No problem. Starting with my Marine father, I’ve learned over the years that you can never win arguments with Old Salts, especially guys who think anything is permissible because, well, “war is hell.”

Except guys generally weren’t investigated or court-martialled in Vietnam simply for returning fire in populated areas.

Things had to get a little more wicked than that to bring out the military lawyers.

Cheers,
Nolan

In 1971 when most of the fighting on the ground was taken over by the Vietnamese, we just wanted to forget about this stuff. There was alot of turmoil in the Services from folks getting RIF’d, to the reconstitution of forces and adjusting to the peacetime environment. And the social bum scoop artists were running rampant with huggy feely stuff, making life more comfy for the troops, the all-volunteer force was in the throes of happening, and whether these 200 were guilty (and I doubt that) wasn’t even on the back burner as far as anyone is concerned. Besides, these 200 and alot of their buddies have to live with what they did, whether they were atrocities or just plain old shoot em up and bomb them actions. So throttle your self-righteousness and quite a few of you sound like you never served so shut your face!!

USMC OLD SALT

So let’s see, out of about 2 million Americans who served in Vietnam, about 200 have been identified as war criminals, responsible for 320 atrocities. Shameful for Americans, true, but hardly representative. Those 200 criminals represent .01% of Vietnam vets.

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Well first, I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that everyone who committed a criminal act in VN is a “war criminal,” and I think that would include the 200 confirmed cases described in the article. On the other hand there were many, many more such cases … reading the Tiger Force stories, Vietnam histories, and court martial records will tell you that.

~~~Skylark: You are right and wrong about Cambodia – Kerry claimed to have gone into Cambodia several times but the CIA operation was some time after Christmas that winter: “My good luck hat,” Kerry told the paper. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.” Of the Christmas mission, Kerry said: “Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.” Shot at by Cambodians and Khmer Rouge? He said it was South Vietnamese doing the shooting… because they were, you know, across the border. Kerry now settles for language like he was “between” Vietnam and Cambodia; or that he was very near the border on that night.~~~~

***

I think you’re mixing a few things up.

Kerry didn’t claim he was shot at by South Vietnamese across the border. He said they were shot at by drunk South Vietnamese on their way back to Sa Dec. That also is written in the excerpt of his journal that was published. His crewmen also attest to it.

Kerry has always said he was on a patrol at the border that night. His crewmen attest to it. George Elliott affirmed the enemy ambush (not the drunk soldiers shooting) in Kerry’s fitness report. Kerry told the Boston Globe he thought he had crossed into Cambodia during the patrol and/or ambush.

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~~~William Garlow clearly feels it went too far, but as a member of SBVT, also must disagree with Kerry, or else he would not have signed a letter denouncing Kerry’s statements, no? I think there is a big difference between “killing livestock” and “butchering a lot of innocent people”. KeithNolan: I simply disagree that the “butchering” comment is as you say, “absolutely unexceptional and entirely accurate”. Again, had Kerry just said that they were ordered to fire on buildings to draw out the enemy and that in the course of these actions, innocent people were certainly killed, or at least put in harms way… I would respect his statements. But he just can’t help embellishing. I think the rules of engagement that Bob Kerrey talks about in the article Skylark linked are very problematic and did lead to abuse. I still find no evidence that John Kerry did any of what he says he did… that is, “butchering a lot of innocent people”. I don’t doubt he heard stories and maybe talked with direct witnesses, but his testimony over the years has been delivered in the first person and is contradicted by the evidence. You say “Plenty of guys…” but list only one (Garlow, whose statements do not support Kerry’s claims anyways) and one other that refused to go on record – as I acknowledged.~~~

You don’t know why Garlow signed that letter, and he has never spoken out about his reasons. I think it is inaccurate to imply that he signed because he disagreed with a particular comment by Kerry.

As you note, another officer besides Garlow did think the killing was indiscriminate and said so on record…the fact that he was not identified does not mean the statement is not on the record.

Your claim was that everything Kerry said in the statement you quoted was contradicted by everyone who has served with Kerry and who has gone on record. I’ve shown you that people have gone on record with accounts that support what he said, even before he was ever a candidate.

More accounts by Swift Boat officers who found Hoffmann’s policies too bloodthirsty?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2975-2004Oct2.html

