But the assertion was a hard one to prove, for Rafe was on hand to testify that Eriksson was so situated in that feverish moment that Mao wasnt even in his line of vision. Events happened fast that day, Eriksson said. Boyd had been a big help, he told me. As far as he could make out, the company C.O. To Erikssons surprise, the trial, which occurred in June, 1969, resulted in Rafes second conviction, an inevitable finding, in view of the fact that Rafe pleaded guilty to the charge of unpremeditated murder. Related period. Besides, Eriksson said, none of the M.P.s at Fort Carson asked him about Maovery likely, he assumed, because they didnt connect him with her. Lang's article for The New Yorker described the so-called "Incident on Hill 192" that involved the kidnapping, . The poor guys guts were out, Eriksson said. He had thought of them uneasily, imagining that the act of testifying might force him to relive the macabre episode on Hill 192. It happened when the Sergeant, having delivered his instructions, concluded the briefing by telling the assembled men that they were going to have a good time on the mission, because he was going to see to it that they found themselves a girl and took her along for the morale of the squad. For five days, the Sergeant said, they would avail themselves of her body, finally disposing of it, to keep the girl from ever accusing them of abduction and rapeboth listed as capital crimes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Captaina lifer, or career Army manhad left instructions that he was to be sent urgent messages only, but shortly after Eriksson took leave of Reilly, the Lieutenant, confident that the murder merited his superiors attention, radioed word of it to Vorst. It was the same sentence he had been serving, but now, having been transformed into a new verdict, it was subject to another review, the effects of which soon worked to Rafes advantage, for in August, 1969, the commanding general at Fort Leavenworth shortened his term to twenty-two months. They hadnt ever heard Maos voice or seen her carrying Manuels pack.. Special care had been taken with the operation, he stated, since it had been conceived by the battalion command, a higher echelon than the company command, to which Reilly was ordinarily responsible. I knew I wouldnt rest until something was done about Maos murder. No doubt, Eriksson said, the close brushes that he and his friend had been through had something to do with this, but in his own case he had been deeply impressed while he was overseas by what he called an upside-down mentality, which he believed explained the general unconcern there about incidents like the one he had taken part in. in the area.. I had to know whether he could at least be trusted to keep quiet about what I was up to. As indirectly and offhandedly as he could, Eriksson sounded out various members of the work detail about Greenacrenone of whom, he remarked, he knew any better than he knew the Arizonan. . It turned out to be a letter of commendation. Inasmuch as the board may only affirm or reduce Rafes sentence, any changes that it makes will necessarily fall under the heading of good news for him; for example, the board may decide that Rafe served too long a sentence by five or six months, in which event it will be incumbent upon the Army to restore back pay for that period; it is also within the boards power to reverse Rafes dishonorable discharge. It took him a while to realize this, he said, and, curiously, he became persuaded of its prevalence as a result of thinking about Vorst s negative handling. As he went over it in his mind for the hundredth time, he began to suspect the existence of cracks in the Captains seemingly certain, untroubled faade. After the others fell in behind him, he walked silently to the second rock, seventy-five metres away. In addition, the hootch served as a place to hide Mao. I held a knife to her throat, he told the others. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. I couldnt tell who was supposed to have the hard feelingsManuel or myself, Eriksson told me. Moving in on the bush, Clark blazed away with his M-16, and at once the rustling foliage grew still. Now, watching the chaplain depart, Eriksson decided that Greenacre was very much worth cultivating. The first of them, he told me, was that Mao woke up less alluring than when she had gone to bed. Where we were, it was a time and place for thousands of men to play for keeps, and that certainly included Meserve and the others in the patrol, because if they wanted to eliminate Sven as a potential witness they had the M-16s to do it with., Eriksson finished telling his story to the chaplain toward midnight, whereupon Kirk pressed him closely, as Vorst had done earlier, to determine whether he was certain in his mind that he was prepared to endure not just the cross-examinations but the risks attendant upon appearing as a government witness in open court. wouldnt let me become a door gunner, Eriksson told me. [9], Thomas, Cipriano Garcia, and Joseph Garcia were each convicted of unpremeditated murder in March and April 1967. "[7], At approximately 05:00 on the morning of 18 November, the squad entered the tiny village of Cat Tuong, in the Phu My District, looking for a woman. . 