Exposing the General Motors of Death

" Your last lesson you catch in the United States before you leave for Vietnam is where they take that rabbit and they kill it, and they skin it... "

LT. WILLIAM 'Rusty" Calley put it pretty well when he said to his prosecutor in Ft. Benning, Ga., "It wasn't any big deal, sir."

It wasn't. Death is America's biggest industry and like other industries, it does not usually find itself confined by moral guidelines.

Recently however, Americans have begun to look at themselves in a somewhat stronger critical light, admitting for almost the first time that they too might be guilty of the same crimes which they have been taught to believe could happen only in Nazi Germany or Communist countries.

One of the most striking things about last month's Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest in Washington was the fact that reporters could walk up to virtually any soldier there and get an earful on American atrocities in Southeast Asia. Without the usual intellectualizing which accompanies any discussion of the war by people without first-hand knowledge of it, they spoke from the gut.

Two months earlier, over 100 of these honorably discharged veterans gathered in Detroit to give testimony on American war crimes. The hearings, held on January 31, February 1 and 2 of this year, were largely overlooked by the press at the time.

On April 6, however, Sen. Mark O Hatfield (D.-Ore.) inserted the testimony into the Congressional Record, asking that further investigations be made by both Congress and the Pentagon. The portions of the transcript below have been taken from the April 6 and 7 issues of the Record.

" Over the border they send us to kill and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten." These lines of Paul simon's recall to Vietnam Veterans the causes for which we went to fight in Vietnam and the outrages we were part of because the men who sent us had long ago forgotten the meaning of the words.

In the bleak winter of 1776 when the men who had enlisted in the summer were going home because the way was hard and their enlistments were over, Tom Paine wrote, "Those are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." Like the winter soldiers who stayed after they had served their time, we veteans of Vietnam know that America is in grave danger. What threatens our country is not Redcoats or even Reds; it is our crimes that are destroying our national unity by separating those of our country-men who deplore these acts from those of our countrymen who refuse to examine what is being done in America's name.

The Winter Soldier Investigation is not a mock trial. There will be no phony indictments; there will be no verdict against Unce Sam. In these three days, over a hundred Vietnam Veterans will present straightforward testimony-direct testimony-about acts which are war crimes under international law. Acts which these men have seen and participated in. Acts which are the inexorabe result of national policy.

-From the Opening Statement by William Crandell, 26, 1st Lt., 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division.

Joe Bangert, 22, Sgt. (E-5), VMO-6, PMAG-39, 1st Marine Air Wing, 1st Marine Division (October 1968 to October 1969)

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 lined 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. As far as the crucified bodies, they weren't actually crucified with nails, but they would find VCs or something (I never got the story on them) but, anyway, they were human beings, obviously dead, and they would take them and string them out on fences, on barbed wire fences, stripped, and sometimes they would take flesh wounds, take a knife and cut the body all over the place to make it bleed, and look gory as a reminder to the people in the village.

Also in Quang Tri City I had a friend who was working with USAID and he was also with CIA. We used to get drunk together and he used to tell me about his different trips into Laos on Air America Airlines and things. One time he asked me would I like to accompany him to watch. He was an advisor with an ARVN group and Kit Carson's. He asked me if I would like to accompany him into a village that I was familiar with to see how they act. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVN had control of the situation. They didn't find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about twenty times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for twenty years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID, Aid International Development. He went over there, ripped her clothes off, and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other and that was those instances.

Moderator : Okay, there were American officers present when this happened or?

Bangert: There were two super-secret, I know they were field grade officers, who were with MACV in Quant Tri Provinces in the area. They knew about it.

Jack Bronaugh, 21, Pvt. (E-1), 1st Marine Air Wing, 1st Marine Division (February 1968 to October 1969).

I was attached with...Battalion FSEC.

Moderator : Which is the Fire Control center?

Bronaugh , Right. It co-ordinates everything for the Battalion Artillery and troop movement and everything. I had some spare time this particular day so I left the compound and went to a bridge where people usually go and swim and they had a detachment on this bridge, in total about two platoons of people. A 2nd Lt. in charge of the bridge and a gunnery Sergeant that was staff NCO of the bridge. There were people from mortars platoon, weapons platoon, there was a tank, there were a couple of mules with 160 recoilless rifles, two snipers, and assorted machinegun crews. This particular day I was going to go swimming and I was at this bridge and they had sent a patrol out from our battalion CP. They had gone north of the CP for about a half a mile or a mile. There was a few huts that comprised a small village north of the compound.

