Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 May 01 - 09:24 AM

I only have a minute here, so this will be brief. Claymore, I accept your pedigree. Too fucking many people post in these types of threads with no frame of reference. You have made certain we all know that you are a warrior. But I am going to say one thing to you, Brother. HE LOST HIS FUCKING FOOT!! HE MAINTAINED COMMAND UNTIL HIS TEAM WAS SAFE!!! What I hear from you is that old Navy envy that I here out of SOME Marines all the time. We can debate all fucking day about this Navy/Marine bullshit. And I agree that politics get into the fray more often than not. And I really agree that that young Marine deserved a Medal of Honor. But get off that load of shite about Kerry. You, a combat vet, should know better than the rest of these self proclaimed sages, what went on there. You should know that most of us did things that, in the air of 30 years reflection, and in the absence of the terror of the times, don't look very good. Neither did No Gun Ri. And there are others in every single war.

On to your general comments. While I don't disagree with some of your assessment, It is my opinion that you ignore role that lousy intel, usually gathered by non-military sources, plays in those actions. The Grenada operation was a complete goatf**k, and an inappropriate use of the teams. And for what?

We do have an area of agreement. I don't believe the Special Ops groups of today are the same as they were 30 years ago. You captured exactly what the mission should be. Todays specwarriors are, indeed, trained for missions that they will likely never see.

And no, Clay, we don't have a big conflict going. I just believe you are wrong with regard to Bob Kerry. And I believe you are absolutely right about politics getting in the way of that young Marine getting his just recognition. Want to start a campaign to write this wrong? I will do whatever it takes to help you. I MUST get my oversized arse to work.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: InOBU
Date: 02 May 01 - 03:24 PM

Hi Guys
I decided to stay out of this until I saw the 60 min. piece which presented Kerry's side as well as Klann's and the Vietnamese. It was a tragic story, which raises some old questions we who worked in the legal system have faced time and time again. I find I believe Klann, after seeing Kerry, and understand Kerry's reluctance to deal with this painful act of his youth.
The dilema is, how can we continue to bring Nazi criminals to justice, and seek justice against Serbian war criminals, if we do not deal with the possible criminal actions of our soldiers as well.
I would say that the testimony on the show raised enogh question to warrent a hearing. It was certainly what would be described as a prima facie case that an atrocity took place.
What do we say to William Callie, if we do not hold a hearing, - sorry Bill, you where the scape goat for all our sins, and if one waits long enough to be found out, he is exhonerated by time?
I don't know what the sentence should be, if in fact he lined up women and children and killed them. But, as my mother's people were also killed, by a war machine, bent on making targets of civilians, I would reluctantly say, that in order that as a nation, we do not make this part of the way we conduct our selves in war, if in fact he did do this, a price should be paid. Perhaps, if found guilty beyond a resonable doupt, in an enlightend future, he would be sentenced to aid in the removal of the landmines we left in Veit Nam, so that both communities could come together over this, rather than a trial be an open wound.
Finally Doug - many many protesters went to jail. Some of us did not go to Canada, but became - as I did combat photographers, to show our convictions were not born of fear - but rather, a desire not to be put in the possition Mr. Kerry was put in, by a country whoes government did not deserve trust. I would have to say I could only hope McNamara and Kissinger were co-defendants in any trial, but well, I'm an idealist.
Truely, the best to all,
Larry

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:17 PM

The retired army Major General who works with me, just showed me the latest issue of Time magazine, 5/7/01 and I quote from the feature article "Ghosts of Viet Nam" (www.time.com):

"During Kerrey's brief, lamentable run for the presidency in 1992, he confounded his handlers with his ambivalence about exploiting what should have been his strongest political asset: his war heroism. Everywhere he went, people thanked him for it. But always, there was an awkwardness in the way he addressed it. In the end, under pressure from his consultants, he mentioned it plenty, but he always seemed to talk around it. Kerrey never mentioned his Bronze Star for Thanh Phong, but he could not escape the glory of his other decoration. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military prize, for his actions in another raid less than a month after Thanh Phong.

That one too went very wrong — information from defectors led Kerrey's squad into a trap. Chastened by the killings in Thanh Phong, Kerrey had decided to take these targets as prisoners. As a result, he told TIME last week, "I think I almost got some of my men killed that night." Instead, in a 90-sec. fire fight, seven V.C. were gunned down — but not before a grenade landed on Kerrey's foot, shattering his leg and wounding his groin, chest and face. Declining morphine for the pain, Kerrey refused to relinquish his command until he had got his men to safety.

The disastrous mission that one SEAL called a "bumbling overf___" was deemed a success by the brass. Ambrose put Kerrey in for a Silver Star, but as the request moved up, senior officers embellished the description and elevated the recommendation. The next year, Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.

They all knew it was ridiculous, Ambrose told Karen Tumulty, then with the Los Angeles Times, in 1992. "Bob wanted to turn the medal down ... It was just another night out," he said. "We just got hit." Kerrey and the others believed the "honor" was politically motivated: Nixon's unpopular war needed a few more heroes. Kerrey's buddies told him to accept the medal for the sake of all those who had fought and lost more than he had. Kerrey's sister Jessie Rasmussen says he was still struggling with a decision as the family gathered in Washington for the ceremony. But on May 14, 1970, just 10 days after National Guardsmen shot and killed antiwar protesters at Kent State University, Kerrey allowed Nixon to pin the country's highest military honor on his chest. "

I'm sure the Navy brass were VERY good at "embellishing" and "elevating" the award. And the article merely confirms what my keyboard bumbling was trying to say about the misuse of special units.

I have friends whose view of the world is different from mine, and who believe that even if a fake hero was awarded the Medal of Honor, if that person speaks out for peace, then a greater good is achieved. It may be that the young Marine on Mutter's Ridge would never have been the spokesman that the graduate of the University of Nebraska turned out to be. Kerrey certainally won the hearts of the Peace-at-Any-Cost crowd.

But in quieter moments, I think that Marine should have at least had the chance to speak out, no matter how inarticulately, after really winning what Kerry stained. I am, even as a combat vet, in no position to judge Kerrey, but I hope the darkest hole in Hell goes to the hypocrites...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 May 01 - 12:17 PM

Mick, I'm sorry we even have disagreement, but I hope it's professional.

My problem has been the mission creep of many of the special unit operations. I was involved with the planning of the Grenada op and went nuts over the stupid use of the SEALs then, and later in the Panama stupidity of have two SEAL teams tied down trying to secure Noreiga's private jet.

Special units (whether Green Beanies, Super Squids, or Recon Marines) do not take and hold ground. They snoop, poop and vaporize. I did not believe in the Grab or Stab missions then (we were running them in the 'Z) and my long view only confirms it. We develop special ops capability that becomes so specialized, we can almost never use them in the real world. Then, because they start to get rusty due to no "action" to test their skills, we develop actions which are EASILY handed by less special units, commit them to actions which were never comptemplated during the unit-concept planning stages, and wonder why they screw the pooch.

I would ask you to take the time to research the use and history of SEALs in Viet Nam, Grenada, and "Just Cause" in a realistic and detached way, comparing losses and gains and the even more ethereal "perceived gains". Also read "Black Hawk Down" about the Rangers in Somalia. At the conclusion of these actions, I didn't write the medal citations, I wrote the AAR's (After Action Reports) and they were sickening.

Finally, I have to clear up two points from my earlier post. In addition to the carrier pilots, I should have included the Riverine forces, the Chaplains, and God love 'em, the Navy Corpsman which no Marine in his right mind would forget (don't go there... ).

Secondly, in reference to the Medal of Honor. I attempted to write up a young Marine who ended up with one leg off from an RPG, who held his position on a forward ridge LP, and after running out of ammo, ended up killing two armed NVA with ROCKS, yet his medal was down graded because the "Navy hadn't met it's quota, and we (Marines) have too many". I read Kerry's citation; there is no comparison...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:44 AM

here is a song the angels gave to me for those who have been through such horrible times.

Woe Betide Us

Woe betide us woe betide us we the weary of the war Is there no one who can guide us who has gone this way before

Woe betide you woe betide you are you wind your upward way There is one who has walked beside you every hour of every day

Joy betide you joy betide you endless miles you bravely trod When you felt so dead inside you journeyed hand in hand with God

(who says..) When I called you then you answered All I asked to give you gave All that you could do you did so All that you could save you saved

There is rest and there is welcome At my table you will dine All your sorrows I will cherish All the work you did was mine..

---- Today, May 1, was lay down your burdens day. So please do even if belatedly. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:04 AM

Some time or another, a person needs to talk about things, just to get them off his chest and maybe try to find some peace--As it stands right now, it isn't safe to do that, because there are way too many who are eager to point fingers and call names--

It is a great irony that a lot of our people have gone back to Vietnam and found enemy hands extended in friendship, when there are still so many at home who are unwilling to do the same--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Norton1
Date: 01 May 01 - 11:56 PM

The crappy part of this whole thing - it is being thrown at Veterans by journalists whose biggest trauma is dealing with messed up hair from rush hour. What I wish someone would do is to see Viet Nam Veterans for who we are - for the most part successful. The media dotes on the ones who got really messed up and the rest don't count. We went, we fought, we came home and tried to rebuild our lives as best we could. Sometimes against seemingly insurmountable odds. No different than my Dad did after flying 25 missions as a tail gunner in B-17s. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had nightmares right up to the time he died. Just like me - I was no hero but I still live with those dreams. And I have a good life, earn my own way, Love my beautiful wife very much, dote on my Grand children, and feel very lucky to have survived. If the Gentleman runs for office he certainly has my vote.

Semper Fidelis

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 May 01 - 10:10 PM

McGrath, your point is well taken. And it is exactly on the mark. If one is going to buy into the principle that certain actions are justifiable in the prosecution of war, then one must understand that that applies in all circumstances. And while I don't seek to rationalize it........as you know what my views on war are..........I don't buy into the attacking of Kerry as some are wont to do. If there is any lesson to be learned from this, it is that we must never buy into the "my country right or wrong" line of bullshit again. Kerry did exactly what he was supposed to do in this circumstance. When one is operating in the home turf of a guerrilla force, every person is considered to be the enemy. The fact that they got into a firefight means the mission had gone wrong. These are horrible times, and many among us will live with it for the rest of our time.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 01 - 09:36 PM

Doug, my point was that if it's justified for soldiers to kill unarmed civilian prisoners in Vietnam to protect himself, it'd be justified for other soldiers to do the same in the town you live, if there was a war on. Agree to the one and you agree to the other, simple as that. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

As you say, bad things happen in war. But in principal at least it is recognised by most countries, including the United States, that there are certain actions which are outlawed, including killing unarmed civilian prisoners whatever the circumstances. In principal...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 May 01 - 09:24 PM

Got to fight with you a bit, Clay. I am OK that this is a mission gone bad. No doubt about it. But let me say this. I am intimately familiar with the training that these SEALS went through. To suggest that they lined these people up and shot them is ludicrous. Didn't happen. To suggest that Kerry and his team got antsy and fired willy nilly is just as ridiculous. There is a reason why SEAL teams suffered much lighter casualties, and inflicted damage far in excess of our numbers. We believed in the principle of overwhelming fire superiority. We also believed that when you were in a firefight, there was a problem. As to the AO, Tan Phong is on the Delta. One must cross the Mekong to get to it. I don't like justifying our governments activities in 'Nam, but I will defend the warriors. In this particular area, anyone encountered was presumed to be VC. It is exactly the type of AO that SEALS operated in.

Your comment about Kerry's Medal of Honor seems to suggest that you don't know the details of actions he took that caused the medal to be issued. His actions just getting to the target were heroic enough to probably merit a Silver Star. The actions he took with one of his feet blown off most certainly elevated him to the level of Medal of Honor.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 01 May 01 - 05:06 PM

As a former Marine Platoon Commander in VN in 69, I suspect "What really happened" was a version of what we used to call a "Polish Firing Squad" in the Corps. "Movement to Contact" is always very difficult in the jungle and frequently one or the other of your squad will get out in front of your line of advance, and lose contact with the men on either side. Remember that the radios we had in the bush back then were big clunky things (PRC –25's etc) and were only used for calling in fire, sit reps etc. If one of your men opened fire, it was often the case that the others would reflexively swivel to the location of what is an incredibly loud sound from an oppressively quiet jungle, and begin firing too, firmly believing they were under attack, but actually firing at the sound (or the actual marine) at their left or right.

Even later, when I investigated police shootings, as an internal affairs investigator, I was amazed how many rounds one or two officers would squeeze off, firing at their own echoes and the flashes off of windows. I was very disappointed that our department went to automatic pistols with large capacity magazines for that very reason, and stayed with my six shot revolver. I was, for many years, the best marksman in my department, and shot competition for 15 years. (And while I am no fan of the NRA, I carry their very rare "Police Distinguished Marksman Badge" for shooting ten perfect targets in open competition). I derided the autos as the "spray and pray" crowd, and feel that most officers would be more circumspect with their weapons if they knew that after six bangs, they were going to face the music.

Also as an ex-cop, I am very suspicious of the Klann's statements and I would be trolling the Veterans Affairs records for prior inconsistent statements. It's my currently unsupported belief that Klann is trying to build a case for VA benefits payments, and I would spend major investigative efforts on that issue. He's "shopping a story" and to a good interrogator, this is a case of "peel and eat".

I hold no brief for Kerry either, and I believe he was an opportunist from the start. I see nothing that would warrant a Medal of Honor for his other action, other than the fact that the Navy was very under-represented in the Viet Nam Medal Dash, and were looking for a few good wounded heroes to inspire a service that was, other than the carrier pilots, conspicuous by it's absence. What was the Navy doing conducting counter-guerilla activities in the jungle? It was a bad case of trying to justify "mission creep" and basically no different than the ATF attacking the compound at Waco, Texas. "We have the capacity; Lets justify its use by using it."

