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October 12, 2004
Letter from Club Fed 10-5 (2/2)
On Friday, September 17th, a list of 270 was posted. Those on the list would be returning to Eglin on Saturday to begin the clean-up. Thank my lucky stars, my name was on the list! At 6am Saturday morning, we boarded rental buses (similar to a Greyhound) and began the trip “home.” As the I-10 Bridge east of Pensacola was washed out in the hurricane, we traveled secondary routes and back roads and got a good look at some of the devastation as we made our way through Alabama. Some of the scenes were reminiscent of Andrew in South Florida. Trees, power and phone lines were down everywhere. It was pretty easy to see where the tornados touched down as we’d see a 20-40’ swath of trees snapped off like matchsticks versus those laying on the ground with roots in the air during the hurricane. Some of the destruction was pretty surreal.
We arrived back at the compound and found ourselves knee-deep in branches and leaves. Only a half dozen trees were down but the hurricane force winds really took a toll on leaves. Most of the trees were stripped better than 50%. It was somewhat reminiscent of the fall season, up north. There’s a lot less shade here than there used to be. Cleanup took about 3 days, after which one would have been hard pressed to believe we’d just been through a hurricane. .
The only other item of interest is the fact that the rest of the camp population, about 600 guys, won’t be coming back. Turns out they have been shipped from Yazoo City to about a half dozen other facilities around the southeast. There’s a convoluted political shell game behind that happenstance. Let’s just say that it’s another successful occurrence of the government’s ability to defraud the American Public. I won’t even get started down that path. I’ve seen many instances of fraud for which you or I would definitely be brought up on charges. I’ll save those stories for when I see y’all again. .
There are now, and for the immediate future, 270 inmates on this compound. I’m pretty busy these days. I also expect to start the DAP (Drug Awareness Program) within the next 3 weeks. That will shave 18 months off my sentence, so I expect to be home September/October of next year. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
Looking forward to hearing from all who can take the time to write!
You can email Michael at
Posted by Bastique at October 12, 2004 11:39 PM