Promoted. Originally posted 2009-01-10 06:34:20 -0500. -- GH

Coming to terms with the reality and the lessons ignored for far too long, which ultimately by ignoring led us into the Deja-Vu of invasion and long term occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the failed leadership exposed!

Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes Inside, the book, the Army's Secret Archive of Investigations.

Atrocities, on all sides, are only a part of the story of the Tragedy of War and Occupation.

The rest we are once again observing and those serving and sacrificing in these theaters are living, along with their families.

We have never come to terms with Vietnam, Now we have Two More Long Running Occupations to Add to that, We Had Better Learn This Time, and come to terms as a Country and a Military Power, among other Countries!!

February 1968

A month before the infamous massacre at My Lai, a U.S. Army unit in central Vietnam came upon a tiny hamlet where they found nineteen unarmed civilians—women, babies, young children, and an old man. The soldiers’ orders that day were to “kill anything that moves.” They herded the villagers into a clearing and opened fire. Read More

About the Author

Deborah Nelson is the Carnegie Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland College of Journalism. She was previously an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Seattle Times, and Chicago Sun-Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1997 and was a project editor on Pulitzer Prize–winning investigations in 2001 and 2002. In 2006, she and military historian Nicholas Turse coauthored a series on U.S. war crimes for the Los Angeles Times. She currently serves on the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the advisory board of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Listen to the podcast

The Book

The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth about U.S. War Crimes

In 2005, Deborah Nelson joined forces with military historian Nick Turse to investigate an extraordinary archive: the largest compilation of records on Vietnam-era war crimes ever to surface. The declassified Army papers were erroneously released and have since been pulled from public circulation. Few civilians have seen the documents. The files contain reports of more than 300 confirmed atrocities, and 500 other cases the Army either couldn’t prove or didn’t investigate. The archive has letters of complaint to generals and congressmen, as well as reports of Army interviews with hundreds of men who served. Far from being limited to a few bad actors or rogue units, atrocities occurred in every Army division that saw combat in Vietnam. Torture of detainees was routine; so was the random killing of farmers in fields and women and children in villages. Punishment for these acts was either nonexistent or absurdly light. In most cases, no one was prosecuted at all. In The War Behind Me Deborah Nelson goes beyond the documents and talks with many of those who were involved, both accusers and accused, to uncover their stories and learn how they deal with one of the most awful secrets of the Vietnam War.

The Documents

The back reports from Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse from the LA Times in 2006.

Vietnam

The War Crimes Files

A Tortured Past

By Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse Documents show troops who reported abuse in Vietnam were discredited even as the military was finding evidence of worse. August 20, 2006

Lasting Pain, Minimal Punishment

By Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse 'Americans don't do things like this,' an officer thought when he learned of three villagers' deaths. His shock grew when the soldier convicted continued to serve. August 20, 2006

Civilian Killings Went Unpunished

By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai. August 6, 2006

Verified Civilian Slayings

By Nick Turse, Deborah Nelson and Janet Lundblad Decades-old Pentagon records show that Army criminal investigators substantiated seven massacres of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians by U.S. soldiers — in addition to the notorious 1968 My Lai massacre. August 6, 2006

About this report

Deborah Nelson, who wrote these articles, is a former staff writer and Washington investigative editor for The Times. Nick Turse is a freelance journalist living in New Jersey. August 20, 2006

Winter Soldier {1972}

Winter Soldier Investigation - Wikipedia

Film-Forward Review: WINTER SOLDIER (1972)

Winter Soldier - the DVD

Winter Soldier - VVAW - Vietnam Veterans Against The War

Winter Soldier - The Site

Trailer

Into the Present:

Accountability for the Orders Given on Torture and Human Rights Violations by the bush administration and rubber stamped by Congressional Republicans and any Democrats!

bush administration: Torture! {telecast 1.09.09}

CHAPTER 113C—TORTURE 18 USC - 2340A

War crimes 18 USC - 2441

Genocide 18 USC - 1091

Accountability Is A Must

Click on the graphic and join those seeking that accountability, for Laws broken, Laws of our Country and Constitution, this time!