Apsey phoned the Presidio to talk to Weinstein. After all, it was the colonel who had dropped the file on Apsey’s desk. But when he reached Weinstein, nothing had changed. He was told to continue working the case.
It was already November, and agents were still searching for Doyle. They had visited the Philippines, South Vietnam, and even his home state of Missouri. But Doyle always seemed to be one step ahead. Ever since his discharge on June 10, 1971, he had disappeared.
Apsey needed the former team leader. He knew Trout and Hawkins wouldn’t talk. They were both in the Army and had too much to lose. But Doyle was out and free to talk without fear of prosecution. So where was he?
In mid-November, Apsey received a call. The CID office in Guam received a tip that a thin, balding American covered with tattoos was living on the island. At long last, Doyle had been tracked down.
While Apsey waited for the agents to investigate, he rechecked where Hawkins and Trout were stationed. He was leaning toward recommending murder charges against both men, and if they transferred, he didn’t want to spend time locating them again. He called officials in Florida and learned that Hawkins was now at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
He wasn’t so worried about Trout’s whereabouts since he had already requested the sergeant be flagged—but unknown to Apsey at the time, the flag had been removed. Trout, now stationed at Fort Benning, had asked the warning be lifted from his record, and on November 19, the fort staff judge advocate agreed. Under CID procedures, Apsey should have been notified, but for some reason, no one bothered to call him until several weeks later. Trout was essentially free to walk.
The removal of the flag felt like a punch in the gut. While Apsey waited for word on the status of Doyle, he received an urgent call from the Presidio on November 21 with an odd message: Barnett had called the CID office at Fort Campbell. He desperately wanted to talk about Tiger Force.
Ever since interviewing Barnett two years ago, Apsey sensed the veteran was ready to explode. During the last two visits by CID agents, he was evasive and antsy. And of course, most recently, he had angrily returned his combat medals. But after reaching Barnett by phone, Apsey could tell the man at the other end wasn’t the same tough-talking vet from their interview nearly two years ago. His voice was strained, and he began rambling about Tiger Force and Vietnam. He said he wanted to talk, but not over the phone; he wanted to see Apsey in person.
“There are things I need to say,” Barnett said in his deep drawl. “I’m going to talk to you about Trout and Hawkins, and I’m going to tell you about myself.”
Apsey said he could meet with Barnett in a few days at the earliest.
For Apsey, the timing couldn’t have been better. He had been dealt a setback by the flag being lifted on Trout, and worse, the Army knew it. Why would anyone allow this, knowing the time and resources the CID devoted to this case? Depending on what Barnett had to say, Apsey might be able to make a case to reinstate the flag.
Six days later, he arrived by plane in Memphis, checked into a motel, and phoned Barnett. But now, Apsey sensed Barnett was hesitant to meet. Something must have happened in the last six days. Barnett stammered on the phone and then blurted out a demand for immunity. Apsey was taken aback. He traveled all the way to Tennessee in hopes of another breakthrough interview—one that could put the investigation over the top. But he didn’t have the authority to promise anything—that had to come from a JAG.
“I can’t do that for you,” he said.
There was silence on the phone. “Let me think about it,” Barnett said, asking for Apsey’s phone number.
The next morning, Barnett reached Apsey in his motel room. He said he talked to a close friend who advised him to keep quiet, but Barnett said it was too late. He was going to talk—with or without immunity.
Barnett hung up the phone without giving directions, but since Apsey had been to the house eighteen months earlier, he figured he could find Barnett’s home. Unfortunately, when Apsey drove into Loretto, he couldn’t find the street. He drove around in circles before he stopped into a small post office and asked for directions. The clerk shook his head. “We don’t like Army cops around here,” he said. “You find it yourself.”
Apsey got back into his car and drove until he finally found the street. By the time he knocked on the door, Barnett was already waiting. Apsey almost forgot how imposing a figure Barnett could be, at nearly six and a half feet and a much heavier 260 pounds. He led his visitor to the kitchen table but didn’t sit down.
“I got to keep moving,” Barnett said, pulling a chair out for Apsey.
As Barnett paced the kitchen floor, Apsey removed a tape recorder and a small, portable typewriter from a case and placed it on the table, looking curiously at the man in blue jeans.
Before saying anything, Barnett excused himself and walked back into the bathroom.
Moments later, he was back in the kitchen, clutching a .20-gauge shotgun over his shoulder. Apsey immediately put his hands up.
“Whoa,” he said. “What are you doing?”
Barnett, breathing heavy, his face red, plopped down in the other chair, putting the gun on the table with the barrel pointing directly at Apsey.
Apsey had conducted dozens of interviews, and no one had ever pulled a gun on him. For a moment, he froze, unable to say anything. This was his worst fear—an unstable veteran shooting him. His heart pounding, Apsey kept telling himself to stay calm, stay in control. He had a .38 handgun under his sport coat, but he could never draw it in time. He had to try to talk to him, to reason with him.
