Perhaps because Meserve had been the leader of the four accused, he came in for particularly heavy praise. The incident on Hill 192 is the name the United States Army called [1] the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman [2] on November 19, 1966 [1] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. I needed more of an impression of Boyd than I had, Eriksson said. Well, during this Operation Thayer II, which started [last October], we ran into a hootch that was burned down. It is going to be yourself. The judges had ordered that the incarcerated Rafe be given a new trial, which, like Manuels, was held at Fort Leavenworth. The search party was a smaller one this time, Eriksson said, its assignment to make certain that nothing of any conceivable courtroom value still lay hidden in the area around Maos body; eventually, a C.I.D. Moreover, Eriksson told me, the enemy soldier inflicted casualties on the infantrymen deployed around the cave complex, which was some two hundred metres long and had numerous mouths. But at the other end of the path, just as we were leaving the village behind, the enemy would open up on us, and there was bitterness among us that the villagers hadnt given us warning. [11], Likewise, Gervase's initial sentence of ten years with hard labor was reduced to eight. Ill never know. Reilly was aware that if it came to public knowledge it would tarnish the image of the officers commanding the platoon, the company, the battalion, perhaps even the regiment; the officers might be made to appear incapable of controlling the conduct of the men in their commands. The girl was dressed and her hands had been freed. This morning, Manuel carried his own. Q: You think your fear was apparent to anyone else? She had lain moldering there for three weeks and her body was badly decayed. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Created by: TrentLane Added: 26 Aug 2021 Find a Grave Memorial ID: 231233841 Sponsored by Jennifer Brown Source citation I had this picture that when we did, theyd fire at us, or, at least, Meserve would have me up on charges of desertion. 1/4 Fifty-four years ago today four US army soldiers murdered Phan Thi Mao, whom they had kidnapped and gang-raped in what is now called the incident on hill 192. en.wikipedia.org. At the time, Eriksson told me, he had no idea that the Captain had chewed them out. You should know that the courage and steadfastness you demonstrated make me proud to have you a member of this division. Q: For a murder. I discovered its not difficult to kill a human beingin combat its as instinctive as ducking bullets. Another defense attorney repeatedly taxed Eriksson with having fabricated his charges against Meserve and the others in order to escape further assignments to hazardous infantry missions. Eriksson remembers Rafe as a tall, swarthy, round-faced man with a disposition that was naturally sunny and amiable. All four soldiers were sentenced to hard labor at the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 7 years ago. Related period. He was brand-new. The participants in the cases, including lawyers, witnesses, law officers, and members of the court, lived in tents near the courthouse, and often at night the vicious thump of artillery shells, enemy-bound, from the edges of the division base disturbed the quiet of the legal encampment. No doubt, Eriksson said, the close brushes that he and his friend had been through had something to do with this, but in his own case he had been deeply impressed while he was overseas by what he called an upside-down mentality, which he believed explained the general unconcern there about incidents like the one he had taken part in. They were very definite. [9], Thomas, Cipriano Garcia, and Joseph Garcia were each convicted of unpremeditated murder in March and April 1967. In court, Rafe said that he found Mao naked, lying on the table, her hands bound behind her back. It describes in detail the 1968 events that made up what the U.S. Army called the Incident on Hill 192, in which a forward patrol was found to have kidnapped a Vietnamese girl, raped her repeatedly, then murdered her to avoid being found out. 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. 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. It did not occur in the United States. sonoma academy calendar; why are my bluetooth headphones connected but not working; incident on hill 192 where are they now; By . These varying decisions, it seemed, were attributable to a variety of factors, among them considerations of the defendants character and background. You traded the girls life for your well-being, he was told. There was little pattern to the verdicts, each of the juries indulging in its own vagaries. Journalist Daniel Lang brought this to further public attention with a 1969 article in The New Yorker entitled Casualties of War . Eriksson decides to do something about her death and reports it to his superiors. But here was this Marine, who had put in much more combat service than Meserve or Clark or anyone else Id met, and he felt exactly as I did about the crime., Eriksson now fell into one of his silences, and I imagined he was contemplating the mystery of human character. With Greenacre there, it meant that Sven was waiving his right to my silence, he said. . Other soldiers, he said, might just as easily have betrayed the weakness that the four men had betrayed on Hill 192, but it had fallen to Meserve and Clark and Rafe and Manuel in particular to act as they had. Rafes sentence of eight years had been cut to four, and Meserves ten years had been trimmed to eight. Eriksson remembers having a deep feeling of ease and calm, as though he were at long last ceasing to be a fugitive from injustice. Rafe was the man closest to Clark and Maoonly a few metres awayand because he was, his testimony concerning the events that now took place carried special weight with the court. He felt even wearier on arriving in Kansas, when he learned that there was little point to his presence. Former Private First Class Sven Erikssonas I shall call him, since to use his actual name might add to the danger he may be inhas also come back with his memories, but he has no idea what the future will do to them. 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. Sprawled on the ground after the meal, Meserve, refreshed, glanced at his fellows and then, with a knowing smile, indicated the partly ruined structure. Like Clark, he was given to quick movements, but his behavior had nothing to do with embellishing Meserves thinking. Eriksson found it impressive that these procedures should be so punctiliously observed within easy artillery range of the enemywhich, he added, was not to say that he was unaware of various shortcomings. Whatever the answers, Captain Vorst saw to it that Eriksson left his command early the following morning, sending the enlisted man seventy miles away to Camp Radcliff, the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division base, near the small city of An Khe. At ten-thirty, a short distance below the summit of Hill 192, Meserve found what he was looking fora command post for the day. A. Oh, no, sir, it was not that he was disliked in any way. 