Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War

Military Review, March-April, 2008 by James H. Willbanks

TIGER FORCE: A True Story of Men and War, Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss. Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2006, 403 pages, $25.95.

Tiger Force is a disturbing book about a platoon in Vietnam and its protracted campaign of war crimes and atrocities. The authors were working for the Toledo Blade when they were tipped to the story by a fellow reporter who had been bequeathed boxes of secret documents from Henry Tufts, a former head of the Array's Criminal Investigations Command (CID), after his death in July 2002.

One of 'Tuft's files contained allegations and preliminary investigative reports against "Tiger Force," a special reconnaissance platoon formed in Vietnam by the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Using the file as a start point, Sallah and Weiss conducted their own investigation into charges that the unit had gone on an appalling killing spree that was apparently sanctioned by the chain of command within the battalion. The result of their investigation, which included interviews with 43 Tiger Force veterans and several trips to Vietnam to track down elderly Vietnamese witnesses, was a four-part series for their newspaper entitled "Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths." The series won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, the book is a more detailed account of Tiger Force's crimes and subsequent efforts by a series of Army investigators to bring its members to justice.

Tiger Force was established in November 1965 by Major David Hackworth to "outguerrilla the guerrillas." Organized to carry out reconnaissance and commando functions, it was often inserted in small, near-autonomous teams to find the enemy and conduct hit-and-run missions. The 45 men of Tiger Force were handpicked volunteers and, by most accounts, the unit enjoyed a reputation as a highly effective force: it even received a presidential citation for bravery in 1966. However, in May 1967, Tiger Force began to unravel. Led by an incompetent lieutenant who ordered his men to "kill anything that moves," the unit, frustrated by heavy casualties and weeks of being hit by snipers in the Song Ve Valley, committed a number of "revenge" killings against unarmed civilians. In September, it was moved to Quang Tin province as part of Operation Wheeler, where its descent into chaos and near-anarchy continued. During that operation, conducted in a designated "free tire zone," the unit committed more atrocities. They threw grenades at villagers hiding in bunkers, fired on entire villages indiscriminately, and shot unarmed farmers in rice paddies. They also began to mutilate the bodies of their victims, cutting oft ears, taking scalps, and, in one reported instance, beheading a baby they had shot.

As deeply troubling as the actual war crimes was the apparent sanction of these actions by Tiger Force's chain of command. The authors note that those in authority apparently chose to ignore warnings about what was going on: several Soldiers in the unit tried to stop the carnage, but they were ostracized by their buddies and when they tried to bring the unit's activities to the attention of their superiors, they were ignored and some were transferred to another unit.

Tiger Force also addresses the exhaustive three-year CID investigation that resulted in a damning; 55-page report that came out in 1975. The report concluded that "a total of 18 soldiers committed crimes, including murder and assault." However, the report was promptly buried after it was sent to the secretaries of Defense and the Army. According to the authors, the allegations were deemed too similar to the My Lai massacre and too close to Richard Nixon's resignation and the fall of South Vietnam to warrant pursuing.

The story of Tiger Force clearly demonstrates what happens when a breakdown in discipline is coupled with criminally incompetent leadership. The situation was exacerbated by a command climate that sanctioned war crimes in the interest of raising body counts. The result was a unit that event over the edge into an abyss of murder and atrocity.

This is not an easy book to read, but it is highly recommended. Although these events happened over four decades ago, the issues brought up by this book are just as timely today, particularly given the challenges that confront U.S. forces in the intense fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

LTC James H. Willbanks, USA, Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas