30

Investigation Report on Atrocities by G2 and MID11

The present case arose from charges submitted at the military prison facility. An officer and a sergeant were interrogated in connection with allegations of torture. The accused were sentenced to reduction in rank and disciplinary punishment. No public announcement of the findings has been made. The informants have been released and have returned to duty assignments. Transcript of interrogation follows:

Informants: Marvin Cole, Private (Age 22, born Pennsylvania)

Von Taylor, Private (Age 21, born Ohio)

Howard Brown, Private (Age 23, born Nebraska)

Defendants: Lieutenant Sloat (Regimental intelligence officer, born California)

Master Sergeant McCoy (Division MID)

Witness: Master Sergeant Nguyen (ARVN interpreter)

Interrogator: State your prisoner numbers, your rank prior to confinement, and the charges of which you were convicted.

Cole: Number 2-40-1. Rank lieutenant, charged with homicide by misfire.

Taylor: Number 2-40. Private. Assault on a superior.

Brown: Number 2-40-2. Master sergeant. Dereliction of duty.

Interrogator: Before we begin the questioning on this incident, state the circumstances up to the point at which Lieutenant Sloat summoned the informants.

Cole: I can tell you myself. Our day usually started with roll call at 0500. Everything followed the loudspeaker’s instructions. All you could see in the dark was the spotlight and the barbed wire. After finishing breakfast, we immediately started the morning work. Lunch is the only meal we have in the sunlight. The work assigned to us was loading sand. Other teams were assigned to breaking rocks, so we considered ourselves lucky.

Interrogator: Only state the facts relevant to the present case.

Cole: I was an officer. The reason I’m mentioning prison conditions is, though it’s not included in the charge, I think these are things that absolutely must be known outside of the prison.

Interrogator: Fine. Go on.

Cole: Escape from the prison is almost unthinkable. In front is the sea, and looking over the stretches of sand is a watchtower equipped with machine guns. Beyond is the jungle. At ebb tide you can swim out about ten miles from shore, but the tide comes in so fast that many who have tried to escape were found drowned. The jungle starts about five or ten miles away.

Taylor: Some prisoners cut their way through the wire fence, planning to head for Cambodia, but they were soon captured by pursuit patrols. Or shot by the enemy.

Brown: I escaped once. Whenever I got the chance I widened a hole in the bottom of the fence a bit at a time. At night I dug out the sand and crawled out under the wire. I got to the edge of the jungle, but I didn’t have the courage to go in, so I came back. I was given solitary соnfinement.

Cole: Even so, there’s always some prisoner trying to run away. Some head into the sea, hoping to reach Japan, and are never seen again. The attempts were constant because in that prison the work is harsh, the food is miserable, and you can trust neither the friendly captors nor the enemy.

Brown: The guards would say we could rest after finishing our work, but from my experience I’d say it was better to slow down and keep working. For it became clear that as soon as we finished one thing, they’d load more work on us.

Taylor: We decided Howard was right, so we used to load the sand bags slowly and take our time carrying them. We loaded almost a full truck, but we still weren’t too tired. A new prisoner, who wasn’t used to the sun, kept collapsing. We had to fill his quota, too. At 1000 we had a five-minute break. They gave us a cup of water dipped from a rusty drum.

Cole: As we stood there drinking, gasping like dogs, we heard Brown say there was a new addition to the family. An army Jeep was approaching, raising plumes of dust. That was when he arrived. The guard shouted at us to get back to work and stop gawking, but we were so fed up with the monotony of the work we just stood there and watched. In the Jeep was a young Vietnamese boy, his hands tied behind his back, wedged between two American soldiers. The boy was in black pajamas, and was very thin with a long neck. The guards roughly dragged him down from the Jeep.

Taylor: I was stunned. I had never seen a little boy tied up like that before, and I couldn’t stop staring. The guard whacked me on the back of my head with his baton.

Brown: It was during the lunch break that Marvin and I were summoned. They called it lunch hour, but roll call took about twenty minutes, so there was only about ten minutes left to wait in the scalding heat and then gulp down that slop. The loudspeaker was blaring that vaccinations were to be given. Then Marvin’s name and number were called over the speaker. They repeated it several times, and then started swearing.