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. Recalling the interview, Eriksson said, Id answer a question, then hed wait and Id have to wait along with him, then hed ask another question, real fast, and in Id come with my next answer. They may be out in a few months, he said. 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.. who was murdered, but how could I do it for a Vietnamese? email: dr.diipk@gmail.comtwitter.com/diipkfacebook.com/diipkhttps://literarism.blogspot.comTelegram Grouphttps://t.me/KashyapDeepak#diipk #KashyapDeepak Had he taken into account the amount of suffering that Americans had already undergone in behalf of the Vietnamese? Yes or no? He hopes to open a small carpentry shop of his own in several years, but, ideally, he would like to be a farmera career that he doubts he will ever be able to afford. The Sergeant had made his announcement with a straight face, leaving his men to interpret it as they would. Manuel received a sentence of fifteen years, his punishment for rape. 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. simply told him to bug off from the word go? The men found her feverish and coughing, and Clark was all for rescheduling her death hour to that evening. And, in fact, Eriksson told me, a C.I.D. It was six in morning and dark. The father was away in Phu My market, the interpreter went on. I gave her crackers and beef stew and water. Unlike their civilian counterparts, Vorst said, the law officers (the term by which military judges were known) and members of the court (as jurors were known) had a sympathetic understanding of the pressures a combat man faced in risking his life daily; military jurists didnt expect foot soldiers to be on their best behavior in a war zone. The evidence gained as a result of the two field trips played an important part in the judicial proceedings, Eriksson told me. In a matter of seconds, the shooting broke off, and another patrol, consisting of another squad in Reillys platoon, emerged from behind the hedgerow. A: Well, in general, sir, [but] in this specific case. Even though the two were alone, Eriksson remained cautious, revealing nothing about Maos murder. He had no impulse to talk about Maocertainly not with his fellow-policemen. Acting on this, he enrolled in a non-credit course at the University of Minnesota designed to teach adults with an inadequate education how to study. Now, watching the chaplain depart, Eriksson decided that Greenacre was very much worth cultivating. In addition, Rafe flatly said, Eriksson could not see the girl, despite which, Rafe also testified, Eriksson stated, Oh, no, like he regretted that he had fired. Rafe himself let go with a burst from his M-16, which, inexplicably, caused his rifle to jam. 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. It repeated itself in waves, broken only, Eriksson assumed, by Maos need to summon fresh breath. They were cousins named DiazRafael, known as Rafe, whose home was near Amarillo, Texas, and Manuel, who came from a town some distance north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Undeterred by Erikssons denial, the lawyer persevered with his line of questioning. Boyd had been a big help, he told me. Just as the prosecutor had foreseen, the defense attorneys did try to make Eriksson look odd, but that was among the milder of their insinuations. It was adduced that even before Meserve left for Vietnam he was regarded as an exemplary soldier, since he had been selected to march in President Johnsons inaugural paradean honor limited to two hundred men with unblemished records. leading men on fifty, sixty, seventy patrols, and gave it as his opinion that this incident did not occur as the normal incident. Making his chief point, Meserves lawyer told the court, Theres one thing that stands out about this particular offense. We were on a plateau in the Highlands, and all around us were small mountain ranges, hazy and green. Still in the process of waking, and not yet thinking clearly, he said, he had transformed her into a peasant woman on her way to do a days farming, such as he had seen many times in Vietnam; he had envisioned the passenger in a broad, peaked straw hat and black pajamas, carrying the traditional stick across her shoulders, with baskets at either end for holding crops. . It was another case of people doing their job, he told me. And it had to be Boyd Greenacre who would introduce me. Thinking along these lines, Eriksson said, he arrived at a kind of strategy in regard to Mao. FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL'S LIVE TRAFFIC CRASH AND ROAD CONDITION REPORTClick Here For Additional Information | Click Here for FDOT Emergency Real Time Traffic4/30/2023, 3:20:59 AM. recognized that there were forces of conscience that might have to be contended with? In ten minutes, they were all together again; by then, too, the helicopters had grown larger and their engines were faintly audible. These guys right here are going to start laughing you out. Its obey the man over you, follow the chain of command, or into the stockade you go. Something that added to his feeling of frustration in those trying weeks was that he could not find it within himself to single out Vorst as the arch-villain, from whom all evil flowed. Im not saying that every fellow who roughed up a civilian liked himself for itnot that hed admit in so many words that he didnt. It was as much a part of us as our legs and arms.. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. He had scarcely landed in Vietnam, in October, 1966, when he was made aware of these occurrences, each of them apparently impulsive and unrelated to military strategy. The mother, Eriksson told me, was waving a scarf and laboriously propelling herself forward. He is a short man of fair complexion, blond and blue-eyed, and he is not voluble. The farther back you got, the closer you approached the way people lived in civilian life., On November 16, 1966, the commanding officer of Erikssons platoon, a Negro lieutenant, Harold Reilly (whose name, like every soldiers name in this account, has been changed), assigned him as one of five enlisted men who were to make up a reconnaissance patrol, its mission to comb a sector of the Central Highlands for signs of Vietcong activity. Rafe subsequently testified that the Sergeant was in an expansive mood, cheerfully observing to his men that it wasnt every day he could rate artillery support and have himself a woman as well. For Rafe, the fighting had ended an hour earlierwell before the patrol reached the cave complex. [12][13], Gervase died on March 23, 1981. 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. (Dr. Finck, a well-known Army pathologist, was one of the team of three physicians that performed the autopsy on the late President Kennedy.) She looked weary and ill, and she seemed to be getting more so by the minute. *The Incident on Hill 192 is what the U.S army calls the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao.