{"id":1235038194,"date":"2024-06-12T11:04:57","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T15:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1235038194"},"modified":"2024-06-12T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T15:05:07","slug":"jonestown-massacare-responder-experience-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-features\/jonestown-massacare-responder-experience-documentary-1235038194\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It Was 46 Years Ago, But It\u2019s Still Vivid\u2019: A Jonestown Massacre Responder Speaks Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! -->\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pmc-paywall\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tOn November 18, 1978, 918 members of Jim Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple cult died in <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/feature\/jonestown-13-things-you-should-know-about-cult-massacre-121974\/\"  >Jonestown, Guyana<\/a>, in the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/news\/articles\/undaunted-jackie-speier-lecture\"  rel=\"nofollow\"  target=\"_blank\"  >single largest<\/a> loss of American civilian lives in a deliberate act before 9\/11. From the moment media coverage of the massacre began, much of the reporting has characterized the event as a \u201cmass suicide,\u201d in which people willingly drank cyanide-laced Flavor Aid when their leader instructed them to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe reality of what transpired was far more nuanced \u2014 as was life in Jonestown since establishment of the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-lists\/american-cult-5-spiritual-groups-that-went-too-far-202224\/the-peoples-temple-1955-1978-202246\/\"  >failed utopian community<\/a> in 1974.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tEven as popular culture has slowly started to shift away from certain types of victim-blaming,\u00a0Jonestown is still routinely presented as a situation where people consensually died by suicide. But a new three-part docuseries, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-news\/jonestown-cult-massacre-trailer-exclusive-1235026301\/\"  ><em>Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown<\/em><\/a> \u2014\u00a0which premieres on Hulu on June 17 and Nat Geo on Aug. 14 \u2014 takes a strikingly different approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThrough archival video and audio footage and interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors, the series provides viewers with a glimpse inside the commune before, during, and after the massacre, from when it was founded as a refuge from capitalism and racism, to when the bodies of the deceased were transported back to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tA few hours before the deaths of more than 900 people, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-news\/in-the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death-guyana-after-the-jonestown-massacre-242259\/\"  >San Francisco Congressman Leo Ryan<\/a> \u2014 who had come to Jonestown to investigate alleged abuse of members \u2014 three journalists, and a Peoples Temple defector were killed in an ambush shooting on the Port Kaituma airstrip a few miles outside of the commune. Several other members of his party were wounded, but had survived by playing dead, or hiding behind the wheels of their Twin Otter aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe result is a complex, empathetic retelling that answers questions about <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-features\/cult-or-commune-how-utopian-communities-turn-dangerous-106818\/\"  >why someone might join a group<\/a> like the Peoples Temple, or move to a settlement in the Guyanese jungle in the first place, and makes the case that the deaths should be considered a mass murder \u2014 not a mass suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe firsthand account of Ret. Gen. David Netterville \u2014 one of the first three U.S. servicemen on the ground in <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/feature\/jonestown-13-things-you-should-know-about-cult-massacre-121974\/\"  >Jonestown<\/a> following the massive loss of life \u2014 bolsters this argument. A \u200b\u200bsergeant at the time, Netterville was a combat controller with the Air Force Special Operations Division, an elite group of highly specialized soldiers that worked with the various branches of the military and Special Ops, similar to the Green Beret Special Forces, the Army Rangers, and the Navy SEALs. He had enlisted five years prior to making the trip to the Guyanese jungle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhile there is no shortage of documentaries about Jonestown, this is the first time Netterville is sharing his perspective on the aftermath. <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> recently caught up with him to discuss his experience at Jonestown, why he decided to speak out about it now, and what people still don\u2019t understand about the massacre nearly 46 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Where were you stationed when you got the call to go to Jonestown?<\/strong><br>I was part of a 10-person combat control team out of Howard Air Force Base in Panama. I had been there since September 1977. We learned guerilla warfare, patrolling in the jungle, and did a lot of communications training. At that time, there were 12 of these teams in the entire Air Force; ours was the only one covering Central and South America.