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Analysis of my lai massacre
Ethical challenge in war
Analysis of my lai massacre
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On March 16, 1968, in the Quang Ngai region of Vietnam, specifically My Lai, the United States military was involved in an appalling slaughter of approximately 500 Vietnamese civilians. There are numerous arguments as to why this incident even had the capacity to occur. Although some of the arguments seem valid, can one really make excuses for the slaughter of innocent people? The company that was responsible for the My Lai incident was the Charlie Company, and throughout the company, there were many different accounts of what happened that reprehensible day. Therefore, there are a few contradictions about what had occurred, such as what the commanding officers' exact instructions for the soldiers were. Even with these contradictions, the results are obvious. The question that must be posed is whether these results make the American soldiers involved that day “guilty”. There is the fact that the environment of the Vietnam War made it very confusing for the soldiers to know exactly who the enemy was, as well as providing pent-up frustration due to the inability to engage in real combat with the enemy. If this is the case, though, why did some soldiers with the same frustrations refuse the orders and sit out on the action? Why did some cry while firing, and why then did one man go so far as to place himself between the Vietnamese and the firing soldiers? If these men who did not see the sense in killing innocents were right with their actions, then how come the ones who did partake were all found not guilty in court? The questions can keep going back and forth on this issue, but first, what happened that day must be examined. Captain Earnest Medina was in charge of giving orders to the Charlie Company, and in the early evening of March 15th, a meeting was called. CPT Medina told the company that the next morning they would be moving into My Lai and attacking Vietcong forces there. He told them that all the civilians would be at the market or would have already been moved out by the time that the soldiers arrived to carry out their planned attack. He said all that would be left in the village would be the Vietcong of the 48th battalion and Vietcong sympathizers. It was never clear what CPT Medina had said to do in the event of coming across civilians. Medina claimed in court that he had told the GI’s not to kill women and children. To use the Vietnam War as an excuse for the massacre is not valid, as some soldiers with the same frustrations refused to follow orders and sit out on the action. The questions can keep going back and forth on this issue, but first, what happened that day must be examined. The military took time out to think about their training of soldiers. "Commanders sent troops in the Desert storm operation into battle with the words, “No My Lais—you hear?” (Linder). History is said to be good for one reason- to learn from past mistakes so they will not be repeated, and that is a very good lesson to learn from My Lai and one that all hope was, in fact, learned.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Sculley Bradley, Richard Beatty, and E. Hudson Long Eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 1962.
America being innocent seems to be a common theme in majority of American history classes. Truth be told, there is never an innocent side to a war. Americans treated their own soldiers and people unjustifiably cruel during this time period, to say the least. Soldiers and civilians from other countries that had a form of participation in this war were
Kelman, Herbert C., Hamilton, V. Lee. “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience”. Writing & Reading for ACP Composition. Ed. Thomas E. Leahey and Christine R. Farris. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 266-277. Print.
Patrick, Joe. “Testing the Rules of Engagement.” Vietnam Memoirs. 2003. 80th Fighter Squadron. 13 Nov. 2003.
Hynes, Samuel Lynn. "What Happened in Nam." The soldiers' tale: bearing witness to modern war. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: A. Lane, 1997. 177-222. Print.
Jeffries, John. Wartime America: The World War II Home Front. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Print. American Way.
The United States became frustrated with the death of wounded prisoners in Vietnam War. This is so deleterious John F Kennedy sends a warning to the west. Tim O’Brien Story about Vietnam could have been a biography because he played a role and it is based on a somewhat a true Story. O’Brien didn’t go through with this because of what he wrote is what he did see, what could have happened, and what he kept from being told. In the book simple themes guilt, shame, and innocence play a vital role in the soldier’s life.
The American public learned after the making of The Green Berets that American soldiers committed countless war crimes, and the Vietnamese people didn’t even want us there. In a speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry spoke about some of the atrocities that occurred in Vietnam. In this speech Kerry spoke about numerous war crimes committed by veterans when he said, “They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam” This statement occurred in 1971 three years after the filming of Green Berets. The words spoken by John Kerry have no similarity to the soldiers portrayed in Green Berets because the American Public simply didn’t know what was going on in Vietnam. The My Lai massacre was also uncovered after the production of Green Berets as widespread media coverage did not become aware of the massacre until 1969. The American Public believed we were not the aggressor in the war and we were there for the “greater
of the rape of a 14 year old girl by twenty GIs ... in front of the
Major Gerald De Lira Jr. USMC. The Anger of a Great Nation: Operation Vigilant Resolve. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a509044.pdf. http:DTIC.mil. 2009
After American journalists exposed Dilawar’s murder, the US military and the Bush administration employed its “bad apples” defence, simply blaming the soldiers immediately involved. The documentary demolishes this claim. Using interviews with the interrogators and other primary sources, it establishes irrefutably that the main responsibility for this and other war crimes lies with the US military high command and the...
Anderson, D. (2002). The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.
The 1986 during the Vietnam war, the slaughter at My Lai Massacre “is an instance of a class of violent acts that can be described as sanctioned massacres (Kelman, 1973): acts of indiscriminate, ruthless, and often systematic mass violence, carried out by military or paramilitary personnel while engaged in officially
...nd innocent villagers of My Lai, it was a time when American’s questioned their own as being “bad guys” or “good guys”. Were America’s tortuous and cruel acts to be considered patriotic or dishonorable? Some Americans, with bitter feelings for all the American lives lost in the Vietnam War, gave credit to Lieutenant Calley for leading troops in participating in such an atrocious event. History shows that there is still much debate on some facts of the massacre and many stories and opinions, although we will never know the facts exactly, what we do know is that America will never forget this tragic event, it will be talked about in American History for many years to come, and the Vietminh hearts will always fill with sadness when they think of the many lives that were lost on that tragic day in history, their minds will always have unspeakable memories of that day.
Turse argues that what happened at My Lai was not a one occurring event but one event in a series of event that took place in Vietnam. In his monograph, he talks about the massacre at Trieu