Tiger Force

Tiger Force was the name of a long-range reconnaissance patrol unit serving under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). Most members formerly served in the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade (Separate), 101st Airborne Division. The unit fought in the Vietnam War from February 1965 to November 1971. Most of the crimes committed by Tiger Force are unsolved and the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. There are many more crimes attributed to Tiger Force that have not been included in the official investigation.

Unit History
The unit was first deployed to the Da Nâng province in September 1965 to conduct search and destroy missions against Viet Cong targets. The objective of Tiger Force was to hunt down and eliminate Viet Cong leadership and conduct sabotage operations against their installations, communication outpost and prison camps. The unit allegedly committed war crimes, some of the worst in the history of the Vietnam War, some members were alleged to have participated in the My Lai massacre as well. There were also protests from several unit members to the mass killings and tortures taking place. Those men would often go MIA or be killed in action after reporting a complaint to their superiors.

Composition
The platoon-sized unit, approximately 45 paratroopers, was founded by Colonel David Hackworth in May 1965 to "outguerrilla the guerrillas". Tiger Force (Recon) 1-327th was a highly decorated small unit in Vietnam, and paid for its reputation with heavy casualties. In October 1968, Tiger Force's parent battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which included a mention of Tiger Force's service at Đắk Tô in June 1966.

Accusations and Investigation of War Crimes
On October 19, 2003, Michael D. Sallah, a reporter at The Blade (Toledo) newspaper, obtained unreleased, confidential records of U.S. Army commander Henry Tufts. One file in these records referred to a previously unpublished war crimes investigation known as the Coy Allegation. To investigate this further, Sallah gained access to a large collection of documents produced by the investigation held at the National Archives in College Park, MD.

Sallah found that between 1971 and 1975, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division (Army CID) had investigated the Tiger Force unit for alleged war crimes committed between May and November 1967. The documents included sworn statements from many Tiger Force veterans, which detailed war crimes allegedly committed by Tiger Force members during the Song Ve Valley and Operation Wheeler military campaigns. The statements, from both individuals who allegedly participated in the war crimes and those that did not, described war crimes such as the following: The investigators concluded that many of the war crimes indeed took place. This included the murder of former-ARVN personnel, the murder of two blind brothers, the crippled and old and the routine murder of women and children. Despite this, the Army decided not to pursue any prosecutions.
 * the routine brutal torture and execution of prisoners
 * the routine practice of intentionally killing unarmed Vietnamese villagers including men, women, children, and elderly people
 * the routine practice of cutting off and collecting the ears of victims, it was an indigenous belief among the Vietnamese that to get into the afterlife one's body needed to be intact, so these soldiers are not just desecrating their victims' bodies, but trapping their souls here on earth
 * the practice of wearing necklaces composed of human ears
 * the practice of cutting off and collecting the scalps of victims
 * incidents where soldiers would plant weapons on murdered Vietnamese villagers
 * an incident where a young mother was drugged, raped, and then executed
 * an incident where a soldier killed a baby and cut off his or her head after the baby's mother was murdered

Their high bodycounts were recognised and encouraged by military officials. Col. Morse ordered troops to rack up a body count of 327 casualties in order to match the battalion's infantry designation, 327th; however by the end of the campaign soldiers were congratulated for their 1000th kill. Those killed were listed as enemy combatants under the body count system.

After studying the documents, Sallah and fellow reporter Mitch Weiss located and interviewed dozens of veterans who served in Tiger Force during the period in question as well as the CID investigators who later carried out the Army's inquiry. The reporters also traveled to Vietnam and tracked down numerous residents of Song Ve Valley who identified themselves as witnesses. Sallah and Weiss reported that the war crimes were corroborated by both veterans and Song Ve Valley residents. The reporters also managed to track down dozens of additional investigative records not included in the National Archives.

In October 2003, the reporters published their findings in a series of articles in The Toledo Blade. Subsequently, The New York Times performed their own investigation, contacting a few Tiger Force veterans and corroborating The Toledo Blade 's findings.

