“We need strong, unequivocal evidence, as much testimony as possible,” Eno announced. That meant many of the allegations Apsey had spent time investigating were “probably not going to be actionable.” He would review everything after Apsey finished writing the report. But, he reminded Apsey, the case was eight years old. The South Vietnamese government had collapsed on April 30 with the fall of Saigon, and the last thing the American public wanted was more Vietnam.
“How can we just walk away?” he asked. But he had a terrible feeling as he looked at Eno, a sense that things were suddenly not as he had believed, not as he assumed, that someone had hold of a rug and was about to yank it.
The killing of the prisoner on May 8 near Duc Pho had always bothered Apsey, mostly because the man, nicknamed the Big Gook, was tortured for days before he was shot to death after being ordered to run. It was one horrible thing to shoot a civilian without warning, but it was another to spend days beating and taunting him first. Since each witness—Barnett, Carpenter, and Heaney—agreed to the details, it could be reported as a war crime. The problem was that no one could recall who shot the prisoner. So the murder could really only be used to show a pattern.
Continuing his dictation, Apsey turned to the torture and stabbing death of a prisoner in July near Duc Pho. Speaking as clearly as he could, Apsey recounted the details: several Tigers placed bets that Robin Varney couldn’t knock out the prisoner with one punch. When he failed, Varney pushed the prisoner into a bayonet held by another soldier, the blade plunging into the prisoner’s neck. Apsey couldn’t recommend charges, since Varney was dead, but again, it was part of a larger pattern.
Apsey turned to the summary executions of two brothers in the Song Ve Valley in July. As he dictated details of the shootings without a hint of emotion, he remembered how Manuel Sanchez—a decorated career soldier—expressed sorrow over his failure to protect the prisoners. Apsey noted that Sanchez couldn’t identify the Tigers who killed the brothers, but said “this execution was ordered by the officer in charge: Hawkins.”
After reporting on the treatment of prisoners, Apsey moved on to the Tigers’ practice of bombing bunkers. But even after reviewing several written statements, Apsey was hard-pressed to recommend charges. The basic problem was there were so many attacks on bunkers, it was difficult to pinpoint just one. Some occurred during the day, others at night. The one case in which every witness seemed to agree—bunkers in a hamlet near Chu Lai in August—involved two former soldiers who were out of the Army and couldn’t be charged.
By including some of these statements, Apsey was hoping to establish the unit’s culture—at least among the leaders—and, in so doing, make a stronger case against those who may be charged. Body mutilations were another way of showing the platoon’s brutality. Though these were not the most serious offenses, Apsey was determined to use the evidence to support his overall case. He noted that numerous Tiger Force members “were observed in possession of human-ear, scalp, and gold-teeth collections,” basing his findings on twenty-seven separate witness statements.
Of all the soldiers, Ybarra was the prolific offender, Apsey wrote in his report. “Ybarra on numerous occasions cut ears from dead Vietnamese bodies, possessed a set of human ears and a jar containing two ears, possessed a string of human ears, which he wore on several occasions around his neck, and a bag with about fifteen to twenty gold teeth, suspected to have been removed from dead bodies.” Apsey couldn’t charge Ybarra, since he was no longer in the Army, but that wasn’t the reason the information was written into the report. Apsey wanted to show that someone such as Ybarra could garishly display his souvenirs without even drawing a blink, that these were dark crimes committed in the brightest sunshine.
Apsey then moved into Operation Wheeler, the mission launched by the military on September 11, 1967, to take over the Central Highlands. Drawing on the platoon’s radio logs, he went into detail, showing that the Tigers reported forty-eight Vietcong killed between November 11 and 21, without a single knife or rifle seized. He noted that battalion commanders, who were actively monitoring the radio logs, should have questioned the discrepancies, but they had not said a word.
