He had yet to exonerate himself from the self-imposed charge of having failed to save Maos life. The only thing these women had to do on their way to the stream was breathe pure mountain air.. Loc and her father had moved from their native hamlet; they now lived in a village several miles from there. The land was very changeable. 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. Storeby also recalled that Gervase claimed it would be "good for the morale of the squad. A. Weiss Causualties of war Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2013 Verified Purchase The movie "Casualties of war" (1986) Eriksson was determined to meet the Arizonans friend, he told me, for he had a feeling that the long-nosed chaplain was the man who would help him bring Maos case to light. He had no illusion, though, that Rowan himself could do much about what he had just learned, but at that, Eriksson said, his friend did what he could, immediately relaying news of the murder to the sergeant of his own squad. In the Army, he had discovered, that kind of action depended entirely on the discretion of ones superiorunless it was possible to figure out some way of bypassing him. Three times I saw the C.O. At first, the chain of command, including the company commander, took no action. It was ten inches long, and its handle was wrapped with tape that bore a pattern of tiny diamonds. Sometimes I didnt see what kept the stick from snapping. The novel was published in 1969. The structure was in a state of extreme disrepair, and had a number of large holes in its mud walls. 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. 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. There shouldnt have been, because I had decided, outside, that there wasnt a thing in the world I could do for her. Just as long as he stayed in line, just as long as he kept the setup going, he could do whatever he wanted., Perhaps the most jarring of all the discoveries he made during this unhappy period, Eriksson told me, was that his fellow-G.I.s took a dim view of his efforts in behalf of Mao. They were alone this time, Eriksson told me, and when Eriksson inquired what progress there had been in the murder case, the Captain seemed not to hear but posed a series of questions. Do you consider yourself braver than Eriksson?. "Jesus, we're supposed to be here to help these people!" However, he did call Clarks attention to a bush directly ahead. 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. His plane was a commercial airliner, the Army having chartered it for a flight to Fort Lewis, Seattle, from which point the men, all of whom were going on leave, would be on their own. He had barely begun it, however, when Clark, seeing the two in conversation, descended on them, demanding to know what they were talking about. She has a gold tooth! Instantly, the Sergeant said, Thats the girl well find. Astounded by the enormity of his own suggestion, Rafe looked miserably at Manuel and Eriksson as Meserve and Clark, quickening their steps, made for the white hootch that contained the pretty girl with a gold tooth. Q: You dont believe the military gives a choice between rules, orders, and conscience? 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. What conclusions may be drawn from "The Incident on Hill 192," as the war crime was known at the time of the courts-martial? Serving as radioman, he was in the vanguard with Meserve and Clark; Mao walked ten metres behind, wearily ascending the rugged terrain, with Rafe as her forward guard and Eriksson bringing up the rear. But caves werent all that the five men would he looking for. Confirming Erikssons ruminations on this subject, Manuel testified that at a special ten-day camp in Vietnam where G.I.s were trained intensively to cope with combat situations it had been knocked into our heads, practically, to obey orders and. Mostly to my lawyer.. I wanted to get out of the platoon, he stated. who was murdered, but how could I do it for a Vietnamese? At ten-thirty, a short distance below the summit of Hill 192, Meserve found what he was looking fora command post for the day. 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Using the upper one as a vantage point, they spied the small band of V.C. 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. 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. I just wanted to feel quiet, he said. 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. For protective custody, they said., From that point on, Erikssons life in the Army was radically changed. Before Eriksson was through, even his possession of a sense of humor became an issue. They werent shocked, or anything like that, Eriksson recalls. A: I wrote my senator. That leaves three to go.. Incident on Hill 192 explained Inevitably, though, the defense witnesses were unable to confine their remarks to Meserves service record, foralmost tactlessly, it seemedthe prosecutor would inject the topic of Maos murder, the implications of which had less to do with the conquest of an enemy than with the requirements of an ordered civilian life. They were very definite. 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. A: The Army expects you to do it the Army way, and thats follow orders. It was to take them, ultimately, to Hill 192a height, in the Bong Son valley, that overlooked a ravine laced with a cave complex, which was suspected of serving as a Vietcong hideout. 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. 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. Returning to the patrols briefing, Eriksson told me that Meserve was all business as he plunged into his talk. And it had to be Boyd Greenacre who would introduce me. agents, lawyers, and ballistics and firearms specialists. It is going to be yourself. They lingered in it longer than they had in the other hootches, but since Eriksson was standing outside the hut he is unable to describe what went on inside. 