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http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_entry.htmlOpening Statement of William Crandell:"Over the border they send us to kill and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten." These lines of Paul Simon's recall to Vietnam veterans the causes for which we went to fight in Vietnam and the outrages we were part of because the men who sent us had long ago forgotten the meaning of the words.
We went to preserve the peace and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame. We went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we are committing genocide against them. We went to fight for freedom and our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of concentration camps.
We went to guarantee the right of self-determination to the people of South Vietnam and our testimony will show that we are forcing a corrupt and dictatorial government upon them. We went to work toward the brotherhood of man and our testimony will show that our strategy and tactics are permeated with racism. We went to protect America and our testimony will show why our country is being torn apart by what we are doing in Vietnam.
...more...http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_03_1Marine.htmlMODERATOR. I'd like to welcome you all. This is the First Marine Division. It landed in South Vietnam in 1965 and is still there. You've probably all heard the quotation "Ask a Marine." So after these gentlemen have finished their testimony, you'll be allowed to ask a Marine and find out what really went on over there.
CRAIG. My name is Stephen Craig. I'm 23 years old. I entered the service about two weeks after graduation in 1965. I entered the service after high school in 1965. Went to Vietnam in 1966 to serve with Second Battalion, 5th Marine and served there from September '66 to September '67. When I got out of the service I worked as a laborer. My testimony basically covers the maltreatment of prisoners, the suspects actually, and a convoy running down an old woman with no reason at all--no provocation or anything. And bounties were put on our own men in our own companies if they were inadequate in the field. And they were either disposed of, or wounded, or something to this effect just to make sure they were taken away. I was a Pfc. in the service.
MODERATOR. We're going to allow everybody to speak first and after that the press will be allowed to ask questions.
SACHS. My name is Rusty Sachs. I entered the Marine Corps in 1964 after working as a news broadcaster for a network radio station. I was a helicopter pilot. I came out as a Captain. I was in Vietnam with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362 as a medivac pilot from August of '66 to September of '67 and my testimony concerns the leveling of villages for no valid reason, throwing Viet Cong suspects from the aircraft after binding and gagging them with copper wire, and racism in the assignment of priorities to medical evacuations where white people were given priority over nonwhite people.
CAMILE. My name is Scott Camile. I was a Sgt. attached to Charley 1/1. I was a forward observer in Vietnam. I went in right after high school and I'm a student now. My testimony involves burning of villages with civilians in them, the cutting off of ears, cutting off of heads, torturing of prisoners, calling in of artillery on villages for games, corpsmen killing wounded prisoners, napalm dropped on villages, women being raped, women and children being massacred, CS gas used on people, animals slaughtered, Chieu Hoi passes rejected and the people holding them shot, bodies shoved out of helicopters, tear-gassing people for fun and running civilian vehicles off the road.
...more...Statement of Mr. John Kerry...I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony....
WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we f eel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
...more...and so much more...
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