WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MY LAI MASSACRE?

 

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Reveille
My Lai remembered

By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:13:00 03/28/2011

Filed Under: War, history, Massacre, Military, Heroism

In one of the best books on American involvement in Vietnam, “A Bright Shining Lie” by Neil Sheehan, which won for the author a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, the incident is graphically portrayed:

“On the morning of March 16, 1968, a massacre occurred in the village of Son My on the South China Sea about seven miles north of Quang Ngai town. The largest killing took place at a hamlet called My Lai and was directed by a second lieutenant named William Calley Jr., a platoon leader of the division. The criminal investigation division (CID) of the Military Police subsequently concluded that 347 people perished at My Lai. The CID reports indicated that about another 90 unarmed Vietnamese were killed at a second hamlet of the village by soldiers from a separate company the same morning. The monument that was erected to the victims after the war was to list the names of 504 inhabitants of Son My.

“Some of the troops refused to participate in the massacre. Their refusal did not restrain their fellows. The American soldiers and junior officers shot old men, women, boys, girls and babies. One soldier missed a baby lying on the ground twice with a .45 calibre pistol as his comrades laughed at his marksmanship. He stood over the child and fired a third time. The soldiers beat women with rifle butts and raped some and sodomized others before shooting them. They shot the water buffaloes, the pigs and the chickens. They threw the dead animals into the wells to poison the water. They tossed satchel charges into the bomb shelters under the houses. A lot of the inhabitants had fled into the shelters. Those who leaped out to escape the explosives were gunned down. All of the houses were put to the torch.”

Two years later, an army court martial convicted Lieutenant Calley of pre-meditated murder of some 22 Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment at hard labor. President Richard Nixon intervened and Calley’s sentence was reduced to three years under house arrest in Fort Benning. Nixon later ordered his release.

A few months after Calley’s conviction, his commanding officer Capt. Ernest Medina was also tried on murder and manslaughter charges for permitting the death of some 100 Vietnamese but was acquitted.

The trial of Calley was the focus of intense media coverage in the United States, and the pictures of murdered civilians lying in a ditch at My Lai provided the anti-war movement with added fuel for the growing nationwide protests.

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* * *

In 1998, 30 years after the event, the US Army honored, as heroes, two former soldiers who placed themselves between the rampaging American troops and the civilians, even aiming their weapons at fellow Americans to rescue Vietnamese inhabitants of the hamlet. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, along with his door gunner Lawrence Colburn were awarded the prestigious Soldier’s Medal for “heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of non-combatants by American forces in My Lai.” A third crewman, Glenn Andreotta, was also later honored.

Colburn and Andreotta provided cover for Thompson as he tried to stop the killings, ordering them to open fire on Americans if the atrocities continued.

In ceremonies held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Thompson accepted the award “for all the men who served their country with honor on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.” Colburn added, “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and the unarmed.”

Watching the coverage of the event, I was struck by the courage of these men who were willing to go against their own people in order to save non-combatants caught in a hostile situation. While others may have refused to participate in the carnage, Thompson and his crew went a step further by threatening to shoot anyone who persisted in the killings. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” If there had been more good men who acted as Thompson did, My Lai may never have taken place.

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FORTY-THREE years ago this month, one of the worst atrocities of the Vietnam War took place in the hamlet of My Lai in Central Vietnam. Troops of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) massacred over 500 Vietnamese civilians in a search-and-destroy operation similar to that executed by US forces in Samar during the Philippine-American War of 1899. Samar was turned into a “howling wilderness” in retaliation for the massacre of American garrison troops stationed in the town of Balangiga in 1901. (Incidentally, the Americal division distinguished itself in Guadalcanal and Philippine campaigns during World War II.)

In one of the best books on American involvement in Vietnam, “A Bright Shining Lie” by Neil Sheehan, which won for the author a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, the incident is graphically portrayed:

“On the morning of March 16, 1968, a massacre occurred in the village of Son My on the South China Sea about seven miles north of Quang Ngai town. The largest killing took place at a hamlet called My Lai and was directed by a second lieutenant named William Calley Jr., a platoon leader of the division. The criminal investigation division (CID) of the Military Police subsequently concluded that 347 people perished at My Lai. The CID reports indicated that about another 90 unarmed Vietnamese were killed at a second hamlet of the village by soldiers from a separate company the same morning. The monument that was erected to the victims after the war was to list the names of 504 inhabitants of Son My.

“Some of the troops refused to participate in the massacre. Their refusal did not restrain their fellows. The American soldiers and junior officers shot old men, women, boys, girls and babies. One soldier missed a baby lying on the ground twice with a .45 calibre pistol as his comrades laughed at his marksmanship. He stood over the child and fired a third time. The soldiers beat women with rifle butts and raped some and sodomized others before shooting them. They shot the water buffaloes, the pigs and the chickens. They threw the dead animals into the wells to poison the water. They tossed satchel charges into the bomb shelters under the houses. A lot of the inhabitants had fled into the shelters. Those who leaped out to escape the explosives were gunned down. All of the houses were put to the torch.”

Two years later, an army court martial convicted Lieutenant Calley of pre-meditated murder of some 22 Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment at hard labor. President Richard Nixon intervened and Calley’s sentence was reduced to three years under house arrest in Fort Benning. Nixon later ordered his release.

A few months after Calley’s conviction, his commanding officer Capt. Ernest Medina was also tried on murder and manslaughter charges for permitting the death of some 100 Vietnamese but was acquitted.

The trial of Calley was the focus of intense media coverage in the United States, and the pictures of murdered civilians lying in a ditch at My Lai provided the anti-war movement with added fuel for the growing nationwide protests.

In his autobiography “My American Journey,” Gen. Colin Powell wrote of My Lai as an “appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam. Because the war had dragged on for so long, not everyone commissioned was really officer material. Career non-coms formed the backbone of any army, and producing them requires years of professional soldiering. In order to fight the war without calling up the reserves, the army was creating instant non-coms. Shake-and-bake sergeants, we called them. Take a private, give him a little training, shake him once or twice, and pronounce him an NCO … the involvement of so many unprepared officers and non-coms led to breakdowns in morale, discipline and professional judgment.”

* * *

In 1998, 30 years after the event, the US Army honored, as heroes, two former soldiers who placed themselves between the rampaging American troops and the civilians, even aiming their weapons at fellow Americans to rescue Vietnamese inhabitants of the hamlet. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, along with his door gunner Lawrence Colburn were awarded the prestigious Soldier’s Medal for “heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of non-combatants by American forces in My Lai.” A third crewman, Glenn Andreotta, was also later honored.

Colburn and Andreotta provided cover for Thompson as he tried to stop the killings, ordering them to open fire on Americans if the atrocities continued.

In ceremonies held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Thompson accepted the award “for all the men who served their country with honor on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.” Colburn added, “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and the unarmed.”

Watching the coverage of the event, I was struck by the courage of these men who were willing to go against their own people in order to save non-combatants caught in a hostile situation. While others may have refused to participate in the carnage, Thompson and his crew went a step further by threatening to shoot anyone who persisted in the killings. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” If there had been more good men who acted as Thompson did, My Lai may never have taken place.

It speaks well of the American people, of their sense of rectitude, to honor these men who refused to play blind or to go along with the evil that was taking place in an isolated community away from the prying eyes of TV cameras or news reporters. It was Thompson’s report to senior officers that triggered the investigation into the massacre.

Every war brings out the worst in man—Samar, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The saving grace is that in the end, people are punished for their abuses and a few are honored for their courage and humanity in the face of evil.