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The Cradle of Revolution
The strangeness of Viet Nam to freshly arrived U.S. troops and the frustrations of guerrilla warfare do not adequately explain My Lai. In March of 1968, most members of C Company of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade had never been tested in direct combat with any large numbers of the enemy. Trained together in Hawaii, they had been in Viet Nam only one month. Yet as part of Task Force Barker, their assignment in March was a fearsome one: to clear the Viet Cong out of Quang Ngai province—an area long known as "the cradle of revolution" in Viet Nam. The province had produced and harbored some of the Viet Minh's most effective fighters against the French. It had even been the target of the very first U.S. assault in the war. That was Operation Starlight, in which Marines claimed to have killed 700 Communist soldiers, leading General William Westmoreland to boast that the Marines "could meet and defeat any force they might encounter." But despite repeated similar sweeps, in which more than 3,000 Communist deaths were reported, the province remained a stronghold of the Viet Cong's 48th Local Force Battalion—an outfit with an un-nerving ability to disperse, then reappear to strike again.
The inexperienced Charlie Company, commanded by Captain Ernest Medina, 33, thus had ample cause for fear as it prepared to assault My Lai, a village with bricked-up huts and extensive hidden tunnels in an area called Pinkville (because its cluster of nine hamlets was populous enough to be tinted pink on war maps). The infantrymen were also angry. Repeatedly lashed by booby traps and sniper fire from unseen Viet Cong, the company's strength had already been cut from 190 to about 105. Of those, about 80 men were helicoptered into a grassy spot on the outskirts of My Lai on the warm, sunny morning of March 16, 1968.
Precisely what happened next will be the subject of multiple investigations by the U.S. Army, committees of Congress and the South Vietnamese Senate. It will presumably be microscopically examined—and argued—in more than one U.S. court-martial. But enough participants have spoken up to make the general outline painfully clear.
The Slaughter Begins
The edgy company, expecting a firefight and anxious to at last even the score for their comrades picked off by an invisible enemy, split into three platoons. Two were assigned to take up flank positions and block the escape of anyone from the village. The central platoon (apparently about 30 men), commanded by Lieut. Calley, headed into the village. It met no resistance on the outskirts. But despite the lack of enemy fire, Galley's men in less than 20 minutes ignited "hootches" and chased all the villagers—whether fleeing, standing or begging for mercy—into groups, and shot everyone. All were either elderly men, women or children. Estimates of the dead ranged from 109 to 567.
Each man in such an action sees only a fraction of what happens. Yet many such personal recollections were chilling ones. "Everyone was scared going in—we thought there'd be heavy enemy troops there," recalls Charles A.