7 years ago. Eriksson had considered the jutting and twisted rock a highly unusual one, but now, refamiliarizing himself with his surroundings, he saw, to his surprise, that it had a practically identical twin close by. I can assure you I wasnt being paranoid in thinking he might be shot in the back for seeing me. I simply asked, do you think a murderer should be retained in the United States Army? De Palma wanted to make the movie after reading Daniel Lang's article in The New Yorker in 1969. Before Meserve could devise any next step, Clark took hold of Maos arm. We were on a plateau in the Highlands, and all around us were small mountain ranges, hazy and green. Unlike their civilian counterparts, Vorst said, the law officers (the term by which military judges were known) and members of the court (as jurors were known) had a sympathetic understanding of the pressures a combat man faced in risking his life daily; military jurists didnt expect foot soldiers to be on their best behavior in a war zone. [15], "David E Gervase (1946-1981) - Find a Grave", "Report:Sailor-trial witness was in Vietnam rape-murder", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incident_on_Hill_192&oldid=1147907196, This page was last edited on 2 April 2023, at 23:16. Maos sister, Phan Thi Loc, appeared as a prosecution witness, her very presence irrefutable evidence that Mao was not in fact living happily in her hamlet. Again according to Eriksson, Clark was given to quick movements and to seemingly abrupt decisions that reflected Meserves thinking in an exaggerated form. This is how it is with Casualties of War, Brian DePalma's tale of an atrocity . Listening to the fellows, I had the feeling there might be any number of Meserves and Clarks around me, he said. This morning, Manuel carried his own. Just before it did, Eriksson moved away from the entrance to the hootch, where he had been standing, and sat down alone on the grassy turf to one side of the structure; periodically, he raised his field glasses to gaze at distant points. The mother wept and pleaded, and her daughters, clinging to one another, cowered against the wall. . simply told him to bug off from the word go? As the court transcript shows, Reilly didnt let matters rest there. He called me back in a few minutes, or a couple of minutes, and informed me that he could not catch the girl, that he had had to shoot her. Outside, a diesel generator, the base camps source of electricity, made a constant racket, causing the law officers frequently to request witnesses to raise their voices. It was her first food since shed been taken away from her hamletit had been still dark then, and here it was the middle of the afternoon. It was the way I felt, he said. They were very definite. Though news of the incident reached state-side shortly after the soldiers' trials the story gained widespread notoriety through Daniel Lang's 1969 article for The New . And then there was Vorsts invitation to Eriksson to transfer out of the company. agent, poking through leaves with a bayonet, found teeth, finger bones, and yet more bullet fragments, all of which he deposited in a plastic bag. Impressed though he may have been, he heard Eriksson out with some skepticism, for before Kirk entered the Mormon priesthood he had spent ten years as a policeman on the Salt Lake City force. Even his routine duties as a G.I. Last winter, members of the Military Appeals Courtthe militarys highest appellate bodyhad decided that the admissions Rafe made in Vietnam were tainted; that is, like Manuel, he had made a confession without being fully informed of his rights. Meserve testified at his court-martial, The mother came out, like they always do, started crying, talking. It was based on the actual incident on Hill 192. Sometimes you hate the enemy so bad. Eriksson replied that he wouldnt mind a changenot that it would deter him from pressing charges. Based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam War, 'Casualties of War', directed by legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma, is An Effective Film, that talks about Human-Cruelty & Violence. investigators before the trial started that he had committed rape, but when the subject came up in the courtroom, it appeared to be Manuels judgment that he had taken part in a reasonable enterprise, and the justification that he gave for doing so was military discipline. They werent shocked, or anything like that, Eriksson recalls. He had stopped the shooting as soon as he heard an American voice yell Hit it! Still fuming as the two patrols stood facing each other awkwardly, Erikssons sergeant declared that in all the time he had spent in Vietnam he had never before experienced any such mistake. As Eriksson waited for his sergeant to cool off, he idly scanned the men in the other squad, his eyes stopping abruptly when they met the expressionless gaze of a familiar face. The C.I.D. I give him max rating as a soldier. In other connections, it was brought out that the Sergeant had not waited to be drafted, that he was currently in line for the Bronze Star, and that in the course of his overseas duty he had been awarded five medals, of varying importance, and had a conduct rating of Excellent. He was all of seven when he was driving a tractor on the farm. Even though the two were alone, Eriksson remained cautious, revealing nothing about Maos murder. He said it would be good for the morale of the squad.. All the others in the patrol had raped or killed her. I called him back and commended him on the job that he did and reported it, in turn, to the company headquarters.. and went out to check, and she got away from you, right out of the hootch?. It was another case of people doing their job, he told me. I had this picture that when we did, theyd fire at us, or, at least, Meserve would have me up on charges of desertion. Gazing into the valley below, Rafe thought he spied a Vietnamese in a native type of straw hat standing in the stream. Invariably, Eriksson