"The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It's not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and say, 'Where's Nguyen so-and-so?' Half the time the people were so afraid they would say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the informant, put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put commo wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through the village and say, 'When we go by Nguyen's house scratch your head.' Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say, 'April Fool, motherfucker.' Whoever answered the door would get wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a Communist, including family members. Sometimes they'd come back to camp with ears to prove that they killed people."
-- Vincent Okamoto, combat officer (Lieutenant) in Vietnam in 1968, and recipient of Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award conferred by the U.S. Army. Wounded 3 times. He was also an intelligence liaison officer for the Phoenix Program for 2 months in 1968. Quote is from page 361 of the hardback 2003 first edition of the book "Patriots: the Vietnam War remembered from all sides."

"Phung Hoang

"This bloody massacre has only come to light in the past week"

"The Blade is rare in modern America in being owned by a wealthy local family, the Robinson Blocks, who have a strong commitment to investigative journalism. That means money and time is available for The Blade's reporters to bring in a major scoop. 'We have the resources to do this. There are no shareholders to worry about,' said Royhab."