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Massacre at ​Mỹ Lai: the 504 Lives, and What They Mean Min T Tun

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Massacre at ​Mỹ Lai: the 504 Lives, and What They Mean Min T Tun Massacre At Mỹ Lai: ​ The 504 Lives, and What They Mean Min T Tun Senior Division Historical Paper Word Count: 2,499 1 “The greatest irony and tragedy of all is that our nation, which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is now cast in the mold of being an arch anti-revolutionary.” - Martin Luther King Jr. (King Jr.) On the morning of March 16, 1968, around 100 soldiers in Charlie Company were tasked with a Viet Cong search and destroy operation in the village of Sơn Mỹ, nicknamed Pinksville. ​ What happened next was an incident that would go on to be the most infamous event in the entirety of US involvement in the Vietnam War; the sub hamlets of Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê were absolutely devastated. An approximated 504 civilians were killed at the hands of US soldiers, many of them while running away from the violence and bloodshed. Women were raped, children mercilessly gunned down. PFC Lawrence M. Colburn, who was a helicopter door gunner, describes seeing corpses piled on each other. He also testified that there were “at least a hundred [corpses]” in a ditch alone (Colburn). The incident alone was not uncovered until late 1969, nearly a year and a half later. In many ways, this massacre was not a first for the far reaches of the US military, and it certainly would not be the last. The Mỹ Lai massacre was a massacre that broke barriers by being the first slaughter to be highly publicized and known, and revealed the crimes committed under the guise of American intervention. 504 innocent lives were lost, and although we have been taught to regard them as numbers, they are significant, perhaps more than ever today. 2 Historical Context “Whether we realize it or not our participation in the war in Viet-Nam is an ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed, our paranoid anti-Communism, our failure to feel the ache and anguish of the have nots. It reveals our willingness to continue participating in neo-colonialist adventures …” (King Jr.) Vietnam is a country in Southeast Asia, that was under French colonial rule. During World War II, an influential leader, Ho Chi Minh formed the League for the Independence of Vietnam, in hopes of breaking the rule of its Japanese and French captors. After Japan withdrew its troops in 1945, The League occupied the city of Hanoi and had a celebration with millions of people that marked the beginning of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence from French rule was modeled after the United States’ Declaration of Independence, complete with grievances about French colonial rule. Ho Chi Minh himself wrote eight letters to President Truman about his promises to Vietnam as stated in the Atlantic Charter, in which Roosevelt and Churchill proclaimed international collaboration and cooperation between nations. Needless to say, Truman did not respond (Zinn). Contrary to official statements by Washington during the 1960s, the US was already involved from the year 1950 onwards. In the spring and summer of 1950, large shipments of military equipment were sent to the French in Vietnam. To the President’s administration, “the prospect of another Communist government in Asia was intolerable”(Blum, 122). Truman, according to the popular domino theory, was opposed to another communist country in fear of other countries following suit. Moreover, Indochina still held many resources that were much wanted by the French and the Allied powers, and they could not afford losing other countries to 3 Communism, in fact, the US government even considered taking over Vietnam if French forces decided to withdraw(Zinn). In 1954, the French, unable to win popular support, most of which was behind Ho Chi Minh’s movement, withdrew. The CIA was quick to establish secret paramilitary operations in August, under the command of Edward Lansdale, to spread propaganda, infiltrate Viet Cong forces, sabotage supplies and railroad, as well as to arm and train handpicked Vietnamese for guerilla operations against the Viet Cong (Binn, 125-126). South Vietnam was quick to be enforced by the US as an American, anti-communist sphere of influence, and the role of leader was quickly filled by Ngo Dinh Diem, a former South Vietnamese official. Diem, in fact, had been living in New Jersey until recently (Zinn). By the end of 1962 there were approximately 11,000 “advisors” that trained the newly formed South Vietnam army.