The bridge got a radio call that they had supposedly received a sniper round from this village. So the Lt. on the bridge told them to sweep the ville. They swept the ville and they called back that there was nothing found. There was nothing found, I mean, there were just people in the ville and so the Lt. told them to burn the ville. From my position, which was about 150 to 200 yards away, and there was a tree line in the way, smoke started coming up over the tree line and about this time, I guess about three minutes after the smoke started showing, there was a lot of screaming and just chaos coming from the direction of the village and a lot of people started running out of the tree line. From where I was standing, I saw maybe two or three male villagers and the rest were women and children-some of the children walking and some of them young enough to be carried, I would say under a year, maybe. The last thing I heard as a command was the gunnery sergeant told them to open fire to keep them back. Their village was on fire and they were in panic; they didn't stop, so they just cut down the women and children with mortars, machine guns, tank, snipers were....

Moderator. There was a tank there also?

Bronaugh. Yes. Well, the tank, the 90 millimeter gun wasn't used because, I mean, it was too close a range, but they used the 50 and 30 off the tank and all the troops that were at the bridge with M16s. The officer, a Lt., a few got close enough to where he used his .45. They used a few frag hand grenades.

Moderator. The fifty caliber. That was used specifically against the people?

Bronaugh. Yes...Yes.

Moderator. Right. Just for general information, the 50 caliber machine gun is specifically forbidden to be used against people. It's an anti-vehicular weapon.

Bronaugh. Yes, it was used in automatic and single fire, against human beings.

Moderator. There are many different types of ways that we have head of people being mutilated, of villagers being killed, but there is one way that affects the people afterwards. They don't physically shoot them or hurt them at the moment and this is the use of chemicals. And Mr. Bangert, I think, has a good example here where he shows twenty deformed babies resulting from Agent Orange Defoliant Spray. Could you tell us what Agent Orange is and the type of deformity that was the result?

Bangert. I used to work with the pacification program in Vietnam and I traveled extensively through Quang Tri Province. Specifically in the area of Quang Tri City and west, Trieu Phong District. I saw approximately, during my tour, twenty deformed infants under the age of one. It never made sense to me. I thought it was congenital or something, from venereal disease, because they had flippers and things. I didn't understand what I saw until approximately six months ago I read a report that was put out by Stanford which talked about the thalidomide content within Agent Orange and it was common knowledge that Agent Orange was sprayed in the area and we used to see it about every three to four days where I was in Quang Tri Province. If I could get back to the Vietnamese woman I saw that was mutilated so horribly by that person, it didn't really shock me because I think I talked about my first day in Vietnam.

You can check with the Marines who have been to Vietnam-your last day in the States at staging battalion at Camp Pendleton you have a little lesson and it's called the rabbit lesson, where the staff NCO comes out and he has a rabbit and he's talking to you about escape and evasion and survival in the jungle. He has this rabbit and then in a couple of seconds after just about everyone falls in love with it, not falls in love with it, but, you know, they're humane there, he cracks it in the neck, skins it, disembowels it, just like I testified that this happened to a woman-he does this to the rabbit-and then they throw the guts out into the audience. You can get anything out of that you want, but that's your last lesson you catch in the United States before you leave for Vietnam where they take that rabbit and they kill it, and they skin it, and they play with its organs as if its trash and they throw the organs all over the place and then these guys are put on the plane next day and sent to Vietnam.

Battlion? I saw it myself in Staging

Moderator. How many guys in Marine Staging saw this-the last day in Battalion. All those who saw it please raise your hands again.

Moderator. The question for those who didn't hear it was in reference to the skinning of a rabbit as an example of "this is how it's done in Vietnam" or "this is what happens in Vietnam." In answer to the question, most of the Marines here did see it.

Question. This is still part of Basic Training? Are we to understand that this is part of the course before combat in Vietnam?

Moderator. This is part of the Staging Battalion which is the last day before you go to Vietnam. Could we have the show of hands again?

(Note: A majority of hands were raised.)

Question. Are there officers present at this?

Panelist . Yes. It usually was a company formation. They made quite a spectacle of this. They made a moccasin out of the skin. A couple of dudes were playing with the organs. It was a really cool thing, I guess.

David Bishop, 21, L/Cpl., "H" Co., 2nd Bn., 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

I didn't say it in the testimony, but it's written on my testimony sheet. The operation was Meade River, a very large scale operation. ROK (Korean) Marines were involved, U.S. Marines and Army were involved, and the ARVNs were involved. A cordon was set up outside of Da Nang and a big squeeze was put on right outside the airport. There were quite a few body counts as far as the enemy went. It was something like 1,300. The allies had something like 700 or 800 or so called dead-we never know. On part of the operation, we had just gotten through making a bunker system. It was a large bunker system and we found hospitals. We came across four NVA nurses that were hiding out in one of the bunkers. They were nurses, we found medical supplies on them and they had black uniforms on. The ROK Marines came up to us and one of their officers asked us if they could have the NVA nurses, that they would take care of them because we were sweeping through the area, and that we couldn't

take care of any POWs. So, I imagine, that instead of killing them, we handed them over to the ROK Marines. Well we were still in the area when the ROK Marines started tying them down to the ground.

