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My Lai Massacre On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company, a unit of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade arrived in the hamlet of My Lai in the northern part of South Vietnam. They were on a “search and destroy” mission to root out 48th Viet Cong Battalion thought to be in the area.The unit met no resistance in My Lai, which had about 700 inhabitants. Indeed, they saw no males of fighting age. They only found villagers eating breakfast.Nevertheless, over the next three hours they killed as many as 504 Vietnamese civilians. Some were lined up in a drainage ditch before being shot. The dead civilians included fifty age 3 or younger, 69 between 4 and 7, and 27 in their 70s or 80s.In addition, Vietnamese women were raped; other civilians were clubbed and stabbed. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. One soldier would testify later, "I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I lost all sense of direction." Only one American was injured - a GI who had shot himself in the foot while clearing his pistol.In one incident, a soldier, Robert Maples, refused an order to fire his machine gun on people in a ditch, even when his commanding officer trained his own weapon him. Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot had threatened to fire on the American troops in order to rescue Vietnamese women and children from the slaughter. After seeing U.S. troops advancing on a Vietnamese family, he landed his helicopter, called in gunships to rescue the civilians, and ordered his gunner to fire on any American who interfered.The My Lai massacre took place shortly after the Tet Office. Late in January 1968, Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers had launched attacks on urban areas across South Vietnam. Charlie Company had arrived in Vietnam three months before the My Lai massacre. Charlie Company had suffered 28 casualties, including five dead. Just two days before the massacre, on March 14, a "C" Company squadron encountered a booby trap, killing a popular sergeant, blinding one GI and wounding several others.The Cover-UpThe 11th Brigade claimed to have killed 128 Viet Cong during the operation, which would have been the largest number killed by the Brigade in a 24 hour period. Curiously, the Brigade reported only 3 weapons captured. When Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot, claimed that civilians had been murdered, Charlie Company’s commanding officer, Ernest Medina, was asked how many civilians had been killed. Even though he had personally seen at least 100 bodies, he maintained that between 20 and 28 civilians had been killed by gunship and artillery fire. That conclusion was echoed in a report submitted a month later by the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, Col Oran K Henderson. He claimed that 20 civilians had been killed inadvertently,The massacre was covered up until a 22-year-old helicopter gunner in another unit, Ron Ridenhour, wrote letters to 30 congressional and military officials a year later detailing the events at My Lai.New Investigations and TrialsOn November 24, 1969, Lt. Gen. W.R. Peers was directed by the Secretary of the Army to review “possible supression or witholding of information by persons involved in the incident." After more than 26,000 pages of testimony from 403 witnesses were gathered, the Peers inquiry recommended that charges should be brought against 28 officers and two non-commissioned officers involved in a cover-up of the massacre. The Peers report concluded that the brigade commander, Col. Oran Henderson, and the commanding officer, Lt Col Frank Barker, had substantial knowledge of the war crime, but did nothing about it. In the end, Army lawyers decided that only 14 officers should be charged with crimes. Meanwhile, a separate investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division concluded that there was evidence to charge 30 soldiers with the crimes of murder, rape, sodomy, and mutilation. Seventeen men had left the Army, and charges against them were dropped. Army investigators concluded that 33 of the 105 members of Charlie Company participated in the massacre, and that 28 officers helped cover it up. Charges were brought against only 13 men. In the end, only one soldier – Lt. William Calley - was convicted. Calley was charged with murdering 104 villagers in the My Lai massacre.The My Lai massacre became a defining symbol of the Vietnam war. Some deemed the massacre as an aberration; others called it a symptom of deeper problems—of leadership, training, and morale.Reports of the Incident (official reports submitted by Charlie Company commander)1. Reports of Civilian Casualties Commencing early in the operation, commanders began receiving reports of civilian casualties in My Lai (4). At about 0930 hours, MG Koster was advised by COL Henderson that he had observed 6 to 8 such casualties. The figure was increased when LTC Barker reported to Henderson during the afternoon that the total was 12 to 14, and was further increased to 20 in a report Barker made that evening. This last report was relayed to MG Koster at about 1900 hours. None of these reports was entered in unit journals or reported outside the Americal Division. 