I sincerely hope that you are dissuaded from this completeely asinine view early in your Air Force Basic Training.
And before you react and say “Monty doesn’t know what it’s like” here’s the list of ranks I’ve held:
PV1, PV2, PFC, SP4, and SP5 - US Army
SP5 and SGT - US Army Reserves
PN2 and PN1 - US Navy
And am now retired.
Well said, Scylla.
Before my uncle passed away, he reluctantly told me about his gruesome combat experiences throughout Europe during WWII, culminating in the Battle of the Bulge–or the Belgium Bulge as many called it. The atrocities on both sides, he said, were staggering, the inhumanity appalling.
He said that sometimes large numbers of German soldiers would attempt to surrender and that, after awhile, it was not uncommon to machine gun the entire lot of them and then move on without any qualms at the time. Hate to pick on the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings–inasmuch as I would have supported them–but more than 250,000 “innocents” were killed. Same for the fire bombings of Tokyo and the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, and many other cities in Germany and elsewhere. Another of my relatives was a gunner in a B-24 and he said when you drop a payload of explosives from 20,000 feet, massive collateral damage is the norm.
Of course, then there’s the Civil War, WWI, Korea…
Monty, I don’t understand your objection. Civilians are victims in any war. They do die. It does happen. That’s all I was saying.
That’s not asinine, just realistic. I made no assertion that people in the Armed Services intentionally killed people. That would be unfair, and very irresponsible.
I just pointed out a truism of war. If I said it in a manner that you maybe did not approve of, well, I’m sorry.
But I DO stand by what I said. Collateral Damage is a price that is paid in every war. And probably always will be.
Does anyone else object to what I said? And if so, why?
Debi:
If you don’t want people to generalize, it’s best not to do so yourself.
I’m thinking what Senator Kerry was getting at was the way the government blocked elections, and prevented Vietnamese from voting who they really wanted to see in office(a communist, since the majority of Vietnamese accepted communism, north and south alike).
Doing so is not democratic in any way, infact its dictatorial by taking away the people’s right to govern themselves. The United States was basically protecting the interests of the elite rich minority. Comparable to Hitler, but still a bit too extreme seeing as death camps were not evident.
There were even blocked elections in our own country. Blacks weren’t able to vote right away, even after the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed.
The government’s misjudgments of friends and enemies alike, reflected its ignorance of the history, culture and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
… Sorry got off on a bit of a tangent there.
from the very beginning i was against it (based on everything i read and heard). I had some friends who were gung ho and wanted to “teach those little yellow people a lesson” and “kill commies”. I realized they were pretty immature. I did not identify with such sentiments.
I got a job teaching high school after I graduated from college. I did “volunteer” for the navy and found I was not fit (just as you indicated in your posting. This was right after the Holy Father had come out against the Vietnam War. I worked in the VA for a couple of years helping veterans and also worked with delinquents in medium security facilities. So I do not hang my head in shame.
I do not caricature or judge all those who fought so it is not necessary to caricature or condemn all those who did not fight. God is the judge of us all.
Two of the civilians who were in the village in question now says that the victims were deliberately rounded up and executed.
This whole thing is starting to look more and more like a miniature My Lai . . . and the fact that one of the participants went on to become a politician whose career may be destroyed by the emergence of the story makes it look eerily like Tim O’Brien’s excellent novel In the Lake of the Woods.
It might be usefull in this thread to make a distinction between the kinds of things the ground soldiers did, and the policies of the war set by the government.
First of all, even if all the killed were NLF’s and their supporters, that’s a crime. Remember, we were “defending” a political minority. In any free elections in Vietnam, Diem’s gov’t would certainly be out - this is something our government realized. So while we call it a “defense” it’s really more of an offense than a defense, since the military action is against the majority rather than the minority.
At any rate, actions like My Lai (as I have pointed out before with cite, thought not to be rare) were only part of the atrocities. Remember Agent Orange? It’s incidental contact with it’s handlers caused severe medical problems, and provoked outrage. Think of the effect this had on the Vietnamese, who not only lost their lives or health because of this, but also had their countryside destroyed. This is something that does not target the VC, it targets everyone.
Also the incessing bombing and harassment designed to drive peasants into the cities (which were largely also destroyed) is an essentially an anti-civilian policy.
First of all, I have to point out that Kerrey won the Congressional Medal of Honor in a different incident. Out of the tens of millions of American servicemen who fought in wars in this century, there are only 147 living Medal of Honor recipients. So the man’s bravery and devotion to duty are beyond question.
Second, there are reasons why the villager’s eyewitness accounts may not match those of the soldiers - this was a night action, incredibly chaotic and confusing even for the soldiers. I can’t imagine what it was like for the civilians, but given the horror of the event it’s entirely possible that their recollections of what happened are somewhat exaggerated and one-sided. What they saw as being ‘rounded up’ may just have been people collecting together out of defense and then being shot down in a barrage of fire. Also, they are clearly biased, and understandably so. If your parents and children were gunned down by soldiers who invaded your home, would you be very likely to see the other side of the story?
