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. He had barely begun it, however, when Clark, seeing the two in conversation, descended on them, demanding to know what they were talking about. It was the same sentence he had been serving, but now, having been transformed into a new verdict, it was subject to another review, the effects of which soon worked to Rafes advantage, for in August, 1969, the commanding general at Fort Leavenworth shortened his term to twenty-two months. Manuel received a sentence of fifteen years, his punishment for rape. The men ate, again without feeding her, and reminisced about their communal feat, comparing Mao with other girls they had known, and talking about how long it had been since they had had a woman. When Eriksson replied that he was prepared to take his chances on that, Vorst asked whether Eriksson might not care to transfer out of the companyor, for that matter, out of the infantry altogether. Incident on Hill 192 - The New York Times The hootch contained a table, a low bench built against a wall, and tattered remnants of a straw mat strewn in a dark corner, and the dirt floor was littered with scrap metal, rocks, and cans. The two men had arrived in Vietnam at the same time, and he had known Meserve as a considerate, agreeable man. In 1966 in Vietnam, a squad of five American soldiers, lead by Sgt. In 1989 Brian De Palma directed the film Casualties of War, which was based on Lang's book. Accompanied by a squad of armed enlisted men, as a precaution against an enemy ambush, the search party set out early the following morning, December 9th, flying from An Khe to an airstrip near Captain Vorsts company headquarters. While Eriksson, Manuel, and the now wretched Rafe hovered outside, Meserve and Clark entered the hutMaos home. Additional pictures were taken a week later, when Eriksson led a second pilgrimage to Hill 192. Q: For a murder. David Edward Gervase (1946-1981) - Find a Grave Memorial The land was very changeable. Reporting another of Locs answers at the trial, the court interpreter stated, She said her sister have gold tooth, right side in lower jaw.. Pretty soon, youre going to be an outcast from the platoon. That was how my hunch went, and I didnt dare change it in any way. Eriksson moved cautiously. [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. As in all armies, he believed, it pervaded every facet of military life, embracing officers and enlisted men, volunteers and draftees, and, for that matter, men with college degrees, like Vorst and Reilly, and men with meagre educations, like Meserve and him. be ambushed. They constantly reported rapes and kidnappings by the Vietcong; in fact, the Vietcong committed these crimes so indiscriminately that the victims were sometimes their own sympathizers. All of us had come back scared and upset, but Clark, I thought, showed it the most. Once Clark had left them, Eriksson continued with his story, feeling an immense relief when he had finished telling it. Meserve, he noticed, paid scarcely any attention to her. The "farm" houses and outbuildings have the polished look of some wealthy Parisian's country retreat rather than the more rugged appearance of a working farm. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. Eriksson was not called upon to testify this time, and this was a vast relief, he told me, not only because he was eager to get on with his civilian life but because it looked to him as though Rafes rehearing would be a duplication of Manuels second trial; that is, with Rafes tainted admissions thrown out, the governments arguments would be undermined and a verdict of acquittal brought in. By the time he concluded his last appearance on the stand, he had been accused of lying, of cowardice, and even of Maos murder. To counter any such strategy, the prosecutor wanted to have on hand a statement attesting to his chief witnesss mental stability. Before Eriksson was through, even his possession of a sense of humor became an issue. entered the caves, he said, the patrol had long ago left the vicinity of the curiously shaped rock formation, and had descended so deep into the valley that the men were practically able to touch the thick, rough outer walls of the caves. It was rustling. His reaction interested me, Eriksson said. I had had enough of watching beatings and stranglings with ponchos, he told me. When he first got back from Hill 192, he said, he had imagined that it might have been his peculiar misfortune to draw a patrol made up of psychopaths, but now each time a new G.I. Incident on Hill 192 - Wikipedia. carefully explained that to me, informing me of my legal rights, one of which was to shut up. When the interrogation was over, he was asked to lead a search party to the spot on Hill 192 where he had claimed that Maos body could be found. incident on hill 192 where are they now. Thomas remained free on bond during the trial, and court records showed that in exchange for his testimony he would only serve one year's probation. Eriksson was bound for Minnesota, for a month at home before his discharge in the spring, but when his plane put down at Seattle he found that he was ten dollars short for