They Just Told Congress What I've Been Saying for Years -

I served as a young Military Police soldier in Vietnam — convoys and gun trucks out of places like LZ Baldy and Chu Lai — before I traded my rifle for a guitar with the Command Military Touring Shows and AFVN in Saigon. I remember the heat, the tension, the music, the friends. I also remember things I wish I could forget. But the strangest part of my story isn't what I remember. It's what I don't. Missions I was told I'd been on that I couldn't recall. Records that supposedly "never existed." A nagging feeling that something had been done to me — on purpose. That question became the spine of my book, Vietnam Erased. So when I saw this week's headlines out of Washington, I had to sit with it for a minute.

What Just Happened in That Hearing

Investigative journalist Tom O'Neill testified Tuesday before the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. His allegations: * Charles Manson and Jack Ruby — Lee Harvey Oswald's killer — may have been assets connected to MK-Ultra, the CIA's illegal program testing hypnosis, LSD, and other behavior-altering methods. 

* On Manson: "I theoretically... I've never been able to prove absolutely." On Ruby, he was more direct — noting Allen Dulles, the CIA director who ran MK-Ultra until JFK fired him, later sat on the Warren Commission. 

 * Psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West was assigned to examine Ruby in his jail cell, which O'Neill believes was meant to keep Ruby quiet about the experiments. 

 * O'Neill submitted documents he says contradict what the CIA told Congress in 1977 about its LSD testing. 

 Luna confirmed more MK-Ultra files are being declassified, including newly located records.

* On Manson: "I theoretically... I've never been able to prove absolutely." On Ruby, he was more direct — noting Allen Dulles, the CIA director who ran MK-Ultra until JFK fired him, later sat on the Warren Commission. 

 * Psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West was assigned to examine Ruby in his jail cell, which O'Neill believes was meant to keep Ruby quiet about the experiments. 

* O'Neill submitted documents he says contradict what the CIA told Congress in 1977 about its LSD testing. 

Luna confirmed more MK-Ultra files are being declassified, including newly located records.

A Program Built on Fear, and Then Buried

 Quick history: Dulles authorized MK-Ultra in 1953 amid fears that the Soviets, China, and North Korea had cracked "brainwashing" for interrogation and assassination. Researchers used: High doses of psychedelics like LSD Electroshock therapy Sleep deprivation Hypnosis, often on unwitting subjects

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms allegedly ordered nearly all MK-Ultra records destroyed. We only know what we know because a box of financial records was misfiled and survived, fueling the 1975 Church Committee inquiry — after which the CIA still gave Congress limited information.

Why This Hits Different for Me 

'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm a guy who served, came home, built a career in entertainment, and spent decades trying to make sense of memory gaps that never added up. I served during the exact era MK-Ultra was running full scale, in and around rooms and people I still can't fully account for. When a credentialed journalist tells Congress, under oath, that a program like the one I've always suspected touched my life was real and deliberately covered up — it's validating. It's also unsettling, because if it happened to Manson, to Ruby, to the subjects the Church Committee uncovered, there's no reason to assume it stopped at the names we already know. 

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms allegedly ordered nearly all MK-Ultra records destroyed. We only know what we know because a box of financial records was misfiled and survived, fueling the 1975 Church Committee inquiry — after which the CIA still gave Congress limited information.

Why This Hits Different for Me 

 I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm a guy who served, came home, built a career in entertainment, and spent decades trying to make sense of memory gaps that never added up. I served during the exact era MK-Ultra was running full scale, in and around rooms and people I still can't fully account for. When a credentialed journalist tells Congress, under oath, that a program like the one I've always suspected touched my life was real and deliberately covered up — it's validating. It's also unsettling, because if it happened to Manson, to Ruby, to the subjects the Church Committee uncovered, there's no reason to assume it stopped at the names we already know.

That's the territory Vietnam Erased lives in. Not "Manson was a CIA puppet" — I'll leave that to O'Neill and the historians with documents in hand. But the underlying, undisputed truth: our government ran a secret, illegal experimentation program on its own people and tried to destroy the evidence. If that's real, it's not paranoia to ask what else was tested, on whom, and where those records went.

The Files Are Still Coming 

Fifty-plus years after the Church Committee, Congress is still finding "newly found records." For veterans of my era who came home with holes in our timelines, that's not ancient history — it's confirmation that our own government was willing to run unethical experiments on unwitting subjects and bury the paperwork. I wrote Vietnam Erased to give voice to that uncertainty. Watching Congress reopen this file doesn't answer my questions, but it tells me I was right to keep asking them. If my story resonates — if you've ever felt like pages were missing from your own past — Vietnam Erased is available now on Amazon and Audible, narrated by me. I'll be celebrating the release at The Raven Book Lounge in Brentwood, TN, Friday, July 3rd at 7:00 PM. Come say hello. 

Sources: Statement for the Record, House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets; House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing page; The Independent; The Hill.