2. Observations and Complaints by Aviation Personnel One element which provided combat support to TF Barker on 16 March was an aero-scout team from Company B, 123d Aviation Battalion. A pilot of this team, W01 (now lLT) Hugh Thompson, had been flying at a low altitude over My Lai (4) during the morning hours and had observed the actions of C/1-20 Inf. He became greatly concerned over the "needless and unnecessary killings" he had witnessed. He landed his helicopter several times to aid the inhabitants and in an attempt to stop the killing. Shortly before noon, W01 Thompson returned to LZ Dottie and reported his observations to his company commander, MAJ Frederic Watke. The complaints of WO1 Thompson were confirmed by other pilots and crewmen who had also been over My Lai (4). The complaints were expressed in most serious terms; those who were present heard the terms "killing" and "murder" used freely with estimates of the dead in My Lai (4) running over 100. Upon receipt of this report, MAJ Watke went to the commander of TF Barker and advised him of the allegations. Watke stated that Barker then left for his helicopter, presumably to visit C/1-20 Inf. Watke considered the matter was "in the hands of the man who could do something about it" and took no further action at that time. Later that day, he again encountered Barker who advised him that he could find nothing to substantiate Thompson's allegations. while Watke testified that he was convinced at the time that LTC Barker was lying, he took no further action until 2200 hours that night when he reported to his battalion commander, LTC Holladay, and related for the second time the substance of what is hereafter referred to as the "Thompson Report." 3. The Order to Return to My Lai (4) At about 1530 hours on 16 March, after receiving a second report of civilian casualties, COL Henderson stated he became suspicious and directed TF Barker to send a company back through My Lai (4) to ascertain the exact number of casualties and the cause of death. As the order was being transmitted to C/1-20 Inf by TF Barker, it was monitored by MG Koster, the commander of the Americal Division, who inquired concerning the reasons. After a brief explanation by the CO of C/1-20 Inf, during which time MG Koster was advised that 20-28 noncombatants had been killed, MG Koster countermanded the order and directed that COL Henderson be notified. There were no further efforts to make an on-site determination of the cause or extent of the civilian casualties. 4. The Thompson Report Reaches Division Headquarters Because of the late hour at which LTC Holladay received the report from MAJ Watke, they waited until the following morning before reporting to BG Young, an Assistant Division Connander. Watke repeated his story, which both he and LTC Holladay agree contained the allegations that there had been "lots of unnecessary killing ... mostly women, children and old men" and that a confrontation had taken place between personnel of aviation and ground units; however, there is conflict as to the number of casualties mentioned. LTC Holladay and MAJ Watke also agree that BG Young was advised that the complaints made by Thompson had been confirmed by other aviation unit personnel. At about noon on the 17th, BG Young reported to MG Koster the information he had received from MAJ Watke and LTC Holladay. There is substantive disagreement in testimony between what BG Young testified he received from Watke and Holladay and what the latter two state they reported. BG Young stated he was not apprised of any charge of indiscriminate or unnecessary killing of noncombatants. He further stated that it was his impression the matter of majorconcern was that there had been a confrontation between the ground forces aviation unit, resulting from an incident in which noncombatants had been caught in a cross fire between US and enemy forces. BG Young contends that it was this lesser charge he brought to MG Koster, who directed BG Young to instruct COL Henderson to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident. MG Koster has confirmed parts of BG Young's account of this conversation but in a previous statement before the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), MG Koster stated that he had been advised of some indiscriminate shooting of civilians. The Inquiry has concluded that the two general officers received a muted version of the Thompson Report from Watke and Holladay, but one that included the allegation that noncombatants had been indiscriminately killed. Upon receipt of the report, it seems most likely that they related it to the information MG Koster had received from TF Barker the previous day, that 20-28 noncombatants had been inadvertently killed. The information concerning noncombatant casualties had not been forwarded outside of the Division, although D4ACV and III MAF regulations required such action, or were the new allegations reported to higher headquarters. Adopting a "close hold" attitude concerning all information relating to this matter, MG Koster directed BG Young to have COL Henderson investigate the incident.Hugh Thompson Hugh Thompson, an army pilot who landed his craft in between villagers and the rampaging soldiers. He ordered his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, to fire on any soldier who continued pursuing the fleeing villagers. Thompson and Colburn radioed two more helicopters to the scene and airlifted a dozen villagers to safety.