Quote:hobitbob wrote:So McGEntrix, why don't you share with us your vast military experience?
As a former US Army Pathfinder, serving in Vietnam with the 9th Infantry Division Pathfinders, attached to and made an honorary member of the Royal Thai Special Forces (Queen Cobra), the First Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Separate) and the 101st Airborne Division, I'm curious as well. I speak with experience of combat and the UCMJ So McGentrix, the question remains. Why don't you share
your vast military experiences?
We in our units were proud of our prisoner handling. I personally conducted field interrogation of prisoners, even when just treating them medically and transporting them through the jungle endangered my men's lives and mine. I fully understood the importance of intelligence, since it affected me and my men directly. I also understood what the South Vietnamese would do to get answers...quite similar to the abuses mentioned in this thread.
I even had a heated discussion with my men who wanted to just "roll" a North Vietnamese officer we'd captured, since we were on a recon in A Shau Valley at the time. Luckily, I convinced them to keep him alive. By treating him as I would like to be treated, if wounded and captured, we were able to locate and destroy several caches of munitions. This saved many lives, including that of this officer's son. I'm proud of that and my men for listening to reason.
Oh sure, you'll bring up Calley and the few others that did brutal things. However they were soon made to deal with the ramifications of their actions. However, that still doesn't make it right. Even in basic training during the early part of 1967, we were given a class on the Geneva Convention. We were even given a test on it and those not passing needed to retake the class. Bet these guardsmen and women didn't have to do that and their leaders are to blame.
One last thing. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." We've all heard this in reply to "I didn't know." from an accused prisoner. I heard it while on duty as a deputy and a cop, but it doesn't wash with our legal system for accused criminals and shouldn't wash with these stupid guards. (I define ignorance as a lack of understanding or knowledge. Stupidity is refusing to learn.) With internet connection available, they refused to go to any reliable search engine and look up handling of POWs. This would undoubtedly bring them to the Geneva Convention. I can forgive ignorance, but not stupidity.
