Despite the prevailing image of
the modern American soldier as a dedicated professional bound by a code of
behavior, the United States Army and Marine Corps continue to struggle with the
reality of war crimes against civilians and combatants alike. Explanations for the breakdowns in discipline
war crimes represent focus on the dehumanization of the enemy, training to obey
orders without question, frustration at the inability to engage the enemy in
set-piece battles, and the desire for vengeance. One factor missing from explanations for the
continued occurrence of war crimes is that of religious difference between the
perpetrators of war crimes and of their targets. The issue of religion is multifaceted, having
roles of self and group identification and as a belief system. Both facets may play a significant role in
the likelihood of individual soldiers’ involvement in war crimes against
civilians.
Examining the responses of
American paratroopers, William Cockerham and Lawrence Cohen argue that soldiers
most committed to the military, soldiers who receive the most training designed
to instill blind obedience, and soldiers from rural areas or the American South
were most likely to obey an illegal order, even after Lt. William Calley’s
conviction for failing to refuse the illegal orders of his commanding officer
at My Lai. Despite a high correlation of
these factors and a soldiers’ willingness to obey an illegal order, Cockerham
and Cohen acknowledge enough variance in attitude among the soldiers of the
United States Army regarding illegal orders that there are obviously other
factors involved. Personal religious
beliefs of the soldiers are an obvious variable missing from their study.[i]
Michael Bernhardt’s testimony
before the Peers Commission regarding the My Lai Massacre provides additional
insight into the social and behavioral sources of war crimes. Bernhardt testified that the soldiers at My
Lai viewed the Vietnamese as less than human due to cultural differences, and
an inability to communicate.[ii] Charlie Company’s soldiers learned these
values through their experiences in Vietnam, through the tutelage of their
commanding officer Ernst Medina, and through their preparatory training. They were taught that the Vietnamese were
less than human, culturally and biologically less valuable than Americans, one
soldier reports, “throughout training they emphasized the animalness of the
Vietnamese. They were sub-human we were
told. We could do anything we wanted to
them when we got there.”[iii] The profoundly negative feeling found in
these statements had far reaching effects, not only in terms of war crimes, but
also in the ability to select soldiers or Marines for missions. Bing West contends that when the Marine Corps
created the first experimental Combined Action Platoon, which relied on close
cooperation between Marines and local village militias, personnel selection was
a problem. General Lewis W. Walt
insisted that the unit consists only of Marines who interacted well with
Vietnamese, but surveys showed that at least forty percent of Marines actively
disliked them. The problem was
particularly acute among junior officers and NCOs that led small units.[iv]
When combined with Patricia Hill’s
promotion of religion as an analytical tool for the cultural approach to
diplomatic history at the state level this provides insight into how and why
the analysis of the social and cultural bases for war crimes should include a
systematic analysis of the religious views of private soldiers and their
leaders. If the missionary family
origins of the leaders of the Cold War State Department influenced how they
managed Cold War relations, religion might certainly exert an effect on the actions
and perceptions of soldiers in combat.[v]
The work of social scientists into
measuring religiosity and its affects on American attitudes and behaviors provide
an entrée for evaluating it in the historical context. James D. Davidson argues that different types
of religious beliefs have a direct relationship to the individual’s
conduct. Religious belief fell into two
categories, vertical belief which focuses on the transcendent aspects of belief
and humanity’s place in that order, and horizontal belief which focuses on
relationships with people. Davidson
found that individuals exhibiting a high level of vertical belief were most
likely to derive comfort from their faith, while those exhibiting high levels
of horizontal belief were most likely to become socially active due to
religious belief.[vi]
The question, then, is what role
does religion play in the likelihood soldiers will commit atrocities. If religious variance plays a role is the
primary motivating factor one of identification of civilians as “other” due to
religious identification, or does religious belief itself provide the
motivating factor? Based on Michael
Barnhardt’s testimony, it is reasonable to assume that group identification is
the primary religious factor in creating the dehumanization necessary for
soldiers to commit atrocities. However,
research into the complex relationship between religiosity and prejudice
demonstrates a significantly more complex phenomenon at work.
