"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."On March 16, 1968, a company of U.S. soldiers went into the village of My Lai 4, in Vietnam. A soldier later testified, "The order we were given was to kill and destroy everything that was in the village. It was clearly explained that there were to be no prisoners."
-- An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre
"We met no resistance and I only saw three captured weapons. We had no casualties. It was just like any other Vietnamese village-old papa-sans, women and kids," a soldier said describing what they found on entering My Lai. "As a matter of fact, I don't remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive."The U.S. soldiers started killing everyone in sight. A U.S. soldier later testified:
An order was given to push all the Vietnamese who had been forced into the area into a ditch. A soldier later recounted: "I began shooting them all. I guess I shot maybe 25 or 20 people in the ditch...men, women, and children. And babies." A baby crawling away from the ditch was grabbed and thrown back into the ditch and shot.
"There was an old lady in a bed and I believe there was a priest in white praying over her... [U.S. Lt.] Calley pulled the old man outside. He said a few more words to the monk. It looked like the monk was pleading for his life. Lt. Calley then took his rifle and pushed the monk into a rice paddy and shot him point-blank."
All over the village, platoons of U.S. soldiers were committing similar atrocities. The huts that the villagers lived in and their crops were burned, their livestock killed. Some of the dead were mutilated by having "C Company" carved into their chests; some were disemboweled. Women were raped. One GI would later say,
"You didn't have to look for people to kill, they were just there. I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, and scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed."The story of the American massacre at My Lai only came to light because of the persistent efforts of GIs who refused to let the story die.
Lt. Calley was the only soldier convicted of any of the atrocities that took place at My Lai. Despite being convicted of killing over 100 unarmed Vietnamese, Calley served only two days in jail! Nixon then ordered him put under house arrest at Fort Benning, where he could live in a nice apartment, cook his own food, receive guests, watch TV and go to town for supplies (accompanied by MPs). Calley was released from house arrest in just over three years and was able to make large amounts of money speaking to right-wing groups.