Note the comment toward the end:

“Douglas Brinkley says he soft-pedaled Hoffmann’s role in the book, but that he is ‘the most egregious example of blatant disregard for civilian casualties and for the lives of his men in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam.’ ”

Maybe Brinkley will make his sources public someday. We do know this: the source of the comment quoted in the book that infuriated Hoffmann so much, the one comparing him to the bloodthirsty Col. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now,” came from none other than former Swift Boat officer and congressman Jim Kolbe (R, Arizona), speaking for an oral history project of the Naval Archives. I guess that’s “on the record” too.

In short, I think we have a hard time facing up to what happened in Vietnam not because of the occasional exaggerations from the Kerry camp, but because of the extreme white-washing from the Swiftee side of the argument.

However, that being said, Kerry and the anti-war movement (as suggested above by Rebbe) just never came to grips with the systematic atrocities of the communists in Vietnam, from keeping hamlets in line with systematic assassinations to massacres like those that took place at Hue.

Of course, the ARVN were as bad as the VC in terms of abusing the populace…. and the ROKs (our allies from South Korea) were probably the worst of all.

In comparison to the VC, ARVN, and ROKs, the American troops fought a relatively clean war. Still, it was the New Zealanders and Australians in Vietnam, not the Americans, who were probably the most disciplined, atrocity-free troops of the war.

Anyway, as I say, I don’t think we’re that far apart in our thinking. It’s just that you’re saying the glass is half full, and I’m saying it’s half empty.

Best Wishes,
Keith

People who are welded to a narrative aren’t likely to let the facts get in the way.

In all the alleged American atrocities were there as many innocents killed as during the communist occupation of Hue?

And then you’ve got the documented massacres (My Lai, My Khe, Son Thang, the Tiger Force rampage, etc.), and the hundreds upon hundreds of smaller war crimes that took place as a result of the frustrations of a guerrilla war, and the U.S. command’s emphasis on body count, body count, body count–and never mind whose body is being counted as long as it’s Vietnamese.

So, yeah, I can’t stand 100% behind EVERY statement Kerry ever made, but, sorry, compared to the white-washers and atrocity-deniers in the SBVFT, he was on the side of the angels.

Best,
Keith

William Garlow clearly feels it went too far, but as a member of SBVT, also must disagree with Kerry, or else he would not have signed a letter denouncing Kerry’s statements, no? I think there is a big difference between “killing livestock” and “butchering a lot of innocent people”. KeithNolan: I simply disagree that the “butchering” comment is as you say, “absolutely unexceptional and entirely accurate”. Again, had Kerry just said that they were ordered to fire on buildings to draw out the enemy and that in the course of these actions, innocent people were certainly killed, or at least put in harms way… I would respect his statements. But he just can’t help embellishing. I think the rules of engagement that Bob Kerrey talks about in the article Skylark linked are very problematic and did lead to abuse. I still find no evidence that John Kerry did any of what he says he did… that is, “butchering a lot of innocent people”. I don’t doubt he heard stories and maybe talked with direct witnesses, but his testimony over the years has been delivered in the first person and is contradicted by the evidence. You say “Plenty of guys…” but list only one (Garlow, whose statements do not support Kerry’s claims anyways) and one other that refused to go on record – as I acknowledged.

“Does anyone think Kerry spent the Christmas of 1968 in Cambodia on an illegal, secret mission to insert CIA operatives?”

***

No.

He never said he was “on an illegal, secret mission to insert CIA operatives” on Chirstmas Eve 1968. He said he was on a routine patrol at the border.

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” Does anyone believe this Kerry quote:

‘We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people, and morale became so low among the officers on those ’swift boats’ that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That’s when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam.’

Everything in this quote is contradicted by everyone that served with Kerry – everyone willing to go on record, that is. ”

***

That’s not true. Plenty of guys did go on record, including at least one member of SBVT, William Garlow, in 2001:

~~Several officers, even some under Hoffmann’s command, said the rules then in effect allowed for too much violence. William Garlow says he and his fellow swift-boat commanders were ordered to shoot up villages almost at random. “We burned their hooches and killed their livestock,” he says. Even one of Hoffmann’s senior commanders in Cat Lo says the killing became indiscriminate. “I hated it,” says the former officer, who requested anonymity.~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/magazine/25KERREY.html?pagewanted=6&ei=5070&en=9672eb6e13f0feb9&ex=1216353600