It should be pointed out that murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, have no statute of limitations, unlike most other crimes, and many cases have been brought under Federal and State laws to that effect (witness the Birmingham bombing case). However, at some point you must let the dead bury the dead. I have always been suspect of those who gain much from fighting in a war, later decrying it, and this whole incident does nothing to allay the thought that hypocrisy, like history, has many tales to tell, and that when you tell both sides of a story; then half the time you're telling lies…

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 01 May 01 - 04:35 PM

As a troop commander, McGrath, Kerrey's first responsibility was to get his troops back safely. As so many others have already pointed out, one evidently could not easily recognize friend from foe in that war. Suppose Kerrey had elected to leave the area without killing the villagers, and those same people had alerted the Viet Cong resulting in Kerry's whole squad being wiped out? Would that better suit you?

As to the Dresden raid, at least the one I am referring to, it happened over a half century ago, so I doubt there will be any kind of investigating tribunal at this late date.

In war bad things happen.

Doug R

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 May 01 - 02:46 PM

For those of you who have been and done, reading between the lines, what do you think really happened there that night?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 01 - 01:42 PM

Doug believes that in order to get his troops back it is justified for a soldier to kill unarmed civilian prisoners.

I take it this doesn't just apply to American soldiers overseas, and that it would have been equally valid for British soldiers in the American Revolution, or soldiers on both sides in the American Civil War.

In other words, he'd be applying the Golden Rule - consenting in principle to the killing of his own family in similar circumstances.

I think, spaw, it may have been me that mgarvey was criticising for the Nazi linkage. What I was saying was meant to be the opposite really - saying that I don't believe that soldiers in most wars, including the Vietnam War, do turn into Nazi-style death squad members, and that Calley and Co, who did, were, I believe and hope, very much the exception.

Dresden was a major war-crime, and I look forward to the setting up of an effective international war-crimes tribunal that will mean that the people responsible for that kind of thing - and I don't mean the bomber crews - will no longer be able to rely on their own country turning a blind eye to atrocities carried out on its own behalf.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 01 May 01 - 01:07 AM

McGrath, it would be great if the "Golden Rule," applied in war. But then on the ohter hand, if the "Golden Rule,' applied, there probably wouldn't be any war.

If, I repeat from an earlier posting, Kerry believed that he could not lead his squad back safely without killing potential members of the Viet Cong, I believe he was justified in doing whatever he did.

I also mentioned Dresden earlier. In that raid in WW2, thousands of innocent German civilians died. Is the fact that Kerry's group may (or may not) have gathered the group of civilians together and shot them, any worse than what the bomber crews did during WW2 over Dresden or numerious other targets? The Nazi's sent unmanned bombs over London during WW2 and killed thousands of innocent civilians.

What, my friends, is the difference between what Kerry's squad may have done, than the bomber crews from England and the U. S. and the Nazi's did in WW2?

War has no favorites. Unfortunately, in any war, innocent people are killed.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:46 AM

What linkage are you referring to? I didn't link it and if you think I did ...read it again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:41 AM

What linkage are you referring to? I didn't link it and if you think I did ...read it again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:17 AM

I think the linkage of our troops with Nazis was totally uncalled for and was hate speech. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 07:00 PM

"Well there are those good men and good men do exist.....so burn his ass!!!....Yeah, that's it, when I'M the Chairman of the jury...............

The scene, a large room with a couple of "prisoners" and some "interrogators".....................

"Yeah man, I'd never sell out my country! I wouldn't do it, no way man. I would NEVER sell my country out........uh,say...What are they doing with that other guy?..............They got his pants down............What are they heating up that lead for over there?..............Aw, it doesn't matter, I would never sell out, no way man..........uh, what are they putting that funnel in his ass for?.........That's OK, I would never......Hey, they're not going to pour that hot lead in the funnel in his ass are they?..............WOOOWWWEEEEEE!!! THEY DID!!! GEEZIZ MAN...........I'll tell you all the secrets....I'll MAKE UP secrets man.......Just don't give me the hot lead enema.........

Yeah, so that's it ain't it? If you can take the hot lead enema, you can cast the first stone............"

................LENNY BRUCE, Stand Up Philosopher

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:50 PM

I don't know spaw. That's one reason I wouldn't trust myself to fight in any army, no matter what the alternative.

All I know is there's one rule for judging other people - and that's don't rush to judgement, because you don't know if you'd have done anything different or better. But there's another rule for judging yourself, and that means accepting responsibility for what you have done, and that killing unarmed prisoners is murder. And part of accepting responsibility means telling the truth about what really happened.

I believe and hope that most soldiers in most wars do manage most of the time not to behave like Nazis. Even including Vietnam. I've always told myself that the Calleys were the exception.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:39 PM

the Jews you see had been very conditioned to expect the worst, fear the worst.

Plus too, by the time they got to the camps, they were extremely weak, cold, half-starving, most probably had dysintery (sp?), etc. etc.

It's too facile to say "they should have done this or that." As we sit in comfort in our well-heated homes with all the food we need, It's all too easy to judge people in circumstances grossly unlike anything we have ever experienced or could ever expect to. All too easy, and wrong IMHO.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:17 PM

Ya' know McGrath, that kinda' stuff reads real well but I don't think it holds up in court. I'm sure you've seen the pictures of 1 German guard per 200 Jewish prisoners..........why didn't they just overrun them? By the time we saw those pictures, the Jews you see had been very conditioned to expect the worst, fear the worst. I used to think it was really weird that one guard per 200 was really absurd until I really thought about what had been and was then going on.

U.S. Military training is team oriented and desensitizing. Ask some of the vets about advanced training and SEAL training and all of that........Geeziz, it seems to me that I would have been hard pressed not to shoot anything that moved and sort it out later.......or just say fuck it and try not to remember. Later maybe this gets to you and you have to cope with it....or not. Are you telling me that fighting in a country where you "can't tell the players without a scorecard" that you wouldn't reach the point where everything and everybody was your enemy, or at least your potential killer?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 05:48 PM

Basic rule, as always, is the Golden Rule. In this case - if that was your mother or your child or your aged parents, would you see it as right for someone else to do what you are doing to people who are someone else's mother, child or aged parents.

To stick with that you don't need to be a saint or as scholar. You might need to have courage. If you don't stick with that you certainly aren't a hero, no matter how many medals you get.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 02:24 PM

Tedham Porterhouse. Sir, You sensed wrongly, and I do know a little bit about such things.
1. My men would not receive such orders from me
2. If my men lined up civilians and started shooting them I would kill my men
3. I would not obey such orders if given by my superiors.
4. I would personally hunt down and kill anyone who did such a thing to my family.
I trust you are satisfied that Kerrey was placed in the most unfortunate of situations, and did not intentionally target civillians. (although it did happen, and continues to happen around the world)Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:14 PM

I sat in safety and gave orders. Spit on me. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Troll
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:02 PM

Kerrey was a good officer. I would have been proud to have served under him.

troll

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 11:40 AM

Actually, Dave, you mistook Buffy St. Marie for Donovan--everybody makes mistake like that--we're all just lucky you didn't have a gun--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 11:12 AM

Well said, McGrath. Blaming the 'ordinary' soldier on the ground is like blaming the gun for all the deaths it has caused. We need to lay the blame on the people who pull the trigger. Conversely though the gun does not have any real choice, but the soldier does. It is one thing defending yourself when you genuinely believe your life/freedom/family etc is at risk - even by pre-emptive strikes. It is an entirely different kettle of fish to knowingly masacre innocent people.

The whole question of war crimes trials is one of deciding which category the soldier, at whatever level, fits in. Like as not he (or she of course) will not be firmly one or the other as the grey areas always cloud these issues.

I don't have any answers I'm afraid. I would hate to be the one who must decide, to quote Donovan, who's to live and who's to die. I don't know who can decide whether the soldier was just following orders or if he had gone too far. Quoting Mr Leitch once more (sorry - I'm an old 60's folky at heart!) Without him all this killing can't go on.

Remove the weapons and the war-mongers can no longer use them. Simplistic I know but so am I! Doesn't help here either I'm afraid so 'scuse the thread creep - but it is the way I feel.

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 10:39 AM

Robert McNamara, who, for some reason, is the only Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense that anyone ever remembers, seems to have been opposed the war, and to escalation, within the confines of the "War Room", but was the chief point man for it in the public forum--I wonder what kind of nightmares he had?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 08:20 AM

The atrocities carried out by young confused men, doing what they have been told they are supposed to do is one thing. They have to live with knowing what they have done - and that must be pretty hard to do, whether you're American, Vietnamese, German, Japanese, Israeli, British... Few of us are entitled to be certain that we mightn't have done the same kind of thing, given the same circumstances.

But the unforgivable guilt is that of the people higher up, all the way to the top, who sit in safety and give the orders, and fail in their duty to ensure that the troops under their command kep within the rules of war, and concealed the truth. The people who hardly ever face any any kind of war-crimes trial and never will in this life.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 06:00 PM

In reading the NYT article, I hope that no one missed the fact the civilian witness to the event identifies herself as the wife of a VC, and mentions that she was hiding behind a tree while all this was happening...hmmm...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 03:02 PM

Sorry Tedham....I knew that and am well aware of his background. It was simply a phrase I should have thought more about when I typed it. My apologies if I led anyone astray by its use.

M.Ted........Thanks as always for the complete areticle post. Much appreciated.

NH Dave.......Excellent post and I couldn't agree more. "Here kid, take this gun and kill those bastards before they kill you." Trained in that way and then sent into that situation, why are we surprised that these things happened? A lot of people want to believe they would have done things differently than Kerrey and others............Somehow, I doubt it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: NH Dave
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 02:41 PM

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

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 02:32 PM

Here is the Times Article, no time to clean up the line breaks and such--hope you can read it:

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong April 25, 2001

By GREGORY L. VISTICA

Senator Bob Kerrey's hands trembled slightly as he began to read six pages of documents that had just been handed to him. It was late 1998; the papers were nearly 30 years old. On the face of it, they were routine "after action" combat reports of the sort filed by the thousands during the Vietnam War. But Kerrey knew the pages held a personal secret -- of an event so traumatic that he says it once prompted fleeting thoughts of suicide.

Pulling the documents within inches of his eyes, he read intently about his time as a member of the Navy Seals and about a mission in 1969 that somehow went horribly wrong. As an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Kerrey led a commando team on a raid of an isolated peasant hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's eastern Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts of exactly what happened, one thing is certain: around midnight on Feb. 25, 1969, Kerrey and his men killed at least 13 unarmed women and children. The operation was brutal; for months afterward, Kerrey says, he feared going to sleep because of the terrible nightmares that haunted him.

The restless nights are mostly behind him now, his dreams about Vietnam more reflective. One of those, which he says recurs frequently, is about an uncle who disappeared in action during World War II. "In my dream I am about to leave for Vietnam," Kerrey wrote in an e-mail message last December. "He warns me that the greatest danger of war is not losing your life but the taking of others', and that human savagery is a very slippery slope."

Kerrey -- who left the Senate in January and is now president of the New School University in New York -- says he has spent the last three decades wondering if he could have done something different that night in Thanh Phong. "It's far more than guilt," he said that morning in 1998. "It's the shame. You can never, can never get away from it. It darkens your day. I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you, and I don't think it is. I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."

Kerrey laid the documents down. He was clearly unsettled not just by their contents but also by the realization that four members of his Seals team had already spoken about the mission. I had heard about Thanh Phong indirectly from one of those men, Gerhard Klann. Klann, the most experienced member of Kerrey's Seals squad, had been so disturbed by his memories of that night that he confided in a commander who, many years later, told the story to me. That in turn spurred the search for the documents. Those were found after a three-month examination of thousands of pages of classified and unclassified Seals reports and communiqués that had been boxed up since the war in the Navy's archives.

The after-action reports provided the first concrete evidence of the terrible events, which Kerrey had hardly addressed even in private conversation, and he reacted testily when asked about it. "There's a part of me that wants to say to you all the memories that I've got are my memories, and I'm not going to talk about them," he said. "We thought we were going over there to fight for the American people. We come back, we find out that the American people didn't want us to do it. And ever since that time we've been poked, prodded, bent, spindled, mutilated, and I don't like it. Part of living with the memory, some of those memories, is to forget them. I've got a right to say to you it's none of your damned business. I carry memories of what I did, and I survive and live based upon lots of different mechanisms."

This first meeting came at a complicated time for Kerrey, who was just days from announcing whether he would make a second run for the presidency and challenge Vice President Al Gore for the 2000 Democratic nomination. Handsome and charismatic, a crafty politician with a keen intellect, Kerrey was widely regarded as an attractive candidate. He was an outspoken Democrat with a strong appeal for independents. There was the glamour of his much-publicized love affair while governor of Nebraska with Debra Winger, the actress. And he was a war hero. Though he rarely wore it, he was a recipient of the Medal of Honor -- awarded to him after he lost part of a leg during his last mission in Vietnam.

Kerrey knew that a race against an incumbent like Gore would be an uphill, nasty struggle. It was mostly this fact, he said, and doubts about his commitment to wage such a difficult campaign, that persuaded him to drop out, which he did just before Christmas. A little more than a year later, he would startle even his friends by announcing that he would not seek a third term in the Senate, despite overwhelmingly favorable poll numbers.

In an interview in January, Kerrey said that his actions in Vietnam had no bearing on his decision to drop out of elective politics, presidential or otherwise. He said he left politics simply because he wanted to pursue other challenges -- particularly in education -- while he was still relatively young.

Over the last two and a half years, Kerrey has spoken at length in three separate interviews -- as well as in numerous telephone calls and several e-mail messages and over dinners -- about what happened in Thanh Phong. After his initial reluctance, he talked willingly, and at times almost confessionally, about the events of Feb. 25, 1969. He did so "not because a public accounting will help me," he wrote in the December e-mail message, "but because it just might help someone else."

It became clear as he talked that he was still wrestling with the events of that night, fighting the vagaries of memory to reconstruct what happened in Thanh Phong and what he could have done to prevent it. He has spoken to very few people about the incident. As this article's publication neared, he began to talk to others, and first spoke publicly about his version of it 11 days ago in a speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute. He says the men in his Seals team have only recently begun to discuss Thanh Phong with one another.

