I'm completely creeped out. ABCNews is finally on the
story, first uncovered several weeks ago by the
Toledo Blade, about a series of atrocities and war crimes committed by an elite counter-insurgency platoon known as Tiger Force back in Vietnam in 1967. The Army knows what happened and an investigation was initiated, but was squashed by the Ford Administration under the auspices of...wait for it... Donald Rumsfeld.
The story makes for unbelievably harrowing reading, and tonight's ABC report by Brian Ross was blood-curdling, mostly because of the interviews with surviving Tiger Force vets. One guy in particular brags about "killing everyone in my path" and that he could "smell" VC, even shooting his Vietnamese translator in the back -- "My favorite way to kill people: sneak up on 'em and shoot 'em in the back" -- because he didn't trust him. He was like a walking outtake from "Apocalypse Now," unapologetic and claiming that he, and everyone else who was there, was "temporarily insane" (Willard in "AN": "Calling someone insane here was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500"). My flesh is still crawling.
ABC is going to do a Nightline on this subject tonight, and a second part on World News tomorrow.