IT passed without notice when it occurred in mid-March 1968, at a time when the war news was still dominated by the siege of Khe Sanh. Yet the brief action at My Lai, a hamlet in Viet Cong-infested territory 335 miles northeast of Saigon, may yet have an impact on the war. According to accounts that suddenly appeared on TV and in the world press last week, a company of 60 or 70 U.S. infantrymen had entered My Lai early one morning and destroyed its houses, its livestock and all the inhabitants that they could find in a brutal operation that took less than 20 minutes. When it was over, the Vietnamese dead totaled at least 100 men, women and children, and perhaps many more. Only 25 or so escaped, because they lay hidden under the fallen bodies of their relatives and neighbors.
So far, the tale of My Lai has only been told by a few Vietnamese survivors—all of them pro-V.C.—and half a dozen American veterans of the incident. Yet military men privately concede that stories of what happened at My Lai are essentially correct. If so, the incident ranks as the most serious atrocity yet attributed to American troops in a war that is already well known for its particular savagery.
Rather Dark and Bloody. The My Lai incident might never have come to light. The only people who reported it at the time were the Viet Cong, who passed out leaflets publicizing the slaughter. To counter the V.C. accusation, regarded as standard propaganda, the U.S. Army launched a cursory field investigation, which "did not support" the charges. What put My Lai on the front pages after 20 months was the conscience of Richard Ridenhour, 23, a former SP4 who is now a student at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, Calif. A Viet Nam veteran, Ridenhour had known many of the men in the outfit involved at My Lai. It was C Company of the Americal Division's 11 th Infantry Brigade. Ridenhour did not witness the incident himself, but he kept hearing about it from friends who were there. He was at first disbelieving, then deeply disturbed. Last March—a year after the slaughter—he sent the information he had pieced together in 30 letters, addressed them to the President, several Congressmen and other Washington officials.
Ridenhour's letter led to a new probe—and to formal charges. Last month, just two days before he was to be released from the Army, charges of murdering "approximately 100" civilians at My Lai were preferred against one of C Company's platoon leaders, 1st Lieut. William Laws Calley Jr., a 26-year-old Miamian now stationed at Fort Benning, Ga. Last week Staff Sergeant David Mitchell, a 29-year-old career man from St. Francisville, La., became the second My Lai veteran to be charged (with assault with intent to commit murder). The Army has another 24 men (15 of whom are now civilians) under investigation. If the accounts of others who have spoken out publicly stand up, C Company, as Ridenhour wrote, is indeed involved in "something rather dark and bloody" at My Lai.
Before the massacre, My Lai was a poor hamlet in Quang Ngai province, whose low, marshy coastal plains had been—and still are—a base for the Viet Cong 48th Battalion. My Lai was a "fortified" hamlet whose bricked-up houses served as bunkers for marauding V.C. cadres, and was known to the G.I.s in the area as "Pinkville."