Anthony Torres and Patricia Sowers

00:02 I have something I might read over.

00:05 Okay. My name is Patricia Figueroa Sowers. I'm 67 the date. Today is March 11th. The location as you is the University of Miami here in Coral Gables, Florida and the relationship to my partner is interesting because we have emailed back and forth quite a bit and we've just met for the first time today. I like him already. So I think I already feel like I know him so that's my relationship.

00:40 Okay, my name is Anthony Torres. I'm 33 years old. It's March 11th, 2015 and we're here at the University of Miami and Coral Gables and my partner is Miss hours that director of War Mama's working with storycorps on the veterans storytelling project.

01:06 Okay terrific.

01:09 It's since I don't know about about about your background. Why don't we start there? Tell me a little bit about yourself where you were born where you grew up just anything that you think might be interesting for us to get to know you better. Okay? Well, I was born in Brooklyn New York 1981. I have a younger brother is 4 years younger than me. He's actually here in Miami At Law School in St. Thomas University.

01:41 My parents moved to Upstate New York when I was about 4 years old. So my mother lives in Utica New York, that's where I was raised. We call it Central New York what everyone in New York City is Upstate. So it's near Syracuse way up there.

02:01 Yeah, and most of my family moved out of New York City. My mother really wanted to get us away from

02:09 A lot of the issues legal issues drug addiction alcoholism a lot of things that were affecting my family. She kind of wanted to raise us in a better environment basically so she came and then her two sisters came and her brother came and my grandma came and before we knew it most of my family was in Upstate, New York.

02:29 Most of them are also

02:34 Continued with drug and alcohol problems. So they brought in a no matter where you go there you are kind of thing. So my parents were both an active a drug addiction and they separated and my father couldn't find work and he kind of didn't want to be around my mom's family. So he went back to New York City and not not too long after that. My mom was introduced to Not only was she brought into a local church, but she was also introduced to Narcotics Anonymous and

03:12 I believe it was the fall of 1991 that she stopped using drugs and alcohol and it's been a while. I think over 25 years that she's been clean and it's I'm really proud of her to really cool to go back home. And and I've been to a few meetings over the last few years and hear her talking as kind of a Elder in the community of recovery, but I'm really proud of her it took my dad a few more years, but he also mostly through church was able to maintain sobriety for almost as long as my mom. So I'm really proud of them and I honestly think then being separated now, I look back as an adult looking back. I feel them being separated. They were able to you know, kick their habits and kind of whether it's church or recovery programs.

04:00 Be clean and sober and to me that means more than anything so hard. Yeah, it was a I'm proud of both of them.

04:09 Did you graduate from high school?

04:16 Yes, I played football. I ran track in high school. I was pretty lanky. I'm a little less than six foot but I was always very skinny. I love sports. I definitely got distracted by.

04:31 Girls and I guess you could say I experimented with drugs in my late teens or yeah late teens.

04:41 You know, what's funny about school is that?

04:45 A lot of my friends graduating high school went away to the Syracuse University one went to NYU another one to Ithaca College lot of really awesome schools and I realized oh high school's over. What am I supposed to be doing with myself right now and I always enjoyed riding. So I wrote for my school paper. I wrote for the yearbook. I took a journalism class and just loved it. So I kind of knew I wanted to write I wrote like love poems about all my girlfriends in high school. So is my friends all left home. I figured okay, when we go to the Community College not too far from high school to high school and I dropped out within a semester. I really didn't know why I had no Focus. I had no goals and my mom just kind of she supported me, but she herself worked. She work full-time went through.

05:45 Went to college while we were growing up. She could only supervised so much. So me and my brother kind of had, you know, a lot of freedom and the downside to that was that he more than me got into trouble at times.

05:58 I went to the Community College. I really I dropped out within a semester and I didn't really know what to do with myself. My father was in the National Guard in the 80s my father I saw him once or twice a year holidays in summer break. He was a superhero in my eyes. He was a big strong guys a black belt in karate. He was a kickboxer. He was Superman and dad always encouraged me go in the military for the four career for the discipline to stay in shape. He was always about Fitness.