said, he found himself reproved for the deed. His manner became momentarily subdued when Meserve waved him in as the third man, but Clark was his jaunty self again when he returned. The incident on Hill 192 is the name the United States Army called [1] the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman [2] on November 19, 1966 [1] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. Throughout each trial, Eriksson said, the exponents of military law strove diligently to apply judicial rules largely borrowed from civilian law, as though they were seeking to re-create a semblance of civilian life. All that awaited decision, Meserve went on, was the moment and method of the girls murder, but, whatever was settled on, the Sergeants thought was to have Eriksson do the job; if Eriksson refused, Meserve said, he would be reported as K.I.A.killed in action. Throughout, he told me, the single belief that sustained him was that in serving as the defendants principal accuser he was carrying out the resolve he had made as he trained his grenade launcher on the cave complex; namely, to let the world know of Maos fate. The farther back you got, the closer you approached the way people lived in civilian life., On November 16, 1966, the commanding officer of Erikssons platoon, a Negro lieutenant, Harold Reilly (whose name, like every soldiers name in this account, has been changed), assigned him as one of five enlisted men who were to make up a reconnaissance patrol, its mission to comb a sector of the Central Highlands for signs of Vietcong activity. One of the defense lawyers hammered away at the point that Eriksson had killed the girl when, in obeying the Sergeants command to shoot her, he fired his grenade launcher. Since the verdicts would automatically come under review and the government might again need him as a witness, he was kept on in the post of military policeman at the division base. Enacting the role of chief government witness was not an edifying experience, Eriksson went on. Helicopter crews might spot her. Before the patrol left the hamlet, a swarm of local children materialized, chattering agitatedly in a circle around Mao, and then out of the white hootch came Loc. There shouldnt have been, because I had decided, outside, that there wasnt a thing in the world I could do for her. Id been there a month or three weeks longer., When he went on to imply that Eriksson might be chicken, the prosecutor asked, How come he stood up to Meserve? The two men had arrived in Vietnam at the same time, and he had known Meserve as a considerate, agreeable man. Through an interpreter, Loc related that after the patrol finished with their hamlet, she and her mother had searched desperately for Mao. It was adduced that even before Meserve left for Vietnam he was regarded as an exemplary soldier, since he had been selected to march in President Johnsons inaugural paradean honor limited to two hundred men with unblemished records. Erikssons patrol leader delivered a tongue-lashing to his counterpart, who apologized. That was how my hunch went, and I didnt dare change it in any way. Eriksson moved cautiously. Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. Had he taken into account the amount of suffering that Americans had already undergone in behalf of the Vietnamese? Sounding as though he felt he would be years mining its lessons, he told me, I decided that whatever jobs Id get, they werent going to be as important to me as the way I lived. No matter how close the questioning, and no matter how detailed the testimony he gave, or heard, it all seemed related to Maos murder in only a surface sense. Addeddate 2021-04-03 19:38:39 Identifier turner_video_1757 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 2.0.0.dev3 For that matter, he said, he knew almost nothing about Greenacreonly that he was a cowboy from Arizona, a wiry type, who put in a good days work as a carpenter and didnt have much to say. It had to be him, and no other chaplain, he recalled, smiling. All of us had come back scared and upset, but Clark, I thought, showed it the most. Once Clark had left them, Eriksson continued with his story, feeling an immense relief when he had finished telling it. Another board might have found differently, a colonel in the Judge Advocate Generals office told me.) Eriksson and four other enlisted men were then on a reconnaissance patrol in the vicinity of the girls home. Then the C.O. Bunkers, trenches, trails that were not marked on maps, caches of enemy equipmentthese, too, were to be reconnaissance objectives. As he listened to her, he said, it had even crossed his mind to shoot her assailants, but then, he observed to me, Id have had the bodies of four men to justify. Asked in court for his thoughts during the period he had sat on the grassy turf, he testified, Well, sir, I was wishing I wasnt in the situation I was in. Evacuated by a medical helicopter, he was flown to a hospital at Qui Nhon. Wild with rage, Reilly had tried to wreck the place, whereupon hospital orderlies summoned the police, and the new father was arrested and jailed. Additional pictures were taken a week later, when Eriksson led a second pilgrimage to Hill 192. He thought of her as his plane, full of singing soldiers, took off from Cam Ranh Bay and he held his last look at the unhappy land below. In Vietnam, the jurors petition urging clemency for Clark had been acted upon, with the result that the G.I.s life sentence had been commuted to a sentence of twenty years. Professor Furue and Colonel Finck also appeared as witnesses, to offer information based on clinical studies