During the Vietnam War, TIGER FORCE was the code name for an elite platoon of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry. The 45-man volunteer force was organized in 1966 to “out-guerilla the guerillas” and soon became one of the war's most highly decorated units, paying for its reputation with heavy casualties. But for seven months, beginning in May 1967, the TIGER FORCE unit descended into a moral abyss. Operating in enemy country, the platoon engaged in activities that defy our comprehension today. Two of the key players, Ken Green and Sam Ybarra, were from Globe and San Carlos, Arizona, respectively. Green was killed in Vietnam on September 29, 1967, which friends claim threw Ybarra over the edge, vowing to avenge his friend's death. He died in 1982 on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, reportedly contrite and depressed over his role in the war.
The army mounted an investigation, eventually deciding that "nothing beneficial" could result from prosecuting platoon members. And so, the story remained the stuff of rumor until reporters Michael Sallah, Mitch Weiss and John Mahr started interviewing former TIGER FORCE members. The resulting newspaper series won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004, and forms the basis of an outstanding book of the same name.
In TIGER FORCE: A True Story of Men and War, Sallah and Weiss have crafted a compelling, chilling story. The narrative is drawn from interviews with victims' families and over 40 former members of TIGER FORCE, as well as a previously suppressed document from the original army investigation. The authors visited the sites of many of the atrocities, pinpointing them through old radio logs. The result is one of the most important books on the Vietnam War.
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