Cole: I was dozing off. The guard walked down my file, looked around and then dragged Howard and me out. After checking our numbers, he led both of us to the main gate in the wire-mesh fence. There we were handed over to the guard, who took us to one of the Quonsets outside the fence.

Interrogator: Private Taylor, you didn’t go with them, so how is it you became an informant about the misconduct?

Taylor: I was summoned later, at the very end.

Interrogator: Are you the one who disposed of the corpse?

Taylor: Yes, that’s right. The dead body was—

Interrogator: Ah, you can testify on that later.

Cole: It was dark inside the Quonset. All the blinds were drawn. There was a lamp on the desk, but it was dim. I guess the lieutenant had turned the dimmer down. The walls shook from the air-conditioner unit in the window.

Interrogator: How many people were inside, and who were they?

Cole: Lieutenant Sloat, Master Sergeant McCoy, the Vietnamese interpreter, and the little boy.

Interrogator: Sergeant Nguyen, are these men the ones who entered the Quonset at that time?

Nguyen: That’s correct. Those two men came inside.

Interrogator: Lieutenant Sloat, why did you summon these two, of all the prisoners?

Sloat: I had seen their personal records. In the first place, Cole was an officer and a college graduate, and his charge on an accidental shooting didn’t seem too bad. The file showed that Cole had studied Vietnamese at the officer school in San Francisco. He’d also been through a special training course in Saigon, so I figured he’d make an excellent assistant.

Interrogator: Do you mean to imply that Sergeant Nguyen was not capable of translating alone?

Sloat: I hate to say this, especially in his presence, but we intelligence officers don’t have so much faith in the Vietnamese military interpreters. After all, the Viet Cong and they are in the same family. They’re hard workers up to a certain point, but beyond that they tend to sympathize with their fellow countrymen—that means siding with the enemy. Having a Vietnamese-speaking American present would, I figured, make him more careful.

Interrogator: I see. So that explains Private Cole, but why did you summon Private Brown?

McCoy: That was the guard’s mistake. We gave him Cole’s number, but he wasn’t sure he had it right so he brought both of them. But once Brown had come into the Quonset hut, we couldn’t just let him go back.

Interrogator: Why not? You mean to maintain secrecy?

Sloat: Yes.

Interrogator: Then you had planned in advance to commit the atrocities. So, it looks like you were trying to conceal . . .

Sloat: Gathering intelligence like we do at G2 and MID requires us to dig as much information as possible out of prisoners in the shortest possible time. Our duty is to send that information immediately to our forces in the field, and this priority allows us to make exceptions to general principles.

Interrogator: That you dragged a suspected guerrilla to the military prison, was that also against general rules?

Sloat: Yes, sir. Unless we maintain strict security, there’s a lot of leakage, and unflattering publicity can be exploited by the enemy.

Interrogator: In this case, weren’t you were more concerned with your own forces learning about your secret interrogation methods than about leaks to the enemy?

Sloat: In every department, the methods and procedures used to carry out a task are evaluated by the results. The task I undertook was not the kind of work requiring strict adherence to military regulations or the rules stipulated in international treaties.

Interrogator: The informant may state how the defendants coerced you into taking part in this misconduct.

Cole: Lieutenant Sloat called out my name to confirm which of the two of us was Marvin Cole.

Brown: He was angry that the main gate sentry had brought me along too. He ordered me to stay inside with Marvin until the work was finished. The lieutenant introduced everyone one by one and then, pointing at the boy, said they were going to interrogate him. Master Sergeant McCoy suddenly turned the dimmer all the way up, and the light was shining straight in the boy’s face. The boy, who was sitting bound to a metal chair, grimaced and tried to turn his face away. Only then did I notice the boy had already been beaten. His mouth and chin were all smeared with his own blood.

Cole: I felt so sorry for the boy I couldn’t even look him in the face.

Interrogator: The boy’s age is recorded as fourteen. Was he beaten?

McCoy: We hadn’t laid a finger on him at that point. At the time of his arrest one of the patrol troops had beaten him with a rifle butt.

Cole: That’s a lie. Their Jeep drove right past us prisoners as we paused from working. At that time the boy’s face was pale, but not bloody.

