On this date, 16 March 1968, Charlie Company (Inf.) of the 11th Brigade of the "Americal" Div. entered the small Vietnamese village of My Lai.
When they left between 2-500 Vietnamese lay dead.
We are not talking about "VC" or North Vietnamese Army soldiers. In fact, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that a single one of the dead was a combatant, and not a single male of military age was among the dead.
The dead were men women and children. The youngest only a few months old and the oldest almost 90. 4 were pregnant women.
The only reason there were any survivors was because an American helicopter pilot, Warrant Officer (WO1) Hugh Thompson, Jr., landed his Huey between the civilians and the Charley Company troops and his door gunners, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, threatened to shoot the next man who fired at the retreating civilians. These three were the ONLY heroes in this village on that day!
You may wonder why I, an infantry combat veteran of Vietnam myself, would recount this horrible story.
I have many reasons, but here are three;
#1. I want to remind us all that war is ALWAYS a horrible thing for everyone involved, but three Americans rose above the collective mindset of depravity that day and did the right thing. Even though they paid a high price initially, being called "traitors" by many, they were eventually recognized as the heroes they were.
#2. William Calley, the only man to be imprisoned for the atrocities committed, has not offered any apology or contrition for what he and his men did there to this day. (I know some of you think he was a "scape goat", but he is no less guilty because others got away with the crimes.)
And, #3. I walked through My Lai in 1969.
I will never be able to forget the look of fear and loathing in the eyes of the few civilians that I saw in those small hamlets. Nor would I want to. These are people we were there to protect and defend, and they wouldn't even look at us a year later. And small children that would be normally be chasing after us hoping for a candy bar in any other place, were hiding behind logs and trees there.
I want to remember that we too are human. And, unless we are constantly on guard against it, we can revert to beasts under pressure.
I want to be always be human and humane. Sometimes that requires holding some very painful things in our hearts we would rather forget.