Kerrey says he isn't afraid to accept responsibility for the incident or to own up to his role in it. "The only motivating fear I have is that someday I will face my maker. The opinion of other human beings matters, but the less it motivates me the better." He is under no illusions about the repercussions. "It's going to be very interesting to see the reactions to the story. I mean, because basically you're talking about a man who killed innocent civilians."

April 25, 2001

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong

(Page 2 of 7)

n the winter of 1969, a couple of days after the New York Jets won the Super Bowl, a military plane lifted off from the sprawling North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, Calif. Crammed inside were Kerrey and his gung-ho team, on their way to do battle in Vietnam.

Seals (the name stands for Sea-Air-Land units) commandos began as underwater demolition teams in the Second World War. During the Vietnam era, they evolved into special forces units, trained to operate behind enemy lines, collect intelligence and carry out assassinations. Officially, Kerrey's group was called Delta Platoon, Seals Team One, Fire Team Bravo. Unofficially, they would be dubbed Kerrey's Raiders, in honor of their enthusiastic commanding officer, who was ready to take on Hanoi, as he has said many times, with "a knife in my teeth." Only two of the men, Mike Ambrose and Gerhard Klann, had previous experience on Seals teams in Vietnam. The others -- William H. Tucker III, Gene Peterson, Rick Knepper, a medic named Lloyd Schreier and Kerrey himself -- were flying into the unknown.

Delta Platoon was assigned to the Navy's Task Force 115, based at Cam Ranh Bay and commanded by Capt. Roy Hoffmann, a favorite of Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr., the Navy's top man in Vietnam. Hoffmann was a cigar-chomping officer who brandished an M-16 assault rifle and wore a revolver when he visited troops in the field. "He was the classic body-count guy," Kerrey says. "Bunkers destroyed, hooches destroyed, sort of scorekeeper."

For several weeks, Kerrey and his team operated in the relatively safe environs of Cam Ranh Bay, the Navy's largest base in what was then South Vietnam, about midway up the coast. Then they began looking for a true war mission. They moved south to Cat Lo, a regional Navy command post where one of Hoffmann's senior deputies, Paul Connolly, would oversee their missions. The Navy kept a fleet of "swift boats" a few miles away, in the port of Vung Tau -- 50-foot, aluminum-skinned crafts equipped with two .50-caliber machine guns and twin 480-horsepower Detroit Diesels -- that moved Kerrey's squad on missions in the Mekong Delta.

Vung Tau was the stepping-off point for operations in the "Thanh Phu Secret Zone," a remote section of the Mekong Delta, about 75 miles southeast of Saigon. A lush, tropical region of palm and banana trees, rice paddies and mangrove swamps, it was considered among the most dangerous parts of Vietnam. Five of its eight villages -- including Thanh Phong -- were said to be under the control of the rebel Vietcong forces, according to David Marion, then an Army captain who occupied one of the more sensitive posts in the region.

Marion was the senior American military adviser to Tiet Lun Duc, who, as the Thanh Phu district chief, was the top Vietnamese official in the area. Duc, a 45-year-old military officer trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, arrived three months before Kerrey did, determined to drive out the Vietcong by almost any means. Marion says that Duc, whose predecessors had been far more relaxed, came in with the attitude " 'If you are my friend, you will do fine. You support me and the government of Vietnam, we get along O.K. You do not, you're Vietcong, you die.' And those were the rules."

Duc wasn't the only one who wanted to get tough with the Vietcong. In the summer of 1968, Hoffmann complained to his superiors in Pearl Harbor that the prevailing rules of engagement were too constrictive. "This was war," Hoffmann said in an interview last month. "This wasn't Sunday school." He made what he said was a pro forma request for looser rules, which was granted.

Previously, Hoffmann said, military personnel had not been permitted to fire unless they were fired upon. Under the new rules, he said, they could attack if they felt threatened. "I told them you not only have authority, I damned well expect action," Hoffmann recalled. "If there were men there and they didn't kill them or capture them, you'd hear from me."

Duc also re-established much of the Thanh Phu district as a "free-fire zone," which allowed combat pilots and Navy warships to attack any "targets of opportunity," including people and villages, without prior command authority. Peasants in free-fire zones were urged to relocate to government refugee centers, called "strategic hamlets." It was a difficult task, Marion said last month, because "they had been there for generations. They weren't going to leave, and basically they didn't care who was in charge." Those who didn't move to the strategic hamlets were labeled as Vietcong or as enemy sympathizers.

ypically, Navy seals undertook kidnap or assassination missions, looking to eliminate Vietcong leaders from among the local population. These were called "takeouts," Marion says, as in, "come out with me, or you die." Within weeks of Kerrey's arrival in Cat Lo, American and Vietnamese intelligence reported that the senior Vietcong leader in Thanh Phong, the "village secretary," was planning a meeting in the area. Effectively the mayor of the hamlet, the village secretary was a prime target, and Kerrey's squad began planning a "takeout" mission -- their first real action.

Thanh Phong was a village of between 75 and 150 people on the South China Sea. Too small to have a well-defined center, or even a school, it consisted of groups of four or five hooches -- the thatch huts peasants lived in -- strung out over about a third of a mile of shoreline. On Feb. 13, 1969, according to Seals after-action reports, Kerrey's team entered a section of Thanh Phong, searched two hooches and "interrogated 14 women and small children," looking for the village secretary. They departed on a swift boat the next day, then returned to the general area later that night only to abort because of a malfunctioning radio.

In interviews this year, Kerrey says he can't recall going to Thanh Phong that first time, about two weeks before the night of the killings. Yet the after-action reports from these two visits contain Kerrey's name, the date and the location. And in the 1998 conversation, Kerrey clearly recalled this earlier mission to Thanh Phong, when his Seals team found villagers "asleep with no men in the area." If the reports and Kerrey's first recollections are correct, then they must have had a pretty good idea of the situation they would face when they went back.

pril 25, 2001

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong

(Page 3 of 7)

Kerrey's squad would not return until Feb. 25, when intelligence sources again indicated that the village secretary would be holding a meeting, this time with a Vietcong military leader. A day or two before the fatal mission, Kerrey says, he flew over Thanh Phong with a naval intelligence officer and saw no women or children.

On Feb. 25, the district chief, Tiet Lun Duc, issued a blunt warning to the area's villagers. This was in response to an atrocity, Marion says, in which two Vietcong were said to have thrown a grenade into a hooch at 2 a.m., killing a 5-year-old and wounding a number of others. Reading from an official daily log he kept while in Vietnam, Marion quotes Duc as saying: "We want people to be government of Vietnam. Come out with us, and we will take this area back. You who do not come out, we will consider you to be Vietcong. You are the enemy. You will die."

n exact reconstruction of the events surrounding Kerrey's mission that night, 32 years after the fact, may not be entirely possible. Memories can be vague, and the trauma of such an intense episode can cause the mind to block out or alter major details. "It's entirely possible that I'm blacking a lot of it out," Kerrey said in an interview this month. Even so, official Navy records, Army radio logs found at the National Archives and interviews with some of Kerrey's team members leave no doubt that sometime close to midnight on Feb. 25, 1969, the tiny hamlet of Thanh Phong was visited with terrible and indiscriminate killing by Fire Team Bravo.

There are starkly different versions of what happened on the raid. In Kerrey's, the killings were by and large carried out in self-defense. By his own admission, however, his memory is faulty. "Please understand," he said in an e-mail message last December, "that my memory of this event is clouded by the fog of the evening, age and desire."

Another version, given by Kerrey's most experienced commando, Gerhard Klann, is far more troubling. It is consistent with the accounts given in interviews with one Vietnamese woman who claims to have witnessed the whole tragedy and with two people who say they are relatives of the victims. The interviews in Vietnam were conducted by producers for "60 Minutes II."

Mike Ambrose, today an executive with a Texas deep-sea-diving firm, offers another account, one that alternately supports Kerrey and Klann (who now lives in Pennsylvania, where he works in a steel mill). None of the others on the team would speak in any detail about the incident. Gene Peterson, who is retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, where he was a detective, and Lloyd Schreier, who runs a ranch in eastern Oregon, said simply that they did nothing wrong. William Tucker, who works on a ground crew for American Airlines in Dallas, didn't want to talk, either. He did say that as they were leaving Thanh Phong on the swift boat after the killings, he turned to Kerrey and said, "I don't like this stuff." Kerrey, he says, replied, "I don't like it, either." Rick Knepper, who retired after 30 years with the Seals, also declined to comment, saying: "My time in Vietnam was too hard to talk about. Please leave me alone."

errey says it was a moonless night when his raiders quietly took up positions on the shore not far from Thanh Phong. After being dropped off by swift boat, they sat motionless for a while, adjusting to the darkness and listening for possible enemy fighters. The blackness of the night gave them good cover.

As they moved out, Kerrey says, they followed their regular patrol routine. Ambrose, as "point man," went first, with Schreier, Kerrey and Klann close behind, followed by Knepper and Peterson. Tucker brought up the rear. They were armed with M-16 rifles, 9-millimeter side arms, knives, phosphorous grenades, disposable rocket launchers and a heavy machine gun that Klann carried, called a stoner.

They were closing in on the village when they came upon a hooch that hadn't shown up on their intelligence reports. Kerrey says he remembers Ambrose and Klann coming back to him and one of them saying, "We've got some men here, we have to take care of them."

In an interview this month, Kerrey, while taking responsibility for the killings, says he did not specifically order them. "Standard operating procedure was to dispose of the people we made contact with," he said. "Kill the people we made contact with, or we have to abort the mission." Kerrey said he viewed the Vietnamese, who he thought were men, as "security, as outposts. It does not work to merely bind and gag people, because they're going to get away." They used knives, Kerrey says, evidently to avoid betraying their presence with gunshots. Kerrey says he never saw who was inside the hooch and denies doing any of the killing himself. He also doesn't recall finding any weapons.

With the first hooch taken care of, the team then began moving along a dike that would take them into Thanh Phong. They crept along for about 15 minutes until they arrived at a group of four or five hooches, Kerrey says, identifiable only by the faint yellow light flickering inside.

At this point, Kerrey said in the 1998 interview, "we took fire from the target." An after-action report says the team "received several rounds from about 100 yards." Speaking this month, Kerrey said he couldn't be absolutely certain that shots were fired. "I don't know if it's noise," he said. "In fact, there is some dispute. Ambrose is certain we took fire." And in the fog of war, it's often hard to tell what is happening. "I was thinking there were a thousand guys over there," he said in January. "What do I know? The first thing I do is direct Knepper to return fire with a LAW," a disposable launcher designed to shoot rockets that pierce armor and explode. Then, Kerrey says, he gave the order for his men to open fire as they advanced on the hooches. Before the firing stopped, according to one of the Seals' after-action reports, the commandos had expended 1,200 rounds of ammunition.

The barrage lasted for only a few minutes as they made their way into the cluster of hooches. "The thing that I will remember until the day I die is walking in and finding, I don't know, 14 or so, I don't even know what the number was, women and children who were dead," Kerrey said in 1998. "I was expecting to find Vietcong soldiers with weapons, dead. Instead I found women and children." Sometime later, Kerrey says, they saw several people running away and took them out as well; according to one after-action report, there were seven killed. In the dark, they could not see if the dead were men or women.

Page 4 of 7)

It was not only a grisly scene but also a confusing one. It was no secret in Vietnam that hooches had earthen bunkers beneath them or nearby. At the first sign of trouble, the peasants would roll into the bunkers and hide. Often, they would just sleep in them.

Kerrey remembers finding the bodies in a group, though he doesn't know why they were clustered together. Maybe, he suggests, somebody had rounded them up. "Maybe there were guys in there that made them get into that position then got out themselves," Kerrey says. "But I don't know. It's significant that there are no men in the village. It's not a small item."

If Kerrey's story is accurate, then someone would have to have roused the women and children, gathered them into a group in the middle of the village, retreated to safety and then fired a few shots at Kerrey's squad. Another possibility is that upon hearing rifle fire the villagers did not dive into their bunkers -- as they were trained to do -- but for some reason ran into open ground and gathered together in a group.

In either case, it is hard to imagine that gunfire from 100 yards -- no matter how intense -- could kill every single member of a group of 14 or 15 people. Some would be expected to survive, particularly when the squad was shooting in the dark and in apparent panic.

But, as Kerrey says, memory is always a liar. That is what happened on Feb. 25, 1969, as he remembers it.

erhard Klann tells a much different story. Klann has long been haunted by memories of that night and confided in a former Seals captain in the 1980's in hopes of getting the killings off his chest. But Klann was reluctant to discuss the incident with me, ignoring two letters and numerous telephone calls over a period of about six months. After I drove out to his home in western Pennsylvania, however, he relented and began to tell his story, providing key information that helped to unearth the documents in the naval archives.

Klann, who immigrated to this country from Germany as a child, comes from a long line of German military men. He says he has come forward now to "cleanse my soul" of a deed that goes against his "moral fiber" as a soldier. He served with distinction in a 20-year Seals career and was among the first to be handpicked for an elite counterterrorism team known as Seal Team Six, which was established in 1980 while Americans were being held hostage in Iran.

Klann was known as a brawling, hard-drinking sort -- he was demoted once for fighting. (His former classification was later restored.) People who know him say they have never detected any animus for Kerrey, and he is repeatedly described by associates in positive terms, though two did mention alcohol. "He coped with the memory of that night with excessive drinking," says his former commanding officer, who adds, "I never saw alcohol interfere with Gerhard's duty."

In 1999 Klann was stopped by a trooper for alcohol-related reasons, which Klann says was an isolated incident following the death of a close friend. Klann objected vehemently to The Times's publishing this fact, which is in the public record. In anger, Klann said that if it was published, he would disavow his version of the Thanh Phong killings, despite his having described it in numerous interviews with The Times and with "60 Minutes II."

