Analysis Of The My Lai Massacre

The massacre at My Lai 4, often referred to as the “Pinkville Operation” by military officials, quickly became an event surrounded by outrage on the behalf of anti-war activists and soldiers alike. As stories leaked from letters sent to congressmen, and interviewed soldiers, outrage quickly boiled and conservatives and liberals were forced to ask: how could American soldiers commit atrocities so detestable? Newspapers, magazines, and tabloids presented stories all with a similar title. Headlines such as, “First Photos of Mass Viet Slaying” and, “One Hundred Killed; Calley To Blame” helped draw attention to Charlie Company, the soldiers involved, while the spotlight fell on one particular soldier, Lt. Calley, who many blamed as the main instigator of the massacre. While Lieutenant Calley and his fellow members of Charlie Company are responsible for many of their actions during the massacre, the policies instituted by the American government and military are responsible as well, due to the helped violent and detesting nature of American soldiers against the Vietnamese they fostered that caused My Lai.

Society is based upon those who lead and those who follow. Typically people will go as far as harming innocent people in order to please authority. Events such as mass genocides and massacres, happen due to people’s strong willingness follow authority they will perpetrate these horrendous acts. From the outside perspective, it seems as though these events should be obviously avoidable. However, it is difficult to imagine being in the position of either going against personal morals or following authority. Milgram decided to test the theory of how far a person will go to satisfy authority. Although society is skeptical to accept the validity of Milgram’s results, the event that occurred in My Lai proves his results.

In the town of My Lai on March 16, 1968 was not a day you would be wanting to visit. U.S troops were ordered to conduct a massacre killing 500 plus innocent old men, women, and children.

Some individuals know to obey their superior, unless they want to be faced with consequences. However, there are occasions individuals choose to be disobedience because they believe it is the right thing to do for the certain situation that they are faced with. This could in an individual being terminated, dishonorably discharged, or suspended. Knowing the outcome of being insubordinate, individuals are usually obedient, even when they are in a situation that is morally wrong. Kelman and Hamilton, in their article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” examine how Lt. Calley's unquestioning obedience resulted in the massacre of many women and children. Theodore Dalrymple, in his article, “Just Do What The Pilot Tells You,” asserts that there is a balance between when one should be obedient to orders or one should not be. A movie, A Few Good Men, shows two U.S. Marines, Dawson and Downey, being charged for the murder of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and Lt. Daniel Kaffee represents them as their lawyer. Nicholas Leveillee, in his article, “The Role of Obedience in Society,” asserts that one needs to find a balance between obedience and insubordination, so individuals can maintain their individuality and a stable society. Adam Cohen, in his article, “Four Decades After Milgram, We’re Still Willing to Inflict Pain,” asserts that an

William Calley testified that the sight of men killed in a land mine during an operation brought out feelings of hate and fear towards the Vietnamese (Olson, Calley, p.52). While the American soldiers were being wounded or killed the enemy was rarely to be seen or shot at. The soldiers were frustrated that their friends were being killed by the enemy, but they could not find the enemy to kill them. This lead American soldiers into My Lai with the attitude to seek revenge for previous casualties and that nothing would stop them (Olson, Roberts, Peers Report, p.54).

I believe that both the massacre and the cover-up of the events in Vietnam are equally worse. The brutality displayed by the American soldiers in their act of killing over700 human beings at My Lai was wrong. I think that the soldiers misused command and took an advantage of the situation to act brutally. Command had earlier advised the soldiers that the village may be occupied guerrilla fighters. Instead, they found unarmed villagers who were mainly comprised of women and children. I think the soldiers should have called command and given a statement of the situation in order to be advised on what to do next. Killing the unarmed women and children according to me is a sign of weakness and wickedness. I believe that the soldiers had no right and were not acting ethically by performing such evil acts. The mission was to search and destroy. However, there were no signs of threat in the village. I believe the soldiers were ethically wrong and misused power because they raped and tortured the villagers including the children before executing them.

On March 16, 1968, over 300 unarmed civilians were killed in South Vietnam during an indiscriminate, mass murder event known as the My Lai Massacre. Conducted by a unit of the United States Army, the My Lai Massacre ranked one of most appalling atrocities carried out by US forces in an already savage and violent war. All victims involved were unarmed civilians, many of which were women, children, and the elderly. Victims were raped, tortured and beaten, even mutilated before being killed. The massacre was forever seared into the hearts and minds of the American people as the day “the American spirit died.”

