MY LAI’S GHOSTLY FOOTPRINTS
Feb 05, 2019
4 minutes
By Michael H. Cunningham
I visited the hamlet of My Lai, in the village of Son My, Vietnam, on March 16, 2018—the 50th anniversary of an American infantry company’s shameful massacre of unarmed civilians. Led by 2nd Lt. William L. Calley Jr. and Capt. Ernest L. Medina, about 100 men of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) entered the village and killed nearly everyone there. Hundreds died—347, the U.S. Army’s official number; 504, according to the Vietnamese government’s list of people killed. Even pigs, chickens and water buffaloes were “wasted,” in the GI slang of the era. Why?
Supposedly the Americans were frustrated by the casualties they
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