incident on hill 192 where are they now

No one would ever know what had become of her, he exclaimed. A: No, sir, Ive got nothing against the government. The only thing that could stop me was if I became a friendly casualty.. I called him back and commended him on the job that he did and reported it, in turn, to the company headquarters.. It happened when the Sergeant, having delivered his instructions, concluded the briefing by telling the assembled men that they were going to have a good time on the mission, because he was going to see to it that they found themselves a girl and took her along for the morale of the squad. For five days, the Sergeant said, they would avail themselves of her body, finally disposing of it, to keep the girl from ever accusing them of abduction and rapeboth listed as capital crimes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In 1969, the New Yorker published a report by Daniel Lang about the court martial of a group of men who had served in Vietnam. In mild contrast, Rafe was capable of questioning authority, Eriksson said, but he generally wound up by going along with whoever seemed to be the leaderjust to keep from making trouble.. 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. 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. Despite Vorsts generally negative tone, Eriksson said, he believed that the company commander would eventually take steps to bring Meserve and the others to justice. Enacting the role of chief government witness was not an edifying experience, Eriksson went on. Glancing at the girl with distaste, the Sergeant ordered Eriksson and Rafe to stay with her on the ridge, whereupon he, Clark, and Manuel began a cautious descent of the mountain, their purpose to stalk the Vietcong. Casualties of War (1989) - User Reviews - IMDb down a trail between two hedgerows when the patrol was suddenly fired upon from one side. It was impossible for me to have any part of what I knew was about to take place. He suspects that Meserve sensed this, for before anything else happened the Sergeant confronted him, demanding to know whether he would enter the hootch when his turn came. Given this confusion of values, the legalistic consideration of Maos death sometimes bordered on the incongruous. Eriksson considers himself hazy about the girls looks. . The five-man squad, led by a 20-year-old sergeant, Tony Meserve, had been sent on patrol. But they werent as sure about it as the guys in the platoon had been, he said. In ten minutes, a pair of agents entered the chaplains quarters, and Eriksson, as his affidavit shows, told them, in a signal example of understatement, This [the rape and murder] has been bothering me since it happened, and I went to the chaplain tonight and told him what had happened. The agents interrogated him with a cool, neutral competence. When he stopped asking me questions, he started talking about Meserve and the others, sort of thinking aloud what it was that came over fellows in wartime. depredations. Its time for some fun, he said. After that, wed have to stay out of sight until the third day of the patrols missionthat was the day the patrol was supposed to rendezvous with another unit for fresh supplies. As far as he could make out, the company C.O. 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. They put a hold on my transfer forms. Needless to say, Eriksson continued, the kind of behavior he was describing was by no means limited to Americans. Did Eriksson know that military judges and jurors were notoriously lenient in their sentencing? His interest in religion still strong, Eriksson took part in church activities, he told me; he had recently supervised a group of high-school-age boys and girls making a two-week retreat on an island in a lake between Minnesota and Canada. Incident on Hill 192 - The New York Times Incident on Hill 192 By Christopher Lehmann-Haupt Nov. 14, 1969 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from November 14,. It was as much a part of us as our legs and arms.. Besides, Eriksson said, none of the M.P.s at Fort Carson asked him about Maovery likely, he assumed, because they didnt connect him with her. "Casualties of War" is Brian De Palma's entry into the Vietnam War movies competition. The film was based on the real-life incident on Hill 192, and on Daniel Lang's book of the same title, but all names and some details of the story were altered. Esri, HERE, Garmin, NGA, USGS, NPS. What if he refused to arrange an introduction for me? The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. By then, moving unhurriedly in the gray dusk, Meserves squad had dutifully followed him two thousand metres to the east, which, as Eriksson and the others realized, was a flagrant deviation from the westward route the Sergeant had described so precisely at the briefing. It was still dark in the area, and no civilians attempted to stop us. Leaving the mother behind, the patrol resumed its march, prodding Mao to match its stride. He was Sergeant Tony Meserve, a slim, black-haired man of medium height who was twenty years old and came from a town in upstate New York, near the Canadian border. While Eriksson, Manuel, and the now wretched Rafe hovered outside, Meserve and Clark entered the hutMaos home. Rafe received a punishment of four years imprisonment, plus a monthly forfeiture of fifty dollars in pay. As if Sven had it so easy! Mrs. Eriksson said to me when she heard of these findings. The girl was very much with us when Sven came home that day, and maybe she always will be, Mrs. Eriksson said. Thinking along these lines, Eriksson said, he arrived at a kind of strategy in regard to Mao. 