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Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War

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In 1966 volunteered for the draft and then for the airborne. I arrived in Vietnam in November 1967, and was assigned to the 101st Airborne, 1st Brigade, 327th, 2nd Battalion, Charlie Company, 3rd Platoon -- the "3rd Herd." I was the medic -- "Doc Quinn." I was wounded in A Shau Valley on March 21, 1968 and left Vietnam for good a month later. I grew up in the military, spent 5 years in Asia by the time I was 13 years old, got jungle survival training from the 1st Special Forces attached to my Boy Scout Troop in Okinawa in 1960-61 (training that helped make Vietnam the best camp out I ever had). That was when I first heard of a place they called "Indochina."

When I joined my platoon I heard stories of atrocities committed by people in our division, including rape and murder. These stories were told in matter-of-fact ways. I don't remember if particular units within the 101st were named.

The 1st Battalion had the Tiger Force. My 2nd Battalion had the Hawk Recons, the 502nd had the Recondo's. All were elites within elites and spirited units. I remember the day that orders came down that the Hawks had to give up their boonie hats and wear steel pots like the rest of us non-recon types. They went on "strike" for a few hours, burned off a lot of ammo into the hills to make their feelings known, and, finally, kept their boonie hats and the issue was forgotten.

When I read some of the original articles that were later reshaped into "Tiger Force," I thought -- so, that was where some of those rumors were coming from.

No one in my platoon, during my four months tenure with it in the field, committed any war crimes that I am aware of. In fact, they seemed quite a decent lot of very young men. On Christmas Eve, 1967, toward sunset, while lying on my back reading a book in an area known as Phan Thiet, all hell broke loose and then all was quiet. Several innocent mountain people, all young males & none armed, were killed when they, to their fatal surprise, walked in on our perimeter. The M-60 gunner responsible for their deaths, told me they walked up on him in single file, five yards apart -- a classic sign of a military column. He reacted fast as he was trained to do. He was deeply shaken by what he had done. If he's alive, he probably still is.

One fellow in our company, I learned, was thoroughly disliked when he'd drop by our platoon for a little bull-jive and coffee -- the company sniper. He wasn't liked, I was told, because he was a cold blooded killer.

During one of our operations right after Tet '68, in the Hue region, word came from the Company Commander that he did not want us to be quite so hesitant when we "suspected" the enemy was on us. He had earlier told us to use greater caution because we were operating in a very populated area, but our caution led to our gunner, Gibbs, getting an AK round in the chest.

That night or the next day, we heard that the sniper, acting "less hesitantly," shot a grandmother and her granddaughter at point blank range. The people around me were disgusted. Rumor had it the Company Commander was angered.

The story in Tiger Force is about war crimes. The men responsible should have been charged. More importantly and even less likely to have happened, the officers responsible for them should have been charged, at least exposed.

As awful as the Tiger Force rampage was, as awful as My Lai, et al, was, the truly stupendous, systematic, and policy driven atrocities of the Vietnam War was not mainly the work of us kids with guns -- as real, as awful, as that was when it was cold blooded murder -- as shown in this fine piece of research. The real atrocities began with the routine and relentless use of 105mm & 155mm howitzers, helicopter gunships, Puff-the-Magic Dragons - fixed wing aircraft mounted with gatling-guns, the F-4 Phanthom jets and their 20mm gatling guns, the B-52's, the USS New Jersey's 16 inch guns, etc, etc -- in short, the American Way of War: high fire-power combined with vague, liberal rhetoric. I saw it all and am still appalled.

P.S. The reviewer who identified himself as a Tiger Force medic -- why not give your name? Soldiers, current or ex, are not afraid to say who we are and speak from our name. To claim you never saw any dead except in uniform I find suspect, along with other things you write.

