The Art of Manliness - #492： How to Survive a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:18.460 matthew schreier is on his way home from syria after spending months photographing the war going

00:00:22.660 on there when just 45 minutes from the safety of the turkish border he was taken prisoner by

00:00:27.360 the al-Nasura front a branch of al-qaeda in syria the next seven months he was starved and tortured

00:00:32.420 in six different prison camps yet he survived becoming the first westerner to escape al-qaeda

00:00:37.160 today he talks to the military about what he learned through his experience today on the show

00:00:41.320 i talked to matt about his book the dawn prayer which details what he learned about how to survive

00:00:45.660 a syrian terrorist prison as well as the lessons he learned and what not to do from a fellow american

00:00:50.800 with whom he was held captive after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash dawn prayer

00:00:57.360 matt schreier welcome to the show thank you for having me so you just came out the book the dawn

00:01:14.600 prayer or how to survive in a secret syrian terrorist prison you were the first westerner to escape al-qaeda

00:01:22.500 from syria it's an incredible story before we get to how you got captured to the the escape what were

00:01:30.960 you doing in syria in 2012 because you're not a military guy no i'm not i was there to do freelance

00:01:38.560 photography i was there about a month before visiting the refugee camps i was in southern turkey i went into

00:01:44.920 syria for the first time to azaz and then from there it was jordan where the zatari camp was at the time

00:01:51.720 where still is it was probably 150 000 people there and i mean what was crazy i mean so this is

00:01:57.420 not too long ago but the syrian conflict it's as i was reading the book i was reminded how

00:02:03.440 complex the conflict is for those who aren't familiar with it like what was going on in syria

00:02:10.580 at the time and it's still going on today it's always been complex it's even more complex now because

00:02:15.700 of how many additional players have come to the table but back then i got there in late 2012

00:02:21.660 and at the time you basically had the syrian government fighting the free syrian army and

00:02:30.400 other factions like the al-Nosar front who was who were the guys that captured me and a lot of other

00:02:36.320 splinter groups and at the time the fsa was the main fighting force the biggest one and they were

00:02:42.460 kicking ass back then they were pretty much controlling 85 percent of aleppo which is where i 0.51

00:02:47.040 was and people were defecting left and right and it looked it looked pretty good for them look like 0.97

00:02:52.280 they were going to win any day now but since the government had an air force that's what prevented

00:02:58.000 them from actually being able to overwhelm them and actually take take over the country so uh

00:03:03.760 in the months that followed that's when you saw like a real rise in the extreme groups

00:03:08.480 with uh isis and mostly al-Nosar who had me in 2013 so i mean this what it would sound it's

00:03:15.460 interesting it's like there's like a mixture of like good guys and bad guys bad guys who could

00:03:19.480 be good guys good guys who are also bad guys is that kind of what it was like it was just very fluid

00:03:24.240 yeah i i mean depending on depending on how you define a bad guy pretty much everyone's a bad guy

00:03:32.360 if you look at the term like everybody tortures everybody over there that's just a basic

00:03:37.440 common interrogation practice i mean there's no group over there that doesn't torture people so

00:03:43.600 i mean if you think torture is bad then everybody's bad but then you have to examine what they're

00:03:48.240 fighting for and that's how you can kind of distinguish how bad they are like the free syrian 1.00

00:03:54.200 army where they you know they were basically normal guys fighting for freedom they wanted to

00:03:59.400 you know be able to smoke cigarettes in public and which they can do now under the government but

00:04:05.340 after after they won as opposed to you know the is the islamists who wanted to you know make 0.66

00:04:11.300 smoking illegal and alcohol illegal they just wanted freedom the free syrian army guys their

00:04:15.980 problem was is that they relied too strongly on the extremists to fight a lot of the battles and

00:04:21.240 before they knew it the tail was wagging the dog in that aspect all right so you're here in syria

00:04:28.160 it's 2012 there's these battles going on different groups are are there you were about to leave

00:04:36.200 you're you were planning to leave december 31st 2012 that was your last day in syria

00:04:40.920 but then plans changed what happened there i was about 45 minutes from the turkish border on my way home

00:04:48.640 and that's when i got rolled up basically the cab was just cruising down the street

00:04:53.560 and uh silver jeep cherry came from the oncoming lane blocked off the road i thought we just averted

00:05:01.220 an accident so for the first second or two i like smiled and like whoa and then the doors opened then

00:05:06.500 the terrorists got out and my smile disappeared they were armed to the teeth guy in the front seat was

00:05:13.440 cloaked had the toe in black he had an ak guy in the back seat had a chrome 45 i think it was and

00:05:20.000 they just took me from the van uh the van took me from the cab put me in the back seat of the

00:05:24.780 cherokee very gently no yelling no hitting and second later after they pulled my cap over my eyes

