Real Prisoners Are Real People: Meet Matt

I first met Matt in a college course titled English 271: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. When I first arrived to "ENG 271" it surprised me that the class involved so much reading and writing. Since it was my first college class, I felt as though I had jumped into the deep end. I had never written a college essay before and thus felt decently unprepared when I received the workload.

When we got our scores back for our first essay, Matt had this somewhat cocky grin on his face. I wasn't grinning. I was scowling. I had busted my ass on that assignment, pulling out every stop I had to get an 'A' and what I got was an 88%! Matt had the highest grade in the class with a 94%.

I sat, feeling a mixture of bewilderment, jealousy, and resentment. After staring at the little paper tag stapled to my essay that read "88%", I took a breath, collected myself, and turned behind me to speak with Matt.

"How the hell did you pull that off?!"

Turned out, Matt was more than willing to give me advice on essay writing and, as the semester went on, I got to know him much better. In fact, we had much more in common than I originally had guessed.

For starters, we both had (and still have) big goals in academia. When Matt and I initially spoke about what we wanted to do in terms of college, we shared our dreams. Matt wanted to attend a very selective business program at the University of Washington while I wanted to follow in the footsteps of one of my Fire Team Leaders and attend an Ivy League School.

At the time we were both worried that, because we had felonies, such prestigious institutions would outright reject us. Despite the odds, we had a shared mindset: we'd do our best to graduate with 4.0's and, in doing so, we'd have the best chance of being accepted. If they rejected us, it would be because of stigma and NOT our proven academic ability as students. This mindset would allow us to hold our heads high in case the latter happened.

I was happy that Matt was also an army veteran. He joined the Army at the age of 19—shortly after 9/11—and enlisted as a Health Care Specialist. After completion of his initial training, Matt took a presented opportunity to attend Army Nursing School. He expressed that the Army was a way for him to leave the nest and that it was his "American Dream."

When I asked him about his high school experience, it surprised me when he said he did "terrible" in high school and he only figured out he was "smart" during the 79 weeks he attended Nursing School.

"I found I liked helping people and hated seeing them in pain," he professed, "As a nurse I was learning my niche."

I got to know Matt over that semester, even more so when I became his cellmate that winter when I transferred to minimum custody. During that time, I got to know—and love—a more personal side of him: his nerdy side.

Matt is just as nerdy (if not a tad nerdier) as me. He loves manga, anime, Dungeons and Dragons, and has experience raiding in the video game World of Warcraft. Because of our shared interests, we developed a Dungeons and Dragons Warcraft campaign based on the video game. I wrote the script and fleshed out the characters while Matt programmed combat encounters and outlined professional grade maps for the game.

Saturday became our favorite night to stay up late and watch Toonami – a television programming block that primarily consists of Japanese anime from 10:30 pm to 5:00 am. Matt was into Dragon Ball Z—a show about super humans from an alien world who take five episodes to "power up" into more hardcore (and blonder) versions of themselves, then beat the pulp out of each other. I fell back in love with a show I used to watch as a kid, FLCL. FLCL (pronounced full ee kool lee) is an animated show featuring a superhuman alien guitar-wielding chick that breaks social conventions while saving the world each episode.

For Matt and me, Toonami was one of the best ways we could feel connected to the real world. When we watch those shows, we don't feel like we're stuck in a prison cell. We feel a sense of freedom. Watching anime is a way to connect to our past of staying up late with friends or remembering the freedom that comes with watching something uncensored by Department of Corrections (DOC).

Throughout the winter, Matt and I were training partners for the CRCC dog program: a DOC sponsored program that rehabilitates sheltered dogs through positive reinforcement training. It is interesting to note that our first assignment together wasn't with sheltered dogs, but with sheltered kittens.

In my eyes, our room became less like a prison cell and more like a Ranger School foxhole (with kittens). We could talk for hours about our military experiences and what we did in the Army. It felt more like we were deployed than being "punished".

We both had stories to tell. At night, after Toonami, we'd chat about our experiences in the Army. Matt eventually opened up about his experience in Iraq. After Matt had finished nursing school, he volunteered for a deployment in June 2006; departing just after his son was born. Although he was a nurse, he was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division as a line medic. Within a few years of enlisting, Matt had found himself participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He told me, "I thought I was going to die the very first night I was in Iraq. We got shelled 39 times. I woke up to C-Rams and alarms going off. At the time I was in a cot, so I just rolled over and said to myself 'if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die comfortable'."

