True. Here is a link for basic information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
As noted in the “walking ghost” comment at the end of the entry, even the fatally irradiated persons might stay functional and not die for a long period after the explosion (days, weeks, months).
Unmentioned in the entry is what effect all that neutron radiation would have on the structures left behind. In terms of decontamination, it might have been nearly as bad as a pure fission bomb.
McVeigh’s bomb was 0.0035 kilotons, with no neutrons, though.
The Walking Ghosts would need medical care once they recovered from the initial dose. They’d be combat effective for a little while, then serious long-term effects would begin.
Military personnel dosimeters go up to 600 REM, it takes something like 300 to (eventually) kill you. You will survive a dose several times 600, but you’ll go to sleep initially, then wake up and read your dosimeter.
It’s during that initial go to sleep period that opposing troops would use HEAT rounds and sabots to tap each tank.
In college, we undergrad Physics majors were allowed access to our department's own neutron source, which was positioned in the center of an approx. 100-liter tank of water into which - through a tunnel - materials could be slid in order to bombard them with neutrons and make them radioactive so that one could then analyze the decay and detect the presence of and quantify even miniscule quantities of virtually any of the heavier elements present in the sample (say, the amount of some impurity like lead in a coppy penny).
After overnight irradiation, it was no problem handling the exposed objects with unprotected hands.
We also sent samples of our own hair in to a research reactor, where the samples could be exposed to a much higher flux of neutrons. This made it possible to detect and quantify even the barest traces of impurities (e.g., parts per trillion of gold - in your hair).
Even such samples were harmless to handle after a cooling-down time of a few hours.
Remember: The more radioactive (due to short-lived isotopes) a substance is, the faster it decays, and the sooner it is safe to handle.
Regards,