Heat on the Army

LT. COL. ANTHONY HERBERT is one old soldier who simply is not going to fade away. His stubborn refusal to cover up war atrocities in Vietnam strictly followed Army regulations. He tried the proper channels and found them closed. When he tried a bit too hard, he was suddenly relieved of his combat command and assigned to a degrading desk job in Georgia, a job only recently vacated by Captain Ernest Medina, who had been hanging there in post-My Lai limbo. After spending his personal savings of $8,000 and going $40,000 into debt trying to gain justice within the Army, after enduring harrassment of his family, after surviving assassination attempts, he finally gave up on military justice and retired in February 1972.

But Herbert did not intend to disappear as well. For over a year he has been pressing for investigations into his own fall from grace and the Army in general. Appearances on The Dick Cavett Show both before and after his retirement have gained him a devoted following. He has continued gathering sworn statements to support his personal case while criss-crossing the country to appear on TV and to be interviewed by journalists, keeping the heat on the Army. Soldier is his latest, boldest effort.

THE BOOK traces the super-soldier in the making. Born in a grim Pennsylvania coal town in 1930, he watched his father, his uncles and his brothers march off to the mines and the war. Both took their tolls, but early in life Herbert decided he wanted to be a soldier.

He wanted it badly enough to enlist in the Marines at 14, a career that ended without glory when his mother followed him to the training camp and reclaimed him. But when he was 17, his parents allowed him to quit school and leave for the Army, a time-honored ritual in coal-country. His father gave him a gruff word of advice; his mother didn't cry. Thus began a quarter of a century of excellence in service of America, service that has not yet ended.

Displaying the heroism that comes quick and easy from Herbert's stock, he emerged the most decorated enlisted man of the Korean War. Eleanor Roosevelt advised him to get out of the army and get a degree, and he did. But Herbert was restless in civilian life, and decided to get a commission and get married. His life was in the Army.

Herbert's rise was spectacular, as he was perpetually on the "Five Percent List," the officers who win promotions faster because of exceptional performance. He served in every elite combat group in the armed services, and established a reputation as the best of the "mustang" officers, those who had come up through the ranks.

AS THE U.S. moved irresistably into Vietnam, he also saw the high quality officers left over from World War II retire, replaced by lesser men that had brought up the rear. Television made Vietnam the living room war, and Westmoreland and Abrams became the prop and make-up men. With a unique perspective on the Army's ills, Herbert was still sure they could be cured from within, simply by going by the book. For three tours in Indochina, he did exactly that.

He did it so well, that while waiting for a combat command, Herbert made powerful enemies executing his office of Inspector General. He investigated every scandal right up to its embarrassing conclusions. (One of Herbert's investigations was finally concluded last Wednesday, when the Sergeant Major of the Army pleaded guilty to running the "khaki cosa nostra" in Vietnam.) The two most powerful were Colonel Ross Franklin and General John W. Barnes, who became his immediate superiors when he was given command of the 2nd Batallion of the 173rd Air-borne. Herbert shrugged them off, confident that he was safest in sticking to Army regulations.

In 58 days of combat command, Herbert molded the dissension-ridden 2nd Battalion into the top performing unit in the Brigade, if not in all of Vietnam. He amused other commander by staying on the ground with his troops. That, he felt, was where a combat commander belonged. It also gave him the opportunity to prevent some war crimes, and observe others. He said Colonel Franklin repeatedly told him to ignore them. Herbert would not. He says his refusal caused his premature exit from the Army.

The book would make a great war movie--Paul Newman is bidding for the rights--but Herbert does not intend to go the route of Audie Murphy. Throughout the telling of his own exploits and those of others, he explains the sources of the ills plaguing the Army. While no literary gem, Soldier makes fascinating reading: it is best seller material that seems sure to make Herbert's case known to a wide range of Americans. This, he hopes, will generate pressure on the Army.

HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON, the publishers, seem to want to help sales a little. Another subsidiary of their owners, CBS, is the television show Sixty Minutes. February 3, they spent 30 of those 60 minutes trying to undermine Herbert's credibility by bringing forth witnesses to deny certain events in Soldier, events irrelevant to the war-crime issue. Time magazine had gone to press the day before, but they wrote up the show, and labeled Herbert's book "controversial." Controversy sells books, and four days later. Soldier makes The New York Times best seller list

In recent weeks, several facts have turned up to discredit the show. Witnesses against Herbert have told him that they are ready to testify that they were forced to make their statements. Barry Lando, who did most of the "research," turns out to be a writer who asked to co-author Herbert's book, and when rejected, swore, before several witnesses, that he would "get even."

But it seems that that would be impossible now. Herbert's war is no longer a private one. It belongs to all Americans. It is not The Herbert Affair, but The Franklin Affair, The Barnes Affair, The Army Affair. Increasingly confident of his inevitable victory, Herbert is determined to see his job through to the end. It is the only way the old soldier knows.