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tIn \u201877, \u201878, the Sandinistas were trying to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. [When I got the call to go to Jonestown] we had been on alert for two or three months to, at a moment&#8217;s notice, get on an airplane and go to Nicaragua to pick up U.S. embassy personnel and get them out \u2014 which we did the next year in \u201879.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>How did you find out you were going to Guyana?<\/strong><br>On November 19, [1978] I got a call about 7:30 in the morning on a Sunday. The phone was ringing off the wall,&nbsp; but I was sleeping, and wasn\u2019t going to answer it. When I finally did, it was Senior Master Sergeant Alvin Huddleston, our noncommissioned officer in charge. He said: \u201cI need you to pack a bag, go over to the armory, get some weapons, some radios, batteries, some water, some C-rations, and put them on the Jeep. We\u2019re going to load the C-130 [military transport aircraft] as soon as possible, and we\u2019ll be out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Did you have any knowledge of Jim Jones or the Peoples Temple before going to Guyana?<\/strong><br>No, I&#8217;d never heard of it or him. I had been in Panama for a little more than a year at that point, and you lose track of things going on in the States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n\n\t\t\t\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((593\/1024)*100%);\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/guyana-embed-2.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"593\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n<figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">A military air traffic controller directs a helicopter landing in Guyana.<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">National Archives and Records Ad<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>When were you told where you were going?<\/strong><br>That morning I asked Huddleston if we\u2019re going to Nicaragua. He said he couldn&#8217;t tell me because it was a classified mission, but he\u2019d have more information once we were airborne. About 12:30 [p.m.] we were wheels up, and I\u2019m trying to notice which direction we were flying out of Howard. Instead of turning north towards Nicaragua, we turned and went east.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tAn hour later, Captain Mike Massengale told us we were going to Guyana. I looked at Huddleston and Dalton and I go, \u201cGuyana? Where\u2019s Guyana?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThey tell us that it\u2019s suspected that there\u2019s a hippie commune in Guyana where mass killings are going on, and they&#8217;re fighting and shooting each other. They think there may be several thousand people there. So, I look at my two buddies and go, \u201cThere&#8217;s three of us, and there are a few thousand of them. This is really gonna be a tough one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThen we get word from the pilot that we&#8217;re going to land in Caracas, Venezuela to refuel. But we\u2019d only been flying for two hours, and the C-130 can fly for around 10 [hours]. We&#8217;re told that we\u2019re going to pick up some people and they&#8217;re going into Guyana with us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThey all come out dressed in nice suits. I was going to introduce myself and see who they are. Huddleston says, \u201cNo, don\u2019t bother those guys. Leave them alone. They have nothing to say to you.\u201d Now I\u2019m really curious, and so I ask about them again. He says that they\u2019re from another government agency \u2014 probably the CIA.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tI did go over and asked \u2018em a few questions and the first answer I got is, \u201cYou don&#8217;t have a need to know.\u201d That\u2019s their modus operandi.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Where in Guyana did you eventually land?<\/strong><br>We left Caracas as soon as these guys got on board, and flew into Georgetown\u2019s international airport. We offloaded our Jeep, trailer, and equipment and we&#8217;re sitting on the ramp. There was no one there to meet us. No information. There&#8217;s no telephones around. Nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tAn Air Force C-141 medical evacuation aircraft was [at the airport in Georgetown] when we landed. It loaded the people that were wounded [the previous day in the Port Kaituma shooting] \u2014 like Congressman Ryan\u2019s aide, Jackie Speier \u2014 and those who had died, [in order to bring] them back to the States. We tried to get information from the sergeant in charge [of the aircraft] and they didn&#8217;t know anything.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe captain in charge of the C-130 aircraft taxied over, refueled, and came out and talked to us. He says, \u201cI\u2019m going back to Panama \u2014 I don\u2019t know what you guys are supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe three of us were just sitting there. Finally, a state department employee from the U.S. embassy comes walking up to us and he asks who we are. He didn&#8217;t know we were coming, so we introduced ourselves. He said, \u201cOh, I see you have a radio Jeep, yeah? Oh man, we can use you. Don&#8217;t go away.