My Lai massacre

This article is about the massacre. For the hamlet, see Son My. For the documentary, see My Lai (film).

My Lai Massacre Thảm sát Mỹ Lai
Location	Son My village, Sơn Tịnh District of South Vietnam
Date	March 16, 1968
Target	My Lai 4 and My Khe 4 hamlets
Attack type	Massacre
Deaths	347 according to the U.S Army (not including My Khe killings), others estimate more than 400 killed and injuries are unknown, Vietnamese government lists 504 killed in total from both My Lai and My Khe
Perpetrators	Task force from the United States Army Americal Division 2LT. William Calley (convicted and then released by President Nixon to serve house arrest for two years)

The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰɐ̃ːm ʂɐ̌ːt mǐˀ lɐːj], [mǐˀlɐːj] ; /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/, /ˌmiːˈleɪ/, or /ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/) was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Victims included women, men, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies were later found to be mutilated and many women were allegedly raped prior to the killings. While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.

The massacre took place in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe of Son My village. The event is also known as the Son My Massacre, especially in the Vietnamese state media. The U.S. military codeword for the alleged Viet Cong stronghold was "Pinkville".

The incident prompted global outrage when it became public knowledge in 1969. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Three U.S. servicemen who had tried to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were initially denounced by several U.S. Congressmen as traitors. They received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Only thirty years later when all involved have retired, were the three rehabilitated and decorated by the Army for their heroic actions.

Incident

Background

Company C of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division, arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967. Though their first month in Vietnam passed without any direct enemy contact, by mid-March the company had suffered 28 incidents involving mines or booby-traps which caused numerous injuries and five deaths.

Vietnamese women and children in Mỹ Lai before being killed in the massacre, March 16, 1968. According to the testimony, they were killed seconds after the photo was taken. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

During the Tet Offensive of January 1968, attacks were carried out in Quảng Ngãi by the 48th Battalion of the National Liberation Front (NLF), commonly referred to by the Americans as the Vietcong or Victor Charlie (from the initials corresponding with the NATO phonetic alphabet). U.S. military intelligence assumed that the 48th NLF Battalion, having retreated and dispersed, was taking refuge in the village of Sơn Mỹ, in Quảng Ngãi Province. A number of specific hamlets within that village—designated Mỹ Lai 1, 2, 3, and 4—were suspected of harboring the 48th. (In February, the Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre and Ha My Massacre were perpetrated by South Korean Marines in Quảng Nam, a neighboring province of Quảng Ngãi.)

U.S. forces planned a major offensive against those hamlets using Task Force Barker, a battalion-size unit made up of three rifle companies of the Americal Division and led by Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker. Colonel Oran K. Henderson urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good". Barker ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy foodstuffs, and perhaps to close the wells.

On the eve of the attack, at the Charlie Company briefing, Captain Ernest Medina told his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village would have left for the market by 7 a.m. and any who remained would be NLF or NLF sympathizers. He was asked whether the order included the killing of women and children. Those present later gave different accounts of Medina's response. Some, including platoon leaders, testified that the orders as they understood them were to kill all guerrilla and North Vietnamese combatants and "suspects" (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells. He was also quoted as saying "They're all V.C., now go and get them" and was heard to say "Who is my enemy?" Medina added, "Anybody that was running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes even if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her."

Company C was to enter the hamlet, spearheaded by its first platoon. The other two companies in the task force were to cordon off the village.

Killings

Dead man and child. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

On the Saturday morning of March 16 at 07:30, around 100 enlisted men and officers from the Charlie Company led by Captain Ernest Medina, following a short artillery and helicopter gunship barrage landed on helicopters in the spreading coastal village of Son My, a patchwork of settlements, rice paddies, irrigation ditches, dikes, and dirt roads, connecting an assortment of hamlets and sub-hamlets. The biggest among them were the hamlets My Lai, Co Luy, My Khe, and Tu Cung. Though the G.I.s were not fired upon after landing, they suspected there were Vietcong troops hiding underground or in the huts. The 1st Platoon led by Second Lieutenant William Calley and the 2nd Platoon led by Lieutenant Stephen Brooks entered the hamlet of Tu Cung, while the 3rd platoon and Captain Medina's command post remained outside.

The villagers, who were getting ready for a market day, at first did not panic or run away, as they were herded into the hamlet's commons. Harry Stanley said during the later investigation that the killings started without warning. He first observed, how a member of the 1st Platoon killed a man with a bayonet. Then, the same individual pushed another villager into a well and threw a grenade down. Further, he saw fifteen or twenty people, mainly woman and children, kneeling around a temple with burning incenses, who were praying and crying. They were all killed execution style by shots in the head.

