The most infamous war crime committed by United States soldiers in the Vietnam War was the My Lai Massacre. Here are some facts about it. (Most of the information comes from two US Army sources.)
- Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 23rd Infantry Division had suffered 28 dead or wounded since the start of the Tet Offensive in January, 1968. This was despite very little actual contact with the enemy. In February, 2 men had been killed in a minefield. And two days before the massacre, a popular sergeant had been killed by a booby trap.
- The day before the mission, Capt. Ernest Medina assured his men in Charlie Company that My Lai was a Viet Cong stronghold. On the map it was labeled “Pinkville”. It had been under communist control for years. The province had been subjected to numerous aerial bombs and Agent Orange. It was designated a free fire zone. The people they would encounter were either VC or VC sympathizers. It was a search and destroy mission and the men were to assume any people were fair game. He reportedly told the men “This is what you have been waiting for – search and destroy- and you’ve got it.” He told the men to “get rid of them.” The men were primed for revenge for their recent losses.
3. The unit designated to storm the village was a platoon commanded by 1st Lieutenant William Calley. He was a 25 years old college dropout who had enlisted in the Army. His evaluations labeled him an average officer, but he was known for lacking common sense and for being unable to read a map.
- The platoon was heli-dropped outside the village. It was a cold LZ as no shots were taken at the platoon when it landed. And there were no shots fired as it entered the village. There were no mines or booby traps. It was around 7 A.M. and the people were eating breakfast or doing chores. There were no military age men.
- Random killing began early and livestock was shot. Villagers were gathered at three locations. Any that refused to come out of their hootches were encouraged with grenades. Some women were shot while shielding their kids and then the kids were shot. At one of the locations, Calley told PFC Paul Meadlo to “take care of them”. When he returned soon after, Calley found all the villagers still alive. When he questioned Meadlo, the private said he was watching them as ordered. Calley said “No, I mean kill them.” Calley and Meadlo then opened fire, killing all the old men, women, and children. The same thing was happening at the other sites. There were also rapes that occurred.
- The hero of My Lai was Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson. He was flying a helicopter on reconnaissance when he spotted civilians being killed and hootches on fire He landed near a bunker that had soldiers preparing to toss in grenades to evict the villagers. He stopped them. Later, he had his door gunner point his machine gun at a group of soldiers chasing some villagers. He flew some villagers to safety. He was eventually awarded the Soldier’s Medal, a decoration given for bravery involving no direct contact with the enemy. Ironically, he got a medal for bravery in the face of American soldiers.
- The killing ended around 11 A.M. and the unit returned to base. Word of the “battle” spread through the Army, but the original cursory investigation reported the incident as a victory with a body count of 128 enemy dead. The Americans suffered no casualties (although later it was admitted that one soldier had shot himself in the foot to avoid participating in the murders). Only 3 weapons were captured – a sure sign that the body count was inflated. Investigators, including Maj. Colin Powell, insisted nothing unusual had happened.
- The cover-up was working until ex-soldier Ronald Ridenhour decided to pass on what he had learned from soldiers who had participated in the massacre. He wrote letters to the Nixon White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and 23 Congressman in April, 1969. He asked them to investigate. In November, Seymour Hersh published a story about it after interviewing Ridenhour. This is when the public became aware of the incident.
- The heat caused Gen. William Westmoreland to order a real investigation. This resulted in 13 men being investigated for war crimes or crimes against humanity. 12 others were suspected of covering up the crimes. Most were let off because of lack of evidence. Only four officers and two enlisted were charged. The four officers were Company C commander Capt. Ernest Medina, Capt. Eugene Kotouc (the battalion intelligence officer who was accused of cutting of the finger of a captive he was interrogating), brigade commander Col. Oran Henderson, and Calley. Henderson had reported no civilians were killed to his commanding officer and had not ordered an investigation. Sergeants David Mitchell and Charles Hutto were charged with murdering numerous civilians. The overall commander of the operation Lt. Col. Frank Barker, who orbited the site in his chopper, was not charged because he had been killed in a helicopter crash. He had torpedoed an internal investigation and stated that the rumors were just “over-dramatizing” the battle.
- Medina had supervised the operation from just outside the village. He radioed Calley to complain about the slowness of the clearing of the village. At one point, he entered the village and according to eyewitnesses, he shot a woman holding a wicker basket. Upon approaching the body and finding nothing in the basket, he finished off the woman with two more shots. He testified that he thought she was hiding a grenade. He was found innocent of any crimes.
- Calley was the only participant that was found guilty. He was guilty of murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to hard labor for life. The public was divided on whether the sentence was appropriate. Many Americans believed Calley was an innocent product of the system and was being penalized for doing things many others had done. Some Americans felt it was not fair for a lieutenant to take all the blame when clearly his superiors had sanctioned his actions. In fact, that same day 60-155 civilians had been murdered at another village, but that story had not made the newspapers. It had no Ridenhour or Hersh.
- Reading the feelings of his constituents, Nixon paused the punishment and had Calley placed under house arrest. A series of appeals reduced the punishment until justice got frustrated and paroled him in November, 1974. He became an insurance salesman. It is a myth that Nixon commuted his sentence.
- The Army did a lot of soul-searching after the war to avoid another occurrence of a war crime like My Lai. It was determined that the cause was “deficiencies in training, leadership, assignment policies, cultural understanding, and mission awareness.” Historians determined that a decline in the quality of the soldiers caused by the increasing percentage of draftees made it predictable. Specifically, a soldier with the personality flaws of Calley should not have been allowed to command men.
https://warmoviebuff.blogspot.com/2012/08/27-duck-soup.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/vietnam-my-lai-massacre/
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/my-lai-a-stain-on-the-army
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre-1
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