50th Anniversary Of The My Lai Massacre
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, one of the most infamous moments in American military history.
Survivors of the 1968 massacre spoke to the dpa news agency about the deaths of up to 504 civilians at the hands of US soldiers during the war in Vietnam. 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:
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai … I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry … If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a second lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them – foolishly, I guess.”
American soldiers treated all the villagers, including women and children, as hostile. One of them, Private Paul Meadlo, recounted what he had done in a 1969 interview for CBS News.
“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,” he told interviewer Mike Wallace.
“Men, women, and children?” asked Wallace.
“Men, women, and children,” he replied.
“And babies?”
“And babies.”
Despite what happened that day 50 years ago, the Vietnamese, bear no ill-will towards the American people. These photographs were taken in Hoi An which is 121 Kilometers north of My Lai.
Cyclist. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Two women. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Boats on the river. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Fruit & veg market stall. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Boat on the river. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Market. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Boats on the river. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Newspaper seller. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
On the way to the market. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
Boats on the river. Hoi An, Vietnam 2016.
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Lovely pictures. The one of the man in the front of the boat (sorry probably not the correct term) with his punt is just perfect for shapes and angles.
https://harpers.org/archives/2018/05/looking-for-calley
MEMOIR — From the June 2018 issue
Looking for Calley
How a young journalist untangled the riddle of My Lai
By Seymour M. Hersh
https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/seymour-m-hersh
Seymour M. Hersh’s memoir Reporter came out last year.
In the LRB Archive:
• The Vice President’s Men • 24 January 2019
• Video: Seymour Hersh talks to Christian Lorentzen • 13 May 2016
• Military to Military • 7 January 2016
• The Killing of Osama bin Laden • 21 May 2015
• The Red Line and the Rat Line: Erdo?an and the Syrian rebels • 17 April 2014
• Whose sarin? • 19 December 2013