The Tigers didn’t need prompting. Trout and Barnett agreed to lead a team—the first time in quite a while they found themselves on the same squad. The village wasn’t on any map, but the soldiers were given the grid coordinates. They were also told a South Vietnamese intelligence officer was being sent to the village to meet them at the entrance. Within a half hour of getting the call, the six-man team left the camp and headed east on a trail that would take them to the general area.
Trout and Barnett didn’t talk much on the way. Trout considered Barnett a coward who went out of his way to keep from walking the point and who, in firefights, tended to move to the rear. Barnett, on the other hand, thought Trout was a loudmouth who was quick to criticize soldiers he didn’t like.
Despite poor directions, the team managed to find an inhabited village near a slope that matched the description given by headquarters. Just as promised, a translator was waiting at the end of the trail.
After walking a short distance, the translator pointed to the hut where the VC was believed to be living. The Tigers went to the doorway and found a woman inside cradling an infant. The translator asked when her husband would return, but she said she hadn’t seen him in days.
Trout was angry but decided to wait. He ordered the team to camp at the edge of the village, hoping to spot the man coming home. The soldiers watched the hut all night and saw nothing.
At dawn, the team walked toward the hut again, and this time, they saw a man running from the rear of the structure. The translator shouted for him to stop, but he escaped into the brush. Two of the Tigers ran after him but lost him beyond the trail. Trout was furious. He turned to his men and ordered them to burn down the hooch. After dragging the woman and her baby outside, the soldiers lit the thatch and watched as it went up in flames. Holding her baby, the woman began screaming for the soldiers to stop. The more she screamed, the more Trout grew annoyed. He turned to a medic and ordered him to give her a sedative. As two soldiers pulled her to the side, an elderly woman peering out of her hut ran over to the woman and carefully took the baby out of her arms. By now, two soldiers were jamming pills (the sedative Darvon) into the woman’s mouth and forcing her to swallow. Within minutes, she was stumbling as she unsuccessfully tried to walk away.
Trout grabbed the woman by the hand and ordered the men to stand by. He then dragged her into a hut, and for several minutes the men waited. Other villagers came out of their huts, confused and angry at the soldiers. After ten minutes, Trout emerged again, dragging the woman by the arm. He told the men to gear up and then turned to Barnett. “Grease her,” Trout said.
Barnett looked at Trout. He had no problem killing unarmed teenagers and men. But for some reason, he cringed about carrying out the order. This was a young mother. Even in his anger, this was going to take some strength. As the men were leaving the village, Barnett raised his rifle and aimed his M16 at her chest from five meters away. She looked confused, her eyes glazed, seemingly unable to comprehend what was about to happen. Barnett pointed at her chest and squeezed the trigger.
Hawkins was irrelevant. No one respected him. No one listened to his orders. But for the first time in weeks, the soldiers had been so busy on search-and-destroy missions that they didn’t have time to dwell on the commander or his mistakes. The Tigers were operating in small squads, answering mostly to their team leaders, and they preferred it that way.
One morning, Hawkins called for a platoon meeting, but only Doyle and a couple of others were listening. The commander lashed out, “I’m still in charge here.” But no one gave a damn. There were no real rules and regulations anymore. Half the unit had grown long, scraggly beards and had cut the sleeves off their uniforms. Kerrigan, Ybarra, and several others were openly wearing necklaces of ears, and others were carrying severed ears in pouches. Whenever the smell of rotting flesh was too strong, Ybarra would toss away his current necklace and make a new one from ears he carried in a ration bag filled with vinegar.
For the Tigers, the severing of ears wasn’t only for souvenirs—a practice by other soldiers in the war. Now, they were mutilating bodies to deal with the rage and, in many cases, simply discarding the ears and scalps. Corpses were being repeatedly stabbed in a frenzy. Noses and fingers were being cut off. “Going berserk” is a phrase used to describe soldiers who fly into an incredible rage after long periods of trauma and combat. The soldier believes that somehow, by carrying out his anger in a bloody, dehumanizing way, “the gook” can never hurt him or his comrades again. This kind of savagery—a form of overkill—goes beyond taking body parts for souvenirs.
