The two Diazes laughed, either out of embarrassment, Eriksson conjectures, or because they thought Meserve was joking, in view of his remark about the morale of the squadan old gag in the platoon. They were all strange faces. Asked whether Maos continued presence on Hill 192 might not ultimately have endangered the lives of the members of the patrol, Eriksson said, Sir, this girl wasnt supposed to be on this patrol.. Q: Did he endeavor to actively join in with the free-time activity of the rest of the people, or did he have to be coaxed. The later actions of the convicted including murder of us naval serving enlisted members from the Saratoga in 92, don't assuage their guilt. Only Manuel would remain anywhere near Eriksson; he was being reassigned to a different squad in the same platoon. Eriksson himself stood scanning the landscape intently, looking for the curiously shaped rock formation where the stabbed girl had been shot. Cross-examined at Meserves trial as to why he had shifted his position, Eriksson testified, Well, sir, these gentlemen seemed to meoh, I should say kind of enthused about what was going on. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, Like their predecessors in all wars, American veterans of the Vietnamese campaign who are coming home to civilian life have their heads filled with memories that may last the rest of their days, for, no matter how far from the front a man may have spent his time as a soldier, he will remember it as a special time, when, fleetingly, his daily existence appeared to approach the heroic. 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. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman, [1] on November 19, 1966 [2] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. Gazing into the valley below, Rafe thought he spied a Vietnamese in a native type of straw hat standing in the stream. They were very definite. Q: How did you react to this particular ambush, Eriksson? Glancing at the girl with distaste, the Sergeant ordered Eriksson and Rafe to stay with her on the ridge, whereupon he, Clark, and Manuel began a cautious descent of the mountain, their purpose to stalk the Vietcong. PNP Change of Command Ceremony and Retirement Honors for - Facebook He displayed a hunting knife. The five-man squad, led by a 20-year-old sergeant, Tony Meserve, had been sent on patrol. To listen to them, and to the testimony that the guys in the patrol gave, Mao was probably living happily in her hamlet. As early as the opening day of Rafes trial, which was the first one held, he realized that it was idle to consider whether the G.I.s punishment would, or could, fit the crime. You want her gold tooth? Clark called over his shoulder to Rafe, who was then, he testified, a foot away and was staring, aghast, at Mao. . David Edward Gervase (1946-1981) - Find a Grave Memorial They werent shocked, or anything like that, Eriksson recalls. In 1966 in Vietnam, a squad of five American soldiers, lead by Sgt. The holed-up V.C. bus that collected G.I.s who had fallen on hard times in Sin City, a section of bars and bordellos in An Khe, two miles away. Addeddate 2021-04-03 19:38:39 Identifier turner_video_1757 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 2.0.0.dev3 For the film, all names and some details of the true story were altered. Clark at once greeted it with enthusiasm. When he stopped asking me questions, he started talking about Meserve and the others, sort of thinking aloud what it was that came over fellows in wartime. His interest in religion still strong, Eriksson took part in church activities, he told me; he had recently supervised a group of high-school-age boys and girls making a two-week retreat on an island in a lake between Minnesota and Canada. In an affidavit that Manuel later signed, he stated, Clark gagged the girl to keep her from yelling out. Ordering Eriksson and Rafe to clean up the hootch, and leaving Mao in their charge, the Sergeant went off with Clark and Manuel to have a careful look around. In our part of Minnesota, just about everyone is., It was ten at night when Eriksson sat down to talk with Kirk, and he found he was able to speak more freely than he had even to Curly Rowan. At the start, he spoke laconically, but gradually his natural reticence thawed out, and there were timesgenerally after one of his silenceswhen he produced such a burst of talk that it seemed to cost him an effort to bring it to a halt. Loc and her father had moved from their native hamlet; they now lived in a village several miles from there. Hey, Sven, how do you know that girl wasnt a V.C. Thus, it assumed pertinence that Meserve came from an impoverished home and that his father had deserted his mother, and the members of his board of review learned, further, through material furnished them by the commanding general at Fort Leavenworth, that the former sergeant had gone through the ninth grade, had no police record, was a lapsed Roman Catholic, had worked in a cannery in upstate New York, and had saved five thousand dollars while he was in the Army, and that he was confident that even though war was a brutal business. The 1966 incident at hill 192, and the courage shown by p f c