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How Did The My Lai Massacre Dbq

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The United States was in the midst of the Vietnam War that was now escalating with the Vietcong before the My Lai Massacre occurred. They had the intention of going to My Lai to find and attack the Vietcong. On the morning of March 16, 1968, US soldiers flew in helicopters into My Lai 4 with the mission of clearing the area of Communists and to only fight the enemy, not civilians. The soldiers landed and started to move through My Lai 4 expecting to battle with the Vietcong, but the area was only occupied by civilians. Despite the mission to not kill any civilians, and seeing no traces of the enemy, Lieutenant Calley “ordered his men to kill the unarmed civilians” (My Lai: A Brief History with Documents, 22). Many of the soldiers said they had no desire to participate in the innocent killings but were just following orders, while others refused to disobey orders and not kill any civilians. …show more content…

Immediately after the massacre, everyone involved in the My Lai Massacre was completely silent and did not report what had just occurred. Thompson, a helicopter pilot, would report what he witnessed that morning, only for it to be covered up by every official and higher-up power it came across. The story would not be exposed to the American people until April 2nd, 1969, when Ronald Ridenhour, a US soldier in the Vietnam War, heard about the massacre from other soldiers who had participated in it. He was appalled by this and that it was completely unknown to the public. Ridenhour took matters into his own hands by writing a five-page letter to U.S. leaders, including the secretary of defense and members of Congress (My Lai: A Brief History with Documents, 147). His determination to expose the truth played a significant role in informing the public and holding accountable those

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Alecia Moore Chapter 13 How did the official version of the My Lai assault differ from the soldiers’ testimonies? Why were they so different from each other? On March 16, 1968 in a village called My Lai “U.S. forces killed 128 enemy troops” (Gorn et al 2010), this is what the Army’s Public Information Department released.

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Many Vietnamese people who weren’t part of the war were killed. In 1968 more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese people were killed in My Lai. This event is known as the My Lai Massacre. Though this event was not mentioned in the book, innocent Vietnamese people were killed and made fun of in some of the stories that Tim O’Brien wrote. For example in the story “The Lives of the Dead” a village was attacked.

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Countless Americans lack education of the Vietnam War and what treatment the Vietnamese population received during the war. Many times the behavior conducted towards the Vietnamese portrayed American soldiers mistreating the noncombatants. James W. Loewen’s chapter nine of Lies My Teacher Told Me leads readers through the occurrences in the Vietnam War by elaborating the war crimes enacted by American soldiers, examining the intervention of America in the war, and describing pictures that were taken during the war. One subject Loewen uncovers is the analysis of the war crimes throughout the Vietnam War.

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With his Investigating skills and writing skills he showed the people the corruption of the government. After people read about the corruption, they came out ways to prevent the corruption. They came out with the 17th amendment and Sherman Anti Trust Act. Legacy and Lasting

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In If I Die in a Combat Zone, author Tim O’Brien argues that the Vietnam War was unjust by expressing his disapproval of the war through his own moral beliefs, sharing the descriptions of deaths in Vietnam of the innocent citizens, and by describing how much the war impacted himself and others negatively. In the beginning of the book, O’Brien openly stated his beliefs on the war. He believed it was wrongly accepted and unjust, but he battled his own opinions with society’s views anyway (18). Constantly, O’Brien discussed within his own head about the true definition of bravery and courage (147).

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The responsibility was laid out to them clearly, but the decision to downplay this massacre would lead to events soldiers wished never happened. By omission and commission, they suppressed reports of the incident and submitted false or misleading accounts to higher headquarters. (My Lai Massacre) By suppressing the news of the massacre, Calley and his fellow officers just dug themselves a deep hole. Surely they should have expected the cause and effect from this small decision.

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In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.

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“Americans didn’t want to be believe that these things occurred in the name of the American people and for the sake of freedom”, so it was something that was swept under the rug until journalist got a hold of it. I understand now why the Vietnam War caused many to be diagnosed with PTSD and why it was very unpopular war. I am still interested in knowing the South Vietnamese side of the story, as well as the North

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The Mai Lai massacre took place March 16, 1968 in the Mai Lai village of South Vietnam and is considered to be one of the most traumatic incidents of violence towards civilians of the Vietnam War. In the massacre, and estimated 347 Vietnamese civilians were brutally killed by American soldiers of the Charlie Company. Soldiers were sent to the village to capture and kill members of the Viet Cong, but when they arrived, they could only find villagers. Instead of retreating, they brutally raped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of civilians; mainly women, children and the elderly, all whom were unarmed. In the defense of these soldiers, many say that they were just doing what they thought was right, what they were ordered to do.

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A reporter by the name of Ronald Ridenhour heard rumors about the massacre and decided to investigate more into the rumors. He sent a report of his findings to President Nixon and sixteen congressmen, which resulted in a Pentagon Investigation. “Lieutenant William Calley was charged with premeditated murder of no less than 70 occupants of the My Lai village by means of shooting them with a rifle” (Eckhardt). During the trial, Calley attempted to use multiple arguments to defend himself completely innocent. The questions asked of Lt. Calley during the four-month-long trial showed that he was responsible for the deaths of the many that were killed during the massacre.

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This information turned out to be incorrect and resulted in the Charlie Company as well as other United states soldiers opening fire on the village killing both men, women and children. In this report I will be talking about what Massacre of My Lai and the perspective of two

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The lynch pin to this argument is that he did many of these shady things while uprooting governmental corruption. Some of the sketchy tactics he used, such as keeping his identity a secret were for justified reasons, such as the safety of himself as well as his loved ones and so that he could keep gathering information without being seen suspicious to his colleagues. Just as well, the argument that he had other less secretive options, while indeed true to some extent, were perhaps not the most effective or efficient. He had no way of knowing whether or not his superiors were in on it or whether or not it would even be handled correctly if they did help him. For these reasons it is completely understandable that he went strait to the press, which had the added effect of streamlining the available information directly to the people.

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New York Post (http://nypost.com/trent-angers/)[19 March 2016] The effects of the well-publicized incident , criminal trials, and cover-up sparked disagreements in the US involvement in the Vietnam War and aggravated the growing antiwar attitude. (ROHN, L. 2012. My Lai Massacre [ONLINE] Available at: ( http://thevietnamwar.info/my-lai-massacre/)[21 March 2016]

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This piece was ultimately about the U.S. pillaging and burning an innocent Vietnamese village, such as the My Lai Massacre, in the Vietnam War and how much people suffered during it because of our ancestors’ actions. The My Lai Massacre was a mass killing of three hundred forty-seven and five hundred four unarmed civilians in South Vietnam. The picture was compelling and portrayed the pain the Vietnamese people went through by the expressions on their faces. It made me feel upset about the actions that the United States took in Vietnam.

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He put his whole life and career at risk by being a whistleblower. He was able to divulge to the public the illegal activities of the NSA in the collection of many private information transmitted through the internet. His intention was to inform everyone about the violation of the NSA in the rights of every internet user for freedom. This so-called “internet- and telecommunications-liberty” was deprived when the US government launched the PRISM

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