“Look,” Apsey said, staring into Barnett’s bloodshot eyes, “all I got is a .38. It’s peanuts compared to what you got there. Put it down. Don’t do this.”
Barnett turned his head and, for a moment, was quiet. His eyes dropped to the floor, and then slowly he breached open the double-barrel and removed two shells—one at a time—laying them on the table. He then leaned the gun against the nearby wall.
“I’m tired,” he said.
For the last three years, he hadn’t been able to stop the nightmares, the sweats. He hadn’t been able to forget the killing. “Most of those incidents,” he said slowly, “could be classified as war crimes today.”
Everything the CID was investigating, from the assault on the farmers to the systematic executions of unarmed men and women, was real, Barnett said. He was willing to accept responsibility for what he did to villagers but wasn’t about to point the finger at the other grunts. “It wasn’t just them,” he said. The Tigers’ descent into brutality was caused by a breakdown in leadership—and more than just a breakdown, the crimes were actually encouraged from the top, he said. Hawkins and Trout led the way, setting the tone for the unit and “giving the orders.” But he said their superiors knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it.
Barnett could still see the face of the young mother he shot point-blank in the chest on the orders of Trout.
The worst part, he said, was how easy it was to squeeze the trigger. “I didn’t think about whether it was right or wrong,” he said. “To me, it was just another day in Vietnam.”
Apsey interrupted to ask whether anyone could corroborate the shooting. Barnett answered that he couldn’t recall who was around, but “I would have to be crazy as hell to tell you that I shot that woman, if I didn’t do it.”
Apsey stopped writing and paused for a moment.
He noticed that Barnett was fighting to hold back tears. The once defiant veteran from two years ago was now a broken figure, hunched over the table, his hands trembling.
Without saying a word, Barnett stood up slowly and walked over to the door, staring outside. “You know,” he said, “I gotta make sure no one is watching me.” He said he left the Army in 1971 because he was afraid he would be charged in the investigation. He had wanted to stay in the military, to make it his career. He pushed aside the drapes over his living room window and peered outside. “There are people,” he said, “who would kill m
e for this.”
He stepped back from the window and turned to Apsey, who was beginning to understand that Barnett—like so many other Tigers—carried deep emotional problems into the war.
Barnett was too young to comprehend the psychological damage that had been inflicted on him by his father. Too young to understand that he, like his father, had become an abuser. Too young to control the rage and fury he had against a people whom he didn’t understand. As if all the bad feelings would go away. As if he would be able to purge himself of the anger and resentment and pain of a boy who wanted only his father’s love. The tragedy was that his actions against the Vietnamese had only made him angrier, had only made him kill more.
Apsey rose and began putting away his tape recorder and notepad, watching warily from the corner of his eye to make sure Barnett didn’t make any moves.
Trying to stay calm, Apsey walked over to the veteran and held out his hand. Barnett looked at Apsey and hesitated, wondering what Apsey was going to do next. “Is this it?” he asked. “Is the CID going to come around again?”
Apsey shook his head. “Not right away,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
Apsey walked out and stepped quickly to his car. He placed the key into the ignition, turned on the engine, and after looking one last time at the house, backed out the driveway and drove off. As he reached the main highway, he stepped on the gas. He didn’t even know how fast he was driving. He just wanted to get away. Apsey couldn’t stop thinking about the close encounter in the kitchen. He pulled by the side of the road, stopped the car, opened the driver’s door, and walked to the grassy embankment. He began to take deep breaths to calm himself down but couldn’t control himself any longer. His heart racing, he leaned over the guardrail, steadied himself against the cold steel, and threw up.
Flying back to California, Apsey peered out the window. After the long drive to the airport and a glass of water, he was finally feeling better. Not since his interview with Carpenter nearly two years ago had he reeled in such damning information. This was someone who actually confessed to murder, and who said that other Tigers were encouraged by commanders to kill civilians.
Apsey had long thought about focusing on the brass but had been understandably reluctant. To go up the food chain, you needed solid, irrefutable evidence. Otherwise, it could be a career-shattering move. The Army had frowned on targeting high-ranking officers during the Vietnam War. In the wake of My Lai, it had brought too much bad publicity. But after spending a day with Barnett, Apsey was now convinced it was the only way to find out why this platoon was able to carry out war crimes unabated for seven months. Commanders had to be held accountable. It was up to them to ensure that the soldiers weren’t killing unarmed villagers. It was up to them to make sure their men weren’t torturing noncombatants. It was up to them to make sure their unit wasn’t mutilating bodies. Anything less was dereliction of duty. And it didn’t matter whether you were a colonel or a major, a captain or a lieutenant.
