[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 66 (Thursday, May 21, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3733-H3736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING FORMER SOUTH VIETNAMESE ARMY COMMANDOS
(Ms. SANCHEZ asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago the House Committee on National
Security unanimously approved my amendment to honor and recognize the
former South Vietnamese army commandos who were employees of the United
States Government during the Vietnam War.
Today, the Members of this House had the opportunity to properly
honor those brave men by supporting the Department of Defense
authorization bill for fiscal year 1999.
Last year, the President signed into law legislation that I advocated
to ensure that the United States Government honor a 30-year-old bad
debt and pay these men who worked for the United States Government the
wages they earned but were denied during the Vietnam War.
These individuals were trained by the Pentagon to infiltrate and
destabilize communist North Vietnam.
Many of these commandos were captured and tortured while in prison
for 15 to 20 years, and many never made it out.
Declassified DOD documents showed that U.S. officials wrote off the
commandos as dead even though they knew from various sources that many
were alive in Vietnamese prisons.
The documents also show that U.S. officials lied to the soldiers'
wives, paid them tiny ``Death Gratuities'' and washed their hands of
the matter.
For example, Mr. Ha Va Son was listed as dead by our Government in
1967, although he was known to be in a communist prison in North
Vietnam. Today he is very much alive and well and living in Chamblee,
GA. In my hand I hold the United States Government's official
declaration of his death.
Because it was a secret covert operation, the U.S. Government thought
they could easily ignore the commandos, their families, friends, and
their previous contacts without anyone noticing.
As the Senior Senator from Pennsylvania said in a recent hearing,
``This is a genuinely incredible story of callous, inhumane, and really
barbaric treatment by the United States.''
In the 104th Congress, this House approved legislation that required
the Department of Defense to pay reparations to the commandos.
[[Page H3734]]
This bill would have provided $20 million to the commandos and their
survivors, an average grant of about $40,000 per commando. It called
them to be paid $2,000 a year for every year they were in prison, less
than the wages they were due.
President Clinton signed this legislation into law (Public Law 104-
201).
However, in April of 1997, the Department of Defense said that the
statute was legislatively flawed and the Secretary could not legally
make payments.
I then contacted Secretary Cohen requesting the administration's help
to correct this error.
The administration responded by supporting inclusion of the funding
in the Supplemental Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 1997 (Public
Law 105-18)
Last year, I met at a public forum with 40 commandos from my
district.
One individual shared with me his story of how he parachuted into
enemy territory, was captured, convicted of treason, beaten, thrown
into solitary confinement for 11 months, then moved among hard--labor
camps for the next seven years.
His story is not unlike countless others. I request unanimous consent
to insert into the record one story of this abuse headlined ``Uncommon
Betrayal'' as reported by an Atlantia newspaper recently.
Today, however, I am pleased to provide this Body with this update.
To date, the Commando Compensation Board has been established at the
Pentagon; 266 claims have been processed; 142 Commandos have been paid.
All this was made possible because of the commitment of this House.
After years of torture by the North Vietnamese, the callousness of
being declared dead by the United States Government, and years of
anguish over not receiving their rightful compensation--these brave men
now deserve recognition.
The South Vietnamese Lost Army Commandos are finally a step closer to
having the United States Government honor their contracts for their
years of service to the United States Army.
I am proud that the members of the House had an opportunity to
properly honor these brave men.
We can not bring those who perished back, but we can give these
individuals the dignity and respect that's been so long overdue.
Who supports this resolution?
The State of California American Legion strongly endorses this
amendment and I would like to submit the letter from the Department
Commander Frank Larson into the Record.
In Commander Larson's letter dated May 1, 1998, he states, ``Ms.
Sanchez: I'm sure if history were unfolded for all to see it would show
that the South Vietnamese commandos, who aided the United States
Government in covert actions against the North Vietnamese, were
responsible for saving many American lives.''
It goes on to say: ``To that end, the same recognition due our
soldiers, sailors, marines and airman involved in the Vietnamese
Conflict should be afforded to the former South Vietnamese commandos,
who so gallantly served and endured.''
It is also supported by: The Air Commando Organization; The Special
Forces Organization.
American veterans who fought side by side with the Commandos, come to
their defense in letters of support.
I would like to share with you what our soldiers have to say about
the commandos.
This letter comes from a special forces NCO:
``Dear Sir: I had the opportunity to work with these men in which
they not only risked their lives, but continually put themselves in
harms way. * * * We are aware of terrible trials and conditions these
men endured for so long and we would like to help * * *''
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that last year,
during POW/MIA recognition day, I had the opportunity to meet with
several members of my veteran community.
