Senator Bob Kerry

[David]

reprinted from the commentary section of patriotfiles.com


bertetto writes "Gary Parrott and I were in IV Corps in Viet Nam at the same time. While I am no particular supporter of former Senator Kerrey I found Gary's letter to the editors in Commentary Magazine's Nov. 2001 edition enlightening.


TO THE EDITOR:



Gabriel Schoenfeld is rightly skeptical of several aspects of the story told by Gregory L. Vistica in the New York Times Magazine. In February 1969, according to that story, a unit of Navy SEALs led by a young Bob Kerrey loosed 1,200
rounds of ammunition at a group of Vietnamese civilians in the hamlet of Thanh Phong in the Mekong Delta. Kerrey himself has acknowledged the incident, but has said that the shooting took place from a distance, in response to enemy
fire, and was directed at what he thought were Vietcong guerrillas, only later discovering otherwise. But one member of his unit, Gerhard Klann, reported that the shooting was, on the contrary, a deliberate act, committed at close range
against unarmed villagers and intended to facilitate the escape of the SEALs from the area.



Klann?s story is indeed riveting: seven SEALs sneak into a village on a dark night 32 years ago and, finding no enemy, round up all the villagers, form a firing squad, and execute them. The only problem is that what he describes is
impossible.



Like Bob Kerrey, I was a SEAL patrol leader in Vietnam, and I made three back-to-back tours in the Mekong Delta. Kerrey?s platoon came to Vietnam and relieved mine at the end of 1968; the Thanh Phong raid happened a month after I
left.



Thanh Phong lay in the Thanh Phu Secret Zone, one of the most dangerous Vietcong strongholds in the Mekong Delta. On the night of Kerrey?s raid, the SEALs were going after an important Vietcong official who, according to intelligence reports, was to meet with a military commander in the village. As the SEALs would have known, Vietcong officials routinely kept a team of soldiers for protection, and military commanders always traveled with a security element. The SEALs, by contrast, were without the usual cover of nearby helicopter gunships and were out of artillery range; this was an unusually treacherous mission. Total lack of support made them completely reliant on stealth, the element of surprise, and their own ammunition. If anything went wrong, the Vietcong could easily encircle them or cut off their withdrawal. Klann himself made this point to Dan Rather on 60 Minutes when he said that the chances of getting out alive, if the SEALs? mission was compromised, were ?slim to none.?



Now picture again the scene according to Klann. Seven men, deep in an enemy stronghold, with no hope of support or of rescue if their luck were to turn bad, make their way into a village. There, they find no Vietcong. So, with the civilian inhabitants huddled in front of them and all seven SEALs grouped on one side with their backs to the jungle, on Bob Kerrey?s order. . . .



Stop right there. This is the moment that could not have happened. I crept into too many Thanh Phongs on too many terrifying, dark nights not to know what those seven SEALs were thinking as they entered the village. Where were the Vietcong? Were they in the tree line, watching, ready to come swarming down? Were they waiting on the trail leading out? Did they have B-40 rockets? A mortar? Was the whole thing a trap? A thousand such thoughts were possible; ?nobody is home, let?s start shooting? would not have been one of them.



The SEALs had a standard operating procedure for missions like this one. Upon entering a site like Thanh Phong, five of the seven would fan out, taking defensive positions pre-assigned in the day?s briefing. Each man would crouch in the shadows, pointing his weapon toward an approach to the village, providing protection for the two SEALs assigned to search for weapons, documents, prisoners, or anything of intelligence value. If the enemy came swarming out of the jungle, the five were ready to return fire instantly and cover the team?s withdrawal.



To buy Klann?s story you have to imagine, instead, all seven SEALs forgetting about their unseen enemy, turning their backs to the dangers lurking in the spooky tree line, and clustering up in front of a bunch of civilians. Clustering up? Sorry: every SEAL would know that a single grenade, rocket, or well-aimed burst from the tree line could wipe out the squad.