In 1967, I was part of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade in the Quang Tin province and I can say without a doubt that the rumors about the Tigers were always making the rounds. I took the time to read the book for several reasons, some of which I will share. Shortly after the articles appeared in the newspapers and Internet in 2003, I had to make a trip to Washington DC, so I stopped at the National Archives in suburban DC to research this investigation -- or at least get what I could. I spent three years as a librarian/researcher after the war (it's about the only thing I could do at the time), so I pulled all the records of the Coy Allegation, or the Tiger Force case. I know that many of the records are missing, but I did manage to read the entire case file in a day and a half. The book not only accurately portayed the case, but added significant context that the reports do not. Few people realize how badly General Westmoreland wanted to control the central highlands. He would have done anything at the time (1967). We were erroneously led to believe in what was known as the "Scissors Theory." That if somehow South Vietnam was severed, we would not be able to mobilize troops to the DMZ. First, we relied totally on air support, so I find it difficult to believe we would lose the war because our infantry would somehow not be able to move northward if the VC or NVA managed to take control of those strategic provinces. There's no question the 1/327 was used in our ridiculous strategic hamlet program, and for anyone to say otherwise is a liar and a fool for trying to pass on such nonsense. The Tigers were a part of the 1/327. After reading the case file, it was clear the investigators found probable cause against many of the soldiers. These soldiers were already afforded opportunities to hire lawyers -- this is in the records. I want to commend the authors for the great work on this book and sharing this with the country at a time we need to hear these things. A special thanks for showing compassion to the soldiers and explaining why soldiers go wrong and what happened to the Tigers. A great job. There are going to be some people -- mostly vets -- who will cast aspersions, but who have no room to talk. They need to acknowledge what happened so that these events don't happen again.

I was a bit suspect of this book for many reasons when I bought it at Barnes and Noble. So many of the soldiers aren't even around anymore. The events were more than three decades ago. A lot of ghosts. But after finishing this work, I'm not disappointed. This is a great book -- one, I believe, that should be read by all students of military history. This is a lesson on what can go wrong in war and why we need to carefully assess why we choose to go into armed conflicts. First, my concerns witht he book were put aside when I saw that the authors drew on investigative transcripts of interviews with the soldiers by Army agents -- a lot of interviews over many years. Then I saw that so many of the former grunts were still alive. I guess it's fair to say Tiger Force was a very special unit and I believe anyone who belonged to this squad should be proud. They were the elite in Vietnam. But there's no question that things went really, really bad in 1967. When the brainy generals in Vietnam decided to turn these guys loose on civilians they might as well have been brewing a recipe for a bomb. I still question why would the Army take intense, bush killers and mix them in with Vietnamese farmers and not expect the worst? This is why hundreds of Vietnamese civilians died from this platoon. What I liked about the book was that it showed how the men began crossing over -- one by one, sometimes very painfully. The authors did a great job of telling the story through the soldiers. In some ways, it's very sad. On another level, it's a story that needs to come out. Tell the truth and learn from it.

As a retired Army captain (1st/327th) and instructor of military history, I have read more than 33 books on the Vietnam War, from works by veterans to journalists to historians. They all elicit different responses -- from love to absolute denouncement. It never fails. The stronger the material, the more divided the responses. And judging from the responses to this book in Amazon, my observation is consistent. You could write the next The Guns of August (1962) -- and it doesn't matter. The people who love the work overlook the inherent problems or flaws in the thesis; the ones who hate it latch onto small errors or inconsistencies you'll find in all the books I have ever read, from Caputo to Hersch to Karnow. And please don't point out any great works, because I can show you the flaws. Period. I decided to spend several weeks researching this case after I read the book, including a trip to the National Archives in Maryland to read the original documents of this Army investigation. After four days of examining the records of the Coy Allegation, on which this book is based, I found the author's work in terms of the Army investigation to be credible. Two major components convinced me: the Criminal Investigation Command's Final Report (1974) and 16 testimonies of witnesses between 1972 and 1973, including those of William Carpenter, James Barnett, James Hawkins. Because the scope of the book went beyond the war crimes, I wanted to do more research, so I managed to track down one of the investigators (now retired) and two of the former Tiger Forces members (full disclosure: I did not know them, but I was assigned to the same battation and infantry). This took 2 1/2 months, but it was worth it to me. While they differed with time periods and in three cases, offered different accounts of atrocities, they acknowledged the events did indeed occur. The investigator (a chief warrant officer) had minor issues with the timeline, but confirmed the offenses. One of the veterans who read the book is still angry his named was used (very angry), but confirmed four of the events, including the shooting of peasants in a valley on the orders of the platoon lieutenant (Hawkins). No one disputed the events which were distinct violations of the Code of Military Justice and Geneva Conventions (1949). I came away feeling better about the premise of the book and the bulk of the research. For students, there are other books I would recommend to get an understanding of the war, including the geopolitics and historical underpinnings that made the conflict so defining. But I would be remiss in not recognizing the work of these authors and their contributions to an already growing body of research that continues to incur praise and wrath. When I read Rumor of War I was struck by all the harsh naysayers and critics who jumped on Caputo's work, which has held fast over time. Tiger Force has already proved that.
This is a solid work.