\u201d And he walked off to go to a telephone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tEventually, the State Department individual came back, and we locked the Jeep up in a hangar. We spent the night at his home in downtown Georgetown, trying to figure out how we&#8217;re going to get to Jonestown. The next morning we went back to the American Embassy for an intel briefing. They showed us pictures of what Jim Jones looked like, and told us who to look for.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Did you fly into Port Kaituma?<\/strong><br>They had rented a Cessna 340 twin-engine aircraft. We flew an hour and 15 minutes to Port Kaituma, which is basically a dirt gravel strip about eight or 10 miles from Jonestown.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhen we landed there, we saw the Twin Otter aircraft that got shot up, and met a small squad of Guyanese army soldiers. Then, a Guyanese army helicopter landed, but [the soldiers inside] didn\u2019t know anything about us coming. We told them we were there to go into Jonestown and find out what&#8217;s going on, and they agreed to give us a ride.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tIt was just unbelievable \u2014 the carnage. The number of people laying on the ground.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhen I first saw it from a distance \u2014 we were about five miles out \u2014 it looked like someone had scattered clothes all across the ground over about a two- or three-acre site. Colorful clothes, shirts and everything. I&#8217;m like, \u201cWow, look at all the clothes over there. They must have washed clothes.\u201d I had never seen so many clothes. Never. When we got closer, I realized it wasn\u2019t clothes \u2014 it was people. Corpses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWe landed in a softball field on the complex, got out, and started looking for anybody that survived. We were told there would be survivors, but didn&#8217;t see any that first time we got into the camp.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Did you ever find any survivors?<\/strong><br>We flew back to Port Kaituma and ended up spending the night there in an elementary school with the Guyanese soldiers. While we were there, a guy came in. I think his name was <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1978\/11\/25\/archives\/witness-tells-how-cult-members-went-to-deaths.html\"  rel=\"nofollow\"  target=\"_blank\"  >Odell Rhodes<\/a>, and he said that&nbsp; he was the camp medic. He had survived because when Jim Jones was having people injected with the cyanide, he sent Odell to the little medical hut there to get a stethoscope to make sure that they were dead.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWell, Odell said, \u201cYou know what? I knew I&#8217;d be next. So I hid in that medical clinic, I went out the back door, and I was gone. I stayed out in the jungle and followed the railroad tracks back over to Port Kaituma.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tHe ended up spending the night with us there, sleeping on the floor of the elementary school. He left the next morning \u2014 there was a plane that came in and they took him out of there almost immediately. I never saw him again.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhile we were there on the airstrip I saw another individual. This guy and his two daughters were in the jungle. He came out and he saw us and he ran back into the jungle. Later he comes out again, so I started hollering, \u201cHey, come over here! We\u2019d like to talk to you! We\u2019re United States Air Force!\u201d He runs back into the jungle, hides behind a tree.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tFinally, he comes out, walks over to us, introduces himself, and asks if we had any water. They had spent almost two nights out there in the jungle. So I said \u201cYeah, we got water. Hungry? We got food.\u201d So he was a happy guy, but he\u2019s still leery of us because of the weapons and everything. He was just scared to death because I mean, he&#8217;s witnessed the shootings and the people getting killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tSo once we got his confidence, he went back into the jungle and came out with his two teenage daughters. We give them some C-rations. We could just tell the trauma that they had been through. Not long after that, another airplane came in, loaded them up, and they were gone. We really didn&#8217;t have a chance to talk with them at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThat day we flew back into Jonestown on the same helicopter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n\n\t\t\t\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((683\/1024)*100%);\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/david-jonestown-doc.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"683\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n<figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">David Netterville was part of the first US Special Forces team to arrive at Jonestown to investigate the news of the attack to Congressman Ryan and his group. <\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">National Geographic\/Brandon Wide<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>What was Jonestown like when you returned?