Realities; 23; Soldiers Who Search and Dissent

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . to 1962 to 1965, including ten wins in Vietnam, and four wins as a cut at West Point. My name is Tom Farrer. I teach law at Columbia University Law School, and in more tranquil times served as special assistance to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. I've been asked to say a little bit about the laws of war. Given the nature of today's meeting, there is a certain irony that the U.S. has in fact played a major role in the development of restrictions on the extent to which military force can be employed. To go back to the Civil War, which seems to me the first major event, it was the United States Army, the Army of the North, which developed the first military manual governing the conduct of troops in the treatment of prisoners of war and of civilians.

And it was enforced through court martial proceedings. And it subsequently served as the model for the military manuals which were adopted by all of the armies of Europe, German, French, Italian, and English, and which have been constantly updated through the years, civilized, I think, might be an appropriate way to describe them. Moreover, we conducted the first war crimes trial, establishing individual responsibility for violations of the customs of war. That was the famous Andersonville trial, where we tried, Captain Wurtz, the head of the Andersonville prison and the South. And of course, as you know, he was executed. Coming closer to the present, the next major landmark was the meeting of the major powers of the Hague in 1907, which adopted the so-called Hague Conventions. Now, their very complex body, it's a very complex body of rules, it laid down limitations, governing the use, governing the treatment of civilians, the treatment of prisoners of

war, and perhaps for our own purposes, most important. It laid down the fundamental rule of no bombardment of defenseless cities, towns, or villages. The United States and all other major powers are, of course, signatories of the Hague Conventions. Finally, we arrived at the Nornberg Tribunal. And the principal reason I've gone into this in prior history is to establish that Nornberg was not unique. Not a violation of existing precedents, but in fact, a culmination of a development establishing individual responsibility for violations of basic humanitarian norms. The Vietnam veterans testifying here today have earned a total of six purple hearts, four bronze stars, and two silver stars. Besides numerous commendation and achievement awards, these men have served their country. I was a medic. While serving in Tuiwa, we went to a village called Maifu, rather that it was Tuiwa Province,

Maifu was the name of the town. We weren't supposed to go and search and destroy missions, but we went into this particular place, this particular village. We reconned by fire before we went into the village, and we got inside the village there a couple of women and children who were wounded, my platoon leader told me and another guy were trying to treat the people to leave them, and let's go set up on the mountain because we didn't have time to take care of them that day, someone else come along to take care of my guests. The next morning, the people were trying to bury some of their dead, which we had killed the day before. My platoon sergeants, squad leaders, they were firing down off the mountain during the aberro ceremony, later on that day, we had to come down off the mountain to a water point to get some water for the rest of the platoon. There were two boys playing on the rice paddy dyke, my squad leader shot and killed one of the boys, and the assistant squad leader shot the other one, and they chalked it up

to good practice. There were many incidents where we came across a bunker that the civilians, that they made these bunkers themselves, to protect them from the planes that were dropping bombs and the artillery. We were throwing white phosphorus in the bunkers. We knew that they were civilians, but still they were, I guess, suspect that the V.I. Kong was SLP to do this. We killed animals in villages. We destroyed wherever the people that we burned their houses. We had to cut the right ear of everybody we killed to prove our body count, because they didn't believe we killed as many people as we said we did. And a chaplain told us it was better to give than receive and to do unto others before they do unto you. Charlie, when you were going through basic training, was there ever any instruction in the treatment of civilians, the rules governing treatment of civilians, or POWs, conduct of operations?

We weren't supposed to mutilate bodies, we weren't supposed to, well, there was a Geneva convention. Supposed to follow that. And when I was going to, I can't remember too much about basic training, but in Fort Sam Houston, I was going to 9-10 medical school. They told us that we were supposed to treat the enemy just as we would treat our own. And Vietnam, that just doesn't happen. Where does it break down? That as you say before you go over, there at least some instruction about the laws of war and how you want to conduct yourselves. Then when you get there, obviously it has no impact. But where do you see the breakdown coming in? Well, when we're in operation, the operation suppose the last three days. On the third day, if we capture a few enemy or we wound a couple of guys, now maybe if I treat the, maybe a guy has a, maybe just a sucking chest wound or something.