they had made of Maos skeletal parts in Saigon. He has no idea to what extent that may operate, however; nor is he prepared, he said, to bank on anything so abstract. It was just that he was less than average as far as being one of the guys, should we say? The judges had ordered that the incarcerated Rafe be given a new trial, which, like Manuels, was held at Fort Leavenworth. It was the hardest decision Ive ever had to make, and it couldnt have been the best possible one, or Mao wouldnt be gone today., In the time that elapsed before the patrols return, Eriksson said, Maos condition worsened noticeably. Yes or no? Q : Well, you feel you are not involved in any way? The Sergeant was the first man to enter the hootch, and soon, Eriksson told me, a high, piercing moan of pain and despair came from the girl. Id never known the Army had any such unit, Eriksson told me. But on the bus the peasant woman across from me was going to work in paddy fields that were near Maos hamlet, from which it was a nice walk downhill to a stream that flooded the rice fields. . In that season, Eriksson told me, when the M.P.s yakked the hours away together in their quarters, one or another of his fellow-cops would periodically recall what Eriksson had chosen to do. In charge of the group were a colonel, a major, and, after they reached the airstrip, Captain Vorst himself, who maintained silence toward Eriksson. Meserve at once radioed the platoon command, reaching Lieutenant Reilly, to whom he suggested that the V.C. Though the men had to struggle for footing, Eriksson related, they made a point of keeping an eye on the stream that ran near the hootch; it had its source high up on the mountain, flowing down past a number of rice fields. The participants in the cases, including lawyers, witnesses, law officers, and members of the court, lived in tents near the courthouse, and often at night the vicious thump of artillery shells, enemy-bound, from the edges of the division base disturbed the quiet of the legal encampment. As a result, Eriksson left Colorado for Fort Leavenworth, where Manuel, serving his time in the Disciplinary Barracks, was to be retried. They locked me up in a steel box, in solitary. Acting on this, he enrolled in a non-credit course at the University of Minnesota designed to teach adults with an inadequate education how to study. Perhaps because Meserve had been the leader of the four accused, he came in for particularly heavy praise. The gunships were now unmistakably in the area, their motors sending up a storm of noise as the machines hovered low and their crews searched out the enemy. However, it was essentially intact, and Meserve quickly converted it into a weapons depot, dumping ammunition stocks, and also food supplies, on its dirt floor. One of them, I know, goofed on his interrogation of Manuelhe forgot to read off one of Manuels rights before he started asking questions. In addition, Eriksson told me, he would have appreciated it if the prosecutorwhom he looked upon as his lawyerhad tutored him slightly in how to conduct himself in court; despite his status as the Armys chief witness, Eriksson said, he took the stand practically cold. There had been times when Id thought that if I had been in Vietnam longer than just a month when the incident took place I might have felt differently about ithad the same attitude, that is, as most of the fellows. Just seeing an Asian country, for instance, was an adventure, Eriksson says, its landscape so different from the frozen plains of his corner of Minnesota; he had never before splashed through paddy fields, he told me, or stood blinking in the sudden sunlessness of lush, entangled jungle, or wandered uncertainly through imprisoning fields of towering elephant grass. Pretty soon, youre going to be an outcast from the platoon. Eriksson found it impressive that these procedures should be so punctiliously observed within easy artillery range of the enemywhich, he added, was not to say that he was unaware of various shortcomings. She had stopped whimpering, and there was even a little look of trust in her eyes. and wounding another. Clark was holding her elbow, and he pushed her forward when Meserve ordered the patrol to get moving. The holed-up V.C. She herself had thus far been the only person with whom her husband had discussed it since returning from Vietnam, and even with her he had not gone into much detail. We made up something to get him to go away, Eriksson told me. Whatever the answers, Captain Vorst saw to it that Eriksson left his command early the following morning, sending the enlisted man seventy miles away to Camp Radcliff, the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division base, near the small city of An Khe. carefully explained that to me, informing me of my legal rights, one of which was to shut up. When the interrogation was over, he was asked to lead a search party to the spot on Hill 192 where he had claimed that Maos body could be found. I mean, if I let you go, do you think you can make it home? I wish Mao and I could have talked, Eriksson said, his voice tightening. Plot Ill never know. He still has a tendency to fight off its memory, he said, and he thinks the reason for this is that although the experience he had may have revealed certain strengths in himself, he is far more concerned with the limitations it exposed. The film stars Michael J. It was impossible for me to have any part of what I knew was about to take place. He suspects that Meserve sensed this, for before anything else happened the Sergeant confronted him, demanding to know whether he would enter the hootch when his