Klann's version of events in Thanh Phong was independently supported by an interview with a Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, that was conducted by a "60 Minutes II" cameraman who was not familiar with Klann's account. Klann and Lanh -- who repeated her account in subsequent interviews with producers for "60 Minutes II" -- tell a story that agrees on the basic sequence of events and several of the critical details. The divergence from Kerrey's account begins with the first hooch, the one that hadn't shown up on the intelligence reports.

Klann says that at the first hooch -- where, in Kerrey's recollection, he was told there were only men -- were an older man, a woman about his age and three children under 12. Ambrose says that he saw an older man near the entrance and two women and two men inside. "I motioned for Klann to take him out," Ambrose says of the older man. Klann, in an interview with "60 Minutes II," says Kerrey gave the order to kill.

Klann says he grabbed the man, placed his hand over his mouth and took him away from the children so they couldn't see what he was about to do. "I stuck him here," he says, pointing to a spot just below his rib cage. "Then I did it again," pointing to his upper back. The man turned and grabbed Klann's forearm, the one with the knife, and pushed it away. "He wouldn't die. He kept moving, fighting back." Klann says he signaled for assistance and, as Ambrose watched, Kerrey came over and helped push the man to the ground. Kerrey put his knee on the man's chest, Klann says, as Klann drew his knife across his neck.

Klann says he doesn't remember exactly what happened next. He says that while he was taking out the man, some of the other squad members killed the rest -- the woman and the three children.

Kerrey, in all his interviews until this month, said he had no memory whatsoever of the killing of the old man. But when told about the recollections of Klann and Ambrose, Kerrey added to his account. He now says he remembers Klann having trouble with someone but insists he had no role in the violent death. "He was having difficulty killing one of the people that he was trying to kill."

Kerrey says he thinks he knows who came to Klann's assistance but refuses to "finger" him. "We were all near the first hooch, but I'm not killing these people. I'm 100 percent positive," Kerrey said in the interview this month. "I don't want to lay anything off on anybody. I'm a lieutenant in charge of this platoon, and I take responsibility."

Klann was adamant that it was Kerrey who held the old man down; and Ambrose, in an interview in 1998, was certain of it, too. But this month, Ambrose had second thoughts. "Maybe it was Bob," he now says.

As for the four others killed that night at the first hooch, Kerrey says that it was Klann and Ambrose who did the killing. The rest of the men "were back with me," he said in a telephone call this month. Ambrose refused to return repeated calls for comment on this aspect of Kerrey's account. Page 5 of 7)

The Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, says that she witnessed all the killings. Then 30 years old and the wife of a Vietcong fighter, she says that she quickly snuck up on the scene at the first hooch after hearing cries. "I was hiding behind a banana tree, and I saw them cut the man's neck, first here and then there," she says. "His head was still attached at the back." She says that she also saw the commandos kill what she remembers as a woman and three children with their knives.

Lanh says the man and woman were the grandparents of the three young children. A woman claiming to be a relative of these victims took the "60 Minutes II" producers to a graveyard where a man named Bui Van Vat, his wife, Luu Thi Canh, and, in three small graves, their grandchildren -- two girls and a boy -- are buried. The date on the adults' gravestones, which were erected 10 years after the fact, is Feb. 24, 1969. (There is no further evidence that these five were in fact killed by Kerrey's squad.)

When the killing in the first hooch was done, Ambrose says, "me, Klann and Bob talked. 'Do we abort or do we go on?' There was plenty of noise in the first location. I felt compromised." The noise, apparently, was the screaming of the victims. Ambrose says that he recommended turning back to the extraction point but was overruled by the other team members, who wanted to get the village secretary.

About 15 minutes later, the team arrived at the cluster of hooches. But here, again, Klann's and Kerrey's versions diverge markedly. Kerrey says that they were shot at and returned fire from a distance of 100 yards or more. But Klann says that the squad rounded up women and children from a group of hooches on the fringes of the village. Klann says that they questioned them about the whereabouts of the village secretary. A quick search of the hooches turned up nothing.

Klann says that the commandos were in a quandary over their captives. They were deep in enemy territory with 15 or so people they felt they could not take prisoner. Yet, if they let the people go, they might alert enemy soldiers. "Our chances would have been slim to none to get out alive," Klann says.

They debated their options, Klann says, and finally decided to "kill them and get out of there." Lanh, who had been checking to see that her children were safe, says she crept close enough to witness what happened next. Klann says that Kerrey gave the order and the team, standing between 6 and 10 feet away, started shooting -- raking the group with automatic-weapons fire for about 30 seconds. They heard moans, Klann says, and began firing again, for another 30 seconds.

There was one final cry, from a baby. "The baby was the last one alive," Klann says, fighting back tears. "There were blood and guts splattering everywhere." Klann does not recall the men firing at the people who, in Kerrey's memory and the after-action reports, tried to run away after the initial massacre.

Klann, a large man at 6-foot-2 and about 230 pounds, pauses a moment, once again reliving the night's events. Pointing to his heart, he says: "I have to live with this in here. I still can't get it out of my mind. I'd take it back if I could, everybody would."

While Klann's version accounts for why the women and children died in a group, it, too, suffers from inconsistencies. It is not clear, for example, why the squad thought that noisily gunning down 13 people in a settled area would improve their prospects of making their retreat undetected. It also isn't clear why, having questioned the villagers two weeks before, releasing them and retreating without incident, they this time felt that releasing the captives would pose a danger.

Klann provides one clue to the Seals team's thinking on the second point. The first time in Thanh Phong, they were just asking questions. On the second visit, they had already killed the people at the first hooch and may have been concerned about leaving witnesses who could place them in the vicinity that night. "We had already compromised ourselves by killing the other people," Klann says.

When asked in 1998 about Klann's account of the events of that night, Kerrey said, "It's not my recollection of how it happened." But, he added: "I'm not going to make this worse by questioning somebody else's memory of it. But you would operate independently in this kind of situation. I mean, it would not surprise me if things were going on away from my line of sight that were different than what I was doing."

When asked again earlier this month, and after reassessing his memories, Kerrey began to qualify his original story. "It's possible that a slight version of that happened," Kerrey says, responding to Klann's account. "It's possible that some additional firing occurred after the main firing. Yeah, that's possible. But, boy, it's not my memory of it."

(Later, after that interview and as we were departing, Kerrey attacked Klann's credibility. He said that Klann was angry that Kerrey hadn't helped him get a Medal of Honor for his mission in Iran. "It's every man for himself now," Kerrey said. Klann, who says he harbors no ill will, says Kerrey urged him this month not to talk about Thanh Phong. Kerrey denies it.)

Ambrose, in a recent interview, "wholeheartedly" denied Klann's contention that the team rounded up the villagers and slaughtered them. Though he says his memory of the night has dimmed, he remembers bursting into one of the hooches to find only women. When he left the hooch, he says he remembers that "we took a round somewhere near the back by Knepper and Peterson. Somebody yelled incoming. Once we received fire, we immediately fired."

Then, he says, things got out of hand. "It got ridiculous pretty much once the guns got going. I was in survival mode. It was dark, you're not seeing much but movement and shadows. You couldn't tell if they were women or men." He says they were shooting from 20 to 50 feet, and when they stopped, he realized the dead were women and children.

nce the squad had been extracted from Thanh Phong, says William Garlow, the swift boat's commander, he and one of the squad, possibly Kerrey, each radioed an after-action report to Connolly, their operational commander in Cat Lo. The message from Kerrey's squad made no mention of civilians, saying only that they had killed 21 Vietcong. This report was sent to Hoffmann and to various other commanders. Within a day of the mission, however, reports from villagers about "alleged atrocities" in Thanh Phong began to surface in the radio communications at Marion's Army headquarters, and Marion's office began a preliminary investigation.

(Page 6 of 7)

Army radio logs found at the National Archives include a transmission from 8 p.m. on Feb. 27, 1969: "Be advised an old man from Thanh Phong presented himself to the district chief's headquarters with claims for retribution for alleged atrocities committed the night of 25 and 26 February 69. Thus far it appears 24 people were killed. 13 were women and children and one old man. 11 were unidentified and assumed to be VC. Navy Seals operating in the area. Investigation continues." This is just a message, not an official report, so the number of dead varies from other totals.

Connolly says he responded to Army inquiries that the killings were accidental, that Kerrey's team shot people who were running and that they couldn't tell gender or age in the darkness. Connolly says, however, that he never asked Kerrey about the killings. His response, he says, was based on conversations with various naval personnel, though he couldn't recall who.

By the time of the first Army messages about something dire happening in Thanh Phong, Kerrey and his Seals team were already hundreds of miles away. Garlow's boat had transferred them to the Coast Guard cutter PT Comfort, which whisked them out of the area and back up the coast to Hoffmann's headquarters.

Though Hoffmann sent reports about the incident to his bosses, he says he cannot recall anything about what happened or even that it occurred. His messages, however, generated an "attaboy" letter of congratulation to Kerrey's Raiders from a senior Navy officer. Apparently, the matter ended there, without further investigations. For the mission, the Navy awarded Kerrey a Bronze Star. "I certainly have never bragged that I won a Bronze Star on that evening," Kerrey says. "I don't feel like I did anything heroic that evening. Quite the contrary."

ine months later, news broke about the slaughter of at least 350 innocent villagers at My Lai by forces under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr. Calley, who would ultimately be convicted of the premeditated murder of 22 unarmed civilians, was sentenced to life at hard labor but served only three years under house arrest at Fort Benning. My Lai was a watershed, an event that finally convinced great segments of the American public that the Vietnam War was immoral, if not unwinnable. And in February 1970, about a year after Thanh Phong, a five-man Marine patrol entered the hamlet of Son Thang, about 20 miles south of Danang, and killed 16 women and children. The marines were charged with murder and prosecuted. Two of the accused, including the leader, were acquitted; one was given immunity and two were convicted of murder. Neither served more than 10 months in jail.

Gary Solis, a war-crimes expert at the United States Military Academy at West Point who wrote a book on Son Thang, says that atrocities were more common in Vietnam than we knew. While there were 122 convictions for war crimes in Vietnam, he says, "In my opinion, war crimes occurred that were never reported."

Did Kerrey and his men commit crimes of war, or were they just applying the basic rules of a dirty war as best they understood them? "Let the other people judge whether or not what I did was militarily allowable or morally ethical or inside the rules of war," Kerrey says. "Let them figure that out. I mean, I can make a case that it was."

The Army's Field Manual is explicit. Though it is an Army instruction, it represents United States policy regarding the law of armed conflict and is applicable to all the services. According to the manual: "A commander may not put his prisoners to death because their presence retards his movements or diminishes his power of resistance by necessitating a large guard, or by reason of their consuming supplies, or because it appears certain that they will regain their liberty through the impending success of their forces. It is likewise unlawful for a commander to kill his prisoners on grounds of self-preservation, even in the case of airborne or commando operations, although the circumstances of the operation may make necessary rigorous supervision of and restraint upon the movement of prisoners of war."

While there may be some room for interpretation in the policy, Walter Rockler, a semiretired lawyer in Washington who was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, says, "The basic rule is that in enemy territory you don't kill civilians, particularly unarmed civilians."

Kerrey insists that no matter what version is correct, his squad's actions would have been permitted under the rules then in effect. "Under the unwritten rules of Vietnam, we would have been justified had we not been fired upon," he said in 1998. "You were authorized to kill if you thought that it would be better. If you thought it would be better to bring them out, you were authorized to bring them out." This month Kerrey said flatly, "We were instructed not to take prisoners."

"Standard operating procedure" was widely understood to mean that, in a free-fire zone, any man was considered a "target of opportunity" and could be killed. Yet, there were other considerations. "It was quite clear what he wanted," Kerrey says of his commanding officer, Hoffmann. "He wanted hooches destroyed and people killed." Hoffmann agrees but says he never intended for his men to kill innocent women or children. But in Vietnam, he adds, it was hard to distinguish between guerrillas and noncombatants. Kerrey underscores that point. "There are people on the wall," he says, referring to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, which lists the names of all the Americans who died in Vietnam, "because they didn't realize a woman or a child could be carrying a gun."

Kerrey has spoken generally about the practical problems officers face in these situations. The commander's first consideration, he said, is the safety of his men. "With seven men operating, one goes down and you've got two carrying him," he says. "It doesn't take much in the way of casualties to put you in considerable risk of losing everybody."

Several officers, even some under Hoffmann's command, said the rules then in effect allowed for too much violence. William Garlow says he and his fellow swift-boat commanders were ordered to shoot up villages almost at random. "We burned their hooches and killed their livestock," he says. Even one of Hoffmann's senior commanders in Cat Lo says the killing became indiscriminate. "I hated it," says the former officer, who requested anonymity.

(Page 7 of 7)

Clearly, the official rules of war were abstract for a terrified Seals squad operating in the anarchy of the Vietnam War. We "were given a hell of a lot more latitude than we should have been. . . . " Kerrey said in 1998. "It was generally believed that you did what you had to do to protect your men. We were basically writing the rules as we went. My hope going in was that everything was fair game. Going out I did not believe that."

ob Kerrey was a more cautious commander when he went on his next big operation. On March 14, 1969, Kerrey's Raiders were sent on another abduction mission, this time to snatch a small group of Vietcong on Hon Tam Island in Cam Ranh Bay. Kerrey says he had already decided that anybody they came upon would be taken prisoner. After scaling a 350-foot, near-vertical cliff, the men prepared their attack. But things went wrong almost from the start, partly because of Kerrey's determination to avoid a situation in which he would have to choose between killing and taking prisoners. Eventually the Vietcong realized the Seals were closing in and opened fire. In the ensuing intense battle, a grenade exploded at Kerrey's feet.

Lloyd Schreier, the Seals medic, dressed Kerrey's wounds as best he could and pumped him full of morphine. Kerrey was then flown by helicopter to the 26th Field Hospital at Cam Ranh Bay, then on to a Navy hospital in Philadelphia.

When Bob Kerrey awoke from surgery, he saw his mother and father sitting at the end of the bed. The surgeons had removed the lower part of his right leg below the knee. Kerrey had joined the Navy Seals, an elite corps that required irrefutable physical strength. Now he was disabled, physically and emotionally. And he was lost, confused and angry at his country.

