The Tiger Force Massacres

[2dogs]

http://www.armedfemalesofamerica.com/featuredwriter/tiger.htm

The Tiger Force Massacres


ANOTHER BENCHMARK OF GOVERNMENT TYRANNY

By Ted Lang

Continuously pointing out the horror of big, ultra powerful government and its police and military enforcers is just as necessary as the opposition’s incessant publicized need to continuously push for gun control for the masses. It is useless to point out to these big government zealots that private citizen ownership of firearms successfully deterred the Nazi armies from invading Switzerland during World War II, or that it removed from all Cold War considerations on the part of the former Soviet Union any desires for occupying a conquered United States. The latter aspect of the Soviet Union’s military plans toward the US has only recently been disclosed.

Yet in spite of this information, the liberal controlling forces of our big government-oriented Democrat-Republican Party keep inching forward the ever-increasing illegal and unconstitutional gun control at both the state and federal level. And consistently dismissed along with all these incremental sell-outs of individual freedom by virtually all levels of government, are the growing examples of horrific government tyranny that continuously come to light.

By now, the main driving force behind the total, incrementally executed abolition of all firearms ownership by individuals in the United States, should be recognized as the primary agenda of the mainstream establishment media, a media controlled by powerful left-liberal millionaires/billionaires whose collectivist, communist leanings align more with the Marxism of the ADL and the ACLU than with the majority of decent Americans. For the media, gun ownership by American citizens is the greatest threat to collectivist big government, which when progressing to its highest state, is termed “communism.â€

The media has demonstrated its penchant not only for political bias, but also for a rabid interference in the voting processes of our so-called “free elections.†The media can therefore exercise its camouflaged efficacy in terms of influencing politics and elections. But what the big money and power behind-the-scenes media moguls cannot control is an armed and free electorate. This is anathema to public mind control. And this is why the millionaire/billionaire socialist-controlled media needs gun control, and why it must be done incrementally to avoid alarming a now-free populace.

Merely pasting the truth in terms of bumper or window stickers on cars and trucks might get some attention on the part of a few Americans, but the factuality of the assertion: “Gun control works – it did for Hitler and Stalin,†will never really sink in with Americans. Hitler and Stalin are recognized as being deranged, despotic and totalitarian freaks. Hence, the danger that is big government is lost on all who momentarily consider this fact when seeing such stickers. The human slaughter committed by such uncompassionate tyrannies happened elsewhere, in far-away places, within the borders of strange foreign lands, and “could never happen here.†That’s precisely the attitude our public opinion shapers are so heavily counting upon.

And that is why it is so important to continuously remind America to reflect upon our own homegrown atrocities: Waco, Ruby Ridge, My Lai, Wounded Knee, and yes, even 9-11! Why the latter? It was the failure of our own protectors, our government’s FBI, CIA and FAA, who were all apprised of the impending terrorist plot, and either chose to do nothing, our allowed gatekeeper politics and structured incompetence to override the national security so relied upon by our God-fearing, law-abiding people. And now, the Tiger Force Massacres can be added to this ignoble list of American government atrocities against Humanity!

How awesomely powerful our military enforcers and protectors must have felt in dispensing death to anyone even remotely connected to the enemy and the “evildoers.†These weren’t people, only “gooks.†Recently in Iraq, our invading, occupying forces were subjected to yet another guerilla-type truck bombing that took many lives. Our colonial forces “returned fire,†shooting at “suspected terrorist strongholds.â€

What were these strongholds? They were the private homes of innocent Iraqi citizens. That would include old men and women, very old men and women, small children, babies, toddlers, along with some younger males that might or possibly could take up arms against our colonial forces. Clearly, firing indiscriminately into the homes of defenseless, innocent residents by our military with fully automatic assault rifles is authorized under the banner of: Law is government, and government is law.

ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings showed video clips of some of the survivors of the 1967 Tiger Force Massacres perpetrated by an elite volunteer unit attached to the famous 101st Airborne Division. As I stated in previous columns, a small, family-owned Toledo, Ohio newspaper, The Blade, did the investigative journalism on yet another American government atrocity that our rulers were very anxious to cover up. It is offered that a tip was communicated to the independent newspaper’s Washington bureau. Why this “tip†happened now remains unclear.

Our government could have opted to cooperate, but that would never happen now, especially during this most secretive, USA Patriot Act-oriented clandestine and war-mongering Bush administration. And it is certain that big media ABC is participating in the airing of this atrocity to both embarrass the Bush administration and to voice its objections to the Iraqi war. And as Bush himself pointed out, “You’re either with US or agin’ US,†or something like that. Bush sycophants will point out that anybody that doesn’t support American colonial incursions into Iraq is unpatriotic and un-American.

