-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.CNSNEWS.com/ViewPentagon.asp?Page=\Pentagon\archive\200105\PEN20010 501a.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.CNSNEWS.com/ViewPentagon.asp?Page=\Pentagon\archive\200105\PE N20010501a.html">http://www.CNSNEWS.com/ViewPentagon.asp</A> ----- Former Nebraska Senator Calls for Kerrey Probe By Lawrence Morahan CNS Senior Staff Writer May 01, 2001 (CNSNews.com) - A Vietnam veteran and former Nebraska state senator is calling for a "legitimate investigation" into the action of former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, who recently disclosed he led a unit that killed women and children non-combatants in Vietnam in 1969. There were no wounded, either American or Vietnamese, after American soldiers returned fire in the Vietnamese village of Thanh Phong on the night of Feb. 25, 1969, killing more than a dozen unarmed women and children, said attorney John DeCamp. "You all know what this means," said DeCamp, a veterans' advocate who conducted his first political campaign while serving as an Army captain in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta in 1969 and 1970. DeCamp won election and served as senator from 1971 to 1987. The Lincoln attorney addressed his allegations in a letter to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), all Vietnam veterans who took to the airwaves on the weekend to defend Kerrey. DeCamp charged the Pentagon with knowingly falsifying official records and falsely labeling unarmed women and children as Viet Cong combatants. The Pentagon awarded medals for actions that warranted investigation as war crimes, he said. Kerrey only came forward when he knew the story was about to be published in The New York Times Magazine, DeCamp said. "No claim has been presented by Kerrey or others, I believe, that there were any Viet Cong or Viet Cong soldiers they saw captured, killed, wounded or saw run away," DeCamp said. The SEALs invoked the "code of silence" to protect their commander, he charged. The letter's recipients said on TV they had no desire to see the Pentagon open an investigation into the incident, for which Kerrey was awarded the Bronze Star. "To talk now about an investigation, it seems to me, is just the wrong way to go," Kerry said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "If the Pentagon asked me, I'd say no." "There's no point in it," Hagel said. "I don't think we need an investigation here." Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator, and five other former members of his Navy SEAL team, said in a written statement to The Washington Post that what happened at Thanh Phong "was a defining and tragic moment for each of us." "We regret the results of this night. We might do things differently if we could do it over. But we cannot be certain. We were young men then and did what we thought was right and necessary," they said. Another member of the SEAL team, Gerhard Klann, said in interviews that Kerrey ordered the shooting of civilian women, children and elderly in the village. "That simply is not true," Kerrey and the others stated. "We know there was an enemy meeting in this village. We know this meeting had been secured by armed forces. We took fire from these forces and we returned fire." The Pentagon last week left open the possibility of investigating the award of a Bronze Star to Kerrey. The citation for the combat medal says 21 Viet Cong were killed and enemy weapons were captured or destroyed. Kerrey said he told his military superiors that his squad killed civilians. A Pentagon spokesman said Monday that allegations such as those leveled against Kerrey and his squad are considered on their merit before any official action is taken, and the Defense Department was not considering investigating the incident at Thanh Phong. Vietnam veterans also said they did not favor singling out Kerrey for investigation. "I wouldn't say it's something they absolutely should not do," said Ed Miles, associate director of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. "If the evidence was there, they should do it, but I think if you do that, this should serve as an opportunity to look at the war and the rules of engagement, which to me is more important than trying to determine what happened in this village." "The Americans have never taken responsibility for this war and the way it was fought, and they should use this as an opportunity to do that," added Miles, who was wounded in action in a village like Thanh Phong in 1969. 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