Thursday, October 8, 2015

Writing Research- My Lai Massacre by Brianna




The My Lai massacres was one of the most tragic and horrific mass killing of innocent civilians that happened during the Vietnam War. During this massacre the Americans killed as many as 500 innocent South Vietnamese people, this included women, children and the elderly. American soldiers were given information that there were Viet Cong and Viet Cong sympathizers in the village of Son My, they were given order to destroy the village. When the soldiers got to the village they found no Viet Cong but instead they rounded up women, children and old men and murdered them in a very brutal way, this included rape, and torture. The Army commander Calley dragged many people mostly children into a ditch and executed them with a machine gun. The most important thing about the My Lai massacre was that not a single shot was fired against the Americans. The My Lai massacre ended when Warrant Officer William Hugh landed his helicopter between the soldiers and the citizens and threatened to open fire if they continued.

After the Mai Lai Massacre, Richard Nixon continued the "vietnamzation" including the withdrawal of troops and the transfer of the control over ground operations to South Vietnamese. Among the troops that were still in Vietnam, the morals were low and the anger and frustration were high, this cause over 1/3 of the troops to become addicted to drugs.


This is only some of the many innocent people that were murdered during the My Lai Massacre.

5 comments:

  1. This war was incredibly brutal and pressing on the mental state of the soldiers fighting. The fact that one man could stand up to an entire platoon killing innocent people gives me hope. He is truly a hero and doing this shows a ton of courage. Its incredible how he can stay sane after seeing the absolutely disgusting and brutal ways of the Vietcong.

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  2. William Hugh had a lot of courage to stand up to all of those other American soldiers, I do not know if I would've been able to stand up to them like he did even if I knew what they were doing was wrong. It's also kind of shaming to know that all of the people killed were innocent people who were basically defenseless against the American soldiers.

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  3. It's truly is sad that American soldiers killed 500 innocent people just because they were told that those people were possibly part of the Viet Cong. I agree that William Hugh did a very courageous thing in saying that if they don't stop shooting, he'll open fire on them. It shows that he cared about those Vietnamese people that were killed.

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  4. This makes me sick that so many people were murdered and the fact that it took awhile for someone to stop the wrongdoing. I think this problem is still an issue in the United States and the world of people not standing up to stop wrongdoing.

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  5. I will give you a different view on this imagine you are a scared eighteen year old soldier in a foreign country and you cannot tell the enemy from everyday people. I am not condoning what they did but when you literally don't know who you are fighting the thought process is better safe than sorry and better them than me. Back then the philosophy was kill as many as possible and worry about consequences later.

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