The relationship between
religiosity and prejudice, hence dehumanization of “enemy” civilians, is poorly
understood. Measuring religiosity is
problematic. How the variables “religiosity”
and “prejudice” are defined and used in research instruments create
wide-ranging variance in results, resulting in reports of positive
relationships between religiosity and prejudice, negative relationships between
religiosity and prejudice, or varied relationships between the two.[vii] By using narrowly defined measures of both
religiosity and prejudice and measuring each independently, Cygnar, Noel, and
Jacobson, found that three standard measures of religiosity – orthodoxy,
ritual, and knowledge – did not have a statistically significant relationship
with indicators of prejudice. However,
two other standard measures of religiosity – fanaticism and importance – bore a
significant relationship to expressions of prejudice.[viii] It appears, then, that a definite
relationship between religiosity and prejudice exists. The relationship between these two factors is
not definitive. The variance between
measures of religiosity and measures of prejudice clearly shows that individuals
defined as religious are not a homogenous group. Further, the manner in which measures are
defined may influence the interpretation of results – religiosity follows the
present theology, meaning that both the outward display of religion and the
content of belief must be part of any analysis.[ix]
Ronald Palosari, who served in the
infamous Americal Division from 1967 to 1968, reported atrocities performed by
soldiers of that division based on the perceived religious beliefs of the
enemy. In an incident recounted during
his testimony at the controversial Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971,
Palosari claimed that members of the Civilian Independent Defense Group had cut
an ear off a dead North Vietnamese Army soldier. Their rationale was that of the commonly
understood stereotype of trophy gathering, but because they believed “that
according to Buddhism, unless your body is complete, you cannot go wherever it
is that the Buddhists go to after they die.”[x] The soldiers witnessing the grotesque task
thought that it was humorous and manly to take part is the desecration of the
enemy fallen.
The source of this anecdote raises
serious concerns about the reliability and availability of information about
the motives, especially religious motives, of the perpetrators of war
crimes. The controversy surrounding the
Winter Soldier Investigation continues, as political opponents regularly argue
that military authorities were unable to verify that the atrocities reported
occurred, and that at least one organizer did not actually serve in
Vietnam. Winter Soldier detractors also
argue that Senator John Kerry and other participants did not provide
documentation of the crimes they witnessed or performed.[xi]
Sources for this research present
other challenges. Foremost among these
is that information about participation and motivation for participation or
reporting war crimes is usually self-reported.
This means relying on testimony potentially tainted by political
motivations, such as that in the Winter Soldier Investigations, testimony
before courts-martial or Congressional committee used to deflect or cast blame
on others, or unwillingness to candidly discuss events for personal and
professional reasons. It is also
possible that sources do not fully understand or remember their motivations in
the heat of the moment. Collections of
letters from soldiers and Marines serving in Vietnam come under editorial
pressure to present the conflict in a way that will not risk the displeasure of
the primary market for such literature – veterans and their families.
Religious language does appear in these
sources, however, providing a tantalizing glimpse of both religious identity
and belief played a significant role for those serving in Vietnam. Chief Warrant Officer Anthony De Angelis
wrote to his wife that, “I’m sorry but I don’t know how it happened, but I lost
the Saint Christopher medal you gave me; it must have come loose from the
chain. I feel real bad about it….”[xii]
Similarly, Sergeant Charlie B. Dickey wrote to his wife in 1969 saying, “If the
Lord decides He wants me with Him, I want you to know that I go into battle
with a clear conscience and a very satisfied mind.”[xiii] CS1 James C. Kline, a U.S. Navy Petty
Officer, wrote to his seven year-old son to explain why he is fighting halfway
around the world in specifically religious terms. After asking him to faithfully keep the Ten
Commandments, Kline writes,
“Jesus had a cross to bear and all of us over here have our
cross to bear. We may falter but must
carry the load ourselves as Jesus did, but we can all on him anytime the load
gets too heavy or we need help. There
are a lot of fathers here that are making their sacrifice so that their sons
and you may have a free country to grow up in – to have the right to worship as
you choose and to make yourself as you see fit.”[xiv]
Kline’s missive defines the war as
both religious and ideological in nature, illustrating the role of religious
belief in the motivations of some of the men serving in the conflict. However, it does not provide insight into his
behavior, or that of others, on the battlefield.
Enlisting in 1966, Barry Romo
believed he was fighting to save Vietnamese Catholics from Communists, who he
believed were the “new Nazis in the world.”[xv] Joining the Marines allowed him to
demonstrate his manhood, earn money for college, and fulfill his religious
duty. Marine Corps Sergeant Greg Moody
similarly felt religious conviction in his experience of the war. Writing back to his pastor, Dr. James L.
