Here in Europe, the main newspaper Ive been reading is the Herald Tribune
Todays headline is about a "Tiger Force allegedly stationed in the Central Highlands in 1967; They are quoting a newspaper called the Blade fron somewhere in Ohio, believe its in Cincinnati.
There is a long story about this unit commiting atrocities--its the good old "Everybody wore a necklace of ears and fingers" stuff. Evidently, according to the story, these people committed many atrocities, egged on by their leaders. They were supposed to force the local people to leava their lands to go to refugee canps and often executed them if they did not--the article talks of hundreds of atrocities committed and talks further about an Army investigation that ended in the mid 70s
I don't hav the article with me as I write, left it back in the hotel, but the article implies that its big news back in the USA. A google search finds nothing about it but you can find the article at
http://www.iht.com/articles/114376.html
The whole thing sounds like a bunch of bullsht to me--I spent over 6 months in the central highlands as a lrrp from late 67 to APR 68 and I never HEARD of these people there--it was all lrrps and SF (Yes and 4th Div, Ron, they held our packs 'lol}; The only tiger force I ever heard of was the 1st/327/101st battalion recon team, a platoon.I served in ACo/1st/327 as a grunt and I know for a fact that this unit was not in the area described at the time described. This just could not be or I'm completely nuts-- I know for sure that during early 67--at least from April 67 when I joined the 1st/327, that Tiger Force, the recon unit, was working with the rest of the unit around Duc Pho in Quang Ngai province which is a loooooong way from the central Highlands and they were doing recon, not village eradication
I know this: I never saw anyone with a necklace of ears and fingers and anyone who wore one in any of the units I ever served with or anyone who did such things would have been drummed out of the unit and I mean pronto. For one thing body parts stink after not too long. For another, the people I served with were not the atrocity committing kind, just some kickass soldiers.
Friscokid: I know you were in the 101 while they were in the Central Highlands--did you ever HEAr of this stuff? A good buddy of mine went into tiger force about the same time I went LRRP and I met him later in Bragg--He wound up as the E6 platoon sgt of tigers, starting in Nam as a pfc--he never talked about this stuff and I can't imagine him doing this stuff-- this is not the 101st I knew at all
Packo, if your reading this you might ask Dan--bet he says he never heard of this either
So what do you guys think?? complete bullsht or where theres smoke theres fire? I vote for the bullsht aspect. Is this getting any play in the US??
James