TASK FORCE OREGON, Tiger Force trail of atrocities

[MillRatUSMC]

TASK FORCE OREGON, Tiger Force trail of atrocities
Saw this on the news, the investication on these atrocities was killed in 1975 by the government because it saw no use dued to the war having just ended.
In the piece on the news, there was William Doyle, who stated his favorite way of shooting was shooting someone in the back.
All of these are war crimes.
Those crimes have no limitations and these men might be brought to trial on these war crimes.

The mission:
Fearing the North Vietnamese would take control of the Central Highlands and cut South Vietnam in two, Gen.William Westmoreland in February, 1967 created Task Force Oregon —made up of numerous Army units including Tiger
Force — to clear out enemy troops and relocate civilians.
As part of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, Tiger Force arrived in Duc Pho on May 3 to begin a series of search-and-destroy missions that would last until Aug. 10.
The unit then moved to Chu Lai to continue its operations.

Trail of atrocities
Aug. 10, 1967,
to Nov. 25, 1967.
From May through November, 1967, Tiger Force swept across
the Central Highlands torching hamlets and rounding up villagers
to send them to relocation camps. Those villagers who stayed
behind became frequent targets.

Seven months of war crimes*:
MAY
May 6/ Song Ve Valley • George Hatten
mutilates dead Vietnamese.
May 8/ near Duc Pho • After capturing
and torturing a prisoner, soldiers order
him to run and fatally shoot him
JUNE
June/ Song Ve Valley • Sgt. Terrance
Kerrigan executes a prisoner.
June/ near Duc Pho • Spec. Kenneth
Green tortures and kills a bound prisoner.
June/ Song Ve Valley • Soldiers kill an
elderly man and place a grenade on his
body to disguise him as an enemy.
JULY
June-July/ near Duc Pho • Pvt. Sam
Ybarra and Spec. Kenneth Green
capture, kill, and scalp an enemy soldier.
June-July/ near Duc Pho • Pvt. Sam
Ybarra kills and cuts off the ears of an
unarmed 15-year-old boy.
July/ near Duc Pho • Losing a bet that
he can knock out a prisoner with one
punch, Sgt. Robin Varney and two others
kill the prisoner with a bayonet.
July/ Song Ve Valley • Pvt. Sam Ybarra
and Spec. Kenneth Green kill a prisoner
instead of evacuating him.
July 18/ Song Ve Valley • Sgt. William
Doyle admits to killing a wounded Viet Cong
fighter after the prisoner asks for water.
July 23/ Song Ve Valley • Sgt. Harold
Trout clubs Dao Hue, an elderly, unarmed
carpenter, with his rifle and Lt. James
Hawkins shoots Dao Hue in the face.
July 24/ Song Ve Valley • An unarmed
man is wounded while approaching the
unit's night position. Sgt. Harold Trout
fatally shoots the man.
July 27/ Song Ve Valley • Soldiers execute
two prisoners on the order of an officer.
July 28/ Song Ve Valley • The platoon
opens fire on 10 elderly, unarmed farmers,
killing four. Others are injured.
July 28/ Song Ve Valley • Soldiers stop
a 12-year-old boy, Vo Tai Can, leading
two unarmed, partially blind men. The
boy is evacuated, but the soldiers execute
the men.
Early August/ Song Ve Valley • Lt.
James Hawkins orders troops to fire on
two unarmed, elderly women approaching
camp. One woman is injured.
August/ near Chu Lai • Unit members
kill suspected Viet Cong fighter and then
find the man's elderly father. Pvt. James
Cogan wounds the father before another
platoon member kills him.
August/ near Chu Lai • Sgt. William
Doyle shoots an unarmed teenager in
the back after ordering him to leave.
Sergeant Doyle also shoots a North
Vietnamese prisoner assigned to the unit
as an interpreter.
August/ near Chu Lai • Soldiers drop
grenades into three underground bunkers
filled with Vietnamese men, women, and
children.
August/ near Tam Ky • Sgt. William
Doyle shoots a farmer in the forearm,
then orders troops to kill the man as he
begs for his life. The man is executed.
Aug. 21/ near Chu Lai • Soldiers tie up
and torture a prisoner and tell him to run.
He is fatally shot as he runs away.
Late August-September/ between Tam
Ky and Chu Lai • Pvt. Sam Ybarra and
Spec. Kenneth Green sexually assault a
13-year-old girl before killing her
NOVEMBER
November/ near Chu Lai • After
searching a village for weapons and
finding none, exiting soldiers come under
fire from a distant hillside. They return
fire, and then turn their guns on the
village, killing six civilians.
November/ location unknown • Pvt.
Sam Ybarra decapitates an infant in a
village hut.
Nov. 11 - Nov. 21, Quang Nam province
Tiger Force radio logs list 49 "Viet Cong"
killed, but in 46 deaths no weapons are
seized. Former platoon members now
say that civilians were killed and radio
log information was fabricated.
UNKNOWN
Unknown date/ Chu Lai • Sgt. James
Barnett executes a young mother on the
order of Sgt. Harold Trout.
September to November/ unknown
location • Pvt. John Colligan shoots an
unarmed, elderly Vietnamese man to test
a present he had recieved — a 38-caliber
handgun.
September to November/ near Tam Ky
• A soldier beheads one elderly man and
medic Barry Bowman fatally shoots a
wounded man in the same village.