Maybe I can treat the guy, have the guy evacuated. But if I haven't evacuated, then the battalion commander knows that there's enemy out there and we'll have to stay three more days, maybe another week. So rather than stay that long, just kill the guy and forget it. And nobody knows anything. I'm not supposed to say anything. How about in the case of civilians, how do the patterns of treatment develop, who lays down the odors? Well, it seems to be pretty much SLP because every village we went into, we always recon by fire and we're always killing innocent people and no one ever, well, sometimes they shoot us first. But a lot of times there's no fire, we just start the fire. And when we get in there, there are people lying around wounded and you just walk past nothing said just to get about it. That's it. You mean you're trained that that's the way to take a village? That's not the way we're trained here. That's what happens there. That's it, every day thing. Press questions.

Was there ever a time when you were over there, when you did treat any of the enemy either whether they were civilians or soldiers? Yes. A lot of times we treated them. We might have some pitches of some of the prisons we took after Operation Hotline, that's the one we were talking about, Captain Carpenter. We treated a lot of the enemy there and we sent them back to our aid stations. In the instances where you didn't treat prisoners or civilians or where members from your company were squad, and extremely killed civilians or wounded prisoners, was there ever any official reprimand from either your opportunity or your captain? I can't think of an incident. I can't think of one time where someone said maybe verbally a guy might say, well, don't do that again. That's it. And then the same guy that told him not to do it again, he's a new guy because that thing's over there for a while. He does the same thing himself. This is officers.

I served four years in the Navy, which I spent one year in Vietnam from September 1968 to September 1969. I served as first a machine gunner and later a boat captain with River Division 531 in the Maycon Delta. My testimony will deal with destruction of crops and animals and harassment of civilians. In October of 1968, while acting as a blocking force on the Hamlong River and Vinlong Province, we observed the water buffalo standing on the bank of the river. The order was issued to kill it, and ensuing barrage consisted of 50 caliber machine guns, M60 machine guns, 40 millimeter grenade launchers, and 66 millimeter anti-tank rockets. Being new in country, I asked why. The answer I got was that this was a free fire zone, and that anything in it was free

game. The water buffalo was incidentally called a bitcom taxi. First Lieutenant, United States Army, I received my commission from Fort Benning Infantry Officer Kennedy School in August of 1967. I served in Vietnam from July of 1968 to July of 1969. I served in the capacity of a civil affairs platoon leader. At the present time, I live in Highland Park, New Jersey, and I work as an advertising assistant. At the mission of the civil affairs unit, simply put, was to act as a liaison between the Vietnamese civilians and the Vietnamese government, whether it be the village, the district, or the province level. And the reason behind this was to make the Vietnamese government more responsive to the needs of the people and help create a sense of awareness on the part of the civilians that their government was there to help them.

And tightly put it was sort of to help the people to help themselves. And the question of refugees has been brought up from these free fire zones and our district, which was quite non-district, in Ben-Den Province, which is an in northern province and two corps on the I Corps border. We had 70,000 refugees out of a population of 150,000. About half of them lived in four refugee camps and the rest lived for wherever they could live. And one occasion, we were told that they were bringing in a wounded Viet Cong. So for curiosity's sake, to see what a Viet Cong looked like, we went out, and I was standing about 50 feet from where the medical evacuation helicopter was going to land. And they brought a helicopter in. The helicopter landed. The two medics ran out at their stretcher and put the stretcher on the ground. And from the floor of the helicopter to the ground, it's approximately three feet. So they took this man with a very bad stomach wound and they dropped him the three feet to

the ground. And from where I was standing, you could see the man grimace. So he was conscious when this happened to him. And the man was brought in and he was taken care of. Everybody around us laughed. At the same time, approximately 75 feet to the right was a command aircraft with Lieutenant General, the man who was in charge of them at that time was a commandeer general and General Brigadier General, who was commandeer general. About ten minutes later, the sergeant major of the brigade, which is the highest ranking list of men in the brigade, came over and asked who was dumb enough to do that. So nobody really said anything more than I asked him, well, what was the reaction of the generals and his command was the general laughed, though it was funny. And I said, well, that general laughed too. So that sort of shows you that it goes all the way up the line.

