I have never been involved in "veterans' issues", and I find it revolting
to see the media coverage given to "Viet Nam vets" who display themselves
in camouflage that was not even issued until 1980.  These men are often
"wannabees", who steal honors they never earned, discredit men who did
what they lacked courage to do, and try to blame the failures of their lives
on the fiery mold of a terrible war that many did not even see.  Most of
their "memories" and stories are cliches taken from movies and stories by
people who never saw it either.

Other "fake vets" actually served in Viet Nam, but find it necessary to
revise and embellish, to achieve notoriety or prove a point they want to
make.

In January of 1997, a friend showed me the story of "A Miracle At The
Wall", written by a dear friend of his.  It was the story of how a newly
ordained Methodist minister had been the man who ordered the napalm
bombing that led to the famous photo of the little naked girl burned at Trang
Bang. It was the story of their chance meeting at The Wall, and her
forgiveness for his actions that led to her accidental injury.

I read the story from the perspective of a retired Army officer, who
participated in numerous air strikes in Viet Nam.  As I read it the first
time, I knew the story to be untrue, but I did not realize how much of a
fraud it would prove to be.

I told my friend that the claims were very much exaggerated, because
Americans, especially those in the Army, did not order Viet Nam Air Force
(VNAF) strikes.  I was also convinced that his friend had been in such a
low level position on the staff of Army advisors, that he would not have
been allowed to "order" anything but coffee.  He was hurt by that, and
said that if the minister really believed the story to be true, that was good
enough for him.  This man is my friend, and I did not want to hurt his
friendship with his other friend.

He convinced me to participate in an Internet group of former helicopter
pilots and crewmen who had flown in Viet Nam, and it still amazes me to
consider all the memories that group was able to bring to the surface. 
Overwhelmingly, those memories are good ones, of young men doing exciting
jobs that we believed in.  More than anything else, we believed in each
other, and we learned then that men do not die for their country.  They
die for their friends, for their wingmen, and for strangers they have never
met, but who need their help.

We went from that amazing bond that few ever experience, to our own
country, to read and see the fabrications presented about us in the
American news and entertainment media.  Those fabrications have replaced
the truth over the years, and have turned many proud veterans into
cynical, and even somewhat embittered men.

To experience a little of that bond again, and to bring those memories to
the surface, I was willing to remain silent about the minister's claims,
because he was a member of the net group, and very much supported by the
owner of the net, and his advisory council.  He had performed the
marriage vows for several on the net, and I did not want to cause conflict.

Unlike the reverend's supporters, I actually read the words in the
articles he wrote, and carefully listened to the words he used on his interviews
with Nightline and the Canadian produced documentary.  I noted changes in
the story, that were not just changes that could be expected from sloppy
reporting.  In addition, the reverend's posts on the net group were
different in tone from what was seen by the public.  I remained silent,
and considered that he might be confused in his memories.

In September, I decided I would leave the net, rather than hear the
praise for his message of "forgiveness" during the Veterans Day weekend.  Then a
friend posted to ask him questions about the incident, and his answer
stayed away from any real issues.  So I very respectfully posted specific
questions, and after a delay of two weeks, he responded with semantics
and inaccuracies.  He praised the job the media had done in getting his
message of peace and forgiveness to the public.  The short exchange continued
until the net's owner told me to take any questioning of his minister friend
off his net.

I continued to search for the truth, and two weeks later, on November 1,
I received a call from retired Lieutenant General James Hollingsworth, the
commander of the unit on whose staff the minister had worked during the
incident.  He had even called his Operations Officer from the time, who
also retired as a general.  The General was very, very specific that the
staff officer could not have done what he claimed.  That was solid
testimony that I was convinced changed the nature of the minister's
claims, and I posted his comments to the net.

The minister responded that the General was wrong, and that he had never
even heard of the man who the General said was his Operations Officer.  I
noted that the two generals had retired with a total of five stars, and
had absolutely nothing to gain or lose by the minister's story.  I questioned
whether I should believe two generals, or a man the Army decided would
not be retained as a captain.