Sloat: Usually, we strip the guerrillas before we interrogate them. They might have something concealed, and anyway we need to check and see if they show any signs of having been in the jungle or any scars from shrapnel to determine whether they’re veteran guerrillas. Sergeant McCoy was bitten while trying to undress the boy. So he hit him, not that hard, and it seemed the boy caught it the wrong way.

Cole: He said he was going to start interrogating and I should interpret. But Howard, who was standing beside me, gave me a nudge as a signal not to do it. I hung my head and remained silent. Sloat said I better cooperate, and that they had to get information on the organization of local guerrillas. He also told me to forget about the prison. I asked him what that little boy, much younger than my own kid brother, could possibly have to do with the Viet Cong. Sergeant McCoy said the little bastard had been captured on Route 1 trying to ambush one of our patrols. The lieutenant then explained why he had summoned me instead of calling in another official interpreter. Since they were due to ship back home within a year, the case might be publicized back in the States, that was his explanation. But it would be safe with me, he said, because I had to serve three more years of time in prison, and then return to my unit to complete my hitch. Then he said that, depending on how things went, he could arrange for me to work outside the prison, at the division headquarters, or out on some field detachment. Then I decided I had no choice but to cooperate.

McCoy: The surprise ambushes of the guerrillas along Route 1 were giving us a real headache. The day before the boy was captured, several spots on the road were hit. At dawn the same day, a Jeep was blown up and three American soldiers inside were killed.

Sloat: The boy was carrying a bundle of Russian-made hand grenades. They were bundled up in a club shape with a percussion detonator hooked up. The little bastard apparently had been transporting supplies for the guerrillas. The patrol took the grenades and also medical supplies off of him. It was a period when we were taking constant casualties without accomplishing much, and all of us intelligence officers were being pressed hard by our senior staff officers. It was urgent that we find out where the boy was heading with those supplies.

Cole: I had them untie the little boy’s hands and interpreted Nguyen’s questions and the boy’s replies for Lieutenant Sloat. Under the bright light the boy’s black hair, his pale forehead and cheeks, and his brown eyes stood out distinctly. So did the dried blood stuck all over his soft chin. Whenever Nguyen asked him something, the boy struggled to speak through his torn lip.

Interrogator: Do you recall the contents of the questioning?

Cole: At first, Nguyen asked him where he got that stuff. The boy said from a dead soldier. An American soldier? A North Vietnamese soldier. Where was it, the dead body? On Route 1. There was no dead body of a North Vietnamese soldier on that road, in fact, was there? There was, next to a stream by the road. Why did you pick up the grenades? To protect myself. Where did the medical supplies come from? From the same dead soldier. But North Vietnamese fighters don’t carry antibiotics or painkillers, do they? I don’t know what those are. Where were you taking those supplies, tell the truth. I was on my way to see my sister in Qua Jiang. There was fighting on the other road, so I was scared. Now, given me a straight answer. Where were you taking those supplies? Really, I was not taking them anywhere, I was just going to my sister’s. My parents were killed. That was more or less how the interrogation went. McCoy was impatient, and he said heatedly that if they left the boy to him, he’d get some answers out of the little devil in no time.

Interrogator: When did the torture begin, and who initiated it?

Brown: That sergeant started to rough him up. He slugged the boy with his fists right in front of us.

McCoy: That’s not true. I didn’t start it. I had to follow the orders of Lieutenant Sloat.

Sloat: All right. I’ll tell you. The interrogation had gone on until three in the afternoon, but we kept getting the same damned answer from the boy, who claimed he was headed for his sister’s house. So I said we’d have to intensify the interrogation. So I sent Nguyen to fetch a kettle of water.

Nguyen: That’s different from the facts. I opposed rough treatment. Almost all Vietnamese are Buddhists. As you may know, the greater the agony, the harder Buddhist believers fight to endure it. They’d rather seal their lips and choose death.

Interrogator: But wasn’t he just a small boy?

Nguyen: True, but any human who’s treated cruelly tries to triumph over the pain, out of hate for the enemy. Sergeant McCoy’s blow ended our interrogation before it started.

McCoy: Shut up! Fuck, that wasn’t a real blow.

