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Old 10-26-2003, 06:56 AM
dino
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Default Re: Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert

In article <3F9D151A.7E31E786@yahoo.com>, Abrigon Gusiq says...
>
>Well, if true, is likely either not remembered by the US Military.
>
>A US Military that constantly forgets it's own war crimes, and paints a
>rosey picture of it's own glorious past.
>
>Maybe it is it time to, if LTC Herbert did see what he reported, to come
>clean with it. And mark it all up as an example of the politics of the
>times, we were loosing a ever increasing unpopular war. My Lai did not
>help much. We may have been winning in Vietnam in 1969/70, but
>politically we were losing badly at home/world scene. And there was
>extreme pressure to hide things like My Lai and other like events.
>Mike
>History Buff
>United State Scout, the crossed arrows of the regiment, later went to
>the Special Forces.


Herbert did come clean of it. That is why he was drummed out of the Army. Read
his book, "Soldier." You can pick up a used copy on Amazon.com for a few bucks.
Everyone in this ng knows what went on in Vietnam - only a few have the guts to
admit it...

>fob wrote:
>>
>> So...who is he ?
>>
>>"Dan Campbell" wrote in message
>>news:vpbo0aqdc4jt9c@corp.supernews.com...
>> >
>> > Bravo to Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert for speaking up about a U.S. military
>> > gone hay-wire (hence the term "babykillers"). This highly
>> > decorated soldier sacrificed his career, but kept his honor!
>> >
>> > Posted by writer/researcher Joe Bageant on 6/6/03:
>> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > Joe Bageant
>> > 102 Peyton St.
>> > Winchester VA 22601
>> > 540-722-2834
>> > "I have many many documents as a result of having done several national
>> > stories on Herbert during the 1970s. I am also still in contact with
>> > herbert." Joe Bageant 8/22/03
>> > -------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > Remembering “Herbert’s War”
>> >
>> > His decade-long personal war against cover-ups by the U.S. Army made
>> > Vietnam battalion commander Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert one of the most
>> > controversial figures of the Vietnam War. By Joe Bageant
>> >
>> > In 1947 U.S. Army recruitment got an apparent bargain when it signed up
>> > a 17-year-old Lithuanian kid from Herminie, Pennsylvania named Anthony
>> > B. Herbert. The self-described “big dumb kid from a coal-mining town”
>> > In the bloody snows of Korea. Herbert earned a couple dozen
>> > medals—including four Silver Stars out of Korea , three Bronze Stars
>> > with a V, six battle stars, four Purple Hearts and the highest military
>> > award Turkey has (because he was fighting alongside Turks at the time).
>> > He was wounded 14 times—10 by bullets, 3 by bayonet, and once by white
>> > phosphorus. Harry Truman’s America rewarded him with a goodwill tour of
>> > Europe, a handshake from Eleanor Roosevelt and the bayonet they’d
>> > pulled out of him and shined up. Two decades later, facing middle age
>> > and another war, this time in Southeast Asia, he commanded one of the
>> > most highly rated combat battalions in the war, leading its brigade in
>> > contacts with the enemy, captured weapons and enemy prisoners taken, as
>> > well as the highest reenlistment rate and fewest AWOLs. It was an
>> > enviable record by any standard. Then in 1971 about 20 years into his
>> > career, the marriage between Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert and the U.S. Army
>> > turned bitter, and the subsequent conflict came to be dubbed “Herbert’s
>> > War.” The issue was Herbert’s refusal to ignore atrocities he
>> > encountered in Vietnam. Tony Herbert’s earlier assignment as inspector
>> > general at An Khe in the Phu My province of Vietnam’s Central
>> > Highlands, practically guaranteed him a degree of unpopularity at the
>> > outset. But when he filed reports of American personnel administering
>> > water torture to a VC prisoner, he had made himself some hard-core
>> > enemies among fellow officers at brigade headquarters whose enmity
>> > would linger for years. Altogether, Herbert had reported eight separate
>> > war crimes, including incidents of torture, looting, execution and
>> > murder. He recalled a particular episode involving some Vietnamese
>> > girls: “The area was brilliantly lit by floodlights … Each of them [the
>> > girls] was seated with their hands on a table, palms down.” Herbert
>> > described the instruments used as a “long springy rod of bamboo split
