Eriksson said, He told Meserve her coughing was going to give away our position, but I didnt think it was Charlie he had on his mind. It was to take them, ultimately, to Hill 192a height, in the Bong Son valley, that overlooked a ravine laced with a cave complex, which was suspected of serving as a Vietcong hideout. But. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. At the very outset, Eriksson told me that the last thing he wished to do was discuss Maos murder in any legalistic vein. Subjects Eriksson was to remain there until his reassignment as a door gunner came through, Vorst having sent his transfer papers on for official approval by the helicopter command. Vorst filled out transfer forms, and Eriksson signed them. Testifying in his own defense, Rafe stated, I was afraid to tell [the officer], because I might be the only one who brought it up. To Erikssons astonishment and deep relief, the Sergeant abruptly shifted his attention to the Diazes, asking first Rafe and then Manuel to carry out the murder. be ambushed. For this action, Meserve was nominated for a Bronze Star. email: dr.diipk@gmail.comtwitter.com/diipkfacebook.com/diipkhttps://literarism.blogspot.comTelegram Grouphttps://t.me/KashyapDeepak#diipk #KashyapDeepak A: Well, yes, sir, I think if someone has been found guilty of murder, they should be punished, but, knowing Meserve as an individual, I would accept him back in the unit, yes, sir. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman, on November 19, 1966 by an American squad during the Vietnam War. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman,[1] on November 19, 1966[2] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. Eriksson himself stood scanning the landscape intently, looking for the curiously shaped rock formation where the stabbed girl had been shot. Everything around him, he said, impressed him as pointless and aridhis fellow-workers, the monotony of clock punching, and even, at times, his beloved carpentry. He was 34 years old. However, in the last month or so, Rowan told Eriksson, the Sergeant, apparently undergoing changes, had exhibited a mean streak toward the Vietnamese; a couple of weeks before, Rowan said, Meserve had shot at and wounded one of them, giving as his reason afterward that he had felt like it. The way Curly talked about him, Meserve sounded as though he had become a kind of war casualty, Eriksson told me. Below was a valley with a winding stream, and along its banks were paddy fields with neat little dikes around them. He sounded genuinely concerned. Something else the prosecutor did was to advise him to see a psychiatrist before the trials started. . Then he proceeded to tell us that if anything happened to Eriksson, our souls would belong to him. Possibly to help them retain their souls, Vorst announced that he was breaking up the patrol. Undeterred by Erikssons denial, the lawyer persevered with his line of questioning. She was pleased, she told me, that I had asked to hear about the episode involving Mao. He does remember, though, that she had a prominent gold tooth, and that her eyes, which were dark brown, could be particularly expressive. The lawyers were playing a game, he said. Throughout, he told me, the single belief that sustained him was that in serving as the defendants principal accuser he was carrying out the resolve he had made as he trained his grenade launcher on the cave complex; namely, to let the world know of Maos fate. Books. When I got up to the girl, I saw that her head was partially blown away, he testified. The day continued eventful. He knew Mao for slightly more than twenty-four hours. In his cell, Reilly went on, he had made plans to shoot various officials at the hospital, but when he was finally released he gave up the idea of vengeance. On the way, Greenacre told Eriksson that the chaplain, Captain Gerald Kirk, came from Ogden, Utah; he was a Mormon, Eriksson learned, and so was Greenacre. Sounding as though he felt he would be years mining its lessons, he told me, I decided that whatever jobs Id get, they werent going to be as important to me as the way I lived. . From his point of view, as he had indicated at the beginning of our talk, the legal consideration of the crime was a field day of fencing and distortion, of quibbling and traps. I needed more of an impression of Boyd than I had, Eriksson said. Outside, according to the court record, Clark was watching his comrade through a hole in the mud faade and letting out whoops of delight that mingled with Maos cries. . (Eriksson had done the same for Rafe at his trial in Vietnam.) They put a hold on my transfer forms. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. For the film, all names and some details of the true story were altered. For protective custody, they said., From that point on, Erikssons life in the Army was radically changed. Now the V.C., flushed from their temporary hideout, continued to beat a desperate retreat, relying on sniper fire to fend off their attackers, who were converging on them from both sides of the stream. One of them, I know, goofed on his interrogation of Manuelhe forgot to read off one of Manuels rights before he started asking questions. In addition, Eriksson told me, he would have appreciated it if the prosecutorwhom he looked upon as his lawyerhad tutored him slightly in how to conduct himself in court; despite his status as the Armys chief witness, Eriksson said, he took the stand practically cold. Another man might have called it something else, but the idea was simply that we had to answer for what we did. Commenting on this, Eriksson told me, I realized that nothing definite had happened yet, but I had the feeling it was the first sign that things were going to work out the way Captain Vorst had warned me they wouldI mean, that the sentences would get shorter and shorter, maybe even disappear.. These guys right here are going to start laughing you out. Please dont ask me to explain why they did it. This sentence was first commuted to 20 years, then reduced to eight, which made him eligible for parole after half that time. Grinning, Manuel approached Eriksson, stuck out his hand, and said, No hard feelings. Before Eriksson could say anything, Manuel turned and left the courtroom, a free man. But caves werent all that the five men would he looking for. Through an interpreter, Loc related that after the patrol finished with their hamlet, she and her mother had searched desperately for Mao. The country we were moving through was mostly all shades of green, but we also passed arid stretches and, here and there, places that had been browned by napalm. Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. But they werent as sure about it as the guys in the platoon had been, he said. Besides, she was in no condition to reach home or anywhere else. Gradually, though, the cops ear gave way to the chaplains. 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. I knew I had cut myself off from the rest of my patrol, refusing to go into that hootch, and I had this idea that the fellows were watching the place from the brush, waiting for me to make just one false move with Mao. Under cross-examination at his court-martial concerning this disregard of his commanding officers instructions, the Sergeant stated, Sir, most of the time everybody agrees with his C.O. If he said no, he would appear to be disowning the defendants, his comrades-in-arms; if he said yes, he would in effect be telling the jury that he regarded the war as a public-works project for criminals. It had to be him, and no other chaplain, he recalled, smiling. In turn, the sergeant passed the news on to Lieutenant Reilly, who sent for Eriksson. His questions didnt take longmaybe twenty minutesand when they were over he wrote down on a piece of paper, Has no speech defects, steady manner. Offering an evaluation of his own, Eriksson added, He seemed like a nice guy. This time, he said, it would be Clark who would stay behind to guard Mao and the weapons in the hootch. Another board might have found differently, a colonel in the Judge Advocate Generals office told me.) Reillys immediate superior, Captain Otto Vorst, as was later brought out in court, was out in the field at the time on a tactical problem. He was not due back until November 22nd, the day Meserves patrol was scheduled to conclude its mission. an exit. She had the spark of life., The Oddballs and Odysseys of Charles Portis. Bunkers, trenches, trails that were not marked on maps, caches of enemy equipmentthese, too, were to be reconnaissance objectives. Had he stopped to think of the consequences to himself of accusing four fellow-G.I.sthereby adding to that suffering? Ending the first of his brooding silences, Eriksson said, From one day to the next, you could see for yourself changes coming over guys on our sidedecent fellows, who wouldnt dream of calling an Oriental a gook or a slopehead back home. In that season, Eriksson told me, when the M.P.s yakked the hours away together in their quarters, one or another of his fellow-cops would periodically recall what Eriksson had chosen to do. Rafes sentence of eight years had been cut to four, and Meserves ten years had been trimmed to eight. 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.. After the others fell in behind him, he walked silently to the second rock, seventy-five metres away. Listening to the fellows, I had the feeling there might be any number of Meserves and Clarks around me, he said. In April, Eriksson received his honorable discharge from the Army, and in April, too, he heard of further judicial developments. They send you reeling from the theatre. . However, a board of review in Washington, made up of three senior officers, had noticed the C.I.D.s oversight, and it had resulted in a second chance for Manuel. the bunker in the hootch. I heard that argument over and over again, and I could never buy it. Mao wasnt there, and Eriksson, rejoining the waiting group, pointed to the other rock. Throughout each trial, Eriksson said, the exponents of military law strove diligently to apply judicial rules largely borrowed from civilian law, as though they were seeking to re-create a semblance of civilian life. down a trail between two hedgerows when the patrol was suddenly fired upon from one side. The novel was published in 1969. They suffered from smoke inhalation. He is now on duty as a soldier in the United States while awaiting further word on his case, which since September has been in the hands of a board of review. Ordering Eriksson and Rafe to clean up the hootch, and leaving Mao in their charge, the Sergeant went off with Clark and Manuel to have a careful look around. His last order before they left was to send Eriksson, Rafe, and Manuel to fetch the days supply of water from the stream. For that matter, he said, he knew almost nothing about Greenacreonly that he was a cowboy from Arizona, a wiry type, who put in a good days work as a carpenter and didnt have much to say. We made up something to get him to go away, Eriksson told me. It was just like when you stick a deer with a knifesort of a thudor something like this, sir.. The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman [1] on 19 November 1966 [2] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. His farewell to them was succinct. In Vietnam, the jurors petition urging clemency for Clark had been acted upon, with the result that the G.I.s life sentence had been commuted to a sentence of twenty years. He had imagined that he would be able to ask how it was that he alone of the patrol had come to act as he had. The trial records make it clear that the question left the witnesses uncomfortable, for their responses were reluctant and tortured. Meserve fought well that day. The Sergeant seemed more attracted by the possibility of military action, to judge by the speed with which he had his charges break camp. By the time I got out of jail, he told Eriksson, I was saying to myself, Whats happened is the way things are, so why try to buck the system? And take it from me, Eriksson, its even more hopeless to try to buck it in the middle of a wartheres more of a system then than ever. I hadnt let out anything to him about the murder, but as long as I was with Chaplain Kirk, I thought he was entitled to hear everything. The gesture impressed him, the chaplain has since told me. simply told him to bug off from the word go? Clark, convicted of rape and premeditated murder, was to serve for life. said something to the effect, You people acted like animals up there and do not deserve to live. He said he would have never learned about this but one man had the balls to tell [the officers] about it. 