No, they would come by after the shooting to grab the guns- this is pretty common.
But I did agree that the body counts were not reliable.
So, during Operation Speedy Express, a counterinsurgency operation designed to interdict Viet Cong operations in the Mekong Delta, the U.S. Army shot and killed 10,8898 VC fighters and then left the weapons lying there so they could be picked up by unarmed combatants with no attempt to take advantage of this ‘turkey shoot’???
You’re never going to get through to him that the 9th Infantry Division having the lowest weapons captured to body count ratios during the war had nothing to do with the absurd notion that the Viet Cong was “poorly supplied” in the Mekong Delta in 1968-69 and everything to do with the policy that every human being in a free fire zone was by default counted as a VC, resulting in absurd official kill ratios like 134:1. Particularly when he cites from the beginning of the war. Here’s something more relevant to the actual timeframe:
Overall, the supplies and equipment of communist units were adequate, and their infantry small-arms were a match for those of their opponents.[2] Contrary to some popular impressions of simple peasant farmers armed with low quality or obsolete weapons, the VC and PAVN main units (as well as the local forces in the latter years) were well equipped with modern arms either from Soviet bloc or Chinese sources. In the early years of the insurgency in the South a larger variety of weapons were used, ranging from World War I-era bolt-action rifles to World War II-era weapons, with procurement via a wide range of methods. Such variation and diversity lessened and standardized as the war went on. By 1970, the communist inventory was mostly standardized, even at the village guerrilla level.
The simple fact of the matter is that most of the people killed in Operation Speedy Express were unarmed civilians, and Speedy Express was hardly unique in terms of tactics used, only in the level of weapons found to people killed. Any village in a free fire zoned could be shelled and bombed at will, and any bodies, either physically found or created for the official body count was categorized as a VC or VC sympathizer.
I recall reading the perception that there were many smaller scale massacres that never became publicized. From the 1972 New Yorker article on My Lai by Seymour Hersh, emphasis added:
By the time the Army’s charges against Lieutenant Calley became known in the United States, most of the men of Bravo Company were back home and out of the Army. Only a few associated their activities in Bravo Company on March 16th with the operation that Calley was accused of participating in. One who did was Reid. He walked into a newspaper office in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in November, 1969, a few days after the Calley story broke, and gave an interview about the atrocities he had observed while he was serving with the 11th Brigade. He told of one operation in which, after some G.I.s had been wounded by a booby trap, his company responded by killing sixty women, children, and old men. Reid told me not long ago that he didn’t realize until months later that what had happened in his outfit was directly connected with Task Force Barker’s mission in Son My on March 16th. “Sometimes I thought it was just my platoon, my company, that was committing atrocious acts, and what bad luck it was to get in it,” Reid said. “But what we were doing was being done all over.”
Furthermore:
By March, 1968, murder, rape, and arson were common in many combat units of the Americal Division—particularly the 11th Brigade, in hostile Quang Ngai Province—but there were no official reports of them at higher levels. Most of the infantry companies had gone as far as to informally set up so-called Zippo squads—groups of men whose sole mission was to follow the combat troops through hamlets and set the hamlets on fire. Yet Koster, during one of his lengthy appearances before the Peers commission, calmly reported, “We had, I thought, a very strong policy against burning and pillaging in villages…
Seymour Hersh:
There was no conspiracy to destroy the village of My Lai 4, or to kill the villagers; what took place there had happened before in Quang Ngai Province and would happen again—although with less drastic results. The desire of Colonel Barker to mount another successful operation in the area, with a high enemy body count; the belief shared by all the principals that everyone living in Son My was living there by choice, because of Communist sympathies; the assurance that no officials of the South Vietnamese government would protest any act of war in Son My; and the basic incompetence of many intelligence personnel in the Army—all these factors combined to enable a group of normally ambitious men to mount an unnecessary mission against a nonexistent enemy force and somehow find evidence to justify it.