“I'm Hugh Thompson. I was a helicopter pilot that day, and I guess I was invited here to tell you about a day of my life. That particular morning we were to provide reconnaissance for a ground operation that was going on in My Lai 4, which was better known to us as "Pinkville." It was supposed to be a real big operation that day. I flew a Scout helicopter covered by two gunships that flew cover for me, and my job was to recon out in front of the friendly forces and draw fire, tell them where the enemy was, and let them take care of it. The village was prepped with artillery prior to the assault, and we went in right when the "slicks" ---the troop-carrying aircraft that brought the Charlie company and Bravo company--- landed simultaneously right in front of them. We started mak ing our passes, and I thought it was gonna be real hot that day. The first thing we saw was a draft-age male running south out of the village with a weapon and I tol m to et him. He tried, but he was a new gunner--- he missed him. That was the only enemy person I saw that whole day. We kept flying back and forth, reconning in front and in the rear, and it didn't take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Everywhere we'd look, we'd see bodies. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever. That's what you look for, draft-age people. It came out in the interrogations that my crew and myself went through. My gunner's big questions---were, "Were there weapons that day?" There was not the first weapon captured, to my knowledge, that day. I think a count has been anywhere from two to four hundred, five hundred bodies--- it was that many. I think that's a small count, including the three villages that were hit. As we were flying back around the civilian people, there was one lady on the side of the road, and we knew something was going wrong by then. Larry Colburn, my gunner, just motioned for her to stay down; she was kneeling on the side of the road. We just ordered her to stay down; we hovered around everywhere, looking, couldn't understand what was going on. We flew back over her a few minutes later and most of you all have probably seen that picture; she's got a coolie hat laying next to her. If you look real close, some odd object laying right next to her--- that's her brains. It's not pretty We saw another lady that was wounded. We got on the radio and called for some help and marked her with smoke. A few minutes later up walks a captain, steps up to her, nudges her with his foot, steps back and blows her away. We came across a ditch that had, I don't know, a lot of bodies in it, a lot of movement in it. I landed, asked a sergeant there if he could help them out, these wounded people down there. He said he'd help them out, help them out of their misery, I believe. I was . . . shocked, I guess, I don't know. I thought he was joking; I took it as a joke, I guess. We took off and broke away from them and my gunner, I guess it was, said, "My God, he's firing into the ditch." We'd asked for help twice, both times--- well actually, three times by then, I guess--- every time that people had been killed. We'd "help these people out" by asking for help. Sometime later, we saw some people huddle in a bunker and the only thing I could see at that particular time was a woman, an old man, and a couple of kids standing next to it. We look over here and see them and look over there and see the friendly forces, so I landed the helicopter again. I didn't want there to be any confusion or something; I really don't know what was going on in my mind then. I walked over to the ground units and said, "Hey, there's some civilians over here in this bunker. Can you get them out?" They said, "Well, we're gonna get them out with a hand grenade." I said, "Just hold your people right here please, I think I can do better." So I went over to the bunker and motioned for them to come out, everything was OK. At that time I didn't know what I was going to do, because there was more than three or four there, more like nine or ten or something like that. So I walked back over to the aircraft and kind of kept them around me and called the pilot that was flying the low gunship and said, "Hey, I got these people here down on the ground, and you all land and get them out of here." So he agreed to do that, which I think was the first time a gunship's ever been used for that. There's enough of them there that he had to make two trips and he picked them up and took them about ten miles or so behind the lines and dropped them off. A short while later we went back to the ditch. There was still some movement in there. We got out of the aircraft and Androtta, my crew chief, walked down into the ditch. A few minutes later he came back up carrying a little kid. We didn't know what we were gonna do with this one either, but we all get back in the aircraft and figure we'd get him back to the orphanage or hospital back over at Quang Ngai. In examining him in the aircraft that day, the kid wasn't even wounded, or we didn't see any wounds, I'll put it that way. He was covered with blood, and the thought was going through my mind and my crew's mind, "How did these people get in that ditch?" After coming up with about three