A large group of about 70–80 villagers, rounded up by the 1st Platoon on the commons, were killed on order given by Calley, who also was shooting. Paul Meadlo testified that he spent several M16 clips. He recollected that woman were allegedly saying "No VC" and were trying to shield their children. Most of the killings occurred in the southern part of Tu Cung, a sub-hamlet Xom Lang, which was a home to 700 residents. Xom Lang was erroneously marked on the U.S. military operational maps of Quang Ngai Province as My Lai (4).

According to another eyewitness account of the massacre, Ronald Haeberle's, in one instance,

There were some South Vietnamese people, may be fifteen of them, woman and children included, walking on a dirt road may be 100 yards away. All of a sudden the G.I.s just opened up with M16s. Beside the M16 fire, they were shooting at the people with M79 grenade launchers... I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Members of the 2nd platoon killed at least 60–70 Vietnamese, as they swept through the northern half of Mỹ Lai (4} and through Binh Tay, a small sub-hamlet about 400 metres (1,300 ft) north of Mỹ Lai (4). The platoon suffered one dead and seven wounded by mines and booby traps. After the initial sweeps by the 1st and 2nd platoons, the 3rd Platoon was dispatched to deal with any "remaining resistance". The 3rd platoon also reportedly rounded up and killed a group of seven to twelve women and children.

Since Charlie Company had encountered no enemy opposition at My Lai (4) and did not request any back-up, the Bravo Company of the 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of Task Force Barker was transported by air between 08:15 and 08:30 two miles away. It attacked the sub-hamlet My Hoi of the Co Luy hamlet, which was mapped by the Army as My Khe (4). During this operation, between 60 to 155 people, including women and children, were killed.

Over the following two days, both battalions were involved in additional burning and destruction of dwellings, as well as mistreatment of Vietnamese detainees. While part of the soldiers did not participate in the crimes, they neither openly protested nor complained later to their superiors.

Helicopter crew intervention

Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, saw a large number of dead and dying civilians as he began flying over the village—all of them infants, children, women, and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman being kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina (Medina later claimed that he thought she had a grenade). The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there (David Mitchell of the 1st Platoon) if he could help get the people out of the ditch, and the sergeant replied that he would "help them out of their misery". Thompson, shocked and confused, then spoke with Second Lieutenant Calley, who claimed to be "just following orders". As the helicopter took off, they saw Mitchell firing into the ditch.

Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women, and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a lieutenant (identified as Stephen Brooks of the 2nd Platoon) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, "he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade". Thompson testified that he then told Brooks to "just hold your men right where they are, and I'll get the kids out". He found 12–16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups.

Returning to Mỹ Lai, Thompson and other air crew members noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors in the ditch, Thompson landed again. A crew member entered the ditch and returned with a bloodied but apparently unharmed child who was flown to safety. The child was thought to be a boy, but later turned out to be a four-year-old girl. Thompson then reported what he had seen to his company commander, Major Frederic W. Watke, using terms such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings". Thompson's reports were confirmed by other pilots and air crew.

For their actions, Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and his crew were awarded Bronze Star medals. Andreotta received his medal posthumously, as he was killed in action on April 8, 1968. As the DFC citation included a fabricated account of rescuing a young girl from My Lai from "intense crossfire" Thompson threw his medal away. He later received a Purple Heart for other services in Vietnam.

In March 1998, the helicopter crew's medals were replaced by the Soldier's Medal, "the highest the U.S. Army can award for bravery not involving direct conflict with the enemy". The medal citations state they were "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 at My Lai". Thompson initially refused the medal when the US Army wanted to award it quietly. He demanded it be done publicly and that his crew also be honored in the same way. The veterans also made contact with the survivors of Mỹ Lai.

Aftermath

Dead bodies outside a burning dwelling. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

After returning to their base at about 11:00, Thompson reported the massacre to his superiors. His allegations of civilian killings quickly reached Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the operation's overall commander. Barker radioed his executive officer to find out from Captain Medina what was happening on the ground. Medina then gave the cease-fire order to Charlie Company to "knock off the killing".

Thompson made an official report of the civilian killings, and was interviewed by Colonel Oran Henderson, the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade (the parent organization of the 20th Infantry). Concerned, senior American officers canceled similar planned operations by Task Force Barker against other villages (My Lai 5, My Lai 1, etc.) in Quảng Ngãi Province, possibly preventing the additional massacre of hundreds, if not thousands, of Vietnamese civilians.

Despite Thompson's information, Commander of the Task Force Barker submitted a report which stated that operation in My Lai was a success with 128 Vietcong partisans killed. General William C. Westmoreland congratulated Charlie Company for "outstanding action", saying that they had "dealt [the] enemy [a] heavy blow". Later, he reversed himself by writing in his memoir that it was "the conscious massacre of defenseless babies, children, mothers and old men in a kind of diabolical slow-motion nightmare that went on for the better part of a day, with a cold-blooded break for lunch".