A thing that’s making me wonder is the immediate aftermath.
There were reports of what happened made within the army within hours of the massacre. But Calley was apparently not relieved of his command. As far as I can tell, he continued to command his platoon in the field for over another year.
I feel that if the massacre had been seen as a unique event, the army might have still chosen to cover it up - but they also would have placed Calley some place where he couldn’t cause another massacre. The fact that Calley continued to serve in the field makes it look to me like the army didn’t see anything unusual in what he had done.
Vietnam, in the field and on the front lines, was a mind fuck. So many good men got screwed up. We asked them to go over there and do a job. Did we ask them to rape and pillage and exterminate civilians? Of course not. But that is a consequence of the strategies and situations they were put in. Of course they should be prosecuted and held accountable, but it is also understandable.
If any of us were there, we likely would’ve done similar atrocities. I’d like to think that there is no way I would have, but I’m not naïve enough to think it would not have affected me or my actions.
It’s almost like, when in Rome…
Apparently, no one is reading my posts when I said those body counts were not reliable.
Likely exaggerated.
But you cant base that on number of weapons recovered.
Calley had no business being commissioned an officer in a combat unit, him a junior college dropout. That was Project 100,000, aka MacNamara’s Morons. And he was hardly an anomaly in that regard, so other units committing similar actions is no stretch of the imagination
People are reading your posts. They’re just not buying your absurd conclusion that the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta in 1969 were so poorly supplied that only 1 in 14.5 of them was armed, when the evidence from those who were actually there for the operation clearly demonstrates that most of those killed were civilians, and there was a drive by 9th Infantry Division command to produce the highest possible body counts totals and “VC” to GI body count ratios as possible by not actually caring if those killed were VC or not, since all the Vietnamese dead bodies would be counted as VC regardless.
Pulling a cite from the very start of the war between the Viet Cong and ARVN, prior to US involvement, and presenting it as if it were typical VC armament in 1968-69 was an extremely disingenuous attempt to buttress your absurd conclusion that the VC were ever anything like that poorly armed. As demonstrated by the cite I provided, the VC and PAVN was absolutely flooded with modern Soviet and Chinese small arms once the war picked up, particularly after the US directly intervened in the conflict. Not even village guerillas were using “shotguns and Thomson submachine guns” at that point. And village guerilla was the lowest on the rung of VC military organization structure:
Three tier VC military formation: The VC/PLAF military formations were generally grouped into 3 echelons.[3]
- VC Main-Force Units. The elite of the VC were the chu luc or Main Force Units, made up of full-time fighters. These units generally reported to one of the Interzone headquarters or were controlled directly by COSVN. Many of the soldiers were southern-born and had been trained in the north before re-infiltrating back to serve the Revolution. A majority of main-force fighters were party members, wore the pith helmet common to the PAVN , carried the same weapons, and could operate in battalion or even regimental size strengths. A typical battalion was similar to a PAVN one, with 400–600 men organized into 3 infantry companies backed by a fire support company. Recon, signals, sapper and logistics units rounded out the formation.[96]
- The Regional Forces. Regional or territorial units were also full-time soldiers but they generally served within or close to their home provinces. They did not have the degree of literacy of the main-force personnel, and did not have the percentage of Party members present in their ranks. They were not as well armed as the chu luc and usually operated in units that seldom exceeded company strength.
- Village guerrillas. Village, hamlet or local guerrillas were part-time fighters and helpers, carrying out minor harassment operations like sniping or mine/booby trap laying, building local fortifications or supply caches, and transporting supplies and equipment. Mostly peasant farmers, these militia style units were under the control of low level NLF or Front leadership.
While this has nothing to do with the case being discussed, carrying a weapon is not what makes someone a soldier. An unarmed man operating a radar or loading ammunition onto a truck is as legitimate a target as an infantryman holding a rifle.
Of course, things are much simpler when everyone is wearing uniforms.
