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. It was reported however, that Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a pilot on the mission, had to land his helicopter in between the company and the civilians and threaten to shoot the soldiers to get them to cease fire. It was later revealed that these soldiers were well aware that the villagers were not Viet Cong, yet they executed them anyways. Upon returning to the United States, the soldiers were instructed not to speak of what had happened and gladly did not, and the public what kept unaware of the massacre until the early 1970’s, towards the end of the war. …show more content…
Lieutenant William Calley Jr., leader of the company, was reported to have dragged dozens of civilians, many of those being children, into a ditch before executing them with a machine gun. This can be compared to Nazi guards and officials in WWII Germany; On December 19th, 1939, Otto Adolf Eichmann was assigned with overseeing Jewish affairs and evacuation. On many of the trains in this period, up to a third of the deportees died in transit due to harsh conditions including little or no food and