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. Reporting another of Locs answers at the trial, the court interpreter stated, She said her sister have gold tooth, right side in lower jaw.. Two escaped, and the fifth man made it to the caves, where he holed up for a last-ditch stand. The soldiers set up a night watch, each man pulling guard duty outside in the moonlight, alert for any lurking enemy. Now, watching the chaplain depart, Eriksson decided that Greenacre was very much worth cultivating. I had no idea where my unit was. 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. Meserve testified at his court-martial, The mother came out, like they always do, started crying, talking. With me, he said, he trusted he would be able to go into these matters freely, but he had early discovered that in a court of law they were of little interest. It was certainly possible to do so, as I knew for myself from having read the court record of the trials he had brought about: seven bulky volumes in the offices of the Clerk of Courts, U.S. Army Judiciary, in Falls Church, Virginia, which included Erikssons testimony against the members of the patrol; their convictions and appeals; interminable correspondence between judges and opposing counsel; and depositions concerning the character of individual defendants. Eriksson talked with me at his home in (I shall say) Minneapolis, where, since leaving the Army, he has been earning his living as a cabinetmaker at a local department store. That was a bum rap. Smiling, Eriksson remarked to me, We were thirty thousand feet up by then, or he might have asked for his money back., In Minnesota, Eriksson returned to the small apartment in Minneapolis where we were sitting, his wife having maintained it while he was gone. incident on hill 192 where are they now. They had gone scarcely twenty metres when a cry of distress halted them. The trial records make it clear that the question left the witnesses uncomfortable, for their responses were reluctant and tortured. Gervase was found guilty on the count of premeditated murder. 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. He knew Mao for slightly more than twenty-four hours. Departing from the hamlet with their prize, the soldiers moved west toward the main trail they should have been on. incident on hill 192 where are they now - acting-jobs.net Rafes sentence of eight years had been cut to four, and Meserves ten years had been trimmed to eight. 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. At the very outset, Eriksson told me that the last thing he wished to do was discuss Maos murder in any legalistic vein. Eriksson shook his head again. Based on the actual events of an incident on Hill 192 in November, 1966. But then I dont know how much the C.I.D. Eriksson told me that he felt weary at the mere prospect of reappearing as a witness a year after the Radcliff trials. Who else would tell but myself? Of course, I was a foot soldier all this time. Eriksson said, He told Meserve her coughing was going to give away our position, but I didnt think it was Charlie he had on his mind. Accordingly, at nine the group struck out for the cliff. In the movie, a five-man squad led by Sergeant Meserve kidnaps and rapes a Vietnamese girl named Than, regardless of the protagonist, Eriksson's objection. . 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. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman [1] on 19 November 1966 [2] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. The guys would back him up, of course. [10] At the trial of Thomas, who committed the actual stabbing and shooting, the prosecutor asked the jury to impose a death sentence. Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. 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. wouldnt let me become a door gunner, Eriksson told me. 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. That just shows you it isnt all combat over here. Meserves lawyer, pleading for his client immediately after this, spoke of the pressures on twenty-year-old sergeants. Events happened fast that day, Eriksson said. 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. Going about their tasks with unrelieved efficiency, the men staked out an area thirty feet square in which to conduct their operations, soon gathering a harvest of clues, among them lead fragments of spent bullets, for the ballistics and firearms men, and parts of Maos remains, for the pathologists. The Sergeant had made his announcement with a straight face, leaving his men to interpret it as they would. In his cell, Reilly went on, he had made plans to shoot various officials at the hospital, but when he was finally released he gave up the idea of vengeance. Unfortunately they do nothing but settle for him to be relocated in order to not be killed by his fellow squad members. . Yours was not an easy task, but you did your duty as an American soldier. The hamlet was barely out of sight when Manuel, perhaps competing with Clark, untied Maos hands, then slipped his pack from his shoulders and loaded it onto the girls. Based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966, we follow . His spirits on the upswing, Eriksson set about trying to meet the chaplain. Though 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 . Mao coughed throughout the night, and at one point, Eriksson recalls, Clark again urged that the girl be finished off forthwith. Both Thomas and Loeb were leaders of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator. Unless Eriksson went along with the others, Meserve warned, he would run the risk of being reported a friendly casualty. Clark seconded this vociferously, and both Diazes concentrated puzzled stares on the difficult member of the patrol. But I couldnt think any of my brainstorms through. 