主题：【收集整理】美军朝鲜战争老兵回忆-写在前面的话 -- pxpxpx

老根里惨案发生在朝鲜战争期间，因为遇害人很可能有４００之多，这使它可能成为美军在整个２０世纪制造的规模最大的两个惨案之一，所以非同小可。但是惨案本身引起国际关注却是在近５０年之后。

１９９９年，美联社的记者Charles Hanley发表了一系列的报道，包括下面这篇

War's hidden chapter: Ex-GIs Tell of Killing Korean Refugees

报道里除了详细的介绍了这场半个世纪前美军对朝鲜平民的屠杀之外，还提供了对当事人采访的节选，很多内容，尤其是美国老兵的回忆相当的令人震惊。

但是报道里面最令人震惊的还不是这些，而是对美国军方和政府的直接指控。根据收集到的信息，报道里称当时的美军指挥官曾明确命令部队向平民开枪以防止北韩的军队渗透。

而这一点得到了部分美军老兵的证实。

如：

Retired Col. Robert M. Carroll, then a 25-year-old first lieutenant, remembers battalion riflemen opening fire on the refugees from their foxholes.

"This is right after we get orders that nobody comes through, civilian, military, nobody," said Carroll, of Lansdowne, Va.

再如

Two days earlier, 1st Cavalry Division headquarters issued a more explicit order: "No refugees to cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines. Use discretion in case of women and children."

又如

In the neighboring 25th Infantry Division, the commander, Maj. Gen. William B. Kean, told his troops that since South Koreans were to have been evacuated from the battle zone, "all civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly." His staff relayed this as "considered as unfriendly and shot."

还有

Veterans said Capt. Melbourne C. Chandler, after speaking with superior officers by radio, had ordered machine-gunners from his heavy-weapons company to set up near the tunnel mouths and open fire.

"Chandler said, 'The hell with all those people. Let's get rid of all of them'," said Eugene Hesselman of Fort Mitchell, Ky. " ... We didn't know if they were North or South Koreans. ... We were there only a couple of days and we didn't know them from a load of coal."

Ex-GIs believe the order was cleared at battalion headquarters, a half-mile to the rear, or at a higher level. Chandler and other key officers are now dead, but the AP was able to locate the colonel who commanded the battalion, Herbert B. Heyer, 88.

Heyer, of Sandy Springs, Ga., denied knowing anything about the shootings and said, "I know I didn't give such an order." Veterans said the colonel apparently was leaving battalion operations to subordinates at the time.

最为生动的是下面这段

Recalled machine-gunner Edward L. Daily: "Some may have been trying to crawl deeper for protection. When you see something like that and you're frightened, you start to claw."

"On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries, the little kids screaming," said Daily, of Clarksville, Tenn., who went on to earn a battlefield commission in Korea.

"The command looked at it as getting rid of the problem in the easiest way. That was to shoot them in a group," said Daily. Today, he said, "we all share a guilt feeling, something that remains with everyone."

"You try to put things in the back of your mind because life goes on," said Daily, 68, of Clarksville, Tenn. "But as you get older, you're not as active as you were and you begin to think more about these things again."

这一系列报道是１９９９年秋天发表的。之前，美国军方和政府总是以证据不足搪塞南韩民众的反复申诉，这些报道无疑把这些人都逼到了墙角。

于是，在报道发表不久，美方的正式调查开始了。

２０００年，Charles Hanley 和同事们由于这个系列报道而荣获当年的＜调查报告＞类普利策新闻奖。

Awarded to Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza of Associated Press for revealing, with extensive documentation, the decades-old secret of how American soldiers early in the Korean War killed hundreds of Korean civilians in a massacre at the No Gun Ri Bridge.

下面的链接里有他们当年发表的报告

http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2000-Investigative-Reporting