Also, there were other members on this SEAL team, and they weren’t all in Kerrey’s direct view. It’s entirely possible that one or two of them came across a group of people and shot them without Kerrey seeing it.
Finally, it’s possible that it happened the way that the Villagers remember it. Remember, this wasn’t just a chance encounter with a group of civilians by a bunch of soldiers on patrol. Kerrey was leading an elite SEAL team on a mission deep behind enemy lines. What do you do if you’ve been told that your mission is highly important, and you’re in a situation where a handful of civilians are in your way? If you let them go, there’s a high probability that they are sympathic with the Viet Cong and will report your actions. That means virtually zero chance of completing the mission. It also means virtually zero chance that any of the men, who are your friends and comrades, will ever get home alive.
Sitting here in front of my keyboard I’d like to say that I would never have willingly traded the lives of innocents for my life, but I’ve never been in combat. Especially a guerrilla conflict against a citizen army. And I damned sure have never won a Medal of Honor. So my opinion of what Kerrey ‘should have’ done is completely worthless.
Leave the man alone. He’s clearly haunted by the ghosts of those people, and that alone is probably more punishment that a great hero and citizen like him deserves.
I also think there is a general hypocrisy when it comes to evaluating wartime actions. Air strikes were routinely called on ‘suspected’ VC villages. Every person who called one of those strikes had to know that innocent women and children would be dead in a few minutes as a result of his actions. How does it make a difference when you kill the same person by pointing a gun at them and pulling the trigger? Clearly, if you do it just out of spite or hatred it’s a war crime. But in this situation, where letting the people live will result in the deaths of Americans and the failure of a mission you’ve been told is very important, I’m not sure there is a distinction.
As an aside, even though Kerrey is on the opposite side of the political fence than I, I’ve always had the greatest of admiration for him, back from before I even learned that he was a veteran let alone a CMH winner.
Here’s a great link to some more details on Kerrey’s mission, along with his Medal of Honor citation:
http://www.mishalov.com/Kerrey.html
BTW, let me go off on a tangent and put in a word for James Stockdale. Remember him? The guy who ran as Vice Presidential Candidate with Ross Perot? The guy who was savaged mercilessly by the media and pundits for being ‘stupid’, ‘senile’, etc.? Well, here’s his citation:
http://www.mishalov.com/Stockdale.html
A great hero, a brilliant scholar with several doctorates, and an Admiral in the U.S. Navy, this guy was trivialized and ridiculed for no other reason than that he wasn’t telegenic, and refused to play the game with the media circus. (Not that I was a Perot fan - I think he’s basically nuts. But Stockdale didn’t deserve what he got. Do me a favor - read the citation, and think about what that guy did the next time his name enters your consciousness - he deserves to be remembered by all as something other than the old man who said, “Who am I? Why am I here?” on nationwide TV).
OK, here goes. I was in Vietnam (and it is Vietnam not “Nam”. Have that much respect for the country) for a tour and generally I do not speak about it - mostly because it usually gets weird just like this thread has. Also I didn’t always like what I saw (no, I never saw a massacre). I mean internally not externally.
We were not Nazis, nor were we John Wayne or Chuck Norris, nor were we some kind of saints. I also never knew anyone who thought we were trying to save mankind from the evil red menace. At least not until they came home and had to have a reason for being there.
We were young kids away from home, many for the first time. Have you ever seen teenagers away from home, pretty much on their own? That’s how we acted. So yes, we did a lot of stupid things. Occasionally we did things wrong and occasionally we did things right. Most of the time we tried to do as little as possible (like most teenagers) and to do what we did do as far away from the chance of death and killing (We did not always succeed) as we could get.
Do post adolescent males get carried away with violence and get on people’s nerves? Just look at Toronto a couple of weeks ago or any of five or six locations on Fat Tuesday this year. Imagine what would happen if you gave those same males M14s and M16.
Did we do some good? Yes, I knew people who worked with kids and adults at hospitals and schools. But in reality we were an occupaying army. We didn’t mean to be, but that’s what it ended up being in a lot of cases. So people got tired of us. We could have been all Mother Theresas and we would have been resented by a good portion of the population.
Did Kerrey do something he is sorry he did. Of course he is, which of us who have lived past 25 hasn’t? Would he do it differently now, of course he would. But was he a Nazi. Of course, he’s not. Look at the man’s record and the record of everyone else who served.
Like Kerrey, I was medi-evacuated out of country and like Kerrey, it is not one of those things I talk a lot about. We were people in the wrong place at the wrong time maybe trying to do something we thought was right, at least part of the time.
