Chi Trong Hoang (2008) Jeffrey Wolin

Chi Trong Hoang ARVN 2nd Lieutenant “I did work with the American troops when I first joined the army. Later on I didn’t work with them any more but during the war when I was in Cambodia for some reason I was made a liaison officer with the Americans. I tried to help them, flying helicopters with them. If they found something and they wanted to shoot or bomb they had to ask me first. If I say no, they cannot shoot. If I say yes, it was hell for the people down there on the ground. Most of the time if I say no, the Americans were upset but I looked at the people and I know who they are; they are villagers, but the Americans don’t know that. In Cambodia for a few months I flew helicopters with the Americans. I flew with the C&C (Command and Control). The American controlling the whole group, if he see something, he say, ‘Chi, I see something down there. Can we shoot?’ I had to look at my map and look down and say, ‘OK, do it’ or ‘No.’ We knew when it was OK because we had a map. We worked with TOC, Tactical Operations Command. We say, ‘OK, where is the enemy?’ If there are people in the area where we knew the enemy was and the Americans ask, ‘Can I shoot them?’ ‘Hell, yeah, shoot them!’ We had to be careful. One time I knew it was the enemy and I tell the Americans to shoot but they didn’t believe it and send another Loach (Light Observation Helicopter) to take a closer look. The enemy was shooting like crazy. We lost two Loaches but luckily we didn’t lose any men. If you accidentally shot a villager who was not a VC, nobody cared. That made me mad. You shoot them, they die—they can’t protect themselves. Stuff like that happened daily. They’d make up a story that the villagers were VC. I looked at them and said, ‘They’re not VC.’ It happened daily. The villagers didn’t like us as a result. They didn’t like the VC either but we gave them more protection than anybody else.”