Compounding the Tragedy

Just as the testimony at one trial was ending at Fort Benning, more atrocities were being described 100 miles away at Atlanta's Fort McPherson. Lieut. Colonel Anthony B. Herbert, a 40-year-old veteran of combat in Korea and Viet Nam, was drafting military charges against a general and a colonel whom he accused of covering up war crimes that occurred two years ago. The officers are Major General John Barnes, an ex-brigade commander, and Colonel Joseph R. Franklin, who was a member of the Army's Peers Panel that investigated the My Lai Massacre.

Colonel Herbert maintains that when he served under Barnes and Franklin in Viet Nam, he reported to them a number of incidents involving murder, torture and mistreatment of prisoners; Herbert claims to have witnessed four such episodes. After one battle with the Viet Cong, he says, units of his battalion took some 15 prisoners, who were then put in custody of South Vietnamese troops accompanied by an American lieutenant.

"There were four dead already when I walked up," Herbert said. "They had a knife at the throat of a woman. Her baby was screaming and clutching at her leg, and her other child was being suffocated by a South Vietnamese infantryman who was shoving its face into the sand with his foot. I ordered them to stop, but with me just standing there looking, they proceeded to slit the woman's throat. I asked the lieutenant what the hell was going on, ordered him to get out of the area and take the ARVN with him, and they left."

Later, said Herbert, all the remaining prisoners were killed: "I went over there and they were all dead, the children too. When I reported the incident to Franklin, he said I was a liar and that I was exaggerating."

Herbert, who as an enlisted man was the most decorated U.S. soldier in the Korean War, won a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars and an Army Commendation medal during his ten-month tour in Viet Nam. When he reported one torture, he says, "Colonel Franklin suggested that if I was so damned morally offended by that, I should think about leaving." Herbert was relieved of his command on April 4, 1969. The Army says it is investigating Herbert's charges, but he reports that he has been repeatedly told "to cool it," because, as one officer at Fort McPherson told him, "We don't want another My Lai."

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