00:05:31.240 we were moving the whole thing probably took a minute i mean and when you were when that happened

00:05:34.900 like what was going through your mind like were you just like panicked or it happened so fast you

00:05:39.140 couldn't even feel anything pretty pretty much the second i was just in shot i was in shock it's called

00:05:44.060 capture shock uh when the door just opened and i saw the guy in jet black you know just like in a

00:05:50.440 movie jumps out with his ak and i just like froze and just watched him come over to me open the door

00:05:56.080 and he probably saw the look on my face he just grabbed me by my arm very gently took me out of

00:06:00.360 the cab led me over to the cherokee placed me in the back seat got in after me and closed the door

00:06:05.920 second later he pulled my ski cap because it gets cold in syria over my eyes and he leaned me forward

00:06:10.880 and just pressed the barrel the ak to my temple second later we were moving and at this point

00:06:16.300 you still didn't know who captured right you still didn't know who who captured you no not yet i mean

00:06:22.180 i had a feeling who who it was because you know this is all before the rise of isis at this time

00:06:26.940 al-nusra front were the number one bad guys in the country like the guys you didn't want to be taken by

00:06:33.520 isis was nobody even heard of them at this point they were not really a heavy presence yet so i kind of

00:06:40.540 figured it was them but i wasn't sure so the whole way to the first jail i just i didn't say a word i just

00:06:45.280 kept my hands up my mouth shut and just said to myself all right what are you going to do what are you

00:06:50.540 going to say when you get to wherever you're going because obviously you know you're going to be

00:06:55.580 questioned so i i just kind of thought about what i was going to say and you know i i've been in

00:07:01.560 country for like 18 days before that so i knew a lot of high level pre-syrian army commanders

00:07:06.560 commanders that whose names i could throw around and you know traditionally in arab culture

00:07:11.300 a lot of wars before this if this happened then you said all right look i was with sheik modar and

00:07:16.640 general hassoon and they contacted those guys they would turn you over to them if they asked and if

00:07:21.720 they did contact those guys i knew that they would say all right look give them to me so i knew i had a

00:07:26.880 chance so i just tried to stay positive and focus on how to make that happen yeah i thought this

00:07:31.580 interesting immediately like okay you had the shock of being captured but then the shock wore off you

00:07:36.560 immediately came up with the plan to ensure that you stayed alive and two got released you had the

00:07:41.980 plan okay drop these names possibly if it worked but like staying alive like you i don't know immediately

00:07:48.600 got to the idea that like i need to make these people like me if i want to stay alive and so how did

00:07:54.180 you go about making these guys who you still didn't know who were they could have been terrorists

00:07:57.960 islamic terrorists or how'd you plan to like make these guys like you and cross those cultural barriers 0.97

00:08:03.140 it was you know by that by the time i started thinking like that i was uh at the jail already in the 0.63

00:08:08.700 basement so i just had a couple of minutes they gave me a hot glass of tea and over the tea i was

00:08:13.120 like all right you know what's the main question you want to ask yourself is how do i avoid avoid

00:08:17.360 being tortured so you have to make them like you so i said how do you make somebody like you who

00:08:22.740 you know hates you you make them laugh i mean it's just human instinct i mean nobody doesn't

00:08:28.000 like the guy who makes them laugh so uh i just kind of formulated that strategy and uh and i went

00:08:34.940 with it and in regards to like knowing what they would laugh at i didn't know what they would laugh

00:08:39.000 at you never know but i spent enough time on the front lines with the fsa guys who some of them were

00:08:43.920 pretty hardcore religious and you know they loved my sense of humor so i just kind of you know went off of

00:08:51.060 that you know experience and you know it worked yeah that was funny i mean some of these guys even

00:08:56.060 though they were you know probably not fans of america like they a lot of them were steeped in

00:08:59.940 american culture so you could make references to american pop culture from like 20 years ago or 15

00:09:05.400 years ago and they would get it sometimes and when they didn't get it you know it's like all right you

00:09:10.680 could just kind of laugh at them inside your head because you know they don't know what you're talking

00:09:14.460 about and you're kind of mocking them but in terms of like fashion like they love american

00:09:20.640 clothes these guys that's one of the reasons why you know they they like me as as funny as that

00:09:26.440 sounds because you know they took my bag when i was captured and you know you see guys walking into

00:09:30.540 the uh shop they later later wearing timberland cargos and you know what i was wearing the guys

00:09:36.520 would come in the show and they constantly like hey how much was that how much were those pants how

00:09:40.360 much was that vest how much was that hoodie they they love american clothes so uh that was something

00:09:45.360 that i that i was a little surprised at and a lot of these guys you described like they're young

00:09:49.640 like some of them are like 18 19 early 20s like they're not 30 or 40 years old right right i mean