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 You Are Here: ross dress for less throw blankets apprentissage des lettres de l'alphabet incident on hill 192 where are they now. Special care had been taken with the operation, he stated, since it had been conceived by the battalion command, a higher echelon than the company command, to which Reilly was ordinarily responsible. Film rights were bought by David Susskind who was to produce the film for Warner Bros. Pete Hamill wrote a script and Jack Clayton was to direct. As for Manuel, who was fair-skinned and stockier than his cousin, his manner was on the jumpier side. [1] Although news of the incident reached the U.S. shortly after the soldiers' trials,[3] the story gained widespread notoriety through Daniel Lang's 1969 article for The New Yorker[4] and his subsequent book. The men were familiar with the knife; it had recently been given to Clark by a close friend in the platoon who had been wounded. They lingered in it longer than they had in the other hootches, but since Eriksson was standing outside the hut he is unable to describe what went on inside. A veteran of thirty-five thousand autopsies, Professor Furue told the court, Compared with other female Mongoloids, Maos remains were well developed, a well-balanced body build., Meserve, Clark, and the two Diazes were taken into custody the day after the first search party made its visit to Hill 192. He had no idea how long this feeling would continue, but for the present, he knew, he lived with the charge daily, often wondering how Mao might have fared in a time of peace. The film stars Michael J. . Eriksson and four other enlisted men were then on a reconnaissance patrol in the vicinity of the girls home. The G.I. Out of the blue, without being asked, hed start defending what hed done maybe hours ago by saying that, after all, it was no worse than what Charlie was doing. During his months leave, he was always with her and with relatives and friends and, in a way, Eriksson said, with Mao. Straggling uphill, he said, they gravitated toward their leader, who stood, unflustered, near the jutting rock formation, surveying the combat situation. A. Weiss Causualties of war Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2013 Verified Purchase The movie "Casualties of war" (1986) Speaking evenly, Eriksson said, They were among the onesamong the fewwho did what everyone around them wanted to do. Nor was he himself free of blame, he went on, without pausingonce again referring to the limitations within himself that he had glimpsed in Asia. Casualties of War: Incident On Hill 192 Dolce Vanity making slow progress toward the refuge of the cave complex, which was three hundred metres away, almost at the bottom of the ravine. In our part of Minnesota, just about everyone is., It was ten at night when Eriksson sat down to talk with Kirk, and he found he was able to speak more freely than he had even to Curly Rowan. In fact, it would have been difficult to find any other kind in Vietnam, since the Army was dispensing such benefits all over the place. Incident Hill 192 by Daniel Lang - AbeBooks The C.I.D. We just tell them to dee deemeaning to go away. As far as he knew, he said, no legal developments were brewing in their behalfnot that it made much difference, he added, since he had learned just a few weeks earlier that Meserve and Clark stood to be declared eligible for parole before they had served even half their time at Fort Leavenworth. Moving in on the bush, Clark blazed away with his M-16, and at once the rustling foliage grew still. 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. As it turned out, they required no invitation to talk about herparticularly in the summer months, when the torrential monsoon rains drowned any possibility of outdoor routine. Of course, I was a foot soldier all this time. 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. I said, Probably the firing squad, sir. He then said something to the effect, I could send you all back to the States for courts-martial, or he could court-martial us out here and still have a firing squad. When Mao saw me come into the hootch, she thought I was there to rape her, Eriksson said. man, Who raped or had sexual intercourse with the girl?, Manuel replied, Sergeant Meserve, Clark, R. Diaz, and myself. 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. Sometimes you have your disagreements, and sometimes you dont voice them, you keep them to yourself.. This morning, Manuel carried his own. There was little pattern to the verdicts, each of the juries indulging in its own vagaries. We all looked at the paper, and he asked us what this was all about. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It was just like when you stick a deer with a knifesort of a thudor something like this, sir.. Erikssons patrol leader delivered a tongue-lashing to his counterpart, who apologized. So now its only the father whos leftor is he? I couldnt tell who was supposed to have the hard feelingsManuel or myself, Eriksson told me. 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. Nor could the concern that the C.O. Meserve saw to that, for a brilliant sun had come up, its glare exposing the bizarre party as clearly as it did the landscape. They said that door-gunner duty was too dangerousthat if I was going to be any use as a witness I had to stay alive., Eriksson recognized the abrupt transformation of his military life the morning after his meeting with Kirk. I stepped outside the hootch to be by myself awhile, and out there I could hear the muffled noise of artillery off in the distance. be ambushed. [5] In 1970 Michael Verhoeven made the film o.k., based on the incident. The Sergeant had made his announcement with a straight face, leaving his men to interpret it as they would. Mao seemed to figure constantly in his thoughts, he said, which were concerned mostly with how he would earn his livelihood after he left the Army, the following April. INCIDENT ON HILL 192 (from my war diary) Just who, I wanted to ask, was the man in Manuels patrol who started the shooting? 