06:32 Took me sometime. I finally approached the recruiter. I was 19 years old. I had quit. I don't want three or four minimum-wage jobs. I just couldn't find anything useful do it myself and I thought that it would be an opportunity to get in shape to start a career to travel to get some discipline. So I kept her call and I kept calling the recruiter and then and then I wouldn't return his calls or iced. I kind of disappear. So finally one day he says to me What's your deal man? He goes you're contacting me, but you're backing off. What's going on. Are you scared? I go. Yeah, I'm kind of scared. I don't know what the military life is is like, you know, you get kind of comfortable in your misery.

07:19 In this little town in Upstate New York. I don't know if I can if I want to commit to active duty. So he tells me when my wife's not too far away from here at a Reserve Center. She's a she's in civil Affairs civil Affairs Battalion in the Army Reserve. Why don't you talk to her and learn more about the job and see if you're interested in it. So I met with her I learned about civil Affairs seem pretty interesting to me. It's kind of a international relations kind of a job where you you study countries and you inform units. Are you get attached to a field unit like an infantry unit and your kind of a subject matter expert in the country you your kind of delays on between the civilians or the leadership of that country and the US military it sounded like a pretty cool job. So I went in March of the year 2000 I went to bootcamp. I went to Fort Benning Georgia, which is the home of the Infantry. It's like, I'm an army reservist. I'm

08:19 The fair so I'm like, I'm not a combat position and we're screaming kill kill kill the funniest thing. It just seems so bizarre absurd to me all my drill sergeants were like these badass like Airborne Ranger Infantry, man, and it was fun and wanted and one hand on the other hand it was

08:40 Pretty scary. I'll never forget the first night of boot camp my bunk buddy. Was this little this little guy named Rivera was his name from Hawaii.

08:49 And they shut the lights off first night at boot camp and we hear crying we her sobbing weeping and aside from my own shock of like I feel like I just signed up to go to prison, but we're hearing these moans and crying and I I leaned over the bed and look at him and go.

09:09 What the heck batteries like this is pretty crazy. Like we were all in shock.

09:18 Boot camp was a special experience though. It really a lot of my I know if you want to say fault, but my laziness my lack of discipline was front-and-center and I was confronted by drill sergeants by other soldiers for laying in bed too much and not making or not, you know, happy my uniform the way it needs to be or whatever. It might be. I learned a lot. I was a Growing Experience. One thing I'll never forget is it was about halfway through boot camp when you're learning about what it means to be a soldier.

09:51 About military history and its role in the country and I started to become super patriotic, but you can't help it in that kind of environment because these drill sergeants would push you and yell at you and force you to do things with your scared and I didn't force you to work together with other strangers and

10:12 I just realized I'm part of something huge and it's a fellow. So like a huge honor to be a part of this if it really special and I definitely became more patriotic out of boot camp. So I went back home to Upstate New York what you might have been not a good thing, but I went back home. I went to a local State College majoring in journalism grade first semester.

10:42 By the second semester, I started skipping classes at my age turn to bees. I started I had a girlfriend off and on who she was in University of Pittsburgh playing softball and the long-distance thing. We're kind of together or not. And when we were not I was out in college just fooling around and

11:05 Acting like you know what when I when we weren't talking I guess I was treating it like I was single when we were back together. How's it going? I'm in a relationship.

11:15 But going to bootcamp and itself didn't really do anything once I got back into and I was in the dorms for the first time. I was about an hour away from home. I started spending skipping a class and going to hang out with my friends back home and then it would happen twice a week. And then before I knew it I was hardly at school at all. So by

11:37 Give me the third semester. I had pretty much dropped out now during this whole time once a month. I went to Utica put on my uniform and did the ended my drill my weekend drills.

