Nation: Bound to Happen?

Such troubling reflections are reinforced by the response of Americans to the My Lai massacre in TIME’S Harris Poll on page 10. By the large majority of 65%, those who were questioned expressed the opinion that “incidents such as this are bound to happen in a war.” Almost as disturbing to note are the 13% who have no opinion on My Lai. Only 22% clearly expressed moral repugnance to the idea that American soldiers may have intentionally gunned down unarmed women and children. How can such a response be explained?

One answer, of course, is that many Americans so far simply refuse to believe that any massacre occurred. Another may be due to a reflex of patriotism, also demonstrated in the poll. This reflex says, in effect, that even if a massacre took place, this is no time, while the war still goes on, to bring it up, to sully the reputation or sap the nerve of Americans still risking their lives in the paddies and jungles. There may also be at work an edge of guilt or battle wisdom in U.S. attitudes. There are, after all, millions of adult Americans who have fought from the Argonne to Inchon and carry their own private knowledge of the necessities —and the better-forgotten brutalities —of personal combat. It would be reassuring to think that these explanations encompass the opinions of those who appear to dismiss My Lai; the alternative is to contemplate an American adaptability carried to the point of callousness and barbarism.