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. It had to be on one of the two rocks that the girl lay, Eriksson knew, and to spare the others in the party unnecessary exertion he screened out the nearer rock by himself, doggedly plunging through formidable brush to reach it. Id been there a month or three weeks longer., When he went on to imply that Eriksson might be chicken, the prosecutor asked, How come he stood up to Meserve? 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. Incident on Hill 192 View source 19 November 1967. Why make all this effort to dismiss the death of an unknown peasant girl if it werent that the C.O. Incident on Hill 192 - Wikipedia. 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. There shouldnt have been, because I had decided, outside, that there wasnt a thing in the world I could do for her. Greenacre might react disapprovingly, as the fellows in the platoon hador, for all Eriksson knew, Greenacre might turn out to be Meserves best friend. Vorst was in the group, and Eriksson, detaching himself from his unit, went up to the Captain and told him about Mao. Having appeared as a witness before four tribunals in Vietnam, Eriksson told me, he had had his fill of the judicial processof the dogged grillings by lawyers and the repeated strictures of judges insisting on precise answers to questions that were often vague. He still has a tendency to fight off its memory, he said, and he thinks the reason for this is that although the experience he had may have revealed certain strengths in himself, he is far more concerned with the limitations it exposed. With Mao out of the way, he was able to concentrate on the action at hand, managing his patrol, working in concert with the other squads, and helping to guide the diving gunships, whose presence he now welcomed. The prosecutor, it appeared, counted it a safe bet that the defense attorneys would attempt to portray Eriksson as some kind of repressed nut for having failed to join in the festivities on Hill 192. Then the C.O. Addeddate 2021-04-03 19:38:39 Identifier turner_video_1757 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 2.0.0.dev3 Wed had to support each other in a new way after she was killed. All he need do, he believed, was report that they had committed rape and murder, and the military authorities would investigate with the same alacrity that civilian authorities are expected to show in such situations. Eriksson stated in court, Captain Vorst said that the men would get off with hardly any or no sentence at all, then myself and my family would really have something to worry about., In the weeks immediately following Maos death, Erikssons home continued to be the platoon area, and his routine consisted of patrolssearch-and-destroy by day, ambush by night. When they returned, Eriksson told me, they discovered that Clark was no longer alone in advocating Maos early demise. Casualties of War : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming - Archive Q: You dont believe the military gives a choice between rules, orders, and conscience? He said it would be good for the morale of the squad.. He was just more serious-minded. I knew the rendezvous spot, and if Mao and I could show up there at the right time, there was no question in my mind but that the fellows in the resupply squad would help us both. In any event, Eriksson went on, he lost little time in seeking out his friend Curly Rowan to tell him the story of Mao. "Jesus, we're supposed to be here to help these people!" Yes or no? You traded the girls life for your well-being, he was told. . Otherwise, Id stay boxed in by the chain of command., On the last day of November, Eriksson was in a patrol that was chasing two or three V.C. A few rare films stun the senses. 2. gcdc. Hit it! the patrol leader shouted, and his men hit the ground, the bullets from the still invisible attackers raising columns of dust all around the flattened G.I.s. Based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam War, 'Casualties of War', directed by legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma, is An Effective Film, that talks about Human-Cruelty & Violence. We were on a plateau in the Highlands, and all around us were small mountain ranges, hazy and green. Navigation - The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center & School Asked why, he answered, O.K., lets say you are on a patrol. He himself, he imagines, must have looked glum. Even the prosecutor predicted defeat, Eriksson told me, and during a short break Eriksson heard the judge remark to the court reporter that the trial was a waste of the taxpayers money. At the start, he spoke laconically, but gradually his natural reticence thawed out, and there were timesgenerally after one of his silenceswhen he produced such a burst of talk that it seemed to cost him an effort to bring it to a halt. He had no one to talk to over there. 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. [1], On November 17, 1966, Sergeant David Edward Gervase (aged 20) and Private First Class Steven Cabbot Thomas (21)both members of C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Divisiontalked to three other squad members (Privates First Class Robert M. Storeby, 22; cousins Cipriano S. Garcia, 21, and Joseph C. Garcia, 20)[3] about plans to kidnap a "pretty girl" during their reconnaissance mission planned for the next day,[6] and "at the end of five days we would kill her." That this weak, coughing girl had overpowered me? Almost before he was awake, M.P.s escorted him from his cell to the Provost Marshals office, where he underwent a further interrogation. Translating the testimony of Loc, who was two years younger than Mao, an interpreter informed the court, She said they come in, use flashlight and shone around the house and saw her mothers face and her sisters face and all of them wake up at the same time. At one point, Eriksson recalled, the