A My Lai a Month
By Nick Turse
I uncovered that letter and two others, each unsigned or signed only "Concerned Sergeant," in the National Archives in 2002, in a collection of files about the sergeant's case that had been declassified but forgotten, launching what became a years-long investigation. Records show that his allegations--of helicopter gunships mowing down noncombatants, of airstrikes on villages, of farmers gunned down in their fields while commanders pressed relentlessly for high body counts--were a source of high-level concern. A review of the letter by a Pentagon expert found his claims to be extremely plausible, and military officials tentatively identified the letter writer as George Lewis, a Purple Heart recipient who served with the Ninth Division in the Delta from June 1968 through May 1969. Yet there is no record that investigators ever contacted him. Now, through my own investigation--using material from four major collections of archival and personal papers, including confidential letters, accounts of secret Pentagon briefings, unpublished interviews with Vietnamese survivors and military officials conducted in the 1970s by Newsweek reporters, as well as fresh interviews with Ninth Division officers and enlisted personnel--I have been able to corroborate the sergeant's horrific claims. The investigation paints a disturbing picture of civilian slaughter on a scale that indeed dwarfs My Lai, and of a cover-up at the Army's highest levels. The killings were no accident or aberration. They were instead the result of command policies that turned wide swaths of the Mekong Delta into "free-fire zones" in a relentless effort to achieve a high body count. While the carnage in the Delta did not begin or end with Speedy Express, the operation provides a harsh new snapshot of the abject slaughter that typified US actions during the Vietnam War.
SNIP Read Rest Here
1969 Senior Officer Debriefing Report PDF
Concerned Sergeant's { George Lewis, a Purple Heart recipient }letter PDF
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