<\/strong><br>It was hot and it was humid. We did have fresh water, though. Jonestown had artesian wells where they had put pipes and water was coming out. An Air Force surgeon came in the next day and they tested the water to make sure that we could drink it, and it was safe. It was real cold, and real good.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWe were trying to find people that were still alive that maybe had survived. We walked around the edge of the jungle. Every so often we\u2019d holler \u201cHey, is anybody here? Can you hear me?\u201d Nobody.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThen Sergeant Dalton had the idea to count the beds in these little small wooden frame homes to find out how many people lived there. So we did, and there were approximately 1,000 beds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhile we\u2019re there, another Guyanese army helicopter came in and had the Guyanese Surgeon General on board. I escorted him over to where Jim Jones was, by the bucket of Kool-Aid \u2014 actually, it was grape Flavor Aid mixed in with cyanide and some other things. He did a field autopsy on Jim Jones.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhen he\u2019s through, he asks what the three of us were going to do. He says that we need to do something with all these bodies. \u201cI noticed there\u2019s two bulldozers over there in the garage, and a couple of tractors,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat you should do is dig a gigantic pit, put all the bodies in there, cover it with lime, and just have a mass burial area right there.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tNow, you have to remember that by this time, these bodies were starting to bloat and the stench was terrible.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tHe said that he would highly suggest wearing a mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWell, there were no masks to be had, so I improvised. I went and got a pillowcase and I cut me out a bandana like a cowboy, and I wore that the rest of the time I was there. I\u2019d soak it every morning with Old Spice aftershave. To this day, I can&#8217;t smell Old Spice aftershave. If I do, I throw up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n\n\t\t\t\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((743\/1024)*100%);\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/jonestown-embed-3_43428d.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"743\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n<figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones is pictured in a family portrait with his wife, Marceline Jones, their adopted children (behind Jones) and his sister-in-law (right) with her three children, in California, 1976. <\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Don Hogan Charles\/New York Times Co.\/Getty Images<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>I don\u2019t blame you. Were you the one who identified Jim Jones?<\/strong><br>The first people to actually find him was the Guyanese army. Jim Jones was shot in the head. Now, I didn\u2019t see a pistol laying next to him, so I don\u2019t know if he did it himself, or if one of his security guys had shot him. But he was laying on his back, right there behind his pulpit at the entrance of the Peoples Temple [pavillion]. He had on a bright red shirt, tan khaki pants. He was pretty easy to recognize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>What about everyone else?<\/strong><br>Most people were laying on the ground on their stomach; many still had syringes stuck in the back of their neck. We also found people that had been shot in the head with a 38-caliber pistol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhoever was administering the syringes would just drop people right there as they died and stack [the bodies] on top of each other. Like, you\u2019d have four or five people piled up. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of children \u2014 a lot of young children \u2014 one- and two-year-old kids that had a syringe stuck in their neck like that. It was terrible. Man, how could someone do this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThat\u2019s why we didn\u2019t know how many people there really were when we made the initial count. We were estimating 400, 450 from what we could count. We radioed that back on the high frequency radio, and they didn&#8217;t believe it. They didn\u2019t want to believe it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Were you tasked with counting the bodies?&nbsp;<\/strong><br>No, that just happened. I don&#8217;t know exactly what directives came down to Sergeant Huddleston, but once we got there, we were trying to find people that were still alive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Did you continue counting after reporting the initial numbers?<\/strong><br>No. After that, a group of soldiers flew in to take over. It was a graves registration unit, and that&#8217;s their job, say, on the battlefield: they go out and recover bodies, put them in body bags, and then evacuate them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>What else did you come across during your investigation?