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‘No Use for Hatred’: A Village Seeks to Move On From a U.S. Massacre The hamlet of My Lai is infamous for American war crimes, but now it holds lessons in resilience and how to let go of anger.
New York Times ^ | 17th November 2024 | Damien Cave

Posted on 11/17/2024 3:50:43 AM PST by Cronos

The strawberry ice cream for sale by the ticket booth seemed out of place at the museum to the My Lai massacre, one of America’s most ghastly crimes of war. The parking lot held a single car. Only a wide sign near the entrance explained the significance of the location.

It showed a map of the area as it looked on the morning of March 16, 1968, when a company of American soldiers showed up and killed more than 500 women, children and older men, raping girls, mutilating bodies and burning homes with families still inside.

One of the massacre’s survivors, Nguyen Hong Mang, would tell me later that he had met the soldiers with a smile, shouting, “Welcome, Americans!” He was 14.

Minutes later, he and his family and neighbors were being lined up and shot, crumpling into a pile of the dead and nearly dead.

...The video mostly featured the museum’s director, Pham Thanh Cong, another survivor, meeting an American soldier involved in the massacre, and staying calm.

A second video, in Vietnamese, was even more magnanimous. A narrator highlighted a handful of humane soldiers: one who intentionally shot himself in the leg to avoid taking part in the violence, a helicopter crew that eventually intervened to stop the killing.

...It was the sign of a resilient nation — Vietnam often tops Gallup’s ranking of the most optimistic countries — eager to seek prosperity with past enemies.

“One of the first things that many Americans notice when they go to Vietnam is that Americans are not just welcomed, not just tolerated — there is genuine enthusiasm,”

...“So many people go to the U.S. to study, and so many Americans come here,” Ms. Son said. “If we feel hatred now, what’s the use? There’s no use for hatred.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: mylai; vietnam; war
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The Vietnamese have forgiven, not forgotten. This can be the start of a beautiful friendship - and it will be more robust once they junk the communist party
1 posted on 11/17/2024 3:50:43 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Cronos

We also share a common enemy with them, as does most of Asia, China.


2 posted on 11/17/2024 4:00:08 AM PST by PghBaldy (12/14/12 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15/12 - 1030am - Obama team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: Cronos

If I remember correctly we were “told” what had happened without a fair assessment of the bigger picture. The left and its media arm demonization was evident not to say this event was warranted or acceptable but the circumstances and the situation our service members were put into was no joke


3 posted on 11/17/2024 4:06:43 AM PST by ronnie raygun
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To: Cronos

Why.this story now? The left always has an agenda.


4 posted on 11/17/2024 4:28:15 AM PST by kabar
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To: Cronos

Funny how the NY Times lauds forgiveness of a war crime in Vietnam as a virtue, but relentlessly stokes racial grievances in the US for the sake of the Democratic Party.


5 posted on 11/17/2024 4:41:57 AM PST by Rockingham
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To: ronnie raygun

“If I remember correctly we were “told” what had happened without a fair assessment of the bigger picture.”

Is that why no one went to Ft Leavenworth?


6 posted on 11/17/2024 4:51:55 AM PST by Psycho_Runner (I am voted for the Felon.)
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To: Cronos

Not to overlook the seriuoness of the event but how about context. Like how children and women were used in that war as weapons, praying on any mercy or kindness with exploding the very children to kill US soldiers.


7 posted on 11/17/2024 4:57:06 AM PST by Skwor
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the left just loves picking at old scabs, dont they??..cant believe they actually wrote this. 60 million civilians died in WW2....and??..


8 posted on 11/17/2024 4:58:57 AM PST by basalt (he "legacy")
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To: Skwor

it was war...the real crime was the strategy of having those guys searching the jungles of SE Asia for the enemy.
Insanity...


