re:"Part of Senator John Kerry's appeal to a certain segment of Americans is his Vietnam-veteran status coupled with his antiwar activism during that period. On April 12, 1971, Kerry told the U.S. Congress that American soldiers claimed to him that they had, "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned on the power, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."
Are you that naive that you deny that this sort of thing occured????? Have you been living in a cave all your life???
Try this:
THE SERIES: Elite unit savaged civilians in Vietnam
These Tiger Force soldiers fan out while patrolling the Song Ve Valley in a 1967 photo taken by a former platoon member. The unit committed an untold number of atrocities in the valley as part of a seven-month campaign of terror.
( THE BLADE )
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c THE BLADE, 2003
It was an elite fighting unit in Vietnam - small, mobile, trained to kill.
Known as Tiger Force, the platoon was created by a U.S. Army engaged in a new kind of war - one defined by ambushes, booby traps, and a nearly invisible enemy.
Promising victory to an anxious American public, military leaders in 1967 sent a task force - including Tiger Force - to fight the enemy in one of the most highly contested areas of South Vietnam: the Central Highlands.
But the platoon's mission did not go as planned, with some soldiers breaking the rules of war.
THE SERIES
DAY ONE
The farmers of the Song Ve Valley thought they would be safe. They were too old to serve in the military and not aligned with the North Vietnamese. But the farmers were wrong. Tiger Force soldiers killed farmers, villagers, and prisoners in the valley and across the Central Highlands in the longest series of war crimes of the Vietnam War.
DAY TWO
The cover-up began before the killing ended. And by the time the Army finished its investigation - which was sent to the Pentagon and the White House - no one was ever charged. A justice system that promised to prosecute war criminals ended up protecting them.
DAY THREE
Thirty-six years later, the reminders of Tiger Force's rampage through Quang Ngai province are everywhere, and the stories of their atrocities are still told by Vietnamese villagers. To this day, the shooting deaths evoke anger in those who survived the attacks - with some calling for the former American soldiers to be prosecuted.
DAY FOUR
Many former Tiger Force soldiers say they're haunted by their memories of the killings and mutilations of prisoners and unarmed villagers in 1967. Ten have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Some have turned to alcohol and drugs to ease their pain.
Women and children were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers. Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and executed - their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings.
Two soldiers tried to stop the killings, but their pleas were ignored by commanders. The Army launched an investigation in 1971 that lasted 41/2 years - the longest-known war-crime investigation of the Vietnam conflict.
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