Changes

Hersh wrote<ref>https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/08/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream-pipeline/</ref> "I’ve been a freelancer for much of my career. In 1969, I broke the story of a unit of American soldiers in Vietnam who had committed a horrific [[war crime]] They were ordered to attack an ordinary peasant village where, as a few officers knew, they would get no opposition—and told to kill on sight. The boys murdered, raped and mutilated for hours, with no enemy to be found. The crime was covered up at the top of the military chain of command for eighteen months—until I uncovered it.

Hersh wrote<ref>https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/08/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream-pipeline/</ref> "I’ve been a freelancer for much of my career. In 1969, I broke the story of a unit of American soldiers in Vietnam who had committed a horrific [[war crime]] They were ordered to attack an ordinary peasant village where, as a few officers knew, they would get no opposition—and told to kill on sight. The boys murdered, raped and mutilated for hours, with no enemy to be found. The crime was covered up at the top of the military chain of command for eighteen months—until I uncovered it.

I won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for that work, but getting it before the American public was no easy task. I wasn’t an established journalist working for an established outfit. My first story, published under a barely existent wire service run by a friend of mine, was initially rejected by the editors at ''[[Life]]'' and ''[[Look]]'' magazines. When the''[[Washington Post]]'' finally published it, they littered it with [[Pentagon]] denials and the unthinking skepticism of the rewrite man.

I won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for that work, but getting it before the American public was no easy task. I wasn’t an established journalist working for an established outfit. My first story, published under a barely existent wire service run by a friend of mine, was initially rejected by the editors at ''[[Life]]'' and ''[[Look]]'' magazines. When the ''[[Washington Post]]'' finally published it, they littered it with [[Pentagon]] denials and the unthinking skepticism of the rewrite man.

I’ve been told my stories were wrong, invented, outrageous for as long as I can remember—but I’ve never stopped. In 2004, after I published the first stories about the torture of Iraqi prisoners at [[Abu Ghraib]], a Pentagon spokesman responded by calling my journalism “a tapestry of nonsense.” (He also said I was a guy who “threw a lot of crap against the wall” and “expects someone to peel off what’s real.” I won my fifth George Polk Award for that work.)

I’ve been told my stories were wrong, invented, outrageous for as long as I can remember—but I’ve never stopped. In 2004, after I published the first stories about the torture of Iraqi prisoners at [[Abu Ghraib]], a Pentagon spokesman responded by calling my journalism “a tapestry of nonsense.” (He also said I was a guy who “threw a lot of crap against the wall” and “expects someone to peel off what’s real.” I won my fifth George Polk Award for that work.)