He told the excruciating story of Thanh Phong to his mother, then to a minister and, later, to his first wife. His mother cried as she held her son, telling him that he would be O.K. And he would be, eventually. Yet, "I cannot be what I once was," he says. "Carefree, no nightmares, no pain, no remorse, no regrets, feeling in church like God was smiling warmly down upon me as if I was the most special thing on earth. That's what it was before, and that's not the way it is now."

When Kerrey learned that he would be awarded the Medal of Honor, he says he had severe doubts about accepting it. He didn't think he deserved it, he says, and he felt like a pawn in Nixon's war. "The medal was given to me within days of the invasion of Cambodia. . . . I felt like I was being used, . . . flagged. You know, to take the edge off the horrible experiences." But he accepted it, he says, for the sake of all members of the Seals.

After recovering from his wounds, he drifted for a bit in California, taking courses at Berkeley. Within a year he was home in Nebraska, getting involved in antiwar protests. He married, had two children, tried his hand at the restaurant business and, later, opened a health club. Before long he was a wealthy man. Then he surprised most everyone by running for governor of Nebraska. In 1982, as a political novice who supported gay rights in conservative Nebraska, he narrowly beat the incumbent, Gov. Charles Thone. But in 1985, with his poll numbers above 70 percent, he decided to step down after one term.

He returned to California and assisted Walter Capps, a fellow Nebraskan who was teaching a course on the Vietnam War at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The course became a gathering place where prominent veterans would come to talk about the war. Kerrey was still bitter about Vietnam and haunted by Thanh Phong. In a speech Kerrey gave to the class that was later published in a book that Capps edited, Kerrey compared life on the farm to his actions in Vietnam. "Around the farm, there is an activity that no one likes to do. Yet it is sometimes necessary. When a cat gives birth to kittens that aren't needed, the kittens must be destroyed. And there is a moment when you are holding the kitten under the water when you know that if you bring that kitten back above the water it will live, and if you don't bring it back above in that instant the kitten will be dead. This, for me, is a perfect metaphor for those dreadful moments in war when you do not quite do what you previously thought you would do."

In Santa Barbara Kerrey made another spur-of-the-moment decision, this time to run for the U.S. Senate from Nebraska. The incumbent had died, leaving the seat open to challenge in November 1988. Kerrey put together a series of patriotic, Reagan-style, morning-in-America-type commercials and stuck to positive themes. He won easily.

In the Senate, Kerrey had a reputation as a maverick whom few of his colleagues truly understood. For his entire political career, he held his secret. In his Capitol Hill office, he kept an easel where he sometimes made collages using newspaper pictures of people in agony. He wrote poetry and painted in watercolors. In the center of one landscape watercolor, Kerrey wrote in black marker the words of Emily Dickinson.

Remorse is Memory awake, Her companies astir, - A presence of departed acts At window and at door.

Its past set down before the soul, And lighted with a match, Perusal to facilitate Of its condensed despatch.

Remorse is cureless, -- the disease Not even God can heal; For 'tis His institution, -- The complement of Hell.

Gregory L. Vistica is the author of "Fall From Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy" and was formerly the national security correspondent for Newsweek. He is co-producing a segment on Bob Kerrey and Thanh Phong for "60 Minutes II." The New York Times Magazine and "60 Minutes II" have coordinated reporting efforts on this story. "60 Minutes II" plans to air its segment May 1.

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Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 01:27 PM

Spaw,

In a posting to this thread on April 25, you refer to Tom Paxton as a "war vet." Tom is an army vet, not a war vet. His time in the service came after Korea and before Vietnam. Most of his army time was served at a post in New Jersey and that allowed him to spend a lot of his weekends hanging out in Greenwich Village.

Dave (the Ancient Mariner),

I get a sense from your posts that you are suggesting that soldiers cannot be murderers. I'm sorry, but when unarmed civilians are lined up and killed, that is murder.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 11:46 AM

After reading the New York Sunday Times article this morning, I can only say what a miserable, bitter, futile story for everyone involved.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 10:13 PM

I will reserve judgement until I know the facts. At this point, his own co seal says they were women and children, and, that they were not armed. Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 08:47 PM

Anyone here ever seen a Vietnamese Officer convicted of war crimes??? They murdered Americans and their own people too! The weapons were probably taken and hidden before the bodies were found.. Or those people were put in harms way by being in the middle of a firefight. To call this man a murderer is assinine and futile. He was a soldier not a murderer.. Casualties yes, Murdered No! Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,El Gringo Viejo
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 08:21 PM

WELL SAID SPAW. I am from the thirties, forties, and fifties. Wars and rumors of war as far back as I can remember.

Senator Kerry says his squad was fired on and they returned fire.

NUFF SAID.

Gringo

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 07:43 PM

Of course Mousethief. My point is, a butcher is a butcher no matter which side he's on. If the Nazis had won, dont you think someone would be on trial for the firestorm in Dresden? Mowing down unarmed women and children is an atrocity...period. There is suppose to be an in depth report on this incident on 60 minutes 2 next Tuesday.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 07:39 PM

In one real sense all war is a crime and all war is an atrocity. But in another sense there are distinctions between some thing that happen in war which can be seen tragic necessities, or terrible accidents - and some which are war crimes. If we don't accept that distinction it means that there's no difference between a soldier doing his duty and some SS extermination squad. Or the equivalent in other wars.

When Calley and his comrades rounded up the people of My Lai and shot them down, that was murder, every bit as much as when Timothy McVeigh exploded his bomb in Oklahoma. And if that was what Bob Kerrey did on that night in 1969, that was murder too. And if it was murder, anyone involved in a cover-up was an accesory to murder.

That being said, there are things that happen to people in war that can damage and change them in ways that diminish their personal guilt. Maybe if Calley and McVeigh hadn't gone off to war they wouldn't have turned into murderers. And maybe Bob Kerrey's account of what happened on that night is the truth, and he didn't shoot civilian prisoners in cold blood.

What matters isn't getting vengeance and judging individual people - it's finding the truth, and getting rid of the lies and the whitewash. That applies whether it's Bloody Sunday in Derry or Vietnam or Chile or Bosnia. Truth and Reconciliation, not vengeance - but the Truth comes first.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,mousethief at the library
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 03:28 PM

Kendall, can't there be butchery when there is no war? WW2 was a war to stop butchery. It worked. Thank goodness.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 03:11 PM

I have been trying to connect to the NYT magazine article, which gives the other version of this story, but haven't had any success--if anyone else has been able to get it, could you post the article here? (not just the link, but the text from the article)

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 11:11 AM

War is war. Butchery is butchery. Listen to Tom Paxtons song "On the road from Srebrenica"

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 10:14 AM

Alex,
Sadly our guest's use of the word "piece" was not a misspell. He was being "cute".

Sinsull,
I wish I had written your last post. I couldn't agree more.

--JH

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 01:28 AM

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."

The "peace" leading up to ww2, in which Britain basically gave the Sudetenland to Hitler in exchange for peace, was a bad peace, IMHO.

Any peace which coincides with injustice, especially injustice on a huge scale, is a bad peace.

Whether or not a war would be better is perhaps another question. I think Britain might have saved a lot of lives if they had invaded Germany many years earlier, instead of appeasing the madman.

Of course it's easy to armchair quarterback a war that's over half a century distant.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 01:26 AM

If Kerrey thought he could not get his squad safely out ot that area without killing the civilians, armed or unarmed, he probably was justified in doing whatever he did, as terrible as it is. His job was to complete his mission, and get his men safely back to base.

As others have pointed out, war is hell, and civilians are killed in war. What about the horrendous number of civilian calualties at Dresden and other German cities during WW2? Should the bomb crews on those missions be held accountable because of the loss of civilian life? I don't think so. They were doing what they were supposed to do.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 12:33 AM



Not exactly what I said. Put in the exact same circumstances, I believe I would have done the same thing as Calley or Kerrey. Kill or be killed. This was not a war in which the bad guys wore red coats to identify themselves. These officers acted on the assumption that they were fighting the "enemy". That's what soldiers do - kill the enemy before he kills you or yours.

The bureaucrats betrayed Calley when they set him up to take the fall rather than tell Mrs. Murphy in middletown, USA that their war had turned her apple cheeked son into a monster capable of believing that killing women and children was a necessary action. Keep in mind that those women and children may have been the "enemy". Also keep in mind that Kerrey was given a medal for doing exactly what Calley did. Calley was painted as a demented "psycho" who was just as likely to climb a campus tower and shoot down students. He was in fact a soldier behaving under combat conditions.

Am I condoning murder? - NO. I am looking at both situations from the perspective of a mother who knows that her child properly trained by her government is capable of the same actions. Who then is responsible? As I said earlier: No child of mine, no grandchild of mine will ever go to war to defend anything but American soil and maybe Canada. Narrow thinking and stupid? I agree. But I don't trust our politicians to spend the lives of our children wisely or honestly.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 11:58 PM

that bit about wanting book sales is absolutely nuts. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: uncle bill
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 11:19 PM

Kerry didn't get his medals for killing but for saving his freinds. You people need to wake up and realize that Kerry has a book coming out and gee, I wonder what this will do for sales? Mucho free publicity and both Kerry- haters and Kerry admirers will rush to buy it to re-enforce their own positions.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: toadfrog
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 10:52 PM

To change the subject back to Kerry for a moment--I'm sure he did the right thing by owning up, but as he did that only after the newspapers exposed the matter, it necessarily heroic.
Does anyone know what Bob Kerry's politicsare like?!! The one time I would vote for Ralph Nader would be if the Democrats nominated somebody like Bob Kerry.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 10:14 PM

If Kerry really did line up a group of women and children, and have them shot down, as at least two eye witnesses say, I think it should come to light. According to a news report, he is no longer in the service, so, he can not be tried for that act. Ok, Goering was no longer in the service, Eichmann, Hess and Mengle were no longer in the service, yet they were condemned to death. Does anyone see a discrepency here?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: MarkS
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 10:12 PM

Just a quick aside to Allan C who quotes from Brecht, "What if the gave a war and nobody came."
Little known is the next line of that piece,
"Than the war will come to you."
Interesting perspective
Mark

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 04:55 PM

Above all, remember this

THERE NEVER WAS A GOOD WAR NOR A BAD PIECE!

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 04:48 PM

Random comments after too quick a scan of additional postings that certainly deserve more attention--

It's important at a certain level to argue Rep vs. Demo. or Whig or Tory or whatever. At this level we're talking about, all that matters is if were human and choose to recognize our obligations to fellow humans, regardless of their race, etc.

Maybe I failed in 1968-69 to act in a totally moral manner. I had less excuse than some, having actually taken some Asian Studies courses in college. But I went to RVN anyway, because that's where I was ordered to go. I applaud Spaw and others whose clarity of vision was greater.

Somebody back there said Calley did no wrong, and/or, if he did, it was justified by the fact that he was following orders. Gong! That's the "Eichmann defense." Befehl ist befehl. Only they aren't.

Saying they were all Cong is wishthink; read Vietnamese sources. A lot of them were just apolitical farmers who wanted the round-eyes and the Northerners both to go away and stop killing their buffalo and running tanks through the paddies. Recall, please, that we try (sometimes) to operate on the presumption of innocence. "Kill 'em all and let God sort it out" was twisted humor, maybe, but not a prescription for humane action.

Heard last night on the news that brother Kerry went to the big peace demo in Washington where everybody threw their medals on the capital steps. He threw his ribbons, they say, but kept the medals. Wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And this is "presidential??" Not to me.

Who said they were in a good mood before this thread came along. Hmmm. For once I don't feel like ending with a cryptically facetious paradox, so I must be in the same category.

CC

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 03:50 PM

"the fifty some odd thousand that died fighting a war "

It wasn't "50 some odd thousands" who died. It was millions. Far more Vietnamese combatants died than Americans - on both sides. But the number of civilians who died was vastly greater. And sadly this is not a far-off war that is over and done with. And they are still dying from landmines, and from the effects of Agent Orange.

Talking about Vietnam as if the only deaths that mattered were those of the Americans who went over there is to collude in a distortion of history. Can you conceive of anyone writing about the American War of Independence and only taking any note of the British soldiers who were killed?

Truth hurts, but lies hurt more. On the account in that story Bob Kerrey told the truth at the time - and then got trapped into colluding in a lie dreamt up by the people higher up. People like Colin Powell who tried to cover up the My Lai atrocity.

Wounds don't heal cleanly if they aren't cleaned properly.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 03:43 PM

I suspect my perspective on Viet Nam is a bit different that most people. When I was eight, my father was the Captain of the USS Montrail (APA 213), an attack transport that had spent the Korean War transporting invasion troops for Inchon. During WWII, he had two destroyers sunk from under him and met my Mom (who had lost her first husband as a Marine Lieutenant winning a Navy Cross at Guadalcanal) while on medical leave after recovering from a Kamikaze hit off Okinawa.

This was now 1954, and when the French lost at Dienbeinphu, he was ordered from Japan, together with the USS Montrose (APA 212) to steam into Haiphong to begin removing the refugees that the Partition Talks had allowed to leave. (Both sides were given one year to get north or south and then the DMZ would be sealed). I will not bore you with what the Viet Min did to the people who wanted to go south, but the medical officer onboard the Montrose wrote a book that is deliberately ignored by those people wishing to explain our actions as a mistake. It was a best seller at the time, "Deliver Us from Evil" by Dr. Tom Dooley, with a follow-up "Fire on the Mountain." My Dad spent 18 months slipping small landing craft into unwatched inlets in the north, and pulling refugees off the beaches to transport to the south. The pictures he brought back were horrifying, and matched some that illustrate Dooley's book.

Now lets fast forward, 1967, and I'm working a day job while taking 12 credit hours at night at a local college. McNamara has decided that the draft numbers are too low, and reduced the standards for being drafted across the board, (this program was called Project 100,000). Cassius Clay had previously taken a draft physical and was rejected for failing the GCT (IQ test) with a score of 78. Now he was eligible for the draft and after being contacted by Elijah Mohammad, decides he does want to fight (at least where his size means nothing but a bigger target). To my knowledge he never spent one day in jail, but was stripped of his boxing title. I am also unaware as to any statement he made about being a pacifist until after he was drafted, certainly not in the two years that preceded his rejection the first time.

I too was drafted (for not carrying 15 credit hours as a full time student), and upon reporting to Petersburg, was further picked up by the Marines. After tales too long to be told, I was commissioned from the ranks, with only two years of college, and as the youngest Second Lieutenant in the Corps at the time (21 by two days at commissioning, and sworn in by my father, a privilege extended to sons of officers) I soon left for Viet Nam, some fifteen years after my father.

I ended up as the 1st Platoon Commander in Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Third Marine Regiment, of the Third Division (known to the informed as K/3/3). And our AO was the area comprising Con Thien, Gio Lin, Qua Viet and Cam Lo, bordered on the north by the DMZ. The Platoon Commander of the 2nd Platoon, was an Naval Academy graduate by the name of Oliver North, though we never called him that; he was known to us as "Blue" since the brevity code for "north" was "Blue" (south being "Red" etc. Thereby hangs a tale for another occasion...

I will only make a couple of comments germane to this thread.

1. I hold no approbation for Sen. Kerrey in the deaths of the civilians, only in his acceptance of the Bronze Star for doing it. I knew several in my outfit, including myself, who were faced with the exact same choice and choose honor over a cheap acceptance. The killing of civilians was sometimes unavoidable (The NVA drove women and children before them on several attacks at Cam Lo and the first time we shot them down like flies, the second time I set Claymores out from the perimeter and let the villagers pass up to our wire while shooting over their heads. Then we set my Claymores off, disemboweling the following NVA. The next morning we set the surviving NVA on fire with AV-gas and called in no body count... only a brush cleaning operation outside the wire.)

2. For many of those who were in the service during the Viet Nam War, they never got anywhere near the fighting and yet they claim to be affected. It took ten men in service support roles to sustain one man on the front. I noted for years that blacks claimed to have died at a greater rate in the "White Mans War Against the Yellow". That lie is statistically destroyed when it is pointed out that, unlike earlier wars, we know every man that died or was wounded. Blacks made up 12 percent of the American population, 55% of the combat arms and only 11% of the actual casualties. These guys were not at the point of anybody's spear. Many of these guys were standing around a fire barrel when they got drafted, and when their service was done; they went back to standing around the fire barrel. Viet Nam did not prevent them from becoming brain surgeons or captains of industry.

3. I wonder why, whenever there's a story like this, there is a rush to hear what the vets have to say, yet when the Killing Fields were exposed, or Bosnian or Rwandan graves dug up, no one stops an old hippy, or a Better Red than Dead type for his comments. "What did you do in the War, Daddy? Well son, I was convenient…"

4. Finally, as a bizarre counterpoint to this thread, the history magazine American Heritage has this month's feature " How We WON the Vietnam War".

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 02:55 PM

Doug, that is my point. I did not mean to imply that others have no right to an opinion on the subject in general. They do and I defend that right. But those that postulate on motive, or seek to attack his works since without the perspective of the experience lack credibility. Kerry has made no attempt to hide this, and the fact that a different member of the team remembers it differently really have no bearing. Those perspectives, too, are colored by the dyes of a 1000 life experiences. If the objective is to learn from the past, fine. If it is an attempt to tear down an honorable man living with experiences from this time in his life, that is not fine. Kerry is a warrior of the first order, with a social conscience. He, like many of us, got caught up in something that exposed us to experiences and reactions that we would give anything to get shet of.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Troll
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 02:33 PM

Thanks Mick.

troll

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 02:23 PM

Mick: you state your views so well. The only slight disagreement I have with your message is with the first couple of sentences. True, one who has not experienced a war cannot consider himself an expert on the subject. However, given the order to report for active duty back in 1951, I have absolutely no doubt but that I would have done so. How I would have acquitted myself in combat is something I will never know. I have often wondered though. Likely I would have found myself the deepest hole I could find, and burrowed in. I do not viewe myself as the Audie Murphy, Bob Kerry or Rambo type.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 02:14 PM

John Hardly, I didn't mean to imply that the Republicans are behind the Kerry exposure. I don't think they are. I think some reporter saw an opportunity for an expose`. It may have even been brought to his/her attention by the one member of Kerry's squad whose story does not jibe with the Senator's and the balance of the team. Who knows. It probably will come out at some point where it all started.

I am a Republican, and have high regard for the former senator.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 01:52 PM

It is easy to look backwards, using as a frame of reference your personal biases on the issue instead of the experience of having been there. Comments on both sides of this issue from that type of perspective have very little validity in the debate on the character of the man. They may be valid in the orbit of theoretical or philosophical debate, but not in the broader debate of the times. My feelings on the conflict that was mine have been voiced elsewhere and have gotten more attention than they deserved. But let me say this about this act. It is horrific to ponder................and it happened more often than admitted. Not only that, but it happened in more than just the Vietname conflict. Young men, who yesterday were playing in fields and imagining the great things that they would do one day, are thrown into the maelstrom of combat, filled with a soup of patriotic upbringing, boot camp indoctrination, love of family and friends, fear, terror, revulsion..........and they react under the most horrific conditions one can imagine. Survival is paramount............and they react. Your own brothers did things that if you knew, you would be shocked. They did things that if you knew, you would be filled with pride. And then they came home, forever changed, carrying weights and burdens that none should be forced to carry. And there is no shedding the load. Then one must either walk the path, or begin the slow rot process of dying. Former Senator Kerry was clearly involved in an action that he must now carry throughout his existence. But to get the measure of the man, one must look at his entire life. One cannot isolate on this horrific time. It is but one page in a book. Books are for learning. This is an honorable man who paid a terrible price for his valor. He has since set about the business of trying to live a life that has merit. Perfect? Not by a long shot. I have many disagreements with his policies and actions. Respect him? You betcherfectinarse I do. I know of his valor and heart. Nam is now a book for learning..........the wise will read it. If you can find criminals........prosecute them. But leave the warriors alone. They have and continue to suffer enough.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 01:32 PM

This is hard for a <40 year old to understand because their personal point of historical referrence understands communism to be no threat--something that, though not among the majority of mudcatters, was undecided 40 years ago.

DougR may be right that it's brought up just as a ploy of dirty politics but..if so..republicans have learned NOTHING in the last decade. There is no moral scandle so vile as to sway a democrat from voting democrat. The only moral, personal, or military scandle that has the possibility of gaining traction in today's politics is one involving a republican.

On the surface that may sound inflamatory but I think it's accurate. I can think of any number of shamed republicans and only one democrat (Don Rostenkowski) who ever payed a price for public scandle--maybe Hart..though he just didn't know that he could have continued..he just withdrew.

I had three older brothers drafted from '69-'72, one of whom went to VN. I would CO if given the same set of circustances, but I have the benefit of hindsight.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 01:01 PM

Sorry, we cross posted Doug........Thanks for the background and the insights.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:56 PM

Ted's second paragraph ties in exactly with PT's post and brings the experience from the personal to the global. And should we make it through the reins of power held by this generation, from what has the next learned? Perhaps it is as you say, without end. Geeziz.....I was in a pretty good mood when when I first got up this morning..................

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:55 PM

DougR: don't apologize, I read every word and wished it was longer. I didn't know about the 1948 act, and so it was good to learn about it, and to hear your experience.

I am from the post-vietnam generation (I was 13 when the war ended in 1975), and have never served in the military under any circumstances (I was in the NROTC for a year and a half, and then decided the Navy wasn't for me -- partly because I spent my entire 3c cruise seasick, and partly because of (what I saw as) the ingrained, systemic racism in the ship I was on).

I consider myself very lucky, and certainly don't consider it meritorious, that I have never had to be in a position to decide to take another human's life. And very grateful for those who have had to stand there, to protect the freedoms I hold so dear.

This all starts to sound a little treacly, but it's very sincere.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:48 PM

Bert: of course you are right, Ali did go to jail, and there must have been others. I had not read the thread Spaw just posted (but I will) so I didn't know he was among those who was one of them.

Spaw: of course I still consider you a friend! We disagree on several points of view at times, but that doesn't affect my feeling of friendship for you. The same is true of Rick, Kendall, heck, probably the majority of my fellow mudcatters.

I was too young for WW2, just by a couple of years. I, and most of my friends were sorely disappointed that we were not born "in time" to participate in that war. There were C.O.s then too, but I didn't know any.

I volunteered for the Army under the selective service act of 1948, a short-lived law that allowed boys who joined the service during their eighteenth year to serve their military obligation with one year of active service and either four years in the active reserve, or six years in the inactive reserve. The act was short-lived because it was anticipated that a large number of volunteers would re-enlist when their one year of active service was up. As it turned out, almost nobody re-enlisted, even though we were offered advances in rank that prewar enlisted men had to serve many years in order to reach that rank. I joined with three of my buddies and we served with the 2nd Amored Division at Camp Hood (now Ft. Hood) Texas.

It was our intent to join the inactive reserve, but a scruffy old Colonel practically ordered us to join the National Guard in our hometown, and still fearful of high ranking officers, we did just that. For us, it was fortuitous decision.

My one year of active service erased any preconceived notions that war was glorius and glamorous. Night manuevers took care of that. Had we succeeded in joining the inactive reserve, when the Korean conflict begain, we would have been called immediately back to active duty, as were all of my former 2nd Armored Division buddies who became inactive reserves. I learned later that after a week or two of brush-up training, they were shipped to Korea, and most of them died in the Inchon landings.

The 36th Infantry Divison (Texas National Guard) was put on alert during the Korean conflict, but was not called up. Therefore, I was fortunate enough to serve five years of military service (four of them reserve) without becoming involved in any war.

Sorry for the thread creep, and for the length of this message, but I thought it might clarify my position if you knew the background. The point being that had my National Guard Division been called up, it never would have occurred to me, not to go. This was in the 1950s, and the attitudes of young people were much different than they were in the 1960s. Not saying it was better, just that it was different.

I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone with my comments. They are just my opinon.

Frankly, if Senator Kerry has presidential aspirations, as many believe he has, it is probably good that this thing came out now. By the time the campaign for President begins (a few weeks ago), it will be behind him.

Sorry again for the length, and for the creep.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:34 PM

A couple things, just to be clear, this former Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska we are talking about--not Senator John Kerry of Massachussetts, who was the Captain of a gunboat in the Mekong Delta and returned to fight against the war himself--oddly enough, he seems to have also received the silver star, bronze star, and purple heart--

To those who want to put this behind and move on, I have a bit of bad news--as the years go on, you will be hearing more about this all, not less--the memories return with age, and on occasion, things that seem to have been left behind can become as vivid as if they had happened yesterday--There is no getting away from any of it--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:25 PM

I think CP's experience did good, simply because the whole experience will not, and should not be let go. It is continuing to be used as a touchstone of practically everything in American politics, and the rest of the world has to watch this psychodrama being played out. That generation, for better or worse, is now taking on the reins of supreme political power in the world. John McCain nearly became president because of the aura of being a prisoner; we have already heard about Bob Kerry's presidential prospects; the situation in Kosovo and much of the world now depends on Colin Powell's version of what America learned in Vietnam. And many lessons have been learned totally perversely: What is American doing in Colombia?

America is now more or less a global military empire, and so the ethics of the military and the war and who did what to whom are absolutely crucial, in part because as far as I can tell none of the subsequent military adventures seem to have taught anyone anything, because humiliation is the only way very powerful people are forced to face reality.

I wish it weren't so, but it won't be let go: in the same way that World War II ruled the next generation, and World War I the generation before that. The lessons learned were often wrong, misguided, and so on. But that can only be helped by the presentation of things that make people unhappy, and wreck the neatness of the story. Like people going to jail, or going to Canada. Or finding yourself a week after landing in the middle of nowhere walking into a hut where you have just killed 14 women and chidren.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 11:15 AM

Well Doug my friend (and I would hope you still are).......I suppose your attitude toward what the motives of people were is still pretty common, but I think it's invalid and not based on any certain knowledge....just a leftover, as is the story of Sen. Kerrey. You were possibly on a hiatus when we ran this thread. Read it...and though I would not expect it to change your inner feelings, perhaps it will give you some insights to what was happening then.

I did not go to prison to be safe. Safe isn't a word anyone who has been to prison would use to describe it. Peterburg Federal Prison was not a safe place. My motives are outlined clearly in the other thread, but let me reiterate here that many DID choose to try to effect change by making the strongest statement we could at the time. Did it do any good? In hindsight, I still cannot say or even know. Courage did not enter into the decision and I would submit that it did not enter into the decisions that anyone made back then!

(From the other thread)
Back then I was as American as you got. For whatever made the place really suck (and the government was a start) it was still home and I felt a duty to it. Duty in my case took on a different meaning, but it was still a problem that stemmed from somewhere I loved and had not given up on.

I'd also like to change the thought process a bit as some of us looked at the situation then and other situations too, not as something worth dying for, but was (and is) it something worth killing for? That was at the heart of my thinking then and still remains so today. I am not necessarily a pacifist, though I admire many. However, if you have a gun and I have a gun and we're stalking each other, rest assured I am going to do my damndest to kill you first. This is what young people are asked to do in any war. I came to the belief that there was nothing worth killing for about VietNam. Others came to a similar realization after they were there and hence the abundant cases of post traumatic stress. Others wars are different and each one must be decided by the people involved.....Is it worth killing for? If you are going to put me in the situation of killing someone else before they kill me, you better have a damn good reason so I can live with myself afterwards.

When I refused to play and was arrested, the sentences were running at 5 years, out in about 3. By the time I was sentenced, it was down to 3 years and out in 18 months. After serving 7 months at Petersburg, it was reduced to 15 months and out in 6, so I was paroled. A short time later, they were down to a year and out in 3-6 months. We were a pain in the ass to the government! But if more had done it, could they have withstood the pain?

