incident on hill 192 where are they now

The decision was not easily arrived at, for two days before Clarks trial was to begin, and when Rafe had already been convicted, Clark approached Rafe in the stockade at Long Binh, where both were jailed, and, appealing to Rafes conscience, told him that if he gave unfriendly testimony against his comrades, he would have it on his mind the rest of his life. Troubled by this, Rafe sought, and heeded, the counsel of a Catholic chaplain at Camp Radcliff in resolving the dilemma of choosing between his moral obligation, as Rafe put it to the chaplain, and loyalty to the patrol. Summoned to the stand by Clarks lawyer, the priest said he had advised Rafe that, as opposed to defending Clarks interest, he had a greater obligation to his wife and his child and the young woman who, supposedly, I assume, was killed, and to justice and society. The priest also said he was asking a Franciscan brother in Texas to break the news of Rafes conviction to his wife, to help her absorb the initial shock., By contrast, the general demeanor of the other defendants was that of incredulity at being tried; the impression they gave was that they thought only the sheerest, most improbable sort of accident could explain their being haled before a tribunal. 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. But at the other end of the path, just as we were leaving the village behind, the enemy would open up on us, and there was bitterness among us that the villagers hadnt given us warning. Sometimes you have your disagreements, and sometimes you dont voice them, you keep them to yourself.. In a sample encomium, Lieutenant Reilly declared that the Sergeants character and reputation are the best I have seen, and [he is] one of the best combat soldiers I have known. Reilly also called him a fine soldier, and went on to say, He never failed to accomplish the mission. Naturally, Erikssons experiences in Vietnam were varied, and many of them impressed themselves vividly on his mind. The "farm" houses and outbuildings have the polished look of some wealthy Parisian's country retreat rather than the more rugged appearance of a working farm. Looking back, Eriksson thinks that the small band of V.C. Thats where she is, he said with certainty. (Dr. Finck, a well-known Army pathologist, was one of the team of three physicians that performed the autopsy on the late President Kennedy.) Navigation - The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center & School I had a feeling she had been injured in some waynot that I could tell. This is how it is with Casualties of War, Brian DePalma's tale of an atrocity . Seeing him made me think at once of two questions I would have liked to ask him or his sergeant. I wanted to find out first what Meserve and Clark might do. The fire fight in the ravine lasted several hours, the attackers finally breaking off after dark. 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. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. Deciding to close in on the three Vietnamese, Meserve dispatched Eriksson and Rafe to the hootch to pick up a supply of smoke grenades. It was going to be a big outlay, considering the few men we were up against, Eriksson said. Theyd say there had never been a girl with the patrol, and Id be left looking crazy., Shifting uneasily on the sofa, Eriksson went on, When I stepped back into the hootch, I saw that Mao had made up her mind that I wasnt going to harm her. 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. John J. TolsonMajor General, U.S.A. It would be open for a while, and then thered be sections so thick with thorny vines tearing at our clothes that we couldnt see each other, even though we were spaced no farther apart than you and I are, right here in this room. Around eight oclock, Meserve permitted his squad a half hours break for chow. I listened to Svens story with a cops ear, the chaplain said. 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. You should know that the courage and steadfastness you demonstrated make me proud to have you a member of this division. Rafe had flouted the order against unnecessary shooting, confirming Erikssons observation that plans could mean little in the field and that out there any patrol was a unit only in theory. 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. It was another case of people doing their job, he told me. The four courts-martial took place in the winter of 1967, within a period of about ten days in the middle of March. Im not going to say that, sir. Vorsts executive officer, by contrast, could not countenance the thought of Meserves being cashiered. Sven wasnt raised churchy, Mrs. Eriksson remarked. 1989 Topics Trailer, Movie, Drama During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager. 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. In the end, the four juries sitting at Camp Radcliff found the defendants guilty of one crime or another. Moving in on the bush, Clark blazed away with his M-16, and at once the rustling foliage grew still. A veteran of thirty-five thousand autopsies, Professor Furue told the court, Compared with other female Mongoloids, Maos remains were well developed, a well-balanced body build., Meserve, Clark, and the two Diazes were taken into custody the day after the first search party made its visit to Hill 192. Vorst filled out transfer forms, and Eriksson signed them. Her fever and coughing had increased overnight, he said, and that didnt do her cause any good. 