Three journalists received the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their series in the "Toledo Blade," which revealed a major investigation of alleged war crimes begun by the US Army in 1971 and dropped in 1975. If all accusations are true, a platoon of the 101st Airborne Division murdered hundreds of civilians, suspects and prisoners in Vietnam between May and November 1967

The 2003 series was important but not conclusive. Important in revealing the existence of a forgotten and abandoned (or suppressed and hidden) Army criminal investigation and in describing a pattern of activity that almost certainly included serious crimes. Not conclusive in falling short of proving the criminality of each separate incident to a knowledgeable reader. The "Blade"'s prosecutorial approach, appropriate for investigative journalism, painted a compelling general picture but left the details open to criticism and the conclusions open to denial. The reopened Army investigation has as of now produced no conclusion, let alone interim findings. Therefore, there is now a genuine need for more detail---to buttress some accusations---and a genuine need for an impartial "jury"---perhaps to discredit others.

For these reasons and for very personal reasons I awaited with both anticipation and trepidation the publication of "Tiger Force," the follow-up volume of history written by Sallah and Weiss, two of the three "Blade" journalists.

"Tiger Force," the book, is profoundly disappointing. Sallah and Weiss had 31 months to flesh out the story and buttress the accusations. They have failed to do so. Having read every word of the series in the "Blade" and every word of this new book (including the notes), having served in the 1/327 and in the field in Vietnam and with the Tiger Force (although not as a member), being an attorney, and being an amateur historian familiar with many of the sources used by the authors, I would like to explain my disappointment.

Perhaps 25% of the book consists of material taken from the original Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) recommendations and supporting documentation--substantially what was published in the "Blade" in 2003. The extensive additions that turn the newspaper stories into a book are apparently intended to support the accusations and to provide broader context for and interpretation of the story.

The authors do a poor job in providing that context. It will be immediately and continuously apparent to a reader who served in any infantry unit in Vietnam that the authors have little knowledge of ranks, unit hierarchy, weaponry, equipment, terminology and tactics.

The specific examples I considered including in this review, drawn from the book's hundreds of factual errors and malapropisms, left my wife bored and confused. Rather than do the same here I will invite any experienced boonie rat to read the book in detail and then to read Hersh's "My Lai 4"---in both cases focusing on the detail surrounding the accusations more than the accusations themselves. The difference is striking. Hersh's attention to detail and appreciation of the environment enhanced his book. He got it, while Sallah and Weiss did not.

Misleading or confusing statements are not limited to details added to flesh out the events of 1967. They also tend to exaggerate the difficulties the authors faced and to overstate their cleverness in overcoming obstacles. The book suggests that the Tiger Force was a secret unit, the existence of which was hidden and then suppressed. (This is not the case.) Only by a combination of dogged persistence and luck were they able to ferret out its existence. (This is improbable.)

The unit was created by David Hackworth in 1965 and serves today in Iraq. Identical "recondo" platoons were established in many other infantry battalions in Vietnam. The Tigers were not a "spy" unit that became "assassins" in 1967. They were a line unit primarily intended to engage the enemy. They suffered casualties and received recognition commensurate with their status as an elite unit repeatedly assigned the toughest challenges. Contrary to the authors' statements, the Army sought publicity for the Tigers rather than suppressing it, and publicity they got. For example, Ward Just, then a prominent war correspondent, was with the Tigers when they were cut off for two days during the battle of Dak To in 1966. A lengthy account of the experience was included in his important book, published in 1968 and still in print today, "To What End?"