Owing to the chaotic circumstances of the war and the U.S. Army's decision not to undertake a definitive body count of noncombatants in Vietnam, the number of civilians killed at Mỹ Lai cannot be stated with certainty. Estimates vary from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. The memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from one to 82. A later investigation by the U.S. Army arrived at a lower figure of 347 deaths, the official U.S. estimate. Nick Turse, an American historian and investigative journalist, in his book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (2013) wrote that in South Vietnam between 195,000 and 415,000 noncombatants were killed during the war years.

Reporting, cover-up and investigations

The first reports claimed that "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" were killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". General William Westmoreland, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam commander, congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". As related at the time by Stars and Stripes magazine, "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle." On March 16, 1968, in or around the official press briefing known as the “Five O'Clock Follies”, "a mimeographed release included this passage: 'In an action today, Americal Division forces killed 128 enemy near Quang Ngai City. Helicopter gunships and artillery missions supported the ground elements throughout the day.'"

Initial investigations of the Mỹ Lai operation were undertaken by the 11th Light Infantry Brigade's commanding officer, Colonel Henderson, under orders from the Americal Division's executive officer, Brigadier General George H. Young. Henderson interviewed several soldiers involved in the incident, then issued a written report in late April claiming that some 20 civilians were inadvertently killed during the operation. The Army at this time was still describing the event as a military victory that had resulted in the deaths of 128 enemy combatants.

Six months later, Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the new overall commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, accusing the Americal Division (and other units of the U.S. military) of routine and pervasive brutality against Vietnamese civilians. The letter was detailed and its contents echoed complaints received from other soldiers.

Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old Army major, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically reference Mỹ Lai (Glen had limited knowledge of the events there). In his report, Powell wrote, "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Powell's handling of the assignment was later characterized by some observers as "whitewashing" the atrocities of Mỹ Lai. In May 2004, Powell, then United States Secretary of State, told CNN's Larry King, "I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."

Independently of Glen, Ronald Ridenhour, a former member of the 11th Infantry Brigade, sent a letter in March 1969 to thirty members of Congress imploring them to investigate the circumstances surrounding the "Pinkville" incident. Ridenhour had learned about the events at Mỹ Lai secondhand from talking to members of Charlie Company over a period of months beginning in April 1968. He became convinced that something "rather dark and bloody did indeed occur" at Mỹ Lai, and was so disturbed by the tales he heard that within three months of being discharged from the Army he penned his concerns to Congress. Most recipients of Ridenhour's letter ignored it, with the exception of Congressman Mo Udall and Senators Barry Goldwater and Edward Brooke. Udall urged the House Armed Services Committee to call on Pentagon officials to conduct an investigation.

Eventually, Calley was charged with several counts of premeditated murder in September 1969, and 25 other officers and enlisted men were later charged with related crimes. It was another two months before the American public learned about the massacre and trials.

In May 1970, a sergeant who participated in Operation Speedy Express wrote a confidential letter to then Army Chief of Staff Westmoreland describing civilian killings on the scale of the massacre occurring as "a My Lay each month for over a year" during 1968–1969. Two other letters to this effect from enlisted soldiers to military leaders in 1971, all signed "Concerned Sergeant", were uncovered within declassified National Archive documents. The letters describe routine civilian killings as a policy of population pacification. Army policy also stressed very high body counts and without regard to who was killed. Alluding to indiscriminate killings described as unavoidable, Commander of the Ninth Division, then Maj. Gen. Julian Ewell in September 1969 submitted a confidential report to Westmoreland and other generals describing the countryside in some areas of Vietnam as resembling the battlefields of Verdun.

Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, after extensive conversations with Calley, broke the Mỹ Lai story on November 12, 1969, on the Associated Press wire service; on November 20, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines all covered the story, and CBS televised an interview with Paul Meadlo, a soldier in Calley's unit during the massacre. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) published explicit photographs of dead villagers killed at Mỹ Lai.

In November 1969, General William R. Peers was appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into the My Lai incident and its subsequent cover-up. Peers' final report, published in March 1970, was highly critical of top officers for participating in the cover-up and the Charlie Company officers for their actions at Mỹ Lai 4. According to Peers's findings:

[The 1st Battalion] members had killed at least 175–200 Vietnamese men, women, and children. The evidence indicates that only 3 or 4 were confirmed as Viet Cong although there were undoubtedly several unarmed VC (men, women, and children) among them and many more active supporters and sympathizers. One man from the company was reported as wounded from the accidental discharge of his weapon.

However, critics of the Peers Commission pointed out that it sought to place the real blame on four officers who were already dead, foremost among them the commander of Task Force Barker, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, who was killed in a mid-air collision on June 13, 1968.

Court martial

On November 17, 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers, including Major General Samuel W. Koster, the Americal Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of those charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Henderson was the only officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up; he was acquitted on December 17, 1971.

