[MontanaKid]

MontanaKid here. The story is getting a lot of play here. It's a series in four parts in the Toledo (OH) Blade and most papers and broadcast news are picking up through the Associated Press. The alleged incidents did happen in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin Provinces. The newspaper has misidentified the area as part of the Central Highlands. They have also misidentified the old Quang Tin Province as "Quang Nam." So they lack some background on the war and Vietnam. None of the reporters is old enough to be a veteran of the war. The Quang Nam mistake is easy to make for one who does not research deep enough into the war. The old Quang Tin Province, with Tam Ky as its capital, is now part of Quang Nam. The communist government combined the two provinces shortly after they took charge. Danang was capital of Quang Nam and was originally made capital of the combined province. But the goverment has made Danang an independent city government and the capital of the combined province is now back in Tam Ky.
As we know, the "Central Highlands" as they were regarded in the Vietnam War, were in II Corps, not I Corps, where Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces are.
What you say seems to confirm what I originally suspected. Though they describe Tiger Force as some kind of super-elite, hand-picked bully-boy unit, it did appear to me that they were probably no more than the Echo Company, Recon Platoon that every infantry battalion had. In our battalion, you did have to be a line company vet to be in recon. They didn't assign FNGs to Recon. But to make them out to be some kind of specially-trained elite force seems to be a stretch. I'm following this and will do some National Archives searching myself.