00:09:56.020 this is a it's not what we're used to seeing in you know the videos from afghanistan where it's like

00:10:02.860 you know these old tribal guys these guys were you know mostly uh veterans from iraq you know

00:10:09.380 so they're in their 20s and 30s a lot of a lot of the fighters and you know kids and their teens

00:10:14.620 who look up to them are are joining left and right so that the the group that had me most of

00:10:20.100 the you know like general muhammad who was like the main man or became the main man he was you know

00:10:24.280 i think he was like around 32 and the emir was around the same age as him so they were really young

00:10:29.760 guys and so besides trying to make these guys like you another thing you picked up really quick is

00:10:35.100 that and you you seem to understand intuitively is that you had to also assert yourself the same time

00:10:39.960 as well you had to show you couldn't be pushed around like how did you know that that also would

00:10:44.500 work too to sort of gain respect i wouldn't phrase it like that because you know if i carried myself

00:10:50.720 like you know like i'm not a man to be pushed around they would easily show me you know how

00:10:56.860 insignificant i was you know this is their backyard their country their house i just tried to act like

00:11:03.180 you know i wasn't scared so you know to kind of you know you're in a very harsh environment with

00:11:09.440 the harshest of people so if you show me up balls you know they'll they'll respect that but as far as

00:11:14.740 you know taking it further than that like you know like you know i'm not i'm i'm not a man to be

00:11:20.280 reckoned with i didn't take it that far because you know you have to well well earning respect you have

00:11:25.000 to show respect so it's everything right so when they captured you they started questioning you like

00:11:31.960 who are you why you're here and you're like i'm a photographer why didn't they believe you why

00:11:37.160 did they release me you showed them the pictures you've been taking like who did they think you

00:11:41.300 were and why did they think it was important to keep you held hostage i i actually didn't get a

00:11:46.540 chance to show them the pictures they uploaded them later after the interrogation but uh i mean they

00:11:52.660 they had information that they said they have information that there's cia

00:11:56.020 operatives in the area which you know they probably did but you know to them any western area is a

00:12:02.840 potential cia agent they think anybody who has an iphone is a cia agent you know which is ridiculous

00:12:10.100 since you know most of those guys collect and they all carry blackberries but they don't know this

00:12:14.880 so uh it's just because i'm american i'm a white guy you know i have to be a potential cia agent they

00:12:22.340 have to grab me and investigate me and at that time you know they were just basically doing that to any

00:12:27.420 westerner that they came across they were asking me if i knew where any other journalists were and i did

00:12:32.040 because i met several in uh southern turkey but yeah i'm not gonna help them create a situation where

00:12:39.020 other people are in my my situation so uh it's just a very simple way of thinking so the first few

00:12:46.780 months they held you in a hospital what were the conditions like there in this place the conditions

00:12:52.860 were i mean for me they weren't that bad because i i kind of connected with general muhammad in our

00:12:59.440 interrogation and he he liked me so nobody touched me nobody you know embarrassed me or or mistreated

00:13:08.260 me in any way they fed me all right they took me to the bathroom i could knock on the door

00:13:13.560 whenever i wanted something it was not that bad for me personally for other people you know you hear

00:13:20.420 them torturing the hell out of guys right up the hallway for hours on end sometimes you know

00:13:25.520 the different screams obviously they're not the same guy for hours but you hear people being shot

00:13:31.860 outside or i mean you know you hear the gunshots so you and it's a court that i found out so you

00:13:39.000 know you know a lot of these are probably sentences being carried out but for me personally the first

00:13:43.080 month and five days wasn't that bad as ridiculous as that might might sound because they were

00:13:49.700 being nice to me and respectful who are your fellow prisoners in in this in this hospital at first

00:13:56.480 five days in i started making and making a lot of noise to convince them that i wasn't a cia agent so

00:14:02.020 they shut me up they put me in a new cell with 18 regime pow's uh these are soldiers that fight for

00:14:07.720 the government and uh they're mostly alawi which is uh shia sect and uh the sunnis hate them that's

00:14:16.220 so they threw me in with these guys um for five days and they were like the best guys i ever met

00:14:23.160 in my life they welcomed me and i was shocked they welcomed me into their little world we ate together

00:14:29.060 we exercised you know played games when the lights were on and it was really refreshing unfortunately

00:14:35.660 five days in they threw about 13 shabihah those are like militants who fight for the regime and they

00:14:41.740 they hate those guys they consider them traitors to the revolution so uh because the cell was so

00:14:46.860 overcrowded they moved me back to solitary for 13 days and then after 13 days that's when they

00:14:53.560 put me in a room with another american who basically had the opposite effect as the syrian soldiers who 0.93

00:15:00.400 were like my my boys this guy turned out to be you know a nightmare on top of a nightmare