In a four-month-long trial, despite claims that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, Calley was convicted on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder not less than twenty people. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Richard Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released, pending appeal of his sentence. In August 1971, Calley's sentence was reduced by the Convening Authority from life to twenty years. Further, Cally's conviction was upheld by the Army Court of Military Review in 1973 and by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals in 1974. Despite that, Cally would eventually serve three and one-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning including three months in a disciplinary barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In September 1974, he was paroled by the Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway.

In a separate trial, Captain Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Colonel Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.

Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at My Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley was the only one convicted.

Some have argued that the outcome of the Mỹ Lai courts-martial failed to uphold the laws of war established in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. For example, Telford Taylor, senior American prosecutor at Nuremberg wrote that legal principles established at the war crimes trials could have been used to prosecute senior American military commanders for failing to prevent atrocities such as the one at My Lai. Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in The New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders—a rationale that contradicts the standards set at Nuremberg and Tokyo, where following orders was not a defense for committing war crimes. On the whole, other than My Lai court-martial, there were thirty six military trials held by the U.S. Army from January 1965 until August 1973 for crimes against civilians in Vietnam.

Survivors

In early 1972, the camp (at Mỹ Lai 2) where the survivors of the Mỹ Lai Massacre had been relocated was largely destroyed by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) artillery and aerial bombardment. The destruction was officially attributed to "Viet Cong terrorists". The truth was revealed by Quaker service workers in the area through testimony (in May 1972) by Martin Teitel at hearings before the Congressional Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees. In June 1972, Teitel's account of the events was published in The New York Times.

Many American soldiers who have been in My Lai during the massacre accepted personal responsibility for the loss of civilian lives. Some of them expressed regrets without personal guilt, as, for example, Ernest L. Medina, who said, "I have regrets for it, but I have no guilt over it because I didn't cause it. That's not what the military, particularly the United States Army, is trained for."

On March 16, 1998, a gathering of local people and former American and Vietnamese soldiers stood together at the place of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to commemorate its 30th anniversary. American veterans Hugh Thompson and Lawrence Colburn, who were shielding civilians during the massacre, addressed the crowd. Among the listeners was Phan Thi Nhanh, a 14-year old girl at the time of the massacre. She was saved by Thompson and vividly remembered that tragic day, "We don't say we forget. We just try not to think about the past, but in our hearts we keep a place to think about that". Colburn challenged Lieutenant Calley, "...to face the women we faced today who asked the questions they asked, and look at the tears in their eyes and tell them why it happened". American diplomats or any other officials did not attend the meeting.

More than a thousand people turned out March 16, 2008, forty years after the massacre, to remember the victims of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War. The Son My Memorial drew survivors of the massacre, the families of the victims and returning U.S. war veterans alike. One survivor, who was a 8-year girl on March 16, 1968, said, "Everyone in my family was killed in the My Lai massacre — my mother, my father, my brother and three sisters. They threw me into a ditch full of dead bodies. I was covered with blood and brains". The U.S. was unofficially represented by a volunteer group from Wisconsin called Madison Quakers, who in 10 years built three schools in My Lai and planted a peace garden.

On August 19, 2009, Calley made his first public apology for the massacre in a speech to the Kiwanis club of Greater Columbus, Georgia:

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai", he told members of the Kiwanis club. "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

Duc Tran Van, who was seven years old at the time of My Lai massacre and now resides in Remscheid, Germany, called the apology terse. He wrote a public letter to Calley describing the plight of his and many other families to remind him that time did not ease the pain, and that grief and sorrow over lost lives will forever stay in My Lai.

Effects and analysis

From the beginning, military analysts concluded that Mỹ Lai showed the need for better and stronger leadership for the troops. As the Vietnam War dragged on, the number of well-trained and experienced career soldiers and officers on the front lines dropped sharply as casualties and combat rotation took their toll. Observers lamented the lack of bright young men who avoided military service through college or homeland service; the talent pool for new officers became shallow. They pointed to Calley, a young, unemployed college dropout, as an example of the raw and inexperienced recruits being rushed through officer training.

Some commentators emphasized certain problems with the military's insistence on unconditional obedience to orders while at the same time limiting the doctrine of "command responsibility" to the lowest ranks. Others saw Mỹ Lai and related war crimes as a direct result of the military's attrition strategy, with its emphasis on "body counts" and "kill ratios". It is not accidemtly, that South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commander General Chae Myung-shin remarked, "Calley tried to get revenge for the deaths of his troops. In a war, this is natural." Also, the fact that the massacre was successfully covered up for 18 months was seen as a prime example of the Pentagon's "Culture of Concealment", and of the lack of integrity that permeated the defense establishment.