I had the opportunity to speak with former POWs and family members
whose loved ones were taken as prisoners or declared missing in action.
Several of the veterans mentioned their support for the Commandos and
urged that the Government honor its word.
Today, we gave these commandos what they really wanted, the
distinction of honoring their service in the Vietnam War. And on behalf
of the 40 commandos residing in the 46th Congressional District of
California, I would like to thank the Members of this body for their
commitment to honor and to recognize the former South Vietnamese army
commandos.
Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a series of documents relating
to these former South Vietnamese commandos.
Uncommon Betrayal
Abandoned by the United States, former South Vietnamese commandos rise
from the dead
On a moonlit night in May 1965, a large transport plane was
flying low through the skies of northwestern North Vietnam on
its way toward the town of Son La. Sitting nervously in the
back of the plane was Team Horse, a group of five South
Vietnamese commandos who were part of a covert CIA/Department
of Defense (DOD) plan known as Operation Plan 34-Alpha
(Oplan-34A). Team Horse was being parachuted in to reinforce
the eight members of Team Easy, who had been deployed there
in August 1963.
After making a first pass by the drop zone to release
crates of supplies and a homing beacon, the plane circled
around again and Team Horse parachuted out the back. Soon
after hitting the ground the commandos knew their mission was
a total bust. Soldiers from North Vietnam's Ministry of
Public Security were waiting for them with rifles in hand.
Even worse, Team Easy had been captured long ago, and the
North Vietnamese had used that team's radio equipment to lure
in Team Horse
The five commandos were tried and convicted of treason, and
sent to prison. Only one, team leader Quach Nhung, would
survive incarceration. After more than 20 years of hard labor
in a Vietnamese prison, Nhung was released and immigrated to
the United States in 1994. He is one of about 30 former South
Vietnamese commandos involved in Oplan-34A who now live in
the Atlanta metro area.
Recently declassified documents have revealed Oplan-34A to
be one of the most tragic and disturbing aspects of the
Vietnam War. ``When you read those documents, you want to
cry,'' says Sedgwick Tourison, who used many of the papers to
write Secret Army, Secret War--Washington's Tragic Spy
Operation in North Vietnam. ``It's disgusting. We sold [those
commandos] down the river and walked away, and we did it with
such clean hands. And as I put in the book, nobody thought
this would ever surface.''
Even Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, was shocked by the abuses.
In a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Specter said, ``This is
a genuinely incredible story of callous, inhumane, and really
barbaric treatment by the United States.''
a doomed operation
From 1961 through the end of the decade, approximately 500
commandos separated into 52 small teams were sent into North
Vietnam. Trained and funded first by the CIA, the operation
was taken over by the DOD in 1964. At first, the teams were
designed to gather intelligence, but their duties were later
augmented to include psychological warfare and sabotage.
Nearly of the commandos were either killed or captured almost
immediately by the North Vietnamese, who had heavily
infiltrated the operation with moles on the South Vietnamese
side.
The entire operation was a failure, and documents now show
that the CIA and the DOD knew that it was. Still, they
continued to send commandos to their almost certain doom.
The United States' betrayal of the South Vietnamese
commandos did not end there.
Once they had been captured, their families were notified
not that they were prisoners of war or missing in action, but
that they were dead. ``The Defense Department compounded that
tragedy by simply writing off the lost commandos,'' Sen. John
Kerry (D-Mass.) said during the recent Senate hearing.
``Drawing a line through their names as dead apparently in
order to avoid paying monthly salaries [to the families].''
Says Tourison, who is the former Chief of Analysis in the
Defense Intelligence Agency's office of POW/MIA affairs. ``It
was money more than anything else. The bottom line was that
we did not want to pay them any more. We were recruiting new
guys and telling them that if anything happens we'll take
care of you, and we never had any intention of doing that.
And because of the moles the North Vietnamese had on the
inside, they knew what we had done. And once they found out,
that sent a message to Hanoi that we viewed the lives of
those who serve for us as of no consequence.''
But the betrayal of the South Vietnamese commandos still
did not end there.
Even though the United States knew many of them were in
prison, nothing was ever done to get them out. As Kerry,
himself a Vietnam War veteran, said at the hearing, ``After
sending these brave men, on what by anyone's judgment were
next to suicide missions, and after cutting off their pay, we
then committed the most egregious error of all: We made no
effort to obtain their release along with American POWs
during the peace negotiations in Paris [in 1973]. As a
result, many of these brave men who fought alongside us for
the same cause spent years in prison, more than 20 years in
some cases.''
