I think we can safely envision a number of fates for Soviet EPW. The outcomes would run the gamut from a camp commandant ordering extermination of the population of the camp to mass breakout to the incorporation of the EPW into the local population. Fort Huachuca takes the latter option, but Huachuca may not necessarily have a great deal of company.
After the Thanksgiving Day Massacre (TDM), MG Thomason of Fort Huachuca visits the camps on-post. He offers the prisoners a simple choice: join us, work willingly, and earn US citizenship or live in our own Andersonville. We don’t have the resources to support an indolent population at this point, but we do have the resources to support former enemy soldiers who are pulling their own weight in this disaster. Overwhelmingly, the EPW throw their lot in with their American captors in return for citizenship down the road.
The enlisted men from every nation represented at Huachuca (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Iraq, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and North Korea) almost universally embrace Thomason’s proposal. Grunts are pragmatists. The officers, on the other hand, are more aloof. While some join the Americans willingly, others believe they have a responsibility to continue resisting the enemy by any means. Others refuse to admit the loss of status they will undoubtedly suffer. Better to be an officer in prison than a nobody with a hoe or shovel. Among the officers, the lieutenants join the Americans most readily, with participation rates dropping off as rank increases. Also, North Korean and Russian officers join the Americans at lower rates than officers of other nationalities.
The EPW are organized into competing work gangs. Rewards for success are food, small liberties, and so forth. National rivalries between the Eastern Europeans, Russians, and non-Russian Soviets are exploited to encourage the work gangs to try to outdo each other. Among the most important jobs of the work gangs are construction of rammed earth housing and rammed earth fortifications. When the Second Mexican-American War breaks out in June, 1998 the MI troops manning positions at Douglas and Nogales occupy bunkers, trenches, and other fortifications constructed almost entirely by EPW work gangs.
At the end of August, 1998 the active portion of the campaign in Arizona winds down rapidly. The line units of the 111th MI Brigade have suffered nearly 50% losses. Thomason recognizes that the brigade has to rebuild quickly. He turns to the EPW, offering junior enlisted positions to volunteers. On the first day, Huachuca gets more volunteers than can be trained; the post has the luxury of creating a waiting list with former infantry and armor troops moved to the top.
Former Pact, North Korean, and Iraqi EPW are far from the only source of replacements for the 111th Brigade. Wounded soldiers return to duty. Survivors from Yuma Marine Corps Air Station filter in, as do stragglers from Luke AFB. The remnants of USAF 355th Wing at Davis-Monthan are reformed as 355th Battalion. Selected Mexican EPW are offered the opportunity to serve. The surviving populace of SAMAD—nearly 400,000 in 2000—provides a solid base for recruitment. Nevertheless, by June 2000 nearly a quarter of the 111th Brigade are former EPW.
Not every EPW camp in CONUS is going to go this way. Although I see a certain logic in co-opting the enemy’s troops and in the enemy’s troops allowing themselves to be co-opted, not everyone is going to see things this way.
Webstral
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