If Sallah and Weiss had such difficulty unearthing the existence of this "mystery" unit, they must be the only reporters in the country who don't use the Internet. Within hours of the publication of the Associated Press version of the "Toledo Blade" series, the message board on a web site maintained by and for Tiger Force veterans was overwhelmed with hate mail. That site and others mentioning or explaining the Tiger Force were not hard to find, either then or earlier in 2003 when the authors began research for the story.

Just as I invite boonie rats to review details in the text, I invite scholars to consider Sallah and Weiss's use of notes---and to compare them with Hersh's in "My Lai 4." Hersh's first-person details were attributed in the text to specific individuals and his chapter notes enable the interested reader to determine the exact sources for key statements. That is often not the case with "Tiger Force;" in many cases the reader can not determine whether an account of an event is drawn from one or another or several of a significant number of interviews. In other cases, sources that the notes state were used by Sallah and Weiss were not---at least not well. For example, the battalion's Daily Logs in the National Archives would likely have informed them that the platoon never had 45 men in the field; 25 to 30 was typical in my day. Yet they use that TOE (paper) strength number, 45, time after time.

There are crucial characteristics of first-person war stories that Hersh and likely the CID agents in the Tiger Force case understood. War stories are, quite simply, more subject to error, exaggeration, confusion, deliberate falsehood and misinterpretation than almost any other form of communication. No accusation, no denial and no detail should be taken at face value. Rigor, context and an intuitive sense of how soldiers and veterans talk and think are needed to avoid pitfalls and blind alleys. Even though Sallah and Weiss may have exaggerated the difficulties they faced themselves and the heroic nature of their own actions, they betray no appreciation that the veterans they interviewed or whose statements they read might have done the same.

The "Toledo Blade" series did reveal an important forgotten (or hidden) story. For that the authors deserve and have received credit. That the book fails to make credible progress in handling the can of worms that they opened is to the authors' discredit.

To me, the dust jacket is unconsciously representative of the book. It shows soldiers moving through a cleared area surrounded by trees. Above their heads are helicopters, pitched forward to gain both ground speed and altitude. The men are wearing camouflaged fatigues in the French para design adopted by the Tiger Force. But, they are almost certainly not the Tigers. The gear and weapons are not right. Nor is their deployment. The men are dangerously clustered and lackadaisical; no US unit would act like that immediately after being dropped by choppers in potentially hostile territory. And the helicopters? Their formation does not make sense, either in relation to each other or to the troops on the ground. This is likely a composite of more than two photographs. Then there is the blurb: "Winners of the Pulitzer Prize." A bookstore browser could be forgiven for thinking that the book itself won a Pulitzer. And the subtitle: "A True Story of Men and War." How many non-fiction books need to tell you in their title that they are true? In the case of "Tiger Force" we just may be able to tell a book by its cover.

I think this was a book that definitely needed to be written--lest we forget. Despite the detractors from amongst some of the other Vietnam veterans, this story definitely deserved the Pulitzer. One of its main weaknesses, though, were the writers lack of technical knowledge of the war. But they weren't there, so what do you expect? However, it's been almost 38 years since I left Vietnan. I'm hard pressed to remember a goodly number of the details from my time there. Another small potatoes complaint I have is about some of the excessively flowery metaphors in the first part of the book. Stick to journalism guys. You're not going to be novelists. Besides, you make extremely good journalists--you've got the Pulitzer.

I think they did an excellent job of dissecting the pathology of a combat unit gone terribly, terribly wrong. When your command structure has gone to hell and the strongest characters in your unit are sociopathic at best and psychopathic at worst, you're in a place where most GI's would not want to be. I think it took a lot of courage and character to resist the leadership and strongest personalities of the unit who were intent on the murder of anyone who got in their way--including babies. By no stretch of any sane person's imagination were these honorable acts. Atrocities in the heat of battle, 1 or 2 bad apples in unit gone bad until disciplined by their commanders, etc., these are understandable. But this stuff in this book is as bad as My Lai. My Lai was basically only a one day incident where an Americal Division line outfit went berserk and killed somewhere around 500 people--which God knows is horrible enough. These Tiger Force atrocities were over a period of months. Their commanders clearly knew what they were doing and encouraged it. How far up the ladder it went, I don't know. But it sounds like the news probably got up to at least to the 101rst Division commander. The commanders are the ones whose doorsteps this blame should be laid upon. It was a failure at all levels, but damaged kids like Sam Ybarra always seem to have a way of finding a way into the military. It's up to the commanders to either straighten them out or weed them out. Otherwise, they're more guilty than the grunts committing the atrocities.