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. Since returning to civilian life, a year and a half ago, Eriksson has been concerned primarily with what his wife calls sorting things out. Once he had been separated from the service at Fort Carson, he came back to Minneapolis determined to find employment at something other than carpentry. However, he acknowledged that the prosecutor did warn him, as Vorst and Kirk had previously, of the possible consequences to him and his wife of his testifying for the government. Mao coughed throughout the night, and at one point, Eriksson recalls, Clark again urged that the girl be finished off forthwith. She was the big thing that had happened in the war for me, he told me. . In his affidavit for Army investigators, Manuel gave what is probably a comprehensive account of the confrontation that took place in the Captains quarters. Fortunately, he ran into a fellow-Minnesotan at the airport, an artilleryman with whom he had gone off to Asia thirteen months earlier; the artilleryman, also homeward bound, unhesitatingly lent Eriksson the ten dollars. Incensed, the Sergeant uttered the first of a series of threats. 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. His reaction interested me, Eriksson said. Better relax about that Vietnamese girl, Eriksson. It had all been a mistake, he saidhe and his men had been dozing when the sound of running feet aroused them, and instinctively they had assumed it was the enemy. A few rare films stun the senses. In a matter of seconds, the shooting broke off, and another patrol, consisting of another squad in Reillys platoon, emerged from behind the hedgerow. In daylight it was search-and-destroy missions, and at night it was setting ambushes for the enemy. It was to take them, ultimately, to Hill 192a height, in the Bong Son valley, that overlooked a ravine laced with a cave complex, which was suspected of serving as a Vietcong hideout. She had her black pajamas on. It was a six-hour trek, over difficult terrain, and when the men finally stood just below the summit, several of them, who were unaccustomed to tramping so long, were near exhaustion. Eriksson remembers Rafe as a tall, swarthy, round-faced man with a disposition that was naturally sunny and amiable. also kidnapped, raped, murdered. Only minor infractions came his way, but even such a routine chore as driving the drunk wagon down to Sin City could make him conscious of the sense of justice in himself that had been so tumultuously aroused the preceding November. (He got a break. But they were halfway around the world now, in a strange country, where they couldnt tell who was their friend and who wasnt. In an affidavit that Manuel later signed, he stated, Clark gagged the girl to keep her from yelling out. They set you brooding about them for days. She was dead, Im sure., Immediately after the murder, Eriksson told me, the men appeared to assume a self-protective air of disbelief at what had taken place. The mother wept and pleaded, and her daughters, clinging to one another, cowered against the wall. Departing from the hamlet with their prize, the soldiers moved west toward the main trail they should have been on. To be sure, there were a few individuals, like Rowan, who shared his outlook, but the great majority saw things the way their officers did. Thus, defense lawyers raised no objections when the prosecutor asked the defendants and the defense witnesses whether a soldier who was condemned for having committed civilian homicide, such as the killing of Mao, should be kept on as a member of the armed forcesthat is, should be permitted to go on committing military homicide. Like most rural women, she was dressed in loose-fitting black pajamas. Related period. Q: Did he endeavor to actively join in with the free-time activity of the rest of the people, or did he have to be coaxed. It was also noted that, like Meserve, Clark was the product of an impoverished and broken home. The structure was in a state of extreme disrepair, and had a number of large holes in its mud walls. In due course, they came upon Mao, her remains a rigid crescent settled grotesquely in a half nest of soil and rocks and matted foliage. In the hours we spent together, there were intervals that may have lasted as long as a minute when he sat silent, a brooding expression on his face, before resuming his account. He remembers that he talked with one of them while they were both shaving, and that in shooting the breeze with another he led the conversation around to Greenacre when the man mentioned that Arizona was where he dreamed of spending his first post-war vacation. Meserve asked him if he had finished the girl. Clark had just replied yes when Mao, like a wounded apparition, was seen crawling rapidly downhill and then disappearing into the thick foliage. argo parts amazon. . 