What happened next, in Klann?s version, makes even less sense: seven SEALs blasting away 1,200 precious rounds to execute fifteen villagers. Ammunition was practically the SEALs? only currency of survival, and all they had among
them, as we know from the after-action report routinely filed following every mission, was 2,400 rounds. The weapons carried by SEALs were capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute; in a fierce firefight, all 2,400 rounds could be shot
in less than a minute. To get home alive, the SEALs husbanded their ammunition carefully.



Klann says they executed the villagers in order to keep them from alerting the Vietcong to the SEALs? presence. Figure that one out. If relative noiseless-ness was the objective, the SEALs could have ordered the civilians back into the bunker from which they had emerged and dropped a grenade down the hatch. Atrocity? Yes, but one muffled ?whump? and the SEALs would be on their way with their ammo intact. The Vietcong would have thought it was a villager fishing with explosives, or an animal stumbling into a booby trap. Alternatively, Klann himself, who had the machine gun, could have accomplished the atrocity he describes with one short burst.



Until the firing, the SEALs had the precious element of surprise. Once they cranked off 1,200 rounds on that deathly-still night, every Vietcong within five miles would have known they were there. Worse, they would have expended half their precious ammunition and might still have had to fight their way back to the river. There was no way a SEAL would pull a trigger in such a situation, unless it were to initiate an assault or, as Kerrey asserted, to return enemy fire.



Finally, Klann claims the squad shot the civilians on Kerrey?s order. Nobody seems to have asked Klann how the order was given, but in a situation like Thanh Phong an impromptu change of plans was next to impossible. It was not simply a matter of calling out in the dark, ?Hey, guys, come in off your positions. There has been a change of plans and I need your massive firepower to kill these unarmed civilians.? Indeed, with five of the SEALs spread out in defensive positions, I cannot imagine how a patrol leader would have effected such a maneuver even had he wanted to. Knowing the men in Kerrey?s squad as I do, I also find it impossible to believe any would have complied with such a patently illegal and tactically preposterous order.



There is an illusion that the Thanh Phong story has now been ?covered? by the media. In fact the media covered only the edited words of Gerhard Klann, fed through Gregory Vistica and Dan Rather together with their own assurances that Klann was a credible witness. But then, surprisingly, Klann vanished and refused calls. When his teammates stepped forward and gently suggested his memories were in error, and when Bob Kerrey subjected himself to full and very painful examination, Klann?s story started to look thin.



At that point, reporters scurried to Vietnam. There, under the stern eyes of Hanoi officials, they held interviews with ex-Vietcong who, predictably, agreed with what Hanoi had already permitted to be said in its government-controlled press, which had publicly convicted Bob Kerrey long ago. No matter: the Washington Post headlined its story, ?Villagers Dispute Kerrey?s Account,? as if the ?villagers? in question were so many Iowa farmers; columnist Mary McGrory was duly moved to call for a tribunal.



Over the decades, the reality that was the Vietnam war has been supplanted by myth. Nothing, it seems, can be allowed to dispel that myth?not even, or especially, the truth.

GARY PARROTT
Belfair, Washington

[exlrrp]

Well its all very interesting.
Second guessing someone's combat record has become standard blogfare over the last year. Did this happene? did something else happen? did nothing happen? the speculation is endless and all at the expense of someone's hard earned combat record.
You can't Moday morning Qback someone else's combat record from more than 3.5 decades ago fairly, if you weren't even there.
It's not like football.
What this is a statement on is the media's constant addiction to shocking headlines.
I wasn't a Seal, only a lrrp, aka, The Poor Man's Special Forces. we didn't get no cool hats or sharp medals ot even a recognizable acronym. we were just out there to do the enemy as much damage as we could. And, need I say, we only got the same combat pay that every REMF was getting anywhere in the NAm, no matter how safe.
For that, you only get the truth as I want to tell it. And the truth was, we killed as many Vietnamese as we needed to to accomplish our mission. The mission was the ONLY thing that counted--thats what they taught us in Recondo School--and thats the way we played it.
it's intersting that people want to smack their lips over lining up villagers and shooting them, whereas if the USAF had obliterated that village as a VC village, it wouod have been just another statistic. Blowing VC villages (who designated them?) off the map was routine in every unit I ever heard of. What was worse, being shot to death or napalmed to death? (Um, is there another alternative?) Think all those villagers were culpable VC?? They sure were afterwards, the survivors, anyway.

