My experience was very different. The camp was beautiful, with two dorm-style buildings, no gates, bars or locks. It was located in the Susquehanna Valley area in Pennsylvania, a place usually reserved for honeymoon resorts. Besides being picturesque, the quality of food and services were more than I expected. The guards could not have been friendlier. Mostly I read, played cards, became the camp backgammon champion and, in the spring when the brooks melted, we fished for trout. Today I still joke that if they had brought women in on weekends I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life there.

While there I met investment bankers, stockbrokers, CEOs and insurance scam people. I would get a kick out of these so-called white-collar executives crying to their wives or lawyers that they had to get them out of there before they killed themselves. It was so bad they actually thought of suicide?

I still have friends at Lewisburg and things have changed since 9/11, but the story David wrote made me wonder if he really did his time at Eglin. Listening to him, he would have you think it was Leavenworth.

Today I am eight years clean, I have house-sat for the family of one of the federal judges that sent me to prison. I sponsored a U.S. marshal in recovery who used to cuff me and bring me to court. I go into treatment facilities, prisons and youth facilities to talk and share my experience, strength and hope with others. But the difference between David and me is that I do it for free.

John R. Peinert
Kihei, Hawaii

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