the final leg of his journey. In addition to the occasional remarks he heard in the police barracks, a train of other developments served to remind him of the girl. In the case of Manuel (the father of a three-month-old girl), this attitude of mystification became so palpable that the prosecutor finally inquired, Do you feel you are involved in any way in this rape and murder? To which Manuel replied No.. She herself had thus far been the only person with whom her husband had discussed it since returning from Vietnam, and even with her he had not gone into much detail. As a disciplined soldier, I knew I wouldnt abandon the weapons in the hootch to the enemy, but, just the same, I was dizzy with thinking how to save Mao. At first, the chain of command, including the company commander, took no action. Well, during this Operation Thayer II, which started [last October], we ran into a hootch that was burned down. Incident on Hill 192 View source 19 November 1967. He displayed a hunting knife. And it had to be Boyd Greenacre who would introduce me. Eriksson decides to do something about her death and reports it to his superiors. He did, however, speak of her abduction and rape, and that, it turned out, was quite enough to make Greenacre propose that he and Eriksson walk over to the chaplains quarters immediately. Shitstink McLanahan. The girl looked so innocent, so calm, he testified. 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. Bunkers, trenches, trails that were not marked on maps, caches of enemy equipmentthese, too, were to be reconnaissance objectives. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, Like their predecessors in all wars, American veterans of the Vietnamese campaign who are coming home to civilian life have their heads filled with memories that may last the rest of their days, for, no matter how far from the front a man may have spent his time as a soldier, he will remember it as a special time, when, fleetingly, his daily existence appeared to approach the heroic. In April, Eriksson received his honorable discharge from the Army, and in April, too, he heard of further judicial developments. All four soldiers were sentenced to hard labor at the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As a result, Eriksson spent the next two days surreptitiously doing a kind of security check on Greenacres character. And I told her, in English, I cant understand you. I wanted to tell her other things. There shouldnt have been, because I had decided, outside, that there wasnt a thing in the world I could do for her. As far as he was concerned, Eriksson said, it had all seemed a morass of cleverness, but then, he conceded, he may well have entered the military courtroom in the Central Highlands, where the four trials were held, with unwarranted expectations, for it had been his hope that the trials would help him unravel his reactions to Maos fate. Maos sister, Phan Thi Loc, appeared as a prosecution witness, her very presence irrefutable evidence that Mao was not in fact living happily in her hamlet. A: Better to go into the hootch, sir, and keep contentment in the squad, and keep a betterwell, how can I explain it?keep the thing running smooth. Then I thought of taking off together with her. 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. recognized that there were forces of conscience that might have to be contended with? It was also noted that, like Meserve, Clark was the product of an impoverished and broken home. All were dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private, and deprived of all pay, with the exception of Rafe, who was to go on receiving pay but forfeit fifty dollars monthly for eight years. They may be out in a few months, he said. He had wanted to unburden himself of his doubts about whether he had done all he might have done for Mao in her travaildoubts that gnaw at him to this day. You never knew whose turn it was to die, and that isnt how it was in rear areas. Glancing at the girl with distaste, the Sergeant ordered Eriksson and Rafe to stay with her on the ridge, whereupon he, Clark, and Manuel began a cautious descent of the mountain, their purpose to stalk the Vietcong. A small, pretty blonde with an alert, intelligent manner, she offered me coffee and cake the instant I set foot in the apartment. In the hootch, Eriksson recalled, Mao, now relieved of Manuels pack, watched him and Rafe heave out junk for a while, and then, unasked, the girl lent the G.I.s a hand. Necessarily, he said, he was in a position to speak only of the behavior of American soldiers, since they were the people he fought and lived with. In the late spring, for instance, he learned that a change of sentence might be in the making for Clark, whose lawyer, it appeared, had asked the jurors who convicted him to approve a petition urging clemency; all but two of them had agreed, and Eriksson was given to understand that this augured an almost certain reduction in sentence. Since the patrol would be going out again, Eriksson said, he knew he had to act fast, but that seemed no big deal. They locked me up in a steel box, in solitary.

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