Specially designed “Kill Cong” badges were awarded by a U.S. Army battalion to soldiers who could prove they killed a soldier of the National Liberation Front (NLF) last year, according to statements by returned servicemen.
“One way to prove your claim to a badge was to bring back an enemy ear,” former Sgt. Frank Shepard, 23, of Plymouth told the Detroit Free Press. “They kept a string of ears at headquarters, which I saw. The ears were rotting and they smelled pretty bad. It turned my stomach. It was like we were on a hunting trip or something.
The badge was awarded by the 5th battalion, 60th infantry, 9th infantry division, stationed at Rach Kien last summer, Shepard said
The badges had an olive-green background with the words “Sat Cong” (“Kill Cong”) in black, he added.
When Michigan Sen. Philip Hart inquired at the Pentagon, the Defense Department replied that the Sat Cong badge “was a program recently instituted in the 5th battalion, 60th infantry.”
The Pentagon letter, signed by Col. C.T. Benedict, chief of the personnel services division, said that because of the deaths of the battalion commander and brigade commander “additional information concerning the badge and its purpose could not be furnished.”
This story adds to the information that has been sent to this paper in the past by our brothers in Vietnam. We have published letters from GIs showing signs offering rest and relaxation vacations and extra rations of beer for dead Vietnamese. Just last issue we published a replica of a ghoulish calling card placed on dead enemy soldiers by members of the 7/17 Air Cavalry. If men in the field have evidence of other such “trophy” rewards, please send them in to us.
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See Fifth Estate’s Vietnam Resource Page.