TV
Actually, in Tieng Viet, the country’s name is Viet Nam. Some folks spell it with a dash (Viet-Nam) and some without. When I studied the language at DLI back in 1983~1984, I learned that much on the first day.
Monty:
(Page 226 Associated Press Stylebook)
“Vietnam – Not Viet Nam”
(American Heritage Dictionary)
“Vietnam”
(The New York Public Library Desk Reference)
“Vietnam”
With all due respect Monty, I haven’t seen it spelled as two words for at least 20 years.
TV
There’s a good story about Kerrey’s service in Vietnam in this week’s Time. You can read it at http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010507/cover.html
One interesting part of the piece is the description of the mission for which Kerrey won the Medal of Honor. The events are as decribed in Sam Stone’s link above, but the Time story makes it clear the Medal of Honor was a political decision rather than one based on merit:
The point I was making, and I thought it was patently obvious, is that the language of the country in question actually does spell it as two words. I see it that way quite often, what with reading, writing, and speaking the language and living where I do in California and interactint with peoople from that country every day. So, since that’s the way the folks from the country in question actually spell it, it’s kind of ASININE to bitch about not spelling it as one word.
From where I sit, it looks to me like you were justifying this statement:
But, you see, the OP actually did make that statement. Not only is such an action as described in the OP unfair and irresponsible, it is also a violation of the UCMJ. Every military unit has the punitivie articles of same posted prominently for the instruction of their members. Murder, of course, is a violation.
Intentional massacre of civilians may be a truism of war in some places, it certainly isn’t one for the US Armed Forces.
Thanks. As I said just above, it looked to me like you were justifying the statement in the OP.
Collateral Damage is damage/destruction/loss of life incurred during a legitimate military attack. It most certainly not is an act of mass murder.
I really don’t care if anyone else objects to it or not. My point is that I objected to it for the reasons I just gave. Okay, maybe I should’ve added all this stuff in my initial comment. We’ve covered a lot of this stuff before in the SDMB’s earlier incarnation and I actually do forget sometimes that not everyone on this board particpated in that one.
To sum up:
[ul]Collateral Damage: Tragic, happens, and the military of our country at least are doing what they can to reduce it. Also, collateral damage is as I described it, not the mass murder described in the OP.[/ul]
[ul]Murder (to include mass murder): violation of the UCMJ.[/ul]
Monty:
Thanks for your clarification. It’s clear that you misunderstood what I was saying, and your explanation was helpful.
I’ll try to be more specific in the future.
The “second” story has come out, supposedly not from a Vietnamese civilian, but from the “senior” member of the 7 man team. He claims that they were in the “ville” looking for a Viet Cong operative. When they came to the first “hooch” they used knives to kill a set of grandparents, a man, woman and child. They then systematically went through the entire “ville” rounding up mostly women and children, roughly 15 in all. They never found the “operative”. But when they realized that they had some dead civilians on their hands they didn’t know what to do so they shot the others.
I’m sure the real “truth” will never come out but if this version of the story is true then it is clear that this unit committed a war crime. The problem here now is that we find ways to excuse this type of behavior as long as it’s Americans doing it. We submit others who systematically slaughter innocents during war to international courts where they are held accountable for these actions.
This kind of behavior is one of the reasons that the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of hypocrites. I really cannot see any point in dragging this mess up again after 30 years but since we have…
We need to look at this issue and how we can adhere to the same standards that we require of others.
Needs2know
The “second” story has come out, supposedly not from a Vietnamese civilian, but from the “senior” member of the 7 man team. He claims that they were in the “ville” looking for a Viet Cong operative. When they came to the first “hooch” they used knives to kill a set of grandparents, a man, woman and child. They then systematically went through the entire “ville” rounding up mostly women and children, roughly 15 in all. They never found the “operative”. But when they realized that they had some dead civilians on their hands they didn’t know what to do so they shot the others.
I’m sure the real “truth” will never come out but if this version of the story is true then it is clear that this unit committed a war crime. The problem here now is that we find ways to excuse this type of behavior as long as it’s Americans doing it. We submit others who systematically slaughter innocents during war to international courts where they are held accountable for these actions.
This kind of behavior is one of the reasons that the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of hypocrites. I really cannot see any point in dragging this mess up again after 30 years but since we have…
We need to look at this issue and how we can adhere to the same standards that we require of others.
Needs2know
Monty:
Monty, I think the point he was making in the first place was simply that he finds use of “Nam” to be disrespectful. Regardless of whether it’s two words or not, in whatever language.
Now, if the Vietnamese themselves call it Nam, that’s another matter. But the name of the country, whether Viet Nam or Vietnam, still has more than one syllable.
Lots of folks here that I know. I agree with everything that has been said and that will be said on this thread. Keep posting and posting and posting. Bye…bye