So Stilwell held a briefing at MACV headquarters. It was really VIP–a handful of us, and every general officer in-country crowded into the briefing room as if to inspect us. It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate us. Stilwell was giving out very little real information, and you could tell that once again the VC had done well. Then it got very patronizing. Stilwell mentioned me and Neil by name and said we should not be calling officers or the ambassador–that they’d brief us when the battle was done. They were, he said, very, very important men, and they did not need to be bothered by reporters. I never liked to be confrontational; the way to do our jobs was to go out in the field and just report. But I got up and said, “We are going to go on calling the generals and the ambassador. We’re here to report. We are not your privates or your corporals. A lot of Americans went into battle, a lot of American gear was used in combat, and Americans deserve to know what happened. You have every right to write to our editors and tell them we’re too aggressive, and you can ask them to send somebody else. But until then, we’re going to try and keep going out in the field.” Sometimes I think that the old World War II stuff–everybody on the team–ended in that room. I think we saw a higher duty than pleasing MACV and the embassy. Our message back to them was: we are not going to salute you.
