All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Wonderful strange stories from around the world

Murder in a combat zone

MOVE IMAGE DOWN AND IN....

Even in war rape and murder are capital crimes
By David Cocksedge

OFFICIALLY, THE USA was never at war with North Vietnam. First there were military advisers working in Saigon from 1957. Then, when President Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) ordered marines to storm the beach at Da Nang in March 1965, and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was formed, the USA was merely rendering military assistance to the South Vietnamese Government in apposing the Communist-backed regime based in Hanoi. The controversial and highly selective draft process angered many Americans, and the unofficial war became such a political hot potato that it was tearing the nation apart before the end of the 1960's.

During the USA's military involvement from 1965 to 1975, there were many atrocities committed by the Communists, South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers, and Americans. The most infamous was the My Lai (pronounced 'mee-lie') incident on 16 March 1968, when a unit of the American Division under Lieutenant William L. Calley Junior massacred 504 Vietnamese civilians in a hamlet close to the South China Sea. Calley was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in 1971 but was paroled and allowed back to civilian life in 1974 on the orders of President Richard Nixon (1913-1994).

But almost two years earlier, there was another serious case involving a patrol operating in the Central Highlands; and this incident was the basis for a powerful 1989 Colombia Pictures movie directed by Brian DePalma. The film was titled 'Casualties of War' and told the story of how a young Vietnamese civilian girl was abducted from her home, then gang-raped before being killed by four American soldiers. One Private refused to participate in what he knew to be capital crimes, and eventually testified against his former comrades in arms in a famous Court Martial case.

On 16 November 1966, a black Lieutenant named Harold Reilly ordered 20-year-old Sergeant Tony Meserve to lead a reconnaissance patrol in combing a sector of the Central Highlands for signs of Viet Cong (VC) activity, gather information on enemy strength in the area and report back to central command. The mission was to last five days. Under New Yorker Meserve was Corporal Ralph Clark (22) from Philadelphia. The GI's making up the rest of the platoon were twenty year old cousins Rafael ('Rafe') and Manuel Diaz from Amarillo, Texas, plus Private First Class Sven Eriksson (22) from a small farming community in North-Western Minnesota.

On the following afternoon the members of the newly formed unit met in the corner of the platoon's headquarters area, near the village of My Tho where they sat around and smoked as they listened to a briefing from Sgt. Meserve. The latter was assertive and confident. Though he was the patrol's youngest soldier, he was also it's most experienced. A volunteer of three years standing, he had fought in Vietnam for a year, had been decorated several times, and was also 'short' - due to return to the USA. The common phrase was, "rotate back to the World", in less than a month. Clark was tall and blond, and given to quick movements and abrupt decisions that often reflected Meserve's thinking in an exaggerated form. He appeared to hero-worship the younger man because of the latter's combat experience. Rafael and Manuel Diaz were fairly cheerful individuals, but devoted to a sense of duty. They were prone to follow any order. Eriksson carried a grenade launcher, a single-action weapon resembling a small shotgun.

Echoing the instructions that a battalion officer had given him earlier, Meserve informed the four other men of the duties that each was expected to carry out, of the chain of command in the field, and of radio-communication arrangements with platoon command. Consulting the grid co-ordinates of a map, he described a precise westerly route that the patrol was to follow. It was to take them to Hill 192 in the Bong Song valley to a height that overlooked a ravine with a cave complex; ideal country for Viet Cong activity. The patrol was to map out any bunkers, trenches and trails that were not already on the map, and also look out for caches of enemy weapons, ammunition and equipment. Meserve reminded the men that they were to avoid any firefights unless fired on. They were simply a 'pony patrol' sent out to collect early-warning information of enemy movements.

Then Meserve laid it on them. He concluded that they were "going to have a good time on the mission", because he was going to see to it that they found a local Vietnamese girl and take her along "for the morale of the squad." For five days they would avail themselves of her body and then dispose of her to keep the girl from ever accusing them of abduction and rape - both listed as capital crimes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Meserve described what he planned as "some mobile R&R for you guys."

