A Nod to Forsaken Warriors : Ex-commandos deserve proposed U.S. payments, at the very least

The United States sent its officials to the doors of Vietnamese women to tell them their husbands were dead. They were not. The U.S. government paid the survivors a few hundred dollars as a “death gratuity,” despite evidence the “dead” really were alive. When the facts came to light, federal agencies refused to live up to signed agreements promising to continue the salaries of the Vietnamese soldiers if they were captured on their mission for U.S. forces.

Last week the federal government belatedly acknowledged its shameful record in the affair of 300 former Vietnamese commandos and agreed to pay each of them $40,000. The payments are long overdue.

The Vietnamese were part of a CIA-sponsored secret army formed during the 1960s and sent from South Vietnam into North Vietnam in an inept attempt to destabilize the Communist regime in Hanoi. Many of the commandos were captured and tortured while imprisoned for 15 to 20 years. A good number of those who survived imprisonment and finally were freed made their way to Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The federal government kept information about the commando expeditions secret. Only this year did details emerge, in records pried loose by requests from the commandos’ lawyers and The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

The disclosures prompted a U.S. Senate hearing at which the Pentagon’s lies and cover-up were laid bare. A lawsuit for compensation to the veterans will be dropped after the payments are made.

Thai Van Hoang, who spent 17 years in prison and now lives in Westminster, was gracious in discussing the promised payment. He said the issue was not the money but rather that for the first time the U.S. government “concedes that we exist.” A White House spokesman said the payments recognize this country’s “moral obligation” to heed its promises. The ex-commandos can’t be made whole, but they deserve at least this recognition.