Tiger Force

A commenter asked my opinion about the "Tiger Force" controversy.  As it happened I had given my opinion some time ago to a correspondent.  I don't believe that I posted this on the blog.

Pat Lang

From: Patrick Lang [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:22 PM
To: 'Michael Keyes'
Subject: RE: Tiger Force

Attachments: tigercrest.jpg

Dr. Keyes

Yes.  I have read it.  As it happens the "Newshour" once asked me to research the "Tiger Force" because their media reporter wanted to make a fuss over the series that had been written for a Cleveland or Cincinnati newspaper and for which they had received a journalism prize.  After looking at this my conclusion was, and is that the story has been sensationalized and exaggerated wildly and irresponsibly.

The unit in question was the reconnaissance platoon of a line infantry battalion of the 101st Division.  The battalion was 1/327 Infantry Regiment.  A VN airmobile infantry battalion had four rifle companies, and a headquarters company.  The rifle companies had around 150 men each most of the time and the headquarters company had in it the battalion mortar platoon, headquarters and signal people and the battalion reconnaissance platoon with around 35 men commanded by a lieutenant.  The function of this platoon was to scout around, do reconnaissance and perform force protection for the battalion by patrolling out around the battalion so that surprise would not occur.  You may know that in the Army the commander of any ground reconnaissance unit is always referred to as "Tiger."  I have attached the unofficial and unauthorized breast patch that these men devised for themselves.  The members of the platoon were ordinary airborne infantrymen of the VN War period.  They were paratroopers.  The 101st in VN was an airmobile division not a paratroop division but there was one brigade in it that was on "jump status."  Nobody in the battalion was a Special Forces or Special Operations soldier.  This platoon was not a special anything.

The number 120 as to the number of people involved is highly misleading.  The platoon numbered maybe a third of that.  But in VN rotations were continual both back to the states and to other units in the battalion and division.  This unit was probably a desired location for enlisted people since these 35 men and their lieutenant were pretty much at liberty to wander around the area of operations of the battalion.  Soldiers like being in small units on detached duty believing correctly that they are more likely to escape from fatigue details and the close supervision of senior sergeants and officers.  As a result they seek this kind of duty.  Given the opportunity, junior soldiers will always describe their duties in the "sexiest" possible terms.  Would they say that their platoon was "special?"  You bet they would, then and subsequently to anyone who would listen.

It seems likely that the battalion commander during the period under discussion (along with the intelligence and operations staff of the battalion) at the very least failed to exercise adequate supervision over the recon platoon and that the members of the platoon committed various excesses against the Vietnamese population of the province in which they were located.  So far as I know, the misdeeds of this little unit were limited to a four month period.  This probably corresponds to the period of command of a particular battalion CO.  These command tours were normally six months long.  I do not know if the misdeeds of this recon platoon were ever reported to division.  Both battalion and brigade commanders would have been reluctant to report this kind of thing if it they discovered it and it reflected on them.  In particular, the brigade commander present after a battalion change of command would have been vulnerable to a charge of neglect of duty which would have ended his career.

So...  There is no evidence that this was other than an isolated incident involving a failure of leadership in that brigade.  American troops did not wander the countryside molesting the Vietnamese.  I was there and I know that to be true.

There was nothing "special" about this little unit and its deeds or crimes were indicative of nothing that could be described as general behavior.

As for investigative action, the 101st left that part of Vietnam a year or so later and the division had left VN altogether by 1972 when I arrived back in country for my last tour.  When was the investigation?  Think about it.  What could have been done by then?

Regards

W. Patrick Lang
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Keyes [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 11:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Tiger Force

COL Lang,

I have been a big fan of your blog for some time now and find myself agreeing with most of what you have to say about the war in Iraq and the military in general (which I suppose is a good thing if I am to continue to enjoy the blob <G>.)  I am retired from the reserve (COL USAR MC) and find that I still have a fierce interest and, to some extent, loyalty to those who taught me about the military and the military forces in general. (I was active duty Navy during VN, and Army during Desert
Storm.)  So I come into this question with an open mind:

Have you read this article:

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4028285

and what is your opinion of it?

Michael J. Keyes, MD

Comments

[W. Patrick Lang]

All

For all those who wish, oh so desperately, that the behavior of this platoon or Calley's platoon were typical, why is it that there not many more such stories reported in the media? pl

[Dan]

Not that it's important, but it was the Toledo Blade. They won the 2004 pulitzer for investigative reporting. The alleged crimes were said to have taken place between May and November of 1967.

[different clue]

I think it was the Toledo
Blade of Toledo, Ohio, which
ran the Tiger Force stories.
But that's just my memory....

