Word: commands
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...senior legal officer, Colonel John Douglass was the man to whom Herbert first complained after Major General John Barnes relieved him of battalion command on April 4, 1969. Douglass categorically denied Herbert's version of their conversation. According to Herbert, he spoke at length to Douglass and told him about the atrocities. Douglass said that it was a short meeting with no mention of bloodshed. "Why haven't you said this up to now?" Wallace asked incredulously. "Nobody's asked me," replied Douglass...
...program undermines Herbert's credibility without supporting the Army's. During his 58-day battalion command, Herbert earned a Silver and three Bronze Stars and was about to be recommended for a Distinguished Service Cross. Then he was abruptly relieved of his job. The explanation Barnes offered Wallace-that Herbert lied about enemy casualties and was a "killer"-seemed lame. Not surprisingly, 60 Minutes endorsed Herbert's request that the Army make public all records of hearings and investigations related to his case...
...When he was finally sent to Viet Nam for a regular tour in August 1968, he was a lieutenant colonel-one of the best-trained, most highly respected officers in the service, with a string of outstanding evaluation reports behind him and a promise of a slot at the Command and General Staff School before him-a necessary stop on the way to the top of the Army hierarchy...
Tiger. After chafing for four months at desk jobs, Herbert got what he had always longed for-the command of a battalion. He quickly turned it into a model for the entire brigade. Most commanders in Viet Nam watched the action from helicopters-a form of vertical absenteeism. Herbert led his men on the ground, right down into enemy bunkers. Fellow officers often relied upon artillery strikes to do the killing and the grunts to do the counting after death. Partly as a result, civilian dead were regularly recorded as killed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers. Herbert trained...
Then suddenly a terrible change set in. One minute Herbert was a hero about to be put up for a Distinguished Service Cross. The next, he was stripped of his field command, packed off to a Stateside desk job, and harassed and humiliated until he was forced to retire...