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Witnesses Disputes Kerrey's Account of Attack Vietnamese Village
Bui Thi Luom says she was 12 years old when seven Americans with guns stormed into her Mekong Delta village, rounding up women and children. She says she watched helplessly as the soldiers opened fire, despite her grandmother's pleadings for mercy.
She was the only survivor in her hut of 16 people ¡ª 11 children and five women, she said.
Luom's account, told for the first time to journalists on Saturday, follows the public acknowledgment last week by former Sen. Bob Kerrey that civilians were killed during a commando raid by his U.S. Navy SEAL team on this coastal village 32 years ago.
Kerrey said he has been privately haunted ever since by the memory of killing civilians, but he insisted the SEALS opened fire only after being fired on.
However, The New York Times and CBS's 60 Minutes II, in a joint reporting project, quoted another ex-SEAL, Gerhard Klann, as saying the civilians were herded into a group and massacred at Thanh Phon.
Kerrey, who later served as Nebraska governor and senator, and ran for president in 1992, received a Bronze Star medal for the Feb. 25, 1969 raid.
Now the president of New York's New School University, Kerrey says the village was a declared "free-fire zone" where everyone was regarded as hostile. The attack was prompted by intelligence reports saying Viet Cong officials planned a meeting there that night and that no civilians would be present, he says.
"We fired because we were fired upon," Kerrey told a New York news conference on Thursday. "We did not go out on a mission to kill innocent people. I feel guilty about what happened."
Kerrey could not be immediately reached for additional comment Saturday.
Although Kerrey insists that his written after-action report mentioned civilian deaths, SEAL message exchanges later that day ¡ª and his Bronze Star citation ¡ª refer only to 21 Viet Cong killed. Radio logs two days later said 24 died, 13 civilians and 11 VC.
Luom, now 44, told reporters there were no Viet Cong in Thanh Phong, and only the Americans fired weapons. "They only killed civilians, women and children. No VC," she said. Altogether, 20 people were killed, she said.
A small woman with a shy smile, Luom lives with her husband and five children in a nearby fishing village.
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