11:50 That was the only thing I was going well in my life, so

11:55 I went away for training the annual training for 2 weeks to Louisiana. We were in the field for almost two weeks straight. No showers just doing the exercises. We were doing role playing as a civil Affairs specialist in a foreign country and meeting with dignitaries and local leaders and working with them on

12:20 Remaining peaceful with the military and trying to conduct our operations moving civilian to refugees from one point to another we had training exercises a really cool job. I was promoted I was given an award was given a certificate of appreciation and I noticed that was kind of the only thing that's going well in my life. I was really enjoying my job.

12:45 So after dropping out of college moving back home and trying another couple of minimum-wage jobs. I said, I think I need to go active duty. I think I need to go now civil Affairs is only the reserves. They that they wanted people who were it was great. It was great for someone in that job to be a part-time civilian because you're going to be dealing with civilians often. They wanted someone to kind of in-between from like infant like, you know, like combat infantry officers and a local Alexei Afghani or Iraqi civilian leader. That's what civil Affairs is there to do. So they like it to be a reservist job. So I thought I would have great opportunity. I can pick a new job go active duty. So I was able to get out of my contract.

13:32 October 2002

13:36 I went pick the new job. I wanted to go in the medical field didn't really want to be a medic. So I said what else is there and I came across a mental health Tech.

13:47 It just seemed interesting to me. It seemed like a unique job. My mother's been a caseworker was a caseworker for for almost 25 years working with low income families folks HIV patients. I feel she did. She was definitely an inspiration with the idea of getting into a job where you're helping people and it was a military job at that. It sounded like a cool thing to do. So in 2002, I went to San Antonio, Texas and I trained for 6 months for mental health.

14:23 And I got my orders I started dating a girl in training.

14:27 There were at least 30 people in this class the two of us who were off and on dating got stationed at together in the same base same unit total like it was so weird. I couldn't believe it. So we really weren't dating by the time we were done with this program. But we had we started spending time together as we left San Antonio to go to Fort Hood and the same unit. We're the only people that knew each other we started dating again.

14:59 So I was at the Ford it was a community hospital is now Medical Center. Darnall Army Medical Center and I was put right into an inpatient Psychiatry unit like a crisis unit and I worked there for a year and it was pretty much a nursing assistant position, but it was like Psychiatry people in crisis. So we were getting soldiers and spouses in full psychotic episodes suicidal soldiers.

15:30 People dealing with just any form of psychosis a lot and any kind of mental health problem, but in crisis and I did that for about a year.

15:42 In the summer of 2005

15:47 My supervisor she was in 87. He was a Sergeant First Class. She was off this one day.

15:56 So the next level supervisor woke me up out of bed. I work the overnight shift, and he said he Torres.

16:05 We need we need a we need to submit a name today to join a medical unit from Fort Polk, Louisiana to go to Iraq and he starts telling me on and he goes home and it's going to be easy. You'll be in the rear somewhere hospitals are always in the rear by the way. That's what he tells me and he goes probably about six months get a little combat patch get a little extra pay because you're up for it. Now. I know he was pouring it on. I know he's kind of flea was cute as a bullshiter. He really was but

16:38 I come across like comment butts and

16:42 There was one military policeman that I saw before that this this this happened and he had with that famous kind of thousand yard stare in his eyes. I didn't know what he saw in Iraq. He was barely functioning he has he was he was definitely traumatize and I wondered what he had been through because I went through his belongings in the psych unit. I had to inventory it and I'm looking at a journal and looking at all of his gear dirty some bloody. I just wondered what had he gone through not being on active duty in 2004 when Iraq is just starting Afghanistan it been going on.

17:24 Part of me. Wanted to go to be honest.

17:30 So when is opportunity happened I said sign me up?

17:34 So he put my name in and the next day my the E7 comes back to work and goes what the hell I would not send you because you're one year of experience under your belt. I would have sent this other guy who had been in the anal been working for almost 10 years, but it was too late. I was signed up and when I got my orders about a week later, I read them and they said no less than one year 12 months. No less than 12 months.

