My Lai Massacre Psychological Analysis

On March 16th, 1968, an act of obedience resulted in a massacre on the people of My Lai. The men of Charlie Company arrived in Vietnam in December of 1967 with the average age of their company being only 20 years young. These soldiers had no prior combat experience, but had performed well within training and had become known as the best company in their battalion. It was these men who arrived in My Lai on that March day – with orders to kill. It was not only actions on this day that lead to the eventual massacre, but factors played into thee soldiers’ training and experiences leading up to the massacre as well. With a mindset reflecting social psychology, one is able to comprehend how obedience can explain the massacre that occurred My Lai on March 16th, 1968 with the use of four factors;

uncertainty, routinization, gradual escalation, and the dehumanization of the victim.

Social psychology shows when uncertainty and ambiguity are present within a situation, it begins to influence obedience by lowering one’s confidence. When one’s confidence is lowered, they begin to look towards the authority figure present for interpretation of the situation at hand, which leads to obedience (Nelson, class lecture, 2017). The factor of uncertainty was prevalent within the My Lai Massacre whether regarding the company’s training, the moments leading up to the massacre, or the massacre itself. In regards to the soldier’s training, the men were trained to “kill” – yet it was never blatantly said who or what they would be killing (Remember My Lai, 1989). This allowed for a certain amount of uncertainty within their training, which in turn allotted for obedience from the soldiers. Another aspect present relates to the moments leading up to the morning spent in My Lai. The orders Charlie Company received for their briefing were unclear and in fact, no written orders were

ever issued for the operation within My Lai (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). Kelman & Hamilton speak on how orders – or the lack thereof – plays a large role within leading to obedience, “Crimes of obedience begin with orders. But orders are often vague and rarely survive with any clarity the transition from one authority down a chain of subordinates to the ultimate actors” (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). This speaks volumes on the orders given to the soldiers from Charlie Company. The soldiers were told when they would be entering the village at My Lai, all civilians would be gone and those who remained were the enemies who needed to be killed. When Charlie Company arrived, there were only civilians present who ended up taking the blow of the orders. Uncertainty and ambiguity played a large role within the My Lai massacre as the soldiers faced many situations with these factors present.
The act of putting one’s focus on the specific details and procedure of a situation as opposed to the meaning is known as routinization. Social psychology shows that routinization requires one to use their cognitive resources in order to focus on the prime details of the situation, which serves as a distraction from thinking their morals or thoughts of their own relating to the situation (Nelson, class lecture, 2017). This act of routinization causes for obedience to occur. For the soldiers, routinization began within their training. They were given detailed and explicit orders on how to kill, whether it was hand-to-hand combat, using a bayonet, or shooting the victim. When the soldiers were immersed into the village of My Lai with the order to kill, they resorted to their detailed training. Varnado Simpson, a rifleman from Charlie Company, spoke on this matter. Simpson said, “I just blinked, I just went. The training came to me - the programing to kill and I just started killing” (Remember My Lai, 1989). Simpson’s statement shows the affect that routinization on him and his obedience. Simpson, like other soldiers from Charlie Company, focused on the minute details of the massacre and therefor was extremely obedient to the orders they received.
Gradual escalation assisted the My Lai massacre as it led to more obedient soldiers. The act of gradual escalation is simply gradually increasing the severity of the acts one is ordered to perform. This factor results in obedience as the people perform a small, not-so-serious task and then find themselves unable to turn down the larger act because they have no justification to do so. (Nelson, class lecture, 2017). For the soldiers of Charlie Company, gradual escalation was present throughout their training, moments before My Lai, and within My Lai. The severity of the tasks they were ordered to do gradually increased and resulted in the obedience leading to the massacre. The soldiers began in training, where they were ordered to master their skills relating to the destruction of the enemy, but only on targets. The soldier’s superiors trained them on the bayonet, and it was shown the soldiers learned the bayonet was simply used to kill. As their superiors asked them, “What is the spirit of the bayonet?” the soldiers replied in unison, “to kill, kill, kill!” (Remember My Lai, 1989). As the soldiers began to master their skills, they were then deployed on operations to patrol areas around Vietnam. This task was a gradual escalation from the soldier’s training. They went from practicing their skills to being ready to use those skills out on patrol, but there was no main conflict seen while patrolling. Eventually, the soldiers of Charlie Company were ordered to go to My Lai and kill the enemy present within the village. It was within the village the most gradual escalation occurred - the soldiers escalated from killing the enemy to killing innocent civilians (Remember My Lai, 1989). Gradual escalation helps to further explain obedience at My Lai as the orders the soldiers were receiving started to escalate to orders one may not have agreed to had they first been ordered to do so.
The dehumanization of the victim entails one beginning to no longer see the victim as human which results in it being easier to harm the victim. Dehumanization also makes it easier and more likely for one to follow orders to harm the victim. The dehumanization of victims creates a way to influence obedience (Nelson, class lecture, 2017). This factor was commonplace within My Lai. Largely, dehumanization took place in the form of manipulating the victims’ identity within training, the moments leading up to the massacre, and during the massacre itself. This was done by referring to the Vietnamese as “gooks” or “communism” (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). Another way this was done was when the soldiers and their superiors referred to My Lai as “Pinkville,” which regarded the fact people within My Lai were thought to sympathize with the enemy and communism (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). Putting a different, demeaning name on these people allowed for one to not think of them as necessarily people – but as this “thing” that could be destroyed. Lieutenant William Calley, the lieutenant who issued orders on the ground in My Lai, spoke at his trial and highlighted on how dehumanization abetted obedience, “...an enemy I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel and I couldn’t touch - that nobody in the military system ever described as anything other than communism. They didn’t give it a race, they didn’t give it a sex, they didn’t give it an age. They never let me believe that it was just a philosophy in a man’s mind. That was my enemy out there.” (Remember My Lai, 1989). Lt. Calley is describing the dehumanization of their Vietnamese enemy, an enemy that was almost unidentifiable to the soldiers themselves unless they were being directly fired upon. This alone was powerful enough to create obedience within the soldiers at My Lai. They were going into a place they were told was a war zone with their enemies present and this created a scene of massacre lead by obedience.