When 5 or 6 guys are so far out in Indian Country they need teams to relay their messages, another set of rules apply and you make them up as you go along.
Where we were mostly, the western border of II Corps, the people were ALL enemy or enemy supporters--or the enemy would have killed them. So we considered anyone out there as fair target. Why not?? the enemy considered us as fair targets allthe time, even on our infrequent "days off." If they could have gotten their hands on us, it would have been a very unhappy ending, that was 24/7/365.
So why should we give a fuck if we "accidentally" knocked off a few extra?
Yeah, we killied unarmed villagers when the time was right, althogh we prefferred to do it with Arty and Air rather than gunfire--did that make it all better? I doubt it.
Once you started popping caps, the shits in the wind, better start calling for evac. They know where you are now and will be coming for you shortly.
I'm amazed the SEALS didn't have sileneced weapons--we had a few, although we had to buy them ourselves from SF people.
I'm also amazed at all this night time maneouvers--goiong inot a strange ville at night? When you can't see shit and all the enmy knows the place like the back of their hands and youre in there for the first time?? And youre searching for weapons and documents?? With what, flashlights? Oh yeah, thats bound to turn out good.
"Now picture again the scene according to Klann. Seven men, deep in an enemy stronghold, with no hope of support or of rescue if their luck were to turn bad, make their way into a village. There, they find no Vietcong. So, with the civilian inhabitants huddled in front of them and all seven SEALs grouped on one side with their backs to the jungle, on Bob Kerrey?s order"
Well, it sure wouldn't have happened like that in my team. I can guarantee you that our SOP was to watch them from as far away as you could see good, make sure they were enemy, then call in the coordniates for a good ol napalm strike. (I forgot to say "and pull back before it gets there")Why get youre hands dirty when the USAF has all that cool war stuff? I mean, what are we paying taxes for, anyway? Then we's suurvey the results. Turns out there weren't any VC when it came down?? Darn it!!
"I crept into too many Thanh Phongs on too many terrifying, dark nights not to know what those seven SEALs were thinking as they entered the village."
They did this routinely?? Seems like the hard way of doing it, a mighty inefficent way to find out if a ville is VC or not. I prefer our way of watching them in the daylight when you can see (we didn't have the nightsight stuff they have now) I mean, I aint no G. Patton, but it seems like a better tactical way of finding out stuff then enetering the ville at night, lining them up and searching Didn't they even watch the ville for a day or so first? That would have told them all they needed to know and then they could have applied the USAF treatment as specified above. Guess thats what happens when you try to make a swab jockey into a grunt. Entering VC villes at night routinely must have taken a lot of nerve--what did they do about barking dogs? Or booby traps?
"What happened next, in Klann?s version, makes even less sense: seven SEALs blasting away 1,200 precious rounds to execute fifteen villagers. Ammunition was practically the SEALs? only currency of survival, and all they had among
them, as we know from the after-action report routinely filed following every mission, was 2,400 rounds. The weapons carried by SEALs were capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute; in a fierce firefight, all 2,400 rounds could be shot
in less than a minute."
What weapons were they carrying here, RPD's? I sorrta remember the m16 having a cyclical fire of about560 rounds per minute, I don't know of a standard US miltary weapon of that time firing 1000 RPM. Seems a little unlikely to me when one Claymore wouold have done just as well and probably attracted less attention. A lrrp would have told them to stand over there real close together so we can take your picture, now SMILE--then: BOOM!! (some lrrps had a sense of humor) Fire discipline, of course was essential--you never saw the lrrps having a Mad Minute, unless of course they really were mad.
"in a fierce firefight, all 2,400 rounds could be shot
in less than a minute."
Assuming this was among the whole 7 man team (did ANYONE carry 2400 rounds themselves?That's 120 magazines for an M16) this would have worked out to 14 mags apiece--could ANYONE have fired 14 mags from ANY weapon in less than a minute? Oh yeah, THAT had to happenh that way.
And then what?
"Hmmmm, here we are in a hostile VC village with all our ammo gone. DOH!!" (maybe they had another 2400 rounds in a spare pocket)
"Nobody seems to have asked Klann how the order was given, but in a situation like Thanh Phong an impromptu change of plans was next to impossible."
you dam well better be able to change your plans impromptu because the enemy might not be working off the same plan