For that "attack" on the minister's integrity, I was kicked off the net
group.  Although many members protested that action, the net continued to
defend the minister.  Only two men really stood publicly by me at that
point, through the power of the Internet; one on the west coast, and one
in England.  Others stayed silently in reserve, because the three of us took
some very heavy hits from the helicopter net, and finally all were
suspended from it.

On Veterans Day weekend, the commercials for the A&E documentary promised
to show "the American commander" who ordered the bombing of Trang Bang,
and the burning of Kim Phuc.  Newspaper articles told of Kim Phuc's
appointment as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and most of those greatly embellished the
terrible story of how she was burned.

The Methodist minister's insertion of himself as a key player in the
tragedy gave legitimacy to the myth of American participation, which was
reported as fact, then other details were added as invented by the
various writers.  There was an account of nerve gas being used in the attack. 
Most accounts said Kim was burned when the pagoda in which her family was
hiding took a direct hit.  Many accounts said her brothers were killed in the
bombing, others said two brothers and two cousins.  Most accounts said
the village was targeted, or came under "intense aerial bombardment". 
Virtually all the accounts credited the US with conducting or ordering
the bombing, but none of these exaggerations were true.  Words of
participation and responsibility again came from the minister's lips.

This time, net members watched and read these lies with their eyes open,
and a new understanding, and compared them with what the minister himself
had said on their net.  Many openly questioned the net's support for the
myth they had just seen.  To maintain their grasp, the net administrators
threatened that anyone who even mentioned Trang Bang, or anything about
the subject, would be suspended for 30 days.  Many men suspended themselves
in protest of that censorship, and others quit the net entirely.

Most of them joined another net of former helicopter combat crewmen,
because that net's owner did not censor the net's members, or support any
side of the issue.  Heli-Vets was supportive of the truth, while
encouraging the minister to tell it, and published accurate statistics
and facts about the war on their home page.  I wrote a report, The Myth Of
The Girl In The Photo, which was posted there, and on several veterans'
Internet sites. 

The claims were too outrageous for most of his supporters to accept, and
polite questions were asked.  After praising their reporting in October,
the minister turned on the "media maggots" in November.  Even though the
words had been his own, he said he had not meant what they said.  He told
his supporters that he would schedule an interview with the same
Associated Press reporter who broke his story of forgiveness earlier in the year, to
correct the wrong impressions.  At the same time, he started a vigorous
defense of my assertion that his story could not have happened the way he
said.

At that point, I was convinced that public action had to be taken to
counteract the exaggerations that were being heaped upon the minister's
false claims, and I began to contact news agencies, and Accuracy In
Media.

A&E defended their documentary, taking phrases and facts out of the
context in which they were presented, to show that their documentary had been
accurate and truthful.  They did not respond to what was said by the
documentary's commercials and introductions.  Their defense appeared to
rely on extracting certain words and phrases, and ignoring anything else
that was said.

UNESCO was more forthcoming, and provided their original press release,
to show that it did not say what many of the newspapers changed it to say. 
They also understood that the minister's insertion of himself into the
incident was controversial, at the very least, and agreed to eliminate
any reference to him in future releases.

The original Stars & Stripes edition was located, and I was surprised to
find it written by Peter Arnet, the noted CNN correspondent.  He and a
UPI television correspondent, who was an eye witness, reported the story
correctly when it was published on June 10, 1972.  Not only was it an
all-Vietnamese operation, with the VNAF dropping the bombs in support of
the South Vietnamese Army, but there were also South Vietnamese soldiers
killed by the same bombs.  Those soldiers, who were fighting to defend
Kim's village from the invading Communists, asked and offered no
forgiveness.