"In Balad," he said, "we got hit every day."

After staging in Balad, Matt went on to COB Warhorse; a post at the edge of the Sunni triangle. Matt told us that the COB had decent food but the COB itself was "crappy and small". He stated there were "hescos (a kind of barrier) everywhere" and that the chow hall needed a mortar shield because they got mortared so often.

Because Warhorse served as a staging area for operations, it also served as a casualty collections point. It was there that Matt first treated casualties, and it was there Matt left for his first real operation.

Matt's first combat operation with 1st Cavalry Division was a dismounted spearhead into Baqubah, Iraq. The mission itself was designed to clear out an insurgent stronghold inside the city. When Matt's unit got within a few miles of Baqubah, the unit was repeatedly ambushed by mixtures of small arms fire and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). According to Matt, his unit advanced at a rate of 1 mile per 8 hours.

"The entire unit got bogged down trying to navigate IEDs and boobie traps," Matt said, "It got bad enough that we had to withdrawal." In total, Matt's unit had 8 KIAs and 47 WIAs. The military didn't give up, however. Once 1st Cavalry pulled back the Air Force smashed the stronghold with an incredible amount of firepower. The following assault by air essentially allowed other ground forces to move and take the stronghold. The U.S. military, I have learned, doesn't like to lose.

After the assault, Matt was commended for his "lifesaving actions" which "allowed those to live who otherwise would have died". It is because of his interventions that Matt was awarded the Bronze Star—an award I only found out he had because he left his DD214 out and I asked him about it.

After his year and a half long deployment, Matt was transferred to a medical battalion in Hawaii as a pediatric nurse. Unlike other nurses Matt wasn't changing diapers. Because of his combat experience, Matt was assigned to a pediatric ICU (Intensive Care Unit) where he worked with children who were in critical condition. When I asked him how many children whose lives he helped save, he told me "over 200".

During Matt's assignment to Hawaii he sought treatment for a back injury he sustained after a mortar round struck just behind the tail of his Humvee. The physician assigned to him, instead of opting for physical therapy prescribed Vicodin. Unfortunately, after a few years of taking the drug, Matt developed an addiction to it.

"It became a device not only for dealing with the pain, but with stress. There were sometimes I'd zone out and actually believe I was being mortared — although it would be a door slamming or a pot crashing to the floor… the meds took the edge off."

When I asked whether Matt thought he was suffering from PTSD he replied, "Perhaps, but back then there was still a stigma about that kind of stuff. I didn't want to lose my job, and I didn't want to be labelled."

Personally, I believe Matt suffers from symptoms of PTSD. As his cellmate, I woke up a few times to him screaming. I also feel compelled to note that since Matt is incarcerated, he has extremely limited access to any kind of treatment for his issues—whether they be his knee, his teeth, or dealing with his experiences overseas.

After serving his time as a pediatric nurse, Matt was transferred to Joint Base Lewis-McCord where he was assigned to another medical battalion. According to Matt, this is where he found himself in trouble. He began working for a private medical clinic off-base, although he was still enlisted. Subsequently, Matt began taking opiate medication from the private clinic for his own use.

Because of this addiction, Matt lost both jobs and was discharged from the Army. Charged with "Diversion", he served jail time and completed court-ordered rehab.

Despite his mistake, Matt tried to get on with his life after rehab. He attended Pierce College where he earned High Honors, became a part of the Honor Society and was elected Class President. He met a beautiful woman, whom he engaged, and worked towards his goal of becoming a successful businessman.

Unfortunately, three years after his original charge of Diversion, and despite his efforts after rehab, Matt's addiction got the best of him. This relapse led to his current incarceration.

An army veteran, Matt risked his life many times to serve our country and, although he is incarcerated, continues to serve the best way he can. As I write this, it's been a year and a half since we had English 271 together. Since then Matt has graduated the Associated Degree program and met his goal of attaining a 4.0 GPA. Additionally, Matt participated in the teacher's aide program and helped his fellow incarcerated citizens earn their GEDs. He has served a year long term as a board member for the prison's veteran project as Flag Detail Lead and Honor Guard Lead and is working as a handler for the new service dog program that trains therapy dogs for veterans afflicted with PTSD.

In prison, it is the people beside you that make it bearable. Matt is one of those people. I am glad and grateful to have met him.