Interrogator: Sergeant, watch your language. You’re under investigation here. This investigation is being conducted by order of the high command of the US-Vietnam forces with the intention of vindicating US military regulations and methods of wartime operations. Accordingly, atrocities against prisoners of war or suspects are absolutely prohibited, regardless of rank or mission. Witness, please proceed with your statement.

Cole: McCoy complained about having no time to spare, saying he knew plenty of good methods. And Lieutenant Sloat asked me if I had any effective way to make the boy open his mouth. I did not want to hear anybody saying I’d taken part in it, even afterwards, so I just kept my mouth shut. But then McCoy struck the boy again in the face with his fist. The boy, still tied to the chair, was knocked over backwards onto the floor.

Brown: I was standing a little back, and I sat the chair back upright and saw that the boy was not moving. He seemed to have fainted. Blood was running down his face.

Nguyen: I swore at Sergeant McCoy, calling him a barbarian. It would have gone much better if we’d given the boy some food to eat. You could see he had eaten nothing the whole day.

McCoy: The lieutenant was the one who ordered us to intensify the interrogation.

Sloat: That’s misleading. The fact that I said to increase the intensity of the questioning was not an order to engage in torture.

Nguyen: It’s true that the lieutenant was angry at the sergeant. Lieutenant Sloat shouted at Sergeant McCoy to get out, saying he wouldn’t let him get away with such brutality. And when the sergeant left, he swore at him, calling him a stupid bastard of a lifer. The lieutenant seemed worried about leaving evidence behind. He ordered for a medic.

Brown: The lieutenant sent me out to get a medic and said the medic should bring drugs to give the boy a shot to wake him up. When I asked whether we shouldn’t treat his wounds first, the lieutenant flew into a rage. He told me to hurry up and bring a medic with a syringe of stimulants before he smashed my face. I ran out. It happened that the whole prison was getting vaccinations and I managed to find a medic and bring him back to the Quonset. The medic took out a little vial of clear liquid and gave the boy an injection. A moment later, his head began to move.

Cole: The Vietnamese sergeant resumed his questioning, but the boy only kept moaning “No” or “I don’t know.” Lieutenant Sloat kept pacing around the room, boiling with anger, and then he called out for Sergeant McCoy. The lieutenant told McCoy not to be too rough with the boy, to do it skillfully. The lieutenant sat down beside the boy and McCoy pulled his head backward. Then they slowly poured water from the pot into the boy’s mouth and nose.

McCoy: All I did was hold him down.

Nguyen: He ordered me to bring the pot over from the desk and pour it. I turned my head away and did as told. Every now and then the lieutenant told me to stop and asked something in English, which I in turn asked the boy in Vietnamese.

Cole: But that didn’t do anything.

Interrogator: So you moved up to the next level of torture? I mean, the shock treatment, using the field telephone as a generator?

Cole: No. Before that I asked Lieutenant Sloat to let me go back to my cell. The lieutenant tried to convince me to stay, asking what was waiting for me back in prison except hard labor. But I told him I didn’t want any part of this.

Sloat: I wasn’t the one who had picked out his personal record card. The senior staff was responsible. They said I could promise him that if he managed to get the suspect to reveal information with combat value, they’d restore his officer’s rank and send him back to his unit. He was a very competent interpreter.

Interrogator: Who was the next person to commit an atrocity and what did he do?

Brown: I saw it all with my own eyes. Sergeant McCoy made me bring some water. I brought a full basin over and then McCoy taped an electric cord on the back of that poor boy’s heel.

Interrogator: Lieutenant Sloat, did you order him to do it?

Sloat: No, sir. I left for a short time to make a report to my superior. Even as I was out, a fierce enemy attack was underway. For purposes of minimizing casualties on our side, we couldn’t afford to lose a single second in locating the guerrilla hideouts.

Interrogator: Sergeant Nguyen, the cruelty continued even after the lieutenant returned, didn’t it?

Nguyen: If he lowered his hand I kept it running, and when he raised his hand I stopped.

Interrogator: So, Nguyen had the power running and the lieutenant sent the signals. What were you doing, Sergeant McCoy?

McCoy: I wrote down the suspect’s statements as they were interpreted.