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. Asked why, he answered, O.K., lets say you are on a patrol. Sven wasnt raised churchy, Mrs. Eriksson remarked. Thats where the woman was going in the early morning, but it was peacetime and it wasnt necessary either for her or for the peasant women she was with to smell the bodies that were always rotting for miles around, no one knew where, when I was in the Central Highlands. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape and murder of Tran Thi Oahn, a young Vietnamese woman on 19 November 1967 by an American squad during the Vietnam War. *The Incident on Hill 192 is what the U.S army calls the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao. [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. With Mao out of the way, he was able to concentrate on the action at hand, managing his patrol, working in concert with the other squads, and helping to guide the diving gunships, whose presence he now welcomed. No one would ever know what had become of her, he exclaimed. For this action, Meserve was nominated for a Bronze Star. see review David rated it liked it Nov 11, 2021 Glen rated it liked it Jan 29, 2014 He was asked, Couldnt you have thought up a story [for Meserve] to the effect that you heard some noises or heard some V.C. 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. For example, the ballistics and firearms specialists, working together, were able to analyze the lead bullet fragments as having come from an M-16 rifle and to offer it as their judgment in court that Mao had been shot at close rangea judgment that afforded a presumably objective basis for incriminating Clark, at least, as one of her assassins. Like most rural women, she was dressed in loose-fitting black pajamas. Its time for some fun, he said. Meserve said nothing to Rafe; nor did he say anything to any of the others when, as the mission unfolded, they committed similar derelictions. But, as Eriksson unhesitatingly acknowledges, the fact is that when he thinks of his tour of duty in Vietnam it is always a single image that comes to his mind. (Asked by a C.I.D. 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. A moment later, the two groups went off in different directions. In addition, the hootch served as a place to hide Mao. Eriksson had never laid eyes on the chaplain before. Incident on Hill 192 by Daniel Lang - Goodreads Conscience was one thing that crossed over from civilian life to war, he said. . in the area.. 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. Why else had Vorst seen fit to reshuffle the patrol, leaving only Manuel within shooting distance, so to speak? . This sentence was first commuted to 20 years, then reduced to eight, which made him eligible for parole after half that time. incident on hill 192 where are they now. 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. 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. Eriksson saw Vorst shortly after the three soldiers left the company command post. The enemy did the same thing, and much of the evidence for this came from the Vietnamese themselves. He felt even wearier on arriving in Kansas, when he learned that there was little point to his presence. Asked whether Meserve might not have been searching the hootches of Maos hamlet for the strictly military purpose of finding strange faces, he answered, I wouldnt say this, sir. 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. Deciding that he was looking at a V.C., Rafe let fly with a couple of rounds from his M-16 rifle. 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. Your prompt reporting of this serious incident to your superiors and subsequent testimony in court were essential elements in the apprehension and trials of the men responsible for this brutal crime. In True Grit, and other novels, Portis displayed a genius that went beyond character in the strictly literary sense. . In addition to the occasional remarks he heard in the police barracks, a train of other developments served to remind him of the girl. She was the big thing that had happened in the war for me, he told me. As the court transcript shows, Reilly didnt let matters rest there. De Palma wanted to make the movie after reading Daniel Lang's article in The New Yorker in 1969. Undeterred by Erikssons denial, the lawyer persevered with his line of questioning. As far as he could make out, the company C.O. They were married four years ago, shortly after Eriksson was drafted. In addition, Meserve learned that he was again to be the recipient of artillery support; in a short while, Reilly said, helicopter gunshipsaircraft equipped with rocket artillery and machine gunswould be in the area. We were advancing through nice country, Eriksson told me. All soldiers (excluding Storeby) were dishonorably discharged from the Army. went on, it was mild sentences that were the order of the day, and, what was more, they became even milder when they were up for review; safe and professionally idealistic back home, he said, the legal experts of military appellate bodies invariably looked with suspicion upon the administration of justice in war zones. 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. Even the prosecutor predicted defeat, Eriksson told me, and during a short break Eriksson heard the judge remark to the court reporter that the trial was a waste of the taxpayers money. It certainly was not the Army's finest hour, given the reticence. He said it was only human to make mistakes., Erikssons attempt to forget Mao proved futile, as he had really known it would. It could keep them from believing that life was so valuableanyones life, I mean, even their own. In 1969, the New Yorker published a report by Daniel Lang about the court martial of a group of men who had served in Vietnam.
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