Though Apsey was careful about drawing conclusions, he hinted that one of the reasons the Tigers were killing so many people was to reach a goal of 327 deaths. Apsey stated the platoon was acting under the orders of Morse to reach the magic number—an accusation, he noted, that was denied by the former commander. Apsey also accused Carl James of knowing about, but not reporting, the killing of an unarmed farmer near Chu Lai.
Apsey noted that “several of the 1/ 327 officers that were interviewed related they heard rumors that mutilations had occurred,” and included the testimony of battalion surgeon Bradford Mutchler: “The subject of mutilations was swept under the rug and not openly talked about because no one wanted to find out if the rumors were true.” Lastly, Apsey wrote that neither Morse nor Austin “put into effect an affirmative plan for the discovery or prevention of war crimes.”
Apsey had always said the investigation was like a cold case, except he didn’t have bodies or weapons. All he had was the words and memories of former Tigers. Despite the passing of time, he would try to prove that twenty, or two-thirds of the allegations, took place. There was no doubt in his mind they occurred. But time had passed. Four of the suspects were killed in combat, seven had left the military, and two could not be found. It was now June 1975, some eight years after the killings.
As a child in Austria, the son of a Nazi, Apsey had heard about the Nuremberg trials—and the importance the world placed on prosecuting war criminals. Such prosecutions were the only way to hold people accountable for their actions and prevent future atrocities. How, he wondered, was the American military going to prevent future Tiger Forces from happening if it didn’t address the problems now? Lives had been lost, but lives could be saved, too.
Apsey’s final report was fifty-five pages long, signaling the end of his “three years of hell,” he later recalled.
No one in Apsey’s office really understood the pressure he endured. But then, no one had ever investigated a war-crimes case for such a long period of time. When he inherited the Coy Allegation file, there were 133,000 American ground troops in South Vietnam, and the war was still on the front pages. When he completed it, the war was over and Saigon had fallen, as had an American president.
Under the Army’s justice system, it was up to the suspects’ commanders to decide whether to convene an Article 32 hearing. In most cases, commanders would read the final reports and supporting evidence and consult with military lawyers assigned to their base before making a decision. Apsey and other agents in his office thought he would be stationed at Fort MacArthur at least until the case reached a hearing, at which point he might be required to testify or provide additional reports. He was certainly ready. There was a sense of relief after he finished the paperwork. In the ensuing days, he began to take down the maps and statements on his wall, and to go out for lunch. Even Perdue noticed his agent was moving a bit quicker around the office. “It was like a weight had lifted off him,” he recalled.
In the back of his mind, Apsey expected a promotion, perhaps even a crack at running his own CID office in the years to come. No one could doubt his work ethic and expertise. For the next two weeks, Apsey waited.
When he received the call from the Presidio in late July, he was stunned. It had nothing to do with the Tiger Force case. He was told to pack his bags and be ready in two weeks to ship out. He was heading to South Korea to work in a CID office north of Seoul.
The two Army officers walked side by side down a long corridor of the Pentagon, their footsteps growing louder as they reached a marble conference room at the end of the hall.
The taller officer with a shock of silver hair, General William Maddox, turned to the other, James Hawkins, and motioned for him to wait outside the room where a team of Army lawyers was meeting.
Hawkins had known this day was com
ing for a long time. It was November 1975—three years since Hawkins was first confronted about the case—a case he had been trying to forget. He was now married and stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, with only three years to go before retirement.
Hawkins had been nervous ever since boarding the plane with Maddox, his commander, for the flight to Washington—his career and even the specter of a jail sentence riding on this trip. He feared becoming another Calley. The last thing he wanted to do was stand trial with the world watching.
In his mind, every killing was justified, and he would say so if he had to testify. But he knew the American public wouldn’t understand. They would treat him just the way he was being treated now—like a common criminal. If not for this damn investigation, he could have been a major by now. He had served when others had run. This was the thanks he was getting.
Hawkins shifted uneasily in his chair until he finally saw his general emerge from the room, followed by an Army lawyer.
