Hey Trangbang, how would you ever know that the Americal Division was “not only only the worst unit in VN but maybe the worst in US military history”? That’s quite an indictment.

First off, in 1968-69 the Americal’s area of operations was exactly where the Ho Chi Minh trail (actually a braided system of trails) first re-entered VN from Laos and where the mountainous back country –exceedingly rich in booby traps and ambushes– began only twenty km (or less) west of the S. China Sea coast. Not a fun place for a 19 y/o conscript.

Before the My Lai massacre became publicly known, but some months after it had actually happened, I personally encountered an entire Americal infantry battalion which had been recalled to Division HQ at Chu Lai: specifically, I was told by some GI, because there had been allegations of a rape and murder of several VC/NVA nurses (probably not related to My Lai, but maybe so). Somebody in the Americal’s chain of command was sufficiently outraged to pull 600+ combat soldiers out of the field at the very height of the ground war subjected to a full-scale investigation of the incident. I don’t know what came of all that and never saw any further reference to the case.

Reconnecting recently with some Americal vets (not from the My Lai company) in the lead-up to a reunion planned next month in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was stunned by how many more than I would have imagined, were genuinely whacked out by PTSD.

Mike Sylwester’s comments (and personal background) are certainly not run of the mill blogging junk.

Too bad that neither Calley nor Ayers are here to tell us what they think of each other. Now that would interesting!

Ayers reminds me of a posturing, rat-faced little shmuck I knew when I returned to my hippie college on the GI bill. He always wore a red beret and a lapel pin with a picture of an AK-47. The only person I ever really wanted to strangle.