storeby is not in doubt. Commanding, Erikssons tour of duty in Vietnam came to an end on November 28, 1967, a year after the patrol paid its visit to Maos hamlet. [11], Likewise, Gervase's initial sentence of ten years with hard labor was reduced to eight. She might have helped me know what to do, instead of my having to figure it out aloneit was her life that was at stake. The kind of thing that happened to herwhat else can you expect in a combat zone? His recollection out of the way, the Lieutenant informed Eriksson that the patrol, having replenished its ammunition stocks, would be leaving camp at any moment to resume its five-day mission. What conclusions may be drawn from "The Incident on Hill 192," as the war crime was known at the time of the courts-martial? When he spoke, however, it was about his friendship with the Marine. What if he refused to arrange an introduction for me? 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. He was 34 years old. gcdc on Twitter The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnap, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman on November 19, 1966 by an American squad during the Vietnam War. The outmanned, outgunned enemy put up so strong a fight, he said, that the Sergeant, Clark, and Manuel ran out of ammunition, and the patrol had to interrupt its five-day mission long enough to go back for fresh supplies of bullets and grenades. In a matter of seconds, the shooting broke off, and another patrol, consisting of another squad in Reillys platoon, emerged from behind the hedgerow. Another board might have found differently, a colonel in the Judge Advocate Generals office told me.) 'Casualties of War': Brian De Palma's Exorcism of the Vietnam War And I told her, in English, I cant understand you. I wanted to tell her other things. He might turn out to be dumb or brave or to have a wonderful stock of jokes. At one point, Eriksson recalled, the Captain warned him that if the incident did result in courts-martial, he might face rough going on the witness stand. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. He had barely begun it, however, when Clark, seeing the two in conversation, descended on them, demanding to know what they were talking about. Erikssons patrol leader delivered a tongue-lashing to his counterpart, who apologized. Florida Highway Patrol Current Traffic Incidents . Just who, I wanted to ask, was the man in Manuels patrol who started the shooting? . When he first got back from Hill 192, he said, he had imagined that it might have been his peculiar misfortune to draw a patrol made up of psychopaths, but now each time a new G.I. was shooting, and Meserve, braving a fusillade of bullets, crept forward and pulled the man out of the V.C.s line of fire. The girl looked so innocent, so calm, he testified. Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. It didnt take many further interrogations to convince the law-enforcement officers that they had a case, for Rafe and Manuel readily signed affidavits whose substance supported Erikssons account of the incident on Hill 192the name by which Maos murder became known among the military. Now the V.C., flushed from their temporary hideout, continued to beat a desperate retreat, relying on sniper fire to fend off their attackers, who were converging on them from both sides of the stream. leading men on fifty, sixty, seventy patrols, and gave it as his opinion that this incident did not occur as the normal incident. Making his chief point, Meserves lawyer told the court, Theres one thing that stands out about this particular offense. Agreeing, the Lieutenant said that he would order another squad, operating at the base of the mountain, to cordinate its movements with those of Meserves patrol, and that he would also dispatch two other squads to the area. Speaking evenly, Eriksson said, They were among the onesamong the fewwho did what everyone around them wanted to do. Nor was he himself free of blame, he went on, without pausingonce again referring to the limitations within himself that he had glimpsed in Asia. 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. A. Oh, no, sir, it was not that he was disliked in any way. . "[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. 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,. [1] Although news of the incident reached the U.S. shortly after the soldiers' trials,[3] the story gained widespread notoriety through Daniel Lang's 1969 article for The New Yorker[4] and his subsequent book. The poor guys guts were out, Eriksson said. Mao seemed to figure constantly in his thoughts, he said, which were concerned mostly with how he would earn his livelihood after he left the Army, the following April. Accordingly, at nine the group struck out for the cliff. They put a hold on my transfer forms. Things will get sorted out, he said. He had imagined that he would be able to ask how it was that he alone of the patrol had come to act as he had. Casualties of War (Film) - TV Tropes As for Manuel, who was fair-skinned and stockier than his cousin, his manner was on the jumpier side. whose ammunition pouch, girding his midriff, had exploded as the result of a hit. 2023 Cond