Pleitz, Moody wrote:
“The
Americans have taken for granted their wonderful freedom, which is a dream to
the Vietnamese people here. With God’s
willingness and his protection, when I return home I will treasure my freedom I
have been blessed with along with the Lord’s mercy and kindness he has bestowed
upon our nation.”[xvi]
Moody also asked his pastor for
assistance in understanding the Buddhist majority of Vietnam, referring to
Jeremiah 20:2, discussing the ways of the heathen. Moody’s belief is such that he not only turns
to religion for solace, but also to explain the world. Sergeant David L. Glading echoed Moody’s need
for answers about Vietnam when he wrote to his girlfriend in 1969 wondering
what the point of the war was, saying that he wonders “what God thinks about
the whole situation.” He is careful to
state that he is not antiwar or a “longhair”, that he loves God and Country,
but that it would be simpler, easier to have fought a world war to defend
America.[xvii]
Soldiers involved in atrocities
sometimes viewed the aftermath in explicitly religious terms. When Paul Meadlo, a veteran of the My Lai
Massacre, stepped on a landmine the following day, losing a foot, he believed
that God was punishing him for My Lai.
After the incident, other soldiers heard Meadlo tell platoon
leader Lieutenant William Calley that “God will punish you for what you made me
do.”[xviii] Long after the war veterans that participated
in war crimes, as did W.D. Ehrhart, who killed an unarmed elderly woman fleeing
from American soldiers and participated in a gang rape, wondered if his
post-war tendency toward violence in personal relationships was a form of
punishment, telling a friend:
“I think
the stuff I did in Vietnam has left me-well, like something inside of me got
broken and isn’t ever going to get better….If I believed in God, I’d think it
was some kind of divine retribution for all the murder and mayhem.”[xix]
Other soldiers found that their
experience in Vietnam drove them away from their faith. When Joe Urgo returned from Vietnam on
Christmas Eve in 1968, he immediately attended midnight mass with his family. When the priest spoke only of divine grace,
Urgo became angry that the suffering he ignored the real suffering in the
world, and left the Church entirely.[xx]
Tying the historical concept of
chivalry, and hence the fateful combination of honor, masculinity, and religion
into the question of war crimes in Vietnam is challenging, but perhaps also the
key to creating and understanding of any potential relationship between
religion and war crimes in the conflict.
After the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, Georgia Senator
Richard Russell contended, “Our national honor is at stake. We cannot and will not shrink from defending
it.”[xxi] The problem with Vietnam and other conflicts
with a large component of irregular warfare is that it cannot fulfill
traditional Western understandings of honorable combat in which two equal
forces face each other in decisive battle.
Marine Corps General Robert E.
Cushman, commander of I Corps in Vietnam complained that defensive fighting was
not in the Marines’ makeup, arguing that Marines
digging in to defend were “like antichrists at Vespers”. He contended that in the field where Army units would dig in,
Marine units should not because training did not focus on constructing field
works. Instead, he believed Marines should focus more on the “fatal
gesture” than mere survival.[xxii] Marine leaders like Cushman fantasized about the glory of
the frontal assault and the romance of “a line of determined men firing short
bursts from the hip as they advanced on the enemy at a stately walk.”[xxiii]
The frustration being unable to
come to grips with the enemy is the most frequent reason American soldiers gave
for committing atrocities – the enemy did not play fair. While the regular soldiers of the North
Vietnamese Army fought in formation and with discipline, the more common
opponent for American soldiers were the Viet Cong guerillas that used stealth,
sniping, and booby traps.[xxiv] The feeling that the main enemy was
unknowable comes clearly from W.D. Ehrhart, whose poetry acts as a kind of
catharsis.
It’s
practically impossible
To tell
civilians
From the
Vietcong.
Nobody
wears uniforms.
They all
talk
The same
language,
(and you
couldn’t understand them
even if
they didn’t.
They tape
grenades
Inside
their clothes,
And carry
satchel charges
In their
market baskets
Even
their women fight;
And young
boys,
And
girls.
It’s
practically impossible
To tell
civilians
From the
Vietcong;
After
awhile.
