[exlrrp]

The tiger force atrocity is back in the news again as the Pulitzer prize winning investigative reporters start hawking their book on the subject

"There was no reason for what they did. No reason at all."
A quote from a man who turned in some of the tiger force people for the atrocities they committed.
Just one example:
"Dennis Stout was a soldier caught between the ethics of his job and surviving in an unforgiving Army. As a military journalist, he watched platoon soldiers force 35 women and children into a pasture in the heart of Vietnam?s Central Highlands. As the people huddled - some crying-the soldiers moved the villagers into small groups and led them to the edge of the field. Then came the gun shots, with bodies falling. "They just killed them - mothers, with little kids and old people," he recalled."
The Army investigated the case for 4 1/2 years, substantiating 20 war crimes involving 18 soldiers. But no one was charged.
And while the record of the tiger force is enough to make me cringe, at least there was someone with integrity enough to turn in some pretty bad people. Some of the people I served with. It sure didn't come from the command.
Tiger Force was the name of our battalion (1st/327) Recon team.
They wore tiger fatigues and were supposed to be recon.
Ive mentioned before my "Summer of Love" in the Song ve valley, burning down villages, running people out of their homes and burning them down. The avowed purpose was to clear the place first and turn it into a free fire zone. We patrolled around there,. setting up ambushes at night
I consider this to be the most disgraceful thing I ever did in my life and I was ordered to do it by my superiors. I didn't sign up to run peaceful people out of their houses and burn them down but there I was doing it. This forever killed the image of the USArmy as good guys for me in that war. Even what I saw there dsigusted me. and I didn't see the half of it. It turns out that after (and during) the "clean up" the tiger force was goiing along behind us, wiping out civilians.
HUNDREDS OF CIVILIANS!!! This masssacre involved as many or more people than My Lai---which happened right down the road from where I'm talking about, just a short distance, less than a year later.
Ive always taken pride that My Lai wouldn't have happened among 101st troops--too well trained, too well disciplined, I always thought. But I was wrong. It DID happen among some of the troops I knew well.
And, just like My Lai, the US Army, instead of facing their responsibilities, buried the story, with the help of the Nixon administration, on the grounds that the US public wasn't ready for another My Lai. There was a complete breakdown of decency, honesty,morality and leadership from one end of this sorry spectacle to the other.
There STILL has been no one charged for the murder of hundreds of innocent people--and there probably won't be.
I hate to look at this subject myself and for the same reason: I'm part of it. But it has to be done to set the record straight.
The 101st massacred hundreds of civilians in the Song Ve Valley in the Summer of Love, ran them out of their houses and burned them down.. And I was part of it.
The sorriest thing I ever did in my life, I will regret taking part in that for the rest of my days.