>> > into dozens of tight, thin flails on one end. It was a murderous
>> > weapon,” he said. “I’d seen it take the hide off a buffalo. When it was
>> > struck down hard, the flails splayed out like a fan, but an instant
>> > after impact they returned to their order, pinching whatever was
>> > beneath…” Herbert says “War crimes are infinitely easier to overlook
>> > than to explain to an investigating committee. Nor do they do much for
>> > promotion among the ‘West Point Protection Society’ of the Army’s
>> > upper-echelon career men. So when I kept bringing up the matter, I kept
>> > on making enemies and getting answers such as, “‘What the hell did you
>> > expect, Herbert? Candy and flowers?’ I reported these things and
>> > nothing happened.” Maybe nothing happened in terms of prosecution, but
>> > Herbert himself was accused of exaggeration and outright lying in his
>> > filed reports. The clincher came in April of 1969 when he was relieved
>> > of his command of the Second Battalion, despite its outstanding record
>> > under his leadership. Herbert said it took a whole year of dead-end
>> > legal actions and $8,000 of his own money before even a few facts began
>> > to emerge. “I know now it wasn’t just the Army,” he says. “It was
>> > General Westmoreland in particular. He did everything he possibly could
>> > to keep my case covered up because of the heat being placed on the Army
>> > from the My Lai case.” Meanwhile, Army intelligence reports verified
>> > every single crime and supported Herbert’s charges. From a Central
>> > Intelligence Division (CID) report dated Aug. 23, 1971 reviewing
>> > Herbert’s allegations comes the following: “…technique employed
>> > included the transmission of electrical shock by means of a field
>> > telephone [used to torture a Vietnamese girl] a water rag treatment
>> > which impaired breathing, hitting with sticks and boards, and beating
>> > of detainees with fists.” And from CID reports marked FOR OFFICIAL USE
>> > ONLY: “Herbert’s S-3 [non-commissioned officer] witnessed a field
>> > telephone in use during interrogation, but no objection was raised…” In
>> > fact, the soldier involved in the electrical torture admitted to it in
>> > the same report, and another soldier admitted witnessing the water rag
>> > torture. Dozens of official CID documents substantiated Herbert’s
>> > statements, but the Army, in conflict with its own documents, insisted
>> > that Herbert had “a propensity to lie or exaggerate.” Among Herbert’s
>> > biggest obstacles was that while he was reporting the crimes to his
>> > superiors, one of his superiors, Lt. Gen. William Peers, also happened
>> > to be supervising Army inquiry into the My Lai cover-up. Worse yet,
>> > Peers’ right-hand man during the inquiry was J. Ross Franklin,
>> > Herbert’s main adversary at An Khe, one of those who would be held
>> > accountable for the crimes Herbert was reporting.Herbert felt that the
>> > Army’s CID seemed paralyzed when it came to investigating his
>> > complaints. So he helped them along by filing charges against his
>> > former commanding general, John W. Barnes, for dereliction of duty in
>> > failing to investigate the alleged atrocities. That same day, March 15,
>> > 1971, Herbert also dropped 14 separate charges into Franklin’s lap,
>> > including corpse mutilation and the electrical torture of a Vietnamese
>> > girl by Army intelligence. Herbert was shuttled off to a mediocre staff
>> > position at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where it was hoped he would settle
>> > into obscurity. Fat chance. He popped up in Life Magazine, the New York
>> > Times and on the Dick Cavett Show. He took voluntary polygraph tests
>> > and passed. Herbert says, “Army harassment increased until at last, my
>> > family began to show signs of stress from the ordeal.” So he chose the
>> > warrior’s hemlock—retirement. “On Nov. 7, 1971,” he says, I set my own
>> > retirement in motion.” As the Army watched him transformed into a
>> > 41-year-old civilian, it breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely. A year
>> > after his reluctant retirement Herbert teamed up with New York Times
>> > correspondent James Wooten to write the best selling book Soldier
>> > (Holt, Reinhart and Winston). It is an autobiographical account
>> > documenting his efforts to expose both the incompetence and the
>> > atrocities he’d seen in Vietnam. On another level Soldier illustrated
>> > dilemmas and asked moral questions about individual rights in an
>> > organized professional world—the man versus the self-serving system.
