Military Crimes: Nothing Learned and Nothing Gained

In Vietnam we rallied blindly for accused soldiers when their crimes were terrible, and today we are blind and apathetic toward Marines whose charges are far less significant.

Image by Austin King Salem-News.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - One morning during the Vietnam War, soldiers pillaged an entire village and murdered hundreds of innocent civilians, mostly women and kids. One junior officer received a court martial and a slap on the wrist over it.

A scene of madness at My Lai

That was the massacre at My Lai. The nation as a whole failed to comprehend the enormity of it.

Today, Marines who may or may not have been involved in the death of a single suspected insurgent are being prosecuted many say, without fairness, and they are watching their lives go down the drain as the Navy JAG lawyers try their best to do them in. These are the so-called Pendleton 8. Nobody cares.

The soldiers at My Lai in Vietnam raped dozens of women and girls and they savagely shot and killed more than 400 people in a single morning, and it was photographed.

The Marines at Hamdania in 2005 may have "overkilled" a man who was already shot and on the ground while performing what it is known as a "dead check."

The thing is, thousands rallied for that Vietnam War Army Lieutenant named William Calley, saying about the Vietnam conflict: "its a war, what are they supposed to be doing over there?"

Americans were wrong, dead wrong in fact, for believing that nonsense. And they are even worse today for ignoring the Marines of Hamdania, because they may be the "innocent combat troops" that so many Americans thought the soldiers at My Lai were, or wanted them to be.

In Vietnam the excuse was made that the soldiers at My Lai were "getting some payback" while in reality, most of the soldiers that day had seen little previous combat. Some had seen plenty, but "Charlie Company" as it is remembered of the well-known "Americal Division" was comprised largely of replacement troops.

Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, one of the so-called Pendleton 8

The Marines at Hamdania were seasoned combat forces carrying out an assigned mission. Were they wrong in killing the man? Maybe. But the point is far bigger than that. The show of support for Calley three decades ago blows away any level of support these Marines have received. Advocates say their confessions were coerced, even forced.

It seems that in the 1960's it was easier for people to forgive soldiers for war crimes, that seems a clear fact. It is fairly undeniable that Communism was a force that threatened us and probably still maintains that same potential today. But we have managed to install a President who would rather manufacture his enemies than just figure out who they actually are.

As far as comparing the questionable acts of a few Saudi terrorists with insurgent Viet Cong guerrillas, I am just not sure. The Mideast enemy is just as deadly, even more so in some cases, but not toward our country as a whole.

We had a Communist Russian leader say "We will bury you" during the John F. Kennedy years and we all had nukes pointed at each other. This is the still lingering Cold War that we have pretended does not exist any longer. I honestly think youngsters don't even know about it today.

The problem is that the American public has gone numb; they know they have been played by the Bush Administration and they just want to ignore it, they are played out. In the 60's, you could play the ignorance card much easier than today. Now we are a divided country and everyone knows what a series of mistakes we have made in recent years, it is a travesty that these Marines would take the brunt of it.

I am convinced that we have to call each of these situations as they arise, based on the merits of the case. Moreover, we should have sound policies and good approaches that help us avoid these situations in the first place by having the best intelligence and the best people and equipment and sound military reasoning. My Lai existed in what our country called a "free fire zone". This was a political phenomena of the Vietnam War that the United States created, allowing our forces to consider anyone they saw in a given area to be the enemy without question.

Scene from the movie "Full Metal Jacket"

There is a famous line from Full Metal Jacket when the helicopter door gunner is firing randomly at villagers in the countryside of Vietnam before proclaiming, "Anyone who runs is a V.C.! Anyone who stands still... is a well-disciplined V.C."

While presented in a comedic way, it is hard to miss the harshness of the scene and as the gunner shoots, another Marine in the helicopter does his best to not gag and throw up.

We should not blindly support troops who carry out obvious criminal and gratuitous acts, like rape, and murder, when the evidence is clear. At the same time when the evidence is scarce and questionable, they should be acquitted, because there is no excuse for the ruthless persecution of American heroes who are like a pinball in a big game called the military justice system. It is unfair and not always just, and government prosecutors out to make a name for themselves, are not who we should always support.

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 1992 movie "A Few Good Men."

On that note, I was thinking about the movie "A Few Good Men" and how in an ideal world and system, our combat troops would have amazing representation from attorneys who defended them to the very best of their abilities, with genius and cunning and tactics.

Then I thought about the lawyer that Tom Cruise portrayed in the movie. What a great performance it was working across from Jack Nicholson who was cast as the brash and salty Marine Colonel. That lawyer was on it, and like the Marine Infantry, he was considered the best of the best.

And then I remembered that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush fired him. Yes, that attorney, David Iglesias, portrayed by Cruise in "A Few Good Men", somebody who might have been able to see to the legal needs of these Marines in an ideal situation, was one of eight U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration in 2006 for "performance-related issues."

The analogy is clear; our nation turns its back on its finest when the wrong interests get in the way, and the good guys almost always only win in the movies.

We deny what is in front of us when nightmares like My Lai are published in full color, and accept the treatment of these Marines partly because the media has failed to represent the whole story, and partly because it is just easier. Once again I lament how few of us in the ranks of reporters are veterans, it is a real shame and maybe someday it will change.

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. Watch for Tim's coverage from Iraq set to begin in April, 2008. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com