Brown: Before that, McCoy had put the boy’s feet, taped with the electric cord, into the basin of water, and then he tied both the boy’s legs to the chair. When the power was turned on, the boy let out a faint moan and his whole body shook. The boy couldn’t endure that for long, and he went limp.

Cole: After that the boy came to and fainted three more times. Still he only talked of his sister’s house. I said we should stop because we wouldn’t get anything more out of the boy. Sloat said that somewhere the Viet Cong were at that very moment getting ready to attack, and asked me to interpret the boy’s shrieks. I did. I even included when he said things like “dear Buddha” or “Momma” or “bastard” or “help me” and so on. It felt like I was the one being tortured. Over and over I kept saying the boy seemed to be telling the truth, it really was possible he meant to sell the grenades on the black market and that he meant to give the money he made to his sister.

Brown: McCoy said mockingly that yeah sure, that was possible. But even if he had a sister, McCoy said, she had to be a whore. He glared at us and kept saying that the boy had been caught red-handed carrying enemy supplies. That was when Marvin said that if the boy wasn’t a guerrilla, he sure as hell would become one when he got back home to his village and next time he’d be throwing grenades at us. McCoy got so mad he grabbed Marvin by the throat and pushed him against the wall.

McCoy: The operations guidelines issued by headquarters clearly state that any Vietnamese, regardless of age or gender, we run upon at a line of contact must be assumed to be a guerrilla. What were we supposed to think about a boy who was lugging grenades in a zone where we were conducting a desperate search-and-destroy mission?

Cole: I felt so suffocated I couldn’t budge even after I heard Lieutenant Sloat shout, Sergeant! He’s a prisoner now but he’s still an officer. Stop!

Nguyen: As soon as Sergeant McCoy stopped choking the officer by the neck, he turned and struck the boy in the face again with his fist. The boy fell sideways with the chair onto the floor. The medic was on standby in the other room with his kit, so he was brought back in and gave the boy another shot on the lieutenant’s order. There was a gash under the boy’s left eye. His ribs started to move, and a minute later the boy was breathing again.

Interrogator: So up to then it was the second degree, right? When did you start with the third degree?

Nguyen: Dinner was brought in. It began after that.

Sloat: As I mentioned before, a secret mission of this kind requires the highest degree of skill and presence of mind on our part. Sergeant McCoy bungled things. As an officer I felt responsible and was ready to take the consequences.

Interrogator: What do you mean? Wasn’t that true from the start?

Sloat: At the beginning I planned to take care of it skillfully, but after dinner I gave up.

Interrogator: You’re still not making yourself clear.

Sloat: For instance, there were already too many incriminating signs on the suspect.

Interrogator: I see. You mean you decided he would not be sent back to the prisoner of war camp?

Sloat: Yes. In the end . . .

Brown: After supper, Lieutenant Sloat was drinking coffee. We had eaten stew and peas. The sauce reminded me of thick blood, so I couldn’t swallow even a spoonful. Lieutenant Sloat sat there quietly for a while, then he took out a knife and handed it to Sergeant McCoy.

Interrogator: Was it a normal knife? I mean, not a machete or a sword, but a fruit knife or a workshop knife?

Cole: It was one of those knives used by the Special Forces, with a curved tip in Arabian style and serrated on the reverse side of the blade.

Interrogator: Who was the first to use the blade and for what purpose?

Cole: Sergeant McCoy took the knife and rubbed it across his palm a few times. And then he rubbed it over the boy’s back . . .

Interrogator: He couldn’t stab with that knife, could he?

Brown: He sliced through the skin, though. The boy’s writhing and moaning was too much for me and I squatted down in the corner of the Quonset and threw up. Only a few peas came up and Cole started pounding on my back to help me out. McCoy kept at it for a while, and then he suddenly tossed the knife on the table. Then he told Marvin to help him since he was a soldier, too. Both Lieutenant Sloat and Marvin were silent. McCoy sneered and said officers were only imitation gentlemen and didn’t care a lick about their comrades’ dying. That was when Sloat picked up the knife and stabbed the boy in the thigh.

Sloat: In fact I suffered, too. And I was losing patience because we’d already wasted too much time. I could no longer evade the inevitable. From then on, I did everything alone. Of course, there were some results, but . . .

