Brave man, may he rest in peace.
A horrible incident no doubt.
Just curious, how many communist cadres were
investigated and prosecuted for similar atrocities.
The slaughter of the civilians at Hue just one instance.
It’s disturbing that Calley had popular support from the American people after the news of Mai Lai was exposed.
Nixon pardoning him after 3+ years under house arrest is an abomination from a culture who just 25 years earlier found the “I was just following orders” defense used by Nazis at Nuremberg to be illegitimate.
Our company of Marines swept by My Lai in early 1969, after the Calley massacre but before it hit the news.
We hit a minefield and had 8 killed and 41 wounded in just a few minutes - never fired a shot. Our company gunny had been killed by a booby trapped 155mm round at the start of that operation. While I was down clearing the tunnels there, we had 6 more killed by a booby-trapped 106mm recoilless rifle round.
What Calley & his troops did was very, very wrong. However, after seeing friends die from booby traps and knowing that the villagers are setting them, an enormous amount of frustration and tension builds up in a unit. It is a tribute to discipline and leadership that more My Lai massacres did not occur.
Lawrence Colburn, rest in peace!
Any response from Jihad Farooq Qerri?
[spit]
The average Vietnamese peasant was caught in an impossible situation. Ruled by the VC and NVA at night and by the ARVNs and the US during the day many were in a completely untenable situation. If they told the US troops about booby traps the VC would kill their families. If they didn’t they faced growing resentment from us.
Reminds me of Toshiro Mifune’s masterful speech about the fates of Japanese peasants in medieval Japan in Kurosawa’s incomparable Masterpiece, Seven Samurai.
What are they to do? Whichever way they turn they lose.
Do Stuff?
Where does this “smartest man in the room” get the vocabulary?
No wonder Michelle is feeling hopeless.
I feel the pain, MOTUS.
Damn Agent Orange.
RIP.