00:15:06.960 well which is surprising because you think oh an american compatriot i can relate to this guy

00:15:13.620 i think that'd be a welcome change like what made this guy a nightmare for you i mean where to begin

00:15:19.520 like i described in the book he was basically the equivalent to journalists of what gomer pile was

00:15:24.100 to marines in full metal jacket i mean the guy he just couldn't do anything right he would just

00:15:29.200 constantly piss off the guards without even trying and on top of that like the thing that the 0.76

00:15:36.340 precipitated incident was you know right after i was thrown in the cell he told me that he was in

00:15:41.500 the country to write a story about austin tice who was the first journalist to go missing and he's

00:15:47.760 still missing and when i found out that you know that's why he was there and he said that he was you

00:15:53.600 know the whole point of him being there was to make money off this story you know it kind of rubbed

00:15:57.220 me the wrong way because that's like saying you know i was in country to do a story about somebody

00:16:03.960 in the same position as you and get paid off of it so it kind of just like rubbed me the wrong way

00:16:08.960 and the more time that went by you know the more disloyal he seemed to be like he told me he would

00:16:15.220 shoot me in the head if they'd let him go because this is war and that's what you have to do to survive 0.93

00:16:20.180 which is ridiculous you know as americans we you know we're kind of raised with values and yeah you 0.99

00:16:27.240 stand side by side with the guy next to you in a war zone even if you don't like him and meanwhile the 1.00

00:16:32.540 guy who i'm locked in a room with is telling me no man i i'd actually shoot you in the head if you 0.94

00:16:36.200 let me go so you know these things kind of snowballed very quickly to the point where uh

00:16:42.680 you know i just i just couldn't stand him yeah i mean i thought that was like no one liked him like

00:16:47.900 there was absolutely no one like you didn't like the prisoners didn't like and the guards didn't like

00:16:52.060 them i think we've all met people like that where they're just their personality just rubs

00:16:55.660 everyone the wrong way yeah i think we've all met them and we can all agree that they're always the

00:16:59.300 person who thinks they're the smartest one in the room and that was his problem you know like he uh

00:17:05.480 he thinks because he has a phd that he's like some kind of genius but at the same time he was homeless

00:17:10.440 when he got abducted he never admitted this to me he admitted it after he came home in an interview

00:17:15.020 and it's it's just like you know you're you're a homeless guy with a phd and to me that's worse than 0.94

00:17:21.220 being like a crackhead who's homeless because at least the crackhead has an excuse he's crackhead 0.97

00:17:26.760 yeah what's the guy with a phd like what's your excuse for being homeless so he was just like 0.97

00:17:33.460 this incredibly pompous guy who like i said he would just nobody liked him the guards would come

00:17:39.740 in the room to sell they take us to the bathroom they'd be totally cool just mellow and then all

00:17:44.780 of a sudden you hear them screaming and yelling and i just look at him and i'm like what are they 0.97

00:17:50.080 you know what are they doing what would you do and he's like my ass crack was showing and it's just 0.99

00:17:55.520 like yeah that's in islam that's a sin and you can't show between your knees and your belly button 0.99

00:18:00.440 and it would drive them nuts like they would start getting extremely violent and hostile and i'm just

00:18:05.720 like you know like you're 44 years old i gotta tell you to pull your pants up you know and it's

00:18:10.820 happened like several times where you're like there you gotta pull your pants up come on buddy

00:18:14.640 and it was just like constantly you know incidents like this or like the part of the book where they

00:18:22.000 they throw water down on the floor they they throw a bunch of water down on the floor in our cell tell

00:18:27.020 us to scrub it and squeegee it out and he leaves this gigantic puddle in the middle of the floor because

00:18:32.900 he can't even squeegee your room right and it's like you know 40 degrees in the room so it's not going

00:18:37.780 to dry and we have to live like this until you know basically a week later when they do it again

00:18:45.080 and we get to we have to squeegee it out and it was it was just a nightmare just from beginning to end

00:18:50.700 yeah that's a big hamper on morale for you we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our

00:18:55.160 sponsors and now back to the show so i mean during this time when you guys the first time you were

00:19:00.960 together like you you all tried to like sort of hatching an escape plan right yeah about two weeks

00:19:07.120 in i decided like i i can't be in a room with this guy anymore he was the motivator of me wanting to

00:19:13.520 escape it had nothing to do with getting away without time i wanted to get away from him and uh i was just

00:19:18.780 like all right i gotta plan something so uh he it will one night i'm just staring at the door and it's

00:19:24.240 just a wood panel door holding us in you know they lock it with a key and they leave the key inside

00:19:29.100 and you know wood panel door obviously has these the panel parts where where it gets thin and the

00:19:35.660 wood was really really thin where the panels were maybe like you know a centimeter and i'm looking at