9 posted on 11/17/2024 5:00:49 AM PST by basalt (he "legacy")
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To: ronnie raygun

The bigger picture is that Lyndon Johnson was a catastrophe for anyone that had to endure his policies. This was Lyndon Johnson’s massacre, but the even bigger massacre has been the millions who’ve lived shortened, denigrated lives because of him.


10 posted on 11/17/2024 5:32:04 AM PST by TimSkalaBim
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To: Cronos

The New York Times desperately trying to hold on to it’s past glory days.....of disparaging America and obsessing over isolated instances like this.

They are so yesterday.


11 posted on 11/17/2024 5:43:39 AM PST by vespa300
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To: TimSkalaBim

LBJ & FJB - both D@mocrats, both corrupt as it gets, both got us involved in foreign wars, and both (thank God) “one-termers”...


12 posted on 11/17/2024 5:48:17 AM PST by Who is John Galt? ("...mit Pulver und Blei, Die Gedanken sind frei!")
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To: kabar
Why.this story now?

*******

My question, too.

13 posted on 11/17/2024 5:49:31 AM PST by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: Cronos

I knew nothing about the My Lai disaster until I dated a Vietnamese lady. She told me the children born there of American men are referred to as My Lai. Could just be a local thing from her area; I don’t know. But that got me to research this massacre.

What I found out (not justifying) was the GIs were fed up with the Southern Vietnamese not helping us with info. Since they were already threatened by the north...they were more scared of them, then us. So in the minds of our soldiers, they wanted to send a message to other villages. Of course in a very bad way.


14 posted on 11/17/2024 6:12:30 AM PST by Deepeasttx ( Sensitivity/diversity training, along with DEI are all un-walled reeducation camps....for now.)
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To: kabar

I always think of this story when I see border patrol holding the fence open for illegal criminals to come in.

All of whom go on to rob us of our treasure. Some of whom go on to kill our kids.


15 posted on 11/17/2024 6:14:15 AM PST by Sarcazmo (I live by the Golden Rule. As applied by others; I'm not selfish.)
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To: Cronos

Typical of the Old Gray Whore to pick at a scab to make us feel guilty and worthless.

They and the Black Race Hustlers picked at the Civil War scab until they festered.


16 posted on 11/17/2024 6:19:32 AM PST by Redleg Duke (“Time to Play Cowboys and Snowflakes!”)
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To: kabar

Because of Pete Hegseth, his appointment and desire to make make our soldiers warriors again. I have no doubt that the article is more about trying to tar all of our warriors with the brush of My Lai.


17 posted on 11/17/2024 7:14:23 AM PST by Mastador1
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To: Cronos

Maybe we are seeing God at work in peoples’ hearts.

But the reporting would never tell us that.


18 posted on 11/17/2024 7:58:14 AM PST by Scrambler Bob (Running Rampant, and not endorsing nonsense; My pronoun is EXIT. And I am generally full of /S)
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To: Cronos
Re: "American soldiers showed up and killed more than 500 women, children and older men, raping girls, mutilating bodies and burning homes with families still inside."

Really?

26 officers and men were indicted, many of them on murder related charges.

25 were acquitted or had all charges dropped.

Lt. Calley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murder.

Calley was briefly imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth.

Calley served 3.5 years of House Arrest at Fort Benning and was paroled. Calley faced additional charges later, but was acquitted on all the new charges.

Only two possible conclusions can be drawn from the trials and the evidence...

(1) The My Lai Massacre was a grotesque, deliberate, and politically motivated distortion of the reality of warfare.

(2) Or, My Lai was the gravest and most cynical miscarriage of justice in American history.

My personal conclusion...

My Lai was a grotesque and deliberate distortion of reality.

19 posted on 11/17/2024 8:42:14 AM PST by zeestephen (Trump "Lost" By 43,000 Votes - Spread Across Three States - GA, WI, AZ)
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To: PghBaldy

And none of this would have happened if JFK wasn’t assassinated.


20 posted on 11/17/2024 8:45:37 AM PST by DownInFlames (P)
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