scenarios, one of them being an artillery round hit them, you wipe that out of your mind 'cause every house in Vietnam, I think, has a bunker underneath it. If artillery was coming there, they would go to the bunker; they wouldn't go outside in the open area. Then I said, well, when artillery was coming, they were trying to leave and a round caught them in the ditch while they were going for cover. I threw that one out of my mind. Then something just sunk into me that these people were marched into that ditch and murdered. That was the only explanation that I could come up with. Taking the child to the hospital was a day I'll never forget. It was a very sad day, very mad day, very frustrated and everything. So later in the afternoon, (this was brought up when everything hit and became public during interrogations, the Department of the Army IG was asking me about the incident and I had totally blocked it out of my mind. I had no idea what this guy was questioning me for), after the mission that day, I went back to our operations area, which is over in LC Dottie and I was very upset. I was very mad. I reported to my platoon leader. He said let's go see the operations officer. In turn we went to our commander and the words were said for me that day that, you know, dean this up. "If this damn stuff is what's happening here," I told him, "You can take these wings right now 'cause they're only sewn on with thread." I was ready to quit flying. My commander was very interested. Within a day or so--- I don't think it was that day, it was probably the next day--- we were called up to the command bunker at LC Dottie and everybody gave their statements. This was a full colonel (a full colonel is next to a general); that means he can walk on water. He was very interested it seemed; I remember him taking notes and that was it, I do believe. I don't know if I was called again to report to the commanding general. There was one thing in my mind that I think, but I can't be positive. Our two units were like sixty miles away. So we didn't have contact with these ground people every day. A lot of people don't understand that sixty miles into Vietnam is a long way away You just don't go there. I guess I assumed something was being done. It wasn't a colonel's position to come down to a Wl and inform him of his investigation, that just was unheard of. It seemed like it was just dropped after that. Approximately two years later is when it was broke publicly and that's when all the investigations started. I was called before the US Senate, the Department of the Army IG and for every one of the court-martial investigations. They appointed Lieutenant General Peers to investigate this. I honestly think the Army thought they had a 'yes-man' when they got Lieutenant General Peers and found out when he released his final report that he was not a "yes-man." I think he made a fairly accurate report of what happened that day. I believe too, as everybody says, there was a cover-up and everybody's talked about that the cover-up started on the ground. In my mind, I'm not real sure that's where the cover-up started. I would not be the least bit surprised if this cover-up started "up" and worked its way all the way back down. It was probably one of the saddest days of my life. I just could not believe that people could totally lose control and I've heard people say this happened all the time. I don't believe it. I'm not naive to understand that innocent civilians did get killed in Vietnam. I truly pray to God that My Lai was not an everyday occurrence. I don't know if anybody could keep their sanity if something like that happens all the time. I can see where four or five people get killed, something like that. But that was nothing like that, it was no accident whatsoever. Pure premeditated murder. And we're trained better than that and it's just not something you'd like to do.”The Results of Ernest Medina's Lie Detector TestRemarks of Chief Prosecutor William Eckhardt Let me put some things in perspective. The first thing that I saw when I began to look at this evidence was something very strange about Medina's order. Medina was charged initially based upon the theory of the government that he had ordered this inexcusable carnage. As I began to read the evidence, a couple of things emerged about the order. There is no doubt that there was a pep talk, and we can talk about the nuances of that and whether it was permissible or not. It is debatable, but there are certain kernels that come out. There was a pep talk. The village was to be burned. The livestock was to be killed. The dead livestock was to be used to poison wells. If it was not military necessity, probably all three of those were wrong, legally and morally. Make no excuse for that. But I am going to hone it right now on the unresisting noncombatants, the people. Everyone said there was a pep talk, but strangely enough the more I looked, only those who said they received a specific order were the ones who killed. Large numbers of men did not shoot. Large numbers of men simply put their guns down and just did nothing. I became very concerned about that as I looked at it, and as time progressed, F. Lee Bailey, who defended Captain Medina, requested a polygraph. Polygraphs are made up of two parts: You question someone, and then you test whether their responses are true or false about the best way you know how to do it on a machine. The law is that what they tell you is admissible in court, but the machine is not. We wanted the answers to about sixty-five questions, and we worked for about four days to see what answers we could get. We used the president of the Polygraph Association. He was the most reputable and the best polygraph examiner in the United States, if not in the world. Over a series of weekends, we put Medina on the box as they say, and that is what I need to talk about in relation to the order. Two questions were pertinent. Medina was truthful in response to this question: "Did you intentionally infer"---note all the connotation to that as to whether he had ordered directly or showed a want to do it or not---"to your men that they were to kill unarmed, unresisting noncombatants?" His answer was no. That was truthful. The next question was what did he know. We did a "peak of tension" test. It is the way, for example, that policemen find dead bodies. Basically, you hook somebody up, and as you move across a map, the person without saying anything reacts. The question was put to him: "Did you know that your men were killing unarmed, unresisting noncombatants?" We listed ninety-minute segments of the day before, the day of, and the day after the massacre. It was flat for the day before, but between seven-thirty and nine in the morning of the massacre, the needle went off the chart, not reacted, went off the chart. It went down and then went off. Medina told us, orally, that he learned about this when he, for the first time, saw a group of bodies at the edge of the village between ten and ten-thirty. The law is that you can use, as we did, that particular statement of time. We couldn't use the polygraph chart, but the government's duty was clear. No one knows what happened, but what probably happened was that this group got out of control and he refused to stop it.Thursday, September 23, 1971 Medina Found Not Guilty of All Charges on MYLAI By Homer BigartSpecial To New York Times Fort McPherson Ga., Sept. 22 Capt. Ernest L. Medina was acquitted today of all charges of involvement in the killing of civilians at Mylai. The jury of five combat officers deliberated only 60 minutes before reaching a verdict of not guilty. Captain Medina was acquitted of premeditated murder in the killing of a Vietnamese woman, of involuntary manslaughter in the killing of "no less than 100" Vietnamese civilians, and of two counts of assault against a prisoner. A stifled cheer and some handclapping, quickly suppressed by the military judge, erupted in the small courtroom when the president of the court, Col. William D. Proctor, announced the verdict. Captain Medina saluted the court, strode back to his seat at the defense table, blinked rapidly and swallowed a glass of water. But for a moment, struggling to maintain his composure, he kept his eyes away from his German-born wife, Barbara, who had collapsed weeping on the shoulder of a friend. They embraced happily in the witness room a moment later, then Captain Medina went outside and told a crowd of newsmen that although he had always maintained "complete faith in military justice" he had not changed his determination to leave the Army. The case of Captain Medina, who was charged with overall responsibility for the killings at the Vietnamese hamlet of Mylai 4 on March 16, 1968, went to the jury at 2:53 P.M. Captain Medina, the last man to face a murder charge arising from the deaths of Vietnamese civilians three and a half years ago, heard himself described in the defense summation as "no filthy felon" but "a disciplined commander who honored and loved the uniform he wore and the company it represented." The 35-year-old officer, normally swarthy but now pallid and puffy eyed, was denounced in the Government's summation as an officer who had abrogated his responsibility, and who "like Pontius Pilate cannot wash the blood from his hands." Captain Medina had been charged originally with the premeditated murder of at least 100 civilians during the sweep through Mylai. He was charged also with the murders of a woman and a small boy and with two counts of assault against a prisoner. The charge of murdering 100 civilians was reduced to involuntary manslaughter by the military judge, Col. Kenneth A. Howard on Friday. At that time, Colonel Howard also threw out the charge that Captain Medina had murdered a child. The jury was not informed of these decisions until late today. The jury of five combat officers had to consider whether Captain Medina was guilty or not guilty of the murder of the woman, an incident described by his counsel, F. Lee Bailey, as a "justifiable battlefield homicide"; whether he was guilty of assault by shooting twice over the head of a prisoner, and whether he had been aware that his men were "improperly killing noncombatants" and had declined to exercise his command responsibility by attempting to halt the killings. In his final argument, Maj. William G. Eckhardt ridiculed the defense's contention that Captain Medina had remained unaware of any large scale killings at Mylai until it was too late. It was incredible, the prosecutor said, that Captain Medina who maintained continuous radio contact with his platoons during the action, had not known what his troops were