In any war like Viet Nam it becomes very difficult to tell "our" folks from "their" folks, especially as their folks can appear to be inocent civilians by shucking off their fighting equipment behind a nearby bush and walking onwards, looking like civilians to someone not from the area. As far as possible the Viet Cong tried to assure their fighting forces of a proper burial, but if overwhelmed, they would strip their dead of weaponry and any semblance of fighting materials, since these things haad more value to them than a dead body. Once so sanitized it is very difficult to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, although there were less older people or children in irregular fighting groups. Additionally, the Viet Cong and NVA frequently pressed civilians into service as bearers or advance "guard" forces to overwhelm opposing defenses without hazarding their own fighting forces.

We can never know what forces opposed Kerrey's team that night, but it was dark and impossible to see exactly who was firing, and by our rules of engagement in force at the time, the area had been designated a "free fire zone", an area where civilians had both been relocated to other, usually fortified villages, and banned from returing. Under these edicts, anything moving in this area was considered to be enemy, and subject to being fired upon.

Kerrey's team received and returned fire, fire from an area where civilians had been removed and banned, so they were under no restraints from returing fire.

Unfortunately, by dawn, after the smoke had cleared it turned out that many of the dead were not armed, and very possibly civilians who should not have been there by their government's edict, and may well have been killed by mistake.

Although Kerrey was inexperienced, having only been in country for a few months at that time, his actions were reviewed by his superiors and not only deemed proper under the circumstances, but found to be meritorious enough to award him the Bronze Star for the action. And of course, his later later actions earned him the Medal of Honor.

This falls under the category of different times and different ways. We can not judge his actions then by our current set of values, without doing him and every one in that war a disservice. These people, may draftees, were sent off to fight a war in a forign land with the admonition, we either stop Communism over there or we will have to fight it here in our streets. Then after 12-13 months living under severe conditions, these young people return to find that the country that had sent them to Viet Nam, on pain of prison for NOT going was now shunning them, and calling them murderers for whatever they did or their neighbors THOUGHT that they did while serving their country as ordered. Then to top it all off, we soon found that we were not going to be allowed to win the war, or at least fight it as if we meant to win. Finally after nearly ten years of inconclusive action, our government finally began a bombing campaign that convinced the North Vietnamese that they should negotiate a peace, and we were out, with many of our POWs, within three months.

Like so many other endeavors that didn't turn out as expected, it can really be described by the saying of those days, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." And recently even MacNamara writes in his book that we made many mistakes.

Dave VN Class of 63