18:03 Duty location Abu ghraib prison Iraq

18:07 And I said what the fuck did I just get myself into and I remember crying in the barracks just in my bed with my girlfriend sleeping next to me. Just like I just signed up to kill myself. I really felt like what did I just do when I started thinking outside of myself? What am I going to put my parents through? What am I going to

18:28 Like 23 years old. I didn't know what I was doing what I was getting myself into and then I had to tell myself.

18:35 I signed up I volunteered I go and I need to go like prepared for the worst. I need to make my peace and I need to go and do my job and I I told my I had convinced myself that so myself in three officers. We get on a plane to fly over to Louisiana. We trained for one week with a field Hospital 115 field Hospital there now a combat support Hospital over 200 people think I'm going to 250 people and we we make our way from Louisiana on July 2004. We fly to Germany then Kuwait then Baghdad International Airport and we load up on these 5 ton trucks with no overhead cover, of course.

19:26 In Bagdad what you feel the tension is in the air along with sounds of explosions and gunfire. It's there. It's a

19:40 Yeah.

19:42 ODB there's nothing. I don't know how to.

19:47 There's nothing to comfort you but God and each other like I know that whether you like the person or not you left and right of you I just felt like he has my back and I have his she has my back and I have hers cuz we're all we got so it's very

20:07 I don't know the word it is.

20:12 You get to the real core of being I guess I don't know how to say it. It's kind of just a bit distant. It's kind of

20:21 And isn't then there's also the issue of the enemy.

20:26 I'm a piece really quickly with the idea of being killed that if it comes for me to pull my trigger and for me to go home or for you to go home.

20:37 I'm going to pull that trigger or for you to harm someone that's with me so it ran or I thought about it a lot. It it it.

20:47 I really had to.

20:51 It's kind of a it doesn't feel like the right word, but make peace with the idea that

20:57 If my life depends on it, then I'm I'm I need to be prepared to kill and it's such a weird thing and it's something I think most hardly ever gets.

21:08 Even really think about it and there's people whose jobs were to do that and I didn't know what that was. Like I was in the hospital to the medical unit. So I really wasn't trying to kill ice cream in bootcamp every 6 months. I went to the range and learn how to use and I'm 16, but this was a whole different thing. So we get in the back of the truck and as a guy puts us and he lets us know. Hey guys, by the way, the 6in Metal Frames on each side of this truck. Probably not going to stop most of which being shot at you so he goes you see something somebody shoot that you shoot back and you get to this truck and we take off so we go west to Abu ghraib prison and we pull in and that's my home for the next 12 months.

21:53 Did you already had the reports on I'll be there already come out at that time. So you knew he knew about on the news that I think that happened in the spring of 2004 from if I mistake about January. We were there in July. So it was well-known and as we got there.

22:15 We realize that our job was to take care of everyone to improve America's image and say, you know, despite the Scandal that happened. We're here to take care of of of the the detainees that were there. So we built the hospital in an empty warehouse and we had everything from nutrition to we had a radiologist there. We had physical therapy and then we had a mental health Team about a dozen or so.

22:49 We had a psychiatrist or social worker psychiatric nurses and I was one of anywhere from three to five taxi very people came and went there for reasons. So guess who didn't have an office. There was no room in this hospital for mental health.

23:08 Really let you know people jokes on the way there like what are you guys doing? Like? What are you doing here? What are you going to do in combat to counsel people like that's

23:19 And it had me second-guessing it like what is my role going to be what I'm going to be doing? Cuz no one's ever done as a full-out mental health Team in combat in a prison in combat.

23:33 And we actually provided mental health care to the Iraqi detainees while we were there. So it's a very unique unique experience.

23:43 So guess what we decide to put our office maker office. We built a 10 will we we we we set up a tent right outside of the detainee camps. We figured we'd be close to the prisoners because we'd be doing a lot of work with them. So we were stone's throw away from where they were keeping insurgents quote on quote suspected of terrorist activity. So that's where we set up shop if we had a meetings everyday.