Most of the men had lost a great deal of weight, their faces gaunt, ribs protruding when they peeled off their shirts. At least a dozen were hooked on amphetamines and constantly pestered the medics for daily allowances.
During a sweep south of the Que Son in late October, the sight of the Tigers approaching a hamlet one day startled several soldiers from the 196th Light Infantry Brigade on patrol. To the men in the 196th, the Tigers not only looked like hell—they looked like they had come from some horrid circle of the underworld itself. The 196th stayed away as the Tigers passed. The brigade had passed numerous units in the province but none like this. “They didn’t want anything to do with us,” recalled Causey.
One morning, Hawkins received a call from battalion headquarters. On most days, it was a routine request for a body count, but this call was different: a helicopter was on its way to pick him up and bring him back to Chu Lai. The rest of the Tigers would stay in the field and wait for orders.
After arriving at Chu Lai, Hawkins jumped off the Huey and headed directly to battalion headquarters. One of the first officers to greet Hawkins was James. There was little love between the men. James had been hearing rumors of Hawkins’s incompetence in the field and had been talking to others about relieving Hawkins of his command. But the operation was in full swing, and it was too late to break in a new leader.
James explained the reason for Hawkins’s visit. Officers from the MACV were scheduled to arrive the next day, and Hawkins was expected to join the commanders at the briefing.
After meeting with James, Hawkins went to the officers’ club. He had been in the field for weeks and wanted to unwind. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, he sat at a table drinking. When the battalion command officers arrived, hours later, Hawkins was still there. James and other officers sat down and began talking, when an alcohol-fortified Hawkins interrupted. To their surprise, he began ranting about the “command structure” and its lack of knowledge in the field. He told the men that they didn’t know what it was like to be in the field under constant enemy surveillance, never knowing whether you were going to make it out, that they knew nothing about what the war was really like.
At first, the officers didn’t say anything, allowing him to vent—but he didn’t stop. “He kept cussing and acting obnoxious,” James said. “I had to get him out of there.” James jumped up from the table and told Hawkins “he was out of line.” As Hawkins continued his tirade, James lifted the lieutenant out of his chair and led him out the door. “If he had stayed there any longer, he would have been court-martialed,” he said.
The two went to the officers’ barracks, where Hawkins plopped down on James’s cot and passed out. The next morning James was awakened by loud screams, and when he jumped up, he saw Hawkins thrashing in the cot. “I can’t see!” Hawkins yelled, furiously rubbing his eyes. James ran over to him and could see that during the night Hawkins had thrown up, and the vomit had hardened over his face and eyes. James splashed water on Hawkins’s face to help open his eyes. By the time they went to breakfast, James realized that Hawkins had to go.
Harold McGaha was a captain who acted like a grunt. While he could rub shoulders with other officers, he was more comfortable with line soldiers. When the infantrymen returned from patrols, he was always questioning them about the VC—their movements and habits. He particularly liked talking to the Tigers. For a small unit
, they seemed to have a high kill rate—and to the commanders, that spelled success.
Since arriving in Vietnam on June 7, the tall, muscular captain from the mountains of southwestern North Carolina had wanted to lead a combat unit, and it didn’t matter whether it was a platoon or line company—anything was better than sitting behind a desk. McGaha would spend his mornings outside his barracks doing push-ups, sit-ups, and performing kata—a system of karate kicks and punches designed to develop quickness and agility. He preferred shooting his M16 at the range to the daily battalion briefings, but for an S-2 intelligence officer, the meetings were mandatory. He absolutely hated paperwork.
When McGaha learned that commanders were getting ready to ax Hawkins, the twenty-seven-year-old captain quietly lobbied for the job. He had been in the Army since October 13, 1958, and had been steadily moving up the ranks. He wanted someday to command his own battalion. A successful command could mean a promotion. And that would make his wife, Fannie, proud, as well as the rest of his family in Franklin. He was already becoming a hero of sorts in the small town in the Smokies, from which he was receiving a steady stream of cards from schoolkids.