I would say once again, it is time to let it go.....not forget, but to let it go. We owe what we learned to our children...........and I hope we learned well. Perhaps we didn't.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 10:56 AM

Doug R, I did not bring the war back up again, I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy involved. Why should this be let lie?

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Hollowfox
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 10:44 AM

The one C.O. I know who went to jail rather than Vietnam went to jail because of his beliefs. Unlike others I know, he was not allowed to do alternative service (work in a hospital, etc), and was sent from Minnesota to a "hard-time" prison in Texas. I don't know why this was, perhaps he was being made an "example" for other potential C.O.'s. He was a man of principle, and although I haven't seen him for some time, I know from mutual friends and from his published writings that he still is.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 10:12 AM

I believe it's terribly unfair to assert that the people who went to jail rather than serve in the war did so to save themselves. Maybe some did. Maybe some got their dad's to get them positions in the national guard for the same reason.

Then again, maybe those who chose to go to jail had come to the realization that the war was wrong. Maybe they decided "not to show up" because they knew that to be the only way to put an end to this war, and possibly to all war. Maybe.

It is not for us to judge people who made choices during a very difficult time, unless their subsequent behavior betrays them as hypocrites or cowards. That goes for those who served, those who stayed home and those who chose expatriation. We all live with the knowledge of the choices we have made. Senator Kerry has had to live with a lot more than a fool like me. He faced a lot more, that's for sure. I wish he would have spoken about this before he was forced to (this has been done to head off a magazine article on the subject, you know), but I'm sure he had his reasons not to. Most men who serve honorably don't relish talking about their experiences at the front. He has lived well in his public life and I admire him for facing up to his sense of duty during the war, during his time in congress and today.

Bart

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 09:59 AM

DougR - You misunderstood what I posted. I agreed with PeterT - Kerry didn't deserve a medal for killing women and children; I also agreed with Spaw - It's time to put it behind us, not forget but move on,; and I agreed with Allan - everyone was touched by Viet Nam and no one is the better for it. As far as I am concerned, Kerry's experiences make him the ideal candidate for the presidency if only because he will think long and hard before committing our young people to war. Kerry did nothing wrong. Neither did Calley. Both were betrayed by bureaucrats.

You said: "But digging up this stuff thirty or so years after it happened is crappy in my opinion"...that is exactly what I meant by picking scabs. Let it heal and let the scar serve as a reminder.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dahlin
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 09:39 AM

How many centuries wil it take for us to realize that there is never a just or clean war.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 08:35 AM

I never served in a war, so maybe I don't have a right to say much about this. But I believe that all wars are horrible, and that this kind of stuff happens in all of them. That includes World War II ("The Good War"), Korea, the Gulf War, and any others people care to mention. The Vietnam War had its own unique aspects, of course, but let's not fall into the trap of believing that Vietnam was some sort of anomaly in that respect. I think this is the point Kerrey is making in some of his remarks -- it is a brutal, chaotic, horrifying affair, no matter who the enemy is or how well justified our involvement is.

If the purpose of bringing this up is to castigate and humiliate the participans all these years later, I would say we shouldn't bother. The only value in bringing it up is if it reminds us what war really is, so we can renew our determination to avoid it. Myths about "clean" wars are just that -- myths. If you believe that we have ever fought a war without descending to this level of brutality, you've been sold a bill of goods. While I respect the pacifists among us, I'm not saying that we should never fight in any wars. But let's recognize the beast for what it is, rather than try to pretend that the horror of Vietnam was unique.

Sherman, who was well acquainted with war, said it best over a hundred years ago: "War is hell." We've just been given another example so we can ponder what those three words really mean.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Bert
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 01:12 AM

Doug, I thought that Mohammed Ali Went to jail. And there must have been others.
Also I remember the 'conchies' in WWII, they suffered tremendous humiliation for their beliefs (even after the war). I certainly wouldn't have been brave enough to do what they did. I would have much preferred to have taken my chances on the battlefield. But fortunately for me I never had that choice. Too young for WWII and Korea, and deferred until Britain had gotten over their involvement in Cyprus and Aden.

Which would you prefer, take a chance at getting shot or know with certainty that you will be reviled as a coward because you are a pacifist? Of course, if you are NOT a pacifist and have not seen what they have suffered then you may have a different opinion.

I admire Big Mick a lot. He went out there and lived the horror of it, and came back and can still respect those who disagreed with the war. Now that takes honesty and courage.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: paddymac
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:58 AM

I wonder if this story would ever have "broken" if it had not involved a prominent personage? SEAL teams, and their counterparts in other branches, aren't trained to be altar boys. The one's who shoot first and ask questions later have a greater probability of surviving, and survival is what it's all about at the personal level.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:04 AM

Neil, I was with you until you got to the part where you anoint those who went to jail as courageous, rather than go to Vietnam. Didn't they go to jail to ensure their safety?

Why do you feel they are as courageous as those who did go? I'm really curious. Frankly, I have no recollection of any of the protesters going to jail anyway. I thought they all fled to Canada.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 11:01 PM

I spent seventeen years in the navy. My war was with Iraq and all the little piss ant actions inbetween Vietnam and Iraq. I don't know that i would have said anything in Senator Kerry's place even 35 years after the fact. There is crap my wife doesn't know and it is likely i will never tell her. I don't think she needs to know that her husband had to clean someones brains off his face after they got stupid for one second and that was peace time. I sure the hell don't think I would be telling people. "Oh Gee, we got in a fire fight and capped civilians" We don't know what went through. It like every war was ugly. Maybe uglier than some but they all are including the Gulf War. It took courage to go and do your duty. Conversely, the people who went to jail rather than go to Vietnam were also courageous in their own way. The ones who gall me are the ones who fled to Canada or parts futher extant and think themselves martyrs. The marytrs are the fifty some odd thousand that died fighting a war that was in my personal opinion the wrong war for uncaring, incompetent politicians who had no better goal or strategy than to "Stop Communism" That ain't a goal that's a bumper sticker. Unfortunately they came home to a hostile populous after spending a minimum of thirteen months in a hostile fire zone. So I'll tell you what, if Bob Kerry runs for president, I'll vote for him and I'll salute him and mean it when I do. I believe he did his best in a horrific situation and if it took thirty some odd years to tell his story, that is no ones business but his. He's done well as a senator and I think he is a basically honest guy. Kindest reguards, Neil

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 10:45 PM

Peter T.; Sinsull, why can't you give it up! The war is over! Bob Kerry did nothing wrong. McGrath is right. If a wrong was done, it was done by the military command. And who knows, perhaps those civilians WERE actively involved as Viet Cong! We'll never know. But digging up this stuff thirty or so years after it happened is crappy in my opinion. What do you think should be done to Kerry? Should charges be brought against him? Should we hang him?

Jeeze! DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 10:32 PM

whoever said this isn't for women don't know the women I know. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: SINSULL
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 08:55 PM

You're right Peter. So is Spaw. So is Allan. I feel like I am pulling scabs off a wound that had finally begun to heal. And it isn't the first time.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 08:43 PM

I'm sorry, I don't follow this. Bob Kerrey killed women and children and got a medal for it, and never said a word for 35 years. And now he is courageous. Please. The rest of the article is full of old tired familiar lies as if no one has learned anything: The Phoenix Project, "clearing civilians", "effectively neutralize", "Viet Cong political operators and sympathizers", i.e. the people of Southern Vietnam. Where is Robert McNamara when you want someone to throw up on?

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 08:00 PM

Surely the real point here isn't that there was a massacre of non-combatants, but that the people who carried it out, without meaning to, reported what had happened honestly, and it was covered up by a lying war-machine for political reasons, and they've kept it covered up all these years, like they have kept far worse things covered up.

The people who pulled the triggers were young men obeying orders and in fear of their lives. The people who told the lies and ordered the cover-up, and gave the orders were sitting in offices, safe and warm and a long way from the shooting. Making up euphemisms like "collateral damage" that helped people like Timothy McVeigh psych himself up for his freelance massacre.

"We wouldn't be in these kinds of messes if people wouldn't talk." That's completely the wrong way about. The best hope of keeping out of those kind of messes is for the truth to come out. (And aside from that cover-ups and denying the truth causes enormous damage to vets who got caught up in this kind of thing. But the authorities don't give a damn about what happens to them.)

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 07:52 PM

M. Ted--

By my periodization, there was only one massacre in Viet Nam. It started when the Japanese left in '45 and slackened up a bit when Saigon fell in '75. I don't want to be understood as trying to justify this mess, but I think there was one thing about 'the Nam' as opposed to other more conventional wars that promoted this kind of tragedy. Namely, a lot more of our casualties were from booby traps, snipers, etc., which gave you no target for return fire. Sooner or later, people taking damage from unseen enemies take it out on whoever is handy. Maybe the mental process is parallel to what domestic abusers do in their heads. The scary part to me is the willingness of higher commanders, whose asses were not directly on the line, to rationalize, ignore, deny, and/or misinterpret such incidents in the name of body count. Behind them are civilians who think a "just" war is possible and who believe war can and should be conducted like football, with rules, referees, and all body parts cordially labelled and returned after the last shot is fired. The whole thing is a such a drekky mess that even a "gentleman's war" would be obscene.

C.C. The entertainer formerly known as "Yellow Two Six," in Phan Thiet City, 1969-70.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:58 PM

I don't know what good purpose reporting stories like this serves. I believe it is only one of perhaps hundreds of similar events that took place in every war ever thought.

I think former Senator Kerry is a fine many who served his country well, in the military and in the United States Senate. The only reason, it would seem to me, to report this story is to discredit him in some way. I think it's a shame. The burden of carrying such a load is punishment enough.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:42 PM

Allan......BINGO.....Well put.

Guest.....I couldn't agree more and have writtenvirtually the same thing in other threads. If we both have guns and you are out there to kill me, I'm going to try to kill you first...........it's survival. If I am asked to do this, then I think somebody owes me a damn good explanation of why I'm there in the first place. During VietNam, it came to most of us at different times.......some before they went, some when they were there, some when they got home, and some many years later.

It's time to let VietNam go...........not to forget, but to let it go. We hope we have learned, we probably haven't.......we should not forget.........but its time to let it go.

Spaw

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:27 PM

I'm sure Korea was no different than any other "conflict" (it was never officially a war) but unless you were at one time or another on the front and at the thick of things, you will NEVER realize that in war you kill things before they kill you. And when you are 19 the power to live is rather strong. Therefore, you kill things. They may be animals who make the wrong kind of noise or they may be people. And believe me, at that moment you DO NOT check their ID to see if they are military or civilian. Instead you do what you think you have to do to stay alive. Then you find out you shot 2 soldiers and a ten year old kid. Do you really think you are ever going to share that bit of information with anyone?? Do you ever wonder why some ex GI's are drunks?? Can you really blame them for being angry for doing the dirty work of national leaders who got them to join for God and Country and then found out those were code names for the very rich?? Do you really think the people who got this country involved in the wars give a good goddamn about a few of the poor "lower class" that died??

And when you get back "home" you have two choices. Let it destroy you and those around you, or bury it so deep it NEVER comes to the surface, not even to one single other human being, and live your life as though you never served in the military.

Except when you can be anonymous on mudcat.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 06:19 PM

War is hell - hey I'm not to blame...

(Is that correct Dylan quoting)

Sounds awful anyway. Just we could all live with each other and so avoid these atrocities anyway.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 05:35 PM

Roger, You posted this:

Martha Gellhorn ...

........She was among the first to identify the Vietnam atrocity as "a new kind of war" against civilians. "Is this an honourable way," she wrote, "for a great nation to fight a war 8,000 miles from its safe homeland?" For this, the American press suppressed her articles and the US military saw to it that she was banned from south Vietnam. She was too dangerous. She was a truthful witness on the side of the underdog............

And it occurs to me that the best response to it is to say that you cannot be both a truthful witness and also take a side, even if it is that of "the underdog"--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Allan C.
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 05:29 PM

Hollowfox, I have yet to meet anyone who lived through the Vietnam War years who wasn't messed up by it one way or another. Some actually were there. Some were killed there. Some had friends, family, neighbors who served there and for whom many prayers and about whom many worries were had. Some were doing all they could to end the war. Some were doing all they could to indicate their lack of support for it. Some ate their TV dinners and tried to pretend that the evening news reports didn't bother them. Some were happy to be able to have continued with college in order to evade the draft. Some were already in the armed services and wondered if they would be transferred from their stateside duties to a tour in Vietnam.

The list goes on and on. We were all touched by the war. It messed up all of us.

I know for certain that there are far more horrific stories than the one cited here that remain untold. I bear no malice toward those who were there. I thank each and every one of them for what they endured. War is horrible. It should be. If it were nicer, we'd have a lot more of them.

My favorite teeshirt quote from the war years was:

Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: SINSULL
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 05:07 PM

I still see the pretty young man with blond hair and blue eyes who used to dress all in white and follow me around the campus adoringly. He was dead less than a week after setting foot in Viet Nam.

I wonder if we will ever get the whole truth about Viet Nam...

No child of mine, no grandchild of mine will ever go to war to defend anything but American soil and maybe Canada. Narrow thinking and stupid? I agree. But I don't trust our politicians to spend the lives of our children wisely or honestly.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 04:51 PM

...OK so I have just been told that its Cambodia where they are still clearing up the cluster bombs - which are still blowing peoples limbs off.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Hollowfox
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 04:33 PM

Y'know, Spaw, I have yet to meet anybody who served in Vietnam who didn't get messed up by it some way or another.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 04:30 PM

I know what I am saying may cause great offence, yet non is meant, but the country was trashed for what exactly?

......Martha Gellhorn ...

........She was among the first to identify the Vietnam atrocity as "a new kind of war" against civilians. "Is this an honourable way," she wrote, "for a great nation to fight a war 8,000 miles from its safe homeland?" For this, the American press suppressed her articles and the US military saw to it that she was banned from south Vietnam. She was too dangerous. She was a truthful witness on the side of the underdog............

