I appreciate the information Bentway. Coincidentally I was in country the same time as Powell. IN July of 1968 I had recently complete a 6 month stint as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 9th Infantry Division (Mekong Delta) and had been present at the battle of Ben Tre during the 68 Tet Offensive. That's the battle that produced the quote "we had to destroy the city in order to save it". (Frances Fitzgerald "The Fire in the Lake".) In July I was serving as a junior staff officer on the First Brigade Staff (air mobile) of the 9th Inf Div in its operations center.
I think it is stretch to use the information presented to say Powell "handled" My Lai. He was just routinely dealing with a staff matter assigned to him although I fault him for not questioning the soldier (Glen) personally so as to ascertain the source of Glen's facts.
From my perspective Staff officers are often shielded or immune to the facts happening on the ground (there are so many of them). Additionally, the pressures of the everyday combat operations sweep all but the most significant facts aside. If Powell had been personally charged to investigate My Lai that would have been one thing, but this charge by Glen was more or of a routine matter for a Staff Officer. Was it under investigated? No doubt, but not a My Lai cover up.
As to GI attitudes toward the Vietnamese. My take is that they varied greatly and a lot depended on the character of the leadership under which they served. In war one can always find the great gamuts of human emotions on display. I think the amorphous nature of the war frustrated a lot of the higher command as it was harder to measure progress (or lack thereof), by any of the standard measures (captured or destroyed enemy armies or territories as their were no standing enemy armies {shadows in the night} or held territory and this led to a fall back plan of favorable "statistics" to denote combat success which led to further depersonalization of the enemy).
In short, there were probably acts of cruelty going on in Powell's Units area of operations and Powell and the people above him probably could have done a better job of managing this, but a deliberate coverup by Powell it was not. Could they have learned more if better investigated---yes, no doubt. But keep in mind in a lot of these situations ascertaining the "facts" of the matter is not easy thing as there are always two or more versions of the event and the credibility of the witnesses varies greatly.
The first priority of the Division Leadership was the ongoing nature of the continuing campaigns they were conducting (as that is how they were going to be judged) and everything else was secondary unless it threatened to become a "distraction". In short they were men answering to the standards they were conditioned to answer to---imperfect as that situation is/was for dealing with the allegations of Glen. |
