The Village of Ben Suc--Anyone killed by this outfit...

"At one-o'clock, the official count of 'V.C.'s killed' stood at twenty-four, with no friendly casualties reported. Soldiers told me of three shootings. I learned that three men had crawled out of a tunnel when they were told that the tunnel was about to be blown up. 'One of them make a break for it, and they got him on the run.' the soldier said. An officer told me that a man and a woman were machine-gunned from a helicopter while they were 'having a picnic.' I asked him what he meant by a picnic, and he answered, 'You know, a picnic. They had a cloth on the ground, and food--rice and stuff--set out for it. When they saw the chopper, they ran for t. They were both V.C.s. She was a nurse--she had medical supplies with her, and had on a kind of V.C. uniform--and he was, you know, sitting right there with her and he ran for it, too, when the chopper came overhead.' A soldier told me that down near the river three men with packs had been shot from a sistance. Inspection of their packs revealed a large quantity of medical supplies… [Stars and Stripes later listed 7 additional shootings from helicopter: 'three V.C. on a raft crossing the Saigon River, another as he tried to sneak across camouflaged by lily-pads, and three more hiding in a creek nearby.'" (p60-61)

"When I told one soldier that I was interested in finding out what weapons, if any, the Vietnamese dead had been carrying, he stiffened with pride, stared me right in the eye, and announced, 'What do you mean, 'Were they carrying any weapons?' Of course they were carrying weapons! Look. I want to tell you one thing. Anyone killed by this outfit was carrying a weapon. In this outfit, no one shoots unless the guy is carrying a weapon. You've got to honor the civilian, that's all.' With that, he terminated our conversation." (p62)

"The captured weapons count stood at forty-nine: forty bobby traps, six rifle grenades, two Russian-made rifles, and one American submachine gun. All were captured in caches in tunnels." (p62).

[No one bragged to each other about what the attack. They were mostly quiet or laconic. These were mostly young men, brought to this situation by their superiors, then faced with life-or-death decisions when attacking a civilian population.]