The Mystery Of No Gun Ri

["Maxwell, David LTC" <maxwelld@sockor.korea.army.mil>]

David S. Maxwell
LTC, US Army
NIPRNET: maxwelld@sockor.korea.army.mil
Personal Email: max161@aol.com 
U.S. News & World Report
June 5, 2000
Pg. 32 
The Mystery Of No Gun Ri 
A soldier's bizarre recantation raises some troubling new questions 
By Joseph L. Galloway 
Of the many mysteries surrounding the events that took place beneath a
remote railway trestle in the early days of the Korean War, none is as
perplexing as the accounts provided by a soldier named Edward Daily. In a
Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press story about the killings near the
village of No Gun Ri published last year, Daily was cited as one of a dozen
veterans who said they either witnessed or participated in the killings
there. Daily was quoted far down in the AP account, but the substance and
drama of his words served to tie together the fragmentary recollections of
other veterans and buttress key elements of the AP account. Daily said that
American soldiers had participated in wholesale killings of Korean refugees,
that they had been ordered to do so, and that women and children had been
among the victims. More than the specifics of his assertions, it was the
compelling nature of his statements to the AP that caused other news
organizations following the AP to rely more heavily on Daily as a source.
"On summer nights, when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries,
the little kids screaming," Daily told the AP. And: "The command looked at
it as getting rid of the problem in the easiest way. That was to shoot them
[the refugees] in a group." 
In its May 22 issue, U.S. News published the results of its examination of
No Gun Ri, raising doubts about whether Daily was there and citing evidence
indicating he had fabricated his military service record. Army documents
examined by the magazine indicated that Daily was a mechanic with a rear
maintenance company, not a machine gunner with the 7th Cavalry. Charles
Hanley, a member of the AP team that was awarded the Pulitzer, was asked
about the discrepancies in Daily's service record by U.S. News. Hanley told
the magazine that he believed that Daily had "phonied up somewhere. But I've
got to believe he was at No Gun Ri." 
"Haunted." Now Daily has recanted his account of the killings at No Gun Ri.
Last week, the Associated Press presented Daily with the results of its
review of his military service, and he conceded that he could not have been
at No Gun Ri. "I have to agree with your records, I can't dispute them,"
Daily told the AP. He explained that his accounts of the events at No Gun Ri
were drawn from attending 7th Cavalry veterans' reunions over many years
and, as the AP account put it, "hearing from men who participated in or
witnessed the killings." The wire service quoted Daily further: "I still
feel as if I was at No Gun Ri. I did not intend to be deceptive." Jonathan
Wolman, the executive editor of the AP, said in a statement last week:
"While we remain confident of the central findings of our coverage, AP is
dismayed that Ed Daily cannot authenticate his account of the events at No
Gun Ri. Mr. Daily is obviously haunted by his service in the Korean War even
as he struggles to understand and explain the version of events he provided
to AP, to the Army and to other news organizations." Daily failed to respond
to efforts by U.S. News to contact him last week. 
After the original AP account of No Gun Ri was published last fall, Defense
Secretary William Cohen ordered the Army's inspector general to conduct an
investigation, which is continuing. Several news accounts since have cited
unnamed Defense Department officials as saying that American soldiers fired
intentionally at refugees at No Gun Ri. The New York Times cited unnamed
officials as saying that hundreds of refugees were killed, an estimate the
AP used in its story last week. "No such conclusion, or any conclusions,
have been reached," the Pentagon said in a statement. 
The inspector general's investigators have interviewed Daily once and plan
to do so again. A key question concerns Daily's motivation. After a 1973
fire destroyed the service records of many Korean War veterans, Daily
supplied correspondence and other materials indicating that he had served
with the 7th Cavalry. He furnished other documentation indicating that he
had been taken by North Korean forces as a prisoner of war and later
escaped. Last week, American Ex-Prisoners of War, an organization of former
prisoners of war, removed Daily's name from its rolls, saying he had gained
membership "under false pretenses." A spokesman for the Department of
Veterans Affairs said last week that Daily receives a total of $2,300 a
month, tax free. It is presumed this is a result of harm he suffered during
his service in Korea. A soldier rated as 100 percent disabled receives a
monthly payment of $2,036.