The U.S. government is now trying to make up for its
treatment of the commandos. On June 19, the Senate
unanimously passed a bill that will pay the former commandos
or their survivors $40,000 each, which basically amounts to
an average of $2,000 back pay per year for an average of 20
years spent in prison.
Even though the commandos need the money and say they are
looking forward to it, money cannot erase the past. ``Forty
thousand dollars is nothing,'' says Nhung. ``No money can pay
for my life.''
[[Page H3735]]
coming to america
Recently, three of the former South Vietnamese Oplan-34A
commandos now living in the Atlanta area sit down to talk
about their life during wartime and what moving to America
has meant for them.
The site is the living room of a cramped apartment in an
ersatz Colonial complex on a predominantly Asian stretch of
Buford Highway just across the street from the Little Saigon
strip mall. A group of happy, boisterous kids play on the
landing. A strong odor of simmering soup rolls in from the
kitchen.
Sitting around the table are Nhung, 52; Team Greco deputy
commander Quash Rang, 58; and Team Pegasus leader Than Van
Kinh, 67. Acting as interpreter is Ha Van Son, who had been
part of a similar operation, Oplan-35. Son was imprisoned for
19 years and was also declared dead to his family by the
United States. Members of his operation are also being
considered for compensation in the Senate bill.
The men smoke almost constantly and emit a feeling of
haggard world--weariness. They are all dressed similarly, in
Oxford shirts and polyester slacks, and each has salt-and-
pepper hair slicked down and parted to the side. When asked
why they joined on with Oplan-34A, the answer comes quickly
and not without some measure of incredulity.
``Because everybody wanted to fight against the
communists,'' says Son, speaking for the group ``Nobody fight
with any other reason.
Tourison's book is filled with wrenching stories of
commandos being starved and tortured while in prison, and the
experiences of these men were equally brutal. ``All of us
were treated very, very badly,'' says Son. ``All of us were
shackled and put in a small cell for a long time. After that
they take us to a big room where we concentrate with
everybody. But they give us only a little of rice a day.
Sometime no rice, but yellow corn. But the corn that's used
for animals, not for man.''
Even today, many of the commandos still suffer physically
from their time spent in North Vietnamese prisons. ``When we
got tortured, everybody has a problem in their body,''
comments Son. ``Like Than Van Kinh, all his teeth was broken
out.'' With that cue, Kinh opens his mouth wide and taps his
dentures with a finger. ``And my leg sometimes is paralyzed.
Everybody is like that in the winter. Sometimes we get pain
and hurt in the knee and in the body. You see the outside is
good [i.e., they look fine from the outside], but inside
sometimes from the fall to winter, if the weather changes,
everybody gets pain.''
When they were released from prison, their lives improved
little. Because they were branded as traitors in Vietnam, it
was hard to get work. ``It was very, very difficult because
when we go to apply for a job in Vietnam, the Vietnamese
communists check and they know that this was a spy
commando,'' says Son. ``So that everybody has to go to work
as a farmer, and some drive a three-wheeled motorcycle in
Saigon.''
Tourison maintains that U.S. policy toward the commandos
has ruined more than just their own lives. ``In Vietnam, they
are largely excluded from all legal forms of employment,'' he
explains. ``Because of that, the children normally have to
cut their education short to engage in child labor to support
their parents. We have visited the sins on three generations.
The older couples, their children, and their grandchildren.''
In Atlanta, some of the commandos are retired, but most are
employed in various jobs. For example, Nhung works in a
factory that manufacturers containers, Son is a sales and
leasing consultant at an auto dealership, and Rang and his
wife own a beauty salon in Duluth--aptly named American
Nails.
Remarkably, the commandos harbor less anger toward the
United States than one might expect. ``My friend Quach Nhung
say, everybody still have a little anger with the leaders who
betrayed us, but we know that they are not the
representatives of U.S. government right now, they are not
the American people,'' says Son, speaking for his comrade.
``Of course, everybody get angry, but we have to talk with
the American people and the American government to [let them]
know about the facts of history. We think we have to fight
for justice.''
Son has been informed that the commandos should receive
their back pay from the United States in about 18 months.
When they receive those funds, the commandos plan to pool
their resources. ``In Atlanta, we have about 30 commandos,''
explains Son. ``[We] will establish a joint venture
corporation and maybe we will do a business like a Vietnamese
market and everybody will work for our company, every
commando and their family. And we think that corporation may
develop for the commandos' children's future and take care of
the old.''
By combining the money they will get from the U.S.
government, the commandos will have a substantial amount to
work with. However, Son admits that when Americans learn what
happened to them and how much the government is planning on
compensating the commandos, many of them are appalled.