I went to Paris Island and of course in the Marines, but everybody goes to Paris Island, going to Vietnam. Unless you go in the air wing, it's such. The majority are two-year men or they come to come grunts and they go to Vietnam. So besides the physical training, you get psychological training and that entails them telling you story after story of Vietnamese children that will come running up to you with hand grenades, of women that said booby traps. But at the time you get out of basic training, you're totally against the Vietnamese people and you don't trust anybody. Everything they show you is propaganda films. You see, film has to film saying that if we don't stop Vietnamese and if we don't stop communism and Vietnam, they're going to be in California next week. That's really what it's like, I tell you. So all I can say is by the time I think the average Marine gets out of Paris Island, he

hates Oriental people. He does. It's just a natural tendency. And when you get over there, I think these certain acts that happen are happening are because of this. Are you given any kind of drill with respect to the treatment of prisoners? No, no. We just told that. They tell me. They don't instruct us to tell you that every group over there, they call them gooks. To me, when you come out of there, you're a racist. You have to be. I would add to that that I never received in three years in the regular army any sort of training or indication in any other way that there were war crimes that we had to worry about. And I never received this as a cadet at West Point. The only thing I knew about war crimes is that that is what the German and Japanese army did. At the point we are trying to make one of the points is that if me lie were to be thoroughly

taken into court, Lieutenant Calle would not be the person sitting in that witness chair or sitting in that defendant's chair. If we have been taught anything at all in the instruction on international law, it's that for these sorts of crimes, someone at a much higher level would be sitting there before Lieutenant's insurgents started showing up. Well, if I could just disagree a little bit, John. It's quite clear from the Nuremberg Presidents that while generals and chief command officials and the highest politicians are liable to punishment for the general tactics and strategies

employed, such as the creation of the strategy employing free fire zones, free strike zones, the men who actually pull the trigger. If they have reason to believe that the orders they've received are illegal, are also responsible. At least that was the rule. Those are the rules that we applied to the Germans and the Japanese. It wasn't only the high command that was sentenced, it was also individual members of the SS and the SD and so on. Now the floor will be open to the public. The press may also question. How common is a my-lie incident of greater or lesser nature? I'd like to answer that if I may. I'm a former combat infantryman, so I'm not just a moderator. My lay is not a unique experience. Several of these men and many more that we know individually and through personal contact

have participated in the destruction of villages and the killing of villagers on the orders of superior officers. It happens every day, but it's not maybe as big as my lie. That's why my lie is different because it's a size, but this stuff does happen every day over there. Thank you. Yes? We've been here now for an hour and forty minutes and a couple of years ago, there was a lad in my home. He was about to tell his mother and father, he asked me not to do it first. He had just finished this training at Paris Island. He was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps and he said, Ted, he called me Uncle Teddy. He said, someday somebody is going to ask you why I am going to Vietnam. And I hope you have the courage at that time to answer the question for me.

I may not be able to do it myself. That's why I'm going to ask this question. He isn't here to ask that question in person because his body came back in a box. And he was in favor of the same things that you are and I am. And that's peace. And this is the way he put it to me. He says, Ted, when the time comes, remind everybody that the main reason why I'm going to Vietnam is because somebody has got to perform their duty to protect everything that I've heard is from you and my father. You know, I'm in her day. You know, I'm in her fight. I went to Vietnam, they're fighting for your freedom.

I have been made my point. Let me ask you men. Can I answer you questions? Can I answer you questions? Can I ask the five men on the panel? They want me to put your question-form? Can I answer you questions? And I want to put your question-form? They want me to put this into a question form, let them turn the mic off, but you can't turn off the living dead, you can't turn off the spirit of America, you can't stop, you can't stop, but don't boy the fighting force. Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your complete silence? May I have your complete silence? May I have your complete attention up here? At this point we will have to have an intermission. I'm sorry, there will be another panel on in ten minutes. We will try and give it as short as possible.