Most of the murdered Vietnamese appeared to be only guilty of being peasant farmers that didn't want to leave their land. Only those of the "gook hating" vet persuasion couldn't squeeze out a lot of sorrow for those innocent victims. Yet, I even felt sympathy for their pathetic murderers. So many of them had terrible lives after Vietnam. Drugs, booze, illness, early death.... Whether their pain was inflicted upon them by their own belated consciences or whether it was from the hauntings of the ghosts of their Vietnamese victims, we'll never know.
May all of their departed spirits find peace.

I would hope, though, that the commanding officers who made these events possible be brought to justice. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Next time we decide to march off to war in a patriotic fever, let's check to make sure that this war is really necessary. This applies not only to Vietnam, but also Iraq and many other past fool wars that we've gotten involved in.

Without a doubt, one of the best books ever written about the Vietnam War. A masterful narrative of sweep and scope - a cautionary tale of what happens to fighting units without strong leadership. Step by step we watch the spritual and emotional breakdown of young men, and the coverup by the U.S. government - a coverup that reached the White House.

First, let me preface this by saying: I am a Vietnam vet. I served with the 1/327th in 1967-68. What I saw, I will never forget. In fact, I knew several Tigers. I remember some of their stories - but didn't believe them at the time. How could they be true?

When the newspaper series was published, a part of me doubted the findings. How could these atrocities go on for so long without someone finding out? So I called a few Tigers and read documents from the Army investigation. My conclusion: it's true. Believe it. Anyone who says otherwise - like one of the earlier reviewers - is just fooling themselves. The book is conclusive. Anyone who says otherwise just can't face the truth. And we can't forget what happened. Not now. It's too important.

Remember, the Army spent an unprecedented 4 1/2 years investigating this unit. They used 100 agents. They substantiated 20 war crimes involving multiple victims. The case was buried because Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense in 1975, didn't want the information getting out. Just remember: It was Col. Henry Tufts - the founding father of CID -who gave the newspaper the documents. There was a reason for it: The case always bothered him.

The book builds on the series. Through the soldiers's eyes, we watch the slow descent into hell. As a Vietnam vet, every word rang true. The book was incredibly rich in detail - and context. At times, I felt like I was back in Vietnam - the authors put me in the field with the soldiers and in the CID office with the investigators. In the end, this was a book for a wider audience - an audience that knows very little about Vietnam - why we got involved in the first place and what our government is capable of doing. This was not a book just for the "boonie rats." And it's so important now with the allegations of U.S. troops killing civilians in Iraq. The authors did their due diligence. This is by far one of the best sourced books I have ever read - all you have to do is go to the bibliography. (I read some of the documents cited in the back).

It's apparent that an earlier reviewer had an ax to grind. To him, the Tigers were herioic and the authors were villians for exposing the truth. He doesn't believe the lead investigator had trouble tracking down the Tigers. (The reviewer forgets that in 1971, there was no Internet, CNN, fax machines, ect) Maybe - just maybe - the book hit too close to home. Maybe, just maybe, that reviewer - and others - did not read the book with an open mind. They came in with an ax to grind. They were looking to discredit the story. To me, that's not a reviewer - that's someone who wants to preserve a part of their legacy. Like I said earlier, the truth is hard to take. My suggestion to potential readers: Buy the book. You will not be disappointed. The story will haunt you for a long time.