[different clue]

I believe these stories
ran in the Toledo Blade of
Toledo Ohio, to the best of
my memory.

(I think I forgot to put
my name email on my just-earlier attempt to send this).

[Walrus]

Col. Lang,

Strange to be talking about Tiger Force today.

I would like to draw your attention to a speech made at McGill University by Sy Hersh on Monday.

I hope for once that Sy Hersh has got it wrong.

Quote: "There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq"

"If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said."

url: [http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=5450

[Wombat]

For the same reason that it took decades for the Tiger Platoon story to come out?

"I do not know if the misdeeds of this recon platoon were ever reported to division. Both battalion and brigade commanders would have been reluctant to report this kind of thing if it they discovered it and it reflected on them. In particular, the brigade commander present after a battalion change of command would have been vulnerable to a charge of neglect of duty which would have ended his career."

As you write above, there are reasons why atrocities may be covered up.

[W. Patrick Lang]

Wombat

It has been 35 years. Do you seriously maintain that the people involved would have held their peace all this time? pl

[W. Patrick Lang]

Walrus

I happen to know Hersh well. He exagerates constantly, overstates his sources and is rather gullible. pl

[wcw]

All true -- but Hersh does have good sources now and again, and is able and willing to break stories others can't or won't. Abu Ghraib springs to mind. It did happen, as he reported, down to the rapes caught on video.

Feel free to delete this yet again, but do drop me a note: I get the impression that my comments never, ever get through. While often critical, you accept much more-critical ones. If you have something against my comments for whatever reason, please drop me a private email and ask nicely. I promise not only never to comment again, but also never to read your site again, if you prefer. All I ask is the favor of a polite, personal request.

[oreo10]

I may have witnessed one of these groups when I served as the fire team leader of helicopter gunships for the First Infantry Division. They were called the "First of the Ninth" and were based in the Phu Loi base camp in 1968.

This comment is only to reflect a personal story that may help illuminate some behaviors in such groups; I have no knowledge of, or wish to suggest knowledge of, the behavior of other such groups.

My company was on the east side of the airfield, theirs on the west, but I recall the patch they wore. They had groups called LRRPs, Long Range Recon Patrols, that went out and often got horribly engaged, which was where I came in, having to go rescue them when their own gun teams were not enough, which happened several times.

One of their adventures was to go into Saigon shortly after the Tet Offensive. The patrol was trapped in a creek in a relatively open area. Even after their own gun teams had expended, they were calling us for more fire. My team was asked to fire rockets and miniguns within 20 feet of the creek they were in. After an all-night mission using slicks and gunships we got most, or all, of them home. They later returned to the same sort of combat.

My enduring thought from that experience was that they were some seriously crazy guys. Then again, many of us over there were.

[Walrus]

With the greatest of respect WCW, the reason I keep visiting this website is because of the levels of trust I feel regarding what is posted here.

Most of it, if not all of it, stacks up with my (limited) experience, even to some of what others may regard as unimportant detail(which is really important and I'm not saying which bits either, Got a Watch).

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Hersh puts up or shuts up.

[arbogast]

I honestly wonder what people think happens in war.

Like most Americans I have been regaled with blow by blow descriptions of a great deal of what the Nazi's did to the Jews during WWII. Uniformed soldiers did it, so it comes under the heading of war.

But, if you have a moment, read La Nouvelle Justine by the Marquis de Sade. It's the Nazi's playbook.

My point is that war is war. Unimaginably bad things happen. The human propensity for cruelty is a constant, not a variable.

The goal is to not have wars. Sometimes that is impossible.

But, as Colonel Lang's posts have made absolutely, perfectly clear, Iraq is not one of those times. Everything else is irrelevant.

[anna missed]

Col Lang is (perhaps) right in the contention that events like the Tiger Force escapade or My Lai fall well outside the SOP of unit operations in Vietnam. And that they reflect grossly inaccurate as to the general conduct of the field troops in Vietnam -- In no way can these actions be construed as typical. However, judging from my own personal experience in Vietnam (as a grunt), I was witness to numerous particular Geneva violations, some of which I would consider egregious. These events happened for the most part, in the context of heavy combat, as opposed to normal AO operations. Which brings up a significant distinction in understanding the diferential between rogue behavior generally, and combat related rogue behavior. The former, as Col Lang points out, was indeed rogue and aberrant. The latter, I'm afraid, was if not somewhat typical, happened with enough frequency -- across the entire breath and depth of the war -- to have achieved a certain iconic status to the behavior of U.S. troops in that war. A pattern for which, can be seen repeating itself in the Iraq war. And should in this day and age, always and must, be pre-considered as the NORM for guerrilla type 4thGW military police action wars.

