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Thread: My Lai Massacre 50 Year Anniversary

  1. #1

    My Lai Massacre 50 Year Anniversary

    Today, March 16, Marks the 50 Year Anniversary of the My Lai Massacre

    March 16 marks the 50th anniversary of the date that does not live in infamy. … In 1968, American soldiers slaughtered animals, raped villagers, and murdered 109 "Oriental human beings" in My Lai. That was the number cited in a court-martial 18 months later.

    The memorial there today, however, lists 504 men, women, and children. Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of murdering "not less than 22 victims" and sentenced to life in prison. … His sentence was reduced to 20 years, then to 10. He was released after 42 months of house arrest. His captain was found not guilty. No one else faced court-martial. …

    Americans learned about the My Lai story on 12 November 1969, from Seymour Hersh’s Associated Press story, and then saw grisly photos of the carnage 10 days later when Life published Army photographer Ronald Haeberle’s shocking photos …

    Haeberle’s photos, like Calley’s sentence, create cognitive dissonance. They do not comport with Americana ideals of brave soldiers risking their lives to protect freedom and make the world safe for democracy. … our soldiers abused prisoners at Abu Grahib; marines murdered women and children in Haditha, Iraq; Navy SEALs killed Afghan detainees at Kalach.

    normal human beings, Americans among them, behave abnormally when stressed abnormally amidst unremitting violence. Viewed across time and space, My Lai is no exception. Its rape, plunder, and carnage occur in wars reaching back through antiquity both real and legendary …

    News of My Lai reached war-weary America when it could no longer be hidden. Now, it is buried again. A recent study of more than 100 U.S. history textbooks found that fewer than half mention My Lai at all. Of those that do, it merits only 80 words on average …

    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.



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  3. #2
    and a man that should have won a Medal of Honor. No higher bravery can be found. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed...316-story.html
    War; everything in the world wrong, evil and immoral combined into one and multiplied by millions.

  4. #3
    Despicable. But sadly all too common during war time. War is a brutal, dehumanizing experience for everyone involved. That's whybwe should always do our utmost to avoid it. Hear that, Mr. President?
    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  5. #4
    Tribute to Whistle-blowers

    Hugh Thompson Jr.


    Ron Ridenhour


    More on Hugh Thompson Jr. ;

    On March 16, 1968 Thompson was piloting an observation helicopter during the search and destroy mission led by William Calley and Ernest Media.

    Thompson experienced no ground fire at his helicopter as he flew over My Lai. It appeared to him to be mostly old men, women, and children — rice farmers.
    No one of draft age was evident.

    Later as their flight continued they began to see many dead bodies around the city. Including an irrigation ditch filled with dead men, women and children.
    Thomson knew something was wrong when he saw a 20-year-old wounded woman lying in the grass. He dropped a green marker that indicated it was safe to approach her. As Thompson was landing he saw Captain Medina finish her off right in front of him.
    Thompson radioed a report as to what was going on but the massacre continued. …

    Thompson landed his helicopter between US forces and a group of Vietnamese and ordered his machine gunners to take out the Americans if they tried to kill the Vietnamese civilians.
    Thompson confronted Calley who told Thompson, “Look Thompson, this is my show. I'm in charge here. It ain't your concern.”

    Comment by the author:
    I returned home from Vietnam about a year earlier. And sadly this news was not a shock to me. Our forces were mostly draftees. Only one in 20 had a high school diploma. Some were given the choice of military service instead of jail …
    The mentality of soldiers at that time was to dehumanize the Vietnamese as things not human beings. [Sound Familiar to today?] …
    Their loss of life was of little importance. …

    There were people in the military that wanted to court martial Thompson for turning his guns on US soldiers but thankfully that never happened. … Thompson saved a lot of people that day. … But hardly anyone, including me, ever heard of Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr.
    Last edited by AZJoe; 03-16-2018 at 05:25 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  6. #5
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  7. #6
    This is the war during my young life. My high school class was the last one where the boys had to register for an actual draft where they could either go to college, enlist, or have a draft number. My dad was over there twice that we knew of. Sometimes every dad in our class would be gone.