(John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; Lindsay). On November 1st, 1963, Diem was deemed useless by the US government as a puppet and was overthrown and murdered by his generals in a US assisted coup. South Vietnamese generals met with Lucien Conhein, who worked for the CIA (“U.S. and Diem’s Overthrow: Step by Step”;Sheehan ;Lindsay). Conhein reported to American Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who, in turn, reported to McGeorge Bundy, John F. Kennedy’s advisor and assistant. John F. Kennedy himself was aware but made no move to stop the coup. Three weeks after Diem was overthrown, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson officially authorized the bombing of North Vietnam after the events of the Gulf of Tonkin, in which US destroyers in North Vietnamese waters were attacked twice by North Vietnamese vessels. In the first attack, four Vietnamese sailors were reported killed, but there were no US casualties (Moise). McNamara later admitted that the second attack on the Maddox and Turner Joy, another ​ ​ ​ ​ 4 battleship, on August 4, never happened in 2003(The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life ​ of Robert S. McNamara). Still, President Johnson used this set of murky events as a springboard ​ from which to take military action towards Vietnam, and to retaliate through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress, which authorised the president to take necessary steps to defend the US from Viet Cong forces (Ray; BBC). Military planes started the bombing of North Vietnam, and by 1965, 200,000 US troops were stationed in Vietnam (BBC; Zinn). By 1966, there were approximately 400,000 US troops in Vietnam, and the number rose to 500,000 by 1967 (BBC). Many Vietnamese civilians were killed as a result of bombing. By 1968, North Vietnamese troops began the Tet Offensive, a joint assault by both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army on strategic US military positions. My Lai Massacre “We see the rice fields of a small Asian country being trampled at will and burned at whim: we see grief-stricken mothers with crying babies clutched in their arms as they watch their little huts burst forth into flames; we see the fields and valleys of battle being painted with humankind’s blood; we see the broken bodies left prostrate in countless fields; we see young men being sent home half-men—physically handicapped and mentally deranged.” (King Jr.) The morning of March 16, 1968, was an infamous day in US history. Task Force Barker, consisting of Company Charlie, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, and Company Bravo, 4th Battalion, 11th Brigade of the 23rd Infantry Division perpetrated one of the most notorious war crimes in the history of the United States. That morning, Charlie Company was sent on a search and destroy mission into the village of Sơn Mỹ, dubbed “Pinksville” for its pinkish appearance on maps. Military intelligence suggested that the area would be occupied by Viet Cong forces, 5 however, upon arrival, the soldiers found a quiet village occupied by women, children, and elders, preparing for breakfast (Shapira). Over the next four hours, chaos ensued as women were raped, children shot, and the bodies thrown into ditches, or left on the side of the road (Colburn; Lopez; Paul; Millians). Artillery bombarded the village, and many civilians tried to flee the village, almost all were shot (Doherty; Henderson; Millians; Gamble). Private First Class Varnado Simpson described the massacre with his eyes in the book Four Hours in My Lai; “I cut ​ ​ their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongue, their hair, scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it, and I just followed. I lost all sense of direction.” (Bilton and Sim). Simpson would later commit suicide nearly 30 years later. Sergeant Michael A Bernhardt describes what he saw as he and his platoon moved through the village; “As we moved on we encountered a lot of dead civilians, apparently civilians 一 women, children, old men, some of the children apparently not old enough to walk yet, who were dead, in very large heaps in areas. I noticed, looking on ahead, moving ahead, observing our American forces were gathering Vietnamese villagers in a large group and making a circle around them and killing all the people” (Bernhardt). Village inhabitants running away, including children, were shot and killed (Paul). Captain Robert L. Hauck, when asked about the killings, described villagers running away as “fair game”(Hauck). Captain Medina’s radio operator was reported to have shot a wounded 4 year old boy trying to escape (Medina). Ron Haeberle, in an interview for Time, recalled an especially horrifying encounter; “Haeberle told me that he saw an old man with two small children walking toward U.S. troops, their belongings in a basket. ‘The old man was shouting, “No V.C.! No V.C.!” to let the soldiers know he wasn’t Viet Cong,’ Haeberle recalled. To his horror, the man and the children were cut down in front of him. ‘A soldier shot all three,’ he 6 said.” (Theiss). A soldier who was especially noticed purely because of the large number of people he killed was Lieutenant William L.
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