54 Years Ago Today

I was nine years old when it happened—the Mỹ Lai Massacre. We were living in a tiny town in Massachusetts on the New Hampshire border where my oblivious concerns were ice skating, sledding and building snow forts. A year later, when the news broke about the slaughter, we were living in Pennsylvania. There I was preoccupied with surviving the nuns at Saint Bernard's elementary school and learning how to play jacks (game of choice for all the cool kids).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world...

On March 16, 1968 the angry and frustrated men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division entered the Vietnamese village of Mỹ Lai. "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and you've got it," said their superior officers. A short time later the killing began. (source)

The Mỹ Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. More than 500 people were slaughtered in the Mỹ Lai massacre, including young girls and women who were raped and mutilated before being killed. U.S. Army officers covered up the carnage for a year before it was reported in the American press, sparking a firestorm of international outrage. (source)

Reportedly, the killing was only stopped when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an aero-scout helicopter pilot landed his helicopter between the Americans and the fleeing South Vietnamese, confronting the soldiers and blocking them from further action against the villagers. (source) 

Hugh Thompson was a hero and he died too damn young. He was 62—a year younger than I am now.

The massacre was initially covered up. However, Ron Ridenhour, a former soldier of the 11th Infantry Brigade who had heard reports of the massacre but had not participated, began a campaign to reveal the truth. After writing letters to President Richard Nixon, the Pentagon, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff and several congressmen, with no response, Ridenhour finally gave an interview to the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in November 1969. (source) 

Another gone-too-soon hero.

Out of the roughly 200 soldiers who were dropped into the village that day, 24 were later charged with criminal offenses, and only one was convicted, Calley. (source) 

Why were the other murderers let off the hook?

He (Calley) was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was paroled by President Richard Nixon in 1974 after having served about a third of his 10-year sentence. (source) 

Sentenced to life but his punishment for leading the horror and, all on his own, slaughtering 22 individuals, was three years of house arrest. THREE YEARS OF HOUSE ARREST!

Paging Mister Injustice! Radically Insane Injustice, white courtesy telephone.

Tran Nam was 6 years old when he heard gunshots from inside his mud and straw home in Son My. It was early morning and he was having breakfast with his extended family, 14 people in all. The U.S. Army had come to the village a couple of times previously during the war. Nam’s family thought it would be like before; they’d be gathered and interviewed and then let go. So the family kept on eating. “Then a U.S. soldier stepped in,” Nam told me. “And he aimed into our meal and shot. People collapsed one by one.” (source)

Women of Mỹ Lai village shortly before their deaths

42 years after the fact Calley “apologized.”

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.” (source)

Note the passive voice:

"I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed…”

The people who you murdered, you fucking shit bag!

Calley is still alive, unlike his and his fellow murderer’s many victims, unlike the heroes. He lives in Gainesville, Florida where I fucking well hope he suffers unremitting, searing, hideous emotional and physical pain every single goddamn day.