Eriksson reacted with silent horror, but Clark greeted Meserve's intention with enthusiasm. The two Diazes' laughed, possibly out of embarrassment. Only Clark seemed to know that Meserve was completely serious about what he planned to do. At 4.30am the next day, Meserve checked his men's gear at the edge of the camp, and the five men then filed out in the faintly humid darkness. Twenty minutes later, moving unhurriedly in the grey dawn, Meserve led his men two kilometers to the east - a flagrant deviation from the westward route the sergeant had described at the briefing. They were approaching the hamlet of Cat Tuong in the district of Phu My.

The others watched as Meserve and Clark searched several hooches, before they found one that contained a female ideal for their purposes. The girl they seized and bound with rope in front of her horrified mother and younger sister was 18-year-old Pan Thi Mao. Clark and Meserve pushed the bound girl ahead of them as they rejoined the other three men. Daylight was coming on fast, and Meserve did not want helicopter crews flying overhead to spot their prisoner. When her mother ran up to them with a scarf for her daughter, Clark seized it and stuffed it into Mao's mouth. They then moved rapidly out into the jungle canopy to get back on their intended westward patrol route. After a kilometer or so, Manuel Diaz untied Mao's hands and loaded his pack onto her shoulders. She was now doubling as a pack mule and comfort girl. As she wept silently at her plight, Eriksson became increasingly worried about the way things were going.

Meserve led them at a brisk pace and they were soon back on their official route. They passed through some scenic countryside; some of it browned by napalm, before Meserve ordered a stop for chow at 8am. The girl was not offered anything as the men ate, but Meserve gave her an aspirin tablet washed down with water from his canteen when he saw that she was flushed and coughing slightly. Eriksson noticed that she had a gold tooth. After eating breakfast, the patrol moved on.

At 10.30am, a short distance below the summit of Hill 192, Meserve found what he sought - a command post for the day. It was abandoned hooch, eight feet square and eight feet high, with a window on the east side, a door on the west, and two slits facing north and south. And there was a stream a few meters away, giving the patrol a ready source of water. The building contained a table, a low bench built against a wall, and tattered remnants of a straw mat strewn in a dark corner. The dirt floor was littered with scrap metal, rocks and cans. The structure was in a state of extreme disrepair, but it was essentially intact, and Meserve quickly converted it into an arsenal. Guns, grenades and ammunition were dumped on the dirt floor. Mao was taken inside as Eriksson and Rafe Diaz set about cleaning up the hooch. Meserve then went off with Clark and Manuel Diaz to take a careful look around for enemy activity.

The sergeant and his two men returned an hour later, and enjoyed a hearty meal with Eriksson and Manuel Diaz, eating it outdoors. Meserve glanced at his fellows and indicated Mao crouched inside the hooch. "It's time for some fun", he said. Clark was eager to be first in, but Meserve stopped him. He confronted Eriksson, whom he could see did not want any part of what was to take place. When Eriksson told Meserve that he would not participate in an act of rape, Meserve quietly warned him that he would run the risk of being reported a 'friendly casualty'. Meserve knew that Eriksson might report them all to Military Justice if he was not part of the crime. Eriksson still refused to take his turn. Then Meserve attacked Eriksson's manliness, deriding him in front of the others as 'queer' and 'chicken'. Still Eriksson refused. When Meserve justified their actions by saying that they were merely "questioning a VC suspect", Eriksson reminded him that they did not have orders to take prisoners and in any case, the girl surely knew nothing about military matters. Meserve told him to "go away and play with yourself."

As the chain rape got under way, Eriksson moved away from the hooch and sat down along on the grassy turf to one side of the structure. Periodically he raised his raised his field glasses to check distance points as he cradled his M79 grenade launcher, known as a 'blooper' in military slang. In his testimony later, Eriksson said, "The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. I figured somebody would have to be out there for security, because there were VC in the area."