00:19:41.200 the thick part of the wood and there's like this giant silver dollar size impression that somebody

00:19:46.260 carved into the door so one night i'm just staring at it and just matter of factly i'm like yeah how'd

00:19:51.480 that mark it in the door and he's like i put it there and i'm like why he's like i was bored

00:19:57.140 and uh what'd you use he's like i used a spoon and uh later on he admitted that he was trying to

00:20:04.520 make make a peephole in the middle of the door you know because i guess they you know wouldn't know

00:20:09.860 what that is it's only the size of a silver dollar and i said all right well if you could do this with

00:20:15.500 a spoon we can we can work here so the next few days like i stole a three inch flathead brass screw

00:20:20.920 from the bathroom and a few days after that i stole a flat bracket that fit perfectly into the head

00:20:25.860 of the screw and i put it through the top uh right corner of the panel in the bottom of the door which

00:20:32.740 is about the size and width of a milk crate in and out in less than five minutes you know barely

00:20:37.820 stripped the screw and uh now we had a real peephole that they wouldn't see you know you can only see

00:20:42.680 their sneakers so uh you could tell who was out there and my plan was simple we just perforate all

00:20:48.560 around the sides of this panel and wait for an opportunity to kick it out in one shot so it's not

00:20:54.480 there's not a lot of noise and we run for it he refused to follow that plan he said no i'm not doing

00:21:01.400 that you know uh let's let's you know basically put the perforate all around the doorknob where the

00:21:08.520 wood is like three inches thick you know it just wasn't possible and then we'll punch that out and turn

00:21:12.520 the key like ridiculous like like totally impossible and uh he refused to do my plan so i said all right

00:21:18.980 you know because i was just not thinking clearly and i knew that it wasn't going to work so he would

00:21:23.440 have to go back to my plan but within two hours obviously you know the uh bracket was stripping the

00:21:30.620 screw right away which is bad because we don't have like a lot of screws to keep going with when my

00:21:34.840 plan comes to fruition again but unfortunately general muhammad heard the bracket stripped the screw

00:21:41.120 and made a click sound and then boom he busted in with a couple of thugs started searching the door

00:21:46.560 and kind of funny because it's like you know you expect him to find the mark that i made but he

00:21:52.480 didn't because i stayed along the steel plate to hide it that surrounded the doorknob now his flashlight

00:21:57.600 falls on this giant impression that my brilliant cellmate put there before i even entered the cell

00:22:03.600 and he thought that that's what i was doing so uh he got a little upset and the result was he took

00:22:10.380 our beds and tortured the hell out of us and transferred us to a new prison which was basically

00:22:18.440 the beginning of the darkest stage of my captivity and this is when things like the the they weren't

00:22:24.140 being nice anymore this is when things got ugly no yeah i mean it changed within as soon as he saw

00:22:31.740 that mark that my cellmate put in the door he called me over and he looked at me and usually general

00:22:36.920 muhammad was like he's like this really fascinating character in the book because you're used to just 1.00

00:22:41.120 seeing these dark evil terrorists with no sense of humor and no personality he was the opposite like

00:22:49.560 he was a very charismatic very funny leader that that just his men loved and i i actually enjoyed

00:22:56.700 talking to him when he would come in the south because he was such a cool guy when he was around me

00:23:00.220 but as soon as he saw that i was trying to escape even though it was a completely different mark in

00:23:06.200 the door like this darkness came over his eyes and i saw the other half that theo told me about my

00:23:10.920 cellmate because he hated theo he hated him and uh he told me about you know things that he did to him

00:23:17.340 before i entered the cell which weren't pleasant and i saw this look come over his eyes and i was just

00:23:21.400 like okay i'm about to meet that guy and uh he was not as pleasant as the one i'd been used to

00:23:28.720 what kind of torturing techniques do these guys use on you guys on me basically what they do is

00:23:34.820 they take a tire a car tire and they force it around your knees when when you're sitting on the

00:23:39.680 floor so your knees are bent up to your chin and they force a car tire over it and then they take a

00:23:45.640 steel rod or an iron rod and they slide it over the tire but under your knees in the crook and what

00:23:51.560 that does is it locks into place so now you can't bend your knees and you're handcuffed excuse me

00:23:57.460 you're handcuffed so they flip you over and you're on your face with your feet in the air and then

00:24:01.740 they take this very thick cable about as thick as a nightstick and they start whacking the bottoms of

00:24:07.540 your feet with it and let me tell you something it hurts i mean whenever you see it on tv or the

00:24:16.580 movies they always use like these thin wooden sticks or paddles almost and it doesn't really look that

00:24:23.680 painful but uh trust me man it is hell and if they really don't like you what they do is they'll

00:24:31.960 strike the sides of your feet and they'll hit your ankles um they didn't do that to me on this occasion