Since The Blade 's story, the United States Army has opened a review of the former Tiger Force investigation, but has not yet provided much additional information. On May 11, 2004, Lt. Col. Pamela Hart informed The Blade reporters that she had been too busy responding to prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to check on the status of the Tiger Force case. The Blade has not reported on any more recent updates from the U.S. Army.

List of Members

 * Lt. Col. David Hackworth, unit founder
 * Lt. Col. Harold Austin
 * Lt. Col. Joseph Collins
 * John "Dynamite" Hughes (original member)
 * Lt. Col. Gerald Morse (radiocall = Ghost Rider, retired in 1979) Battalion commander, and not an actual member of the team.
 * Capt. Carl James
 * Capt. Harold McGaha
 * Capt. Bradford Mutchler
 * Lt. Dennis Foley
 * Lt. Gary Forbes
 * Lt. James Hawkins (Implicated in leading nearly all controversial events)
 * Lt. James A. Gardner (awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously) killed in action, before any of the controversial events
 * Lt. William F. Kernan
 * Lt. Stephen Naughton
 * Lt. Edward Sanders
 * Lt. Donald Wood (whistleblower)
 * Lt. Skip Franks (whistleblower)
 * Ssg. John G. Gertsch (awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously) killed in action
 * Sgt. James Barnett
 * PFC David J Broadhead (awarded silver star, bronze star) KIA 2/7/66
 * Sgt. Gerald Bruner (whistleblower)
 * Sgt. Robert Diaz
 * Sgt. William Doyle
 * Sgt. Jasper Murray (alleged to have started the practise of cutting off ears)
 * Sgt. Charles Fulton
 * Sgt. Kenneth Green
 * SFC. Terry Gammage
 * Sgt. James Haugh
 * Sgt. Leo Heaney
 * Sgt. Eric Walker (missing in action)
 * Sgt. Ervin Lee
 * Sgt. Forrest Miller
 * Sgt. Ernest Moreland
 * Sgt. Domingo Munoz KIA 7/28/67
 * Sgt. Terry Lee Oakden
 * Sgt. Cleve Rose (before any controversial events)
 * Sgt. Manuel Sanchez Jr.
 * Sgt. Edward Shigley (Silver Star)
 * Sgt. Harold Trout
 * Sgt. Robin Varney
 * Spc. Barry Bowman
 * Spc. Lonnie Butts (awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, posthumously) killed in action, before any of the controversial events
 * Spc. William Carpenter (whistleblower)
 * Spc. Ralph Greenfield (Bronze Star)
 * Spc. Jean Louis Soucy
 * Pvt. Michael Allums
 * Pvt. Edward Beck
 * Pvt. Rion Causey (whistleblower)
 * Pvt. Daniel Clint
 * Pvt. James Cogan
 * Pvt. John Colligan
 * Pvt. Harold Fischer III
 * Pvt. Jerry Ingram
 * Pvt. Kenneth Kerney (whistleblower)
 * Pvt. Terrence Kerrigan
 * Pvt. Gary Kornatowski
 * Pvt. Ralph Mayhew
 * Pvt. James Messer
 * Pvt. Cecil Peden
 * Pvt. Floyd Sawyer
 * Pvt. Douglas Teeters
 * Pvt. Sam Ybarra
 * Pvt. Jim Raysor
 * Joseph Evans
 * Platoon Medic Larry Cottingham
 * Spec. Richard Russell (awarded 3 bronze stars 1 for valor, 4 purple hearts, army commendation medal and good conduct medal) was not with Tiger Force till 1968.
 * PFC. Sterling Craig Hendricks, Bronze Star, Purple heart, KIA April 19, 1967
 * Spec. Dallas Rogers (awarded 2 purple hearts, Bronze Star, ARCOM medal.)
 * Sgt. Brandon Hovey, Tiger Force member 2015-P, not involved in war crimes.

On Criminal Minds
Tiger Force may have inspired the "Ragtag Operatives" from A Badge and a Gun and Derek in Season 11.