It was back in 1936 and a tearful 6 year-old 1st grader was being interrogated by his classroom teacher.
        "Did you take that knife?", demanded the teacher.
        "No," whimpered the youngster.
        Some background information. It was morning at Ravensberg School, a rural school 10 miles south of Fife Lake, Saskatchewan. The Grade One class was standing in a line in the front of the classroom being formally taught by Tom Jake Pengard. During the course of the lesson Mr. Pengard was disturbed by some whispering amongst the girls seated towards the back of the classroom.
         "Silence! What are you whispering about?"
        No response!
         Again the master demanded, "What are you whispering about?.
        After much hesitation Brigid, one of the girls in the whispering group slowly stood up and said, "Please, sir, Mona just told us that Jaycee had the knife and was showing it around at the supper table last night."
        More background info. The jack knife in question had been reported missing the previous day by one of the older boys and he had strong suspicions that it had been stolen. This morning it had inexplicably appeared on top of one of the classroom desks. Mona's parents and Jaycee's lived together in one house on a farm which they owned as partners.
        Mr. Pengard then started his interrogation of the suspect, Jaycee.
        After the first denial by the youngster, Mr. Pengard told the other Grade Ones to take their seats and moving deliberately to his desk, opened the top drawer, and withdrew his favorite means of maintaining discipline, the Strap. Waving it menacingly, he approached the terrified youngster and asked again, "Did you take the knife?"
        Again the same answer, "No, I didn't."
        "Hold out you hand!", demanded the master. "I'll teach you not to lie!"
         Bang went the strap on the palm of the terrified youngster and tears started to flow as he flinched from the sting of the leather strap.
        Again the master demanded, "Did you take that knife?"
        The tremulous voice whimpered, "No."
        Again came the command, "Hold out your hand!", and once more the blow was delivered and this time with more force and vehemence than the first.
        Again the question, "Did you take that knife?" and once more the same denial. This time the teacher hesitated as thoughts coursed through his mind. Something wrong here. This Jaycee had shown no sign of this obstinacy before, in fact he was a model student: did his work diligently, was bright, eager to learn, and had caused him no problems, not like the other tough, arrogant older farm boys who defied him everyday and who forced him to conduct a regular lineup in which he would mete out discipline and who would smile victoriously to their classmates as they returned to their seats after he, exhausted, had told them to sit down."Who else saw this at the supper table?"
        Mona answered, "Marvin was there. He saw it also."
        Marvin was Jaycee's older brother and obeying the teacher's strident order, slowly took his place beside the weeping Jaycee.
        "Did you see Jaycee show the knife at supper?"
        Marvin, who had not seen anything of the sort, honestly answered, "No."
        Again the demand, "Hold out you hand!" and again, bang went the strap. Back to the crying, terrorized Jaycee and once more the same result. One more time back to Marvin with the same question, the same negative response and the same correcting result. Back again to Jaycee; no change, and once more to the now crying Marvin who still insisted that he hadn't seen anything. During the third bang on Marvin's palm a thought flashed in Jaycee's mind that if he would just say 'yes' then Mr. Pengard would stop strapping.
        Consequently, when it was his turn and the question came once more if he had taken the knife he tearfully whimpered, "Yes."
        The master, glistening from the exertion, drew himself up to his full stature, and with the smile of a victor in this seemingly constant battle of infusing high morals in wayward youth, instructively offered, "See, if you would have told the truth from the start you wouldn't have got the lickin! Let that be a lesson to you!"

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        Fast forward to 2008.... Jaycee's thoughts went back to this traumatic incident from his youth. How easy it was for him to say 'Yes' to something that he had not done in order to terminate the painful strapping inflicted upon him and his brother by Mr. Pengard in his determined goal to expose the truth as he believed it.
        And now at Guantanemo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was 2nd in command to Osama bin Laden, who had been held prisoner since 2003, 'confessed' to a myriad of terrorist incidents and plans for further attacks. He had been subjected to various means of torture, among them the dreaded water boarding. He finally cracked and spilled his guts admitting to many terrorist activities, including the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.
"Did you take the knife?" The words flashed into Jaycee's mind and the 'confession' of KSM became to him suspect and unbelieveable. What value can be placed on confessions obtained by coercion and torture?
KSM Confessions