Participants

Commanders

• Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker – commander of the Task Force Barker, a battalion-sized unit, assembled to attack the 48th Battalion of the Vietcong allegedly based in and around My Lai. He ordered the destruction of the village and supervised the artillery barrage and combat assault from his helicopter. Reported the operation as a success; was killed in Vietnam on June 13, 1968, in a mid-air collision before the investigation had begun.
• Captain Kenneth W. Boatman - an artillery forward observer; was accused by the Army of failure to report possible misconduct, but charge was dropped.
• Lieutenant Stephen Brooks – platoon leader, 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company; turned a body count of 60 for the second platoon; later killed himself in Vietnam.
• Major Charles C. Calhoun - operations officer of Task Force Barker; charges against him of failure to report possible misconduct were dropped.
• Second Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr. – platoon leader, 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, First Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division. Was charged in premeditating murder of 102 civilians, found guilty and sentenced to life. Was paroled in September 1974 by the Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway.
• Lieutenant Colonel William D. Guinn Jr. - deputy American adviser in Quangngai Province. Charges against him of dereliction of duty and false swearing brought by the Army were dropped.
• Colonel Oran K. Henderson – 11th Infantry Brigade commander, who ordered the attack and flew in a helicopter over Mỹ Lai during it. After Hugh Thompson immediately reported multiple killings of civilians, Henderson started the cover-up by dismissing allegation about the massacre and reporting to the superiors that indeed 20 people from My Lai died by accident. Was accused of alleged cover-up and false swearing by the Army; charges were dropped.
• Major General Samuel W. Koster – commander of the 23rd Infantry Division (United States), known as Americal Division, was not involved with the planning of the My Lai operation. However, he did not followed up with Henderson on the initial investigation, and afterward was caught into cover-up. Was charged by the Army with failure to obey lawful regulations, dereliction of duty, and alleged cover-up; charges dropped. Later was demoted to Brigadier General and stripped of a Distinguished Service medal.
• Captain Eugene M. Kotouc – military intelligence officer assigned to Task Force Barker; he partially provided information, on which the Mỹ Lai combat assault was approved; together with Medina and a South Vietnamese officer, he interrogated, tortured and allegedly executed VC and NVA suspects later that day. Was charged with maiming and assault, tried by the jury and acquitted.
• Captain Dennis H. Johnson - 52d Military Intelligence Detachment, assigned to Task Force Barker, was accused of failure to obey lawful regulations, however charges were later dropped.
• Second Lieutenant Jeffrey La Cross - platoon leader, 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company; testified that his platoon did not meet any armed resistance in My Lai, and that his men did not kill anybody, however, since, in his words, both Calley and Brooks reported a body count of 60 for their platoons, he then submitted a body count of 6.
• Major Robert W. McKnight - operations officer of the 11th Brigade; was accused of false swearing by the Army, but charges were subsequently dropped.
• Captain Ernest L. Medina – commander of Company C, First' battalion, 20th Infantry; nicknamed Mad Dog by subordinates. He planned, ordered, and supervised the execution of the operation in Sơn Mỹ village. Was accused of failure to report a felony and of murder; went to trial and was acquitted.
• Captain Earl Michaels - company commander during My Lai operation; he died in a helicopter crash three months later.
• Brigadier General George H. Young Jr. - assistant division commander, 23rd Infantry Division; charged with alleged cover-up, failure to obey lawful regulations and dereliction of duty by the Army; charges were dismissed.
• Major Frederic W. Watke - commander of Company B, 123rd Aviation Battalion, 23rd Infantry Division; was accused of failure to obey lawful regulations and dereliction of duty; charges were dropped.
• Captain Thomas K. Willingham - Company B, Fourth Battalion, Third Infantry Division, assigned to Task Force Barker; charged with making false official statements and failure to report a felony; charges were dropped.

Altogether, 14 officers directly and indirectly involved with the operation, including two generals, were investigated in connection with the My Lai massacre, except Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker, Captain Earl Michaels and Lieutenant Stephen Brooks, who were KIA.