24:12 Yeah, I'm sorry. That was the mental health Team and end. These were Americans for the most part the soldiers at the ones that you treated where the Iraqi prisoners correct? Did everyone so in the prison at any given time work?

24:29 All five branches of the US military Coalition forces so unit from

24:39 Romania came and just disseminated throughout our unit and just helped us any way. They could most couldn't speak English then we had civilian contractors. So we had Americans out there working for the government to help us whether it was just to host party night every Saturday and just cook popcorn and show movies that were Medics. There were Carpenters. They were different people working with us prisoner.

25:15 How did they behave how did you behave towards them where you can as you can imagine like any prisoner to have someone to give you attention and talked to was comforting. So a lot of them love us and we were the talkers so they called us all doctor which is kind of cool wasn't a doctor. But even it just to be in the medical field, even though the other D Marine unit that was there in the towers the military police unit from Puerto Rico. That was they're guarding the prisoners. They all called us back. We were all Doc and Iraqi prisoners that we would talk to.

25:49 I knew that we were the kind of ones that were helping them with.

25:55 I think the term is Nexia with the mental problems for language.

26:04 We did what we needed to do. We usually have a chance. We were given one or two translators throughout the year translators were scarce we had

26:16 We had some interpreters from Baghdad, who are

26:20 I don't none of them seemed like professional interpreters. They just were bilingual. So these guys would come and they do their state. They stay with us at the prison for months on end and they'd go home here and then here and there but they were with us. We were given a solid interpreter about halfway through who knew nothing about mental health, but he's pretty bad and interpreting. So honestly, what we did was in the camps, you know, these camps were set up they had basically a map to sleep on the floor.

26:52 Blanket and they were all shoulder-to-shoulder in a 10. That's it. That's pretrial confinement in Abu ghraib prison, and then they were they were friends. Then they were given mealtime few times a day. What happened was the leaders the religious leaders the educated ones they were the ones kind of ran the camps and often times. They were the ones who would help us.

27:17 One thing and Iraq, you said to me he was one of these leaders who was a religious leader was he a prisoner? Yes, these are all prisoners so you could just tell the others spoke very well. They were educated.

27:32 You don't know who these guys are just like prison. Everyone's innocent. You don't know who who who who was who was the one that said off roadside bomb or who was the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time? Because when an RPG Fires at a convoy driving on the road gas with the Convoy does they get out and they grabbed everyone on that corner and put them on the back of the of the truck and bring them out of a great present. That's what happens. If you don't know who's who and was really hard for some of us may not so much one of my fellow soldiers is female that joined us a few months after we started she cried a lot. She was very emotional about we don't know who's innocent who's guilty these men are crying about being away from their families for several months. No court date. They don't know when they're if and when they're ever going to go home.

28:23 And I told her.

28:27 We're working for a psychiatrist. We're here to do our job.

28:34 We need to do our job and then go home and that's what I told her. I said I think I lack a little compassion and retrospect but at the same time.

28:43 You kind of just it's what I needed to tell myself to get by you can't get wrapped up in the motion ality of a lot of it. So.

28:54 One of the Iraqi leader guys you help us a lot. He said to me one day. Thank you for what you do?

29:02 Because I don't agree with what your country is doing here. I don't agree with your president Your Leader says but I see that you guys are here to help. Thank you. You didn't ask for anything. I don't feel like he was manipulating me. It was just in a conversation and I walked away kind of shocked. It was kind of, you know, there's Humanity in this madness and that was some of it.

29:27 So I had a lot of those kind of conversations with people there about religion life in.

29:33 Sometimes they would talk to me in Arabic.

29:38 And I will go like that. I would put my hand up at them and they work step back and go all the sky doesn't speak Arabic and I'm like no, I don't speak Arabic Arabic as US Army I go I'm not but they didn't know when they would assume and that was a unique thing to two kind of.