What is your reaction to what you've seen? I haven't heard anything I didn't expect to hear. A lot of the things I've heard I've seen and participated in, so it wasn't really anything I hadn't really expected. Have you ever felt compelled like these young men to speak out about this or to consider what you've seen and done a war crime? I guess I felt that some of the things I've seen were war crimes. I don't know if I really felt compelled, this is a speak out or not. I have with friends where we have conversations and things. I tell them how I feel. I don't know if they're in public. I guess I've called them on. I guess I would. What is the worst thing when you say you've seen all this stuff and more? What is the worst thing you've been involved in that might be on your conscience? Cold blooded killings of civilians that I've seen. Just shooting people in free fire zones like these people we're talking about. On the issue of whether you have to carry out

an illegal order, did you ever consider not participating because you thought these things were illegal? Not at the time now. I had a change of conscience after I got out of service. At the time, I thought of these people just as groups, which is now horrified at the type of things I thought at that time. I think having had a change of conscience I feel a little better. What would it take you to make you perhaps join the Vietnam veterans against the war? Or would you join a group like this? I just recently spoke or just before the program started, I spoke to one of the gentlemen and I plan to join the organization because I think what they're doing is good. Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to reconvene to win this whole investigation. So all of you outside would please come in and take your seats. Now we will go into the second panel of the Winter Soldier investigation. Thank you. My name is Michael Hunter. I served in the United States Army in February,

March 27, 1967, to March 14, 1970. I served a tour of 18 months in Vietnam from February 7, 1968 to February 7, 1969. And the second tour was from September to March 70. I served as a knee-five in the first aircraft. Mainly what I'll be testifying is about mutilation of bodies in my company, Bravo Company, fifth of the seventh aircraft in the I Corps area station to camp Evans at the time in 1968. See, when I came in, I flew right into the

attack offensive outside of Webb. The next day that I was in the field, we encountered a Vietnamese boy approximately the age of 14 years old whose arm was hanging off by the skin and it was rotted and you couldn't stand a stick next to him. I called up the medical sergeant and in one baton leader and he in turn had the sergeant that was in charge of our baton and our baton sergeant came down and I asked him to give the boy some type of medical treatment or to call in a medevac and get him out of there because there's no possible way he was going to live. He said, well, we don't have enough medical equipment to be spinning on any gooks. We've got to move out, we've got to get to an objective and we don't have the time to waste. Approximately 15 minutes later as we went down the road, we took a break for an hour. We never treated the boy, we never gave him any type of help

whatsoever. There's no possible way he could have lived through that. During the TET offensive in 1968, my same company, Bravo Company, fifth of the seventh, first-eared cab, set up machine guns just outside of the way as we were forming in quarter of arms around the way and two people came driving down the road, a riding on bicycles. It was just before six o'clock, I would say it was approximately 5'30, curfew was not on until six o'clock. We opened up on them on the machine guns. They fell over the embankment into the dike on the opposite side of the road and they never got up. We never checked it out. Also with Bravo Company, fifth of the seventh, first-eared cab, after we were getting into firefights and that's when we would make contact with the enemy. We, our numerous occasions, would not take prisoners. After we've had people killed in our company,

we'd be so mad and so infuriated that our numerous atimes, when people were crying, begging for help, speaking of North Vietnamese or VC, we'd call in artillery fire or mortar fire on top of them rather than give them help. If we go through and they moved or they were alive or anything whatsoever, we'd shoot them. After they were dead, our numerous occasions in which I participated in, we've cut off their ears. We've carved calf patches in their chest and a calf patch if none of you know what it looks like. It's exactly right here. We cut off their heads, put them on stakes in the trail and put the calf patch on top of it. And the reason we did this is because we know that the Vietnamese wants that you carve any type of symbol on his chest or take any part of his body away from him, that