    Growing up military and under the weight of Vietnam and the Cold War is probably the single biggest catalyst for moving away from major party politics. A lot more than the atrocities of war happened then. The fabric of our society was ripped apart because of this war. People lost their ability to reason out a situation and now they function from a place of pure anger. I don't think we will ever recover from the obscenity.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  8. #7
    Excerpts: American Reckoning

    shattered was the faith that America’s fighting forces were inherently more virtuous … The unraveling of that conviction began in earnest in 1969 with the revelation that American soldiers had murdered hundreds of unarmed and unresisting women, children, babies, and old men in the village of My Lai.

    For many people, the shocking news came first in the form of several horrifying photographs. One shows almost two dozen dead Vietnamese bodies on a dirt road. … Another photograph shows a woman lying in a field with her legs drawn up under her body. Her conical straw hat has flipped off her head. … a large portion of her brain lies exposed beneath the hat. A third photograph shows a group of six Vietnamese women and children huddled together. At the center an old woman stands, stooped over, with a look of unspeakable terror on her face. Behind her a young woman clutches her around the waist with her head buried in the older woman’s shoulder. A young girl stands wide-eyed and openmouthed, with disheveled bangs. She is pressing into a balding woman, barely visible, who is lifting an arm over the head of the young girl, perhaps to embrace her. On the other side of the photograph, a young woman holding a small boy in one arm uses her free hand to button the bottom of her blouse. …

    The massacre remained hidden1 from the public for more than a year and a half because the military had lied to cover it up. Dozens of officers who had information about the killing of civilians participated in the cover-up, including the commander of the Americal Division, Major General Samuel Koster. The army’s fabricated cover story claimed that an actual battle had been fought in My Lai. According to the after-action report filed by Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker Jr., the operation in My Lai "was well planned, well executed and successful…. The enemy suffered heavily." Details from the fake report were published the next day in the New York Times

    The massacre might have remained a secret much longer had it not been for the moral courage and persistence of Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour. Though not present at My Lai, Ridenhour heard details of the slaughter from men he knew in Charlie Company. … Ridenhour ignored the advice and sent a long, detailed letter to officials in the Pentagon, State Department, and Congress. … The full story began to emerge later that fall, mostly from investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, writing for a small antiwar news syndicate …

    Once the truth began to emerge, one central fact was undisputed. There was no battle in My Lai. … There were no enemy fighters. There weren’t even any military-age men in the hamlet. It was full of women and children. … There was no "fog of war" causing panic or confusion. The only noise came from American weapons, the screams of terrified villagers, and the helicopters hovering over the hamlet with higher-ranking officers. …

    the Americans … murdered people working in the rice fields or walking along the roads. Once the soldiers entered the village, the killing became systematic. … GIs threw hand grenades into homes and underground shelters. They herded large groups of people together and forced them to lie on roads or in drainage ditches, where they were executed en masse with automatic rifles. Other civilians were shot individually. Some Vietnamese were killed only after being clubbed, tortured, stabbed, and raped. Some GIs mutilated their victims after killing them. … The Americans took their time. The massacre was almost leisurely, methodically carried out over a four-hour period. In the midst of the carnage, soldiers took breaks to eat and smoke.

    Some men killed with an almost ecstatic enthusiasm; some because others were doing it; some because their officers ordered them to do it. A few refused to participate. A small group of Vietnamese were rescued when a U.S. observation helicopter piloted by Hugh Thompson saw the slaughter from above and landed to inspect. Thompson and his two crewmen ferried a dozen or so Vietnamese to safety. …

    The night before the massacre Charlie Company’s commander, Captain Ernest Medina, gave his men an impassioned pep talk. … This would not be just another fruitless and exhausting patrol, he promised. Finally they would have an opportunity for "payback," … "When we go into My Lai, it’s open season," one man recalled Medina saying. "When we leave, nothing will be living4." Another man recalled these words: "Nothing [will] be walking, growing, or crawling…. They’re all VCs, now go in and get them." …
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  9. #8
    Survivors Recall

    Although 26 US soldiers were charged with war crimes, only the platoon leader Lieutenant William Calley was convicted of murder. Calley made his first public apology in 2009 …
    "I am very sorry ... I was a second lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them - foolishly, I guess." …

    Pham Thi Thuan had just woken up and was cooking potatoes when the Americans landed …"They first killed the people at the rice paddies, as well as the cattle," said Thuan, an 80-year-old rice farmer from Son My village. ..