When McGaha mentioned to other officers that he was going to put in for the Tigers, he was warned by several of them to think long and hard about the move. The Tigers were a tough bunch and had been on their own too long.
McGaha shrugged at the notion that he couldn’t handle the job. He was cocky enough to believe he could lead this platoon. And besides, he wasn’t going to be the Tigers’ commander for the duration of the war. “I just need to put in my time,” he told other officers. “Just put in my time.”
McGaha knew this wasn’t going to be an easy assignment, but he was well aware of the priority the Army was placing on Operation Wheeler. And he had a chance to be a part of it. Most of all, he didn’t want to disappoint Morse. He looked up to the battalion leader as a mentor—a commander who wasn’t afraid.
On November 1, he was sent into the field to take over the platoon. Meanwhile, Hawkins was reassigned to the rear. He would never again lead the Tigers.
After landing in the operations area, McGaha trotted to the command post where the Tigers were waiting. As he neared the soldiers, McGaha was taken aback. They were gaunt and skinny, with beards and dark circles under their eyes. He immediately thought they had been in the field too long. Several were pacing, oblivious to the new leader. Others were staring him down.
He didn’t flinch, even after he noticed that several were wearing what he recognized as human ears. It wasn’t a secret at the base that some soldiers were mutilating bodies, but he wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. He heard rumors the Tigers were “taking ears,” but so what? That meant they were killing Vietnamese. He locked eyes with everyone who was looking at him. “I’m Captain McGaha!” he yelled to the group. “We got a lot of ground to cover, don’t we?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Let’s go.”
McGaha already had a plan. From a map he studied just minutes before taking off, he knew there were several hamlets in a row, just a kilometer from the landing zone. From the daily reports and grid coordinates, he could see the Tigers had not swept through the hamlets.
To show he was in control, McGaha took the lead. Slowly, the Tigers rose and followed, mumbling about the new commander and where he was taking them. Clutching his map, McGaha found a trail, eager to impress the Tigers that he knew how to get around. He was going to set up camp a couple of kilometers away and then get ready for the morning orders.
Before sunset, he found a small clearing and told the men to set up camp. After they removed their gear, McGaha pulled team leaders aside to talk. They immediately saw that he was different from Hawkins. He was gung ho but not convinced he was in a Howard Hawks Western. He was sober and could even read maps. Those were good signs.
One of the first problems the team leaders brought up was Ybarra. The point man had been openly threatening to kill Fischer, blaming him for the death of Green. Several soldiers had tried to reason with Ybarra, but he ignored them.
McGaha listened intently and then made it clear: they were to keep their eyes on Ybarra, but they should not hold him back. “We need him,” he said, adding, “but just don’t let him go off crazy.”
That wasn’t easy. That night, Ybarra disappeared. When the other soldiers looked for him to stand guard for his four-hour stint, he was gone.
Furious, McGaha wanted to send a team to look for the point man, but team leaders assured him Ybarra would return. Ever since Green’s death, he would sometimes leave at night, only to return at dawn. On this night, it was no different, except when he returned, he was carrying an object on the end of his rifle—a human scalp. Team leaders just looked the other way, but McGaha was still seething. He walked over to Ybarra and pointed a finger. “I don’t care about what you’re carrying,” he said. “I don’t give a shit who you kill. But don’t ever leave camp without telling me. You do it again, I’ll ship you back to Chu Lai.”
Ybarra stared back, and for a moment, it looked like the two soldiers would start swinging. But to everyone’s surprise, Ybarra turned away. At least for now, McGaha was the leader.
