When Col. Robert Thomas arrived at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, he said it was like stepping into a scene from the war movie “Apocalypse Now.”

Soldiers in jean cut-offs and Kevlar vests wandered the grounds. Detainees lived in squalid conditions, knee-deep in mud. Debris was so thick near the gate, Thomas” men had to clear a path just to get inside.

The “totally untenable” prison about 20 miles west of Baghdad, Iraq, had a new commander. It would be a week before military brass told him about the scandal that was just about to break.

Beginning in about 2003, detainees were abused and neglected, and even tortured in some cases, by prison guards. Five soldiers received administrative, or non-criminal, punishments during the course of the investigation: Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., former Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and former Pfc. Lynndie England.

Once the scandal became public, Thomas said his mission became keeping the prison out of the limelight, which he did through discipline and an extensive prison makeover.

“When I heard,” he said, “I just hung my head and thought, ”My God, what have I got into?””

Thomas, who told his story Thursday at the Columbus Municipal Complex at the invitation of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, said he didn”t think the soldiers caught in the scandal were “bad” people. They just lacked leadership.

Leadership, he decided, is what he needed to give the prison, despite never having run a prison before. He installed air conditioning and hot water, fired the contracted cook and renovated the buildings, among other improvements.

“A good leader can fix things overnight. He just has to try,” Thomas said.

Thomas, who is now the commander of the Mississippi Army National Guard, soon had the detainee quarters bulldozed and new, updated facilities installed. They also received several all-you-can-eat meals per day.

“We treated the detainees so well, we had to put about half the detainees on a diet,” he added.

The prison held about 12,000 prisoners when Thomas arrived, which was over capacity by about 2,000 people. To fix that problem, he shipped detainees to other locations, leaving him with about 4,000 prisoners by the time he left in 2005.

“No wonder Al Qaeda hated us,” he said of prison conditions when he arrived. “No wonder people looked down on us around the world.”

When Abu Ghraib was in the spotlight, it served as a rallying call for terrorists. Maybe that”s why now-dead insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi put Thomas at the top of his to-kill list when he started making reforms, according to captured documents.

But that was OK, because “he was on the top of my hit list too,” said Thomas, who was almost constantly surrounded by 13 soldiers.

“I hated the guy,” Thomas recalled of the terrorist mastermind. “I told my guys, if you capture this guy, don”t kill him — wait until I get there.”

Even though Abu Ghraib prison was shelled and shot at daily, often in extended firefights, Thomas said he did all he could to make it impregnable.

That included digging a ditch to block tanks, having bomb-sniffing dogs at the gates and installing an acoustic system designed by Mississippi State University students to pinpoint mortar team locations.

“I built a fortress,” Thomas said. “The only way you could get in there unwelcome was dead. I protected my soldiers at my locale.”

After a year of work at the prison, Thomas said, he felt like he and his 3,500 or so soldiers had helped restore America”s honor.