But precisely, what is so American and patriotic about the Tiger Force Actions in Vietnam, that included: “…the 45 strong unit took the war to the villagers, killing hundreds of them … soldiers killed unarmed civilians…murder was not uncommon – it was more or less the rule of the day?†A write up of the report entitled, “Killer Instinct,†was carried on ABC’s website, and was written by Brian Ross and Jill Rackmill. “What they would essentially do is they would kill prisoners, they would kill soldiers, they would kill villagers and they would sever ears and wear them as necklaces,†the article revealed.

The initial article posted on the web by the Guardian Unlimited on October 26th, written by Paul Harris entitled, “Vietnam killing spree revelations shock US,†offered: “The killing spree was ignored or encouraged by army top brass, but when an inquiry did take place it lasted for four years. No one was charged. Details were not released to the public, and are still classified. Bill Carpenter, a former special infantryman with Tiger Force, believes the self-styled death squad's former commander, Lt James Hawkins, should be held accountable. He 'thoroughly enjoyed killing' and, now retired to Florida, still defiantly defends his platoon's wartime activities. 'I don't regret nothing,' Hawkins has said.â€

The Harris exposé offers: “They tortured and mutilated victims. A litany of horror has emerged - a baby decapitated for the necklace he wore, a teenage boy for his tennis shoes. A former Tiger Force sergeant, William Doyle, told reporters of a scalp he took off a young nurse to decorate his rifle. The Blade investigation concluded that hundreds probably died. 'We weren't keeping count,' Ken Kerney, a former soldier who is now a California firefighter, told the paper. 'I knew it was wrong, but it was an acceptable practice.'â€

Harris’ article continues, “But memories of the blood lust run deep in Vietnam. One farmer, Nguyen Dam, now 66, vividly remembered being attacked. ‘Our people didn’t deserve to die that way. We were farmers. We were not soldiers. We didn’t hurt anyone,’ he said.â€

“The Blade also found amazing stories from within Tiger Force itself. One soldier, Gerald Bruner, turned on his own men and ordered them to stop shooting civilians or he would open fire. For this, he was berated by a commanding officer and told to see a psychiatrist.â€

Isn’t it odd that an element of the mainstream media accentuates the term “unarmed civilians,†yet has this very concept at the forefront of its agenda for US? Isn’t this the primary focus of its own socialist opinion-shaping agenda, to disarm all American civilians in blatant violation of the restriction placed upon American government from doing so as prohibited by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution?

If it is wrong to kill unarmed civilians, then was it right to kill armed American civilians at Waco, people who just like the Vietnamese villagers, merely wanted to be left alone by American government? Wasn’t it also necessary for government propaganda to first dehumanize “the enemy†as merely being “gooks,†or “freaks,†or “Jewsâ as in the case of the Nazis? If American government can be shown to be so mercilessly wrong and easily capable of genocide, why does the media want our police and military to have such a monopoly of deadly “tiger" force?

 

[2dogs]

The ABCNews story on this:



Killer Instinct
Three Decades Later, Closed Investigation Into Vietnam War Killings Revealed
By Brian Ross and Jill Rackmill
ABCNEWS.com
Nov. 12— The 101st Airborne Division's Tiger Force was among the most elite units in the Vietnam War, tasked with cleaning out the enemy in a string of villages in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. But according to an Army investigation, which the government kept secret for almost three decades, the mission turned into a seven-month-long mass murder.




Between May and November 1967, the highly-decorated, all-volunteer reconnaissance unit, which was attached to the 101st Airborne, moved through a series of villages deep inside Vietnam's Central Highlands, territory controlled by the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies. Their orders were to ambush and booby-trap enemy combatants, but the 45-strong unit took the war to the villagers, killing hundreds of them.
Medic Rion Causey, 55, who is now a nuclear engineer in California, says he watched as soldiers killed unarmed civilians. He estimates the unit killed 120 civilians in one five-week period alone.

"Murder was not uncommon," former Tiger Force Sgt. William Doyle, 70, told ABCNEWS, confirming what has now been revealed in Army documents. "It was more or less the rule of the day.

"We trusted absolutely nobody," he said. "You know, that was rule number one."

