Tiger Force was the name of a

long-range reconnaissance patrol A long-range reconnaissance patrol, or LRRP, is a small, well-armed reconnaissance team that patrolling, patrols deep into enemy-held territory.Ankony, Robert C., ''Lurps: A Ranger's Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and Quang Tri,'' revised ed., ...

(LRRP) unit of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade (Separate),

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division (military), division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault military operation, operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinat ...

, which fought in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

from November 1965 to November 1967. The unit gained notoriety after investigations during the course of the war and decades afterwards revealed extensive

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s against civilians, which numbered into the hundreds.

Composition

The platoon-sized unit, approximately 45

paratroopers A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light inf ...

, was organized by

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

David Hackworth in November 1965 to "outguerrilla the guerrillas". Tiger Force (Recon) 1-327th was a highly decorated small unit in Vietnam, and paid for its reputation with heavy casualties. In October 1968, Tiger Force's parent battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...

, which included a mention of Tiger Force's service at Đắk Tô in June 1966.

Investigations of war crimes

On October 19, 2003, Michael D. Sallah, a reporter for The Toledo Blade newspaper, obtained unreleased, confidential records of

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

commander Henry Tufts. One file in these records referred to a previously unpublished war crimes investigation known as the Coy Allegation. To investigate this further, Sallah gained access to a large collection of documents produced by the investigation held at the

National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

in College Park, Maryland. Sallah found that between 1971 and 1975, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command had investigated the Tiger Force unit for alleged war crimes committed between May and November 1967. The documents included sworn statements from many Tiger Force veterans, which detailed war crimes allegedly committed by Tiger Force members during the Song Ve Valley and Operation Wheeler military campaigns. The statements, from both individuals who allegedly participated in the war crimes and those that did not, described war crimes such as the following: * the routine torture and execution of prisoners * the routine practice of intentionally killing unarmed Vietnamese villagers including men, women, children, and elderly people * the routine practice of cutting off and collecting the ears of victims * the practice of wearing necklaces composed of human ears * the practice of cutting off and collecting the scalps of victims * incidents where soldiers planted weapons on murdered Vietnamese villagers * an incident where a young mother was drugged, raped, and then executed * an incident where a soldier killed a baby and cut off the baby's head after the baby's mother was killed The investigators concluded that many of the war crimes took place. This included the murder of former ARVN personnel, the murder of two blind brothers, and the routine murder of women, children, and disabled or elderly civilians. Despite these conclusions, the Army decided not to pursue any prosecutions. High bodycounts were recognized and encouraged by military officials. Colonel Morse ordered troops of the 327th Infantry Regiment, of which Tiger Force was part of, to rack up a

body count A body count is the total number of people killed in a particular event. In combat, a body count is often based on the number of confirmed kills, but occasionally only an estimate. Often used in reference to military combat, the term can also r ...

of 327 during Operation Wheeler in order to match the battalion's infantry designation, 327th. Those killed were all listed as enemy combatants. Tiger Force's Sam Ybarra was congratulated in the '' Stars and Stripes'' military newspaper for the 1,000th kill of Operation Wheeler. After studying the documents, Sallah and fellow reporter,

Mitch Weiss Mitchell S. Weiss (born 1957) is an American investigative journalist, and an editor at ''The Charlotte Observer''. He won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, with Joe Mahr and Michael D. Sallah. Life Weiss is a native of New Yo ...

, located and interviewed dozens of veterans who served in Tiger Force during the period in question as well as the CID investigators who later carried out the Army's inquiry. The reporters also traveled to Vietnam and tracked down numerous residents of Song Ve Valley who identified themselves as witnesses. Sallah and Weiss reported that the war crimes were corroborated by both veterans and Song Ve Valley residents. The reporters also managed to track down dozens of additional investigative records not included in the National Archives. The reporters published their findings in a series of articles in ''The Toledo Blade'' in October 2003. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' subsequently performed their own investigation, contacting a few Tiger Force veterans and corroborating ''The Toledo Blade''s findings. Since ''The Blade''s story, the United States Army has opened a review of the former Tiger Force investigation, but has not yet provided much additional information. On May 11, 2004, Lt. Col. Pamela Hart informed ''The Blade'' reporters that she had been too busy responding to prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to check on the status of the Tiger Force case. ''The Blade'' has not reported on any more recent updates from the U.S. Army. Reporters Michael D. Sallah, Mitch Weiss, and Joe Mahr received a number of awards for their series: * In 2003, the reporters won the IRE Medal. * In 2003, the reporters won the

Sigma Delta Chi Award The Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented annually by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) for excellence in journalism. The SPJ states the purpose of the award is to promote "the free flow of information vital ...

for investigative reporting, for publications with a circulation of 100,000 or greater. * In 2004, the reporters won the Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers. * In 2004, the reporters won the

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 19th century media magnate *Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...

. In 2006, Sallah, now an investigative reporter with ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', and Weiss, an investigative reporter with the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

, co-authored a book chronicling their findings: ''Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War'' (2006).

Notable former members 1965–1969

*Lt. Col. David Hackworth, unit founder *Lt. Dennis Foley *Lt. James Hawkins (implicated in leading nearly all controversial events) Hawkins was a battlefield-commissioned second lieutenant. Hawkins attributes the lack of charges to the timing of the investigation after My Lai and Bumgarner the potential for additional bad "publicity." *Lt. James A. Gardner (awarded the

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest Awards and decorations of the United States Armed Forces, military decoration and is awarded to recognize American United States Army, soldiers, United States Navy, sailors, Un ...

, posthumously)

killed in action Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, ...

, before any of the controversial events *Lt. William F. Kernan *Lt. Donald Wood (

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

) *Lt. Skip Franks (

) *Ssg. John G. Gertsch (awarded the

, posthumously) killed in action *Sgt. Gerald Bruner (whistleblower) *Spc. William Carpenter (whistleblower) *Spc. Kenneth Leon Green, killed in action *Pvt. Rion Causey (whistleblower) *Pvt. Kenneth Kerney (whistleblower) *Pvt. Sam Ybarra

In popular culture

*In the 2014 book '' Edge of Eternity'' by

Ken Follett Kenneth Martin Follett (born 5 June 1949) is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 198 million copies of his works. His books have been sold in over 80 countries. Follett's commercial breakthrough came with ...

, character Jasper Murray is enlisted in the military and assigned to Tiger Force in Vietnam. He witnesses and is forced to participate in several war crimes, such as rape and murder of a Vietnamese family and using Vietnamese peasants as "mine dogs" to detect mines and traps laid by Viet Cong.

References

External links

Report at pulitzer.org of award for ''Toledo Blade'' articles

Tiger Force veterans' websiteMichael Sallah interviewed on ''Democracy Now!''Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss interviewed on NPR's ''Talk of the Nation''Interview with Sallah and Weiss
at the

Pritzker Military Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and research library for the study of military history located in a state-of-the art facility in Kenosha, WI. The institution was founded in 2003, ...

{{Authority control Anti-communist terrorism Military units and formations established in 1965 Military units and formations of the United States Army in the Vietnam War Sexual assault in the United States military Sexual violence in the Vietnam War Vietnam War crimes committed by the United States