On the morning of March 16th the company moved in. They were instructed by Lieutenant William Calley to shoot every living thing in sight, from animals to babies, for the animals would feed the Vietcong and the babies would one day grow up to be them. From many soldiers’ accounts, non-of the people shot that day seemed to pose any threat to the American soldiers. In fact, women, children and old men made up a huge majority of the victims. Barely any weapons were found and according to most of the soldiers the Vietnamese people were trying to cooperate but there was the barrier of language. When the soldiers yelled things in Vietnamese they weren’t even sure if they were saying the right thing because Vietnamese is a language based on inflection in the voice. LT Calley ordered his soldiers to kill all of the Vietnamese in massive slaughters. They were herded into big groups, and some groups were forced into ditches and then fired upon. “The few that survived did so because the were covered by the bodies of those less fortunate.” (Linder) After the massacre was over there was an extensive cover-up, the commanders even reported My Lai as a success with 123 enemy deaths and some weapon recoveries. It wasn’t until a man named Ronald Ridenhour,

(Pinker) For instance, Glover’s description of the horrors in My Lai (Vietnam) will resonate with any reader well after he or she have finished the novel: “They [the American troops] burnt down every house. They raped women and girls and killed them. They stabbed some women in the vagina and disemboweled others… Pregnant women had their stomachs slashed open and were left to die” (Glover 58). Although for some, the My Lai Massacre may seem less important than the Holocaust, for example, because of the smaller number of deaths, Glover does not see it that way. In his eyes, it does not matter how many deaths there were; just the mere fact that humans have let themselves do such obscene acts to other human beings is what matters. But what is even more important than those past events is how humanity, as a whole, can stop events such as the My Lai Massacre from ever happening again.

To succeed politically within South Vietnam itself the United States had to ‘win the hearts and minds of public’. However the atrocities which had struck Vietnam, caused disarray with the public of Vietnam, one case where this is true was the Massacre at My Lai in March 1968; this was the killing of 300 villagers mainly women and children who were raped, murdered, and mutilated; this was carried out by American soldiers who thought the villagers were supposedly harbouring Vietcong. Lieutenant William Calley was charged with the crime but only served

Soldiers are trained to always follow orders, and to never question orders. But that belief is somewhat illogical. Soldier's are to obey any lawful order given. But the training involved, the often chaotic nature of battle, and the need to follow authority to maintain survival can lead to a very blurred vision of what is right or wrong. One's animalistic instincts may take over. Sometimes there are such situations when you've stepped over the line. Such as the horrendous act that took place on March 16, 1968 in the village of Son My.

War is many things. It may be many different things depending on each individual. Many soldiers get trained so their mentality is to characterize their opponents as less than human, so their lives lose all worth. Some soldiers however, are not prepared for this, even though they have been trained. One thing is training for it, another thing is actually killing a human being. As they kill more people, it becomes normalized for them. All they have seen changes their mind, while all of their dreams get swept aside by bloody hands of the hypnotized while they carry the cross of homicide. But why kill other strangers? What’s in it for the soldiers? War feeds the rich while it buries the poor. Rich people are power hungry, selling soldiers in human grocery store, using them as their little puppets who obey their master, making them go around killing each other in order to determine who is right, but in the end, war determines who is left. “The Man I Killed” by Tim O’Brien shows how soldiers who commit violence become traumatized and how that changes over time.

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.

In a perfect world, there would be no guilt because there would be no crimes or atrocities committed. Sadly, even in 2017, a perfect world still does not exist. The guilt that Timothy O’Brien and other members of his platoon felt is eternal, they will never be able to change the past or undo the things they have done. That is why O’Brien writes, to express his guilt to hopefully make sense of his actions. The theme of guilt in The Things They Carried by Timothy O’Brien dominates the book and the lives of the men who survived the Vietnam

During the Vietnam War, American soldiers that did not directly kill another human being still felt to surge of guilt by being a part of the force that killed innocents. In particular, Tim O’Brien never killed a soul during war, nor did he ever look at the faces of the dead. However, O’Brien dedicates multiple chapters to the man he “killed.” The man is described in the saying, “He was not a fighter. His