His father had served with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was stationed in Labrador where he met Rosamond Bradley, from a prominent Boston family, who had been working at the Grenfell Medical Mission prior to immigrating to the United States in 1924.

[6] Colonel Rheault took command of the 5th in May 1969 and his unit was charged with seeking out leaks in a CIA-directed espionage ring as part of Project GAMMA.

Most of the American public and the Special Forces believed that Colonel Rheault and all involved had been made scapegoats for a matter that reflected poorly upon the Army.

[3] However, the prosecution provided testimony showing that Chuyen was shot by Rheault's officers and his body dumped into the South China Sea.

Further, they argued that Rheault was most certainly aware of the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war and Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In September 1969 the Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor announced that all charges would be dropped against the soldiers since the CIA, in the interests of national security, had refused to make its personnel available as witnesses.

[12] Rheault resided in Owls Head, Maine, with his second wife, Susan St. John, married in 1977, and the couple adopted two children, Nicholas St. John-Rheault and Alexis St.

[14] Rheault was interviewed for Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's PBS documentary series, The Vietnam War, which aired in September 2017, four years after his death.