You quit
trying.[xxv]
Michael Barnhardt, who was a
member of the infantry company responsible for the My Lai massacre, agreed with
Ehrhart’s sentiment when he testified “There is a lot of frustration that is
among the men over there, and these frustrations cannot be directed at those
responsible for them, and so, they’re directed at what they can be directed
at. In other words, sort of making a
whipping boy out of the South Vietnamese population.”[xxvi] Some soldiers were also bewildered by the
hatred and fear they saw in the eyes of the people they were there to
protect. When Bobby Muller arrived in
South Vietnam, he thought of himself as “a hero and a liberator.” He surprised by the civilian reaction to
American soldiers, that his units was harassed everywhere it went, and by the
lack of fighting spirit in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, where the enemy
was implacable.[xxvii] With these issues in mind, Western concepts
of Chivalry may be exactly the analytical tool required to assess any potential
correlation between religion and war crimes in Vietnam.
An apparent connection between Late
Medieval chivalric notions of service in war and combat emerges in how World
War II veterans, who fought a great Crusade against dictators and tyrants, portrayed war to their children. Many taught sons that going to fight in
Vietnam was their opportunity to become a man, to participate in an epic battle
against evil. Rather than merely an individual
issue, these men turned participating in Vietnam a matter of “duty, obligation,
and honor” that made going to war “a matter of moral debt.”[xxviii] Even in individuals not professing strong
religious beliefs, these ideals bear a religious overtone that mirrors
that of an earlier age.
Not only were chivalric knights
required to fight in the proper, honorable manner, against opponents of equal
social rank and skill, but also they included a specifically religious code of
conduct in their belief system. The
brotherly equality of equals was as embedded in the chivalric code, as it is in
American culture, which soldiers in Vietnam would carry with them.[xxix] The rite of passage and award of arms
associated with Medieval knighthood may find its modern equivalent in
graduation from Basic Military Training or other, more advanced schools of arms
in the United States military. This may
be particularly true of the Marine Corps, which deliberately pursues an image
of valor and honor in public media, and adopted the motto “Semper Fidelis” –
Always Faithful to enshrine its ideals of service.
General Cushman’s comments on the
Marine Corps’ ethos of combat particularly evoke the chivalric ideal of heavy,
close, aggressive combat between equals.
His description of the stately walk of disciplined ranks advancing into
the onslaught of enemy fire with grim determination calls to mind the charge of
the heavy armored French knight.
Cushman’s rejection of defensive fighting and fortifications echoes the
charge of French knights against the dismounted English at Poitiers. Like the French, Cushman wanted his Marines to
strike the lethal blow – safer tactics were left to lesser beings.
In this conception of honor and
chivalry lays a potential danger for American troops.
By only acknowledging enemies that fight according to their rules, those
that favor them, as equals deserving respect, soldiers and Marines cast all of
those defined as other into a category, which deserved no respect or
quarter. W.D. Erhhart and Michael
Barnhardt described the mechanism that created this scenario – all Vietnamese
became the enemy, and those who did not wear uniforms or fight “fairly” lost the
protections of the laws of war.
One significant challenge to the
comparison of American troops’ behavior in Vietnam and that of Medieval knights
is that of forms of etiquette toward each other and toward women. Incidents of “fragging”, in which enlisted
men attacked officers and NCOs fall outside the apparent code of honor implied
by the use of chivalry as an analytical tool.
Reports of rape and treatment of prostitutes also seem to fail outside
the chivalric ideal. How then to
reconcile this gap in behavior and code of honor?
A solution is to argue that
the modern incarnation of the chivalric ideal in the American context extends
only to the proper forms of combat as force on force without deception. However, this understanding ignores the class
content of Medieval chivalry. Its
dictates only applied to members of equivalent social class – the nobility. When soldiers defined the vast majority of
the Vietnamese populace as sub-human, they lost the protections a code of
chivalry such as that of the Medieval knighthood afforded. That meant that the women and girls raped at
My Lai by members of the Americal Division fell outside the protections of
normal soldierly codes of conduct toward civilians – they were not only
associated with the enemy Other, but with an enemy that did not follow the
accepted rules of honorable combat, and one defined as sub-human. In this way, behavior that many observers believed fell outside the context of the laws of war and
soldierly honor falls within the realm of earlier understandings of proper
warfare.