He rose to his feet as the two men approached him. The lawyer handed Hawkins an eight-page brief.
Hands slightly trembling, he began reading the pages with descriptions of murders and assaults by Tiger Force members. By the last page, he came to his own name and the murder of the old man by the Song Ve River.
There it was—the word “murder.” This could be his career, or even his life.
But when he reached the final paragraph, he took a breath. Despite ample testimony against him, Hawkins would not be charged. No one would. The Pentagon had decided that it was better to cover up what had happened. Let the country move on.
Hell, it was only some Vietnamese.
The Army brief concluded that despite the evidence, “nothing beneficial or constructive could result for prosecution at this time.” Four commanders were asked to read the final report of the Tiger Force case, but no action was to be taken in those cases. The investigation would now be closed, the documents shipped to a storage room at CID headquarters. The longest war-crimes case of the Vietnam War was over. There would be no charges. There would be no press conferences. There would be nothing at all. It would be as if nothing had ever happened.
And so it was.
EPILOGUE
As he neared the doorway, Rion Causey hesitated for a moment—not quite sure whether he wanted to walk inside even after traveling across the country for his first Tiger Force reunion. Inside the brightly lit banquet room near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, people were laughing and talking.
Causey spotted a few faces—barely recognizable from another time, another place. He remembered some of them but not their names. Too much time had lapsed since his last day with the Tigers, when he was being airlifted to a hospital after being sprayed by shrapnel in March 1968.
He could feel his own heart racing as he walked into the room and approached an open bar where several men from the Tigers and the 1st Battalion/327th Infantry were holding drinks, smiling. It was the kind of nervous anticipation that comes with any reunion.
Across the room, he spotted a man in the corner, someone vaguely familiar. He noticed that one by one, the other men began forming a circle around him. Causey inched closer and peered through the bald and graying heads to get a better look. All at once, he remembered: Harold Trout, his sergeant. Trout was no longer the stocky, athletic, tough-talking team leader who could strike fear in the hearts of young soldiers with a glance. He was now round and pudgy with an affable grin—nearly all of his hair thinned by time.
Causey waited for the others to clear out before he walked across and introduced himself. They shook hands, but Causey could tell Trout barely recognized the former medic.
That wasn’t a big surprise. To Trout, Causey was just another skinny, sandy-haired kid who was coming into the war with no real combat under his belt. Now he was older, graying, with a doctorate in nuclear engineering and nothing in common with the former sergeant who spent his career in the military.
After making small talk, Causey waited for a moment, then turned to Trout with a serious look. “I need to ask you something,” he said, staring into Trout’s eyes.
For a moment, Causey wasn’t sure this was the right time. It was a reunion and people were supposed to be enjoying themselves. But after all these years, he didn’t have a choice. It was now or never. For years, he had been keeping the pain inside, something he didn’t even share with his family, secrets so deep he would wake up at night, sweating, scared to close his eyes. Middle-aged and divorced with a son, Causey was tired of carrying the guilt, the anxiety.
Trout politely stood and waited.
Causey took a breath. “I need to know: What happened at Chu Lai? Why did we kill so many people?” Causey wasn’t asking about killing enemy soldiers. That was expected. This was about the civilians—unarmed boys and men—systematically gunned down, in many cases without any resistance.
Trout knew what Causey was talking about. So did the others in the room that day. But for so long, they had avoided talking about it. For so long, they had avoided one another. This was a reunion, and no one wanted to discuss a topic so disturbing. The slaughters, or the CID investigation? How could they forget? It forced them to scatter all over the country, forced some to hide. Reunions? Forget it. They didn’t want to see one another. Not until the Vietnam veterans began to feel welcome by the rest of the country in the 1990s with the Welcome Home Parade in New York and other events did the former Tigers even begin to reach out to one another. With the Internet, it became easier to find people from their platoon. And finally, it seemed the time had come to reunite.