00:24:36.920 they did it to my stomach because he was his ankles were bleeding all over the floor when he got back

00:24:41.600 but that that's what they did on this occasion um there were other prisoners that you would hear

00:24:45.960 stories about that they would hang from pipes by handcuffs one guy they bit his ear off they used

00:24:53.420 high voltage tasers uh i took i took some bolts here and there later on but uh in the hospital that

00:24:59.980 was the main method of of torture yeah well i think i wrote sent you an email before the interview like

00:25:06.440 i was like i physically went like you're just describing right now i started getting heebie-jeebies

00:25:10.200 thinking about getting your feet hit with that cable oh geez yeah and it and it's and the environment

00:25:16.640 where they choose to do it makes it even worse because they bring you into the boiler room

00:25:20.460 and you know there's a reason why west craven chose the boiler room for a nightmare on elm street it's

00:25:26.440 just like the scariest room in any building you know what i mean it's like you know and you got

00:25:31.800 bloodstains all over the floor and it's just like one single bulb hanging so everyone's shadows and

00:25:37.160 you're blindfolded but you can always see through the bottom of the blindfold and you know and and

00:25:42.680 we've all seen the terrorist videos with james foley you know picture eight of those guys because

00:25:48.240 that's what they were all wearing they all have that costume so they're you're you're basically in

00:25:52.100 a room with a bunch of these guys dressed like that and this is what's going on and they have

00:25:57.000 little kids in there watching they're teaching them priming them and it's uh it's a it's a very

00:26:03.260 unpleasant experience and you know even when you're not the guy in the tire in the boiler room

00:26:08.400 you know there are times where you know they take us down to the bathroom and we have to walk right

00:26:11.660 by that room as this is going on and you just hear them screaming and yelling and it echoes throughout

00:26:16.320 the hallways and it's just surreal so you got moved from the hospital to this place it's kind of like an

00:26:22.820 electrical facility and that was that was the conditions were even worse than the hospital like you

00:26:27.560 said the hospital was actually pretty good well like what changed in this this electrical facility like

00:26:32.360 why was it so bad uh the the yeah the electrical institute i think it's like a college slash

00:26:37.800 facility type of thing for uh your regular citizens but uh now it's it's it was probably

00:26:43.660 one of the biggest terrorist bases in the world like if you saw a satellite shot in this place it's

00:26:49.240 like basically an entire college campus turned into a terrorist base just to give perspective and

00:26:54.980 it was like i described it in the book it was literally the dark side of hell i mean we were in hell

00:27:01.240 before now we were in the dark side and what made it the worst was uh the hunger like that was the

00:27:09.120 main form of torture in this place that they inflicted on us hunger and darkness a couple days

00:27:14.480 in they they transferred us to a cell where we spent most of the uh almost 40 days and it was dark

00:27:20.800 almost all the time they barely fed us and like you can when you're hungry for you know going on for

00:27:29.320 like 30 hours without eating and then you just get a piece of bread and or a piece of or like a

00:27:35.980 little saucer with some halau and you have to share it with the guy next to you i mean it's just

00:27:41.580 it's physically and emotionally draining and on top of that there's no light crawling with bedbugs

00:27:49.400 so you can't even delouse so you just feel these bugs crawling all over you sucking your blood

00:27:55.420 and people die from that you know if if you read about prisoner of war experiences if you don't

00:28:01.060 delouse you know these things they'll suck you dry so we were in a really bad spot they would blast music

00:28:06.840 for hours on end like right outside our door and then there were the bathroom trips which were

00:28:12.280 a nightmare unto themselves you know we'd have to go to the bathroom like once a day

00:28:17.520 and uh it was like walking the gauntlet on the way down there they didn't really physically

00:28:22.200 torture me that much there i got flogged with a garden hose once but mostly it was just they

00:28:27.920 were just torturing my cellmate me they pretty much left alone and just let me suffer with with

00:28:33.880 hunger and darkness and bedbugs but we lived like this for close to 40 days and after that they

00:28:40.580 transferred us back to the hospital i mean like during all this time like what kept you going

00:28:44.640 especially in this really dark time like was it just like fall back on faith there was like stoic

00:28:48.560 philosophy existentialism like what was it during that time man it's it's really hard to say you

00:28:55.520 know there's always this will that you want to get home because you know that your loved ones are

00:29:00.440 suffering and if you don't get home to them you know you're just basically ruining their lives as well

00:29:07.040 as yours but you know my cellmate was a huge inspiration to me because i would look at him and be like

00:29:14.320 don't be like him because the electrical institute broke whatever was left of him and he was just

00:29:20.220 hiding under the covers all day all night he never came out unless you know it was to eat go to the

00:29:28.240 bathroom or pick bed bugs off himself because eventually they put light in the room but i mean