They tied their hands to the ground, they spread-eagled them; they raped all four. There was like maybe ten or twenty ROK Marines involved. They tortured them, they sliced off their breasts, they used machetes and cut off parts of their fingers and things like this. When that was over, they took pop-up flares (which are aluminum canisters you hit with your hand; it'll shoot maybe 100-200 feet in the air)-they stuck they up their vaginas-all four of them-and they blew the top of their heads off.

Scott Camile, 24, Sgt. (E-5), 1st Bn., 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division (August 1966 to September 1967).

I was a Sgt. attached to Charley 1/1. I was a forward observer in Vietnam. I went in right after high school and I'm a student right now.

All right. The calling in of artillery for games, the way it was worked would be the mortar forward observers would pick out certain houses in villages, and the mortar forward observers would call in mortars until they destroyed that house and then the artillery forward observer would call in artillery until he destroyed another house and whoever used the least amount of artillery, they won. And when we got back someone would have to buy someone else beers. The cutting off of heads-on Operation Stone-there was a Lt. Colonel there and two people had their heads cut off and put on stakes and stuck in the middle of a field. And we were notified that there was press covering the Operation and that we couldn't do that anymore. Before we went out on the Operation we were told not to waste our heat tablets on food but to save them for the villages because we were going to destroy all the villages and we didn't give the people any time to get out of the villages. We just went in and burned them and if people were in the villages yelling and screaming, we didn't help them. We just burned the houses as we went.

Moderator. Why did you use the heat tabs? Did you just light off the villages with matches or just throw the heat tabs in so it would keep burning?

Camile. We'd throw the heat tabs in because it was quicker and they'd keep burning. They couldn't put the heat tabs out. We'd throw them on top of the houses. People cut off cars and when they'd come back in off of an operation you'd make deals before you'd go out and like for every ear you cut off someone would buy you two beers, so people cut off ears. The torturing of prisoners was done with beatings and I saw one case where there were two prisoners. One prisoner was staked out on the ground and he was cut open while he was alive and part of his insides were cut out and they told the other prisoner if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know they would kill him. And I don't know what he said because he spoke in Vietnamese but then they killed him after that anyway.

Moderator. Were these primarily civilians or do you believe that they were, or do you know that they were actual NVA?

Camile. The way that we distinguished between civilians and VC, VC had weapons and civilians didn't and anybody that was dead was considered a VC. If you killed someone they said, "How do you know he's a VC?" and the general reply would be, "He's dead," and that was sufficient, When we went through the villages and searched people the women would have all their clothes taken off and the men would use their penises to probe them to make sure they didn't have anything hidden anywhere and this was raping but it was done as searching.

Moderator. As searching. Were there officers present there?

Camile. Yes, there were.

Moderator. Was this on a company level?

Camile. Company level.

Moderator. The company commander was around when this happened?

Camile. Right.

Moderator. Did he approve of it or did he look the other way or

Camile. He never said not to or never said anything about it. The main thing was that if an operation was covered by the press there were certain things we weren't supposed to do, but if there was no press there, it was okay. I saw one case where a woman was shot by a sniper, one of our snipers. When we got up to her she was asking for water. And the Lt. said to kill her. So he ripped off her clothes, they stabbed her in both breasts, they spead eagled her and shoved an E-tool up her vagina, an entrenching tool, and she was still asking for water. And then they took that out and they used a tree limb and then she was shot.

Moderator. Did the men in your outfit, or when you witnessed these things, did they seem to think that it was all right to do anything to the Vietnamese?

Camile. It wasn't like they were humans. We were conditioned to believe that this was for the good of the nation, the good of our country, and anything we did was okay. And when you shot someone you didn't think you were shooting at a human. They were a gook or a Commie and it was okay, cause, like, they would tell you they'd do it to you if they had the chance.

Moderator. This was told you all through your training, then, in boot camp, in advanced training, and so forth and it was followed on then, right on through it?

Camile. Definitely.

Moderator. There's a program in Vietnam called the Chieu Hoi pro-

gram where they leaflet and they pass out these passes where the enemy, the NVA, or the VC with these passes can get safe conduct and be treated as respected human beings, not as POWs, but we have an instance. Mr. Camile, could you go into this, where Chieu Hois were shot and their passes were rejected?

