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Historian William Hammond says inexperience and frustration helped spark the massacre |
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LIKE THE SLAYING of American Indians at Wounded Knee, the massacre at My Lai may never be forgotten.
On March 16, 1968, troops of Charlie Company, part of a temporarily assembled strike unit on a mission to locate and destroy Viet Cong combat units, landed outside My Lai, a hamlet in South Vietnam.
Capt. Ernest L. Medina commanded Charlie Company and 2nd Lt. William L. “Rusty” Calley commanded the company’s first platoon. Expecting Viet Cong resistance, the first and second platoons entered the village with weapons firing. In four hours they had gunned down every living thing they could find.
Thirteen members of Charlie Company, including Medina, were eventually charged with murder. All were acquitted or had their charges dropped except for Calley. After various appeals, Calley served 4 1/2 months at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Debate still rages over whether My Lai was an aberration or an operation — a reminder that Vietnam has left a lasting wound and still divides the country. In a newly published book, “Facing My Lai,” it’s clear that many troubling questions about the massacre persist. Why had My Lai been identified as a Viet Cong stronghold? What orders were the troops actually given?
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| Lt. William Calley, center, is flanked by military police as he leaves
the Fort Benning, Ga., courtroom after he was found guilty of all four charges in the My Lai massacre.
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But the massacre also led to important changes in how the military trains its soldiers, how psychiatrists understand stress and how to avoid another My Lai from happening again.
“There are a number of ways My Lai has ongoing relevance,” said David Anderson, who compiled the book, based on several experts who gathered at a three-day conference in December 1994 on the campus of Tulane University to reflect upon the massacre.
“There are even more specific issues on what My Lai says about what kind of war Vietnam was and our relationship to the Vietnamese,” Anderson said.
MILITARY CHANGES
How to conduct yourself in war or what’s known as law-of-war training is a constant in the military. Ret. Marine Corp. Col. Hays Parks says whenever he speaks to classes, he uses a picture of My Lai to remind people that this is the kind of conduct that will not be accepted in a professional military. Prior to Vietnam, such training was academic and unrealistic, said Parks, also a military lawyer.
But when U.S. forces were sent to Somalia and the Persian Gulf, he said, soldiers were even given “lane training,” which entails putting a soldier in a situation where he is suddenly confronted by a stranger, including possibly a child, and must determine immediately if he is in danger.
During Desert Storm, division commanders, mostly Vietnam veterans, personally addressed troops about the conduct expected of them.
“We did not have a single situation with Iraqi prisoners or Iraqi civilians, Parks said.
My Lai taught the military a lot about how not to fight a war. In Vietnam, the emphasis was on body counts, which gave soldiers a greater incentive to kill.
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| Ha Thi Quy, left, describes how she survived the massacre at My Lai during an interview in February. At right, Truong Thi Le, also a surviver, points to a ditch where 170 people were rounded up and killed.
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Charlie Company was not only poorly trained in human rights, it was frustrated and not cohesive — soldiers kept cycling through and leadership was weak. In “Facing My Lai,” noted psychiatrist and author Robert J. Lifton argues that Vietnam was an “atrocity-producing situation.”
His extensive work with Vietnam veterans shows that there are situations in which an ordinary person is quite capable of committing atrocities. “That occurs because atrocities become the major means of adapting to that situation, and that was very much the situation at My Lai and in much of Vietnam,” Lifton said.
KEEPING REPORTERS AWAY
My Lai also taught the military the importance of keeping the press as far away from the action as possible.
William Gibson, author of “The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam,” said My Lai “opened the window” for critical stories on Vietnam. For the most part, press coverage of Vietnam from the spring of 1965 to the spring of 1968 was fairly favorable.
But when the story of the massacre broke in the fall of 1969, he said, it polarized people and stirred a lot of bitter feelings about the war, which the press picked up on. After My Lai, he said, the press started to report on the revolt among ground troops, drug use in the military and mistreatment of the Vietnamese.
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
But the lessons of My Lai haven’t been studied enough. While military authorities point out that U.S. troops acting in Panama, Somalia and the Persian Gulf have avoided similar atrocities, U.S.-trained forces have committed massacres, especially throughout Central America.
And units of the professional armies of Russia, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Canada also have committed recent atrocities.
An inquiry found that there was an attempt by the Canadian government to cover up the killing of Somali civilians in 1993 by Canadian peacekeepers. Justice Gilles Letourneau, who headed the inquiry, told the Toronto Star that the Somalia affair was Canada’s version of My Lai.
Similar circumstances surrounded the Somalia and My Lai atrocities, Parks said. The unit charged with the murders in Somalia was not qualified to go into combat and was not given specific instructions on how to behave, he said.
In an eerie footnote, Parks said, the Somali murders occurred on March 16, 1993.
LASTING LEGACY
Today, many people in the country have never heard of My Lai and don’t know much about the war, including residents of Calley’s hometown, Columbus, Ga.
Outside the jewelry store where Calley now works selling diamond rings and Rolex watches, Sally Young recently shrugged at the mention of My Lai.
“That really happened? I’ve never heard of it,” said the 31-year-old homemaker.
After leaving the Army, Calley married the daughter of a prominent jeweler.
Calley doesn’t give interviews. He carries an umbrella to foil photographers. People who have met him say he has a sixth sense that detects reporters.
“I’m not giving any interviews or anything. I don’t care to participate in this,” Calley told The Associated Press last week.
Even if people don’t remember Calley, many are affected by his deeds.
“Most may not know about the My Lai incident, but I’d bet they can probably tell you what they are supposed to do and what they’re not supposed to do during ... war,” said Maj. Robert Cerjan, a leadership instructor at Fort Benning, Ga., where Calley was commissioned as an officer and later court-martialed. “That directly reflects on Calley. That’s the legacy.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report with information on Lt. William Calley’s hometown.
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Ceremony marks My Lai massacre
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