Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. This time, he said, it would be Clark who would stay behind to guard Mao and the weapons in the hootch. Recalling the interview, Eriksson said, Id answer a question, then hed wait and Id have to wait along with him, then hed ask another question, real fast, and in Id come with my next answer. After his last talk with Vorst, he told me, that frustration was always with himeating at him, keeping him remote from his fellow-G.I.s, costing him sleep. Eriksson himself helped Manuels case by testifying briefly as a defense witness, corroborating the fact that Manuel had refused to obey Meserves order to kill Mao. Sitting by himself on a sofa, Eriksson smiled somewhat ruefully, a deep dimple forming in one cheek. 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. All were dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private, and deprived of all pay, with the exception of Rafe, who was to go on receiving pay but forfeit fifty dollars monthly for eight years. The men found her feverish and coughing, and Clark was all for rescheduling her death hour to that evening. Then the C.O. Of those who were asked the question, only Captain Vorst, lifer though he was, stated that if Meserve was guilty of rape and murder, then he did not care to have the Sergeant in his command. Did Eriksson know that military judges and jurors were notoriously lenient in their sentencing? I had no idea where my unit was. I wanted to be very sure that he himself hadnt taken part in the rape. But. Eriksson shook his head again. Among its members were C.I.D. Accordingly, at nine the group struck out for the cliff. [14], In 1992, former PFC Thomas gained further notoriety when he was charged with being an accessory after the fact in the murder trial of George Loeb, who was charged with the 17 May 1991 shooting death of an African-American USS Saratoga sailor named Harold J. Mansfield. When I got up to the girl, I saw that her head was partially blown away, he testified. . But I couldnt think any of my brainstorms through. For Rafe, the fighting had ended an hour earlierwell before the patrol reached the cave complex. Meserve saw to that, for a brilliant sun had come up, its glare exposing the bizarre party as clearly as it did the landscape. There was little pattern to the verdicts, each of the juries indulging in its own vagaries. It did not occur in the United States. Naturally, Meserve said, if the men could spot any Vietcong in the open, that would be all to the good, but the patrols ordersand these had been spelled out in no uncertain terms by the battalion commandwere to avoid any shooting matches with the enemy except in self-defense; as a so-called pony patrol, he said, they were out to collect early-warning information concerning enemy intentions. I made sure I wrote to him every day, and in each letter I put a packet of Kool-Aid, so that at least his water would be tasty. Plot Eriksson had never laid eyes on the chaplain before. 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. I thought he wanted to destroy living evidence., In the morning, everyone got up shortly after six, and it wasnt long before Maos fate was sealed. Book Title: Casualties of War: Incident on Hill 192 Author: Daniel Lang Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime. All soldiers (excluding Storeby) were dishonorably discharged from the Army. Erikssons patrol leader delivered a tongue-lashing to his counterpart, who apologized. By the time I got out of jail, he told Eriksson, I was saying to myself, Whats happened is the way things are, so why try to buck the system? And take it from me, Eriksson, its even more hopeless to try to buck it in the middle of a wartheres more of a system then than ever. 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. 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. They found the company commander, who had himself only just returned, waiting impatiently to confront them with Erikssons report. I just wanted to feel quiet, he said. However, he welcomed the shift to Radcliff for a more important reason. He was confident, he told me, that he stood a better chance of finding help there than in the confines of the platoon area. 2: The great pressures you were subject to during those critical months are appreciated. Six months ago, he said, he had taken a Minneapolis bus home from work and, being very tired, had dozed off. Ending the first of his brooding silences, Eriksson said, From one day to the next, you could see for yourself changes coming over guys on our sidedecent fellows, who wouldnt dream of calling an Oriental a gook or a slopehead back home. 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. Eriksson told me that he himself reacted silently but that after Meserve and the men had broken up to go their separate ways until morning he sought out his friend Corporal Curly Rowan, a West Virginian, who had been in Vietnam, and with the platoon, just as long as Meserve had. Much as he loved it, he told me, it was what he had been working at before he was drafted, and, as is often true of new war veterans, he felt restless and in need of a change. It turned out to be a letter of commendation. So now its only the father whos leftor is he? Im not talking about any specific case. 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. Kirsten and I have talked about the day of their release, he told me, and our realistic hope is that Meserve and Clark have been able to see for themselves what theyve done., What else can we hope? Mrs. Eriksson asked. Each day, Eriksson said, he felt as though he were at war with war, a troublemaker out to undermine some careful, desperate code of survival. they said if you were fortunate enough to get in a group where you had an old-timer who had been in Vietnam like six months longer than you had, if you followed what he said, you would live longer. Besides, Manuel testified, If he had not gone into the hootch he would have risked becoming an outcast. . Almost before he was awake, M.P.s escorted him from his cell to the Provost Marshals office, where he underwent a further interrogation. down a trail between two hedgerows when the patrol was suddenly fired upon from one side. 