J. Evans
Columbia, S.C.

Several people in my book club were talking about this book, so I decided to buy it. I can say unequivocably that I will read it again. I literally could not put it down -- not because I happen to like heartache and drama, but because it's one of the most important books I have read in a long time. The story of this "experimental" platoon that loses control and slaughters Vietnamese civilians is not about a "point-your-finger" at the bad guy tale. It's so much more than that. It attempts successfully to explain what happens to soldiers in war when they lose good leaders. What happens to young men when they're scared. No other book I have read quite explains war like this one -- and what can happen to mens' souls. Thrust in the middle of Vietnam in 1967, Tiger Force begins its operations in earnest but after the soldiers are ordered to remove civilians -- and the civilians don't want to go, really bad things begin to happen. What's fascinating is that you can see the soldiers turn -- one by one. It's clear from reading the Army reports that these things happened. There's no dispute. Blame the Army if you don't like it. The Army decided to investigate for three years. I'm just glad somebody had the guts to write about it. It's easy to deny it -- and say it's just war. It's also wrong. This book sould be read by every student studying the Vietnam War.

I happen to be a resident of the Toledo area. When I saw the newspaper articles on the Tiger Force appear, I wasn't interested.

The Viet Nam conflict has been over for decades. Yes, Americans committed horrible atrocities. They pale in comparison to the atrocities committed by the NVA and Viet Cong.

The book was illuminating, though. It's not enough to be bad, but "not as bad as them".

And these were not run of the mill atrocities, either. This was truly the slaughter of hundreds of civilians.

As a former Army paratrooper, I was saddened by almost every page. I can hardly believe our nation could be behind such things.

And although the actions were a case-study in mob mentality, these were still our men in uniform.

The tipping point came with one too many homicidal maniacs in this loosely controlled unit.

There were some who did try to stop the bloodshed. It gives me hope for the humanity that such brave people ever existed.

But it appears that most of the soldiers in this unit, exhausted and battle fatigued, gave in to a homicidal 7 months that involved crimes too blood-curdling for a Stephen King novel.

The saddest part? The final sentences of the book warn that without learning the lessons of the atrocities of the past, we can't prevent the atrocities of the future.

Almost as if on-cue, the Marines in Haditha may have committed similar executions of civilians.

The book is disturbing. I had finally gotten to a point in my life where I believed that the "baby killing" stories of the Vietnam war were almost certainly exaggerations or complete fabrications.

But it's there, it happened, and knowing that the other guy was worse isn't a comfort at all.

This book has so many implications as we fight another guerilla war in another strange and foreign land.

Overall, a very, very good book, but not one for everyone. It is a deeply disturbing book and a frightening vision of what can happen when you keep troops strung out for too long.

With all due respect to the authors, I hope that a complete rebuttal to this book comes out that says that the conclusions of the authors are entirely incorrect.

Unfortunately, I doubt that rebuttal will ever come.

People who served in the military will doubtless find exception to some sloppy use of words (for instance, referring to Tiger Force as "Special Force" capitalized... it was not an Army Special Forces unit. Also, at one point, a Marine is referred to as a "soldier". This is yet another example of why I wish the cognitive elite contained a few people who had served in the military and why there is a broad distrust in the military community on the media's ability to report accurately.)

Unfortunately, those small examples of poor attention to detail aren't enough to make me skeptical of the book.

Undoubtedly one of the most powerful books I have ever read about the Vietnam War -- not from a political or historical perspective, but a truly human one. This is not going to be a popular book among right-wing military types, and I can already see that in some of the reactions. Unfortunately, the book has served as a forum for those who support what our nation did in Vietnam -- and those who opposed it. The authors describe the once celebrated platoon, Tiger Force, part of the 101st Airborne, and its descent into madness in 1967 in the upper areas of South Vietnam. The soldiers, in their frustration, began torturing and killing civilians. It didn't stop with one event. It went on for months and months, until the men began cutting off the ears of the dead and weaving them into necklaces. Interestingly, the authors write with great care about the soldiers -- never condemning them, but trying to show why the soldiers lost control. This book should serve as a lesson for all the reasons why we should think twice about going into wars and who -- in the end, really suffers. The Tiger Force platoon was eventually investigated for four years by the Army, but the findings were covered up by the top leaders in Washington -- until these authors broke the case wide open. The authors even reaced the original investigators. This book is a tribute to journalism -- and the authors should be commended for their efforts.