Meserve was the first to enter the hooch and soon a high, piercing moan of pain and despair came from the young Vietnamese girl. The sergeant came out twenty minutes later, and swaggeringly told his men just how good she had been. He signaled that Rafe was next, and to spare himself ridicule, Rafe Diaz walked into the hooch. Rafe said that he found Mao naked on the table, her hands bound behind her back. Clark watched from a hole in the wall as his comrade raped the helpless girl, and let out whoops of delight that mingled with her cries. He was the next man inside, and told the others that he held a knife to her throat as he took his pleasure. Clark displayed a ten-inch long hunting knife that became evidence in court later. Then it was Manuel's turn. Altogether, the visitation of the four young soldiers lasted just under 90 minutes - an eternity for the helpless young girl that they had forced themselves upon.

Eriksson was left alone to guard the girl and ammunition later when the others went out to climb Hill 192 and check on enemy activity. Eriksson comforted Mao as much as possible, and fed her some crackers with beef stew and water - the first food she had been allowed in hours. He was in a turmoil of indecision, tempted to get her out of there, and back to her village, but he knew he would then be charged with desertion. They were also deep in enemy territory, and prone to ambush. Then he heard gunfire as Meserve and his men made contact with a VC patrol and exchanged shots. Meserve called for artillery support, and had an area of jungle close to the stream bombarded by shells. The VC soon melted away into the nearby cave complex. The men returned to the hooch, and Clark was all for executing Mao then and there. She was feverish and coughing continually. Meserve instead ordered Eriksson to shoot the girl, knowing this would then make him an accomplice in crime and therefore part of a conspiracy of silence about the incident. He quoted an old Vietnam War saying, "What goes down in the field, stays in the field." Eriksson again refused. Meserve accused him of being a "goddam pansy faggot."

The five men and Mao slept that night in the hooch, with the soldiers taking turns to mount guard. At dawn, Meserve ordered Rafe, Manuel and Eriksson to fill the patrol's water canteens from the stream and then all six of them proceeded up Hill 192. They made the summit just after 9am, when five Vietcong soldiers saw them and opened fire. The patrol took cover, and Meserve now firmly ordered Eriksson to knife the girl and toss her body off the hill. Eriksson once again refused, and it was Clark who took Mao behind a bush and stabbed her three times in the neck and chest. He left her presumed dead.

Meantime, Meserve had again called for military support. He reached Lt. Reilly, who agreed that the VC should be located and ambushed, and promised helicopter gunships to sweep the area. Two ships soon arrived and began to strafe the ground with rockets and mini-gun fire according to co-ordinates that Manuel had radioed in. Just as the men moved out to comb the cave complex, Mao suddenly emerged from the bush, staggering along and weeping. She was drenched in blood from her stab wounds. Clark shouted, "Hell, that f******g bitch is still alive! I stuck her more than twice!" He and Rafe then fired long bursts on automatic at the girl with their M-16 rifles. Mao crumpled to the ground, then slowly toppled off the hillside into a ravine some 30 feet below. She was finally dead.

Once again, in spite of the enormous firepower of the Americans, the VC disappeared into their caves, and the action ended in a frustrating search. Rafe Diaz was wounded and taken out of the fray by 'medavac' (medical evacuation). Meserve reported the girl as "one VC, KIA" (one Vietcong, killed in action) and that's how Mao's death was initially reported. She was a combat casualty; one for the official body count, which was how MACV measured progress in this nasty little war. The aborted patrol returned to base.

