Vietnam: The My Lai Massacre
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What was the My Lai Massacre?
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Hi everyone, it's Don. Just jumping in with a gentle warning, the episode which follows contains some very distressing content. November 1970, Fort Benning, Georgia. A convoy of military trucks moves by on the wet pavement. MPs patrol the curb. In the distance, the cadence of marching boots echoes through the air. All of this is a reminder that we are standing on an army base, a place built for war. But here, as we face the stark and simple building ahead of us, war is not being waged, but it is being judged. Today marks the beginning of the trial of Lieutenant William Calley Jr., accused of the premeditated murder of unarmed civilians at a small village called My Lai in South Vietnam. Today, there will be an American soldier, not an enemy, standing in the dock. It will be the United States Army which will decide whether one of its own committed an unspeakable crime. Within the building, inside the courtroom, the wooden witness stand is, for the moment, empty, and the courtroom still.
No.
This is American History It, and I'm Don Wildman. Today, we'll discuss the not-so-distant past, at least for some of us. Though I was but a youngster at the time, I can vividly recall the images of horrific fighting in a faraway land called Vietnam. While my sisters and I lived our normal childhood lives, going to school and playing sports and having family dinners at night, that war overseas was escalating, as was reported nightly on the news with body counts and footage of firefights in the jungle. It was a weird dichotomy here on the home front, one we lived with for years, until it all came to a chaotic conclusion in 1975 with helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the U.S. Embassy. Vietnam was never the right kind of war, if there is such a thing. Victory and surrender would never be formalized.
In the aftermath, the nation had to come to terms with both the courage and honor of those servicemen and women who sacrificed so much, but also with the difficult news of stunning atrocities committed by some U.S. troops in combat, most notorious of all, the My Lai Massacre of 1968, which is our subject today, with guest historian and archivist Christopher Levesque, who teaches at the University of Western Florida, Pensacola, and the University of Charleston. Hello, Chris. Nice to have you on the show. Nice to be here. Chris, the events at hand happened in March 1968. At this point, we're a few years into the buildup of US troops in Vietnam. Nixon has taken the presidency. Lyndon Johnson is long gone. But on the ground in Vietnam, the US is reeling from the Tet Offensive. Can you describe the general circumstances for the US military in Vietnam at this time?
In March of 1968, the Tet Offensive was underway, and it was a significant shock both for the United States military and the U.S. public. While some American leaders in Vietnam had seen signs that something was coming in March of 1968, many U.S. forces were surprised by the actual attacks by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, which were coordinated throughout South Vietnam.
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