My Lai: A Day of Remembrance

[This was written in 2003, after visiting My Lai, in the fall of 2002. The LA Times, which has often printed me in the past, said it was considering the piece, but then backed down. Apparently, the war fever over Iraq took precedence.]

Today is the 35th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.

This past November, at the My Lai memorial site, I stood around a glass-topped table containing a replica of the area and listened as a local Vietnamese woman recounted in excruciatingly painful detail the cold-blooded murders––often preceded by rapes and mutilations--by US troops that took place there. I was one of several faculty members accompanying a group of students from Brooklyn’s Polytechnic University, touring East Asian countries on an educational trip. The woman wept: guilt-stricken US veterans had paid their respects, but ours was the first busload that included young Americans who cared enough to visit the memorial.

Actually, there were two massacres, one at a hamlet called My Lai 4 and the other at a nearby hamlet, My Khe 4. An official Vietnamese government list, by name, gender and age, indicates that 504 civilians were killed––mostly women, older men and children. Of the last, 50 were three years old or younger. Various studies, including the official army report prepared under the leadership of General William R. Peers, all point to the plausibility of these figures. There were no extenuating circumstances: there was no evidence in contemporary eyewitness accounts, or later army inquiries, of the presence of any Vietcong soldiers.

Although brief––barely four hours––My Lai is one of the greatest atrocities in American military history. Much is known of what happened at My Lai, but there are still at least two questions to be seriously wrestled with. Why is it that prior to coming to Vietnam none of our students had ever heard of My Lai? Moreover, my daughter, who was born 40 years ago on the very date of the My Lai massacre,
March 16, had also never heard of My Lai. Nor had her friends and it is my impression that few Americans under 40 know of it.

The other question is for those who are older and have never forgotten My Lai and Lt. William Calley, the only American soldier convicted of a crime at My Lai (though pardoned soon thereafter by President Nixon): Why is it that none of those I know, who had been anti-war activists, had ever heard of the heroic actions of the three man helicopter crew, headed by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, who saved directly at least ten lives, including a child of about five years of age, buried in dead and dismembered bodies? Amazingly, he did so by having one of his crew point his M-60 at the American soldiers who were involved in the killings. On returning to his base, Thompson’s angry report helped stop the operation from moving on to other villages, saving many hundreds from being similarly massacred.

Our ignorance of the heroic intervention of Thompson and his crew is even more puzzling in light of the fact that they were eventually given the Soldier’s Medal, the highest army award for bravery in non-combatant situations (one posthumously, since he was later killed in action). Not wanting to rake over old coals, the army delayed the actual presentation of the medal to Thompson and sought to do this in a quiet office ceremony, but he refused and insisted his crew be equally honored and that this be done publicly in front of the Vietnam Wall that has come to mean so much to Vietnam veterans. The medals were finally awarded at this site, in early March, 1998, in a ceremony broadcast live on CNN and widely reported in the press. Moreover, days later Thompson and the surviving crew member, Larry Colburn, returned to My Lai, to be honored by the villagers, including some whose lives they saved. They were accompanied by CBS’s Mike Wallace, and the visit was later featured on 60 Minutes.

One can easily understand why hawks who supported the war, as well as those who want to avoid publicizing an atrocity which discredited the honor of the army, might not allow Thompson’s brave act to enter their consciousness. But what is to explain the ignorance of the doves? Perhaps the answer lies in their alternative vision––that the Vietnam War was evil. Such a vision allows no place for soldiers who, like Thompson, acted honorably. Nor does it acknowledge those heroic few on the ground at My Lai, who refused to participate in the savagery committed by Calley and his platoon. And it does not recognize the moral commitment and persistence of the Vietnam veteran, Ronald Ridenhour, a helicopter door gunner, who was so shocked and disturbed when he learned of the massacre, that he later wrote a long letter to many in Congress, a letter which not only led to the indictment of Calley but is what ultimately led My Lai to be publicly exposed.

But the larger issue is why My Lai in general has seemingly been forgotten or ignored by Americans. In our unwillingness to face up to an atrocity we have committed there, we seem to be closer to the Japanese who refuse to admit their war crimes than to the Germans who dwell on their war guilt and the holocaust. Ignoring My Lai, and other dark moments in our history, we are smug in our self-righteousness and are determined to shape the world in our image. We seem unaware that much of the world sees us as flawed––perhaps deeply flawed––not merely unwilling to face up to our moral failures but utterly oblivious of the fact that such failings exist.

For this reason, it would be fitting if, in our zeal to Americanize the world, we step back and acknowledge our moral shortcomings by issuing a formal statement of apology to the hamlets of My Lai 4 and My Khe 4. In the spirit of honesty, as exemplified by courageous career soldiers like General Peers and other military officers appointed to examine what happened at My Lai––and were horrified––and at a moment when war clouds gather, we must resolve never again to whitewash barbaric acts engaged in by our military.Such resolve can be symbolized by making March 16––the date of the My Lai massacre––a nationally recognized day of remembrance.

In the "patriotic" fervor of that era, after his conviction, but before his pardon, there were rallies for Rusty Calley, as he was known. One Southern governor urged that motorists drive with their headlights on to "honor the flag as ‘Rusty’ had done." Nothing would be more fitting than to have, as leader of a campaign to designate March 16 as a day of remembrance, the author of that statement, our most recent Nobel Peace prize recipient, Jimmy Carter.