Former U.S. Navy Officer Clears Conscience, Confesses Vietnam Secret

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Democrat who served as governor and senator from Nebraska and ran for president in 1992, publicly disclosed this week that he had led a squad that killed women and children during the Vietnam War. He said he has been haunted by the memory of the killings and has kept the details private, even from his children. Once he told them, he said, ''they told me they still love me.''

Kerrey received the Bronze Star for the Feb. 25, 1969, raid in the Mekong Delta. The award citation says 21 Viet Cong were killed and enemy weapons were captured or destroyed, though Kerrey has said he told his superiors there were civilian casualties.

Witness' and official accounts of the number of dead varies from 13 to more than 20.

Kerrey said he and his six-member squad began shooting only after they were shot at in a free-fire zone ¡ª an area cleared of civilians by the U.S. military. Anyone remaining was assumed by South Vietnamese and U.S. forces to be the enemy.

"It may be that I did nothing wrong," Kerrey said. "But I felt like I did something wrong. Here's what happened, and I cannot justify it."

The incident was part of an effort to halt Viet Cong movements and activities in the Mekong Delta.

Kerrey, then 25, was a lieutenant leading an elite seven-man team of Navy SEALS. They were approaching an area where intelligence suggested a Viet Cong meeting was to take place.

As Kerrey and his men approached two huts on a dark, moonless night, they were fired upon and returned it on Kerrey's orders. Once the shooting stopped, they found that the only people killed were women, children and older men.

Kerrey had remained silent on the incident until recently, when former squad member Gerhard Klann told "60 Minutes II" and The New York Times that Vietnamese civilians were herded into a group and massacred.

Seventeen days after the incident, Kerrey earned the Medal of Honor ¡ª America's highest military honor ¡ª for directing an attack on a Viet Cong unit even after losing part of his right leg when a grenade exploded at his feet.

Kerrey, who recently became president of the New School University in New York, initially spoke about the incident April 18 at an ROTC leadership seminar at the Virginia Military Institute.












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