My Lai Massacre

The slaughter of more than 500 Vietnamese civilians by soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry on March 16, 1968, was one of the worst atrocities of the Vietnam War. The incident gave rise to controversial and highly publicized legal proceedings. Although a court-martial found 1st Lt. William L. Calley, Jr. guilty of 22 premeditated murders for his role in what happened in the village of My Lai, Calley served less than five months in prison. The reason: the politicization of the case by Pres. Richard Nixon and thousands of others on both sides of the national debate over Vietnam.

The hamlet of My Lai was not the objective of the search-and-destroy mission in which Charlie Company was participating on March 16. Their mission was to destroy the Viet Cong’s 48th Local Force Battalion, believed to be holed up in My Khe, a coastal village east of My La. Charlie Company and its sister unit, Bravo Company, were supposed to push eastward toward My Khe, acting as the hammer that would crush the 48th Battalion against an anvil created by another sister unit, Alpha Company, by Navy “swift boats,” and by an aero scout company. Charlie Company had been told to expect fierce opposition. Seeking to steel his men for what was to come, on the eve of the operation the company commander, Capt. Ernest Medina, gave them an impassioned pep talk following a memorial service for one of their fallen comrades. Some of his men thought Medina told them during these remarks to kill every living thing in the village. Others remembered it differently. Whatever the case, most of the men of Charlie Company, overcome by the loss of buddies to a hidden enemy who killed with mines and sniper fire, were primed to kill.

When their helicopters landed in My Lai on March 16, the men encountered something very different from the potent Viet Cong unit they had expected. The enemy they sought had withdrawn to the mountains far to the west, leaving behind a civilian population the soldiers had been told would be gone to market. Charlie Company found mostly women, children, and old men. Nevertheless, pumped-up soldiers with confused orders about precisely what they were supposed to do began blazing away. An erroneous report from a pilot that the men on the ground were taking small-arms fire added to the confusion, as did the dense vegetation that divided the physical environment into small compartments, making it impossible to see what was happening only a few yards away. Discipline disintegrated. Out-of-control soldiers polluted every well in the hamlet, slaughtered all the livestock, and sexually assaulted countless women. They also murdered more than 500 Vietnamese civilians.

Lieutenant Calley, the commander of Charlie Company’s First Platoon, played a leading role in this carnage. Apparently, he ordered P.F.C. Paul Meadlo to kill a group of Vietnamese civilians whom Meadlo and another soldier had collected near a trail junction. Later, according to a number of witnesses, Calley joined Meadlo, Sgt. David Mitchell, and P.F.C. Joseph Dursi in pushing scores of unresisting civilians into a ditch, where they slaughtered them. Calley was also convicted of killing an elderly Buddhist monk he was trying to interrogate, after first hitting him in the face with the butt of his rifle; the lieutenant also shot a baby.

...