[Cloned Poster]

Great website here PL. The horror of war rings true.

[different clue]

I think a lot of what the
specialized Nazi Party organs did to the Jews during WWII was not done by
uniformed soldiers on the
front in battle, but rather
was done in Nazi Occupied
areas after the battles had
been won and the taken-areas
had been secured.
I think the Slave Labor
bureaucracy and the Gas
Chamber bureaucracy were
separate and apart from the
uniformed German army.
The Nazi Holocaust of Jews,
and Gypsies too, lets not
forget, was not a part of
the German combat operations. It was purely
art-for-art's-sake. So does
it really make a good example of bad things which
happen in war?

(I write as a civilian with
no military experience and
almost no knowledge of military history. Maybe
someone else here with the
knowledge can give examples
of atrocities happening on
a battlefront as part of
combat by way of showing the
bad things which happen in
war? Would the killing of
many Korean refugees at No
Gun Ri because American soldiers couldn't tell which
of them might be North Korean soldiers in refugee
disguise, be an example of
atrocious things done during combat itself?)

[arbogast]

I believe someone once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

[Which reminds me of the line from Elvis' Now and Then There's a Fool Such as I: "Someone once said, "All the world's a stage""]

In any case, Richard Fye is clearly the wittiest among us. However, I would prefer to see him elaborate on his remark, simply to illuminate it for the less witty.

[arbogast]

I sincerely don't think that "higher-ups" in the military give much of a damn about what goes on in the field as long as a) they have enough troops, b) they themselves don't have to go to the field, and c) they're winning.

Obviously, there are exceptions. I think of Eisenhower. But the military beauracracy is no different from any other.

But Cardona’s physical well-being was not the only issue of concern connected to his aborted transfer to Iraq. According to former senior U.S. military officers and others interviewed by TIME, sending a convicted abuser back to Iraq to train local police would have sent the wrong signal at a time when the U.S. is trying to bolster the beleaguered government in Baghdad, where the horrors of Abu Ghraib are far from forgotten.

[Frank Durkee]

Col. Would you please put in context the Editorial slated for Monday from the four services indepenednt newspapers callin for Rummy's [ we are classmates ] resignation? How does one 'read' this?
Thanks.

[W. Patrick Lang]

Frank

The four papers belong to the same company.

They are reflecting a general discontent with Rumsfeld among military people, but it signifies little since the decider still likes him.

To get rid of Rumsfeld would imply failure in the policy he has carried out... pl

[JT Davis]

I commend Col. Lang for addressing this subject now. This is a dialogue that we should be having at this time. Our nation desperately needs matters such as this aired. I respect the good Colonel's position. His is one of the best blogs on the net. I hope we can keep this civil. He has earned that.

[JT Davis]

And it was the Toledo Blade that did a Pulitzer prize winning series in 2004.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE

I was surprised to learn recently of two alleged incidents involving Patton's troops in Italy during WWII, one of which involved women and children.

The Canicatti Slaughter and the Biscari Massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes

[W. Patrick Lang]

Bigod

Your assumption about other large atrocities is just that. it has no more validity than my assumption. pl

[David All]

Thanks for the info on Tiger Force. I have not read the book, just the description of it on the front & end jacket. Had the feeling that it description of what Tiger Force did was exxagerated. Thanks, Col. Lang for confirming that.

Seymour Hersh has been pretty erratic in recent years. Sometimes accurate, a lot of times, not. If he has evidence of American atrocities in Iraq, why does not show them to Americans, instead of Canadians?

[David All]

Thanks for the info on Tiger Force. I have not read the book, just the description of it on the front & end jacket. Had the feeling that it description of what Tiger Force did was exxagerated. Thanks, Col. Lang for confirming that.

Seymour Hersh has been pretty erratic in recent years. Sometimes accurate, a lot of times, not. If he has evidence of American atrocities in Iraq, why does not show them to Americans, instead of Canadians?

[canuck]

Congratulations, it looks like Senator Webb has won in Virginia.

Veterans often don't talk about what they did in combat. It was only recently that I found out my Royal Marine stepfather hunted for scientists in Germany for MI5. I can count on one hand, the number of times he spoke about his contribution. To look at him, one would think there was nothing unusual about him...that would have been a mistake. We found pictures of him with his commanding officer, Ian Fleming. Not once did he mention it despite how popular 007 movies were.

A return to normality with a Democratic majority in the Legislature and a Republican President.

Topping the list of objectives should be the return of habeas corpus, then I'll know for sure that sanity has returned.