doing one, two, three and even four hours after the assault had been launched. Colonel Howard, in his instructions to the jury, cast doubts on the testimony of some of the prosecution witnesses. He referred to Gerald Heming as a "frequent user of wine, drinking as much as four quarts a day and (who) had experimented with LSD." The judge also recalled that two other Government witnesses had been impeached. They were Thomas B. Kinch, who was said to have had a court-martial conviction and who may or may not have withheld this information from his employer, and Lous Martin, a San Jose, Calif., policeman who told a lie detector expert that a group of civilians he saw shot down near Medina "may have been an illusion or a hallucination." Mr. Bailey said his only concern had been that the jury might convict Captain Medina on the assault charge. Mr. Bailey had maintained that Captain Medina was merely trying to frighten the prisoner when he fired two bullets over the prisoner's head this was permissible, Mr. Bailey said, under the Army field manual, which said that "threats of violence" could be used against prisoners who refused to talk. Standing beside Mr. Bailey was a man in a peacock blue suit who wore a diamond and gold American flag on his lapel. Mr. Bailey introduced him as a major contributor to the Medina defense fund, an Orlando, Fla., millionaire named Glenn W. Turner. Mr. Turner said that he had made his money in cosmetics, had already "donated" $20,000 to $25,000 and was prepared to give much more because he believed Captain Medina was "sincere." Only Calley Convicted The only American military man convicted for the murdering of civilians at Mylai is First Lieut. William L. Calley, Jr. He was found guilty last March of the murder of 22 civilians at the South Vietnamese hamlet. After Lieutenant Calley's conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment, the White House ordered him removed from confinement in the stockade and confined to his bachelor's quarters at Fort Benning, Ga., pending an ultimate decision. Last Aug. 20, Lieut. Gen. Albert O. Connor, the commanding general of the Third Army ordered Lieutenant Calley's life sentence reduced to 20 years. That decision meant that Lieutenant Calley would be eligible for parole in six to seven years. The case is to be reviewed by the United States Court of Military Review, then by the Court of Military Appeals and, finally, by President Nixon. With the acquittal of Captain Medina, the only officer now standing trial is Col. Oran K. Henderson. He is accused of attempting to cover up the mass killings and of later lying about them before an official board of inquiry. Of 13 officers and enlisted men who were originally charged with the killings in Mylai, eight cases were dismissed and there were four acquittals before the Medina verdict. The Pentagon said yesterday that no further action was pending but that the Mylai investigation was not officially closed. Further legal action would be initiated, a spokesman said, if evidence warranting it were developed.Thirty years later, memories of My Lai massacre remain freshBy Paul Alexander, Associated Press writer (From South Coast Today: )MY LAI, Vietnam -- Truong Thi Le stares at a graphic photograph of the massacre's carnage, then points at the pile of corpses under which she hid for four hours, clutching her 6-year-old son. Her dead mother, brother and another son sprawl nearby. "I feel pain in my heart when I look at this," she says, her voice choking. "I have to struggle not to cry. I still can't account for what happened." Dredging up memories of the terrible events of March 16, 1968, is easy -- far too easy -- for Le, 70, and Ha Thi Quy, 73 ((see top photo). Dealing with the memories is another matter. That long-ago day started mostly overcast and breezy, with some hot sun later around noon, the two women say. The 8,000 residents of the four My Lai hamlets were having breakfast or heading to the rice paddies. The winter crop, not one of the best, was almost ready for harvest. When gunfire started, it wasn't a surprise. My Lai was in a war zone; many residents had crude dirt shelters to huddle in during artillery attacks. But this time was different. Within four hours, 504 men, women and children, by the residents' count, would lie dead after one of the U.S. Army's blackest days. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quy speaks softly at first, recalling how American soldiers had visited My Lai hamlet No. 4 previously, giving away candy and cigarettes and getting water. Her wrinkled face comes alive and her voice picks up intensity and agitation -- "I still feel frightened to tell the story," she says -- as she details how helicopters came in low around 6 a.m., followed by American infantrymen who gathered up the villagers. As Quy was herded through the rice paddies, a bullet hit her thigh; she thinks it was a stray because it didn't come from the soldier behind her. She managed to keep walking until the group reached a newly dug ditch about 50 yards long. "The villagers did not dare to resist," she says. "They had nothing to fight back. I prayed for them to spare me. They didn't say anything." The first to be shot was a monk. In the ensuing barrage, Quy was hit in the buttocks, went down and passed out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------When Quy awoke, the soldiers were gone. They left behind 407 dead and dying, villagers said later. The Americans had moved on to My Lai hamlet No. 2, where they killed 97 more people. Quy found herself in a pile of corpses, including her mother and eldest daughter, in the ditch where the blood was calf-deep. "The dead bodies piled over me. That's why I survived. I was just lucky," she says. "I managed to pull myself out of the bodies and walked home. It was burned and all the cows and pigs were killed. We had nothing left." Covered in blood, Quy walked to another village for clean clothes, a bath and an escape from the insanity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Finally becoming widely known nearly two years later, the tale of the horrors at My Lai intensified the American public's ill feelings about the war. Returning servicemen were branded "baby-killers" even if they had been far from the battlefield. "My Lai was an appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam," retired Army Gen. Colin Powell wrote in his book, "My American Journey." "The involvement of so many unprepared officers and noncoms led to breakdowns in morale, discipline and professional judgment -- and to horrors like My Lai -- as the troops became numb to what appeared to be endless and mindless slaughter." Initial military reports claimed the massacre began when two Americans were killed and 10 wounded by booby traps. In reality, the only U.S. casualty was a soldier who shot himself in the foot. The Army's court-martial proceedings ruled that platoon leader Lt. William Calley and his men, frustrated by losses from land mines, snipers and ambushes, killed at least 175 villagers and perhaps more than 400. Calley was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Other officers were censured or demoted. After a public outcry that Calley was being made a scapegoat, President Nixon reduced the sentence to 20 years, and Calley actually served just three years of house arrest before his conviction was overturned by a federal judge. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ironically, the massacre was not such big news in Vietnam, especially in the war-ravaged region surrounding My Lai, where almost everyone lost a relative or friend to the war and where reports have persisted that this was far from the only atrocity. Fierce battles followed around My Lai until 1971. Bulldozers flattened much of the area. Only about 500 villagers remained, working the rice paddies during the day and hiding nearby at night. Quy was a hired worker in other villages for a while. One of her two sons lost an arm, a leg and an eye in a land-mine blast later in 1968. But her remaining relatives and her land were in My Lai, so she returned, even as the fighting continued. "Most were too frightened to come back," she says. "And there was a bad smell from the bodies and the blood." Though the country has no official religion, many Vietnamese believe in spirits. Both Le and Quy claim they and other survivors could hear faint screams and cries for years after the massacre. "I think their souls were still wandering around late at night," Le says. But they say the cries have faded since a memorial was erected in 1978. The spirits seem to be more at rest now. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------The local population has grown to 13,125. The dirt road is paved. Once, only a handful of relatively rich families owned bicycles. Now there are 700 motorbikes and an average of four bicycles per household. Nearly a third of the homes have a TV. But this is still a poor farming community -- average per-capita income $135 a year -- where most work is done by hand. Freshly harvested peanuts dry in large flat baskets on the side of the road. Women ride bicycles bushy with yam leaves gathered for pig feed. The waist-high rice is weeks away from harvest. The names of the massacre's victims are listed on a black plaque that looks like a small chunk of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. It hangs from a wall of the museum in the center of the My Lai memorial site. Photos taken during the massacre by a U.S. military photographer show the carnage in stomach-churning detail. Gray statues and a mosaic portray victims, some dying, others comforting or defiant. A couple of My Lai's artillery shelters were rebuilt. A dead tree, riddled with bullet holes, juts up beside one. Pots of burnt joss sticks sit in front of headstones. One marks where 170 people were killed in the ditch, another where 15 women were raped and killed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------It took five years for Quy's physical wounds to heal; the psychological ones are still fresh for her and Le. "I felt very angry toward the American troops," Le says. "Of course I didn't believe all Americans were bad. It was just some of them. But I'm still trying to release my emotions." Virtually everyone involved in My Lai or its aftermath expresses one hope: that the massacre will be a lesson never to be forgotten. "Most of the families in the two communes lost someone," Quy says. "Those born since then have been told stories about the massacre. I hope children all over the world don't have to go through what we did." ................
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