    Private Paul Meadlo, recounted what he had done …"You just spray the area on them and so you can't know how many you killed 'cause they were going fast. So I might have killed 10 or 15 of them," … "Men, women, and children," he replied.
    "And babies?"
    "And babies." He answered …

    Pham Thanh Cong … lost his mother, three sisters and one brother. … the soldiers shot them before throwing a grenade into the bunker. Cong was saved because the bodies of his dead family members shielded him. … "They killed people without feeling. When the people were laid on the ground, they also laughed," he added….

    Thuan … was escorted to a nearby canal with her two children along with, by Vietnamese estimates, 170 others. The soldiers opened fire and Thuan fell in, but the bullets missed her and her two small children, who were hiding underneath her, and she too was shielded by dead bodies. … Thaun and her children were among just six people who survived in the ditch. Thuan waited for hours … for the Americans to go away. "They relaxed at the bank and waited there, and we escaped after they moved to another place," said Thuan.

    The massacre ended when American Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson noticed with alarm the actions of his fellow Americans as he flew his helicopter overhead. "It looks to me like there's an awful lot of unnecessary killing going on down there," he said over the radio at the time. "Something ain't right about this." Seeing a group of 11 survivors being chased by the soldiers, he landed his chopper in between the two groups. He ordered his door gunner, Specialist Lawrence Colburn, to point his gun at the [American] soldiers and open fire if they tried to attack anyone else. The soldiers stood back as Thompson called in helicopters to evacuate the civilians. …

    Despite what happened that day 50 years ago, both Cong and Thuan said they held no ill-will towards the American people. "We love them. Thanks to them we have liberation today because they protested against the war," … "I cannot forget, they killed people here, but we try to forgive them and look forward to the future," he added. … " make sure there are no more massacres."

    Last edited by AZJoe; 03-16-2018 at 08:32 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.



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  11. #9
    Sad. I was 16. I can not express myself...
    BEWARE THE CULT OF "GOVERNMENT"

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    Use an internet archive site like
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    to archive the article and create the link to the article content instead.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    I was never at Pinkville but I have it on authority C Co 20th Inf followed orders . Guy who gave the orders died before the investigation .Personally , I would never participate in that or allow my men to .

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    I was never at Pinkville but I have it on authority C Co 20th Inf followed orders . Guy who gave the orders died before the investigation .Personally , I would never participate in that or allow my men to .
    It's a relief to know that when the collapse comes you won't be massacring and scalping white settlements, I guess Danke has had more of a civilizing effect on you than we thought.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

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    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

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    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
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  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It's a relief to know that when the collapse comes you won't be massacring and scalping white settlements, I guess Danke has had more of a civilizing effect on you than we thought.
    I did not really say that . I said I would not murder and rape unarmed civilian communist sympathizers in South Vietnam .
    Last edited by oyarde; 03-16-2018 at 10:29 PM.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    I did not say that . I said I would not murder and rape unarmed civilian communist sympathizers in South Vietnam .
    American Democrats Communists might be a different story?
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    American Democrats Communists might be a different story?
    All options will be on the table when the time comes .

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It's a relief to know that when the collapse comes you won't be massacring and scalping white settlements, I guess Danke has had more of a civilizing effect on you than we thought.
    It was actually the Brits who were the savage scalpers; they were famous for it in Europe.

    A few Indian tribes had some scalping as part of rituals but it was not predominant with the Indians until the Brits were paying for Indian scalps- $20 for men, women, & children.

    Payback's a bitch.
    There is no spoon.

  18. #16
    Jan2017
    Member

    Quote Originally Posted by euphemia View Post
    This is the war during my young life. My high school class was the last one where the boys had to register for an actual draft where they could either go to college, enlist, or have a draft number. My dad was over there twice that we knew of. Sometimes every dad in our class would be gone.

    Growing up military and under the weight of Vietnam and the Cold War is probably the single biggest catalyst for moving away from major party politics. A lot more than the atrocities of war happened then. The fabric of our society was ripped apart because of this war. People lost their ability to reason out a situation and now they function from a place of pure anger. I don't think we will ever recover from the obscenity.
    Our high school class did have the lottery drawn at age 16 btw,, but by the time 18 came for our year - the draft was off.
    Lucky me, as a #6 lottery birth date seed- *uggh*

    My Lai wwas quite the atrocity in quite a year - 1968.



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