The Tiger Force investigation was kept secret by the Army for almost three decades until last month, when The Blade, a newspaper published in Toledo, Ohio, ran a four-part series on the killings and investigation that followed. The series was based on an eight-month investigation by reporters Mike Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr, who obtained hundreds of pages of classified Army documents.

"What they would essentially do is they would kill prisoners, they would kill soldiers, they would kill villagers and they would sever the ears to wear as necklaces," Sallah told ABCNEWS. "Twenty-seven Tiger Force soldiers testified during the Army's investigation that they had either taken part in the ritual or that they had witnessed it firsthand — the severing of ears to be made into necklaces."

The Army said today it is conducting a preliminary assessment of any new evidence raised by The Blade's reporting. The assessment will determine whether a new case will be opened, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Curry told ABCNEWS.

Doyle said he regrets every American soldier who got killed, blinded or injured in the war, but he does not regret what happened to the Vietnamese. "I did not kill any Vietnamese that I did not feel that by killing them I was prolonging my own life and the lives of my friends, and my men under my command," he said. "I was not out just cold-blooded killing people for no reason. That would be a war crime. I'm not guilty of that."

‘Kill With a Look’

Now the people involved are freely admitting to ABCNEWS what they did, saying that their actions were necessary to ensure the safety of the American soldiers.

"You had to have a killer instinct, you had to have a strong survival instinct," said Doyle, who is now retired and living in Missouri. "You got to be quick on the trigger. You got to be pretty merciless."

"If you're walking along a rice paddy dyke, and them farmers are out there planting rice, and one of them looks up at you and makes eye contact, and the eye contact is the wrong kind of contact — because you can kill with a look — he's a dead man," he said. "You better not look with hate. Curiosity — maybe he might live. But when he made eye contact, if you detected hate, you would probably kill him."

Members of the unit say it was impossible for them to tell who was an enemy fighter and who was a peaceful villager.

The young lieutenant who commanded the unit, James Hawkins, now 63, says he and his men learned to smell the enemy or anyone who might pose a threat.

"I can't describe how this really, the smell was," he told ABCNEWS. "But it was a distinct, odor, you know, if they had been there, you'd been down a trail. You, you could smell where they'd been there recently."

Causey recalled catching a group of Vietnamese by surprise, causing them to come out of their hut with their hands up. When Causey and fellow soldiers called the platoon leader to find out what they should do with them, "a minute or so later he responded that they should be shot. So we took them over to the wall and lined them up and we shot them," said Causey, who was never investigated nor charged with any wrongdoing.

Investigation Halted

Until now, the most infamous war crimes investigation of the Vietnam War was the My Lai massacre in March 1968, during which U.S. soldiers killed as many as 400 Vietnamese civilians. Of the soldiers tried, only Lt. William Calley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. His term was eventually reduced to 10 years in prison, and he was later paroled in 1975 after serving three-and-a-half years under house arrest.

"The Tiger Force case was the longest war crimes investigation of the Vietnam War," said Sallah. "It was four-and-a-half years. My Lai pales in comparison in terms of the length of time it took to investigate it."

The Army began its investigation into Tiger Force in 1971, four years after the incidents, after a tip from a fellow battalion member who said a Tiger Force soldier had severed the head off an infant to obtain a necklace from the baby's neck.

The Blade obtained the final report written by the Army's own investigators, which concluded that 18 Tiger Force members committed war crimes, including at least three murders.

It was up to Army commanders to decide whether to court-martial any of the individual soldiers. In the end, no soldier was ever prosecuted.

A lead investigator, who asked that his name not be used, told ABCNEWS, "Commanders have final jurisdiction of whether or not to file a case.

"I filed my report with distribution to all the commanders [at the Criminal Investigation Department] and that was the end of their involvement. I don't write an indictment," he said.

Doyle, who himself was investigated for murder and aggravated assault, said he was proud of what he did in Vietnam.

"I was killing them in self-defense," said Doyle. "The way I seen it, because of the fear tonight, tomorrow, the foot mines, the situation."

Doyle, who received numerous decorations for bravery, admitted killing his own Vietnamese translator, a captured North Vietnamese soldier.

"I'm going to trust my men's lives to him? That's something you dream up in Washington, D.C.," said Doyle.

Vietnamese Have Not Forgotten

Some 36 years later in Vietnam, the people who live in the same villages where Tiger Force came through want to know why the U.S. government has never admitted what happened.

The villagers have not forgotten.

Kieu Trac remembers when Tiger Force soldiers rampaged through the tiny hamlet of Hanh Tin. He says 10 elderly farmers were killed by the Americans. Trac hid in his hut until the soldiers left the village, and then he buried the bodies.

