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.

Attrocities have been done, sometimes in the name of retribution
(Shanondoah River Valley c.1864 cause of attrocities done by Mosby and
other Raiders).

The Us Military has done alot of Good, but sometimes for political
expediency, it deliberately over looks things. Not that the press has
never done the same. Like plastering the world about My Lai, but
forgetting the deliberate and premeditated slaughter of thousands of
Vietnamese in Hue in 1968 and later.. Vietnam was a war that showed alot
of the worst and best of humans, especially soldiers.

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. Sadly
the press did not cover the VC/NVA slaughters well, it might have made a
difference.

But heh, here in Alaska we say our national guard goes back to only
c.1942 with the forming of the Alaska Territorial Guard, when in fact it
goes back further to like 1914, but that Guard was racists, white only,
and "corrupt". While the ATG was mostly natives with white officers/NCOs
(for the most part). Sounds familiar? Same as how many "colored"
regiments were in the 1860s. (I used colored cause that was what they
were called then).

Alot has been done to clean up the past mistakes, some sadly is "white
wash" and not really coming to grips with the past.

Mike
History Buff
United State Scout, the crossed arrows of the regiment, later went to
the Special Forces.


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.”
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >