Vietnam Research Paper

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The country of Vietnam has a long and interesting history. Numerous rulers have controlled the country at various time periods, but the Vietnamese people have always fought for independence and for the freedom to choose the way they wanted to be governed. In Vietnam’s early history, China controlled its region for over 1,000 years. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that France found the country appealing and decided to establish a colony there. They ruled until the early 1900s when a feeling of independence became more apparent among the Vietnamese people. They simply wanted to govern their own country.
A young Vietnamese scholar named Ho Chi Minh began organizing and talking to his people about freedom, and many of
them liked what they heard. He gained more influence among the Vietnamese, particularly those living in the northern part of the country. He eventually founded a group of rebels who were willing to follow him and fight for a “free” Vietnam, but “free” only in the sense that they could vote to have a communist government.
Eventually, for several reasons, the United States entered into a war, trying to assist the South Vietnamese to keep their independence as a democracy. Most South Vietnamese people did not want a communist-controlled country ruled by Ho Chi Minh. As the war escalated, the United States lost its reputation as a just and fair freedom-fighter nation, and many incidents changed the thoughts and actions of its citizens to one of mistrusting the government.
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My Lai had about 700 residents made up of women, children, and elderly. The village was located in the Quang Ngai province. This area was constantly bombarded with U.S. and South Vietnamese bombs due to the fact that it was thought to be a place where the National Liberation Front (NLF) and Viet Cong (VC) were very present.
Charlie Company was sent on March 16 on a search-and-destroy mission of the village. Higher-ups in the army told the unit that anyone in Son My could be active VC sympathizers or actual VC, so they should destroy the village. "This is what you've been waiting for,” said their superior officer. “Search and destroy - and you've got it." (pbs.org)
Lieutenant William L.
Calley led Charlie Company. He ordered his men to go into the village firing their weapons at the people there. When they entered the village, they didn’t find any Viet Cong, but they still murdered 504 innocent children, women, and elderly over the course of 3 hours. The civilians were executed very brutally. Women were raped, and some people had “C Company” carved into their chest. “I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, scalped them. I did it,” a soldier testified, “A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I lost all sense of direction." Lieutenant Calley dragged dozens of innocent civilians, children included, into a ditch and shot at them with a machine gun, killing them all. When one soldier refused to fire his weapon at people in a ditch. His superior threatened to shoot him. Fifty children ages three or younger, sixty-nine between four and seven, and twenty-seven in their seventies and eighties were killed that day. Only one soldier was injured, and it was when he accidentally shot himself in the foot. Not one bullet was shot at the soldiers by the civilians at My
Lai.
The bloodshed ended when a helicopter pilot on a reconnaissance mission, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, landed his helicopter between the soldiers and the fleeing civilians. He ordered his gunner Lawrence Colburn to shoot any soldier who attempted to pursue the citizens or interfere in any way. They called in two more helicopters to airlift the residents away.
Higher officers in the military tried to make the bloodshed and executions seem a lot less severe than they actually were.
The brigade claimed to have killed 128 Viet Cong which would’ve been the most VC killed in the span of 24 hours by them. They reported that only three weapons were captured which was strange compared to the number of VC they claimed to have killed. When Warrant Officer Thompson said that many civilians had been murdered, Ernest Medina the commanding officer of Charlie Company stated that only 20 or 28 had been killed accidentally. In actuality, he had personally seen over 100 dead bodies. When Colonel Oran K. Henderson sent in a report later, he said the same thing.
The truth came out when a helicopter gunner by the name of Ron Ridenhour told the story to investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, which became public in November 1969. He was a soldier in the 11th Brigade who hadn’t participated in the massacre and had only heard reports of it. He wrote letters to 30 congressional and military leaders about massacre. He wrote to the Pentagon, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even President Richard Nixon. He received no response from them which led him to give the
interview. The U.S. army decided to lead an investigation of the massacre. Lieutenant General W.R. Peers was ordered to lead the investigation on November 24, 1969. 26,000 pages of testimony were reviewed and 403 witnesses were gathered. Peers released the inquiry report in March 1970. He advised that 28 officers should be charged with involvement in covering up the gruesome events. Only 14 were charged including Calley, Medina, and Henderson. 13 were acquitted except for Calley. He was charged and found guilty of intentional murder for ordering the executions and personally killing 104 citizens. He claimed that he was only following orders from Medina, but there was just enough photographic evidence to charge only Calley of murder. He was issued a dishonorable discharge and was given a life sentence in jail in March of 1971. It was reduced to 20 years, and later 10 years. In 1974, he was paroled. He then entered the insurance business.
In another investigation of the massacre, found that at least 30 men could be charged of murder, rape, sodomy, and mutilation. Of those 30, seventeen left the army and charges were dropped. 105 men were part of the Charlie Company, and 33 of those men participated in the massacre.
When the news of the massacre became widespread, the U.S. population was divided on the issue of continuing the war or not. Many more people became against the war. Among the soldiers, morale was already extremely low, and this event caused it to drop even further. They began wondering if there was even more information that was being hidden from them.