All these years later, Trac says he still doesn't understand why the American soldiers massacred civilians in his village. "They were just farmers working in the field. I don't know why the Americans came here. Why?" he asked in Vietnamese.

Hyunh Thi Gioi was trying to seek shelter in a bunker with her 6-year-old son when the Americans came to Hanh Tin. As Gioi fled, carrying her son over her shoulder, she was shot. The bullet tore through her shoulder and hit her son, who died. Gioi still visits her son's grave regularly, lighting incense and trying to make sense of the tragedy.

She shudders when she sees a patch bearing the insignia of Tiger Force, and she points to her arm, remembering the soldiers who wore the same patch — the soldiers who killed her son.

Outside the village of Hanh Tin, Tam Hau, the niece of an elderly carpenter described to ABCNEWS' Mark Litke how her uncle was murdered by a soldier as he prayed for his life.

Carpenter Dao Hue, 68, was shot at close range by Tiger Force soldiers, executed just a mile from the hut he shared with his niece. She said she still remembers the day her uncle was murdered and remembers the rage of the Americans. Hau still visits the unmarked mound of earth where her uncle is buried.

The soldier responsible for killing Hau's uncle, by his own admission, was Tiger Force Unit commander Hawkins, who said the carpenter had been found with a gun and was making noise that could attract enemy soldiers.

"He was standing, hollering, screaming, ranting, raving and at that point I pulled out my .45 and silenced him," Hawkins told ABCNEWS. Other witnesses deny the carpenter had a gun.

The Army investigation cited that incident in recommending Hawkins be prosecuted for murder.

"Whether it be good or bad judgment, I did do what I did and that's all I can do," said Hawkins. "And if I had it happen again, I would more than likely do the same thing."

The people in the village, as well as the government of Vietnam, have called on the United States to account for what happened 36 years ago.

Cover-Up?

But to date, no U.S. official has explained why charges were never brought despite the military's extensive investigation.

"There was a cover-up," said The Blade's Weiss. "There is no doubt about it."

"We don't know at this point who killed the investigation," said Sallah. "We don't know why no one was charged. We do know it reached the top levels of government."

The Army sent regular reports on the investigation to the Nixon White House between 1971 and 1973, Sallah and Weiss reported. The final decision to keep the case quiet and not prosecute was made in November 1975, when Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was urging the country to heal from the wounds of Vietnam. It was also the month James Schlesinger resigned as secretary of defense and was replaced by Donald Rumsfeld, who was the youngest secretary of defense in U.S. history.

"The last thing the Ford administration wanted at that point was a Vietnam war crimes trial, something the size of My Lai, because once you court-martial one of these guys … then everything's out of the bag," said Weiss.

Neither Rumsfeld nor Schlesinger would comment on why none of the Tiger Force soldiers were ever prosecuted. A spokesman for Ford said the former president had no comment on the Tiger Force investigation.

The official reason, read to Hawkins and found in Army documents, was that "no beneficial or constructive results would be derived from criminal prosecution." No punitive action of any kind was taken against Hawkins, who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and retired with an unblemished record. Hawkins says it doesn't matter to him if the Army decides to reopen the case.

"They want to bring it up and have another American brought up as a scapegoat, or do whatever for something that's gone all this time, well then so be it," said Hawkins. "I'm 63. I'm prepared to do whatever they want to do."

As for Doyle, he doesn't think he will be convicted on any of the charges. "I could get found not guilty on temporary insanity on any one of them, because there's no way you can be in that situation and not be temporarily insane," he told ABCNEWS.



http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/vietnam_tiger_force_031112.html

 

[geekWithA.45]

Question: early on in the AFofA article, it mentioned the impact of 2A on Soviet occupation plans.

WHERE's THIS DOCUMENTED?

I'd LOVE a good pithy Soviet quote to hangup on the wall next to "A rifle behind every blade of grass".

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

Too bad this story will be buried under the Michael Jackson hysteria.

 

[Jeff White]

What facts do they have? What are their motives for bringing this up now? Most of the people who would have to be called to account for these alleged acts are deceased. The Army investigated these charges in the early 70s.

This is all about drawing paralells bewtween Vietnam and Iraq. In other words it's propaganda. The last of the 4 Toledo Blade articles took the reader forward in time to the present and the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) in Iraq. Talked about how the guerilla warfare was similar....

This was already investigated during the height of the William Cally trials. Many of the accused were alive to defend themselves. It would have been in the army's best interest to file charges if any were warranted just to let the world know it was cleaning up it's act.