Nast. incident on hill 192 where are they now. Anyway, thats what made me believe I was interested in religion. In recalling it for investigators later on, Manuel stated, He told us he had attempted to keep the incident quiet but that now he couldnt give us any further advice or help. The M.P.s took the enlisted men to the Provost Marshals office at An Khe, where they were given an initial interrogation before being remanded to the stockade at Long Binh. During his months leave, he was always with her and with relatives and friends and, in a way, Eriksson said, with Mao. . [12][13], Gervase died on March 23, 1981. I wanted to get out of the platoon, he stated. He had no idea how long this feeling would continue, but for the present, he knew, he lived with the charge daily, often wondering how Mao might have fared in a time of peace. Pretty soon, youre going to be an outcast from the platoon. [11] In 1968, Joseph Garcia was acquitted on the appeal of his initial 15-year sentence and his dishonorable discharge was reversed after it was determined that his Fifth Amendment rights were violated, and his confession was ruled as inadmissible. At the very outset, Eriksson told me that the last thing he wished to do was discuss Maos murder in any legalistic vein. If it didnt, then coming back from that patrol meant nothing., Recalling her husbands arrival, Mrs. Eriksson said that when she went out to the airport to meet him, she could tell at once that there was a stronger kindness in him than when he had left. The country we were moving through was mostly all shades of green, but we also passed arid stretches and, here and there, places that had been browned by napalm. But they were halfway around the world now, in a strange country, where they couldnt tell who was their friend and who wasnt. 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 the hootch, Eriksson recalled, Mao, now relieved of Manuels pack, watched him and Rafe heave out junk for a while, and then, unasked, the girl lent the G.I.s a hand. When she tried to flee, three of the soldiers chased after her. Wikizero - Incident on Hill 192 In fact, it would have been difficult to find any other kind in Vietnam, since the Army was dispensing such benefits all over the place. We couldnt have gone very far, I realized, but it was going to be dark soon and we might find a hideout somewhere in the brush. She was dead, Im sure., Immediately after the murder, Eriksson told me, the men appeared to assume a self-protective air of disbelief at what had taken place. However, he welcomed the shift to Radcliff for a more important reason. In warat least, the war we were init was nothing unusual to hear shots that were unexplained, to find a body that might or might not have been shot in combat. I saw that Clark had his hunting knife hidden in one of his hands. It was in the next seconds that deer-gutting sounds issued from the bushes. They had gone scarcely twenty metres when a cry of distress halted them. wouldnt let me become a door gunner, Eriksson told me. down a trail between two hedgerows when the patrol was suddenly fired upon from one side. 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. He felt that way, he explained, because out in the field, in territory that could turn hostile at any moment, the men in the patrol would be very much on their own, and this would be so even if a high-ranking officer were in charge. The following day, in the midst of a firefight with the Viet Cong, Thomas and Gervase became worried that the woman would be seen with the squad. Indeed, there are some that would say it did not even occur in civilization, when you are out on combat operations., Two weeks after the trials ended, one of the court interpreters, a Vietnamese schoolteacher, with whom Eriksson had made friends, brought word to him that Maos sister was missing. 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. The only thing that could stop me was if I became a friendly casualty.. Since returning to civilian life, a year and a half ago, Eriksson has been concerned primarily with what his wife calls sorting things out. Once he had been separated from the service at Fort Carson, he came back to Minneapolis determined to find employment at something other than carpentry. The incident on Hill 192 is the name the United States Army called the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman on November 19, 1966 by an American squad during the Vietnam War. 