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. Technically, I myself was a suspect, Eriksson told me. munitions cache on Hill 192. I was operating in a forward area and probably seeing the war at its ugliest. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. 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.. It did not occur in the United States. Conscience was one thing that crossed over from civilian life to war, he said. . All four soldiers were sentenced to hard labor at the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. . One M.P., I remember, told me he could have understood it if Id gone to bat for a G.I. As a disciplined soldier, I knew I wouldnt abandon the weapons in the hootch to the enemy, but, just the same, I was dizzy with thinking how to save Mao. 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. I simply asked, do you think a murderer should be retained in the United States Army? It is going to be yourself. Greenacre might react disapprovingly, as the fellows in the platoon hador, for all Eriksson knew, Greenacre might turn out to be Meserves best friend. You could never tell how a man was going to behave under pressure, Eriksson said. Only one piece of military action occurred that morning, and it could have been dispensed with. I wanted to be very sure that he himself hadnt taken part in the rape. Mao coughed throughout the night, and at one point, Eriksson recalls, Clark again urged that the girl be finished off forthwith. Coming to me, the way he did, he might have been trying to save his neck by turning states evidence, so to speak. Kirk therefore interrupted Eriksson frequently, challenging him to tie together details that at first seemed contradictory. Since the patrol would be going out again, Eriksson said, he knew he had to act fast, but that seemed no big deal. There is going to be four people on that patrol and an individual., Once Meserve had delivered his estimate of Erikssons virility, the ill-fated bacchanal got under way. I was an inch too short. Somewhat gratefully, he went back to his prewar, and well-paid, job of cabinetmaking at the small department store. 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. He learned it, eventually, when the girls sister identified her at court-martial proceedingsproceedings that Eriksson himself instigated and in which he served as the governments chief witness. 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. 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. 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. Meserve and the others returned an hour later, toward noon, and had a hearty snack, eating it outdoors, near the entrance to the hut. As for himself, Eriksson told me, Meserve had ordered him to a ledge from which he could overlook the complex as he trained his grenade launcher on two cave mouths in particular, either one of which, the Sergeant thought, could afford the entombed V.C. Their testimony indicates that they were so inured to the epidemic, occupational violence of war that they found it hard to recognize their judicial plight as a type of retribution. He had scarcely landed in Vietnam, in October, 1966, when he was made aware of these occurrences, each of them apparently impulsive and unrelated to military strategy. Do you consider yourself braver than Eriksson?. 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. She had stopped whimpering, and there was even a little look of trust in her eyes. He displayed a hunting knife. 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. The four soldiers with whom he was on patrol raped and killed her, abandoning her body in mountain brush. Manuel later told agents of the Armys Criminal Investigation Division, Meserve said to Eriksson that inasmuch as he did not do anything to the girl [the day before], Eriksson would have to kill the girl, but Eriksson said that he would not have anything to do with that. Meserve, however, didnt follow through on his threat. . I needed more of an impression of Boyd than I had, Eriksson said. When you go out on a patrol, you aint going to be as good as you want to be, because these guys aint helping you do anything. The trials were held in a courthouse at Camp Radcliff, a frame structure measuring thirty feet by thirty and roofed with tin. Between us, weve taken care of that whole family., Eriksson never did become a door gunner. A: I was in the rear of the column, and didnt have a chance. It was like claiming that just because a drunken driver hit your friend, you had a right to get in your car and aim it at some pedestrian. Incident on Hill 192 - Wikipedia 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. I had this picture that when we did, theyd fire at us, or, at least, Meserve would have me up on charges of desertion. The novel was published in 1969. 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. Thomas remained free on bond during the trial, and court records showed that in exchange for his testimony he would only serve one year's probation. Im not talking about any specific case. The C.I.D. The guys would back him up, of course. Gazing into the valley below, Rafe thought he spied a Vietnamese in a native type of straw hat standing in the stream. Q: As a matter of fact, you have complained [from the stockade] that your promotion is being held up? (Eriksson had done the same for Rafe at his trial in Vietnam.) The first of them, he told me, was that Mao woke up less alluring than when she had gone to bed. 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. Thus, early in his tour of duty, Eriksson recalled, G.I.s in his unit were empowered to shoot any Vietnamese violating a 7 P.M. curfew, but in practice it was largely a matter of individual discretion whether a soldier chose to fire at a stray Vietnamese hurrying home a few minutes late to his hootchthe American term for the mud-and-bamboo huts in which most natives lived. As far as he knew, he said, no legal developments were brewing in their behalfnot that it made much difference, he added, since he had learned just a few weeks earlier that Meserve and Clark stood to be declared eligible for parole before they had served even half their time at Fort Leavenworth. 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. 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. Then, of course, after rehabilitationI think theres a difference, sir. He had wanted to unburden himself of his doubts about whether he had done all he might have done for Mao in her travaildoubts that gnaw at him to this day. 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. Who else would tell but myself? You Are Here: ross dress for less throw blankets apprentissage des lettres de l'alphabet incident on hill 192 where are they now. The C.I.D. In any event, Eriksson went on, he lost little time in seeking out his friend Curly Rowan to tell him the story of Mao. It seemed like a deal, but why was it, Eriksson asked himself, that a captain should feel constrained to bargain with a lowly enlisted man? I knew the rendezvous spot, and if Mao and I could show up there at the right time, there was no question in my mind but that the fellows in the resupply squad would help us both. [2] As Clark and Rafe left, Eriksson told me, he realized that he was about to exchange one kind of excitement for anotherthe encounter with the three Vietnamese, that is, for the quieter, more complicated ordeal of being alone with Mao. Arriving on the run, the two explained their errand to Clark, who heard the news eagerly, then pulled rank on Eriksson and ordered him to take his place in guarding the hootch. Eriksson continued as an M.P., his duties generally less onerous than they had been in Vietnam, and his existence certainly more relaxed, since, as he observed to me, he was waking up every morning not only in his own country but in the presence of the Rockies. I heard that argument over and over again, and I could never buy it. Florida Highway Patrol Current Traffic Incidents 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. Mao wasnt there, and Eriksson, rejoining the waiting group, pointed to the other rock. What conclusions may be drawn from "The Incident on Hill 192," as the war crime was known at the time of the courts-martial? Are you afraid of Sergeant Meserve? Eriksson was asked at one point, and he replied, Thats affirmative, sir. Mao was ungagged but was given no food; noticing that she was flushed and coughing slightly, Meserve handed her an aspirin. be ambushed. . Casualties of War (1989) - User Reviews - IMDb A: I dont think Im braver than Eriksson. In the first place, he wanted to act fast, and, besides, he had no doubt that once he did act, there would be fast results. During his months leave, he was always with her and with relatives and friends and, in a way, Eriksson said, with Mao. This morning, Manuel carried his own. Other soldiers, he said, might just as easily have betrayed the weakness that the four men had betrayed on Hill 192, but it had fallen to Meserve and Clark and Rafe and Manuel in particular to act as they had. It repeated itself in waves, broken only, Eriksson assumed, by Maos need to summon fresh breath. Then I thought of taking off together with her. At first, we all denied any knowledge about it. Mrs. Eriksson fetched it for me from a bureau drawer, and I read: 1: You are to be commended for the important role you played in seeing that justice was done in the recent court-martial cases involving four soldiers charged with the rape and murder of a young Vietnamese woman. ? an Oklahoma rifleman asked one night as he and Eriksson were settling down to sleep in their foxholes. The thought of them, he said, makes him feel discouraged at times about his future, which, he pointed out, could be a long one. . But they were halfway around the world now, in a strange country, where they couldnt tell who was their friend and who wasnt. 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. He felt even wearier on arriving in Kansas, when he learned that there was little point to his presence. They set you brooding about them for days. 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. 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. 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. 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. We just tell them to dee deemeaning to go away. He sounded genuinely concerned. Something else the prosecutor did was to advise him to see a psychiatrist before the trials started.

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