because of their religion, their soul can't go to heaven. Because part of their body isn't there. And we do it. We did it when we were in way. We did it when we moved down South to Tainan. We did it the entire year that I was there. Very seldom do we ever, ever take prisoners. We were never ordered to take prisoners, so we'd shoot them. And numerous occasions, when we've had to go into villages and form quarter-arms around the village, we go in and separate the civilians, the younger women from all the rest of the people, the older men, the older women, the younger children. And we take them off to the side and we put a gun up to their head and we tell them either to drop their pants and submit to our sexual desires or else we pull their heads off. So you think that the reason that the rules

don't get enforced is because no one actually fears punishment for violation of them. No. We spend the enlistment spend of almost 11 months in the field and there's no punishment. You just don't do it when the battalion officer comes out and when there's a general around besides that, it's S.O.P. What this whole truth also for press, that you have pressed people on any of your operations was there any difference in the way the operation went if there was a reporter? We've had quite a few reporters with us and they go out with us when we were on recon missions and when we would fire into people. Matter of fact, during the month of September between the end of September to the middle of October, we formed a quarter-arms around in between way and camp Evans around a village and it was a free fire zone and we were walking

down and I happened to be walking on point and I got the orders to open up across approximately a hundred meters across on a civilian. It turned out we could see the man chopping pineapple on a tree and the officer said to cut him down. We cut him down. He was 68 years old. He had papers on him for being a civilian. There was a correspondent there and I got a credit for a kill and I got a three-day pass. Mike were rewards ever offered for the number of people killed. You say you got a three-day pass? Yeah. Well, in my company it's standard operating procedures. That's what S.O.P. is that if you kill three gooks, you're credited with a leave. You either pass a three-day pass to Bontal or a seven-day leave.

Whether they're also in your unit ever awards or payments or beer parties or whatever for years taken or headstaking. Awards now, it was just, I guess you could best call it a hobby after a certain amount of time. It became instinctive that after you killed a person in order to show that you killed him, you cut off his ear or you carve your initials in after the cat patch. There were no awards, no money given. I have a first lieutenant that was my baton leader, a captain that was my company commander and numerous other lieutenants throughout the company. Who were standing if not right beside me down the trail for me at the time that we carved cat patches onto people and

have seen years that we've cut off of Vietnamese and have seen the skulls that we've stuck on the stakes with the brain still dripping out of the neck and they have not once said not to do it, but yet they have never given us to order to do it. Mike, can you, what will provoke you to do this? Well, I get into Vietnam and believe it or not, I was very much for serving my country and I still love this country, but I don't know after spending, I spent 90% of my time in the field, I have the 18 months that I spent there and after the Tet Offensive, I guess you could say I was as gung-ho as you could ever get, there was nothing like running down a Vietnamese and shooting him and I guess you could say

that was crazy as hell. I could not be persecuted in any way about what I did because I was gung-ho and I was living up to the standards of the company and I was a good old GI gel. Any more questions on the press? Yes, did you ever see or participate in the torturing of a still living prisoner to death? I have witnessed burning prisoner with cigarettes along his chest. I have participated in and witnessed killing prisoners that were laying on the ground wounded. Yes, anybody at any time ever challenge one of these orders or some of these practices as the illegal, a man in a company or an enlisted man or even

an officer, if so, what happened? Well, let me tell you what happens. I can only relate to it as a black person but when a brother went up and questioned the fact that he opened up on anybody that was coming down the trail, when you take and you question the orders given by a commanding officer, you are being disabordinate. Which can lead to a number of things. You can spend up to six months in LBJ, that's the prison and that has long been jailed. And then after that you have to make up six more months in Vietnam as bad time and you can lose your rank down to E1 and you can be shipped to another line company which means in other words you keep your mouth shut and you deal with your toll. Thank you, Mike.

