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50 years ago, the My Lai massacre shamed the US military [View all]
Source: Associated Presss
50 years ago, the My Lai massacre shamed the US military
By TRAN VAN MINH and GRANT PECK
Today
MY LAI, Vietnam (AP) — The shudder of artillery fire woke the boy at 5:30 a.m. Three American soldiers appeared at his family’s home a couple of hours later and forced the mother and five children into their bomb shelter, a structure almost every rural Vietnamese home had during the war, to keep residents safe.
One soldier set fire to the family’s thatched house while the others tossed grenades into the shelter. Protected under the torn bodies of his mother and his four siblings, 10-year-old Pham Thanh Cong was the only survivor.
It was March 16, 1968. The American soldiers of Charlie Company, sent on what they were told was a mission to confront a crack outfit of their Vietcong enemies, met no resistance, but over three to four hours killed 504 unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community. Vietnamese refer to the greater village where the killings occurred as Son My.
-snip-
The U.S. military’s own records, filed discreetly away for three decades, described 300 other cases of what could fairly be described as war crimes. My Lai was distinguished by the shocking one-day death toll, the stomach-churning photographs and the gruesome details exposed by a high-level U.S. Army inquiry.
An official policy of free-fire zones — from which civilians were supposed to leave upon being warned — and an unofficial code of “kill anything that moves” meant Vietnamese were constantly at risk.
-snip-
By TRAN VAN MINH and GRANT PECK
Today
MY LAI, Vietnam (AP) — The shudder of artillery fire woke the boy at 5:30 a.m. Three American soldiers appeared at his family’s home a couple of hours later and forced the mother and five children into their bomb shelter, a structure almost every rural Vietnamese home had during the war, to keep residents safe.
One soldier set fire to the family’s thatched house while the others tossed grenades into the shelter. Protected under the torn bodies of his mother and his four siblings, 10-year-old Pham Thanh Cong was the only survivor.
It was March 16, 1968. The American soldiers of Charlie Company, sent on what they were told was a mission to confront a crack outfit of their Vietcong enemies, met no resistance, but over three to four hours killed 504 unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community. Vietnamese refer to the greater village where the killings occurred as Son My.
-snip-
The U.S. military’s own records, filed discreetly away for three decades, described 300 other cases of what could fairly be described as war crimes. My Lai was distinguished by the shocking one-day death toll, the stomach-churning photographs and the gruesome details exposed by a high-level U.S. Army inquiry.
An official policy of free-fire zones — from which civilians were supposed to leave upon being warned — and an unofficial code of “kill anything that moves” meant Vietnamese were constantly at risk.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/4268e3e8a0554d59b71638479503111a/50-years-ago,-the-My-Lai-massacre-shamed-the-US-military
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