Some of the men turned around and walked away. They knew what Causey was talking about. Everyone did. It was their secret—hidden from everyone.
On a cold, windswept morning in December 2002, several boxes arrived in the mail at the University of Michigan’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.
The packages were the latest additions to a repository famous for housing papers from radical groups in American history. So it came as some surprise to librarians that this latest delivery consisted of the records of Army commander Henry Tufts. Most of the researchers had never heard the name.
For years, the boxes collected dust in the Tuftses’ basement—remnants of the years he spent as the Army’s top cop. The former head of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command once talked about writing a book but never found the time. He knew his records were valuable—a snapshot of the inner workings of the Army—but he wasn’t sure what to do with the boxes filled with twenty-five thousand papers.
Though Tufts detested reporters, he developed a fondness for Michael Woods, who happened to be a veteran science and technology writer for the Toledo Blade’s Washington bureau. Woods never bugged Tufts for story information, respecting his friend’s privacy.
When Tufts died on July 24, 2002, he left his papers to his friend with one condition: that Woods make an effort to get the documents into the public domain.
Woods intended to honor his friend’s request but also wanted his hometown paper to have the first crack at doing so. So Woods worked out a plan: he would find a university close to Toledo and allow reporters from the paper to dig through the documents. After six months, the records would be open to public inspection.
He contacted a colleague, the newspaper’s national affairs writer, to take a look at the shipment that was already on the way to Ann Arbor, just fifty-five miles away. That correspondent—Michael Sallah—is one of the two authors of the book you now hold in your hands. In time, the documents would spark one of the most comprehensive war-crimes investigations ever undertaken by an American newspaper.
Sallah and fellow reporter Mitch Weiss (the other author of this book) would uncover one of the darkest secrets of the Vietnam War—the longest series of atrocities carried out by a U.S. fighting unit in the conflict and, later, a massive Army investigation that was eventually covered up.
Sallah had researched the background of Tufts but had no idea that a small file tucked away in on
e of the commander’s boxes would be the key to unlocking the story. In fact, for the first month of research, the reporter was unable to find anything new in the collection. All the investigative cases saved by Tufts—including the My Lai Massacre of 1968—had been splashed in the media over the years.
By early February, there was one last box to inspect. Sallah began sifting through the papers when he found the thin manila file with the words “Coy Allegation” on the label and the twenty-two documents labeled “Confidential” or “For Official Use Only” inside. Just to make sure this information had never been published, the reporters spent several days combing the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other papers on microfiche, searching for any references to Tiger Force. Nothing. The reporters began reading every book they could find at local libraries about the war. Again, nothing about Tiger Force. Weiss began faxing requests to the Army under the Freedom of Information Act, asking for records about a war-crimes case known as the Coy Allegation. Sallah turned to another source: the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the largest government repository of military records open to the public.
The archivist promised he would look and, two weeks later, called back with good news. “I found the case,” said the researcher. “But it’s probably seven hundred pages. You’re going to have to wait.” The archivist promised it would be ready in two weeks. It was the first time a reporter had ever asked for it.
By the time Sallah and Weiss arrived at the large glass-and-steel center in suburban Washington in March, the papers were ready. For three days, the journalists copied the reports, stopping occasionally to read the typed pages. Most of the statements were from former Tigers, describing the disturbing events. Sallah and Weiss were struck by one fact: there was no record of a military hearing. They took the time to look at other cases on file at the center and found that many had led to hearings—but not this one. It was clear from the reports there were atrocities—lots of them. Even more startling, the war crimes were corroborated by the soldiers who were interviewed in the Army’s investigation. The details they recounted were so specific that it was hard to believe the soldiers were making them up—especially since they were admitting to them. What happened to the case? The Army wasn’t going to tell them. The Pentagon had processed the earlier request by the newspaper but sent only one hundred pages of the investigation before stopping. No more reports would be sent, and the records were sealed from the public.
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