Interrogator: Private Marvin Cole, you saw everything in detail to the end, is that right?

Cole: Yes, because I had to interpret for McCoy who was recording every single scream of agony coming from the boy.

Interrogator: Could you be more specific?

Cole: Sir, I was a brave fighter. I’ve seen dead bodies of our troops and of the enemy torn to bits by bombs or riddled by machine guns, and I’ve shot my share. But how can I describe this? It was like butchering a live calf.

Interrogator: Well, after that, did the torture continue?

Nguyen: Lieutenant Sloat told us to untie the boy and lay him down on the desk. He said we would have to start again in the morning. Because of the wounds on his back, when the boy was laid down he moaned and gasped for breath. Sergeant McCoy turned the lamp dimmer down. It seemed they were going to get a little sleep sitting in the chairs. That man must have been sick because the two prisoners were sent out for a while.

Cole: Private Howard wanted a breath of cool air, so I took him outside. The searchlight was constantly shining around us. We sat on the sand and smoked a cigarette. Suddenly Howard put his head down on his knees and burst out crying. I thought it’d be better to leave him alone. Then he turned around and called me a son of a bitch. Since I knew Vietnamese I could have stopped it if I wanted to, he said. It never had occurred to me. I was indeed Sloat’s son of a bitch.

Interrogator: Private Howard Brown, how did you think knowledge of the Vietnamese language could have put an end to the torture?

Brown: I thought Marvin could talk with the Vietnamese sergeant. He was sick and tired of it all, too.

Nguyen: I hate the communists. But I only shoot guns. The lieutenant and the sergeant did not consider Vietnamese to be human beings. The two prisoners returned. The one who knew Vietnamese asked me in a whisper if the boy had still said nothing about the guerrillas. I told him the boy seemed to be chanting some kind of prayers. Then I looked over at the lieutenant and the sergeant and found them both fast asleep. The stories the little boy had told to me while I was the only one awake beside him, well, I told all of those to Cole. That both of his parents died a year ago, killed by strafing from US helicopters. His parents had been working in the fields when a helicopter suddenly swooped down. The boy said he was there and had seen everything, seen his parents machine gunned down and dying. Cole suggested, in Vietnamese, that he and I save the boy. He said we were the only ones who knew what he was saying, and we should gain some time for him and prevent further knifing. I agreed with him.

Cole: At that moment Lieutenant Sloat abruptly awoke from sleep. He may have sensed something suspicious from our whispering in Vietnamese. He asked Sergeant Nguyen why the interrogation had stopped.

Nguyen: I responded that the suspect no longer seemed to feel any pain. But when the boy made some moaning sounds, the lieutenant asked me to hurry and interpret. I said it meant, “dear Buddha, I want to rest.” The lieutenant told me not to lie, and said he’d use the knife again unless I told the truth. That was when the guard brought breakfast in.

Brown: It was strong coffee and bacon. They ate breakfast, sitting their cups and plates on the desk right beside the bloodied boy.

Cole: After the meal was over, Lieutenant Sloat took me outside and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said in a soothing tone: once you get the necessary information you can have your rank reinstated and head back to your duty. Who knows, he said, your major might even arrange for an honorable discharge. He said that Nguyen had been playing games from the start. The boy must have revealed something important. I said he was mistaken and that the boy had been saying the same thing over and over. Sloat suddenly turned around and opened the Quonset door, summoning the guard. Drag that Vietnamese bastard out of here, he ordered. Then, half-hysterical, he said Nguyen should be locked up until someone came from his unit to collect him. Nguyen bowed to Howard and me and then left with the guard. Sloat said to McCoy, let’s you and I do it together. He looked completely insane. As soon as he picked up the knife, he started yelling at the boy in English to tell him where the guerrillas were, and then he stabbed the boy in the knee.

Brown: I’ll never forget his eyes and face at that moment as long as I live. The boy suddenly opened his eyes and glared at the lieutenant, biting his terribly swollen lips and grinding his teeth with his whole face shaking. Lieutenant Sloat dropped the knife and took a step back. I screamed that I was getting out, I’m going back to my cell. I kicked the Quonset door open and staggered out. From behind, the lieutenant shouted for me to stop, but I kept on walking. The guard ran after me and ordered me to stop, but I didn’t. I heard a gun fire. Sand splashed up at my feet. Two more shots were fired. I fell on the spot with my face hitting the sand.

