This claim might be more accurate, we did pay for various damages, including rubber trees, and tried not to damage them.
“The National Coordinators of Vietnam Veterans Against the War once wrote: “We supposedly valued human life while our enemy did not. Yet we paid the owners of the Michelin plantations $600 for each rubber tree we damaged, while the family of a slain Vietnamese child got no more than $120 in payout for a life.”
https://saigoneer.com/saigon-culture/17206-the-harrowing-history-of-vietnam-s-rubber-plantations
It is possible that my tank commander exaggerated, but he stuck by his story. I am sure the amount increased the older he got, like most fish stories. I was Navy Air, so I never got in the bush (thank God).