Camile. We understood what the Chieu Hois were for, but we were told why should these people be able to shoot at us and then run and when they get close to being captured come out with it and get away with it, them.

Moderator. Was this on orders or ...?

Camile. It was on orders.

Moderator. And what was done with the Chieu Hoi pass after the person was killed?

Camile. Anytime a person was killed, if they had any identification or passes or anything that would get us trouble, they were destroyed.

Moderator. The platoon commander was present when this happened?

Camile. Definitely.

Steve Noetzel, 31, SP/4, 5th Special Forces Group Augmentation (May 1963 to May 1964).

My name is Steve Noetzel, and I'm from Floral Park, Long Island, New York. I was drafted in 1962, in July. I went to Vietnam June of 1963 and stayed until May of 1964. While in Vietnam, I was attached to the 5th Special Forces Group. I was a member of a psychological warfare civic action team. While in Vietnam I traveled extensively through the Mekong Delta with our psy?? war efforts, and during this time I witnessed several incidents of mistreatment, maltreatment, of prisoners and that's what I'm here to testify about today. I now work for the Bell System. I'm in management at their headquarters in New York.

The first incident that I will speak about happened in November or December of 1963. I was stationed in Can Tho in the Mekong Delta and was trying to hitchhike a chopper ride to Saigon. The only flight going to Saigon on that particular day was a five chopper flight.

They were transporting some 16 prisoners, South Vietnamese prisoners, who had been interrogated at several levels before being sent to Saigon. They were transporting these prisoners in two helicopters, double-rotor helicopters, H-121. There were eight prisoners brought onto each helicopter. They were tied, their hands were tied behind their backs, and they were tethered together with rope around their necks, and about a six-foot length of rope to the next prisoner. A string of eight of them like that were put on each helicopter. With them were about an equal number of South Vietnamese or ARVN troops as guards. Also on that flight of five helicopters were three gunships, HUIB single-rotor helicopters. I flew in the first of these helicopters. The point helicopter. We were to fly support for this mission to bring these prisoners to Saigon. Incidentally, during those days, prisoners were brought to Saigon for a six-month rehabilitation program and then they were released after the six months to go back to wherever they wanted to go, that is, South Vietnamese or NLF prisoners. We took off from Can Tho. We heard, or I heard (I had a headset on), the radio message to Saigon. We got in contact with NACV headquarters in Saigon, told them we were coming with 16 prisoners, and they said they would have a greeting party for us at Tan Son Nhut Airport. We flew in one direct nonstop flight. All the ships stayed together the entire flight, about an hour and ten minutes or so. No helicopter left the group at any time. It could never have caught up with us if it did leave, and land anywhere. We landed in Saigon, I got out of the helicopter, and there was a greeting party there to meet us, a colonel from MACU and some other field grade officers. They had a paddy wagon to transport prisoners and so on. When we got off the helicopter, there were exactly three prisoners left on one helicopter, and one prisoner left on the other helicopter. These prisoners were now bound with their hands behind their backs. They were blindfolded, and of course no tether or no rope around their necks attaching to any other prisoners. I instantly realized what had happened and couldn't believe it, although I knew, rationally, what had to have happened. I went over to the American door gunner of one of the transport ships, and I asked him what the fuck happened, and he told me that they had pushed them out over the Mekong Delta. And I said, "Who?" and he said, "The ARVN guards did." And I just shook my head and said, "I can't believe it," and he said, "Go over there and look at the doorway." There are open doorways on these helicopters; they have no closeable door, there's just a door frame.

And I went over to the doorway and stopped when I got about five feet away and didn't want to go any closer because there was flesh from the hands of the prisoners when they were pushed out on the door jambs and on the door frames. And there was blood on the floor where they had been beaten and pushed out of the helicopters. I went back to my own helicopter that I had just gotten out of and there I overheard the conversation between the American pilots and the MACV colonel who had come to meet the prisoners, and he asked them what the fuck happened to the other prisoners and one of the American pilots simply said to him. "They tried to escape over the Mekong Delta." That was the first, or only, incident of helicopter murder that I had seen in Vietnam.

Moderator. Steve, could you now relate to treatment of prisoners at a specific A Team Camp or in the Delta?

Noetzel. Right. This occurred at one particular camp, this was an A Team at a place called Tan Phu which is in the Caman Peninsula, deep in the Mekong Delta, the southernmost A Team. It was in a completely isolated area. It was completely VC controlled (around the A Team camp). In January or February of 1964. I'm not sure exactly which month, I witnessed an almost public, or not almost, a public display of electrical torture of Vietnamese prisoners.

Moderator. Excuse me, Steve, when you say public, who was present or who was witness to this specific one?

Noetzel. Well, the way the camp was situated, it had about four or five foot walls around the compound, maybe even a little higher than that. There were at least 100 or 150 ARVN strike forces watching from inside the compound, all of the American A Team that was there watching, and also there was a little bridge at a canal right next to the camp, a little camel-back bridge, and if you stood at the middle of the bridge, on the highest part of it. you could see down into the camp. And the torture was done outside at a place in the camp where anyone standing on the bridge could watch it. It was done for a psychological effect, I suppose, to show off a now invention, or a new kind of lie detector that they had conjured up. A captain there, the commander of the A Team, had conjured up a system of electrical torture, whereby they took a Sony tape recorder, a plain tape recorder with the w-meters on it, and hooked that up with some field telephone batteries (hooked up in series) and a toggle switch that was held under the table by a Special Forces Sergeant.

Then the captain asked questions of a prisoner, who was stripped naked, and electrodes from these field telephones were attached to the back of his neck to his armpits, to his genitals, and his feet. He was told that this apparatus was a lie detector, that he would be interrogated, and that every time he didn't tell the truth, the machine would give him a shock. He didn't know the difference between a lie detector, or had never seen a tape recorder, I guess. In truth, the captain, simply asked questions and the interpreter asked them in Vietnamese, when the captain didn't like the answer, he gave some kind of signal to the sergeant who gave him an electrical charge and the fellow would jump and scream. Everyone was very impressed with this new lie detector except, I guess, the fellow who was being questioned and couldn't understand why the lie detector was working so badly. He may or may not have been telling the truth. At any rate, they got information. Whether it was valid or not, I don't know. [This technique is commonly referred to by soldiers as "The Bell Telephone Hour."-Ed.]

Moderator. In your testimony on your sheet here, you mention something about snakes?

Noetzel. Right. At the B Team in Can Tho, this was the headquarters for the Four Corps, they had an eight foot python snake which was kept at the camp in a cage, supposedly for rat control. When we had prisoners or detainees who were brought to the B Team, they were immediately questioned, and if they balked at all or sounded like they weren't going to be cooperative, they were simply placed in a room overnight. This was like a detention room; the door was locked, and this snake was thrown in there with them. Now the python is a constrictor, similar to a boa. It's not poisonous, and it probably can't kill a full-grown American or a large male, but it sure terrified the Vietnamese. Two of them usually in a room overnight with the python snake, struggling with it most the night, I guess, and we could hear them screaming. In fact on one instance, they had to go in there and gag the prisoners, so they wouldn't keep everyone awake all night. In the morning they were usually more cooperative.

Moderator. Steve, traveling around through the Delta as you did, just in two words or less, how would you summarize the general treatment of prisoners throughout the A Team camps in the Delta during that period of time?

Noetzel. I didn't see any humane treatment of prisoners, but I didn't see that many prisoners. However, every time I did see them, they were mistreated in one way or another. If wasn't electrical torture, it was the snake torture. If it wasn't the snake torture, it was barbed wire cages, which are also used in Tan Phu. This was a coffin-like cage made of barbed wire, about the shape of a coffin-barbed wire strung around stakes. A prisoner was stripped naked and put into this cage for about a 24-hour period. In the daytime he would bake in the sun, and in the night the mosquitoes would eat him all night I guess. If the mosquitoes weren't particularly attracted to the Orientals, which they're not. they were sprayed with some kind of a mosquito attracting liquid, and they'd be full of bites in the morning. Finally, it wasn't that, at the B Team at Can Tho, there was another form of torture, a water torture. Prisoners were taken, usually two in a small canoe, out behind the compound in a small rice paddy. They were bound, their hands behind their back. They were blindfolded and were put on this little canoe. An American Special Forces sergeant was there, another Vietnamese soldier was there, and they poled the boat around in circles in the rice paddy. Except that it wasn't a rice paddy anymore, it had been a rice paddy. Now it was used as a latrine really. That's where the drainage from the B Team latrines went, into his rice paddy. It was filled with urine and feces, and it stank to high heaven. The prisoners were rowed around in that water and were asked questions. And if they balked, the fellow who was poling the boat simply took the pole and knocked them out of the boat into this water where they sputtered around for a few minutes. It was about four feet deep or so. They were blindfolded with hands tied behind their back. Finally they surfaced somehow, after drinking half of it, I guess, and were dragged back into the canoe. That was about the only kind of treatment of prisoners I saw.

Larry Craig, 29, SP/4, Public Information Office, 25th Infantry Division (1966 to 1967).

I was in Cu Chi, Vietnam... and generally, I think what I have to talk about is what I perceived my job to be over there and what it actually turned

out to be. It was an over-all cover up of what was actually going on in the division operation.