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. We were advancing through nice country, Eriksson told me. It had been preceded by any number of similar occurrences. Q: You would suggest some minor form of punishment, in other words? This is how it is with Casualties of War, Brian DePalma's tale of an atrocity . . Needless to say, Eriksson continued, the kind of behavior he was describing was by no means limited to Americans. Eriksson now believes he should have foreseen that sooner or later one of these incidents was bound to strike him with special, climactic force. Lang's article for The New Yorker described the so-called "Incident on Hill 192" that involved the kidnapping, . In ten minutes, a pair of agents entered the chaplains quarters, and Eriksson, as his affidavit shows, told them, in a signal example of understatement, This [the rape and murder] has been bothering me since it happened, and I went to the chaplain tonight and told him what had happened. The agents interrogated him with a cool, neutral competence. . Eriksson was not called upon to testify this time, and this was a vast relief, he told me, not only because he was eager to get on with his civilian life but because it looked to him as though Rafes rehearing would be a duplication of Manuels second trial; that is, with Rafes tainted admissions thrown out, the governments arguments would be undermined and a verdict of acquittal brought in. He was Sergeant Tony Meserve, a slim, black-haired man of medium height who was twenty years old and came from a town in upstate New York, near the Canadian border. I heard that argument over and over again, and I could never buy it. While Eriksson, Manuel, and the now wretched Rafe hovered outside, Meserve and Clark entered the hutMaos home. It had to be him, and no other chaplain, he recalled, smiling. Cross-examining, the prosecutor asked, When you say he didnt have a sense of humor, you mean he wasnt a jokester, running around making or seeing the funny side of everything?. 971 Words4 Pages. Eriksson wouldnt be going along, though; the Lieutenant had assigned another G.I. Eriksson said to me, It only looked as though he was the one out to do everything in, but the C.O., I knew, had someone over him, and his superior had a superior. It excited me. Impatiently, Clark volunteered his services, but Meserve wouldnt have that, insisting that they collaborate. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman, on November 19, 1966 by an American squad during the Vietnam War. In turn, the sergeant passed the news on to Lieutenant Reilly, who sent for Eriksson. And wasnt it just possible that the victim might not necessarily be Eriksson himself but, rather, his new bride? If he had known this, he thinks, he might have realized then, as he did later, that the Captain was in a bind; that is, he was torn between the dictates of his conscience, which condemned the crime, and concern for his Army career, which, Eriksson later discovered, the battalion commanderwho outranked Vorst, and who was also a liferwas in the habit of admonishing the Captain to bear in mind. Meserve saw to that, for a brilliant sun had come up, its glare exposing the bizarre party as clearly as it did the landscape. Im not going to say that, sir. Manuel showed no initiative in that regard, Eriksson told me, his attitude toward authority being simple and automatic: he heeded it devoutly. But then I dont know how much the C.I.D. Incident said something to the effect, You people acted like animals up there and do not deserve to live. He said he would have never learned about this but one man had the balls to tell [the officers] about it. I told him I was being wrongly brought to trial. Thus, a couple of weeks before the first court-martial opened, Eriksson found himself sitting in a cubbyhole office at Camp Radcliff face to face with a stocky medical captain with an extremely close crew cut who wanted to know whether the young infantryman loved his mother and whether he heard from his wife. I stepped outside the hootch to be by myself awhile, and out there I could hear the muffled noise of artillery off in the distance. A: Well, in general, sir, [but] in this specific case. Casualties of War - Wikipedia This time, he said, it would be Clark who would stay behind to guard Mao and the weapons in the hootch. He sounded as though the war would have to come to an end before his work could make much sense.. Eriksson was to remain there until his reassignment as a door gunner came through, Vorst having sent his transfer papers on for official approval by the helicopter command. already had more prison time than that to his credit, so the force of the generals ruling was to bring about Rafes immediate release from confinement. 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. Even his routine duties as a G.I. HISTORY or HOLLYWOOD: Casualties of War | History Forum 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. He is now on duty as a soldier in the United States while awaiting further word on his case, which since September has been in the hands of a board of review. Q : You feel that the government has done you a grave injustice in bringing you here today for trial? Or maybe its our winters that make Sven so different from those other menour Januaries, when its fifty below and the snowdrifts are so high you cant get from the house to the barn without pulling on a rope.. Thus, defense lawyers raised no objections when the prosecutor asked the defendants and the defense witnesses whether a soldier who was condemned for having committed civilian homicide, such as the killing of Mao, should be kept on as a member of the armed forcesthat is, should be permitted to go on committing military homicide. Technically, I myself was a suspect, Eriksson told me. recognized that there were forces of conscience that might have to be contended with?
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