>> > Soldier won Herbert a great many admirers both in the media and the
>> > public at large. Then on Feb. 4, 1973, Herbert’s reputation was dealt a
>> > shattering blow when CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a segment titled “The
>> > Selling of Colonel Herbert.” CBS correspondent Mike Wallace and
>> > producer Barry Lando challenged his credibility, implying that Soldier
>> > was fictitious and, most surprising of all, that Herbert himself was
>> > guilty of war crimes. Considering that the massive efforts of the
>> > Pentagon had failed to discredit any of Herbert’s statements, this was
>> > baffling indeed. Supporting the CBS allegations against Herbert on the
>> > show was Herbert’s old nemesis, Lt. Col. J. Ross Franklin who had been
>> > relieved of his command Franklin relieved from his command for throwing
>> > a Vietnamese body out of chopper (and later went to prison in 1991 to
>> > serve a five-year sentence for his role in a securities scam.)More
>> > baffling was the fact that originally CBS producer Barry Lando had
>> > originally proposed a pro-Herbert segment. But CBS vice-president for
>> > news Bill Leonard shot it down. Lando, who said he totally believed in
>> > Herbert, tried again and again was shot down. Then in August of 1972
>> > Lando did an unexplainable about face, suddenly deciding that Herbert
>> > had “gone off the deep end,” and that his story was now riddled with
>> > inconsistencies. Herbert thinks Lando’s change of heart came when
>> > Herbert turned down Lando’s offer to write a book together. Whatever
>> > the case, Lando got approval for a CBS story challenging Herbert,
>> > rather than supporting him. Herbert said, “Interestingly, at the time
>> > CBS was under a lot of heat from the Nixon administration for an
>> > earlier broadcast called The Selling of the Pentagon and CBS president
>> > Frank Stanton was under subpoena. Around the same time Stanton paid a
>> > visit to Nixon White House counsel Charles Colson, who later said in
>> > the New York Times that Stanton volunteered to help Nixon and was
>> > unusually accommodating. One of the accommodations he made was
>> > decreased CBS examination of Nixon speeches.” Herbert suspected that he
>> > was also discussed at that meeting, especially considering that he had
>> > so actively supported George McGovern and had called Nixon a “war
>> > criminal.”In January of 1974 Herbert retaliated with a suit against
>> > CBS, Mike Wallace and Barry Lando to uncover just how they had decided
>> > to run the story. Ultimately, a landmark decision by the Supreme Court
>> > in Herbert v. Lando (1979) ruled in Herbert’s favor, and he won what
>> > had come to be called the “state of mind case.” Every major news news
>> > outlet in the world, joined CBS in an amica (spelling?) brief on the
>> > grounds that it would have a chilling effect on journalism, an effect
>> > that has so far failed to manifest itself. By that time Herbert had
>> > earned a doctorate in psychology, and become a police and clinical
>> > psychologist. He has since retired from that second career, but the
>> > events of “Herbert’s War” nevertheless surface from time to time.
>> > Writers still come to Herbert with screenplays, producers with movie
>> > deals and other offers. “I turn them down,” he says. “And if the
>> > subject of Vietnam or Korea comes up, I usually change the
>> > conversation.”Asked to sum up the whole experience and its meaning,
>> > Herbert, now 73 years old, paused, then said: “If you stick by your
>> > guns, if you stand by the truth, you win. I feel good about my time in
>> > Vietnam and my time in the Army. As my friend, Sgt. Maj. John Bittorie
>> > once said, ‘There are two kinds of military reputations. One is
>> > official and on paper in Washington DC. The other is the one that goes
>> > from bar to bar from the mouths of those who served with you there.’
>> > That is the only reputation I ever really cared about.”
>> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >


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