Even before sunrise, the Tigers were up and walking. McGaha wanted his first mission to be successful, and that meant creating the element of surprise. Unlike Hawkins, this platoon leader wanted to lead the column, walking just inches behind Ybarra. The soldiers stopped at the edge of the clearing before reaching the huts. McGaha was ready. So were the other Tigers. Barnett aimed his M60 machine gun at the first hut. Ybarra, Kerrigan, and others carefully raised their M16s, waiting for the order. McGaha raised his right hand and motioned to fire.
The Tigers opened up and, for the next minute, blasted away at the thatch, and suddenly, the soldiers could hear the screams of people. Some tried to run out of the openings of the huts but dropped in the fusillade. A mother carrying a baby tried to crawl from a hatch in the rear of a hut but was immediately gunned down, the infant falling from her arms. It was a slaughter.
McGaha quickly ordered the men to stop, but they didn’t. Instead, they continued moving closer to the huts, firing. Unable to watch anymore, some of the medics turned away. Short of stepping in front of their bullets, there was nothing McGaha could do. It wasn’t until every hut had been blown apart that the firing finally stopped.
The platoon leader peered through the smoke and could see more than a dozen bodies lying in the dirt: babies, women, and children. Some of the adults were on top of the children in what looked like desperate attempts to shield them from the assault. While team leaders bent over the bodies looking for any signs of weapons or enemy maps—anything to show this was a VC village—McGaha watched. After several minutes, Barnett reached for the radio and called headquarters. “We got sixteen dead VC,” he said. After hanging up the receiver, Barnett approached the platoon leader. “No weapons,” he confessed.
At the other end of the hamlet, Kerrigan, Ybarra, and others were leaning over bodies, knives in their hands. McGaha watched as Ybarra reached down, grabbed the lower portion of an ear, and, holding a knife, began cutting the flesh, bit by bit, until he was able to yank the rest of the ear from the head.
McGaha wasn’t going to say anything. His job was to keep moving, to sweep through the next hamlet. “Let’s go,” he said. As the Tigers began forming a line, Ybarra had moved on to a new body and started kicking the face of a villager on the ground. At first, McGaha thought the Vietnamese was alive and the soldier was trying to finish the job. But as the platoon leader approached the point man, he noticed the man on the ground wasn’t moving. “Ybarra,” said McGaha, “what are you doing?”
Ybarra didn’t answer.
Later, the platoon commander learned his point man wasn’t trying to kill the Vietnamese. Ybarra was trying to kick out the teeth of the dead villager for gold fillings.
Carpenter perked up at the command over the radio: “You’re the 327th Infantry,” said the voice. “We want 3
27 kills.” The early-morning message was meant for the entire battalion. Seven weeks into Operation Wheeler, command wanted the soldiers to keep the body count spiraling upward on the charts.
“Do you want them before or after breakfast?” said a Tiger who overheard the report.
After talking to team leaders, McGaha agreed to break up the platoon into smaller teams—two to three members—with Doyle, Trout, Barnett, McGaha, and Haugh each leading his own squad into an area around Thang Binh, roughly ten kilometers from the coast. McGaha told the Tigers to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, and if they saw any hamlets, they were to burn the hooches. Leave nothing standing.
Not far from the campsite, Doyle and his team followed a trail running just east of Than Moi, where they found three elderly peasants outside a hut. No words were exchanged, nor did the soldiers give the villagers time to react. They simply lifted their rifles and began shooting. Seconds later, the three old men lay shredded on the ground.
Another team consisting of Barnett and Causey entered a hamlet just west of Than Moi, where Barnett surprised a man outside a hut who was believed to be a bona fide Vietcong. The man had no weapon. “You motherfucker, we caught you!” Barnett screamed. Before the Vietnamese could move, Barnett opened fire from just a few feet away.
The other teams were within a kilometer of each other and could occasionally hear the gunshots of the other teams. Over the radio, Causey and Fischer heard a familiar phrase repeated again and again: “VC running from hut,” followed by a specific number of VC killed in each encounter. There were at least eight transmissions that day carrying the same message. But no one knew whether the dead were VC. And no team was offering an account of actual combat between VC or NVA and the Tigers.
Tiger Force Page 20