1st Platoon, Charlie Company 1st Battalion 20th Infantry

• Michael Bernhardt – private first class; he dropped from the University of Miami to volunteer in the Army. Bernhardt refused to kill civilians in My Lai. Later, Captain Medina threatened Bernhardt trying to deter him from exposing the massacre; as a result, Bernhardt was allegedly given more dangerous assignments such as point duty on patrol. Bernhardt told Ronald Ridenhour, who was not in My Lai, about the massacre, pushing him to continue his investigation. Later he would help expose and detail the massacre in numerous interviews with the press, and he served as a prosecution witness in the trial of Medina, where he was subjected to intense cross examination by defense counsel F. Lee Bailey. Michael Bernhardt is a recipient of the New York Society for Ethical Culture's 1970 Ethical Humanist Award.
• Herbert Carter – platoon "tunnel rat". He claimed he shot himself in the foot in order to be MEDEVACed out of the village.
• Dennis Conti – testified he initially refused to shoot, but later fired some M79 grenade launcher rounds at a group of fleeing people with unknown effect.
• James Joseph Dursi – private first class; killed a mother and child, then refused to kill anyone else even when ordered to do so by Calley.
• Ronald Grzesik – a team leader. He claimed he followed orders to round up civilians, but refused to kill them.
• Robert Maples – a machine gunner; stated that he refused an order to kill civilians hiding in a ditch even being threatened by his commanding officer to be shot himself.
• Paul Meadlo – said he was afraid of being shot if he did not participate. Lost his foot to a land mine the next day. Later, he publicly admitted his part in the massacre.
• Sergeant David Mitchell – accused by witnesses of shooting people at the ditch site; pleaded not guilty. Mitchell was acquitted. His attorney was Ossie Brown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who thereafter became the district attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.
• Varnado Simpson – committed suicide in 1997, citing guilt over several murders committed in Mỹ Lai.
• Charles Sledge – radio operator, later prosecution witness.
• Harry Stanley – a machine gunner; claimed to have refused an order from the lieutenant Calley to kill civilians that were rounded-up in a bomb-crater. Refused to testify against Calley. After he was featured in a documentary and several newspapers, the city of Berkeley, California, designated Oct. 17 as Harry Stanley Day.
• Esequiel Torres – previously had tortured and hanged an old man because Torres found his bandaged leg suspicious. He and Roschevitz (described below) were involved in the shooting of a group of ten women and five children in a hut. Later he was ordered by Calley to shoot a number of people with a M60 machine gun; he fired a burst before refusing to fire again, after which Calley took his weapon and opened fire himself. Charged with murder, but was acquitted.
• Frederick Widmer – Widmer, who has been the subject of pointed blame, is quoted as saying, "The most disturbing thing I saw was one boy—and this was something that, you know, this is what haunts me from the whole, the whole ordeal down there. And there was a boy with his arm shot off, shot up half, half hanging on and he just had this bewildered look in his face and like, 'What did I do, what's wrong?' He was just, you know, it's, it's hard to describe, couldn't comprehend. I, I shot the boy, killed him and it's—I'd like to think of it more or less as a mercy killing because somebody else would have killed him in the end, but it wasn't right."

Before being shipped to South Vietnam, all Charlie Company's soldiers went through an advanced infantry training and basic unit training at Pohakuloa Training Area in Hawaii. They were taught in Schofield Barracks how to treat prisoners and how to distinguish Vietcong guerrilla from a civilian by a Judge Advocate General.

Other soldiers

Hugh Thompson, Jr. rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre.

• Nicholas Capezza – chief medic in Charlie Company. He insisted he saw nothing unusual.
• William Doherty and Michael Terry – soldiers in the 3rd Platoon who killed the wounded in the ditch.
• Ronald L. Haeberle – photographer attached to the 11th Brigade information office who accompanied C Company.
• Sergeant Minh – ARVN interpreter who confronted Captain Medina about the number of civilians that were killed. Medina replied, "Sergeant Minh, don't ask anything – those were the orders."
• Gary D. Roschevitz – sergeant, a grenadier of the 2nd platoon; according to the testimony of James M. McBreen, Roschevitz killed five or six people standing together with a canister round, which had a shotgun effect after exploding; also grabbed an M16 rifle from Varnado Simpson to kill five Vietnamese prisoners. According to various witnesses, he later forced several women to undress with the intention of raping them. When the women refused, he reportedly shot at them.
• Varnado Simpson - rifleman, 2nd platoon; admitted that he slew around 10 people in My Lai on Captain Medina's orders to kill not only people, but even cats and dogs. He fired at a group of people where he allegedly saw a man with a weapon, but instead killed a woman with the baby.

Rescue helicopter crew

• Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr. – helicopter pilot who confronted the ground forces personally. Died 6 January 2006.
• Specialist Four Glenn Andreotta – crew chief. Killed In Action: 8 April 1968.
• Specialist Four Lawrence Colburn – door gunner.

Media coverage

News press

The first mentions about My Lai appeared in the media after Fort Benning's vague press release about the charges pressed against Lieutenant Calley, which was distributed on September 5, 1969. Consequently, NBC aired on September 10, 1969 a segment in the Huntley-Brinkley Report which mentioned the murder of a number of civilians in South Vietnam. Following that, emboldened Ronald Ridenhour decided to disobey the Army's order to withhold the information from the media. He approached reporter Ben Cole of the Phoenix Republic, who did not have enough resolve to handle the scoop. Charles Black from the Columbus Enquirer uncovered the story on his own but also decided to put it on hold. Two major national news press outlets - The New York Times and the Washington Post received some tips with partial information but did not act on them.

A phone call on October 22, 1969, answered by freelancing investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, and his subsequent independent inquiry broke the wall of silence that was surrounding the My Lai massacre. At first, Hersh tried to sell the story to Life and Look magazines, which turned it down. Unfazed, Hersh went to a small Washington-based Dispatch News Service which sent it to fifty major American newspapers; thirty of them accepted it for publication. The New York Times reporter Henry Kamm investigated further and found several My Lai massacre survivors in South Vietnam. He estimated the number of killed civilians as 567. Next, Ben Cole published an article about Ridenhour. Joseph Eszterhas of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, who was friends with Ronald Haeberle and knew about the photo evidence of the massacre, published the grizzly images with dead bodies of old men, woman, and children on November 20, 1969. Time magazine's article on November 28, 1969 finally brought My Lai to the front of the public debate about Vietnam War.

Afterward, interviews and stories connected to My Lai massacre started to appear regularly in the American and international press which continues until now.

On television, film and video

In 1975, Stanley Kramer and Lee Bernhard directed a docudrama Judgment: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley with Tony Musante as Lieutenant Calley, and Harrison Ford as Frank Crowder.

In 1989, the British television station Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary Four Hours in My Lai as part of the networked series First Tuesday. Using eyewitness statements from both Vietnamese and Americans, the programme revealed new evidence about the massacre.

In 1994, a video film My Lai Revisited was aired on 60 Minutes by CBS.

On March 15, 2008, the BBC broadcast the documentary The My Lai Tapes on Radio 4 and subsequently on the BBC World Service, in both English and Vietnamese, that used never before heard audio recordings of testimony taken at The Pentagon during the 1969–1970 Peers Inquiry.

On May 23, 1989, PBS aired a documentary Remember My Lai (Frontline, Season 7) directed by Kevin Sim.

On April 26, 2010, the American PBS broadcast a documentary as part of its American Experience series, entitled The American Experience: My Lai.

On December 10, 2010, Italian producer Gianni Paolucci released a movie entitled My Lai Four, directed by Paolo Bertola, starring American actor Beau Ballinger as Calley, and adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Seymour Hersh.

Photography

The My Lai massacre, like many other events in Vietnam, was captured on camera by U.S. Army personnel. The most published and graphic images were taken by Ronald Haeberle, a U.S Army Public Information Detachment photographer who accompanied the men of Charlie Company that day. Some of the black-and-white photographs he took were with an Army camera and were either subject to censorship or did not depict any Vietnamese casualties when published in an Army newspaper. Haeberle also took color photographs with his own camera while on duty the same day, which he kept and later sold to the media."

The derision "baby killers" was often used by anti-war activists against American soldiers, largely as a result of the Mỹ Lai Massacre. Although American soldiers had been so taunted since at least 1966, the Mỹ Lai massacre and the Haeberle photographs both further solidified the stereotype of drug-addled soldiers who killed babies. Acording to M. Paul Holsinger, the And babies poster, which used a Haeberle photo, was "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the human cost of the conflict in Southeast Asia. Copies are still frequently seen in retrospectives dealing with the popular culture of the Vietnam War era or in collections of art from the period."

Another soldier, John Henry Smail of the 3rd Platoon, took at least 16 color photographs depicting U.S. Army personnel, helicopters, and aerial views of Mỹ Lai. These, along with Haeberle's photographs, were included in the "Report of the Department of the Army review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident". Former First Lieutenant Roger L. Alaux Jr., a forward artillery observer, who was assigned to Charlie Company during the combat assault on Ly Mai 4, also took some photographs from a helicopter that day, including aerial views of Mỹ Lai , and of the C Company's landing zone.

• 
  Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Tẩu (chín Tẩu), killed by US soldiers
• 
  Unidentified dead Vietnamese man
• 
  Unidentified dead body thrown down a well
• 
  SP5 Capezza burning a dwelling
• 
  PFC Mauro, PFC Carter, and SP4 Widmer (Carter shot himself in the foot with a .45 pistol during the My Lai Massacre)
• 
  SP4 Dustin setting fire to a dwelling
• 
  Unidentified Vietnamese man
• 
  More victims at My Lai.

In memoriam

My Lai massacre memorial site, near Quảng Ngãi, Vietnam.

My Lai holds a special place in American and Vietnamese collective memory.

A 6-acre (2.4-hectare) Son My Memorial dedicated to victims of the Son My (My Lai) massacre was created in the village of Tịnh Khê, Son Tinh District, Quang Ngai Province of Vietnam. The graves with headstones, signs on the places of killing and a museum are all located on memorial site. The War Remnants Museum in Hanoi has an exhibition on My Lai.

