Tiger Force was the name of a

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

unit of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade (Separate), 101st Airborne Division, which fought in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

from November 1965 to November 1967. The unit gained notoriety after investigations during the course of the war and decades afterwards revealed extensive war crimes against civilians, which numbered into the hundreds.

Composition

The platoon-sized unit, approximately 45

paratroopers A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during World ...

, was organized by Major 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), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

, 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 at '' The Blade'' (Toledo) newspaper, obtained unreleased, confidential records of

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

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 One file in these records referred to a previously unpublished war crimes investigation known as the Coy Allegation.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 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 his or her 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, the crippled and old and the routine murder of women and children. Despite this, the Army decided not to pursue any prosecutions. Their high bodycounts were recognized and encouraged by military officials. Colonel Morse ordered troops 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 casualties in order to match the battalion's infantry designation, 327th; however by the end of the campaign soldiers were congratulated for their 1000th kill. Those killed were listed as enemy combatants. After studying the documents, Sallah and fellow reporter, Mitch Weiss, 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'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

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

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and Weiss, an investigative reporter with the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

, 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 commission A battlefield promotion (or field promotion) is an advancement in military rank that occurs while deployed in combat. A standard field promotion is advancement from current rank to the next higher rank; a "jump-step" promotion allows the recipient ...

ed Second lieutenant. Hawkins attributes the lack of charges to the timing of the investigation after My Lai and the potential for additional bad "publicity." *Lt.

James A. Gardner James Alton Gardner (February 7, 1943 – February 7, 1966) was a United States Army officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in the Vietnam War. Biography Gardner was born ...

(awarded the

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valo ...

, posthumously) killed in action, before any of the controversial events *Lt. William F. Kernan *Lt. Donald Wood (

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

) *Lt. Skip Franks (

) *Ssg. John G. Gertsch (awarded the

, posthumously) killed in action *Sgt. Gerald Bruner (whistleblower) *Spc. William Carpenter (whistleblower) *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 British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works. Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...

, 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 a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

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