Total known dead from
Tiger Force atrocities: 81
Soldiers do not know how many
people died in the bunkers, and
several said they kept no count of
what were widespread civilian
deaths. Former medic Rion Causey
said 120 were killed by his team
during just one month.

There but for the grace of God go I.
Yet the guestion must be asked.
"Should the men still alive be brought to trial on these war crimes?"
The government is looking in to starting another investigation.
then another question;
"What good will this investigation serve?"

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

[Sparrowhawk]

I have known about this investigation for several months now, and I believe the concerns were aired recently on a TV special and some congressmen are calling for an investigation.

Perhaps this tread its hard to answer for us that served with honor because we have faced war, and know what we endured, faced and how we may have shot at innocent civilians during battle. We know that some Americans may have done some of this stuff. But, it was not our policy nor did the Marine Corps tolerate such actions.

Last month some wannabee poolee emailed a small part of what this Army unit did, and said that he now knew what "Vietnam," was like. This is yet another black mark on the Vietnam veteran that served honorably, because of individuals like those in these Army units. They dishonored those that fought with and died with honor.

In my response to that wannabee, I said that if any Marine would have committed such acts, he would have found himself at LBJ jail in Da Nang, if Marines had committed them in my unit, I would probably have shot them myself.

War is war, and the Duc Phu area where the first incidents occurred in 1967 were filled with NVA and communist sympathizers, whole villages were set up to look like normal villages, but the people there were all NVA. Still the Marines there, while suffering many daily causalities did not shoot innocent women and children as these soldiers did.

It’s for that reason that I voted yes, they should be held accountable for their crimes. Yet, it was another world and another time. The circumstances under which they acted may have been grime, but I wasn't there.

While there were times we shot into villages when the enemy shot at us from there, when we swept through them we did not shoot children and women hiding in tunnels as these soldiers did. We knew the NVA used them as pawns, or killed them without hesitation, we were Marines and were not like that.

When you lose a close friend in a combat area its hard not to shoot anything that moves. But in many cases this investigation will be looking into, that was not the case. They went in with the purpose of shooting everything. Men, women, children regardless if they were the enemy or not.

Marines that I served with were not like that, we may have fired into the general area or burned down a village in an NVA controlled area that had been identified as a free fire zone, but we did not commit the types of war crimes these soldiers did.

There is a price we pay for war, but for some of these soldiers it was not war, but willful waste of human lives. You can dehumanize the enemy and shoot him, but not innocent civilians. it was for them, that we were there.

[MillRatUSMC]

My company took part in operation Cochise in 1967 in the Que Son valley.
It was dangerous than, it was TOAR of the 5th Marines till they moved north to replace 1st Marines of which I was part of.
During the time that we took part in operation Cochise, I lost a member of my platoon to a mine, many had gone by that mine.
After we medvac his body out, our point man shouted "FREEZE!".
I have some of those three prongs things between my legs.
That how we found out that we were in a mine field.
We had to probe our way out of that mine field.
On the way back, we took a round from a ville.
I had made a remark;
"I hope some fool doesn't shoot our way."
Because we had some ammo, and many wanted to get rid of some of that old ammo.
From 50's on down, there was firing from the convoy we riding in.
After that we were back guarding the arty battery.
One morning down by some ville on the river that ran by Hill 55.
We made contact and some fool thinking he was going to throw a grenade at us, it was a min and it blew his hands off.
I called for a medvac, when that chopter touch down and the pilot saw NVA/VC.
He told me "Sgt. next time take your .45 and take him out of his misery."
I wanted to say, "I will Sir, if you will go to prison with me".
I had been in Recon, and I thought, if we save this fool, he might give us some good information.
Also I no longer saw him as a combatant, just a wounded fighter.
By this time I had been shot at, rocketed and mortars fired in our direction.
By this time I had been in country 9 months on this tour and 4 months in 1965.
So I wasn't a rookie.
Fools like the "Tiger Force" only made it harder and created more VC supporters.
I took offense in William Doyle saying on TV, that shooting someone in the back was his favorite way of shooting.
But he has to live with that, not I.

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

[yellowwing]

I think there was some sense and some healing in the way that South Africa handled their investigations of war crimes. Both sides of the apartide system inflicted great damage on each other and on innocent bystanders. "Come forward and tell the tuth" was all that they asked. No one was accountable during the amnesty period.

I think the idea was to honestly look at what happened, acknowledge it, and move on.

As it is now, "Gen.William Westmoreland in February, 1967 created Task Force Oregon —made up of numerous Army units including Tiger Force — to clear out enemy troops and relocate civilians." - no one will ever release the specific op orders.

And as far as the opposing communist divisional and regimental orders, no one is going to admit those either!

I cannot judge what happened or what the real impact of Viet Nam was. During my time of service in the '80s, I met a lot of combat vets that served during that time. They were magnificant SNCOs and Officers. And when I got out, I met many broken veterans that lost themselves during that time.