Pulitzer-Prize winners Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss discuss their book Tiger Force: A true story of men and war. Tiger Force is an investigation into a reconnaissance platoon, created in 1965 to report air strikes and to kill the enemy in Vietnam. The authors tell stories of the killings that took place at the hands of the Tiger Force soldiers during the Vietnam War. According to the authors this was the longest series of atrocities committed during the war. These events did not become of public knowledge until three years ago. Michael Sallah, Mitch Weiss, and a fellow reporter received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for their coverage of the story in the Toledo Blade.
Michael Sallah is the investigations editor for the Miami Herald. Mitch Weiss is the deputy business editor for the Charlotte Observer.
Bio
Michael Sallah
Michael Sallah is the investigations editor for the Miami Herald. A Pulitzer Prize winner with Mitch Weiss in 2004, for their investigative reporting on the Tiger Force massacre.
Mitch Weiss
Mitch Weiss is the deputy business editor for the Charlotte Observer. Mr. Weiss has won several state and national awards for his reporting and writing, including a Pulitzer Prize with Michael Sallah in 2004, for their investigative reporting on the Tiger Force massacre.
I found Sallah and Weiss’s talk to be so tragic. They have uncovered and published the terrible atrocities of the Tiger Force platoon in Vietnam, where US soldiers killed thousands of unarmed women and children with “reckless abandon.†Their description of soldiers wearing necklaces made of human ears reveals the barbarity of the crimes. At the same time, in interviewing former soldiers they really try to understand how this happened: Many were 18-20 year old kids, terrified by the war’s extreme horror and stress, and who spent the rest of their lives wrecked with guilt and pain for the brutalities they committed.