The man who was the intermediary in the meeting between the minister and
Kim Phuc, a poet with a fiercely passionate love for the country that has
given him a home, was heartbroken by the way that meeting was used.  When
the minister and his supporters fervently claimed that the meeting had
not been planned, but was "an act of God", he provided the letters and e-mail
that helped set up their meeting.  He asked, "Educate me where in a
history book that I can find the story of a Jewish Girl who once came to
America's capitol to forgive the Americans and allies for accidentally hurting the
children while liberating the Holocaust victims...

I would love to have been the one to arrange it, but it was another
friend who contacted the Washington, DC Bureau Chief of the Baltimore Sun.  My
call with the details was expected, and an investigative reporter was
assigned to track down the truth about The Girl In The Photo.  Tom
Bowman's investigation resulted in such a confidence level on their part, that the
Sun's front page headline was "Veteran's admission to napalm victim a
lie."

Stung by the scoop in their own front yard, the Washington Post and
Associated Press responded with follow-up reports that, while not giving
full credit to themselves for their earlier reports on the minister's
"miracle", generally reflected the same results for their new
investigations as the Baltimore Sun.

Most people would realize that the game is over, but the minister
continues to insist that he has always used the words "coordinated" and "ordered"
interchangeably, and still grasps more of the responsibility for the
event than his superiors say was even physically possible.

His followers ask what this man could possibly have gained by knowingly
embellishing his participation in an event that has resulted in such a
miracle.  For a new minister of a hundred member church, who has
addressed more people in the year since inserting himself into The Myth Of The Girl
In The Photo, than he addressed in his entire life up to that point, the
answer should be clear.

Did the minister have help with his fabrication?  Investigation reveals
an intertwining of relationships with members of the VVM and the Kim
Foundation.  It appears that Kim's introduction at The Wall was in no way
meant to honor veterans, but was part of the marketing plan for her
message of forgiveness.  Hopefully, this kind of personal use of the memorial
will receive more of the attention it deserves, and a serious investigator
will "follow the dollar" to the source.

Ron N. Timberlake, Major, U.S.Army Ret.

[Note from Sergeant Perry: Before presenting Ron's forthright and thoughtful rebuttal, I trust he'll permit me to provide you, the reader, with a few words by way of introduction in order to set the context for this material.

Names of participants no longer need be unstated since a recent plethora of stories in the world's press have provided the same names for its readers. The chief protagonist in this story is the Reverend John Plummer, minister of a small Methodist church in Virginia who, at an earlier time in his life, served with the Armed Forces in Vietnam.

As is undoubtedly clear by now, the focus of the controversy surrounds statements made by Reverend Plummer at the time, and subsequently, of an ostensibly spontaneous meeting at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. on Veterans Day with Kim Phuoc, the woman who was photographed as a young girl, injured and running away from the village of Trang Bang during the Vietnam War, which picture has become an icon of that war.

Unknown to the general reader, of course, are numerous statements also made by Reverend Plummer at the time of his now past membership, like Ron Timberlake and myself, in an organization of Vietnam aircrew veterans on the Web -- the VHFCN (or Vietnam Helicopter Flightcrew Network). Perhaps more than any other single factor, it was the divisiveness ensuing from an examination of Reverend Plummer's dichotomous public and private statements to the press and others which was responsible for perhaps a majority of its members leaving the organization to form the Heli-Vets Network on the World Wide Web.

The controversy, however, is apparently far from over, for Reverend Plummer has been provided yet another forum from which to respond to his detractors. As recently as of this writing (16 Jan 1998), the Web site of the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church includes on its index (top-level) page a clickable button inviting viewers to read John Plummer's Response to his detractors.

The text which appears below and attributed to ''Plummer'' is a word-for-word exact copy of the material on that site. Clicking on the following graphic (also, incidentally and admittedly ''stolen'' by me from the same site) will take you directly to that statement so that anyone choosing to do so may verify that nothing here has been taken out of context:

 

Red highlighting of certain portions of Reverend Plummer's Response represents that textual material for which Major Timberlake has provided immediately following comments (identified as Facts, Opinions and Questions) in each case.