My name is John McGinnis and I was in the United States Army from January 66 to May of 68 and in Vietnam from September 66 to September 67. In the area of Kucci with the 25th Infantry Division, the first thing I like to say was that I was an engaged in a search and destroy mission in Tainem Province. At that time we had gone through the village and one of our squad members came upon a pregnant Vietnamese lady and her son. He attempted questioning her in American and in Spanish. She was of Mexican descent and I'm pretty sure she couldn't understand what he was saying. Asking where her husband was, when she did not answer, she shot her, shot her son and they both died. Chest wounds took place in March of 67. Also in November of 1966, during Operation Adelboro, in a forward base camp, that's

where we set up out in the field to carry on our missions. There were three prisoner of wars that were brought in for interrogation. They were tied up, bound and blindfolded with that. Like an undershirt, put tied over their head and I saw the three of them pushed into a ui. It's a helicopter and with one arvin interpreter interrogator, he's arvin is a Republican Vietnam Army member and one United States Army interrogator. The helicopter went up into the air about 100 feet and I saw one of the prisoners come flying out, smack down the ground. Later on, we found out this was done to intimidate the other two and to answer in questions. Again, when we got to Vietnam, in my outfit, first of the 27th, it was a common policy, oral or verbal order that we would not take any prisoners

of war unless it was absolutely necessary. It was a policy in Vietnam of Chiu Hoi. These were vietcong who were allowed to turn over and come back to the Vietnamese government. If these people wanted to do this, we were supposed to accept them and turn them over, but that was not our policy. We used to shoot them. On the, when it comes to mutilation of people on various occasions, we would kill Vietnamese, vietcong and either tack our emblems into their foreheads, which is a unit crest. It's a little metal thing that they give you to show what you belong to. We used to tack them into their foreheads to show that they were killed by us and various other things like limbs cut off of their body and

testicles cut off and maybe stuck in very embarrassing positions to, I guess, psychologically psych us up and destroy anything that they had. That was about it. Now officers, officers present during the two interrogation incidents that you referred to where the Huey helicopter case and the incident contained in province, well, in the area, our company commander and our platoon leader, in the one instance where the pregnant

lady and a son were both killed, our platoon leader was just outside that hooch and recalling his words. It was a full letter word and then her and that's all he seemed to respond. It didn't really make that much difference to him. My question is, do we have any members of the clergy serving in Vietnam and what part did they play there and did they witness any actions and were there any reports made and that they follow up what you described? Sir, first of all, are you a clergy? No, I'm not. Okay, and answer your question. No, I didn't mean that as a cut. I'm sorry. To answer your question, we've had memorial service. I very seldom attended any type of services over there, but when I did, we've had memorial services for troops that we had lost, perhaps

we'd lost them two weeks before we'd have memorial service, right? One thing I can remember, a Catholic priest getting up and saying, and that said, first while we'd say a prayer for the gi that had died and we're sorry that he's dead, he was a good guy. He fought for his country real hard and he died like a man. And then he said, referring to the Vietnamese people, the gooks, now let's get back out there and let's get these gooks and let's show them. Now this is coming from a captain who's a priest and you see why don't go to any type of memorial service or any Catholic service, a Protestant service, and Vietnam. Yeah, I think you've been very fair and honest in what you've been saying up there and you've been talking about some actual atrocities that have occurred on an individual basis.

My question directed to all the panel is, some of you have admitted to having some instruction and training about Geneva Convention and the UCMJ. Other said you didn't yet, I think that was earlier today. Now after having admitted that some of you have done such things as carving your initials and a patch in the man's chest or the body of an enemy, what do you think should happen to those who have done these things and those of you? Should they be prosecuted or what? Sir, most of us here today are telling this so that our sons and brothers don't have to do it. That's what we're trying to get across. Well, in the light of the Cali trial and things like that, what should be done about those who are found to have done such things? I think that most Vietnam veterans would just like to forget that Vietnam ever happened to them. Unfortunately, Vietnam isn't going

to go away because it's still going on and it's been expanded to Cambodia and Laos and will in the short future, I am sure, be expanded to know as Vietnam itself. Therefore, many of us feel we cannot forget what happened in Vietnam because it's still going on and it'll probably continue until the American public stops it. So that we each are willing to risk whatever we have to risk to speak out about what we can speak out about. I personally feel that if you do not tell an individual what he's getting himself into, I cannot see how a government or a society can then hold that individual responsible for what it put him into a situation to do. On the other hand, if one is a general or a civilian making policy and this policy has certain effects upon other people, I think that person who made

