Many documents detailing Vietnam atrocities missing [What media bias?]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | 12/21/2003 | By Michael D. Sallah and Mitch Weiss

[Glenn]

WASHINGTON -- Army agents have spent weeks reviewing thousands of documents chronicling a series of atrocities committed during the Vietnam War by an elite Army platoon, but the worst war crimes by the unit may never be known.

For a complete presentation of all four installments described below, including audio interviews, photographs and graphics, along with follow-up reports, visit the Toledo Blade's index to its series.

[Glenn]

This article INFURIATED me! How dare they publish this on the front page on a Sunday? This is the very essence of yellow journalism.

[Lexington Green]

just another journalistic atrocity by self-hating Americans

[Lexington Green]

repairing tagline .. don't mind me

[drhogan]

i'm missing something here: why are people angry about this being published?

[Glenn]

why are people angry about this being published?

If you have to ask that question, you are out of the loop anyway.

[John H K]

Because the believe anything negative about the US is inherently untrue.

I mean, we know My Lai happened, and was real. It's certainly not inconceivable that other similar atrocities happened.

Was EVERY soldier in Vietnam a criminal? Of course not. Were the Viet Cong and NVA worse? Certainly.

But there's no doubt a lot of stuff went on that was a stain on the honor of the US. (And It's still and embarassment that Lt. William Calley wasn't shot.)

[Riley]

Has anybody else ever heard of this "Tiger Force" outfit?

This smells like another "TAILWIND" fabrication.

[atomic conspiracy]

The records are probably not "missing" at all, they were almost certainly among the documents transferred to a different entity as part of an archival history project. This transfer was apparently not adequately documented at the National Archives but it is common knowledge among legitimate researchers. The Blade could not find the records where it first looked and, since this could be spun into a scandal, they simply stopped looking. Sorry to be obtuse, but that is all I can say just now. I think there is a good chance that I can produce the "missing" records by this time tomorrow.

[MizSterious]

Are the documents "missing," or did they ever exist in the first place? I wouldn't put it past some "journalists" to say they're missing, when in fact, they were never there in the first place.

[Riley]

Are the documents "missing," or did they ever exist in the first place? I wouldn't put it past some "journalists" to say they're missing, when in fact, they were never there in the first place.

That's starting to look like what may have happened. This is looking like another agenda-driven smear job.

What I have found out so far:

1. Yes, there was a recon outfit of the 101st Aiborne (Airmobile) called "Tiger Force.

2. The TF vets know about this story; they're upset about it, if not surprised. The allegations appear to be fabricated by the media.

In the Operation TAILWIND fiasco, some character with a very peripheral connection to SOG made up a bunch of crap that he said that he witnessed, when he wasn't on the op at all, IIRC. Wonder if this is another one of those kind of things.

[gdc61]

me as well. PPG is a union/socialist rag. i won't even use it for cage liner, my turtles are sensitive to bad journalism.

[NMFXSTC]

It's all BS! Were there some killings? Hell yes! I lived in that God forsaken jungle and the paddies without a tent...for 22 long months and was wounded in the process...sometimes you just get hardened, calloused, and pissed and when you take fire from a village, enter it, find nothing but women and kids, but a whole damn cache of weapons and/or ammo...ya wreck the place and the people!

Sorry...no! 58,000 names in black garnite remind me of the crap every day...maybe some of those names didn't get a chance to shoot back because some woman had him in the crosshairs...like I said...you watch your buddies get capped...you retaliate...like 2,000 pund bombs over Hanoi and everywhere else didn't grease a number of civilians? It was a goddamn war, people...and folks do off things in a war...so be it!

Flame away...I've heard it for 38 years!

[gaspar]

I have a real problem with a report that chronicles the history of an outfit that operated in the "Central Highlands", the which comprised Ban Me Thout, Pleiku and Kontum, but whose operations were in the I Corps lowlands of Quang Ngai Province. Ostensibly this unit surfaced in July 1967, yet the investigation of atrocities included the period 1971-75?? If I read it correctly, the unit comprised less than 100 men, which would make me think it was seconded to work with a PRU unit. Finally, Quang Ngai (which was the location of the My Lai massacre) was the nastiest, most miserable province in which the US operated.

Tens of thousands of Viet Minh departed Quang Ngai and Qui Nhon provinces following the division of North and South Vietnam in 1954. Hardcore Communists, they began their re-infiltration in 1962. They took over leadership of the indigenous Viet Cong in Quang Ngai, and they and their people (old men, women and children) fought fanatically and without reference to any niceties of civilized warfare. The history of their activity can be found in the thousands of pages collected by Marine I Corps interpreters. Unfortunately, American historians have never found that aspect of the war very sexy.

[jimtorr]

Sounds good to me. I have to many living relatives and friends who served in the front lines and rear areas and skys in four different wars to believe any of that "baby-killer" soldier crap.

One man I work with was Airborne in 'Nam, in one of the regimments of the 14th(?) division, one of the ones that dropped over Northern Iraq.

He served 18 months in Vietnam before being wounded badly enough to be sent home. He tells some stories about some of the things he experienced, such as when a B-52 missed its target, and nearly wiped out his platoon.

[Riley]

Flame away...I've heard it for 38 years!

Flame away? I don't think so. Read my post again. I'm on your side.

[Cacique]

bttfl

[JasonC]

Don't overlook the possibility that media types stoking the story simply took them because they did not further the spin they wanted to put on things. You can't put it past them.

[NMFXSTC]

How well I know that area (both Qui Nhon, where 2nd Bn, 7th Marines landed in July 65, and Quang Ngai, where Operations Harvest Moon, Utah, Hastings, Indiana, Nevada, Hot Springs and others too place with 7th Marines...that was my tour!)

No way could you tell a friendly, male, female, or child...stick grenades, quick sniper type shots, booby traps galore, and a village full of lying bastards who shouted, GI nummuh one", but as soon as you checked their hoootches, you'd uncover rice caches, ammo caches, etc., etc. No damn wonder we capped so many "civilians"...you take automatic weapons fire that either causes KIAs or WIA...lots of them...in your platoon, by God you returen fire...friendly my ass!

Semper Fi!

[drhogan]

i know i'm out of the loop, but i thought it was a good article.