Written by Jonathan Smylie
It is hard to understand this massacre. I try to make sense of it by reading the old newspaper clippings at My Lai. There are many in the museum display case including one from the Springfield Union from Amy's hometown.
William Calley was the only member of his platoon convicted. Five others were tried but acquitted, but they had all lifted their guns toward a face, a torso, a bent form, a child, an old woman and they had not stopped. During four hours in the early morning of March 16, 1968, Calley and his men, helicoptered into this small hamlet since no roads lead to it, burned down 19 thatched homes, raped, and killed hundreds villagers. A black granite wall inside the large windowless mausoleum like museum records this mass murder in sharp details: 504 killed, including 182 women, 17 pregnant at the time, 173 children, and 60 men over the age of sixty. Their names, ages and genders are listed. William Calley served less than five months of a life sentence before being paroled and allowed to return to his home in Columbus, Georgia to run a family jewelry store.
The frustration among the GIs was high. The Tet offensives had just happened six weeks earlier. The My Lai area was believed to be a stronghold of the Viet Cong. There was intelligence that the VC was in the hamlet. The U.S. solders were on a search-and-destroy mission in a free-fire zone which meant all the rules were left back at camp.
The killing was initially covered up by high-ranking army officers, but in November of that year, the story hit the newspapers. In 1970 Life magazine printed 51 colored photos taken by an army photographer who was on the ground with the troops. These photos are on displayed on the walls of the museum and show the gruesome facts: a huddled group of 15 women and children just before being executed, two boys cowering in the road moments before being shot, soldiers gunning down farmers forced into an irrigation ditch. 170 died in the ditch. Its walls are now cased in concrete to preserve it. Was this whole thing a revenge killing for Tet? Who came up with this evil plan and how high a rank was he? Why’d they bring along a photographer?
The hamlet of My Lai now looks like a well manicured garden, with neatly pruned bushes, orderly plantings, walkways, leafy trees and just beyond the grounds, acres of bright green rice paddies. Although a tall palm in the middle of the village still shows the scars of bullet holes. The air is clean and still and quiet, the smell of gun powder and cries of the dying have long been brushed away by the wind. Carried, I fear, to Iraq.
One US helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, tried to save some of the Vietnamese once he realized this infraction had turned into a slaughter of the innocent. He set his chopper down in a field and beckoned villagers to run to him. When member of Calley’s platoon saw his actions, they took aim at these running civilians, but the helicopter pilot aimed his craft’s machine right back at them and warned them not to shoot. The pilot managed to fly about a dozen villagers safely out of the area.
The museum guide, a young woman, dropped into an emotional trance when she began her talk while we stood outside next to where one of the village huts once stood. Her voice turned distant and weepy, even though I could tell she had recited these words verbatim many times. The last thing she told us, as we stood in front of the wall of names, was that her grandfather, two uncles and one aunt were killed that day.
It is hard to understand this massacre. I try to make sense of it by reading the old newspaper clippings at My Lai. There are many in the museum display case including one from the Springfield Union from Amy's hometown.
William Calley was the only member of his platoon convicted. Five others were tried but acquitted, but they had all lifted their guns toward a face, a torso, a bent form, a child, an old woman and they had not stopped. During four hours in the early morning of March 16, 1968, Calley and his men, helicoptered into this small hamlet since no roads lead to it, burned down 19 thatched homes, raped, and killed hundreds villagers. A black granite wall inside the large windowless mausoleum like museum records this mass murder in sharp details: 504 killed, including 182 women, 17 pregnant at the time, 173 children, and 60 men over the age of sixty. Their names, ages and genders are listed. William Calley served less than five months of a life sentence before being paroled and allowed to return to his home in Columbus, Georgia to run a family jewelry store.
The frustration among the GIs was high. The Tet offensives had just happened six weeks earlier. The My Lai area was believed to be a stronghold of the Viet Cong. There was intelligence that the VC was in the hamlet. The U.S. solders were on a search-and-destroy mission in a free-fire zone which meant all the rules were left back at camp.
The killing was initially covered up by high-ranking army officers, but in November of that year, the story hit the newspapers. In 1970 Life magazine printed 51 colored photos taken by an army photographer who was on the ground with the troops. These photos are on displayed on the walls of the museum and show the gruesome facts: a huddled group of 15 women and children just before being executed, two boys cowering in the road moments before being shot, soldiers gunning down farmers forced into an irrigation ditch. 170 died in the ditch. Its walls are now cased in concrete to preserve it. Was this whole thing a revenge killing for Tet? Who came up with this evil plan and how high a rank was he? Why’d they bring along a photographer?
The hamlet of My Lai now looks like a well manicured garden, with neatly pruned bushes, orderly plantings, walkways, leafy trees and just beyond the grounds, acres of bright green rice paddies. Although a tall palm in the middle of the village still shows the scars of bullet holes. The air is clean and still and quiet, the smell of gun powder and cries of the dying have long been brushed away by the wind. Carried, I fear, to Iraq.
One US helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, tried to save some of the Vietnamese once he realized this infraction had turned into a slaughter of the innocent. He set his chopper down in a field and beckoned villagers to run to him. When member of Calley’s platoon saw his actions, they took aim at these running civilians, but the helicopter pilot aimed his craft’s machine right back at them and warned them not to shoot. The pilot managed to fly about a dozen villagers safely out of the area.
The museum guide, a young woman, dropped into an emotional trance when she began her talk while we stood outside next to where one of the village huts once stood. Her voice turned distant and weepy, even though I could tell she had recited these words verbatim many times. The last thing she told us, as we stood in front of the wall of names, was that her grandfather, two uncles and one aunt were killed that day.
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