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. Before Eriksson was through, even his possession of a sense of humor became an issue. For as long as she lived, Eriksson did not know her name. It is going to be yourself. Rafe was the man closest to Clark and Maoonly a few metres awayand because he was, his testimony concerning the events that now took place carried special weight with the court. In the meantime, Erikssons orders placed him on temporary duty with a carpentry detail that was constructing additional housing for the base, whose population came to twenty thousand. 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. Then I thought of taking off together with her. Related period. Despite threats against his life by the soldiers who took part in the rape and murder, Storeby was determined to see the soldiers punished. 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. Two escaped, and the fifth man made it to the caves, where he holed up for a last-ditch stand. Eriksson and four other enlisted men were then on a reconnaissance patrol in the vicinity of the girls home. For the film, all names and some details of the true story were altered. The guys would back him up, of course. Clark could knife the girl from the front, the Sergeant said, while he bayoneted her from behind; the body would then be tossed over a cliff from the summit of Hill 192, where the patrol had reconnoitred the previous day. Interested in "Incident On Hill 192 Where Are They Now" find IP Addresses, Websites, IP Tools, Articles, and other useful resources on IPAddress.com. She had lain moldering there for three weeks and her body was badly decayed. When Eriksson was able to state that he had put in for door gunner aboard helicopters, which could hardly be considered safe duty, the lawyer persisted in reminding him that you testified you wanted to get out of the platoon., Eriksson agreed. Lang's article for The New Yorker described the so-called "Incident on Hill 192" that involved the kidnapping, . After the others fell in behind him, he walked silently to the second rock, seventy-five metres away. The next thing I knew, I was in jail, Eriksson told me. [6], Storeby initially reported the crime. Thus, Vorst concluded, coming to the last of his questions, if the men in the patrol were actually convicted, Eriksson could anticipate their being freed in short order, and when that happened Eriksson himself might not feel so freefor was it really inconceivable that one or more of the ex-convicts would seek revenge? All the others in the patrol had raped or killed her. That had to have some purpose. After half an hour, their watch on the stream paid off, producing a more interesting sight than Rafes water buffalo. Arriving at the platoon area, Eriksson told me, he felt as though he had reached the promised land; the anxiety in which he had lived the past two days yielded to what he described as an almost tangible sense of safety. Needless to say, Eriksson continued, the kind of behavior he was describing was by no means limited to Americans. Hit it! the patrol leader shouted, and his men hit the ground, the bullets from the still invisible attackers raising columns of dust all around the flattened G.I.s. Based on the actual events of an incident on Hill 192 in November, 1966. . 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. Daylight was coming on fast, and he wanted the girl in the light as little as possible, Eriksson told me. He did, however, speak of her abduction and rape, and that, it turned out, was quite enough to make Greenacre propose that he and Eriksson walk over to the chaplains quarters immediately. I didnt know Eriksson brought it up. Instead, to Erikssons astonishment, Reilly chose that moment to offer a reminiscence. 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. 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. She was the big thing that had happened in the war for me, he told me. 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. 7 years ago. A: Well, no, sir, until theyvenot until they serve their sentence. Evacuated by a medical helicopter, he was flown to a hospital at Qui Nhon. When Meserve had been convicted but not yet sentenced, he was asked by the law officer, Is there any particular thing that you would like to tell the court? Standing before the bench, Meserve replied, Well, sir, Ive seen a lot of killing, which it is our duty to do, because its kill or be killed. It might have influenced my thinking if Id had that information, but Im not sure. I thought again of letting her go, but what would I tell Meserve when he got back? Meserve fought well that day. 2023 Cond Nast. Youre hurt, I can see, but how are you? Perhaps as an earnest of his friendship, Eriksson told the Marine about Mao one afternoon, and the captain was shocked to hear what had happened to her. Storeby also recalled that Gervase claimed it would be "good for the morale of the squad. A few rare films stun the senses. Another defense attorney repeatedly taxed Eriksson with having fabricated his charges against Meserve and the others in order to escape further assignments to hazardous infantry missions. Rafe later testified at his court-martial, Meserve stated we would leave an hour ahead of time so that we would have time to find a woman to take with us on the mission.
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