I had a friend of mine tell me how a high school buddy in vietnam took a helicopter ride with an american interogator and several vietcong prisoners. The interogator asked one of the vietcong guys a question and he refused to answer. The interogator proceeded to throw three of the vietcong out of the helicopter while it was several thousand feet up. Needless to say the remaining prisoners were a little more cooperative after the incident but it seemed to my friends friend that the interogators behavior was par for the course.

I am reading House to House , Keith W. Nolan's excellent new book on the "Mini-Tet Offensive" of May 1968.

In it he gives a soldier's-eye account of an incident Tommy Franks relays in his own memoir. Suffice it to say the soldier's account is a lot less sanitized.

It takes some kind of intestinal fortitude to be able to talk about this stuff, but maybe there is a kind of redemption in it too.

My husband is a Viet Nam Vet and he was over there during the Tet Offensive in 1968.

What is this stuff about wanting to Prosecute or is is PERSECUTE these men who fought in "Tiger Force" or any other Viet Nam Vet? My goodness, this was 40 years ago? Don't you think that they have been Prosecuted/ PERSECUTED enough? They have health problems from Agent Orange, they have PTSD, some have nightmares that never go away, the list is endless...

Too many times, America forgets what our men and women saw done to Our Soldiers, Sailors, Air Force and Marines...our soldiers who were captured and Tortured.

What about the "Hanoi Hilton"? And other POW camps? Do you think our guys were treated any better? Absolutely Not.

I Just want to say "Thank You All" for fighting for us, back here in America. And God Bless You All!

What was done by Tiger Force should not be ignored. Truly, if we don'tlearn from our history, we will be doomed to repeat it. In fact, we have repeated it in Iraq.

History tells us that there have been atrocities in every war, but most have been isolated incidents, born of born of intense rage, fear, frustration and the horror of the situation. It is when the atrocities become institutionalized that we are at risk as a nation.

How many senior military officers were in Viet Nam and knew of the Tiger Force and My Lai, and know that little or nothing was ever done about it? How does that knowledge affect their decisions in the field in Iraq? How will it affect their decisions in the field in the next conflict.

How can we, as a nation, be horrified at the events that took place between the Serb, Croats and Muslims in Europe, and the equally horrific events in Darfur, while we ignore similar events in our own history? It is that double standard we follow that has cost us the respect of much of the world today.

I don't know what would be accomplished by prosecuting the Tiger Force soldiers now, but our government MUST acknowledge and condemn those events and our military insttutions must adopt more rigid standards in their training, at every level.

If that is not done, we are even further despised because this book will be required reading for, and a complete justification for, anti-American terrorists around the world.

Tiger Force cannot be swept under the rug again. Harry McSteen

I would like to reply to the woman who signed «No name given». I am horrified by the inhumanity you displayed, Madam, though not too surprised cause I've heard the same excuses and justifications so many times. The Hanoi Hilton and other similar locations you mentioned were places of emprisonment and torture for captured war prisoners. Let me clarify it a little more: that's where the North Vietnamese held and mistreated American soldiers who were shot down and captured while they were bombing the country. The Vietnamese did not invade the USA, capture American civilians and lock them in Hanoi Hilton to be tortured. On the other hand, the poor «persecuted» American troops came all the way to Vietnam to bomb that country in an undeclared war and commit atrocities on unarmed civilians, babies included. Do you see the difference now, Mrs No Name Given? Unless the only difference you can see is that American soldiers are always brave and noble and the rest of the world are just gooks, sand niggers and other subhumans who deserve whatever treatment the US government inflict on them. It's fine to support the troops, but it is profoundly immoral to support them when they do evil things. I bet you consider yourself a decent God-fearing church-going person. Next time you go to church, please pray for the souls of all the innocent people who were killed in Vietnam during the war.

We punish nazis even today if we can find them. These monsters are war criminals and should be punished as such

I smell another Peter Arnett snow job.

The Vietnam War, started by a democrat (Kennedy) and escalated by a democrat (Johnson).

Interesting, the Tiger platoon was active in 1967. Lessee, Johnson was president from 1963-1969.

MMmm, yet not a mention of the Johnson administration in this story.

Bias ?

Noooooo !

Can't be !

This is such a pile of BS, please shovel it up before you step any deeper into it.

I think that one point of all this is that Agent Orange, Tiger Force, My Lai and all the other horrors of Vietnam were condoned or ordered by leadership. >>Leadership<<. We do not know how high up this 'leadership' went because the investigation was killed. Clearly in the case of torture in Iraq, there is reason to think it went to the very highest levels. Unless we are willing to hold our 'Leadership' responsible, we must take off the mantle of 'moral leadership', surrender our badge as 'world policeman', and stop pretending that we have any other motive than the self interest of the United States. I find the abdication of moral leadership in the current administration appalling, both as a citizen of the U.S. and as a Christian. The secular 'right' is only interested in 'morality' as a smoke screen to cover their willing immorality. The religious right is largely deceived by personal issues into ignoring the greater corporate evil the nation perpetrates on the less powerful of the world whether they live in the third world or here at home.

In response to the two letters listed:

First to 'No Name Given', Buddhist was right to call you to task. The atrocieties of Tiger Force and the Mai Lai massacre were perpetuated upon unarmed men, women, and children. It was not neccesary for anyone to shoot a four year old, or decapitate a baby. I can only imagine your ethnocentric rage if American children were killed in such a way by a "terrorist", and I seriously doubt the fact that such had happened forty-years ago would dissuade your thirst for "justice". There is no excuse for the murder of a child dear woman. None. And those who have commited such crimes need to be held formally accountable for what they have done - not merely allowing time to prosecute/persecute them. Society needs that recognition, the formal statement in front of the world that such is not allowed. We require it from other countries, we MUST require it from ourselves. That you do not see this need, merely illustrates why the inhabitants of the world hold Americans in such disregard.

However, to 'Buddhist', you disregard the treatment of the young men who went to Vietnam and were so badly mistreated. That is also unacceptable. Right now there are those of us who are distressed by the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and it most likely is not as bad as what some soldiers suffered in Vietnam. Most of these young men were doing what they saw as their duty, and were misled by their leaders. To toss off so glibly their suffering and loss is to stoop to the same level as 'No Name' - you place more value on one life than another. Suffering is suffering no matter who perpetuates or who suffers, it requires equal amounts for all of punishment and compassion. If you wish to truly be heard, and truly be a compassionate person, not a hypocrite, you'd do well to keep this in mind