00:29:33.640 it never worked maybe it worked like less than 10 percent of the time because the electricity was always out

00:29:38.440 and when you're locked in a room with somebody like that who won't talk who won't come out from

00:29:44.460 under the covers you know this is a 44 year old man you know you can either curl up in a ball and give

00:29:50.900 up like him or you can keep going and i just chose to keep going so you got moved back to the hospital

00:29:57.480 you're there for a bit then they moved you to a warehouse right well the warehouse was a couple of

00:30:02.800 jails first from the hospital you know they threw the moroccan guy in with us and then from there we

00:30:07.640 were moved to a villa out in the country which was like a two two and a half hour drive really really

00:30:14.500 intense experience i mean there was a gunfight at one of the checkpoints you know the guys our

00:30:19.320 transport lost two guys during that really intense like the suicide bombers were out standing like 20

00:30:25.700 feet away from us ready to go and we got to a villa general muhammad's villa had a prison in the basement

00:30:31.640 like all syrian villas and then we were transferred back into aleppo into the hands of another terrorist 0.66

00:30:37.980 group for about a month and a half when i was back with the soldiers at that point and then after

00:30:43.240 that that's when we were transferred to the warehouse gotcha hey and you mentioned the moroccan he kind of

00:30:48.080 joined you and became a part of you and theo's little group there this guy sounded crazy because he had

00:30:54.140 he oh my god right tell us about this guy the moroccan was i mean

00:31:00.940 he he was i mean as much as i hated theo i hated the moroccan and and this guy was extremely intelligent

00:31:10.480 extremely intelligent and a psychopath at the same time and basically his story was

00:31:17.840 almost too hard to believe like a lot of my story but long story short is he went to syria

00:31:25.480 uh from morocco after stealing his sister's car and selling it so he can finance the trip because

00:31:30.560 he got into a big fight with his dad and when he got there he started pretending that he was a doctor

00:31:36.700 to the point where he was working with doctors without borders like he literally knew people who

00:31:41.900 were in that organization that i found out like i confirmed a lot of it after i came home and uh

00:31:48.140 joined al-nosra the al-nosra front the terrorist group as a doctor

00:31:52.320 and needless to say he had no degree or no education at being a doctor so it didn't really take him

00:31:59.860 the long to figure out his his game and after marrying a woman under a false identity which is a big deal

00:32:08.900 in that part of the world like a half hour after the wedding they shot him he was driving in a car

00:32:13.380 they got pulled over the same fashion i did they shot him in the leg threw him in the trunk and

00:32:18.220 brought him to the hospital where they basically locked him in the torture room cuffed him to a bed

00:32:25.060 and left him there for like a week without any medical attention just shoved the catheter in him 0.71

00:32:30.840 and let it empty out into a bucket unbelievable that this guy survived by the time they threw him

00:32:36.440 in with us you know his leg was just the bullet hole was healed over but it was so bloated

00:32:41.740 like it looked like it was gonna pop and uh his feet you know and you could feel his femur was just

00:32:47.400 broken and uh he was basically uh like i said he was like 6'3 230 pounds and i got along with him at

00:32:57.960 first because he spoke english and lived in the states for 12 years he got deported for you know

00:33:03.480 falsifying his personal information on a banana republic job application if you can believe that

00:33:09.580 and uh yeah i mean it's just you can't make this up and he was very dominant and that's when i started

00:33:18.020 fighting with him because you know he was he was trying to be like the the the head guy in the cell

00:33:23.580 and you know i'm not gonna be bossed around by anybody if you don't have a gun and especially

00:33:28.700 somebody with a broken leg but theo my cellmate became his property it was basically once i started

00:33:36.520 fighting with the moroccan theo was his property so it was like two against one and that all changed

00:33:42.320 when we were transferred into a cell with the soldiers again who i was who i became friends

00:33:45.620 with early on so now i had like over 20 guys with me and they were just basically on their own because

00:33:51.740 the soldiers hated theo because he's theo and they hated the moroccan because he's their enemy he's you 0.99

00:33:58.620 know an admitted member of a terrorist organization and you know the american who's basically his sidekick

00:34:03.960 he's not going to really hold favor with them not not just because he's working with their enemy but

00:34:09.720 because he's betraying his country you know they don't hate america the soldiers at least at that point

00:34:15.900 but uh they didn't love america either because of our government and you know it doesn't matter where

00:34:22.280 you're from or who you are when you see somebody you know who's not standing up for where he's from

00:34:29.020 and basically betraying it you can't respect them so that's basically why the soldiers

00:34:34.320 straight off the bat didn't like him so things just got worse with theo as you guys got moved along

00:34:41.060 and you got moved with the moroccan too and you reached a point where the moroccan got taken away

00:34:44.840 one night and he didn't come back right right like i said he was a big dude so the prison that i broke out

