Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib
    Unavailable
    Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib
    Unavailable
    Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib

    Written by Larry C. James and Gregory A. Freeman

    Narrated by Eric Kramer

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In April 2004, the world was shocked by the brutal pictures of beatings, dog attacks, sex acts, and the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. As the story broke, and the world began to learn about the extent of the horrors that occurred there, the US Army dispatched Col. Larry James to Abu Ghraib with an overwhelming assignment: to dissect this catastrophe, fix it, and prevent it from ever happening again.

    A nationally well-known and respected Army Psychologist, Col. James's expertise (including a previous deployment to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) made him the one individual capable of taking on this enormous task. Through Col. James's own experience on the ground, readers will see the tightrope military personnel must walk while fighting in the still new battlefield of the war on terror, the challenge of serving as both a doctor/healer and combatant soldier, and what can (and must) be done to ensure that interrogations are safe, moral, ethical, and effective.

    An insightful and intense personal narrative, Fixing Hell shows readers Abu Ghraib as they've never seen it before.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2008
    ISBN9781600243608
    Unavailable
    Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib

    Related to Fixing Hell

    Related audiobooks

    Psychology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Persistence on The pinhoti Trail

      Jun 25, 2021

      Persistence on The pinhoti Trail
      5 min read

    • Article

      Surfing In Conflict

      Feb 12, 2024

      Surfing In Conflict
      6 min read

    • Article

      Joint (ad)venture

      Mar 25, 2022

      Joint (ad)venture
      5 min read

    • Article

      Vanishing Point

      Dec 15, 2021

      Vanishing Point
      7 min read

    • Article

      Prison Index

      Mar 6, 2018

      Prison Index
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blast From The Past

      Jan 5, 2023

      Now that the military, NASA and SETI-types are on the case regarding UAPs, it leaves little room for amateur investigators to make much of an impact. As a consequence, amateurs are likely to place a greater emphasis on the more esoteric aspects of UF

      4 min read

    • Article

      Film

      Nov 6, 2023

      Film
      4 min read

    • Article

      Chain Reaction

      Nov 6, 2023

      October was the cruellest month, and November may get nastier. I receive an email from a relative that simply says, “Gaza is unbearable.” Late into the night, we watch the news reports. After the appalling Hamas terrorist attacks, the Israeli retalia

      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 25, 2021

      Dennis Lien [FT388:70] gave instances of size discrepancies between alien species, leading to unexpected results. I immediately thought of two more examples: Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “The mighty ships tore across the emp

      13 min read

    • Article

      From Our Readers

      Oct 10, 2019

      I was intrigued by the article on the possible remains of Clotilda (“The Case for Clotilda,” September/October 2019). In 1928, the African-American writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston went to Alabama to interview the last surviving member of

      2 min read

    • Article

      Eoka

      Jun 14, 2018

      Eoka
      9 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Mar 18, 2021

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      4 min read

    • Article

      Interview But Now Am Found

      Feb 25, 2020

      Interview But Now Am Found
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Local X-files

      Feb 23, 2022

      The Local X-files
      10 min read

    • Article

      From The Heat Of Battle To The Icy Antarctic

      Jul 7, 2023

      Not Without My Dogs by Kobus Olivier with Hilda van Dyk (Tafelberg, R280) After various travels, Capetonian cricketer-turnedcoach and school teacher Olivier falls in love with the beauty of Kyiv in Ukraine. In June 2018, he moves there with his wheel

      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 8, 2022

      An account of the Angels of Mons appears in Great British Ghosts by Aidan Chambers in the chapter “Ghosts at war”, along with the following account by a (unnamed) British lieutenant-colonel: “On the night of 27 August 1914, I was riding along in the

      7 min read

    • Article

      Gone But Not Forgotten

      Feb 25, 2021

      Gone But Not Forgotten
      7 min read

    • Article

      WRECKommendations

      Jan 19, 2017

      Fatal Crossing: The Mysterious Disappearance of NWA Flight 2501 and the Quest for Answers Written by V.O. van Heest On the night of June 23, 1950, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501, operating its daily transcontinental service between New York Ci

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Australian X-files

      Feb 23, 2022

      The Australian X-files
      10 min read

    • Article

      Roll Of Honour

      Oct 4, 2018

      “THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AND DIED IN THESE OPERATIONS WERE HIGHLY TRAINED, IMMENSELY BRAVE AND UP UNTIL RECENTLY HAVE LARGELY GONE UNRECOGNISED” “THE BOOK’S AUTHOR, WRITING ANONYMOUSLY UNDER THE PSEUDONYM EX-LANCE-CORPORAL X, SERVED IN THE BRITISH ARMY F

