Tiger Force: Massacre story needs to be told

Politics and religion
1

Tiger Force: Massacre story needs to be told
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE/
“This series reveals for the first time anywhere that members of a platoon of American soldiers from the 101st known as Tiger Force slaughtered an untold number of Vietnamese civilians over a seven-month period in 1967.”

Day 1 Report: Rogue GIs unleashed wave of terror in Central Highlands
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110190168

Day 2 Report: Inquiry ended without justice
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110200129

Day 3 Report: Pain lingers 36 years after deadly rampage
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110210075

Day 4 Report: Demons of past stalk Tiger Force veterans
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110220055

2

The real question I have is if they spawn camped with the M60/LAW combo kit and why didn’t one of the VC engineers use their shovel to just move the tunnels?

3

This series just won the Pulitzer this afternoon.

4

Didn’t know Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense when the army buried the internal investigation.

5

2004 Pulitzer Prize: Investigative Reporting: Tiger Force


“For a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000). Awarded to Michael D. Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr of The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, for their powerful series on atrocities by Tiger Force, an elite U.S. Army platoon, during the Vietnam War.”

2004 Pulitzer Prize Winners

6

That’s a huge coup for The Toledo Blade. Newspaper used to be my life, and I’d never even heard of it. Those three reporters just got their ticket punched to the big time, if they want to move on.

7

Roger Ebert once said that the Pulitzer makes the world’s shortest resume.

8

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. That is horrific.
Will anything happen now to punish those responsible?

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It’s really doubtful. Look at what happened as a result of My Lai:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_intro.html

Opinion polls showed that the public overwhelmingly disapproved of the verdict in the Calley case [OPINION POLLS]. President Nixon ordered Calley removed from the stockade and placed under house arrest. He announced that he would review the whole decision. Nixon’s action prompted Aubrey Daniel to write a long and angry letter in which he told the President that “the greatest tragedy of all will be if political expediency dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons” [AUBREY LETTER]. On November 9, 1974, the Secretary of the Army announced that William Calley would be paroled. In 1976, Calley married. He now works in the jewelry store of his father-in-law in Columbus, Georgia.

My Lai mattered. Two weeks after the Calley verdict was announced, the Harris Poll reported for the first time that a majority of Americans opposed the war in Viet Nam. The My Lai episode caused the military to re-evaluate its training with respect to the handling of noncombatants. Commanders sent troops in the Desert Storm operation into battle with the words, “No My Lais-- you hear?”

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/there_6.html?sect=8

The timeline in the second link is particularly appalling.

So, to summarize, for the butchery of an entire village, including the cold-blooded murder of women and children:

One man served three years in prison.
78% of the public disagreed with his conviction.
Nixon was all pissed about it.

The polls are just unbelievable:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/SurveyResults.html

It’s not like the public had an excuse; Life ran a bunch of photos.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/color_10.html?sect=8

Edit: excuse me, he suffered those three years under house arrest. Truly a stiff sentence.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/verdict_12.html?sect=8

Edit again: Oh, and I forgot about the raping, and the details that they never came under fire and never encountered an enemy during the operation.