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There used to be a game we played.
We poured garbage, liquid garbage off the end of our truck to make 'em
crawl for it.
Mama-sons would come up with half cut
50-gallon drums and they'd try to fill it up. They'd get pork
chops and sloppy rice and mystery meat or wop-slop, whatever we'd had
for chow, and put it in there, and then we'd let them walk so far and
we'd tip it over, spill it on the ground, and watch them scrape the dirt
in there.
Anything to dehumanize them.
From the time I was there, nobody ever
got hurt in a garbage dump, as far as Americans. But a lot of
Vietnamese women and children were hurt. And it was fair game
between Kontien?, going through the city of Kamilo?, on the outskirts of
Quang Tri? going to Stud? that American troops would stock up on their
heavies, their spaghetti and meatballs and ham and lima beans, and any
little children who were begging on the side of the road which never
numbered less than 50 or 60 were fair game for these full cans of food.
They wouldn't throw them to the kids, they'd just bounce them off their
heads or try to knock them off their bicycles
These people are aware of what American
soldiers do to them so naturally they try to hide the young girls.
We found one hiding in a bomb shelter in sort of the basement of her
house, she was taken out and raped by six or seven people in front of
her family, in front of most of the villagers. This wasn't just
one incident, this is just the first one that I can remember. I
know of 10 or 15 of such instances at least. The gentleman on my
left can collaborate my testimony as we were together the whole time,
served in the same squad, in the same company.
At the time most of this happened our
platoon leader was a Mormon minister. He's dead now, so he can't
really be found out and questioned.
But when he got there, he was pretty
well high character man because he was a minister. By the time he
left, by the time he got killed, rather, he was condoning everything
that was going on because it was a part of policy. If no one tells
you that it's wrong, then you do it anyway, and this cell changed him
around.
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