During the time that I was there with the 25th Division every news release that came out of our information office-this was at Brigade level and at Headquarters level with the division-made it appear that we were really winning the war; that we were doing a fantastic job.

So while people like Dave with the 3/4 Cavalry were out getting their tracks blown up by one or two Viet Cong, we would write stories about these glorious victories which didn't take place. And generally, what I saw, were how the figures were turnes around on body counts. One particular time I was with the 3/4 Cavalry, where three of our men got killed.

Our men killed one young Vietnamese who was actually a prisoner at the time that he was killed laving in the grass in front of us. We counted graves in an old cemetery that day so the story came out of our office was 17 Viet Cong killed. What actual had happened was two or three Vietnamese had killed three of our men and if there had been a large force there, they left. But it was just contact with two or three.

But, over-all, this is what my job was: to go out on these missions where nothing happened except that we might kill a few civilians, if we found them, and pretend that we were really winning some battles when, actually, it was Americans being killed.

Moderator. Larry, you mentioned you had trouble sort of perceiving what your job was at first. Did you ever write what you consider to be a truly objective news story? In other words, one based on the facts?

Craig. To me there was never any question about anyone wanting me to write what I saw in the field. The job of our newspaper was to build morale in the field and as a public information office our job was to propagandize the American people.

And this is what we would do. We would go to the field and write a story that was personally related to what we saw taking place, but what was actually happening was that our people were being killed as they alienated the Vietnamese people in the villages that we went through on search and destroy missions. That was never what we would write about.

One particular mission near Dau Tieng we lost. I think, about five men that day, but we happened to find some rice. Well, this was a big cache, fine. So we made it into a real victory. We didn't see the Vietnamese Communists who shot at us. They left. They killed several of our men and left. We found some rice.

Well, the story that I wrote, which is the kind of job that I had, was that we had a very successful mission. I didn't mention that the rice was marked, I think it was from Houston, Texas. This wasn't allowed. Any of the rice caches that we found was generally rice that had been diverted from Saigon to the Viet Cong. This is generally the kind of work that I did.

Moderator. You mentioned that there was never any question in your mind that that was policy. How did you come to the realization that that was the kind of thing you were supposed to do, the slanted story? I mean, did somebody say, "Larry, I hereby order you not to write a . . ."

Craig. Generally it was more subtle than that. But one time in particular an order came down from division headquarters and I was at the Division Public Information Office when (I believe it was the information officer a Major-told us that we had to write stories about cooperation between American Infantrymen and the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Infantrymen. Well, this was non-existent.

The ARVN in our area weren't re?ted; there was no good feelings between the American infantrymen and the South Vietnamese and yet this was an order that came down-that we were to make them look good in the way of cooperation.

One thing that I did see, I was walking with an American unit along a river. A South Vietnamese unit was cooperating on the other side of the river. One of their armored personnel carriers hit mine. Probably two fellows at least got killed. Our side cheered. This was nice. We were happy for ARVNs having their track blown up. But the order that came down was that we were to write about how well the ARVNs were doing and how we cooperated with them.

Moderator. That order came from the division information officer, field grade officers, is that right?

Craig. He was a major, yes.

Mike McCusker, 29, Sgt. (E-5), Public Information Office, 1st Marine Division (1966 to 1968).

I was a sergeant in the Marine Corps and I served in Vietnam in 1966 and '67 with the 1st Marine Division as what they call an Infantry Combat Correspondent. This meant that I went out with every unit of the Infantry that was stationed, generally in Chu Lai, but I ended up all over the I corps with almost every Marine infantry unit and also almost every Marine reconnaissance unit because I was also reconnaissance qualified. These things that the men from the 25th told you were covered up. None of these instances were generally reported. Most of the stories that we wrote generally appeared in such publications as Stars and Stripes, a paper we had in I corps area called Sea Tiger, various other military news services, and the civilian press. They appeared in ways that we did not even write them. Information in them was either deleted or added. Quite often what we had written, what we had seen, what he had covered, just didn't come out in the stories. It was something entirely different. The general policy of being an Informational Services man (that's what the Marine Corps calls its reporters, The Informational Services Office). The only thing we had to do with information, I believe, is to cover it up, disguise it, or deny it. Some of the things that we could not write about, and if we did write about them they were always redlined from our stories, were the amount of American dead. Now they'd always go into light casualties, medium casualties, or heavy casualties. However, heavy casualties were never reported upon because when they got to Da Nang-and if they mention casualties in the Da Nang press center, if a platoon went out and got wiped out, they would measure platoon by battalion strength and that would, of course, be light casualties. And play those little games. Every Vietnamese dead was naturally a Viet

Cong; even six months old babies, 99 year old men and women. If they are dead, they are Viet Cong, which is a misnomer, at any rate.