turn came. I said, Probably the firing squad, sir. He then said something to the effect, I could send you all back to the States for courts-martial, or he could court-martial us out here and still have a firing squad. When she finished eating, she mumbled something in Vietnamese; maybe it was Thank youI wouldnt know. These were always demanding and hazardous, yet they could not distract him from the intense feeling of frustration that now beset him. When she tried to flee, three of the soldiers chased after her. But I couldnt think any of my brainstorms through. [1], On November 17, 1966, Sergeant David Edward Gervase (aged 20) and Private First Class Steven Cabbot Thomas (21)both members of C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Divisiontalked to three other squad members (Privates First Class Robert M. Storeby, 22; cousins Cipriano S. Garcia, 21, and Joseph C. Garcia, 20)[3] about plans to kidnap a "pretty girl" during their reconnaissance mission planned for the next day,[6] and "at the end of five days we would kill her." His farewell to them was succinct. No such dismay was expressed. He said it was only human to make mistakes., Erikssons attempt to forget Mao proved futile, as he had really known it would. Acknowledging the danger in which Eriksson had placed himself, the Lieutenant told him, If I sent you out with that patrol, youd never make it back.. It was a consciousness he could have done without, he remarked, for its effect was to remind him of Mao, and, following the trials, he was in a mood to try to forget her. Im not saying that every fellow who roughed up a civilian liked himself for itnot that hed admit in so many words that he didnt. . Three Vietnamese were spotted walking along the edge of the water, and though they wore no uniforms, Meserve assumed they were V.C., and he and his men, including Eriksson, opened fire on them. Incident on Hill 192 - The New York Times Incident on Hill 192 By Christopher Lehmann-Haupt Nov. 14, 1969 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from November 14,. The two other G.I.s in the combat team were a year younger than Eriksson, who was then twenty-two. Eriksson was fond of his uncle, Mrs. Eriksson said, but, reluctantly, he answered, Im afraid I dont want to talk about her., When Erikssons leave was over, he finished out his two-year hitch at Fort Carson, Colorado, where many of the men were either completing their service, like him, or departing for war. And, in practice, neither Manuel nor any of the other defendants (nor Eriksson, for that matter) paid a cent for legal services. On the way, Greenacre told Eriksson that the chaplain, Captain Gerald Kirk, came from Ogden, Utah; he was a Mormon, Eriksson learned, and so was Greenacre. In the hours we spent together, there were intervals that may have lasted as long as a minute when he sat silent, a brooding expression on his face, before resuming his account. It certainly was not the Army's finest hour, given the reticence. Both refused, Eriksson said. The corpse itself was placed in an Army casualty baga rubberized olive-drab shroud, originally designed for fallen soldiers. incident on hill 192 where are they now | Posted on May 31, 2022 | exemple de mise en situation professionnelle fonction publique distribution sacs poubelles la rochelle 2021 Posted on May 31, 2022 | exemple de mise en situation professionnelle fonction publique distribution sacs poubelles la rochelle 2021 Had he stopped to think of the consequences to himself of accusing four fellow-G.I.sthereby adding to that suffering? Rafe, hospitalized at Qui Nhon, was already accounted for; Clark was to take a relatively rear-area post, at battalion headquarters; Meserve was to be shifted to another platoon. Did you fire your weapon? He wouldnt mind being a door gunner aboard a helicopter, he told Vorst, citing as his qualifications for such a post that he had been trained as a machine gunner and that he was fond of flying. Esri, HERE, Garmin, NGA, USGS, NPS. stockport council wards map; 0 comments. The man was never captured, Eriksson said, despite the fact that he became the single target of the gunships rockets and the infantrys bullets and grenades. Greenacre was present throughout the talk, at Erikssons insistence. (Asked by a C.I.D. When the two men were aloft and sitting side by side, the artilleryman suddenly glanced at Eriksson with fresh interest and said, Say, werent you the guy who turned in that patrol? Since the patrol would be going out again, Eriksson said, he knew he had to act fast, but that seemed no big deal. The Vietnamese proved to be V.C., for the moment they were aware that they had been seen they fired at the patrol with small arms, then changed their direction and passed temporarily out of sight. who was murdered, but how could I do it for a Vietnamese? The four courts-martial took place in the winter of 1967, within a period of about ten days in the middle of March. Im talking about a murder. The two have no children. Before long, Eriksson told me, his sleuthing established that Greenacre was well thought of, and one evening, after the carpenters had finished eating, he invited Greenacre to take a walk with him. As he recalled his briefing, he had told the men, Itd be nice if we could pick up five women for the five days up there and have an orgy, and then, he said, everybody had made comments and laughed. As for going to Maos hamlet, the Sergeant said that he had led the patrol there to look for V.C., and that he had captured the girl because she had behaved suspiciously inside her hootch.

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