My Lai Massacre Research Paper

On March 16, 1968, a unit of the United States military was ordered to advance into a village called Son My in northern Vietnam. It was there that a mass execution of unarmed civilians took place. One may wonder how the United States could do something so seemingly inhumane after considering what the Nazis did only twenty years prior to the Vietnam War. However, in the context of a tense situation, there are particular factors that will affect one’s decision-making skills. Factors such as uncertainty, routinization, gradual escalation, and dehumanization of the victim are all possible components in affecting one’s obedience.

On March 16, 1968, over 300 unarmed civilians were killed in South Vietnam during an indiscriminate, mass murder event known as the My Lai Massacre. Conducted by a unit of the United States Army, the My Lai Massacre ranked one of most appalling atrocities carried out by US forces in an already savage and violent war. All victims involved were unarmed civilians, many of which were women, children, and the elderly. Victims were raped, tortured and beaten, even mutilated before being killed. The massacre was forever seared into the hearts and minds of the American people as the day “the American spirit died.”

Terry Nichols received life in prison. “Until September 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing was the worst terrorist attack to take place on U.S. soil.”A bomb carried in a Ryder truck exploded in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995. “The blast killed 168 people, including 19 children. More than 500 people were injured.Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols were convicted of the attack.” Just because, one person messing around caused an accident, this wasn’t supposed to happen. This accident was so bad we have lost many people. It’s very upsetting to the people that was lost the members and i’m sure were very angry.

In 1995, it all started as a peaceful Wednesday morning. People were starting work or just waking up in Oklahoma City. While all these peoples’ days were starting, a young male parked a yellow truck outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. That day, everyone's’ life in that building changed forever. The effects of the April 19,1995 bombing were more than just physical to the survivors of this horrific event.

The Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah building took place on April 19, 1995 by a 24-year-old army veteran, by the name of Timothy McVeigh and up until the 9-11 attack in New York City, was the worst terrorist attack on U.S soil. It took the lives of 168 people, leaving another 509 injured. McVeigh planned his attack for the date of the second anniversary of the governments assault near Waco. The raid in Waco ended unsuccessfully with six Branch Davidians and four federal agents dead. The Oklahoma bombing meant nothing more to him than pure revenge, his only goal was vengeance and he felt merely nothing.

Upon Hasan’s graduation from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, he worked as a mental health provider with the Army Medical Corps. Hasan was assigned to Fort Hood and was responsible for providing care to soldiers in the readiness center which gave him access where various soldiers being processed to deploy or return from Iraq or Afghanistan. Hasan himself was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. Some reports suggest that Hasan’s reaction was impacted by stories he heard from soldiers returning from combat tours, in accordance with his profession (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/07/nation/na-fort-hood-shootings7).

Jamestown, VA was an English settlement founded in 1607 that was funded by the Virginia company. The first few years were known as the Starving years because people were in famine and there were even claims of cannibalism. It is also where Captain John Smith, a councillor in Jamestown, claimed to have been saved by Pocahontas, which is important because it created one of the first good relationships between settlers and Native Americans.

Born on November 9th, 1970, Lisa Vanderbeck grew up in a very close knit neighborhood, always doing things with her neighbors, whether they were thirty years older than her, or ten years younger. One person who she was extremely close to was a friend of her moms, Mrs. Louis, who lived five doors down from her. Lisa, her mom, and twin sister would go over to her house at least once a week for “Avon Lady Day”. They would drink coffee, and hang out with the other neighbors who attended.

Amidst all of the violence surrounding not only the United States, but also the whole world, I felt like the July 7th Dallas Shootings interested me. The attack took place on a Thursday evening during a Black Lives Matter Protest. The protest came shortly after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and occurred in many major cities that evening. After reviewing many different stories from both CNN and Fox News, I found one article hours after the attack occurred and one about one week later. This story definitely had a large amount of coverage online, in newspapers, and on television. The content of information was similar, but the article published one week after the killings had more accurate information since more become known

After the massacre, the trials were postponed for a few months for the soldiers own safety and gave time for the crowd to settle down. .Again Wikipedia does not mention the funeral and the time that the trials were postponed in order for the city and the people to calm down. Propaganda came after and propagandist such as Samuel Adams described the incident as a, “Horrid Massacre” . However, others such as John Adams who was a lawyer, believed that law and not propaganda would solve the case, and he agreed to be the defender of the soldiers at the trials, and argued that the soldiers acted in self-defense Wikipedia does state that John Adams fought for the soldiers, but it won’t say the reason to why he did it, and from other academic

A major turning point in the Vietnam War occurred in the small village of My Lai, Vietnam. The hamlet of My Lai was known for being fertile Viet Cong territory. A unit of the 11th Infantry Brigade, known as the Charlie Company, was sent to My Lai on a “search and destroy” mission. Soldiers of the Charlie Company were ordered to locate and eliminate communist fighters said to be in the area. On the morning of March 16, 1968 U.S. soldiers entered My Lai and, in what was said to be a matter of hours, killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in cold blood. Innocent men, women, and children were raped, tortured, and murdered. The initial targets of the Charlie Company’s mission, the 48th Viet Cong Battalion, were nowhere to be found. This horrific event became known as the My Lai massacre.

Until an officer by the name of Hugh Thompson watched the killings of these innocent people from his helicopter. He then took action, and landed to save some survivors. Ron Ridenhour a soldier in the 11th Brigade(who did not participate in this action) came to realize he needs to let people know this was not ok, so he wrote letters to commanders. The commanders ignored his letters. Also wrote to the president, the pentagon, State Department, but got no response so he wrote to the New York Times paper and got the word out. By conducting an interview to the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.(a year after the massacre)When people heard about this they did not believe it. After the photographs came out, the americans could not believe we did this and started to stop supporting the war. One parent of a soldier told us “ I sent them a good boy, and they made him a

Imagine, waking up to your neighbors and family being brutally murdered. You manage to escape, and later find out that those responsible for the massacre of your community have gotten off, scot free. When people commit a horrible crime, we expect there to be consequences. Son My is a village that had been heavily mined by the Viet Cong, a communist organization that fought against the South Vietnamese government, many American soldiers had been killed or injured by those mines. Seeking “revenge”, on March 16, 1968, American soldiers from the C Company division went into a smaller part of Son My called My Lai and murder over 400 innocent people. The My Lai massacre was a horrible crime committed by U.S soldiers from C Company division, they

It was April 20 1999 and Columbine high school was in session 2 fellow students were outside but nobody knew and they had propane bombs in the cafeteria kitchen and then at 11:19 am they were supposed to go off but then this happened. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were on tv and the news recorded everything.

     On March 16, 1968, in the Quang Ngai region of Vietnam, specifically My Lai, the United States military was involved in an appalling slaughter of approximately 500 Vietnamese civilians. There are numerous arguments as to why this incident even had the capacity to occur. Although some of the arguments seem valid, can one really make excuses for the slaughter of innocent people? The company that was responsible for the My Lai incident was the Charlie Company and throughout the company there were many different accounts of what happened that reprehensible day. Therefore there are a few contradictions about what had occurred, such as what the commanding officers exact instructions for the soldiers were. Even