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. incident on hill 192 where are they now. He said for me to think that over again very carefully, Eriksson recalled. A smile spreading on his face, he took the scarf and stuffed it into Maos mouth. Actually, Eriksson told me, he had once asked Reilly for permission to discuss Maos murder with a chaplain, but the Lieutenant had discouraged the idea. I couldnt tell who was supposed to have the hard feelingsManuel or myself, Eriksson told me. Rafe had flouted the order against unnecessary shooting, confirming Erikssons observation that plans could mean little in the field and that out there any patrol was a unit only in theory. According to Eriksson, Meserve, who was assertive and confident, was both the patrols youngest soldier and its most experienced one, being a volunteer of three years standing who had fought in Vietnam for a year and had been decorated several times; he was due to go back to the United States in a month. The group walked from the airstrip to Hill 192. It certainly was not the Army's finest hour, given the reticence. But, as Eriksson pointed out, he could not give me many such first-hand accounts of V.C. Invariably, Eriksson said, he found himself reproved for the deed. Flying back to Carson, I thought to myself, So Manuels out. Meserve stated that we would get the woman for the purpose of boom boom, or sexual intercourse, and at the end of five days we would kill her. And in Manuels testimony one finds: After we were briefed by Meserve, he said that we would take a girl with us on patrol, or that we would try to take a girl with us to have some fun. Q: I didnt ask you for a long elaboration. Possibly because of his coperative attitude at the trials, Rafe was given the lightest termeight years, for the crimes of rape and unpremeditated murder. The girl was dressed and her hands had been freed. As Mao stood listening, mute and uncomprehending, Meserve said that she had to be got out of the way; if they ran into action, he pointed out, she would be a hindrance, and even if they didnt, helicopter crews scouting the area might want to know who she was. He had thought of them uneasily, imagining that the act of testifying might force him to relive the macabre episode on Hill 192. 2. gcdc. A: I dont think Im braver than Eriksson. 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. 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. Three Vietnamese were spotted walking along the edge of the water, and though they wore no uniforms, Meserve assumed they were V.C., and he and his men, including Eriksson, opened fire on them. . and went out to check, and she got away from you, right out of the hootch?. 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. He felt that way, he explained, because out in the field, in territory that could turn hostile at any moment, the men in the patrol would be very much on their own, and this would be so even if a high-ranking officer were in charge. It excited me. Impatiently, Clark volunteered his services, but Meserve wouldnt have that, insisting that they collaborate. Q: For a murder. None of the four hit anything, and the Sergeant radioed the platoon command for artillery support, which was quickly granted; the coperation, Eriksson recalled, pleased Meserve no end, since it implicitly conferred an importance on the skirmish. Eriksson had no occasion to fire his grenade launcher, and that was just as well, he told me, since his mind was on Maoon the part of the war that, as he put it, had got to me. Perched on the mountainside, listening to the gunfire and the helicopters, he found his thoughts returning repeatedly to the fact that Rafe and Manuel had refused to kill the girl. Perhaps because Meserve had been the leader of the four accused, he came in for particularly heavy praise. Why had he bothered to discuss Mao with him three times? Arriving on the run, the two explained their errand to Clark, who heard the news eagerly, then pulled rank on Eriksson and ordered him to take his place in guarding the hootch. All right, go ahead, Meserve said, and he instantly turned his attention to the enemy, ordering Eriksson to the lower ledge of rock while he and Manuel returned to the upper one, with Rafe to their rear. Time and again, at chow or during a break out in the field, someone would tell him (as Vorst had told him) that it was pointless to throw good lives after bad by having Meserve and the others up on charges, since (as Reilly had said) violence was the language of war, and, naturally, it could not always be controlled. who was murdered, but how could I do it for a Vietnamese? At any rate, he felt that he was on the right track, since chaplains were professionally concerned with conscience. Just who, I wanted to ask, was the man in Manuels patrol who started the shooting? One of the defense lawyers hammered away at the point that Eriksson had killed the girl when, in obeying the Sergeants command to shoot her, he fired his grenade launcher. He first asked Sergeant Meserve, Do you know anything about this? To which Meserve said, We dont know what youre talking about. He then directed the same question to all of us, Do you people know what youve done up there? Captain Vorst then asked me did I know what would or could happen to me. It took an hour to negotiate the climb, and the group had barely attained the ridge when Rafe, his eyes sweeping the vista below, saw five Vietnamese in peasant dress making their way along a mountain trail toward the paddy fields near the stream. Lang later turned the article into a book entitled "Casualties of War". Rowan listened with astonishment as Eriksson apprised him of the Sergeants plan, but when Eriksson asked his friend whether he thought Meserves statements should be reported to an officer before the patrol left camp, Rowan immediately shook his head, replying, as the court record shows, Meserve wouldnt dare do such a fool thing. This incredulity notwithstanding, the news of Meserves briefing left Rowan unhappy. Deciding that he was looking at a V.C., Rafe let fly with a couple of rounds from his M-16 rifle. But he was very tolerant about it.
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incident on hill 192 where are they now