MINOOKA, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)— The Minooka man was part of a small group tasked with guarding Hussein during his time in captivity.
28/22 News Reporter Avery Nape sat down with that man on Thursday evening.
At just 19 years old, Minooka native and now-retired National Guardsman Sean O'Shea was given a task most young men couldn't even fathom: guarding one of the most prolific and elusive war criminals of all time.
Thursday, he sat down with me to recount his historic experience.
"The first time he tried to take over Iraq, he failed. He showed me where he got shot in the knee, and then he said the second time, 'I came back with a tank,' and I said, 'Well, it looks like that worked out for you," recalled O'Shea.
This is Sean O'Shea, and what he's describing is one of the many conversations he had with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
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O'Shea is a Minooka native and a retired National Guard Sergeant First Class.
He started his military career following 9/11 at just 17 years old, not expecting to be deployed to Iraq, but not long after he finished training, he was shipped out to the Middle East.
"You're afraid, there's a lot of uncertainty, but you know at that age you're kind of like 'come on, let's go," said O'Shea.
He and his platoon of 50 to 60 men were stationed at a prison guarding high-value detainees. Still, after being interviewed by the FBI, he and only a handful of other soldiers were chosen to guard perhaps the highest-value prisoner.
For the next 10 months, he would be face-to-face with Saddam Hussein.
"What was going through your head when you found out it was Saddam Hussein whom you were guarding?" asked Nape.
"It's just so hard to wrap your head around it, and now the older I get, you know, it seems a little bit more significant to me, but at that time, you're going face to face and spending hours every day with a monstrous human being who is responsible for killing thousands at a time," responded O'Shea.
O'Shea says spending so much time with a person responsible for so many atrocities was the hardest part.
"You'd get to see him brush his teeth, do his wash, eat his meals, have conversations back and forth. It kind of humanizes him a little bit, but you always have to take a step back and remember who you're dealing with," added O'Shea.
O'Shea did have some unique interactions with one of history's most notorious war criminals.
He says conversations ranged from religion to dating advice, and one time they even smoked a cigar together.
"His family would send him cigars through the Red Cross, and I got to participate in having a cigar with Saddam Hussein. Not something you want to brag about, but I said, 'Why would I turn that down? '" explained O'Shea.
O'Shea says, despite being in captivity, Hussein believed he would one day be free.
"He was convinced up until the very end that he was going to be put back in power, and he would invite us back and, I mean, I don't think I would have taken that trip," shared O'Shea.
And more than 20 years later, he says his experiences in Iraq still don't feel real.
"The older I get, I still can't believe that a kid from Minooka, a 19-year-old kid from Minooka, is hanging out with arguably the most notorious man in the world at that time," joked O'Shea.
O'Shea tells 28/22 News that while he still keeps in touch with some of the other men he served with there, they still cross his mind almost every day.