``American people, they say, you are worth $4 million, not
$40,000,'' says Son. ``That's very cheap. It's a little
bit.''
let's screw them again
Even though life seems to be on the upswing for the
commandos, there are still a few snags. Some of the
commandos, including Than Van Kinh, have had problems
bringing their families to this country. His wife and son
have been denied entrance.
``His wife was denied with no reason,'' says Son,
translating Kinh's words. ``We were very surprised because
his wife was waiting for him from the time he was captured in
North Vietnam.''
Tourison also expresses exasperation that Kinh's wife was
denied immigration. ``Over the last 35 years, Than Van Kinh
has spent maybe five or six years with his wife out of all of
his adult life,'' he says. ``This is a woman who worships the
ground this guy walks on. They've been married since the
1950s, and these sons of bitches [in the Immigration and
Naturalization Service], with a stroke of the pen say, `Well
we just don't believe she's your wife.' What are you going to
do at that point? That's just so damn cruel.''
There are also some 70 former still in Vietnam, some of
whom have found getting less than easy.
``This is a relatively small community of people who paid a
higher price than anyone who served us during the war,'' says
Tourison. ``Unfortunately, the State Department and the INS
give them absolutely no priority. What that means is that
when they submit papers to the embassy in Bangkok applying to
depart Vietnam or they get a request for more documents, it
can take six months to a year until someone acts on it. And
you know what happens?
``They die. I have gotten letters from commandos, and then
six months later while they are waiting for an answer from
the embassy in Bangkok, they die. It tears me apart every
damn time that happens because it is so fundamentally wrong
and so fundamentally counter to our own values. They were
first in prison, last out, and let's screw them again.''
As the former commandos wait for their payment from the
United States, as they wait for other comrades and stranded
family members to join them, they say they are enjoying their
lives in America but have not forgotten their homeland. ``Of
course we miss Vietnam,'' says Son. ``And everybody, except
Mr. Kinh, who is too old, every commando thinks if we get a
start on an organization, if we have weapons and we have
[money], we want to go back to Vietnam to fight with the
communists again.
``My friend Quach Nhung, he say, of course now I like it in
America, it is better than in Vietnam, but because we have
sacrificed for our country and for freedom, we did not like
to see the Vietnamese communists take over. We want Vietnam
to be a country with freedom, human rights, and democracy.''
____
The American Legion,
Department of California,
San Francisco, CA, May 1, 1998.
Hon. Loretta Sanchez,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Sanchez: Be it war, police action or a
conflict, everyone who participates puts certain things at
risk. Mainly, their freedom, fortune and happiness--but for a
cause. It is unfortunate that the turn of events which led to
the culmination of the Vietnam Conflict are recorded as they
are in history. But the cost of war does not necessarily stop
with the signing of a peace agreement.
There are other residual costs that should be attended to.
These costs are defined as recognition of those who served as
our allies--those who believed in our causes, crossed the
line and committed to the United States government. I'm sure
if history were unfolded for all to see it would show that
the South Vietnamese commandoes, who aided the United States
government in covert actions against the North Vietnamese,
were responsible for saving many American lives.
To that end, the same recognition due our soldiers,
sailors, marines and airmen involved in the Vietnamese
Conflict should be afforded to the former South Vietnam
commandoes, who so gallantly served and endured.
Sincerely,
Frank C. Larson,
Department Commander.
____
Death Gratuity
15 Sept, 1967.
I, Ha Van Cau TD# 06935, received from Liaison Bureau the
amount of 61,200 $VN for the death of Ha Van Son, son who was
killed while on duty with FOB#1 Phu Bai. The above amount is
paid as survivors death benefits.
This payment reflects full settlement of death gratuity and
the United States Government is hereby released from any
future claims arising from this incident.
Pay computation: 5,100 Monthly Pay12 Months = 61,200.
15 Sept, 1967.
(Name of Employee) Ha Van Son.
(Pay Level and Step) EF-1.
(Number of Dependents) NONE.
(Date Employed) 30 May 1967.
(Date Separated) 2 Sept. 1967.
Reason for Separation: Deceased.
Period for which pay is computed: From 1 August to 2
September 1967.
Base pay: 169 (Daily) 33 (Days Worked) = Base pay due:
5,677$.
Other: Operational mission pay. 150 3 Days = 450 $VN
Total pay due on separation: 6,027$.
[[Page H3736]]
I have received the amount of 6,027$ which represents the
total of all pay and allowances due me upon the termination
of my employment.
Ha Van Cau (F)
(Signature of Employee)
____________________