Army Commits mass murder in My lai-How could have our SOLDIERS used common sense
The My Lai MASSACRE- Army Brutality At it's Finest
You don't have to look far to find something horrific about the war, Vietnam is full of horror stories, and My Lai is a true nightmare. The story was first released a year ago to the day, so most American's know it, but why did the tragic events unfold? War supporters might say that it was a simple misunderstanding, that the soldiers were all lead to believe that there were Viet Cong where Viet Cong weren't. To totally understand why the massacre occurred you have to know what the soldiers were actually told, and just how well they followed their orders.
Every soldier in the Charlie Company that went on the mission of My Lai was given the same orders. Kill everyone in the village, they are all, with no doubt, Viet Cong. All the soldiers heard this from their commanders, and the commanders from generals, and so on. Everyone was sure that the Viet Cong were the only ones in the village. This makes sense, but after arriving to the village and tearing open homes only to find the elderly, children, or otherwise infirm does it really make sense that these people would be Viet Cong? They very well could be, but what damage is a four year old going to do in guerilla combat? Probably not very much. There was the possibility that everyone was a decoy but two seconds of thinking could have shown the commanders that these people were not Viet Cong. The commanders told the soldiers again to kill everyone in the village, and the soldiers complied but in the most barbaric way possible. They pushed groups of people into ditches to be shot, set up firing squads, raped, scalped, tortured, and eventually killed almost everyone left in the village. The few that escaped only made it due to the actions of one helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, and his crew blocking the path with their chopper and threatening to shoot the pursuing soldiers. Now the commanders of Charlie Company were angry at the loss of an esteemed general to a Viet Cong booby trap only days before, so they wanted revenge. While revenge is never something to seek it makes sense, but should that revenge have been taken out on a village of elderly and children? Absolutely not.
Over 500 civilians died in the My Lai Massacre, and although it can't be proven that they were not Viet Cong it is highly likely that most, if not all, were innocent and didn't deserve to die, let alone that horrifically. The men and commanders of Charlie Company have committed war crimes. Any man who participated in the killing in a savage way, like the torture, should be convicted to the full extent of the law. The commanders should be jailed for causing the deaths of over 500 children and elderly, all because they went searching for revenge in the wrong place. The fear in the victims last hours must have been tremendous, besides facing death they also faced the fear of being tortured to death. Hands were cut off, scalpings were done, throats were cut. No one but the men in Charlie Company and the survivors can say everything that happened that day, but no matter how many terribly true facts are released the My Lai Massacre will go down in infamy as one of the worst cases of extreme cruelty in America's wartime history. So far no justice has been reached for the few survivors. If a group of people committed this sort of atrocity in America right now they would immediately be jailed and quickly punished. Some of the men in Charlie Company stood by and watched the horror unfold, while I cannot blame them for not taking a stand due to the state their fellow soldiers were in, something more could have been done to prevent this. It may be too late to save My Lai but it is not too late to give them the justice they deserve. Another My Lai must be prevented at all costs, some of our men need to learn that just because they have a gun doesn't mean they can use it on anyone without consequence.