Anyone remember the No Gun Ri (sp?) thing a couple years back? Same thing here, old accusations dredged up for what political gain can come from them....

Jeff

 

[critter]

I may get flamed off this planet, but I will put in my small pittance of two cents worth.

I was NOT in Viet Nam, but I have friends who were. Were I there, I would have been SO scared, I probably would have been able to be heard from a mile away from the tinkle of the EXTRA 200 lbs of ammo I was carrying. I probably would have been so scared I would have shot tweety birds, butterflys or any-and everything else that moved. That was a terrible time and terrible place where an 8 yr old kid could hold out his hand for a stick of gum and at the same time put a hand grenade in your shorts. WAR (in general and Viet Nam in particular) IS/WAS HELL: I WAS NOT THERE: I WILL NOT JUDGE THEM.

I would NOT sit on a jury of these vets because I believe they need to be judged (IF AT ALL!) by a jury of their PEERS. (If forced to sit on one of those juries, I can tell you right now, my vote is already determined: NOT GUILTY!) That jury of "peers" COULD ONLY INCLUDE others who were ground field combat troups in that same war with them.

Of course, some bad things happened. War is hell. They wanted to come home in one piece. You only do that by being CAREFUL. If you misjudge, EVEN JUST A LITTLE, you DIE!

I salute all those who served in Viet Nam as well as the previous wars and especially those who serve now. COME HOME SAFELY AND SOON.

 

[Betty]

"What they would essentially do is they would kill prisoners, they would kill soldiers, they would kill villagers and they would sever the ears to wear as necklaces," Sallah told ABCNEWS. "Twenty-seven Tiger Force soldiers testified during the Army's investigation that they had either taken part in the ritual or that they had witnessed it firsthand — the severing of ears to be made into necklaces."

I understand wartime is intense. You're in a firefight and a soldier spins around and shoots a blur that pops up behind him, and it turns out the blur is an innocent kid who's running around trying to find mommy.

I'd feel bad for that soldier.

But mommy just had her ears cut off and they're hanging around his neck.

 

[Travis McGee]

This episode was nothing compared to the behavior of our US Army in the Philippines at the turn of the century. Burning every village in wide areas and killing every male over age ten was the official policy. We had concentration camps, you name it. 25,000 Philippinos were killed in some form of combat, 250,000 died of disease and hunger as a result of the war, many in concentration camps. I was shocked recently to discover this buried chapter of our history. Just do a google search, you'll be amazed.

 

[Hal]

I have to admit I stopped reading when I saw that the source was the Toledo Blade.

Maybe if the source had been more reputable,,,like The Weekly World News or the National Enqirer,,,,,

 

[gunsmith]

sure

In Communist controlled Vietnam you will find boatloads of folks who
hate Americans and remember atrocity after atrocity.
In San Jose CA there are boatloads of Vietnamese who remember atrocity
after atrocity committed by the Communist.
Who knows the truth? only the folks who were there and not liberal newspapers 40 years later.
I am sure modern armies attract psycho killers all the time,look at Richard Ramirez (nightstalker) he learned to love killing from his uncle who practiced serial killing in Nam and got medals for it only to get arrested for the same thing stateside.(his uncle had war trophy pictures etc from Nam)
Did you ever see Iris Changs book "The Rape Of Nanking" ???
makes our guys in Nam look like saints and they were so gruesome
the nazi's couldn't even stomach looking at the scenes of mayhem.
Some grunt in Bosnia was killing little girls on Clintons watch and got busted. Some Marine got aressted a year or so ago on Okinawa
for raping a girl.
Armies all around the world have done these things since the begining of war.

I feel it's relation to the 2nd Amendment is crucial as it(RKBA) gives civilians at least a small chance to fight back and protect themselves.

Psycho serial killers know that the Gov't hates freelancers,so they join the armies of whatever country they live in and get paid to kill.

Unfortunately they stain the honorable warriors who serve with distinction
and valor.

The answer is not to condemm an entire Battalion for the sins of the few
but root out murderers and honor the warriors.

I had three uncles in Nam 2 came home.
All of them are hero's and served their country with honor and valor
God Bless Them

 

[Ryder]

Speaking of ancient historys... Who taught the indians how to scalp?

 

[greyhound]

This is all about drawing paralells bewtween Vietnam and Iraq

Yup. Every single chance they get the media will hammer this theme.

(Unless something REALLY big like Michael Jackson getting arrested comes along. Then no one even mentions the war in Iraq ).