      6 min read

    • Article

      Palestinian Man Documents the Perils of Living Under Occupation on Snapchat

      Jun 11, 2017

      The text reads: ‘Danger – shooting zone, no trespassing.’ Taken in a desert in the West Bank. As Palestinians marked 50 years since the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on June 5, we are reminded of the anguish, misery, and unthinkable

      4 min read

    Reviews for Fixing Hell

    4/5

    35 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Amazing book, gives many lessons that need to be considered in any leader
    • 4/5
      great. It was just a little repetitive stating his aims
    • 2/5
      The psychological insight was interesting, but the schmaltzy patriotism and plodding narrative made for an unremarkable book about a fascinating subject. Shame.
    • 4/5
      I had a good time listening to this book and learned a lot about how an American Soldier-Psychologist sees themselves and their duties. I think it's important for us as Americans to hear from a soldier's POV alongside that of the media when you're trying to form an opinion on something as complex as conflicts in the Middle East.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I have to say, this book wasn't exactly what I expected. From reading the book jacket and the beginning of the book, readers are led to expect that the book will be a look into Abu Ghraib, the events/oversights that allowed for the events at Abu Ghraib to unfold the way they did, and the strategies of the army psychologist who was sent to bring things back into order. I believe this is why the book is receiving such mixed reviews--this is only a portion of what the book is about. While I was engaged in the full read, I didn't get what I expected, as I suspect is the case for many readers.More than being an account of the aspects I've listed above, this is the memoir of an army psychologist who found a new place within the army, and then had to continue changing in response to events out of his control, from dealing with ill-equipped interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, to dealing with a new form of PTSD and soldiers returning from Iraq. This is not a psychological examination of events and issues around a detention center so much as it is the memoir of one man who happened to be the one called in when that center needed to be "fixed".As a result, I learned much more about the author than I expected, some of which was helpful to the course of the book and some of which wasn't, and not as much about the details, psychological and otherwise, of what went on in Abu Ghraib. In the end, I did learn quite a bit....but not what I expected.Also, the book became somewhat repetitive toward the end; while I understand the need James felt to include some of the last chapters, I also have to say that they're simply unnecessary for someone who's already journeyed through the book; I NEVER skim books unless I'm looking for a specific piece of information, but I was sorely tempted to do so in this case.In the end, I have mixed feelings about this book. Simply, the marketing was off--if you buy this book with the expectation of what the dust jacket tells you to expect, you'll be disappointed or frustrated, or at least find yourself confused as to how you've gotten where you are. If, however, you're looking for the story of a man who is caught between being a doctor and a soldier, and who is forced to reconcile his work and his self with horrors of war, then you won't be disappointed. The dialogue does come off as stilted at points, but for the most part the book is engaging and driven--it's just not necessarily what you're expecting to read. Thus, I'm giving this book four stars based not on what I expected or on what the book presents itself as, but for what it is, a memoir of growth and self-understanding in line with psychology and military practices.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Fixing Hell by Col. (Ret.) Dr. Larry C. James, Ph.D. is a nonfiction book about how one army psychologist takes on the task of cleaning up after public relations nightmares at detention centers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, Iraq.Dr. James is sent to reform these prison/detention centers after scandals break out regarding the treatment of prisoners and detainees. After conducting research and reviewing the Stanford Prison Experiment, which details how otherwise "good" people can commit atrocities in a prison system, Dr. James heads to Cuba.He outlines some ground rules before he gets to Guantanamo Bay. One of the main rules he sets forth is that leaders must be seen and present. James walks throughout the complex at different hours of the day, even at 2 a.m. He finds that some of the guards on duty in the wee hours are asleep at their posts, while others claim to have never seen a colonel or other military leaders.Dr. James leaves Guantanamo only to be sent shortly thereafter to Abu Ghraib following the highly public denigration of Iraqi prisoners at the detention center. Soldiers at the prison disrobed prisoners, posed them naked in a human pyramid, and shot photos of the incidents, which were later plastered all over the news. As a psychologist, Dr. James was sent to the detention center to clean up the facility and establish protocols to prevent further incidents.The audio of this book was well read and engaging. It certainly kept our attention during our early morning commutes, and it was intriguing to get an insider's look at the military's psychology department and protocols. My husband enjoyed the details about how Dr. James remedied the problems at Abu Ghraib and the insight those details provided about the actual facts of the situation.However, the last chapters of the book slowed down the flow of the book for us. Dr. James offers a great deal of explanation about how the media played up the Abu Ghraib incidents and printed misinformation that maligned the reputations of fellow psychologists and himself. While we understood his need to set the record straight, the information was unnecessary given the timeline he issued throughout the book. Any reports placing him or his colleagues at the detention centers during the scandalous incidents could easily be dismissed.With that being said, anyone interested in military or war history will enjoy this insider's look at the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and the military's psychology unit.

      1 person found this helpful