Captain warned him that if the incident did result in courts-martial, he might face rough going on the witness stand. It was based on the actual incident on Hill 192. We were advancing through nice country, Eriksson told me. If hed kept quiet, he would have been impossible to live with., Regardless of when Meserve and Clark get out, Eriksson thinks, the atmosphere of civilian life may exert a moderating influence on their outlook. She might have helped me know what to do, instead of my having to figure it out aloneit was her life that was at stake. Maos sister, Phan Thi Loc, appeared as a prosecution witness, her very presence irrefutable evidence that Mao was not in fact living happily in her hamlet. I wanted to say, I apologize to you for whats happened, but dont ever accept my apology or anyone elses for that. He had wanted to unburden himself of his doubts about whether he had done all he might have done for Mao in her travaildoubts that gnaw at him to this day. 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. He sounded as though the war would have to come to an end before his work could make much sense.. Looking back, Eriksson thinks that the small band of V.C. 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. Of course, I never bring up the girl now, because I know how much shes still on his mind, but Sven brings her up, and usually when I dont expect it. Eriksson and his wife spent Christmas of 1967 with members of their families in the small farm town up north that they both came from, and while they were there, an uncle of Erikssons asked him about Mao. I heard that argument over and over again, and I could never buy it. This is how it is with Casualties of War, Brian DePalma's tale of an atrocity . 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. For the film, all names and some details of the true story were altered. Confirming Erikssons ruminations on this subject, Manuel testified that at a special ten-day camp in Vietnam where G.I.s were trained intensively to cope with combat situations it had been knocked into our heads, practically, to obey orders and. Continually, Eriksson recalls, he heard the familiar argument that the V.C. . Im still young, he said, and it took me a moments effort to recall the fact of his youth, and the youth of Meserve and the rest of the patrol. He was shirtless; his face wore an expression of swaggering irresistibility. In True Grit, and other novels, Portis displayed a genius that went beyond character in the strictly literary sense. 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. 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. The weather had turned hot and dry, Eriksson remembers, and the interior of the courtroom throbbed with the whirr of electric fans. In a matter of seconds, the shooting broke off, and another patrol, consisting of another squad in Reillys platoon, emerged from behind the hedgerow. (Dr. Finck, a well-known Army pathologist, was one of the team of three physicians that performed the autopsy on the late President Kennedy.) Events happened fast that day, Eriksson said. Flying back to Carson, I thought to myself, So Manuels out. It was the final talk between the two men. 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. Eriksson tries to rescue the girl, but the squad . I realize that we are over here fighting a war, but to go out and kill an innocent person has nothing to do with the war., Accused of shrewdness in seeking to evade infantry duty, Eriksson found himself also accused of a lack of shrewdness in failing to let Mao escape when he was alone with her in the hootch. But caves werent all that the five men would he looking for. 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. He had barely begun it, however, when Clark, seeing the two in conversation, descended on them, demanding to know what they were talking about. 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. I couldnt tell whether it was Charlie or the girl, Rafe testified. A. Oh, no, sir, it was not that he was disliked in any way. Deciding to close in on the three Vietnamese, Meserve dispatched Eriksson and Rafe to the hootch to pick up a supply of smoke grenades. 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. Thirty metres down, they came to a curiously shaped rock formation composed of two jutting ledges. 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. Each day, Eriksson said, he felt as though he were at war with war, a troublemaker out to undermine some careful, desperate code of survival. Incident on Hill 192 Daniel Lang Published by Secker & Warburg, London, Great Britain, 1970 Seller: Secondhand Books 'n' Things, Ross Creek, Australia Seller Rating: Contact seller Book First Edition Used - Hardcover Condition: Good 44.51 Convert currency 9.15 Shipping From Australia to United Kingdom Quantity: 1 Add to Basket Hardcover. To Erikssons surprise, the trial, which occurred in June, 1969, resulted in Rafes second conviction, an inevitable finding, in view of the fact that Rafe pleaded guilty to the charge of unpremeditated murder. Lets kill her and get it over with, he said, according to the court record. . It was an awkward moment, Eriksson said, and Clark terminated it. Clark came back to where we were. It did not occur in the United States. Their eyes were terrified, Eriksson remembers. He does remember, though, that she had a prominent gold tooth, and that her eyes, which were dark brown, could be particularly expressive. in his stead. 1. There is going to be four people on that patrol and an individual., Once Meserve had delivered his estimate of Erikssons virility, the ill-fated bacchanal got under way. Ill handle everything, Vorst said. 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. Im not talking about any specific case. 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.

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