Jack Kelly writer
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A VIETNAM TRAGEDY
(AmericanHeritage.com)
“In the corner was the lifeless body of a young mother
shredded by bullets. Next to her was an infant, still alive
and crying. Shortly after Ybarra ran into the hut, the crying
stopped.” Sam Ybarra was a member of a special unit
operating in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in the summer of
1967. The fate of that infant would become the focal point
of the most egregious series of war crimes ever committed
by American forces, a prolonged bloodbath that was
covered up by the U.S. government for almost 30 years.
In 2004 Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss won a Pulitzer
Prize for their thorough and meticulous reporting about the
crimes in the Toledo Blade. They’ve now turned the story
into a book, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War
(Little, Brown; $25.95). Their narrative, appearing early in
the fourth year of another war, is both sobering and
relevant.
Tiger Force was a platoon of the 101st Airborne Division,
which had won renown in the Battle of the Bulge in World
War II. Formed at the end of 1965, Tiger Force was
intended to “outguerrilla the guerrillas.” Its members were
specially selected and given commando training. Discipline
was loosened—soldiers wore beards and dressed in dirty
tiger-striped fatigues. They were, as the authors put it,
“badass of the badass.”
In the spring of 1967 the platoon was sent by helicopter
into Song Ve Valley, a remote area six miles from the
central coast. The Buddhist farmers who lived there were
determined to remain neutral in the conflict that had
simmered around them for almost 20 years. The
Vietnamese Communists stole and extorted rice from the
farmers and tried to lure them with land redistributions. For
their part, American strategists decided to herd the
inhabitants into squalid “relocation” camps and saturate
the valley with herbicides in order to starve the enemy.
After the migration, the men of Tiger Force were to round
up anyone still left in the valley and put them on transport
helicopters. “If there are people out there—and not in the
camps,” the overall American commander, Gen. William
Westmoreland, had told them, “. . . they’re Communist
sympathizers.”
It was during this operation that Sam Ybarra and several
other Tigers began to kill civilians and prisoners routinely.
Their actions were partly understandable. They had
received little training in the rules of war and the brass was
pushing for body counts.
The authors vividly convey the demanding environment in
which the soldiers had to survive—the heat, the lacerating
elephant grass, the leeches, the painful rashes, blisters,
and sunburns, the illness and diarrhea, the lack of sleep,
the concern about booby traps and ambushes. On top of
all that, the men had to put up with notably poor leadership
in the field and with the foggy objectives devised by higher-
ups.
The killing was not a single spasm of cruelty like the one
that would occur in the village of My Lai the following
March, but rather an ongoing practice to which senior
officers turned a blind eye. It continued and intensified
when the unit was assigned to Quang Tin province in the
highlands, which was dominated by triple-canopy jungle
and North Vietnamese troops.
While the troops humped through the bush, their colonel’s
voice intoned over the radio, “You’re the 327th Infantry.
We want 327 kills.” So the Tigers killed. They made little
direct contact with the enemy but found plenty of helpless
civilians. In one village, the peasants had taken shelter in a
bunker. The soldiers dropped grenades down, then
camped at the entrance and listened as the calls for help
from the wounded gradually faded. The next morning they
pulled out the bodies, including those of women and young
children. They found no weapons.
A few platoon members objected. Some complained to
more senior officers, who declined to take action just
because “a few guys are killing gooks.”
Every evening they called in the body count. But no one
really knows how many civilians these soldiers murdered.
The total reached well into the hundreds. And soon they
were not just murdering but mutilating, slicing off ears,
which they wore strung on stinking necklaces. Until even
the cries of a terrified infant evoked no human response.
Sallah and Weiss go on to document the investigation,
which began in 1972 and was carried on by a dedicated
Army Criminal Investigation Command detective until 1975.
At the end of this intense effort of reconstruction, the
investigator was shipped out to Korea to keep him from
talking to the press. “Nothing beneficial or constructive,”
the Army concluded, “could result from prosecution at this
time.” That was the end of it.
Except for this book, which will likely stand as the only
public accounting for the crime. And a worthy one. The
authors dug for the facts, traveling to Vietnam to talk to the
families of victims and interviewing many of the members of
Tiger Force itself. They humanize both sides and do not
lose sight of the fact that the Communists murdered
thousands of innocents themselves. They raise, but leave
for the reader to answer, the important question about
where we should place responsibility for crimes during
wartime.
With Abu Ghraib now a permanent part of our military
heritage, and with three Marine commanders recently
relieved of duty over possible indiscriminate killings in
western Iraq, Tiger Force makes for timely reading. The
book is instructive about how discipline can break down in
the field, and how such lapses can undermine our strategic
efforts. Though the crimes of Tiger Force are buried in
history, they are not forgotten even today. Many of those
who let slip the bonds of civilization in the jungles of
Southeast Asia paid grievously for their sins. The
nightmares tore at them for years afterward. Not a few
Tigers sought refuge in drug and alcohol addiction. “It’s in
the middle of the night, when the demons come, that you
remember,” one said.
Sam Ybarra drank himself to death at age 36. He had one
wish before he died, his mother told the authors—to return
to Vietnam and make amends to the people whose lives he
had torn apart. “He wanted to help the people,” she said.
