inmate back at the back of Camp Lejeune. He was in disciplinary segregation and he had taken his feces and he had formed stars on them and he put them on his shoulder Right and he's stark naked, he's got the stars on his shoulders like this here and the captain the captain to do his security check and he comes and he opens up the door and there's the inmate right there and he says to the captain salute me, give it attention.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then another one I remember the gunny is doing count, he's going down through the cell block and he's got the hand going like one, two, three and he gets to the one and the guy's standing stark naked inside the shitter, at attention, at attention in the shitter, stark naked at attention. I mean you got the stories, Some of these guys, some of the stuff they do, yeah, yeah, sounds like we walked a lot of the same area area, even though we weren't at the same place.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, but you to a more, more dangerous degree. You know, we we didn't, we didn't have what you you had. We had small tippins of those like that, but you, you were dealing with the worst of the worst. Then then let's's see what the heck Then? Well, with the Japanese prison system, I'd go up to mainland Japan and this one warden his name was Myojin-san, this guy from the old school, their Alcatraz was Aba City up in Hokkaido. That was their Alcatraz. And back in those days, the this guy, myojin, that was the warden of the prison here in Okinawa. He was telling me that as a kid he grew up and his father was a guard and his father they lived right there in the compound and Hokkaido is it's, I mean, it's, it's cold, it's really cold up there, and that's one of the, that's one of the big complaints with the Americans that we'd have locked up in the Japanese prison system. Is they? Um, it was cold in the winter and hotter than hell in the summer. They didn't, they didn't give them there's no air conditioning, anything like that there, and they, so that condition, that that part wasn't wasn't good, but as far as safe-wise, they're safe, but they.
Speaker 2:I forgot where I was going with this. So I went up to mainland Japan and I saw this Myojin-san. He took me to this famous place that sold. What did it call tempura? You know tempura? Yeah, yeah, place that sold. What did it call Tempura? You know Tempura? Tempura is like deep fried, okay, tempura.
Speaker 2:So he took me to this Tempura place in Tokyo where all corrections guys go. It was this old antique place. So I'm in there, we're shooting the baloney with some of these other Japanese and I told him I said Yojin-san, I want to see Fuchu Prison. That's their big one in Tokyo, fuchu Prison. He says Kaminzano. He said Yokohama, he's my friend, the warden at Yokohama. This was a Japanese holiday. I went there so he had called him and told him that I was coming with another Japanese person and another person. So we went there on his Japanese holiday and this guy obviously Myojin was very strong before he retired. This guy was there with his suit on and everything else that took me through the whole prison up there. I think they had 3,000 inmates and stuff. They had railroad tracks where they make this stuff and move it along in areas 3,000.
Speaker 2:It was an interesting, clean as a whistle and old as hell. It must have been at least 150 years old. Can't imagine. The deck was the administrative area and everything else was all that old Japanese wood that was shining like a baby's rear end Right. Just beautiful, that's amazing. Can I get you back on here sometime? Can we have?
Speaker 1:another conversation. Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, I'd love to do that too and hear more about this. Before I forget, I want to say thank you for your service. I appreciate what you've done and being in the Marines. Being a Marine, I know that my father was a Marine and he was actually on Okinawa.
Speaker 2:When was your dad on Okinawa it?
Speaker 1:would have been 62 through 64.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh no, I didn't get here until 70. No 71.
Speaker 1:But he might have saw the brig. From what I understand, I think there was a bar fight.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he was there.
Speaker 1:I think there was. Oh yeah, he was there, I think there was a bar fight and he got a little bit of trouble.
Speaker 2:What was your dad? What was your dad's mos? What was it? What field was he in?
Speaker 1:he was communications, that's all I know oh, he's a calm guy.
Speaker 2:I I used to get a lot of calm guys. Those guys, not your father, but those calm guys, man, they were into drugs. Those guys were into drugs. The calm guys, they into drugs. The comm guys, they're too damn smart.
Speaker 1:They had a good weekend at a bar and there was a big fight, and so I think he got in trouble for a weekend, you know. But yeah, that was a story.
Speaker 2:Is he actually alive?
Speaker 1:He passed away a few years ago, but yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I got an invite. If you ever want to come over to Okinawa, I'll show you a good time.
Speaker 1:I'd love to yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that, but I'd love to have you back on here. You're a great guest and wonderful stories, and I want to hear some more of them.
Speaker 2:I'm enjoying so much your you know just your audience there. The whole reason that I'm on here is because I listen to Mike's Not All Prisoners Are Equal talk about the justification for putting people in seg and keeping them in seg for extended periods of time and so forth, and I was just blown away by that. Just so practical. You nailed it. You nailed it. You know every lawyer and those characters that are on CityCons because they're trying to take that away from us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah Well, thank you very much. Would you like to leave an email, or do you have social media where, if somebody wanted to contact you, are you on LinkedIn or anything? I didn't ask.
Speaker 2:They can contact me on Facebook. Okay, facebook, shamey Cummings.
Speaker 1:I'll get that information and I'll put it in the show notes Sure Shamey Cummings.
Speaker 2:Or you can give my email address. I don't care Okay.
Speaker 1:I know sometimes people like to follow up with the guests, so yeah, but in part two we can talk about my new life now. I would love to. I would love to hear about it talk about my new life now.
Speaker 2:I would love to. I would love to hear about it.
Speaker 1:You'll be shocked to say well boy, this guy made a real change in careers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Thank you so much, jimmy. I appreciate you coming. Okay, mike, it was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you for having me too.
Speaker 1:Have a great day.
Speaker 2:Hey, Semper Fibro.
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