MY LIFE, AS I KNEW IT, WAS OVER. After 15 years of honorable service in the United State Army, a military court martial convicted and sentenced me to life in prison.
That year everything came to a stop. The Army shipped me from Germany, where I had been stationed, to the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There I was housed in the isolation ward ("the hole") for 30 days of observation, locked down 23 hours a day. I had nothing to do except send letters to people, including my wife and 16-year-old son, who were back in Germany, and nothing to read other than the rule books of the institution.
But the fellow in the next cell received The Christian Science Monitor five days a week that he let me read after he finished the paper. I read every word on every page.