29:59 Yeah. Yeah, I kind of look like them. That was that's kind of a thing. It's kind of a weird thing to ya so.

30:10 With the help of interpreters. I mean we learn several phrases. I mean, I didn't know much about mental health when I got there as part of the reason why my ncoic that you 7 didn't want me to go. But if we had a psychiatrist who mentored us big-time right from the get-go, he was like, I need you guys proficient.

30:35 I need you guys proficient in your job. So I'm going to train you and train the hell out of us is a little frustrating how long

30:42 What months and then after that I went back to Fort Hood, Texas and I was promoted halfway to my deployment to E5. So I was a sergeant and I was put in charge of the substance abuse clinic for Fort Hood, Texas. So for a year, I was kind of an administrator. So I helped run the clinic. I did all the fire drills. I made sure the staff was a bunch of training. I was about 25 years old to almost every one of the building was older than me, but it was a great experience. So in 2006 that I decided to get out of the army a lot of the officers that work with in Iraq.

31:22 Give me confidence in my ability.

31:26 I felt I didn't really feel that I could do much more but by doing this by going through what I've gone through and being supported by them. I felt I can do more so I felt I need to get out. I need to get out and go to college because I'm

31:47 I had it I had kind of a new found confidence in myself. So I moved to Miami to I was going to do occupational therapy FIU Florida International University. I didn't have the prerequisite I need it. So I came to Miami Dade College for a year. In the meantime. I was hired by the Miami VA as a mental health Tech and I work there for almost five years. I was working on a psychology degree. I figured my background and it's probably be a good idea to be a good idea to maybe pursue the field happened to journalism.

32:22 When you're gone, right when I move to Miami, I I rented a room from an old Jewish couple in Kendall and they said, you know, we usually see foreign exchange students here in older people responsible people people from other countries. Why do you want to rent a room from us for $450 a month? You know, who are you where you from and I talked to them and they said they liked me and they took me in. So for year-and-a-half I live with this couple the wife was a poet and an English professor, and she just said she invited me to a poetry reading as I used to write nice, and she said you should keep writing so I started writing.

33:04 And I hosted a poetry night at the Miami VA 2012 and I invited this organization called University of Wynwood on Scott Cunningham. Who runs it he brought to poets with him and we had them over 50 people there and it was so cool. And I've been writing I started attending workshops to works out with Elizabeth Alexander the inaugural poem for Obama. Just tons of different Robert Pinsky li-young Lee from Chicago. I started going to all these yes at the book fair workshops and he started writing for the first time with this is very recent had an interest in writing about my experiences in the military.

33:49 So Miami Dade College live Arts came to me and said would you like to be a coordinator for an initiative? We're starting we want to do a veterans creative writing group culminating in a performance in April. We want to bring Bass track live did the national tour theater performance about a marine going to combat coming home. Would you like to be a part of this and help us out? I absolutely and I a bad thing is I just I just started a semester Masters in Social Work Program.

34:17 So I'm starting a new program in school while trying to be a part of this project we have for veterans meeting every Saturday morning at Miami Dade Kendall. We have Teo Castellanos local play right now after leaving the group and we're going to do kind of a spoken word performance April 19th at the Betsy Hotel.

34:42 And we're going it's going to be split into three Acts were going to talk about our childhood our military experience and then post-military life. So I'm really excited to be a part of that. And yeah, and I'm helping get the word out about Bass track live by reaching out to local organizations, like one Mamas and I went to a reading with books and books with Phil clay the author feel cry and he said that if we don't tell our stories no one will and I can't I can't stop thinking about that line. I feel like it's it's for us it's for after I get to her as combat vets for these recent Wars that is so important for our history to our families.

35:28 That it's I feel like it's our responsibility to share our strategy stories with each other and with the community and I'm really excited to do that. That's why you came today. That's why I'm here and it's been a total Delight. I'm so glad to know you.

35:50 Thank you.

35:52 That was too.