My Lai Massacre Research Paper

The My Lai massacre remains one of the bloodiest and most shocking incidents in the history of the Vietnam War and yet it is not widely known as an important episode within the context of the war. The reasons for this are the attempted cover up of the incident by the US Army and then the US government and also the complete lack of consequences that the perpetrators received. In this essay the event and the relevant instigators along with the lack of appropriate action that was taken against them will be discussed. There are various reports and articles that outline the basic blueprint for what happened in My Lai and also the conflicting stories about just who should take responsibility for the deaths of the 504 people killed that day. The …show more content…

Flying back and forth they began to notice the large volume of bodies and proceeded to question LT. Calley on what was going on. He also requested help for the various civilians still alive. When the killing continued he realised ‘It was obvious that asking wasn’t getting the mission accomplished’ he and his crew proceeded to land in front of the unarmed civilians and he ordered his men to train their guns on the American soldiers involved in the massacre with an order to kill if they opened fire on the civilians. They then collected civilians and upon realising he didn’t have room in his aircraft to carry them he called in a favour from a fellow pilot and received appropriate transport to evacuate the civilians. Once they had saved all the people they could Thompson angrily reported what was going on to his superiors and following his report, Barker ordered the search and destroy mission to stop. It was made clear in various reports that the air team had come across a wounded woman whom they requested help for. ‘The smoke was green, meaning it's safe to approach. Red would have meant the opposite’. They did not receive the help they had requested and instead the woman was killed. The recognised version of the story serves to show the incident as an accident which is very different from the version Thompson and Colburn