James Yee cut his old Army dress uniform into stamp-sized pieces and loaded them into a machine that beat the cloth into pulp. He drained the pulp, poured it into vats, then pulled sheets out with a tool resembling a wood frame and screen.
After drying the sheets, he held the final product — a thick fibrous paper — in his hands. On it, he drew the image of a check. The amount: “Up to and including my life.” The payee: “The United States of America.”
Yee’s artwork — one in a collection that he has made from old uniforms — encapsulates the despair and frustration he has faced since he was wrongfully arrested for espionage in 2003 in one of America’s most troubling tales of homeland security abuses after 9/11. The former Muslim Army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay was held in solitary confinement for 76 days before the U.S. dropped charges and granted him an honorable discharge.
Over two decades, Yee has not stopped speaking out about his experience, while also decrying Islamophobia and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay, home to ghastly abuses against Muslim prisoners, most of whom were never brought to trial. Art is one of the ways he tells his stories.
“In terms of how we treated prisoners, in my view, people lost their souls,” said Yee, 55, of Bloomfield. “They said, they did things that were out of character and out of line and beyond what is morally and ethically acceptable.”
Yee held up a drawing he produced of a skull and the words “The cost of war. Lost souls (Both dead and alive).” In war, he said, “people lose their souls whether they survive it or not.”
On Friday, Yee will join speak at a Veterans Day event at the Newark Public Library called “From Military Trauma to Healing through Creative Arts” about his harrowing journey, his activism and his art. The event begins at 11 a.m. and is followed by “Bridge Back Home from War,” a program led by military veterans about healing through creative expression, including art, poetry and writing. RSVP is required.
‘No justice for anyone’
Yee grew up in Springfield in a Lutheran and Chinese American household. In 1991, a year after graduating West Point, he converted to Islam, drawn by the simplicity of the faith, he said. After 9/11, Yee helped to educate and train soldiers about Islam and to build understanding in the military.
A U.S. Army captain, Yee was selected to serve as chaplain at Guantanamo Bay in 2003 when nearly 700 detainees were being held as “unlawful combatants.” He grew deeply troubled over how they were treated.
He saw detainees return from interrogation rooms with broken teeth and bruises. Guards desecrated the Quran, the Muslim holy book, during searches of cells and turned off water before prayer time, even though washing is a perquisite for prayer in Islam. Detainees were harassed while in prayer, he said.
He documented and reported complaints — actions he believes made him a target for false spying charges. After his arrest, he was held in a navy prison in South Carolina along with several other U.S. citizens and legal residents charged with aiding the enemy.
“I was accused of spying, espionage, aiding the enemy, sedition,” he said. “Under military law, they are capital crimes you can be put to death for. This was very traumatic to me, being falsely accused.”
Yee despairs that Guantanamo Bay remains open today, holding about 30 people.
“There is no justice for anyone,” he said. “No justice for the American people. No justice to the people who lost loved ones on 9/11. There was a failure on the part of the military and U.S. government. Because of what happened after 9/11, Muslims were rounded up and tortured beyond what we can even imagine.”
Telling their stories
The stress of Yee’s ordeal took a toll at home. After his arrest, media camped outside his parents’ home in Springfield and his story was splashed across the news. His family rallied behind him and raised money for his legal defense.
His wife, a Palestinian woman born in Syria, struggled with his desire to speak publicly and repeatedly about his ordeal. It was the most painful time in their lives and she wanted to get past it, Yee said. They divorced, remarried and divorced again around 2010. They remain good friends and Yee has a close relationship with their daughter, a graduate student who was 3 at the time of his arrest.
Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, Yee still experiences anger, anxiety, depression and physical tics linked to his confinement and treatment and receives therapy to treat it. He has channeled despair into activism and his art.
‘He lost everything.’Muslims whose lives were upended by 9/11 detainment want justice
Since his honorable discharge in 2005, Yee has been a vocal advocate for civil and human rights. He has spoken at churches, colleges and in media interviews about this experience and his book, “For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire,” published in 2005 by PublicAffairs. He was a delegate supporting Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008, motivated by his promise — unfulfilled — to close Guantanamo.
Yee also served for about a year and a half as executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. In 2006, he earned a master’s degree in international relations from Troy University.
He returned for graduate studies at Montclair State University in 2012, enrolling as a history major and later switching to studio art with a concentration in printmaking after taking a class called Combat Paper taught by the then-director of the Branchburg-based Printmaking Center of New Jersey.
Now called Frontline Arts, the nonprofit center runs the program teaching veterans to make paper art from military uniforms. Through this process, they are able to take control of their narratives and share their personal stories with the world.
In one of his most haunting pieces, Yee sketched the outline of Guantanamo prisoners performing prayers in their caged cells. He will show it on Friday at the Newark Library Veterans Day event, which is hosted by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
Today, Yee is focused on healing and using his story as a cautionary tale, so others do not have to face what he faced.
“In the 9/11 aftermath, there was a growth of Islamophobia which interestingly enough seems to be on a roller coaster path,” he said. “You look at world events today and you see Islamophobia occurring because of what is going on in the Middle East.”
The U.S. military must do better to respect Muslims’ place in the nation and the military, he said.
“Celebrate diversity, religions, ethnicities, “he said. “Be more inclusive of Muslims and share that Muslim personnel are a vital part of the US military. I think would help Muslims who are serving to feel more safe and secure.”
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