Son Thang: An American War Crime.

• Author: Everett, Robinson O.

Son Thang: An American War Crime. By Gary D. Solis. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. 1997. Pp. xix, 299. $29.95.

The subject of war crimes is now receiving significant attention. On March 13, 1998, the United States Senate, by a vote of 93-0, adopted a resolution urging the President to call on the United Nations to create a tribunal to indict and try Saddam Hussein for his "crimes against humanity.(1) In the recent past, United Nations tribunals have tried crimes against humanity perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

With Administration backing, Congress has also recently enacted legislation intended to confer jurisdiction on the federal district courts to try certain war crimes of which American nationals are perpetrators or victims. The War Crimes Act of 1996(2) -- which is based on the power of Congress to define and punish offenses against the law of nations(3) -- originally concerned "grave breaches" of only the Geneva Convention of 1949; but, as later amended, it punishes violations of both the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Congress apparently intended this grant of war crime jurisdiction to federal district courts to supplement, not supersede, the jurisdiction over violations of the law of war -- part of the law of nations -- long exercised by American military commissions and general courts-martial.(4)

The War Crimes Act was prompted by the experience of a former Air Force pilot, who, after being shot down and spending several years in a North Vietnamese prison, was concerned about the seeming absence of statutory authorization for the punishment of persons who mistreat prisoners of war(5) Certainly the concern about the welfare of prisoners of war is quite appropriate -- and perhaps overdue.(6)

Although the impetus for recent war crimes legislation has been a perceived need to assure the availability of a forum to try persons who commit war crimes against American victims, we must never overlook the possibility that Americans may perpetrate war crimes against others. The recent commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, which took place on March 16, 1968, is one reminder of this possibility.(7) Publication of Son Thang: An American War Crime, Gary D. Solis's gripping account of an incident that took place almost two years after My Lai, provides another.

DEATH COMES TO SON THANG

On the evening of February 19, 1970, a five-man patrol went out from Marine Company B of the 1/7 Battalion to search for Viet Cong activity. At the time -- and later during court-martial proceedings -- the patrol was referred to as a "killer team," a term that does not appear in any Marine Corps manual or instruction. According to Solis, the term was "essentially unique" to the battalion in which these five Marines were serving (p. 29). One platoon sergeant defined the concept quite simply: "They go out in small teams of four to five men and search out hamlets for weapons, rice, different types of caches, and to make contact with the enemy, and kill as many as possible" (p. 29).

Two of the Marines involved had spotty disciplinary records. Heading the killer team was Randall Dean Herrod, a part Creek Indian from Calvin, Oklahoma, who had enlisted in the Marine Corps sixteen months before. In Vietnam, Herrod had engaged in heroic conduct -- including saving the life of his platoon leader, 2d Lt. Oliver L. North. He received the Purple Heart, was recommended for a Silver Star, and was promoted to lance corporal. However, apparently displeased with a transfer to the 1/7 Battalion, he had absented himself without leave for two months. This absence resulted in a special court-martial sentence of reduction in grade to private, forfeitures of seventy dollars pay for three months, and three months of confinement. The confinement was subsequently suspended.(8)

Pvt. Michael A. Schwarz -- a twenty-one-year-old from rural Pennsylvania who was the oldest member of the killer team -- had been in Vietnam for four months, but had been in his current battalion for less than a week. In his prior unit, Schwarz had disciplinary problems and had been considered for administrative discharge because of "unfitness" (p. 38). It is not uncommon -- although not often admitted -- to transfer discipilinary problems to other units. Schwarz, who in his prior unit had participated in several reconnaissance patrols, was the killer team's point man, slightly ahead of his comrades (pp. 37-38).

The other three members of the team had not previously been in trouble as Marines. Pres. Thomas R. Boyd and Michael S. Krichten were both nineteen. Boyd had been a member of the 1/7 Battalion since August 1969 and had experienced heavy combat activity in Vietnam. Krichten's record was almost identical; he had joined the 1/7 Battalion within four days of Boyd, from which time "they had served in the same fire team of the same squad of the same platoon" (pp. 38-39). Eighteen-year-old Pfc. Samuel A. Green, Jr., the only African American on the killer team, had arrived in Vietnam less than a month before, and this was his first patrol. Green and Boyd had pre-enlistment problems as juveniles; Green had spent twenty-three months in a juvenile facility. However, none of the men had experienced disciplinary problems while in the service (pp. 38-40).

Son Thang 4 was a small hamlet on the boundary of a free-fire zone -- a geographic area "designated by the South Vietnamese government as pre-approved for the employment of military fire and maneuver because they were ostensibly free of Vietnamese civilians" (p. 40). From Hill 50, where the members of the "killer team" were located, it was only a few hundred yards to Son Thang, but it took about half an hour for the team to cover this distance. As the patrol came to a group of the village's rough, thatch-roofed huts -- generally referred to by the Marines, and many others, as "hooches" -- Schwarz, acting at Herrod's direction, entered one and found it empty. The team turned their attention next to another hooch about twenty-five yards away. Surrounding it, they called to those inside to come out. Four Vietnamese emerged -- a fifty-year-old womb, a twenty-year-old woman (who was blind), a sixteen-year-old girl, and a five-year-old girl. Schwarz went inside to search and found no one there. At about this time, Herrod shot one of the women and then, according to some accounts, gave orders to kill all of these Vietnamese. All four females were killed by point-blank firing (pp. 44-45).

As they moved back towards the hooch Schwarz had first entered, the killer team heard voices from inside. This time Schwarz found six Vietnamese women and children, and they were ordered out. All were killed, apparently upon orders of Herrod. The dead were a forty-three-year-old woman, a twelve-year-old boy, two ten year-old girls and two little boys -- one five and the other three years old. Next the five Marines moved to a third hooch. This time six more Vietnamese were killed -- again all women and children (pp. 46-47).

Marines at the team's nearby home base heard loud bursts of gunfire and were concerned about the patrol's welfare. However, in response to radio inquiries, the killer team reported that they had some confirmed enemy KIAs -- killed-in-action. A few minutes later when they arrived back at their unit, Herrod and some other members of the patrol recounted at an initial debriefing that they had spotted some Viet Cong, set up a hasty ambush, and killed at least six of the enemy (pp. 49-50).

Lt. Louis R. Ambort, the company commander of the five Marines, apparently initially accepted the account they provided. But later -- prodded by questions from Maj. Richard Theer, his battalion operations officer and an exemplary Marine -- Ambort became suspicious and further questioned, the members of the team. Now they told him that they had killed a number of women and children after being fired upon by their victims. This explanation satisfied him for the moment. Theer, however, was not satisfied. The next day, a patrol sent to Son Thang found the bodies of sixteen women and children. Theer began his own initial investigation and eventually obtained statements from the members of the killer team that made it appear likely that serious crimes had been committed.(9)

As a result of Maj. Theer's investigation, members of the killer team were charged with the murder of sixteen noncombatants in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. After a formal pretrial...