“To say he was sorry. But he never made it.”
# # #
(AmericanHeritage.com)
“In the corner was the lifeless body of a young mother
shredded by bullets. Next to her was an infant, still alive
and crying. Shortly after Ybarra ran into the hut, the crying
stopped.” Sam Ybarra was a member of a special unit
operating in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in the summer of
1967. The fate of that infant would become the focal point
of the most egregious series of war crimes ever committed
by American forces, a prolonged bloodbath that was
covered up by the U.S. government for almost 30 years.
In 2004 Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss won a Pulitzer
Prize for their thorough and meticulous reporting about the
crimes in the Toledo Blade. They’ve now turned the story
into a book, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War
(Little, Brown; $25.95). Their narrative, appearing early in
the fourth year of another war, is both sobering and
relevant.
Tiger Force was a platoon of the 101st Airborne Division,
which had won renown in the Battle of the Bulge in World
War II. Formed at the end of 1965, Tiger Force was
intended to “outguerrilla the guerrillas.” Its members were
specially selected and given commando training. Discipline
was loosened—soldiers wore beards and dressed in dirty
tiger-striped fatigues. They were, as the authors put it,
“badass of the badass.”
In the spring of 1967 the platoon was sent by helicopter
into Song Ve Valley, a remote area six miles from the
central coast. The Buddhist farmers who lived there were
determined to remain neutral in the conflict that had
simmered around them for almost 20 years. The
Vietnamese Communists stole and extorted rice from the
farmers and tried to lure them with land redistributions. For
their part, American strategists decided to herd the
inhabitants into squalid “relocation” camps and saturate
the valley with herbicides in order to starve the enemy.
After the migration, the men of Tiger Force were to round
up anyone still left in the valley and put them on transport
helicopters. “If there are people out there—and not in the
camps,” the overall American commander, Gen. William
Westmoreland, had told them, “. . . they’re Communist
sympathizers.”
It was during this operation that Sam Ybarra and several
other Tigers began to kill civilians and prisoners routinely.
Their actions were partly understandable. They had
received little training in the rules of war and the brass was
pushing for body counts.
The authors vividly convey the demanding environment in
which the soldiers had to survive—the heat, the lacerating
elephant grass, the leeches, the painful rashes, blisters,
and sunburns, the illness and diarrhea, the lack of sleep,
the concern about booby traps and ambushes. On top of
all that, the men had to put up with notably poor leadership
in the field and with the foggy objectives devised by higher-
ups.
The killing was not a single spasm of cruelty like the one
that would occur in the village of My Lai the following
March, but rather an ongoing practice to which senior
officers turned a blind eye. It continued and intensified
when the unit was assigned to Quang Tin province in the
highlands, which was dominated by triple-canopy jungle
and North Vietnamese troops.
While the troops humped through the bush, their colonel’s
voice intoned over the radio, “You’re the 327th Infantry.
We want 327 kills.” So the Tigers killed. They made little
direct contact with the enemy but found plenty of helpless
civilians. In one village, the peasants had taken shelter in a
bunker. The soldiers dropped grenades down, then
camped at the entrance and listened as the calls for help
from the wounded gradually faded. The next morning they
pulled out the bodies, including those of women and young
children. They found no weapons.
A few platoon members objected. Some complained to
more senior officers, who declined to take action just
because “a few guys are killing gooks.”
Every evening they called in the body count. But no one
really knows how many civilians these soldiers murdered.
The total reached well into the hundreds. And soon they
were not just murdering but mutilating, slicing off ears,
which they wore strung on stinking necklaces. Until even
the cries of a terrified infant evoked no human response.
Sallah and Weiss go on to document the investigation,
which began in 1972 and was carried on by a dedicated
Army Criminal Investigation Command detective until 1975.
At the end of this intense effort of reconstruction, the
investigator was shipped out to Korea to keep him from
talking to the press. “Nothing beneficial or constructive,”
the Army concluded, “could result from prosecution at this
time.” That was the end of it.
Except for this book, which will likely stand as the only
public accounting for the crime. And a worthy one. The
authors dug for the facts, traveling to Vietnam to talk to the
families of victims and interviewing many of the members of
Tiger Force itself. They humanize both sides and do not
lose sight of the fact that the Communists murdered
thousands of innocents themselves. They raise, but leave
for the reader to answer, the important question about
where we should place responsibility for crimes during
wartime.
With Abu Ghraib now a permanent part of our military
heritage, and with three Marine commanders recently
relieved of duty over possible indiscriminate killings in
western Iraq, Tiger Force makes for timely reading. The
book is instructive about how discipline can break down in
the field, and how such lapses can undermine our strategic
efforts. Though the crimes of Tiger Force are buried in
history, they are not forgotten even today. Many of those
who let slip the bonds of civilization in the jungles of
Southeast Asia paid grievously for their sins. The
nightmares tore at them for years afterward. Not a few
Tigers sought refuge in drug and alcohol addiction. “It’s in
the middle of the night, when the demons come, that you
remember,” one said.
Sam Ybarra drank himself to death at age 36. He had one
wish before he died, his mother told the authors—to return
to Vietnam and make amends to the people whose lives he
had torn apart. “He wanted to help the people,” she said.
“To say he was sorry. But he never made it.”
# # #