Interrogator: After that, did you receive medical treatment in the hospital?

Brown: Yes, it was a through shot.

Cole: Once Howard had been carried away, Lieutenant Sloat looked down at the boy for a while and then in a unnerved voice shouted, You better not die, you little bastard! He slapped the boy’s face. Then he called the medic. The lieutenant told McCoy to call a helicopter and take the boy to the hospital. He murmured, We’ve got to keep him alive at all costs and get the information out of him. We can start over from the beginning. Hearing those words, I made up my mind.

Interrogator: About what?

Cole: I decided it was time to give the boy his freedom to die. I spoke to Sloat, telling him I’d overheard the boy talking to Sergeant Nguyen. I said the boy had confessed that he was taking the stuff to his uncle in the swamp near Dien Banh. Sloat took Sergeant McCoy and me and hurried us to the staff headquarters. A helicopter assault force was already lifting off, having been alerted by wireless. There in the air-conditioned office of the headquarters, I watched as an outsider and secretly laughed at their hectic rushing about. For the helicopters would find nothing at that place. I just wanted to give the boy some time to die in peace even if it meant lying. As I sat in the chair drinking ice water, the medic came in and reported that the boy was dead. Lieutenant Sloat kept making phone calls, and I heard him give an order to pick out any bastard they wanted from among the prisoners and bury the boy. McCoy went out.

Interrogator: Private Taylor, I believe the time has come for you to testify.

Taylor: That sergeant brought a guard with him to our work site and asked who among us knew Marvin Cole. I’d been worrying about Marvin and Howard because they had not returned since lunchtime the day before. The three of us had become good pals while living together the past year in that prison. I said I was their close friend and asked whether something had happened to them. McCoy said they were enjoying a poker game in an air-conditioned room. I felt a bit uneasy, but not knowing what was going on, I followed him over to the Quonset hut. Inside was so dark that at first I couldn’t see anything. The sergeant who was behind me threw a vinyl bag to me and told me to put the bastard on the desk inside of it. It was a heavy, waterproof body bag used for soldiers killed in action. I opened the zipper and started to load the corpse in legs first.

Interrogator: Just describe the location and condition of the wounds, please.

Taylor: Both knees were deeply punctured and the thighs were flapping, sliced in a half-moon shape. His face was swollen and the desk was soaked with blood from cuts on his back. His eyes were open. Because of the pitiful expression of the dead little boy, his slanted eyes wide open under that pale forehead, I somehow felt he was on our side. I only learned later that he was a suspected Viet Cong. I decided to shut his eyes, and the paper-thin eyelids slid closed under my palm. Then I carried the vinyl body bag out to a place behind the garbage incinerator.

Interrogator: Did you go with the sergeant?

Taylor: Yes, he led the way. He walked in front with a shovel and I followed, dragging the vinyl bag by one end. I guess I was pulling the ankles, and the head and torso were dragging in the sand.

Interrogator: Did you bury the corpse?

Taylor: The sergeant threw the shovel down at my feet. I dug a hole as deep as my waist . . . and then he gave me a hand. We each held one end of the bag and tossed it down into the hole.

Interrogator: Can you remember the place?

Taylor: Well, I’m not so sure since it was sandy in all directions.

Interrogator: Lieutenant Sloat and Sergeant McCoy, is there anything else you want to state for the record?

McCoy: General Westmoreland’s search-and-destroy operations will judge a mishap of this kind as something inevitable under the exceptional circumstances of battle in Vietnam. As a professional soldier, I’ve done my duty faithfully.

Interrogator: How about you Lieutenant Sloat?

Sloat: Nothing, sir.

Interrogator: Just a while ago, Private Marvin Cole testified that he had lied about the confession. So did you not end up wasting combat resources?

Sloat: No, sir. We annihilated an entire company of the enemy in the swamp near Dien Banh. The information proved to be most valuable.

Footnote:

11 Military Intelligence Division