Six on My Lai Massacre: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago today; Seymour Hersh; American Experience |
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panaritisp
Mar 17, 2018, 1:57:39 AM3/17/18
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Six on My Lai Massacre: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago today; Seymour Hersh; American Experience | PBS | Vietnam Online; One My Lai a month; Behind the Photos That Showed the World What Really Happened at My Lai; The My Lai Massacre: Fifty Years Later
A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago today
"What happened next was one of the most remarkable events of the entire war, and perhaps unique: Thompson told the American troops that, if they opened fire on the Vietnamese civilians in the bunker, he and his crew would open fire on them.
"You risked your lives," I said, "to protect those Vietnamese civilians."
"Well, it didn't come to that," he replied. "I thank God to this day that everybody did stay cool and nobody opened up. ... It was time to stop it, and I figured, at that point, that was the only way the madness, or whatever you want to call it, could be stopped."
Back at their base he filed a complaint about the killing of civilians that he had witnessed. The Army covered it up. But eventually the journalist Seymour Hersh found out about the massacre, and his report made it worldwide news and a turning point in the war. Afterwards Thompson testified at the trial of Lt. William Calley, the commanding officer during the massacre."
My Lai Massacre and Seymour Hersh
"On November 12, 1969 reporter Seymour Hersh broke a shocking story about a massacre of hundreds of unarmed men, woman and children in the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Hersh explains that the story started with an anonymous tip and led him to Fort Benning, Georgia where the Army was holding Lt. William Calley, an officer undergoing court martial proceedings for the killings."
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One My Lai a month
"When somebody asks, 'Why do you do it to a g--k, why do you do this to people?' your answer is, 'So what, they're just g--ks, they're not people. It doesn't make any difference what you do to them; they're not human.'
"And this thing is built into you," Cpl. John Geymann testified almost 44 years ago at the Winter Soldier Investigation, held in Detroit, which was sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "It's thrust into your head from the moment you wake up in boot camp to the moment you wake up when you're a civilian."
The cornerstone of war is dehumanization. This was the lesson of Nam, from Operation Ranch Hand (the dumping of 18 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, on the jungles of Vietnam) to My Lai to the use of napalm to the bombing of Cambodia. And the Winter Soldier Investigation began making the dehumanization process a matter of public knowledge.
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One My Lai a month "When somebody asks, 'Why do you do it to a g--k, why do you do this to people?' your answer is, 'So what, they're just g--ks, they're not people. It doesn't make a... | |||||||
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Behind the Photos That Showed the World What Really Happened at My Lai
The My Lai Massacre: Fifty Years Later
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