I do not condone any killing that might have occurred. But I present here my experience in Army Basic Training, ca. 1966, in the “hand to hand combat” class, which I will never forget.
The class was led by a small, wiry, instructor with an attitude which sounded much like this (the last few lines are direct quotes as I remember them):
"So you captured a VC who was trying to kill you and he’s going to be your prisoner. He’s lyin’ on the ground at your feet. You have choices. You can guard him overnight, and when you fall asleep, he will get loose and slit your throat. Or you can take your rifle butt and smash his face now, and feel much safer tonight. What should you do? PUT HIM OUT OF HIS MISERY! Bash his head in! After all, he would do the same for you!"
Remove the word “modern” and you have the whole of human history. War unleashes the worst in human beings.
Then your citations and argument do not support that assertion.
Since I didnt say that. That must be your absurd conclusion.
Which is is what I agreed- that the body counts were unreliable.
Republic of Korea troops had a similar situation.
the US was doing that to Indian villages
That’s just the tip of the iceberg for ROK forces sent to Vietnam. South Korea in the Vietnam War Atrocities- Wikipedia:
Various civilian groups have accused the South Korean military of atrocities, while the Korean Ministry of Defense has denied all such accusations.[50]
Korean forces are alleged to have perpetrated the Binh Tai, Bình An/Tây Vinh, Bình Hòa, and Hà My massacres. Further incidents are alleged to have occurred in the villages of An Linh and Vinh Xuan in Phú Yên Province.[51]
In 1972, Vietnamese-speaking American Friends Service Committee members Diane and Michael Jones looked at where Korean forces operated in Quảng Ngãi and Quảng Nam Provinces and alleged they had conducted 45 massacres, including 13 in which over 20 unarmed civilians were purportedly killed.[52][53] The Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre is confirmed to have taken place within these two provinces.[53] A separate refugee study by RAND employee Terry Rambo, reported in a 1970 New York Times story, conducted interviews in early to mid 1966 in Phu Yen Province which confirmed that widespread atrocities had occurred. These included systemic mass-killings and deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds.
When Korean forces were deployed to I Corps in 1968, U.S. Marine General Rathvon M. Tompkins stated that “whenever the Korean Marines received fire or think [they got] fired on from a village… they’d divert from their march and go over and completely level the village. It would be a lesson to [the Vietnamese]”. General Robert E. Cushman Jr. stated several years later that “we had a big problem with atrocities committed by them which I sent down to Saigon.”[59] presumably in reference to the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.
I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
My Lai was when we reached the end of the trough of lies, started with Tonkin Gulf. That hadn’t exactly been the Pearl Harbor moment hoped for, but lies, like hope, springs eternal. And 9/11 had been a genuine Pearl Harbor moment, but we Tonkin-Gulfed it anyway and invaded Iraq.
Even before My Lai our credibility was shot, so that Tet couldn’t be sold as a US victory, even though by every yardstick it was. (On a personal note: my second wife, as a six year old, was hiding under the bed with the family maid in Saigon during Tet. She went on to have an unhappy life. My current SO’s mother, whom I helped nurse until her death in 2021, was on a Honolulu bus while Japanese planes and US shells flew overhead in 1941. I can’t help but wonder how different they’d have been as people without those experiences.)
Anyway, as for the Koreans, I’d read that the area of “Pinkville,” which included My Lai, had been under them earlier. They’d been sloppy about mapping where they’d laid mines, and left the whole mess to the Americans who relieved them. The Vietnamese farmers of course paid close attention to where mines were being planted. So when the Americans were stepping on mines while the farmers were going about their day unscathed, the Americans blamed the farmers.
That’s what immediately came to mind reading the thread title.
I can almost understand fear and murder and killing. What always horrifies me is the prevalence of rape in these situations. How does your fear make it ok to rape?
Ugh. It happens in every battle and every war. Women and children and sometimes men too are raped.