The Heart of War

Even as the United States fights a war in Iraq, that war in Vietnam just won’t go away. For those of us who served in that conflict, Vietnam has never gone away although the nation has done it best to forget that war. But like the beating heart in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Vietnam still throbs into our consciousness. The flag draped coffins now returning to America’s cities and towns are all too reminiscent of the images so many of us remember from the Vietnam era.

That Tell-Tale Heart still beats, forcing its way into our consciousness. From today’s Los Angeles Times:

The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast.

They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette.

Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians, and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled the company commander's response:

Kill anything that moves.

Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began.

Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Despite reports filed by courageous soldiers like Jamie Henry, the military was not interested in prosecuting these crimes. Of the 320 substantiated incidents, only 203 individuals were court martialed, resulting in 57 convictions.

Fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal. The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967.

He served seven months of a 20-year term, the records show.

Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all.

In the words of one investigator, “Everyone just wanted Vietnam to just go away.”

Almost four decades later, Americans are once again involved in a frustrating, guerilla war that has produced horrifying incidents. Unlike Vietnam, where only a few abuses ever entered the public consciousness, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Mamuhdiya are now part of the known history of our war there.

Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," says Johns, 78.

I wonder, though, if this nation is any more willing to confront this all too predictable consequence of war. Will we want Iraq to "just go away".