John Pilger

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 04:06 PM

Enter Tom Paxton in the search box.........lots of stuff. Basically, he is a war vet and one of the greatest songwriters to emerge from the folk scare of the 60's. His breadth and girth of material is remarkable and his songs are second to none....on almost every subject. Roger, you say......

If I have to go war, I would like to know the real reasons behind that war first, and I hope the poor bastards trying to kill me will know why they are there too.

Go back and read some of the other threads on Vietnam.....like Songs of the Vietnam period......and you'll see that what made VietNam different was that many young people came to the realization at different times that perhaps the government we trusted and believed in and had been honorable in other wars, was somehow not telling the truth anymore. We grew up believing in our country and knew the stories of WWII, of Ira Hayes and Audie Murphy amd all those folks like our parents who fought that war. That's the black and white we knew. Suddenly it seemed the blacks and whites were all grays and like the good fans of Davy Crockett that we were, we knew "a man has to do what he thinks is right." In a variety of different ways we did and made choices as 18 or 20 year olds based on what we knew and what we were seeing. Its no accident that there is more post traumatic stress from that war than any other. Read what you wrote and think about the end result.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 03:48 PM

I am ploughing my way through a book by Pilger at the moment and it depresses the hell out of me. Seems on every page there is a new insight. If I have to go war, I would like to know the real reasons behind that war first, and I hope the poor bastards trying to kill me will know why they are there too. Any of you read Pilgers book???

Who is Tom Paxton anyhow? On the radio right now there is some mention that his songs were not popular with officialdom, are they good

roger

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: LR Mole
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 03:46 PM

But you're not the only one...

Subject: war sucks...
From: cait
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 03:21 PM

definitely a male thread...it's as if women don't feel the right to raise their voices about something they had little to do with. but, don't they, really?

women and children have always been the 'innocent' victims of war. why do i say innocent? because it's not our thing, we're trying to raise our children, giving them the right vitamins, getting their teeth straightened and worrying over their upbringing...for why? to send them off as cannon fodder? imagine trying to do your nurturing thing in the middle of a goddamn war.

not bloody likely.

why am i against the idea of women in combat? not for the conventional reasons, if men can't handle themselves around women that's their problem...i'm against people in combat.

call me a dreamer...

*caiti*

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 03:18 PM

.........are there still landmines in Vietnam?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 03:08 PM

M Ted. No problem mate, glad you posted it. I was just trying to point out that it was not uncommon for the dead to be stripped of weapons, and left in the field to create that immage. Women and Old Men fought too. Young Children were used as couriers and ammo carriers. I think Bob was duped into believing these people were innocent civilians. I doubt it, after all where did the hostile fire come from? Murder? Innocent? Not Bloody Likely! A tragedy? of course it was, as is all war/violence. Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 02:55 PM

I can only imagine how much something like this must haunt Bob Kerrey, and others who were in similar situations (on all sides). I think Kerrey's comments towards the end of the article are worth taking to heart. Although I served in the US military for eight years, I was fortunate to never have to participate in a war. But those who have, like Kerrey, know what a truly horrific business it is. The rest of us need to remember that, so that before the flags start waving and the bands start playing, we work like hell to find alternatives to the madness.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 02:47 PM

Dave,

I am sorry if my headline for this seemed in anyway accusatory--I was just trying to figure some way of expressing what the article was about--

Personally, I think a man who protects the lives of six other people when his own life is on the line rates a bit higher than another man who protests the war till he gets a high draft lottery number, and then loses interest--but people tell me I am little quirky--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 02:21 PM

Right On Spaw!

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 02:09 PM

What do I learn from this? Do I learn that another act took place and has now come to light? Sure, but it surprises no one and the longer we get away from that time, the more will come to light. No, that's not it.

I learn once again that courage comes in all forms and at various times. Bob Kerrey shows as much courage now as he did in winning the Medal of Honor. For any thinking person, this ought to enhance him as a presidential candidate, though sadly, it probably won't.

Like many, Bob Kerrey grew up in a time of blacks and whites and those of us in our 50's appreciate the feeling. We grew up in a time when the good guys wore white hats. As we came of age it became somewhat clearer that we were pawns on a chessboard and the blacks and whites had turned to all differing shades of gray. We coped with it as best we could then and we have done so since. Bob Kerrey has done the same. No one should be ashamed of the actions that took them places they now wish they had never been if they acted with the courage of their convictions then. Kerrey did this because of the way he grew up and what he was taught. He navigated the "grays" to the best lights he had at the time.

Today he is doing the same through the filter of history and age. I can find nothing but that same courage in him today. We cannot go back but we can always remember and the pain of the memories make us more determined to pass on the history we know.......lest it happen to our children and grandchildren.

You got my vote Bob.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 01:55 PM

I would like to point out that the Viet Cong were in the habit of retrieving weapons, dead comrades, and hiding them under, in and around hootches in very elaborate tunnel systems, leaving the appearance of non combatant bodies in field. They also murdered US soldiers who were wounded and captured. There were repeated occasions where the NVA dug up recently deceased (from disease)bodies of civilians Women, Children, Old men, etc; and blew them appart with grenades. Then sprinkled cattle blood on them, took photos and used them to accuse US troops of atrocities. Not to mention they regularly murdered teachers, priests, village officials, and non communist dissidents; and used them the same way. To accuse the US of murder in that war, is exactly the opposite of the "kettle calling the pot black". Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 01:44 PM

Thanks for posting this.

Subject: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 01:33 PM

Here is a breaking news item, it may not be the talk of the town where you are, but it is here is the Washington, DC area. Though it is not exactly music related, there is no way I could see putting it up as a BS thread. I put it here for you comments and consideration--I am particularly interested in what those of you who were there have to say--

Published Wednesday April 25, 2001

Civilian Deaths in 1969 Assault Still Pain Kerrey BY C. DAVID KOTOK

COPYRIGHT ©2001 OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

Bob Kerrey is confronting another wound from Vietnam - one that left him with no physical scars but did leave Vietnamese women, children and old men dead.

Kerrey expressed anguish Tuesday over a nighttime assault he led Feb. 25, 1969, along the Mekong Delta. It left only civilians dead with no weapons captured or Viet Cong soldiers among the casualties his squad inflicted.

The heroics by Kerrey 17 days later remain an oft-told story of the action that cost him his right leg below the knee and earned him a Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military commendation.

Now, 32 years later, another tale of war has emerged - one the former two-term senator and Nebraska governor had hoped never to speak of.

"I'm not emotionally able to give you all the details," Kerrey said by telephone from New York, where he now serves as president of the New School University in New York.

One detail stands out. Kerrey was awarded a Bronze Star "for heroic achievement" for his actions Feb. 25, with a citation that refers to "twenty-one Viet Cong killed, two hootches (huts) destroyed and two enemy weapons captured."

Kerrey said late Tuesday, "the citation is different than what we reported" to military superiors.

His report, Kerrey said, referred to the civilian casualties. Even so, his superiors allowed him to continue to run the squad and later recommended him for the Medal of Honor for his actions March 14.

Kerrey had been in Vietnam since January 1969. He was a 25-year-old lieutenant leading an elite seven-man squad from the Navy's sea, air and land unit, known as the SEALs. The unconventional warfare unit specialized in capturing enemy officials.

Now is a particularly awkward time for Kerrey to tell friends, family and the public about what had been an unspeakable

memory of war. He has just begun a new career. He recently married writer Sarah Paley. They are expecting a child in October.

In addition, his name continues to pop up on lists of potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2004.

But he has been forced to speak now of the events by a former member of his SEAL squad, Gerhard Klann. Klann's account conflicts with Kerrey's version of events - that probable Viet Cong civilian sympathizers were inadvertently caught in a firefight during an assault on a suspected Viet Cong stronghold.

The squad was not looking to shoot at just any human life, Kerrey said. On two occasions, Kerrey said, he refused missions where civilians in Viet Cong-controlled areas had been the targets. In this case, intelligence suggested that a Viet Cong district meeting was to take place in the huts, Kerrey said.

Mike Ambrose of Houston, the top enlisted man in the squad, said Tuesday that he fully supported Kerrey's account. "We had a bad night," he said. "The result of the action was unfortunate."

Klann declined Tuesday to tell The World-Herald his version of the mission.

Knowing that Klann's version of events was bound to become public, Kerrey spoke out about that night for the first time in a speech last Wednesday at an ROTC leadership seminar on the campus of Virginia Military Institute.

Had it not been for Klann, an experienced member of Kerrey's squad who eventually completed 20 years with the elite Navy unit, Kerrey said, he never would have spoken of the civilians' deaths.

"I lived with this privately for 32 years," Kerrey said. "I felt it best to keep this memory private. I can't keep it private any more. My conscience tells me some good should come from this."

While acknowledging that Klann "tells a completely different version," Kerrey offered this account to The World-Herald and in his ROTC speech:

The seven-man squad, six enlisted men with Kerrey as the lone officer, operated out of Cam Ranh Bay along the coast. Kerrey chose to go on a mission to a free-fire zone, an area that had been cleared of civilians by the U.S. military and where anyone remaining was assumed to be the enemy.

This mission in the Mekong Delta was near Thanh Phu, also referred to a Than or Tanh Phu, Secret Zone. "The squad faced considerable danger," based on intelligence reports on the secret zone - another name for a free-fire zone.

Kerrey flew over the area to get a better idea of the terrain before the action.

"We entered two hours after sunset on a dark and moon-less night. It was the most risky mission I had led in my short time in country. My greatest fear was that some mistake on my part would end in the death of my men," he said.

When in doubt, Kerrey knew from his training, he was to use lethal force. "When we received fire (during the approach to the suspected Viet Cong post), we returned fire. But when the fire stopped, we found that we had killed only women, children and older men. It was not a military victory. It was a tragedy, and I had ordered it."

His strong belief that those slain that night were, at the least, Viet Cong sympathizers, has not helped. "Though it could be justified militarily, I could never make my own peace with what happened that night. I have been haunted by it for 32 years."

Ambrose said his recollection was identical to Kerrey's. The intelligence was thought to be good, Ambrose said. In the dark, enemy fire was met with fire, he said.

In the flash of rounds, no one could see who was in the area, Ambrose said. He assumed later that the Viet Cong were firing from behind the women, children and older men and then escaped.

"Bob's account is absolutely accurate," Ambrose said. "Unfortunately, the results weren't something we were proud of."

At 19 or 20 years old, Ambrose said, he and the others were not concerned with the big picture. "We were just operating and carrying out our mission and hoping to get out of there in one piece," he said.

The account of events that day are quite different in the official Bronze Star citation contained in Kerrey's official Navy biography obtained from the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C.

That citation, which Kerrey said he did not prepare, said Kerrey's squad returned fire "killing 14 Viet Cong." Then, as the squad waited to be evacuated, they came under fire again and killed seven more Viet Cong.

Ambrose said he did not recall that account and stuck with Kerrey's version. He said he was unaware that Kerrey had received a Bronze Star for action on that mission.

For many Americans old enough to recall the events of the Vietnam War, the thought of slain women, children and old men with American soldiers standing over them conjures recollections of My Lai, the execution of Vietnamese civilians by an Army platoon in March 1968.

But accidental civilian casualties are a part of war and were known to have occurred in Vietnam.

American military and intelligence units, along with South Vietnamese forces, were particularly aggressive in 1969 in trying to destroy the Viet Cong in their Mekong Delta strongholds south of Saigon.

The Viet Cong, or the guerrilla units made up of southern Vietnamese supplied by the northern communist regime, was viewed as vulnerable because of losses suffered during the 1968 Tet offensive.

The Phoenix Program, a controversial and effective effort "to neutralize" Viet Cong political operators and sympathizers, was under way. The U.S. Navy embarked on SEALORDS to aggressively disrupt enemy supply lines out of Cambodia by interdiction deep into the Viet Cong-controlled Delta region.

The Army's 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry fought the Battle of Thanh Phu against a dug-in Viet Cong unit on March 11, 1969.

Dwight Daigle of New Orleans, who served three tours in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL, said free-fire zones were just that and civilians should not have been in them. "Anybody in there were not our guys," Daigle said.

Women, youngsters and older men in Viet Cong-held areas typically were "couriers, mules and weapons tenders," Daigle said.

Daigle, who served in Kerrey's platoon but not in his squad, trained with Klann, roomed with him and had Klann stand up for him at his wedding. During all their conversations over the years, Daigle said, Klann never spoke to him about the action with the civilian casualties.

Another member of Kerrey's squad, Lee 'Doc' Schrier, said he had talked to his former squad leader and other members of the unit, with the exception of Klann. He said he understands there is a disagreement between Kerrey's and Klann's accounts but is not taking sides.

"I don't have any animosity to anybody - at this moment," Schrier said. "We wouldn't be in these kinds of messes if people wouldn't talk."

Just two years ago, Schrier, Daigle, Klann and other platoon members joined Kerrey in Washington to plant a tree near the Capitol. They were marking the 30th anniversary of the action for which Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor. Klann is shown in a picture with his hand on Kerrey's right shoulder.

When asked for his recollection of the killings, Klann said he did not want to discuss it further.

"Everybody's just taking things out of context," said Klann, whose account set off inquiries by CBS News and a writer for the New York Times. Neither news outlet has aired an account of Klann's version of events.

Kerrey said that the last time he talked to Klann the conversation ended abruptly.

As he tries to translate his public admissions into something positive, Kerrey said, "it hurts like hell."

Kerrey reminds himself that in 1969 he was only 25 years old, younger than his son, Ben. War, by its nature involves "killing people in such a brutal fashion you don't want to do it."

"I have said publicly, 'sometimes it is harder to kill for your country than to die for it,'" Kerrey said. In his mind when he has made that statement are the deaths of the women, children and old men.

Perhaps, Kerrey said, people need a reminder of the destructiveness of war "in this modern era where all the talk is of over the horizon weapons and smart bombs."

No matter how difficult the memories, they have not transformed him into a pacifist, he said. "Some times evil will not yield and, then, the end justifies the means."

World-Herald staff writers Paul Goodsell and Jake Thompson contributed to this report.