Some American veterans chose to go on pilgrimage to the site of the My Lai massacre to heal and reconcile. On the 30th anniversary of the My Lai massacre (March 16, 1998), a groundbreaking ceremony for the My Lai Peace Park was held a mile (1.6 km) away the site of the massacre. It was attended by many American veterans including Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn from the helicopter rescue crew. Mike Boehm, an American Vietnam era veteran, who was instrumental in the peace park effort, said, "We cannot forget the past, but we cannot live with anger and hatred either. With this park of peace, we have created a green, rolling, living monument to peace". On March 16, 2001, the park was dedicated. It became a joint venture of the Quang Ngai province Women's Union, the Madison Quakers’ charitable organization, and the Vietnamese government.

See also

• Human Rights Record of the United States
• Kandahar massacre
• Khatyn massacre
• Lidice
• Operation Wheeler/Wallowa
• Operation Speedy Express
• Oradour-sur-Glane
• Phoenix Program
• Russell Tribunal
• United States war crimes
• Vietnam War Crimes Working Group

Further reading

• Vietnamese Wikipedia; Thảm sát Sơn Mỹ, cited June 7, 2006. (Vietnamese Wikipedia article on the subject)
• 161st Assault Helicopter Company. Unit History of the 161st Assault Helicopter Company (who intervened in the massacre)
• Americal Division Veterans Association; Americal Locations in Vietnam, cited June 3, 2006.
• Anderson, David L. (1998) Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas—extensive interviews with trial participants and soldiers.
• Angers, Trent (1999) The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story Lafayette, La.: Acadian House.
• Becker, Elizabeth. Kissinger Tapes Describe Crises, War and Stark Photos of Abuse., The New York Times, May 27, 2004 (mirrored)
• Belknap, Michal R. (2002) The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1211-4.
• Beidler, Philip D., "Calley's Ghost", Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2003.
• Bilton, Michael and Sim, Kevin. (1992) Four Hours in My Lai New York: Viking, 1992—a recent re-examination, draws extensively on interviews with participants and contains detailed bibliographic references.
• Chomsky, Noam. After Pinkville, Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, 1971
• Chomsky, Noam and Edward S. Herman. Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, 1973 and 2004
• Colburn, Lawrence and Paula Brock. The Choices Made—Lessons from My Lai on Drawing the Line, Seattle Times, March 10, 2002
• Gershen, Martin. (1971) Destroy or Die: The True Story of My Lai New York: Arlington House.
• Goldstein, Joseph. (1976) The My Lai Massacre and its Cover-Up New York: Free Press.
• Greiner, Bernd. (2009) War without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Greiner, Bernd. (2009) The March 1968 Massacre in My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, [online], published on 5 October 2009, URL, ISSN 1961-9898
• Hammer, Richard. (1971) The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley New York: Coward.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1972). Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at My Lai 4. Random House. ISBN 0-394-47460-0.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1970). My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. Random House. ISBN 0-394-43737-3.
• Hersh, Seymour M. The original, Pulitzer-Prize winning articles about the My Lai Massacre for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 13, November 20 and November 25, 1969.
• My Lai and Why It Matters: Review of Ron Ridenhour's Videotaped Lecture
• O'Brien, Tim. (1994) In the Lake of the Woods, McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 1-895246-31-8 – a work of historical fiction about a Vietnam Vet who can't escape his own experience of My Lai.
• Olson, James S. and Roberts, Randy (eds.) (1998) My Lai: A Brief History with Documents, Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-312-17767-4
• Peers, William. (1979) The My Lai Inquiry New York: Norton.
• Raimondo, Maj. Tony, JA. The My Lai Massacre: A Case Study, Human Rights Program, School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia
• Ridenhour, Ron. "Jesus Was a Gook"
• Rockwood, Lawrence. “The Lesson Avoided: the Official Legacy of the My Lai Massacre” The Moral Dimension of Asymmetrical Warfare, Counter-terrorism, Democratic Values and Military Ethics, Netherlands Defense College (2008).
• Sack, John. (1971) Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story New York: Viking.
• "My Lai: An American Tragedy". Time. Dec. 05, 1969. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School. The My Lai Courts-Martial, 1970
• Teitel, Martin. Again, the Suffering of Mylai, article preview, New York Times, June 7, 1972, pg. 45.
• Texas Tech University. The Vietnam Oral History Project
• Toledo Blade. Special Report: Tiger Force
• Valentine, Douglas (1990). "The Phoenix Program". iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-00738-7. Retrieved 2011-06-18.</ref> Chapter 24, "Transgressions" (deals with the My Lai Massacre)

External links

• My Lai — An American Experience, WGBH, PBS Documentary
• Peers Inquiry Military Legal Resources, Library of Congress
• Into The Dark: The My Lai Massacre Crime Library on truTV.com
• The My Lai Courts-Martial, 1970
• The My Lai Massacre
• BBC World Service: The My Lai Tapes
• Calley Apologizes for 1968 My Lai Massacre – video report by Democracy Now!