Means of contacting myself, Ron Timberlake and John Plummer by e-mail are provided at the bottom of this page, as are a variety of means of contacting the church sponsoring John Plummer's Response. Without further ado . . .]

 

''My Response''
by John Plummer

and

A Rebuttal
by Ronald Timberlake

Plummer: Recently, I have been vilified in the press and on the Internet, being accused of fabricating the story of my role in the bombing at the village of Trang Bang, South Vietnam in June of 1972. This tragedy produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of nine year old Kim Phuc running down the road, naked, screaming in agony because of the burns she received from the napalm used in the air strike. The story of mine and Kim's reunion at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial on Veteran's Day, 1996 has been widely publicized for it was on that day that Kim and I finally met and I was able to apologize to her for my involvement in the airstrike that burned her. She forgave me and lifted the burden of remorse I had carried for nearly twenty-five years.

Fact: John knew in October that Kim knew of him, and had forgiven him. It is in his letter to Linh Vo, which he denied writing. His meeting at The Wall was no surprise to him or Kim.

Plummer: Unfortunately, there has been a concentrated effort to discredit me and the ministry of forgiveness that has arisen from mine and Kim's reconciliation. This effort has flourished on the Internet for several months and has spread, in the past few weeks, into the newspapers. It has been said that I embellished the story and interjected myself into the events of the Trang Bang bombing for financial gain and attention. These careless accusations could not be further from the truth.

Fact: The reason he embellished it is not an issue. The fact that he embellished it has been proven.

Plummer: I was interjected into the situation by virtue of my duties as Assistant G-3 (Air) for the Third Regional Assistance Command in South Vietnam.

Fact: The senior staff officer and commander both say that John's duties did not include assigning any air strikes or coordinating with VNAF.

Opinion: John interjected himself a quarter century later, when he thought no one could prove otherwise.

Plummer: Although it has been said in various news features that I was the commander, I was not and never made such a claim.

Fact: That confusion exists because of John's claim to have commanded an infantry platoon on his first tour, and having ORDERED the strike that he could not have coordinated. Officers in charge of platoons are platoon leaders, not commanders. He embellished a portion, and the reporters added their fantasies to his. For an entire year, their embellishments suited Plummer very well, because they helped him gain notoriety and expand his ministry.

Plummer: I was a staff officer who worked in an operations center miles away from the village. Neither was I the pilot of the plane which dropped the bombs. I have never said that I flew the plane even though a recent newspaper article insinuated that I had.

Fact: The reporter is not who insinuated. The article pointed out that when Kim offered to forgive the pilot, John passed a note that said, ''I am that man.'' It pointed out that the insinuation was from that note.

Question: There have, according to various articles, been multiple versions of that note, ranging from ''I am the one.'' to something like, ''Kim, I am Reverend Plummer. I need to see you a moment.'' Which version is true?

Plummer: My former boss, the G-3, who was an Army colonel, has said that I did not have the authority to ''order'' South Vietnamese aircraft to do anything. He is correct to a certain degree.

Fact: In John's Nov. 1 post to VHFCN [Note from Sgt Perry: the Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network] , he denied that COL Fulwyler was his boss. However, not only does retired Major General Fulwyler say John did not have authority to order VNAF, he says that he and retired Lieutenant General Hollingsworth did not have that authority, either.

Plummer: In relating the story, I used the word ''ordered'' when I should have used the word ''coordinated.'' When I told the story, my emphasis was on the healing and forgiveness aspect and not the strict military use of the words. I believe that my incautious use of ''ordered'' made it appear to some, especially in the veteran's community, that I was claiming that the bombing was an American operation. I apologize for my inadvertent use of the wrong verb. The battle at Trang Bang was a South Vietnamese operation with only an occasional American involved as coordinators along the way.