The connection between these two
analytical concepts: religion and chivalry become clear by comparing Geoffroi
de Charny and Charles B. Dickey. Charny,
writing in the fourteenth century argued that knighthood was akin to a
religious vocation, in which the knight undertook Holy Orders in service to
God, and should go into battle with a clear conscience in order to be prepared
to meet his maker.[xxx]
Writing from Vietnam, Dickey avers to go
into battle ready to meet his fate if God so chooses, confident that he is
following the correct course.
Despite the difficulties in coming
to grips with the effects, if religious identity and belief on the actions of
individual soldiers and Marines, it is clear that a relationship exists. Due to the vagaries of individual human
nature, however, how religious belief and identity manifest in battlefield
behavior remains hard to ascertain. More
sources of information and more precise analytical tools focused on determining
religiosity are needed in order to find patterns of behavior that may be
generalizable across populations.
[i] William
C. Cockerham and Lawrence E. Cohen. “Obedience to Orders: Issues of Morality
and Legality in Combat among U.S. Paratroops,” Social Forces 58, No. 4 (1980), 1272.
[ii] James
S. Olson and Randy Roberts. My Lai: A
Brief History with Documents (Boston, Bedford St. Martins, 1998), 50.
[iii] Lloyd
Lewis. The Tainted War: Culture and
Identity in Vietnam War Narratives (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985),
57.
[iv] Bing
West. The Village: Fifteen Walked
In. Eight Walked Out. (New York:
Pocket Books, 2003), 13.
[v] Patricia,
R. Hill. “Commentary: Religion as a Category of Diplomatic Analysis,” Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (2000),
634.
[vi] James
D. Davidson. “Religious Belief as an Independent Variable,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
11, no. 11 (1972), 73.
[vii] Thomas
E. Cygnar, Donald L. Noel, and Cardell K. Jacobson. “Religiosity and Prejudice:
An Interdimensional Analysis,” Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion 16, no. 2 (1977), 183.
[viii]
Cygnar, Noel, and Jacobson, “Religiosity and Prejudice,” 186.
[ix] Cygnar,
Noel, and Jacobson, “Religiosity and Prejudice,” 188.
[x] Winter
Soldier Investigation, “Americal, Part 1.” 28 January 1999, 13 April 2009 <
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_49_Americal.html>.
Bitterness lingers over young
Kerry's Senate appearance,” San Francisco
Chronicle 17 October 2004, 13 April 2009 <
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/17/ING3Q98R2J1.DTL>.
[xii] Bill
Adler. Letters from Vietnam (New
York, Random House Publishing, 2003), 16.
[xiii]
Adler, Letters from Vietnam, 84.
[xiv] Adler,
Letters from Vietnam, 150.
[xv] Richard
Stacewicz, ed. Winter Soldiers: An Oral
History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (New York: Twayne
Publishers, 1997), 34.
[xvi] Adler,
Letters from Vietnam, 204.
[xvii]
Adler, Letters from Vietnam, 226.
[xviii]
Robert Jay Lifton. Home From the War:
Vietnam Veterans: Neither Victims nor Executioners (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1973), 57.
[xix]
William H. Becker. “Spiritual Struggle and Resistance to It: The Case of
Vietnam Veterans,” Journal of Law and
Religion 13, no. 1 (1999), 95.
[xx]
Stacewicz, 127.
[xxi] Leo
Braudy. From Chivalry to Terrorism
(New York, Alfred A Knopf, 2003), 528.
[xxii] Lloyd
B. Lewis. The Tainted War: Culture and
Identity in Vietnam War Narratives (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985),
29.
[xxiii]
Lewis, The Tainted War, 29.
[xxiv]
Richard Burks Verrone and Laura M. Calkins. Voices
from Vietnam (Devon, UK: David & Charles, 2005), 96.
[xxv] W.D.
Ehrhart. Unaccustomed Mercy:
Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press,
1989), 57.
[xxvi] Olson
and Roberts, My Lai, 50.
[xxvii] Kim
Willenson. The Bad War: An Oral History
of the Vietnam War (New York: New American Library, 1987), 113.
[xxviii]
Lewis, 45.
[xxix]
Jeremy duQuesnay Adams. “Modern Views of Chivalry, 1884-1984,” The Study of Chivalry: Resources and
Practices, eds. Howell Chickering and Thomas Seiler (New York: Simon and
Schuster 1988), 41-89.
[xxx] Keen,
Maurice. Chivalry (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984), 6-12.
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