that policy, that person who created that first free fire zone, that person who created that first search and destroy mission, that person who created that wonderful phrase war of attrition, that person who created that first B-52 bombing mission, that person who created each one of these policies, whereas we could do the things that we did on the personal scale as part of that policy, those people have got to be found responsible. I don't think that you can say that a 17-year-old drafty or enlisted person could create Vietnam for himself and then be held responsible for everything that happened over there. We have at least three administrations of presidents and their assistants, etc., who have taken

us through three major phases of the war in Vietnam. Each one of them passes the buck on to the next one. Will the Fourth Administration have had everything passed on to that? I don't know. But at some point, the buck has got to stop being passed in the American government and someone is going to have to get honest with the American public and this is what we're trying to bring out is what we know happened and what we know has not been told to the American public. And it's going to have to be up to you, the public, to decide what to do. In the past generations ago, centuries ago, the messenger who brought the bad news was shot. Well, we hope you don't do that to us, but we have some bad news. I think what you say is important and good to be said. However, the most of the people today have said that it wasn't an

order. No one was ordered to go carve the initials and the patch into a man's chest. They say that some of the immediate officers and NCOs knew about it and didn't say anything against it, but they weren't ordered to do it. Now, in the American Army and the military, any person can bring charges against another in the military. So why didn't any of these gentlemen do such thing? We had a, I expect four in our company who brought up charges against a lieutenant for shooting at a South Vietnamese girl. By the way, he hit with an M79 rocket launcher, which is a grenade launcher and blew her to pieces. Now, what happened to that was he was transferred to another company. The officer stayed with the company for two more months, left the field and took a rear job. That's how far you get. And when you get transferred to another

company, you also have what is known as a recommendation from your company commander. And if you are a troublemaker, you will definitely find yourself walking point in the next company. And you don't last very long up there. I'm asking to talk about some of the things that you had to do or did. I'm wondering what percentage of men come back, totally unable to readjust a civilian life and are permanently emotionally damaged? I like to just say one thing. I see I got discharged for a psycho neurosis. Now, it might seem funny, but unfortunately, this is what, when you say illegal crimes and things like these, I can't consider anything that's done over there illegal. I consider it insane because they changed me from, I would say, a normal, fun-loving American boy into a killer. And I became a killer,

excluding legal facts through psychological brainwashing. And I was never able to look beyond, like I said, what was immediately around me. I blamed the death of my fellow soldiers and so forth on the Vietnamese, which was a very narrow outlook at the time. And as far as readjusting, I came back to the state and I was discharged from the service nine months early because the Army didn't want to have anything to do with me. So they let me out. And they let me readjust on my own. Have you readjusted? No, I don't think I ever will. Thank you. Thank you, John. I might have had a personal experience in the hometown of Princeton. There's an ex-Marine by the name of Bruce Nevis, who is so gun-ho after returning from NAM. He, the fact that he's discharged and sitting at home, convinced him that he was AWOL. And now, as in the state institution, we're trying to get back on the military post.

I'd like to direct this question to Mike. Mike, I think out of all the testimony that we've heard this afternoon, yours was undoubtedly the most vivid in your account of the murders, the sexual assaults, the mutilations, etc., which you both witnessed and participated in. But today, you're testifying on behalf of the Vietnam veterans against the war. Now, you did mention that while you were in the service, you participated in this because you loved your country. You were half crazy, as I guess most of the guys in the field were. But you did at the time feel no definite remorse if I understood you correctly for your actions. This was a way of life. What has happened and when did it happen to make you now see your actions differently? Well, sir.