Fact: Those of you who have heard him defend his verb this year can decide if this was an incautious use, or an intentional embellishment. The fact remains that John inserted himself into the event as a key player, allowed the media to use American participation as fact, and embellished upon his embellishments. That resulted in the statement that nerve gas was used, that Kim's brothers and cousins were killed, that the pagoda was bombed with a direct hit, that the village came under intense aerial bombardment, and most important of all, that it was ordered by Americans. That is what hurts us and our country.

Opinion: He has also stated that he always used the terms ''ordered'' and ''coordinated'' interchangeably, which is difficult to believe for a former military officer. This is not an issue of using one wrong word, but an issue of a man selling a lie until he was proven beyond doubt to be wrong, then trying to sell the same story by changing one word.

Plummer: Other comments reportedly made by the colonel were true in a general sense, too, but did not apply to the specific situations we on the staff occasionally found ourselves in. Procedures had been established to ensure that every contingency was covered. The staff knew these procedures and followed them whenever a particular situation arose. As staff officers, we did not need specific permission to implement these procedures since permission was implied through their establishment. So to say my story is false because I needed the colonel's permission to send planes to conduct an air strike is misleading in that I simply followed procedures that had already been established for just such a contingency.

Fact: The generals say that they did not have the authority to do what John said he did. How can their procedures allow John to do so? They cannot. Those of you who were on staffs are aware of this.

Plummer: There have been other accusations which are false and misleading, and each one of them has a simple explanation. I will not take the space to address each one of them in this letter, but they have been addressed and discounted by conscientious members of the various news media and by military historians.

Fact: Although there is a simple explanation for all the statements, this claim that accusations against him have been addressed and discounted by media and historians is an outright lie. The conscientious press investigated in December, and everyone who investigated said that John lied, embellished, overstated, or falsely claimed responsibility.

Question: Who said otherwise, and who are the military historians?

Plummer: I was decorated for my work during the two-month period which included the battle of Trang Bang. The citation I received is very specific in listing the duties I performed which included coordinating South Vietnamese Air Force air strikes, both pre-planned and immediate, in the region in which Trang Bang is located. This citation has recently been authenticated by military researchers.

Fact: The Bronze Star John was given as an award for his service is not questioned. However it does not say John coordinated. It says he assisted in coordinating. There is a world of difference.

Plummer: In summary, those who are attacking me seem to be motivated by the misguided impression that when I met Kim Phuc and apologized to her for my involvement in her injuries I was apologizing for all veterans and for my country's involvement in the war. This is, of course, simply not true. My apology to her was very personal, from me to her, and was a result of nearly twenty-five years of remorse over having been involved in an incident in which civilians had been hurt. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fact: Accompanied by TV cameras, reporters, and writers, it did not seem personal.

Plummer: I stand by my story of the events of June 8, 1972. I used one word in telling the story when another word would have been more accurate, but that in no way changes my involvement or my feelings during the ensuing years, nor does it change the tremendous gift of forgiveness given to me by Kim Phuc. I'm sorry some people have been offended by my telling of the events of that day, but so many, many others have benefited from hearing the wonderful story of forgiveness and reconciliation. I pray that the real message of God's grace will continue to inspire people who need to hear about the gift of forgiveness.

Fact: After being proven to have lied about his involvement, John wants to change one word, and continue to advance his ministry on the notoriety that his embellishments and lies gained for him. Changing that one word after all the damage his embellishment has caused is ludicrous. He should be accountable for his inconsistencies, his changing story, and the lies he has told.

 

Copyright Ronald N. Timberlake, January 1998. All rights reserved.

A final comment here from Sergeant Perry: Please do not bother sending e-mail accusing any of John Plummer's detractors as being anti-religious (as I've received recently). This is not a matter of religion. I cannot speak for others, but I have a strong background in the Christian faith and, in fact, was the president of the Westminster Youth Fellowship when a young man. But I'm also a combat veteran of the Vietnam War; for me, charity begins at home, and I will NOT lose faith with fallen comrades whose memory is besmirched by misplaced accusations or self-aggrandizing public displays of sudden virtue.