Aftermath For The Real Soldiers
Of the real sentenced soldiers their characters were based on, one (Private Herbert Hatcher) was acquitted on appeal after it was determined that his Fifth Amendment rights were violated, and his confession was as ruled inadmissible. Another's sentence (Private Antonio Diaz) was shortened to 22 months. The Corporal and Sergeant's sentences were reduced to eight years, with the possibility of parole after 4 years. One of the soldiers' real names has been revealed by the Florida press as Steve Gabott Thomas, (Corporal Thomas E Clarke) who served only four years of prison for his crime in Vietnam and had since become a leader in the Church of the Creator when he was connected with the murder of Harold Mansfield Jr., an African-American Gulf War veteran decades later. The real name of the girl whom they murdered was Pham Thi Mao. Her ordeal began on 18 November 1966 and ended the next day with her death on 19 November.
Read more about this topic: Casualties Of War
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