We could never really write about the Vietnamese life style, or how the Vietnamese viewed their life in their universe, because it's so contrary to how we viewed Vietnam and the purpose of Vietnam. And the dichotomy would be very apparent in any story. We could not write of taking souvenirs-souvenirs that we witnessed being taken, such as ears and teeth. You can't help but notice it because it happens all the time and if you did write of it, it would be redlined and, of course, you'd be on the carpet if your Information Services Office could find you out on the field. You could not write of villages being burned, of crops destroyed. You could not write of defoliation, of the use of tear gas. The use of tear gas on at least three occasions-I witnessed tear gas pumped into caves and people running out and shot down as they run out of these caves. When the story of tear gas being used in 7th Marines in 1965 was exploded, through Colonel-the regimental commander at the time said it was only for humane purposes. And I witnessed a few of those humane purposes and I did write it in the story, infuriated, and it was redlined. The use of napalm: you can't even use the term napalm anymore. It's called incindergel, like jello. You could not write of women guerrillas, women prisoners; especially the deaths of women, children, old men and women.

Franklin Shepard, 23, S. Sgt. (E-6), 5/60, 9th Infantry Division (March 1968 to August 1969).

Well, as you were mentioning, there are many ways to build up your body count. In our particular unit, as John mentioned, he had the Recondo badge, We had this badge known as the Sat Cong badge. This badge, translated into English means "Kill Cong." This represents one Viet Cong-or civilian, whatever it may be, because there's really no way of telling. It represents one life. These badges were given when someone could prove that he had killed a Viet Cong, or Vietnamese. There are many ways of doing this. One is to have somebody verify that you did in fact see him kill a Vietnamese. Another way is-and this is a common way-to cut off the ear of the dead Vietnamese and bring it in. You could exchange it for one of these badges. The badges were created on a battalion level; I have the order here that created this badge, and the sick individual that signed it.

Moderator. I tell you Frank, on the "sick individual" let's just say a "Captain in the infantry."

Shepard. All right. This is a disposition form. It's an official Army form dated 28 June '69. It reads as follows: Any member of this battalion who personally kills a Viet Cong will be presented a Sat Cong badge-Kill Viet Cong-for his gallant accomplishment. The Sat Cong badge will only be given to those individuals who have accomplished the above-mentioned feat. There will be no honorary presentations. Furthermore, only personnel who have personally killed a Viet Cong may wear the Sat Cong badge. Company Commanders will draw Sat Cong badges from the Executive Officer, and will maintain all control." And also, explaining more about the badge, this is what is known as a Cheiu Hoi leaflet. On one side, it's in Vietnamese; on the other sidt it's translated into English. This is used for two purposes: It's to build up the morale of the soldier, make him want to kill; and its also to scare the hell out of the Viet Cong. It's entitled, Viet Cong, N. V. A. Beware. It says: You are now located in the Area of Oporations of the Cong-Killer 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry.

Each member of his elite American unit is a trained killer, dedicated to the annihilation of every VC-NVA. The proof of this dedication is the Cong badge he proudly wears proclaiming he has personally killed a VC-NVA. We don't rest; we will hunt you with our helicopters, track you down with our radar, search above and below the water with boats, bombard you with artillery and air strikes. There are no havens here. You are not safe, nor are you welcome here. Rally to the government of Vietnam now, or face the fact that you will soon join your ancestors. Signed, Cong-killer 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry."

Moderator. That's sort of interesting, the "you are not safe nor are you welcome here"-this was in Vietnam, was it not?

Shepard. Yes, it's their country.

Moderator. Okay, do you have any evidence for the press that this actually did take place, other than your saying so?

Shepard. Yes, I do. I have two letters from the Defense Department admitting that the Sat Cong badge was initiated in my unit. They say the practice was discontinued after this letter was written. As I say, they do admit that it did happen. There's no question in their mind that it did happen. They pretend that they don't know the purpose of it, but as I say, I have the orders that were issued. I know the purpose for it, and everybody that was there knows the purpose for it. They say they can't do anything about this; they couldn't

prosecute the individuals, as they indicated they would if they could, because the commanding officer and the brigade commander were killed in a helicopter crash. Well, that's kind of funny. In the Calley case they say that they can't prosecute the higher officers because its an individual thing, and there they turn it around. It's another inconsistency.

Steve Pitkin, 20, SP/4, "C" Co., 2/239, 9th Infantry Division (from May 1969 to July 1969).

I've sort of got a little hassle by the idea of coming up here, sitting down and telling basically war stories to everybody, because I'm sure, besides the FBI agents that we have in here, most of you people are against the war. Most of you people know atrocities have been committed. The thing I sort of wanted to impress was that there are different sorts of atrocities being committed. It doesn't necessarily have to be in Vietnam, although those are the ones that get the most attention. But, I'm sort of directing this one at the present because I think one of the most atrocious things about Vietnam is the way it was covered in the press. I guess it's sort of like you shouldn't have news reporters over there; you ought to have sports writers, box scores and everything. I guess the war's winding down, because this week we only lost 27 men and because Richard Nixon says so.

But ask anyone of those 27 men if the war's winding down. But you won't get an answer, you know. Well, what I'm trying to say is one of the saddest experiences I had is when I returned from Southeast Asia and I was waiting to catch a plane from Frisco Airport to Baltimore. It's like two o'clock in the morning or something and four long-haired people came in. And, you know, it's okay with me, but they laughed at me and in a sense I really had to fight back tears, I didn't say anything. I tried not to let it phase me that much, but we're not tin soldiers, we're people; the people they sent over to Vietnam are blacks: they sent a lot of college graduates and college students over there. I don't know if this is a form of genocide, but believe me, if you look up the definition, it sort of hints at it.

I feel that if people knew more the in Vietnam and about the enormous underground and how well organized it is over there, they might have some second thoughts before they called me a pig or before they called me a tin soldier, laughed at me. I figured before I went over to Nam I had a choice of either going to jail or to Canada or making it over there. I figured that I was doing more in a capacity to attack it over there in Vietnam, where the problem was actually happening, then I would be sitting in jail. Although, believe me, anybody who does go to jail or does human part of the American soldier go to Canada, has my full support. I think it's an atrocity on the part of the United States Army. (I don't know about the Marines, Navy, or anything else), to allow eight weeks of basic training, nine weeks of advanced infantry training, and then to send you against an enemy that's been fighting in his own backyard for twenty-five years. The training that they gave us, the infantry, really amounted to nothing but familiarization with the small-arms weapons and the explosives you would use once you got over there. We attacked a mock Vietnamese village in the snow at Fort Dix. An interesting point: a lot of times when we were put on line to attack a point of something, you were told not to fire until your left feet hit the ground. I remember asking a drill sergeant. "Do they really do this in Nam?" "Yeah, you know."

When I got to Nam, it was like black had turned to white because I was totally unprepared. I was put into a recon unit operating in the Mekong Delta. I hadn't been taught anything about the weather, the terrain. I had been taught a little bit about booby traps, but that's really up to the guy who lays them: they can just be anything. It was just a hit and miss thing. You go over there with that limited amount of training and knowledge of the culture you're up against and you're scared. You're so scared, that you'll shoot at anything, that you'll look at your enemy and these people that you're sort of a visitor to. You'll look at them as animals and at the same time you're just turning yourself into an animal, too.

Larry Rottman, 25, 1st Lt., Public Information Office, 25th Infantry Division (June 1967 to March 1968).

I served as Assistant Information Officer for the 25th Infantry Division, based at Cu Chi, Vietnam from June 5th, 1967 till March 9th, 1968. My duties were to be officer in charge of the division newspaper. Tropic Lightning News, the Lighting Two Five monthly news magazine, and the Lightning Two Five ARVN radio program. I was also in charge of division press releases including photos, officer in charge of visiting newsmen including television network crews, and a frequent briefer of the division staff on all civilian news media and information matters.

While I was in Vietnam, I sent what I called a holiday message from 1st Lieutenant Larry Rottmann. On it there's a small picture of a black medic, a white medic, and a Vietnamese treating a wounded Vietnamese. And there's a little small thing beside it which is a quote from honorably discharged General William Tecumsch Sherman saying, "I am sick and tired of war. Its. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation, and destruction. War is cruel and you cannot refine it. War is hell." That quote was taken from the Army Digest, a Department of Defense publication.

For sending that card, I was court-martialed. I'll read you the charges. "This is to inform you that action is being taken by this headquarters to determine your fitness for retention as a reserve officer in the United States Army. Your records indicates that in December '67 you printed and distributed at government expense (the 'at government expense' was-I wrote, 'free' on my envelope, which we are allowed to do, so I didn't put a stamp on it. That's the government expense; they paid the postage for the card and they're upset.) A Christmas card depicting a seriously wounded soldier receiving plasma, etc., etc."

This court-martial was finally held last fall at Boston Army Base. I was represented by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) resulting in the dropping of all charges and specifications. This is just to point out to you that they will do that. They pursued me for sending that Christmas card taken from the Army Digest: They pursued me, and spent, I guess a million dollars, for three years across the country until they finally actually held the court martial and it was thrown out. That's just to show that they do mean business.