My Lai: Unjustified Or Massacre

On March 16, 1968, "Charlie Company" was sent into a little Viet Cong town called (by the U.S.) My Lai 4. Their directions by bosses were: "... murder each man, lady, tyke and creature in the town. Blaze every one of the homes.... nothing ought to be strolling, developing or creeping." The very word "My Lai" is synonymous with war zone monstrosity.

The United States Army, is not necessarily known for having a positive reputation in handling prisoners of war, the My Lai Massacre is one of the clearest instances of military improperly approaching situations. Notwithstanding the fact that Company C entered My Lai with the intent of suppressing insurgents, the tragedy that took place on March 16, 1988 was in fact an act of mass murder. This notion will be examined through three different lenses to depict that in all angles of this incident only one scenario can be concluded; that the men in Company C were culpable of a mass murder. First, by examining the leadership ability of Lieutenant Calley and the Bystander effect of his company. Second, this will be examined under is the basis that

Since the beginning of time men have gone to war; from nation vs nation to brother vs brother. During these wars there are times that innocents are taken victim and homes and villages are destroyed. Sometimes these atrocities are planned and sometimes they are spur of the moment, happening due to the anger and rage of the soldiers (Hazen 23). One atrocities that has never been fully understood and may soon be forgotten, is an incident that took place on March 16, 1968 in My Lai Vietnam. An estimated 200-500 villagers were killed. This event triggers a question; what could of happened to the soldiers in the short time they were in Vietnam to commit such an act. I believe this question might be answered discussing these points: Vietnam was a

Viet Cong took everything away from my mom’s family and my grandma was left with 7 little kids, no house, no money, and had to live on the street. I understand that horrible horrible things happened to both sides but the attitude of the US government going into the war was all wrong and even though they paid the price heavily for it, I’m still extremely angry about the US involvement in the Viet Nam war. I don’t know if the US had the best intentions or not but invaded a country that had done nothing to them was a mistake. And about the My Lai massacre, it disgusts me so much, who would think it’s a good idea to find the enemy by killing everyone in village that had nothing to do with Viet Cong or even the

When analyzing the losses of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese compared to American casualties, one notices remarkable numbers. The government of Vietnam reports an estimated 1,100,000 combatants were killed

More than 500 innocent civilians mostly being babies, women and the elderly were not only killed but sexually abused tortured and some bodies were even found mutilated. For more than one year the army completely denied and ignored these facts then testimonies and photographs were published and the army could no longer deny the angry cries of all the outraged public.

Although his action was denounced by Ho Chi Minh, I still feel this was injustice toward the people of Vietnam. Diem’s government faced increasingly opposition of the Viet Cong who were insurgents aided by North Vietnam. Another act of injustice near the end of the war was the massacre at My Lai. This was a massacre of many Vietnamese UNARMED citizens by UNITED STATES soldiers. In the course of the operation about 347 citizens were shot to death. To me, this incident going unknown until autumn of 1969 even though the event took place on March 16, 1968, is almost just as bad as it happening itself.

In the chapter of Allies and Enemies In the Asia- Pacific War (1937- 45) in the book Making of the Rape of Nanking by Yoshida Tadashi, Yoshida illustrated the change of attitude of Chinese government toward the Nanking Massacre in 1938 during the League of Nations in Geneva.

War crimes committed during the course of the Vietnam War had irreversible effects on the perception of the United States military. The US military stood divided, unsure of what were atrocities and what were normal orders to be followed. Distorted interpretations of orders, anger, confusion, and negligence all had a part in war crimes like the massacre at My Lai. The single greatest element responsible for what happened at My Lai was a racial bias that lurked at the heart of the War itself.

Firstly, this investigation will take into consideration the Japanese revisionist evidence to support their claim of falsification, that such evidence will include the challenge to methodology and hence evaluating the problems with the evidence, demonstrating how the highly inconsistent facts arising from the Chinese sector indicates fabrication. Secondly, this investigation will consider the Chinese motivation for falsification as well i.e. The Challenge from Politics, investigating the political benefit that China has sustained from the Nanking Massacre and the effect that politics has on the Historical inquiry. Lastly to be taken into consideration, the dispute over among the Massacre’s most

Professor Nhan, the former president of the Vietnamese Red Cross, denounced the action as "a massive violation of human rights of the civilian population, and a

The My Lai massacre could’ve been worst had it not been for an army helicopter pilot who landed between soldiers and villages and threatened to shoot members of the US Force if they did not allow villagers to retreat unharmed. Joint Chiefs of Army Staff continued to ignore reports and it was not until November 1969, that the story reached news-stands. An international uproar followed and an investigation was commenced by the Army. A total of 28 Offices were charged but only Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of pre meditated murder and was given a life sentence for his role in directing the killing but was later paroled. The brutality of the killings and the extent of the cover – up may not have been known had it not been for the story by investigative journalist Seymour

In 1937, the Chinese city of Nanking was devastated when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded, killing around 300,000 people . The Japanese soldiers went into people’s homes searching for Chinese soldiers, and killing civilians. These devastating events are known as the “Rape of Nanking”, or as the Nanking Massacre. However, the history of atrocities like this are not always taught. Things such as the Japanese history textbook controversy show how one event can be remembered, or portrayed, in many different ways. For the most part, history can be skewed for political reasons. For Japan, making history their own had benefits, and these benefits could help the government keep their people on their side of things, and it would try to legitimize their own views on their history.

The Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975, with the goal of turning the country into a communist agrarian utopia( Unknown.). The Cambodian Genocide lasted about four years: starting from April 17, 1975; ending on January 7, 1979. There were approximately 1.5 to 3 million people killed. The common ways of death were through work, starvation, and torture. The death count from the killing fields was documented. The genocide came to an end when Vietnam led a full invasion; which lasted about a year. That leads us to why the United Nations (U.N.) position regarding the Cambodian Genocide was ineffective, which caused them to take the action of creating a committee and taking action after the massacre, which was ultimately inappropriate because of multiple genocides like the Cambodian, has gone by under their nose.

The Vietnam War proved to be a milestone in United States’s history as it greatly impacted many American lives. Not only did it affect the lives of Americans, but it also affected the lives of the Vietnamese, more specifically the women of that culture. There are millions of stories being told to this day today about the Vietnam War itself. But there are no stories about the Vietnamese women who were brutally sexually assaulted being told or any stories of the U.S. soldiers killing hundreds of innocent lives. Unfortunately, the media tends to stray away from the honest truth, especially when it comes to wars, which explains why we don’t know of this pressing information. The author of “Ideologies of Forgetting: Rape in The Vietnam War”, Gina Weaver mentions in her book, “[the] rape of Vietnamese women by American troops during the US invasion of Vietnam was a ‘widespread’, ‘everyday occurrence’ that was essentially ‘condoned’, even encouraged, by the military” (Weaver). During the war on March 16th, 1968, the My Lai Massacre was taken place in Vietnam. It was a tragic event as many Vietnamese women and children were murdered. Yusef Komunyakaa, an African American poet who served as a correspondent in the war authored “Dien Cai Dau,”. “Dien Cai Dau” is a collection of poems that describes Komunyakaa’s experiences as a journalist throughout his time in Vietnam. A poem of his that really caught my attention was “Re-creating the Scene”, which describes the problems regarding the