<\/strong><br>They had even shot all the animals: dogs, cats, in that little zoo there with a chimpanzee \u2014 I think his name was <a  href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=96719\"  rel=\"nofollow\"  target=\"_blank\"  >Mr. Muggs<\/a> \u2014 shot him, shot two other monkeys in a cage. Man, they killed everything and everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWe did go over to Jim Jones\u2019 house, and I took a crowbar from the workshed out there and pried open his safe. There were four, five, six boxes of passports and Social Security checks inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tAbout this time, one of the CIA guys who came down on the plane with us walked in and asked what we were doing. We said that we were looking to see what\u2019s in the safe. So he said, \u201cWho told you to do it?\u201d And we said, \u201cNobody. We\u2019re investigating here.\u201d You don&#8217;t know how bad I wanted to say \u201cYou don&#8217;t have a need to know, sir.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tHe says that he\u2019s got to take the boxes back. I said, \u201cHave at it,\u201d turned around and walked off. I left him there. I had other things to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>What were your other responsibilities during the mission to Jonestown?<\/strong><br>We found an observation tower and set up our radios to talk to any aircraft that may be coming in. It was right by the little building that we slept in \u2014 a little hooch [temporary shelter] \u2014 and so we set that up as our command post, and we did all our air traffic control out of that tower.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tOnce I got in that tower, I was talking to 200 or 300 airplanes every day coming in and out of there. If it wasn\u2019t one of the military guys, there were a lot of news people that had rented airplanes, and I was trying to keep all those guys separate \u2014 you know, vertically.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>How long were you in Guyana?<\/strong><br>We were there seven days total; we got back to Panama on the eighth day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>Why have you decided to speak out about your experience now?<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>I think it&#8217;s just timing. [In 2019] I gave a talk at an [Arkansas] college, and I&#8217;ll be honest with you&nbsp;\u2014 I found that by talking about it, I don&#8217;t have to worry about it anymore. It used to really bother me. The thing that bothered me the most was the children. I don&#8217;t know the exact number, but <a  href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=35332\"  rel=\"nofollow\"  target=\"_blank\"  >something close to 150 [of the dead] were young kids aged 10 and under<\/a>. It was pretty horrendous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>I imagine you carried that trauma and story with you?<\/strong><br>Oh yeah, for decades. It was 46 years ago, but it\u2019s still pretty vivid. I remember walking through the camp having to step around dead bodies. It was unreal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t<strong>What do you wish people understood about Jonestown, nearly 46 years later?<\/strong><br>The church that Jim Jones had in San Francisco was actually under investigation for stealing people&#8217;s money, taking their homes, stuff like that. He probably brainwashed a lot of these people. He had some of them actually believing that they should all die and go to heaven together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tAnd the people that didn&#8217;t [willingly ingest the poison]? Well, they ended up getting shot, or being held down while someone stuck a syringe in the back of their neck. Once it got going, people were dying left and right. There&#8217;s really nothing they could do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ret. Gen. David Netterville was one of the first Americans to visit the deadly site of the massacre. In a new documentary, he&#8217;s telling his story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":1235038199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"override_post_title":"","override_post_excerpt":"","authors":["elizabeth-yuko"],"contributors":[],"styled_by":[],"_image_credit":"","_wp_attachment_image_alt":"","pmc_selected_wwd_video_media":"","pmc_top_video_source":"","pmc_top_video_duration":"","wwd_top_video_source":"","wwd_top_video_duration":"","pmc_selected_featured_media":"","pmc_selected_video_media":"","pmc_selected_variety_video_media":"","variety_top_video_source":"","variety_top_video_duration":"","pmc_featured_media_has_alt_text":true,"_pmc_featured_animated_media_id":0,"_pmc_featured_video_override_data":"","_pmc_featured_video_override_url":"","_pmc_featured_video_response_data":"","pmc-gallery-linked-gallery":{},"pmc_list_item_description":"","primary_category":"","primary_vertical":"","_mt_pmc_exclude_from_seo":"","_pmc_opengraph_title":"","_pmc_opengraph_description":"","categories":32,"subcategories":33,"pmc-gallery":[],"pmc-imdb-id":"","pmc-review-type":"","pmc-review-rating":"","pmc-review-rating-out-of":"","pmc-review-snippet":"","pmc-review-title":"","pmc-review-canonical-link":"","pmc-theatrical-release-date":0,"pmc-director":"","pmc-review-image_attachment_id":0,"thr_post_headlines":"","_variety-sub-heading":"","mt_seo_title":"Jonestown Massacre Responder Details What Happened 46 Years Ago","mt_seo_description":"Ret. 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