Apsey had sat with dozens of veterans in this investigation, some angry, others depressed. But he had never interviewed anyone like Barnett. No one had ever broken down so completely, confessing to murder and random, unjustified shootings. No one had cried or pulled out a gun. But he had heard this before. Donald Wood had said he tried to stop the killing by going to commanders. So had Gerald Bruner. Carpenter, Miller, and Bowman were among the ex-Tigers who had said superiors knew what was happening in the field.
As soon as Apsey returned to Fort MacArthur, he began getting the names of the commanders—captains, majors, and colonels—who served in the battalion that oversaw Tiger Force in 1967. No one was sacred. For the first time since the investigation of the My Lai Massacre, high-ranking officers were being sought for questioning in a war-crimes case. Apsey knew it was risky, but he didn’t care. He had dug too deep to stop now. And he knew that if he didn’t follow this case to wherever it took him, he would be failing not only his country but himself.
Apsey was convinced he made the right decision after receiving a special report on a CID interview with a former battalion captain, Carl James. Apsey had wanted to track down the former battalion officer ever since learning that James was the liaison between the Tigers and the battalion leadership from June to November 1967. A CID agent was finally able to reach James at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. During the interview, James nervously told the agent he recalled talking to a soldier named Bruner about war crimes, but never bothered to report the allegations to superiors. When the agent asked James to elaborate, James stopped the interview. He wanted a lawyer. Apsey was getting closer.
CHAPTER 23
Going after commanders in a war-crimes case was rare during Vietnam. To do so after the war was unheard-of. Not only did the passing of time make it more difficult to present testimony and evidence but the political will to press such a case was questionable. The war had ended two years earlier. Despite the peace treaty, by January 1975, NVA troops were pouring over the borders in a blatant violation of the agreements signed in Paris. The South Vietnamese government had been pleading for money and arms, but U.S. lawmakers were reluctant to even touch the subject. Though President Ford was willing to provide some assistance, Congress had refused every funding request.
Despite the changing climate, Apsey was prepared to challenge any effort to shut down the case. He had come too far. If anyone tried to tell him to end the investigation, he would ask for the order in writing.
In early December 1974, he called the Pentagon and requested immediate locators on all officers in the battalion between May and November 1967 to see who was still in the service. He couldn’t personally interview all the commanders; some undoubtedly would be stationed overseas. He also knew that officers had a tendency to talk to one another and compare answers. So again, Apsey was forced to employ the “shotgun approach,” just as he had done with the grunts: the CID would question all the officers at once.
He had been a part of more than one hundred investigations but never one that would reach so high. He knew he would receive support from Weinstein and Perdue, but still, Apsey was a career serviceman, and he was now focusing on people who wore more stripes than anyone he knew.
He remembered what his mentor Frank Sugar once told him: “It doesn’t matter how many stripes they’re wearing. You apply the law. No one is above that. Do you hear me? No one.”
After six frustrating weeks of checking the mail, Apsey received locators on eighteen officers in mid-January 1975. The only one missing was Harold Austin, the former executive officer who later became battalion commander. Agents told Apsey that Austin was out of the military and believed to be somewhere in Thailand. They would keep looking for him.
There was one name on the list that Apsey circled: Gerald Morse. The former battalion commander known as Ghost Rider was now stationed as a full colonel in Heidelberg, Germany. No doubt, his time as a battalion commander had helped lead to his promotion. Apsey would save that interview for last.
There were many questions Apsey needed to ask, but perhaps the most important one involved a definition. A free-fire zone was based on the premise that the United States was in a friendly country and needed permission from the South Vietnamese government before opening fire or ordering an air strike on a specific village. The targets had to be military.
What Apsey found was that in numerous incidents, the Tigers were taking the phrase literally—freely firing on civilians. Apsey suspected battalion commanders knew that the free-fire zones were being abused and looked the other way.
And there were other questions, too. Did the commanders know about body mutilations? Did they ever question why the Tigers never brought in prisoners? Did any soldiers ever bring war crimes to their attention? He knew that some commanders would not have had any supervision over the Tigers. But he also knew the command structure over a battalion was small enough that the officers often knew what was going on throughout the unit. All the officers had to attend daily mandatory bri
efings, including the battalion surgeon, executive officer—and chaplain.
Within weeks, the responses from commanders came back. And they were just as Apsey predicted: the officers expressed ignorance about civilian deaths—the routine execution of prisoners and unarmed villagers. But in their responses to free-fire zones, the officers offered a snapshot of a battalion obsessed with body count—and of officers who rarely ventured into the field. Again and again, Apsey read similar accounts. Major James McElroy, who served under the battalion’s executive officer, told agents that “if movement was seen in a free-fire zone, whether identified as armed or not, it could be fired upon.” Another officer, Captain Jerry White, said that in a free-fire zone, the soldiers “could fire at will.” And Captain Joseph Westbrook told agents that if a Vietnamese was killed in a free-fire zone, “he was considered a combatant.”
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