Here are a couple excerpts from veterans' responses to Bangert's bogus claims:
My first day in Vietnam - By Nigel Brooks
August 16, 1966 - Arrived Tan Son Nhut courtesy of World Airways
Loaded onto green Army buses with mesh over windows and taken to the 90th
Replacement Battalion - Camp Alpha - Long Binh. Surprised as hell that
no-one was shooting at me (I'd seen the Sands of Iwo Jima about four weeks
previously).
Processed in given Rogers Rangers card and other associated stuff, told
about the bennie of being able to write home for free. Found duffle bag
thrown in with other bags in tent - don't remember if I was assigned a tent
to sleep in or not.
Spent next three days making formations and dodging work details. Took
shower in rain cause the stuff they trucked in was all gone.
Wondered how a canvas blivet could hold drinking water without leaking,
wondered why in the hell they were allowing the Vietnamese to walk around
.the camp.
Got picked up by unit and rode in the back of a duece and a half waving at
the pretty Vietnamese girls on their hondas. Never saw one crucified
person in the 5 years I stayed there
+++++
You ever see one skinned Nigel? Naw, me either but I’d like to hear more
about that one. Hot damn! I bet that story was a big hit in the bar that
night.
Bill Clarke
F Troop, 17th Cav
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=9dc3ih01spq%40enews4.newsguy.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522Joe%2BBangert%2522%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26tab%3DwgAnother response to Bangert's "testimony":
Dear Readers,
We now come to where the rubber meets the road. The actual testimony
of one Joe Bangert in front of the Winter Soldier Follies.
Think back to that day long ago when you disembarked from your ship or
stepped off the ladder from the plane and set foot on Vietnam for the
first time.
Think back to those first hours in-country. What were your
impressions, your experiences?
All will pale in front of the first day of Joe Bangert's Vietnam! Joe
saw savagery and wanton murder before most of us were out of
in-processing!
Oh, the humanity!
MODERATOR. Mr. Bangert, there's an incident here where you found
crucified bodies hanging on barbed wire fences and in the same
incident you witnessed South Vietnamese civilians shot without
provocation on Highway 1. Could you go into this and kind of see how
they are related?
BANGERT. I can cover a couple of these at the same time. The first day
I got to Vietnam I landed in Da Nang Air Base. From Da Nang Air Base I
took a plane to Dong Ha. I got off the plane and hitchhiked on Highway
1 to my unit. I was picked up by a truckload of grunt Marines with two
company grade officers, 1st Lts.; we were about 5 miles down the road,
where there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the
village and they gave the old finger gesture at us. It was
understandable that they picked this up from the GIs there. They
stopped the trucks--they didn't stop the truck, they slowed down a
little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including
the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about
five or six kids blown away and then the truck just continued down the
hill. That was my first day in Vietnam.
I became intrigued with this right from his first sentence.
The Army had personnel and movement controls in place (for the most
part) that caught incoming personnel and ran them through processing
of paperwork, issuance of weapons, equipment, review of Geneva & Hague
Conventions, non-combat dangers such as bar girls and malaria, etc.,
before shipping the new warfighter off to his Divisional or Brigade
unit. As I recall most folks ended up staying at least one night in
Can Ranh Bay or Saigon or Freedom Hill in Danang before shipping out.
Did the Marines instead just let you get off one plane and onto
another and pick your own destination? For most Army guys the orders
we left the States with had nothing to do with the unit we ended up
assigned to -- as Personnel told me, the orders were just to get you
over there, and they'd decide where you went once you were there.
Alas, we don't want to get caught up in the small lies, there are so
many big ones!
Moving on, Mr Bangert hitchhikes up Highway 1 with a truckload of
grunts and two company grade officers. Five miles down the road he
can't decide if they stopped the truck or didn't stop the truck to
murder five or six kids ... all of them including the officers just
mowed them down. Except, of course, our boy Bangert....though I'm not
sure as he doesn't account for his own actions at that moment. Did he
simply watch as an "audience?" Did he fire along with experienced
grunts and officers?
I don't know about you, dear reader, but my own memories of being
given the finger by kids in Vietnam was that we laughed like hell at
them; the worst thing we threw at them was Ham & Limas.
But here we have a truckload of grunts and officers, stopping (or not
stopping) and having a Mad Minute on the tykes.
I have to admit that I'm having trouble suspending disbelief for this
one.
But allowing this tall tale to stand for a moment, let's consider what
happened next.
Next? Why, there is no next! We are left to assume that Bangert made
it to his unit that first day. We are also left to assume that Mr.
Bangert was pleased and comfortable with his experience on that
truckload of grunts and officers.
Which raises a question about the Winter Soldier Follies: Why didn't
anyone ask the question, "What did you do about it?
As a matter of fact, that question is conspicously absent throughout
the testimony. Bangert apparently did nothing, and that's just okay by
the WS Follies.
What do you think?
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