During my second tour in Vietnam, I've seen quite a few people killed and I've seen them with their heads blown off and with holes in their heads and in their bodies and throughout the works. And after coming back and after being wounded a few times, it finally struck me that it was kind of funny. It's the question that you asked is kind of hard to answer. It comes over a period of time. During my second tour, I guess I opposed the Army more than I ever would, or ever attempted to. And because of this, I was shifted from one company to another. I didn't want to make this statement. But my father is a Colonel in the Army and he is still in the Army right now. And I love him very much. But my father

taught me one thing. And that was that if I believe in something wholeheartedly that I'm going to fight for it, and he would expect me to fight for it. And I would expect the same thing out of him. And I believe war is wrong. I would never pick up a gun now and shoot it at anybody where they'd be white, black, Puerto Rican, Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, whatever. Thank you very much for coming. What was your reaction to this afternoon's meeting? Well, I think they were very fair and very honest. I mentioned that when I stood up. But however, we're talking about two different things. They're talking about individual cases of individual atrocities. And none of these

people had been in this case situation where they could have seen any large scale atrocities, which I don't think there are on our side. I think our government policy, no matter how you feel about war, whether it's right or wrong, our government policy is not to purposely go out and commit atrocities. Now, many people are going to say that just war in itself is an atrocity. And that's probably true. War happens when foreign policy breaks down, whether it's the Communist foreign policy or our own. Somewhere there's a dispute and a war begins. Even these war crimes, if you say only on the individual level, if you accept that, do you feel as a civilian, do you have any responsibility? They keep making the analogy to Germany and the Norbert principles that civilians have a responsibility? Do you feel a responsibility? Yes, I do. And if those people who are very much against the war and think it's immoral, I would think they'd be wrong not to take some action to try to stop the war. In my case, I think when we first started way back at 62, we were on the right road. Unfortunately, through what I say in no-win policy, it's at this point.

It's no sense in fighting anymore. I was in the Army. I was over there 18 months myself. What would you say you could do to stop these war crimes? Well, to show the publicity through manners like this so that the officers and NCOs over in Vietnam will take action to control their own troops and so that everyone who goes realizes that just because other people perhaps are doing some things which are wrong, that doesn't make it the right policy. It's not government policy to go out and cut ears off. Were you an officer over there? Yes, I was a government commander. And you feel that what about some of these policies that they mentioned, reconnaissance by fire, search and destroy, which are official actions, which they seem to feel violate the Geneva conventions? How would you appraise them? Well, it depends on where they occur, of course, in a free fire zone, which I don't think was clearly stated there. Free fire zone gets the approval of the Vietnamese government that this is an area where there are not supposed

to be any civilians living. It's true, though, that some innocent people do wander back as they've been removed from their homes and their graves and their farms and all that. So some innocent people do get hurt and that's wrong. My own company, whenever we were in an area like that, I wouldn't let them just fire indiscriminately. Now, if you're out someplace where you're pretty sure you're not going to meet anybody at all, that'd be another case. How would you discipline men who did get carried away? Well, number one, you would put them up before a court marshal. Did you ever do that? No, I never did. And I think it's because every time I had a briefing, which would be about every two or three days, every time I inspected my troops before they went out on an ambush, I would ask them questions like, not who you're going to shoot tonight. I'd ask them, what are you going to do if you see a boat coming down? We were in an area south of southeast of Saigon with a lot of water and boats. I'd ask them, what are you going to do? And if

they said shoot, that wasn't the right answer. First, you tell them, don't lie, don't stop. That tells the Vietnamese to stop. And then you question them. You don't just shoot first off, but I'm sure there are cases where people did just shoot with, even though at night, during the curfew, supposedly it's legitimate to just shoot, but I didn't want my troops doing that. What happened this week? Thousands of Vietnam veterans against the war are in Washington. They are encamped all over the capital and for five days they will be raising the question of moral responsibility and urging Congress to officially examine the nation's war policies. The veterans also plan a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery for their fallen buddies. Congress appears impressed. One senator has inserted 900 pages of war crimes charges in the Congressional record. Another senator has invited the veterans to testify at Senate hearings on the treatment of war refugees and several congressional committees have pledged inquiry soon on other aspects of the war.

Thank you.