Prisoners

[39mto39g]

As far as I can remember we only took prisoners a few times at the beginning of my tour. One time our interpretor shot one and the next time it took 5 or 6 guys to take prisoners back to bace camp. From then on we just shot them on the spot. (not me) But I didn't care either. Prisoners is probibly the only thing I ever agreed with Japan on. Don't be a prisoner and don't take prisoners, The end.
What did your unit do with prisoners?

Ron

[catman]

In the Desert, we would strip them of all ammo, give them a bottle of water and point towards Saudi, figured the ash and trash could take care of them better than us.

Trav

[Bill Farnie]

Took em' up to 2/17/69 .... didn't take any after that day

[DMZ-LT]

Never took any , shot a guy who tried to give up after he ran out of ammo, always put 2 rounds into any body I saw. Tiny tells me I shot a wounded guy but I don't remember it that way

[39mto39g]

my one and only picture of prisoners.

[SuperScout]

Being in a mech unit on my first tour, we had a regular supply umbilical cord that enabled us to back-haul prisoners. When a resupply convoy was headed back to Bearcat, there was always enough folks going in on R&R or some other reason to guard the POW until the MP's could take over.

During Tet, my platoon captured 33 NVA and from some of them, a wealth of information was derived that later was distilled into some very good intelligence, that when acted upon, caused the utter destruction of an NVA regimental headquarters, cut off the exfiltration route for survivors of the augmented battalion I encountered, and other significant gains for our side.

I fully understand the logistical implications of taking prisoners, and I take no judgmental position vis a vis what other did.

[splummer]

r

[39mto39g]

SS
No dought that prisoners gave up valuable information, I guess we just didn't care or maybe we weren't smart enough to understand how important the information was, In any case the prisoners didn't make it and we moved on, the end.

Ron

[PHO127]

Sometimes we didn't, Sometimes we interrogated them in the field. Sometimes we didn't. Most of the time they died. Sometimes it was quick, sometimes it wasn't.

[exlrrp]

It was our job to take prisoners when we could, both in the infantry and the lrrps.
We'd take prisooners and send them back to the rear in the 101st. I don't know how many times this was done but several in the 6 months I was there.
In the heat of battle its a dicey proposition to surrender to an enemy. But a lot of these weren't taken in heat of battle, basically just likely looiking suspects we'd come across.
I remember coming into the company CP once in Chu Lai and almost tripping over a dead body, hands tied together. I mean the smoke was just clearing. Pighumper remembers this.
Turns out the combat engineer who was with us, Applegate, had shot himup basically just because he didn't like the look on the guys face. Apple was a crazy man--what do you expect from someone who defuses bombs and booby traps every day? What an awful pressure on a young man. No wonder he cracked.
I know he got "talked to" on this but I don't know what else was done, I assume nothing. I hope life turned out good for the Apple.

The intellegence value of prisoners is terrific but it really only works when the prisoner is cooperative. This rarely occurs through violence or torture as the Army manual clearly says, which s why they reccommend--mandate--decent treatment of prisoners.
My lrrp team took one prisoner in 6 months, we did it mainly just to keep up with the other teams, some of which took several. We basically jumped two sleeping trail waychers. killed the least important looking one on the spot with a knife, beat the other one into submission, gagged him and dragged him back to the LZ. We didn't interroigate him on the spot, none of us could speak Vietnamese more than to buy some boombooom or comsai.
We turned him over to the White Rats as per SOP and they commenced to beat the shit out of the poor f cker right in front of us. This is really awful to watch and anyone who says not I don't want on my side, so we left. You could hear the poor f cker screaming for some time.
Next thing I remember was walking by this open barbed wire enclosure where theyd dumped him and hearing him moaning and sobbing.
I was a good soldier, good enough anyway but unfortunately I was still a human being. Maybe its the liberal in me but I can't stand to see things suffer, its disturbing to me and the kind of thing I'm inclined to do something about. And the same with the other guys I was with although these were some of the most ferocious people in combat you'd ever meet.
I came back from th mess hall and there they were saddling up and putting the warface on so of course I did too, although this was defintely one of the times I was a wide eyed open mouthed kid tagging after the big kids. And some mighty ferocious big kids they were too.
My team and some of the other guys, about10 in all walked into the White Rats place with the warface on (cammo stick) carrying our usual tools including suppressed weapons and put the Rats inside up against the wall. Then My teamleader Sam (who had instigated this) went into the enclosure and gave the guy first aid. Sam had been a medic his first tour of the NAm (this was his 2d) he patched the guy up and then came back and jammed his .45 in the WHite Rat Lts ear and asked him if hs spoke English then told him that if the guy died we would come backi and kill him, his men and all their families. another lrrp, I don't remember who, fired a burst into the wall for punctuation.
Sam was a man of high caliber (he wound up a lt col) and he had the kind of face that if he said that to you, you'd believ him. Espcially if he had .45 of that high caliber jammed in your ear.
As far as I know that prioner survived but I sure don't know everything. This may have been the most noble thing I saw in the war. Thanks Sam, yr still my hero.
We didn't bother to take prisoners after that
Stay good
James