"Over the decades, the reality that was the Vietnam war has been supplanted by myth. Nothing, it seems, can be allowed to dispel that myth?not even, or especially, the truth."
Whats the truth?? For $65 per month, the truth is whatever the fuck I tell you it is. If you don't trust my word, get someone else to risk their life doing this shit. And fuck all this 35 year old Monday Morning Quarterbacking. If you wern't out there then, I don't want to hear what you have to say about it now.
that was what the lrrps thought, I guarantee you, to a man
just my thoughts
Stay good
James

[exlrrp]

Been thinking some more about this and sadly coming to the conclusion that it may be true
First of all let's start with the ending: Dead villagers laying around. Nobody disputes this.Hmm, well, not a rare sight in Vietnam in the 60s. Question is, how did they get this way.
Kerrey and his people say its an OOPS. The other guy says it was intentional. Either way, still leaves a lot of dead villagers laying around, doesn'it?
Consider that they say there was an important VC official supposedly meeting there that night--well thats exactly what I'd be saying too if I'd OOOPSed a couple dozen people to death: "I meant well at the time! It was ultimately for their own good!"
Soooooo we still got the villagers laying around in a state of dead.
Now if they really wwere thinking of the villagers in the first place, wouldn't they have planned a tactic that didn't involve a possible night firefight in a populated area? Hmmm? Didn't think of that one either?
No they missioned going in there and taking the VC oifficial out in a hail of gunfire in a highly populated area--that was the optimal scenario. Oh, yeah, that was bound to help the local people all right.
Now. I just don't understand all this night time operating these SEAL people like to do. All they gave us were starlite scopes and you coulcn't get anything serious done while looking through them, like shooting, for instance, assuming that the thing was even working (about 50% chance)
How did they see in the dark? So they were .......running around in a VC ville searching for documents in the dark......with flashlights?? They wer going in and trying to accomplish all this in pitch dark.....with flashlights?? Trip flares?? whaaaa?

We sure operated different in the lrrps. One of the reasons I'm not particularly impressed with these people is this: "The SEALs, by contrast, were without the usual cover of nearby helicopter gunships and were out of artillery range; this was an unusually treacherous mission. " That wouldn't have been an unusually treacherous mission in the lrrps, it would have been a normally treacherous mission. we almost ALWAYS operated without gunship cover and out of artillery range--if we called 911 the cavalry could take a long time ggetting there.
And they told us that at night we should find the best, unpenetrable bush we could finnd and camp their till daylight. We did NOT operate at night except under the most unusual and emergency situations. For starters, it was real dark at night and any use of flashlights would give us away which seems all very simple and believable. Sometimes THEY used flashligfhts looking for us but that didn't work out good for them, take my word for this.

So here we have a bunch of guys who normally go into VC villages at night looking for VC--did anyone ever suggest to these people setting up ambushes OUTSIDE the ville and get The VC Official coming into or out of the ville? or maybe just 500lb bombing the place at the right time? I mean why send a man when a bomb does the job so much better?
Trying to minimize the loss of life?? Well, lets go back to where we started: lots of dead villagers laying around.. Oh, THAT worked out good.

Anybody who says we were there to save Vietnamese lives certainly has a creative view of the stuation I guess.

this whole story sounds phony to me. I think they just did it. The villagers are still laying arolund dead regardless.

Stay good
James