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Guarding suspected pirates new for Marines

For the handful of Marines manning the military’s new — and only — pirate brig, the atypical job has fallen into a routine since the capture of 16 suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden in early February.

That’s probably because when the suspected pirates arrive at the makeshift jail aboard the Military Sealift Command supply ship Lewis and Clark, all they want to do is sleep. And when they’re awake, they mind their manners — at least, they have so far.

“Their behavior has been very good,” said the Marine officer in charge of the ship’s 20-guard detachment from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

“We provide them food; showers; good hygiene; we give them a climate-controlled environment; a very spacious area to live in — they’re probably living better here than they were on their ships.”

The commander, who asked that his name not be published because of concerns about retribution from pirates, said during a telephone interview from the ship that many of the pirate suspects understand basic instructions from their guards. A translator is available for more detailed instructions and a corpsman is always watching over the prisoners.

The pirates are supposed to stay aboard temporarily until the U.S. can arrange for them to go to a Kenya-based pirate court. But as of Feb. 19, details for the transfer hadn’t been worked out.

Having a pirate brig on board doesn’t affect the ship’s crew members, said Cmdr. William Cox, the officer in charge of the 60 sailors and Marines. The ship’s civilian mariners still go about their normal business of moving cargo and fuel, and the embarked Navy helicopter detachment flies its surveillance and logistics missions as usual.

The Lewis and Clark can even continue doing underway replenishments, drawing from its immense stores of palletized cargo and its 1.5 million gallons of fuel.

The only significant difference is that the ship’s main deck has been divided for the new mission.

The starboard half of Lewis and Clark’s clearway is dedicated to pirate detention, and its port half has remained an area for moving and staging cargo, said Lt. Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a spokeswoman for Combined Task Force 151, created Jan. 8 specifically for the antipiracy mission.

When one of Cox’s HH-60H Seahawk helicopters lands with pirate prisoners, Marine guards take them through the starboard clearway, where they’re checked in, given a medical examination, a shower and new clothes. The guards then take them down one of the Lewis and Clark’s cargo elevators to the ammunition hold with the temporary brig.

The pirates are held in an open area sectioned with concertina wire into an “L” shape. The Marine guards can oversee it from inside and from either end. Prisoners sit on foam mats and eat beans and rice prepared by the Lewis and Clark’s supply department, brought in by their guards.

The Marine guards took one week of intensive training before their assignment. They learned about a range of ways to control their captives, including flex handcuffs and nonlethal bean bag rounds fired from shotguns, their commander said.