On this day in 1969: Massacre of civilians at My Lai, South Vietnam by U.S. is 1st reported

Start:	Nov 16, '09
Location:	My Lai, Vietnam

The Vietnam War was America’s longest and most unresolved military conflict. During the war and continuing today, Americans have been conflicted in their attitudes toward U.S. participation in the war. The United States first became involved in Vietnam after World War II, when France was struggling to regain colonial control. In 1945, Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese nationalist leader, resumed guerilla war against the French to fight for liberation from colonial domination. By 1950, the United States. was supporting France’s efforts to hold onto Vietnam. At the same time, U.S. officials began to see the situation in Vietnam through the lens of Cold War diplomacy. Ho’s combination of communism and nationalism worried the West, and the United States soon found itself involved in a civil war between North and South Vietnam, one in which it sought to halt the spread of communism.

But the lines between North and South had always been permeable. There were many North Vietnamese (Vietcong) sympathizers in South Vietnam. It became increasingly difficult for American solidiers to distinguish the Vietnamese they were fighting to protect from those who were the enemy. Vietcong guerrilla warfare in the hot jungle took its toll on American soldiers, who grew increasingly frustrated and angry in a war that seemed unwinnable. Racism also played a part in distancing American soldiers from the horror of war for the Vietnamese. Vietnamese were referred to as slopes, gooks, and slant-eyes.

The My Lai massacre occurred in 1968, during the last stages of the Tet Offensive, the Vietcong’s massive invasion of South Vietnam. By this time, American troops had been in Vietnam since 1963, with victory far from sight. U.S. troops repelled the attack, but at home the Tet Offensive was a political disaster, precipitating Lyndon Johnson’s decision to withdraw from the 1968 presidential election.

On March 16, 1968 the angry and frustrated men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division entered the Vietnamese village of My Lai. "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and you've got it," said their superior officers. A short time later the killing began.

As the "search and destroy" mission unfolded, it soon degenerated into the massacre of over 300 apparently unarmed civilians including women, children, and the elderly. Calley ordered his men to enter the village firing, though there had been no report of opposing fire. According to eyewitness reports offered after the event, several old men were bayoneted, praying women and children were shot in the back of the head, and at least one girl was raped and then killed. For his part, Calley was said to have rounded up a group of the villagers, ordered them into a ditch, and mowed them down in a fury of machine gun fire.

In 1969, news of My Lai and photographs of the massacre emerged; attempts at a cover-up drove home to Americans the tragedies of fighting in Vietnam.