Reply #4: beyond the "call of duty"

[UpInArms]

and horrific in its detail:

The atrocities began in May, 1967, near Duc Pho, and continued after the unit moved to the remote Song Ve Valley, just as the Army was starting to force civilians from the area into relocation camps.

The valley, which was supposed to be evacuated, is where the platoon ran into the elderly carpenter on July 23, 1967, as he was crossing a river.

The unit had been drinking beer most of the day, according to witnesses, and by the time they encountered the carpenter, many were drunk. Two of the soldiers escorted the man toward the rear of the element, where Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Trout were walking. With the carpenter babbling loudly, Mr. Trout clubbed the man with a rifle. As Tiger Force medic Barry Bowman began to treat the wounded villager, Mr. Hawkins lifted the carpenter up from where he was kneeling and shot him in the face with a Carbine 15 rifle, according to sworn statements to Army investigators in the early 1970s.

At least four witnesses said the carpenter was pleading for his life before he was shot by Mr. Hawkins.

In an interview with The Blade last year, Mr. Hawkins justified the killing by saying the carpenter's voice was loud enough to alert the enemy to the American unit's position: "I eliminated that right there." But four Tiger Force soldiers told Army investigators that there were other ways to silence the carpenter and said the shooting gave away the unit's position anyway.

this article also states that when soldiers complained, they were "transferred":

Records show that two soldiers in the platoon, Lt. Donald Wood of Findlay, and Sgt. Gerald Bruner of Colon, Mich., tried to stop the atrocities but were transferred from the platoon after they complained to superiors.