He had become one of them.

Like the suspected terrorists with whom he spoke as an Army Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, Capt. James Yee was accused of being an enemy to the country. He was detained at a Jacksonville, Fla., airport without being told why. All his wife knew back in Olympia, Wash., where he had been headed, was that he didn't show up.

He was arrested and shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles. Goggles painted black were placed over his eyes. Large earmuffs blocked his hearing, he said.

"It's called sensory deprivation," Yee told about 500 people Monday night at UC Santa Barbara. "It's done to instill fear, intimidation and confusion."

He was held in a maximum security brig in Charleston, S.C., for 76 days, accused of being a spy and assisting the enemy. Those charges were changed to mishandling classified information. And then they were dropped altogether. Yee said the government never had a case and was prosecuting him, in part, because of his belief in Islam and his advocacy for religious rights at Guantanamo Bay.

Army officials have said they won't talk about the case and that information gathered is classified. Yee was returned to active status as a chaplain at Fort Lewis, Wash., and upon deciding to leave the military two years ago given an honorable discharge.

After his talk Monday night, Yee said he's been told the government didn't pursue a trial because that would have involved disclosing information that could compromise national security. Yee says the argument is ridiculous because he didn't do anything wrong. He believes the government continues to investigate him.

"I'm still tainted," said the 39-year-old Washington resident, noting he's afraid to look for a job and instead spends his time telling his story and promoting his book, "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire."

He grew up in Springfield, N.J., a baseball fan who absorbed statistics and an athlete who was captain of his high school wrestling team. He graduated from West Point and, while serving in the Army, converted to Islam.

He left the military and studied Islam and Arabic in Syria, where he met his wife. He returned to active duty in January 2001, as one of the Army's first Muslim chaplains. After Sept. 11, 2001, he led seminars to educate soldiers about Islam and was commended for his work.

Then he went to Guantanamo Bay. He told the campus crowd that as Muslim chaplain he learned from prisoners that interrogators routinely used a secret weapon: religion.

They would stomp or even sit on the Quran in actions that brought hunger strikes and suicide attempts, he said. They would wrap prisoners in the Israeli flag. They would force Muslim men to prostrate themselves in the middle of a Satanic symbol drawn on the floor. The interrogators would yell "Satan is your God, not Allah," he said.

Knowing that Islam teaches modesty about the opposite gender, female interrogators would strip in front of the prisoners, he said. They would perform what Yee called lap dances, gyrating on men shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles.

"Religion was being used against these prisoners to try and break them," Yee said, noting a country that symbolizes religious freedom was manipulating and mocking that same liberty. "For me, that was the most disturbing thing."

Yee believes closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay would send a message to the world that the United States won't tolerate abuse or torture. Even more important, he argued, would be opening up all of the facility's operations to the media and making it transparent.

"If things have changed, then we have to show the world," he said.

As for his own detention, Yee said he still hopes for an official apology but knows it may not come.

He believes he was pursued, in part, because his Chinese-American heritage made him an outsider and earned him the nickname of "Chinese Taliban." He thinks his work advocating religious rights and liberty for detainees brought more suspicion. And he's convinced his belief in Islam made him a target.

"It meant to them that I was the enemy," he told the crowd, "and they would come after me."