The American Horror: Untold Story of the Vietnam War
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”
This famous maxim was given by the 26th President of The United States of America, Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s. Since then time passed on and now the big stick is not only used for display, it strikes too!
16/03/68
South Vietnam
“We were living in a peaceful village, suddenly, at 5:30 a.m. in the morning the U.S. army fired artillery into my village. Around eight o’clock they arrived at my home. There were three American soldiers: one black and two whites. At first they shot three cows in the shed then they set our house on fire. They pointed the guns to our heads and forced all six of us into the family bomb shelter. My mother told us to go into the shelter first,and she would enter later to cover us from bullets. As soon as my mother got into the shelter, the American soldiers continuously tossed in grenades. The bodies of my mother, my sister and brother were torn into pieces. My youngest sister was cut in half. I got injured and knocked out in the shelter. Not until four in the afternoon, when the Americans had left, my father and other villagers returned to collect the dead bodies to bury, they found me breathing. When my father picked me up, I was covered in blood, with pieces of flesh and hair of my mother, my siblings all over on my body.” testified by Pham Thanh Cong, massacre survivor.
Information credit: Associated Press.
Unleashing Carnage in Vietnam
The American soldiers, under command of Captain Medina, landed in the hamlets of My Lai, Co Luy, My Khe, Tu Cung and wreaked havoc shooting and exploding literally anything and everything that moved. Men, women, children, octogenarians, livestock came in their line of fire. Men were grouped along ditches and shot within an arms length. Women carrying a baby in their arms shot mercilessly, after which the baby would be shot as well. The huts were set on fire so that those who were hiding to save themselves would come out. Wells were poisoned as an afterthought so that potential threats could be wiped out . All this Carnage sous pretext that the infamous 48th Battalion of the Vietcong were hiding there. The operation was put together to this effect, to annihilate them! But to their surprise or lack thereof, no so-called Vietcong were to be found. But it seemed that evil itself had incarnated in the form of American soldiers that day. There was no regard for innocent lives that day. The order was already dispatched “They are all VC( Vietcong), now go and get them!”
Halting the My Lai Massacre
The massacre stopped when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot, landed his aircraft between the soldiers and the remaining villagers, threatening to open fire on the troops if they continued their actions. Thompson and his crew then rescued a group of civilians, including an injured child, and reported the massacre to their superiors. But it was too late and the damage was already significant to redeem anything. In total, it is estimated that between 347 and 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were killed during the My Lai Massacre. And what is painful and irksome is that the offenders( not to name a single entity) constantly try to tone down the numbers. As if some less numbers would lessen the burden of carrying the tag “murderer”. It was wrong to have committed the crime but to hide it was dismal.