When Eriksson later reported what had happened to Lt. Reilly, he was told to "forget it". Reilly told him of how he had once been denied hospital facilities for his heavily pregnant wife, because he had rushed her to a 'whites only' establishment. The gist of his argument was that life was full of injustices, and one must learn to roll with the punches and live with them. Reilly knew that if the atrocity became public, it would tarnish the whole regiment, revealing that the officers could not control their men

Eriksson then took his case to Captain Vorst, but all he did was break up the patrol unit, and offer to move Eriksson to a safe area, where he would not be threatened by the others. Vorst said that he did not wish the girl's fate to mushroom into "an international incident" once the press got onto the story. Like Reilly, he expressed no particular concern for Mao and her sad demise. Eriksson signed papers to transfer out of the regiment and take up a posting as a door gunner at Camp Radcliff, the Division base of 1st Cavalry (Airmobile), seventy miles away. It was here that Eriksson finally found someone who was prepared to act. Through Boyd Greenacre, a fellow Mormon, he was introduced to Captain Kirk, an army Chaplain who was prepared to hear his story.

Kirk listened intently to Sven's version of what had happened on the ill-fated patrol. He had entered the Mormon priesthood after serving ten years as a policeman on the Salt Lake City force. "I listened to Sven's story with a cop's ear", the Chaplain said. "I wanted to be very sure that he himself had not taken part in the gang rape of that poor girl. He might have been trying to save his neck by turning state's evidence, so to speak." But if Eriksson had also raped Mao, why would he come forward now, especially as he had been told by two senior officers to "forget it"? There was undeniable logic that he was telling the truth. Kirk called the Criminal Investigation Division office, and in ten minutes two agents of the division interviewed Eriksson, and then placed him in 'protective custody'. Kirk and Greenacre knew that if Meserve and Clark wanted to eliminate Eriksson as a potential witness they had their M-16's and grenades to do it. It was not unusual later in the war for awkward or obnoxious officers to be 'fragged' (killed with fragmentation grenades) by their own men whilst operating out in the field.

On 9 December an investigative team flew from An Khe to search the area around Hill 192, and Eriksson led them to the decomposing remains of the Vietnamese girl. They found out her name by reference back to her village, and gathered a harvest of evidence including bullet fragments. They also took hundreds of photos to be used in court later.

The four courts-martial took place in the winter of 1967 at Camp Radcliff within a period of ten days in the middle of March. In spite of numerous attacks on his character by defence lawyers, Eriksson was firm in the delivery of his evidence against Meserve, Clark and both Diaz cousins. They had brutally chain raped the young girl, and then Clark and Rafe Diaz had stabbed and shot her. And all the forensic evidence backed up his claims. Also, Mao's sister Phan Thi Loc appeared as a prosecution witness and identified Clark and Meserve as the men who had abducted her older sister at gunpoint.

Though Meserve's bravery in combat was praised in court, he was found guilty. All four defendants were dishonorably discharged and deprived of pay. All four soldiers were sentenced to hard labor at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Forth Leavenworth, Kansas. Rafe Diaz was given eight years for the crimes of rape and premeditated murder. Clark, convicted of rape and premeditated murder, was sentenced to life imprisonment. Amazingly, Meserve, the instigator of the whole incident, was found not guilty of rape but guilty of unpremeditated murder, and sentenced to a term of ten years in jail. Later, some of these sentences were reduced on technical grounds. Both Rafe and Manuel Diaz (15 years for rape) had not been fully informed of their rights before they went on trial, and obtained lesser jail terms on appeal.

Sven Eriksson's tour of duty in Vietnam came to an end on 28 November 1967; a year after the patrol visited Mao's hamlet and led her away to her death. He was glad to take his last look at the unhappy ground below his 'freedom bird' as he flew from Cam Ranh Bay back to his home in Minnesota.

In the movie 'Casualties of War', Michael J Fox, taking a break from comedy roles, put out an exceptional performance as Sven Eriksson, and Sean Penn was also superb as Sgt. Tony Meserve, a young man totally brutalized by war. Director Brian dePalma brought home the horror of a war without purpose and heroes without valor. The Vietnam conflict seared the soul of the United States of America, and will not be easily forgotten by the men and women who served there.

(Research: 'Casualties of War' by Daniel Lang, Hodder and Stoughton).

Prior | Tell us what you think | Next

Add to Your Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Simpy Spurl Y! MyWeb - StumbleUpon