00:34:51.500 of the windows you know like any basement windows they're high up off the ground and you know they're

00:34:55.480 very narrow and uh one night they just came down a whole bunch of guys and we never got visitors

00:35:02.280 that late so it was like a really odd occurrence and we could feel it that something was going to

00:35:07.800 happen it's weird how you get this intuition when something's about to happen over there and we heard

00:35:13.500 them lining up outside the door and we had to face the wall every time they came in we weren't allowed

00:35:17.540 to look at them and the moroccan said he's like there's a lot of people out there and you can tell he

00:35:23.540 was scared and i was just like yeah and they came in they asked him his name said his name and then

00:35:29.680 they took him and he never came back and this is after like four months of being stuck in a room with

00:35:34.840 this guy for 24 hours a day seven days a week no end in sight so it was refreshing to have him gone

00:35:41.900 we found out they killed him later on and because he was gone now that's when we started planning the

00:35:47.620 escape because there was no way he could fit through the window so once he was gone it created

00:35:54.700 the opportunity right and initially theo was on board but then there he had like this this like

00:36:00.140 change of heart where he said like i'm actually gonna turn you in if you try to escape yeah well i

00:36:05.640 mean escape escapes usually don't work out the first time you know and it didn't work out the first

00:36:12.880 time when we ended up at the electrical institute it didn't work out the first time on this occasion

00:36:17.660 so i figured out why it didn't work and i amended the plan and by then he was like no i changed my

00:36:24.780 mind i'm not doing it if you try to do it i'm going to knock on the door and tell on you and i was just

00:36:29.900 like you're going to tell on me you're going to turn me into al-qaeda and he's like yeah so uh i didn't

00:36:36.560 think he was being serious i thought he was just you know being himself and when i went over to the

00:36:41.380 window he knocked on the door and loud like he was gonna he was literally gonna rat me out he

00:36:47.820 admits that he did all this by the way this isn't like something my word against his he admits that

00:36:51.840 he did this and uh he turned around with his chest out like like you know like i'm a tough guy i got

00:36:58.960 al-qaeda's got my back so uh the only way to get him back on board was to make him so miserable that 0.96

00:37:06.580 he wouldn't want to be stuck in a room with me anymore so that's what i did it took about three hours

00:37:10.840 what would you do oh i just insulted him and broke on him for just non-stop for like three hours just

00:37:18.240 about you know what a disgrace he was to our country like how you know how it's bad enough

00:37:24.360 the terrorists are holding me here now you're the one holding me here how you know you're gonna let 0.95

00:37:28.800 you know his mother was like 79 80 years old i was like you're gonna let your mother die 0.99

00:37:32.720 not knowing what happened to you or worse having to watch you get your head cut off on mine

00:37:38.900 you know just stuff like that and you know a lot of language that i don't want to use here 1.00

00:37:43.560 applying that to me until he basically was just like okay okay he's like i can't take it anymore

00:37:49.360 type of type of thing he's like i didn't say i was completely turned off to it and that's when we

00:37:55.020 started you know planning it again and you know obviously he's like well we have to wait three days

00:37:59.400 because he was you know he was doing everything he could to try to thwart the attempt and you know

00:38:05.000 three days we would we were due to be transferred so he was hoping we'd be transferred or they'd

00:38:09.000 throw somebody else in with us which they did twice in that cell after the morocco was gone but

00:38:13.540 they always took him away so if those things happened we would have to scrap the idea but you

00:38:19.960 know fortunately for me it didn't happen so he had to go he had to go forward with it so we'll let

00:38:25.140 people check out the books they can get the escape parks it's it's interesting what happens um right

00:38:30.880 well matt is there some place people can go to learn more about your work in the book

00:38:35.140 i have a website matthewschreier.com the book is on amazon the dawn prayer or how to survive in a

00:38:41.240 secret syrian terrorist prison that's the best way to learn about me and my experience and it's a

00:38:47.420 completely different book than any that have come out before you know because i'm not trying to get

00:38:53.660 your pity i don't deserve it nobody told me to go over there and it's actually pretty funny because i'm

00:38:58.740 not trying to make you cry make you cry a river so if if anybody really wants to learn about this

00:39:04.140 that's probably the best way just read the book fantastic well matthew schreier thanks so much

00:39:07.300 your time it's been a pleasure right thank you for having me man ever having another book i'd love to

00:39:10.860 come back my guest here is matthew schreier he's the author of the book the dawn prayer it's available

00:39:15.860 on amazon.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash dawn prayer where you find links to

00:39:21.220 resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:39:23.280 well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com

00:39:36.240 where you can find all of our podcast archives there got over 480 episodes as well as the thousands

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The Art of Manliness - March 20, 2019

#492： How to Survive a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison

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