What Is The Significance Of The My Lai Massacre

Greg Brunclik
Mr. Gardner
U.S. History
5 May 2023
The Trial of Lieutenant Calley The Vietnam War was one of the most influential events in United States history. Vietnamese tactics stunned countless American soldiers to the point of committing deranged offenses out of sheer paranoia. One of these offenses known as the My Lai Massacre is the most infamous atrocity of the Vietnam War. In March of 1968, a group of U.S. troops killed hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai. Following the massacre, several of the troops were placed on trial but only one man was ever convicted. The guerilla warfare and cunning war tactics that VietCong used during the Vietnam War caused paranoia and heightened aggression throughout the

The U.S. government declared that Calley’s platoon murdered around 347 innocent Vietnamese villagers. Following the discovery, 14 soldiers were put on trial for their crimes but only one, Lieutenant Calley, was found guilty. Calley was charged with personally killing 22 civilians and ordering the murder of 200 civilians. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but he ended up serving only four and a half months in prison followed by three and a half months under house arrest. Calley’s minimal sentence angered many people throughout the world and they believed it was unjust. The general public went as far as saying that Calley was being used as a scapegoat for the atrocities at My

A man by the name of Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire magazine, responded to the public hostility by stating “readers should ask themselves ‘what would you have done, if you had been there, and in this man’s shoes?”’ (Jones 258). Arnold posed a vital question that many people did not think of while discussing the My Lai Massacre. Those who persecute Calley must also take into consideration the sheer amounts of exasperation and turmoil that the U.S. troops were experiencing in Vietnam. Just two days before they entered the My Lai village, Charlie Company lost a sergeant on the account of a booby trap. The recent losses and trauma had been slowly building up until they reached their boiling point at the My Lai Massacre. The Vietnam war was nothing America had ever experienced before. America was not used to the guerrilla warfare type of combat that the North Vietnamese and VietCong used. Often times U.S. soldiers did not know if someone was friendly or if someone was an enemy waiting to pounce on them the second they let their guard down. This uncertainty led to oversensitive and short fused soldiers who would lash out and do outrageous things due to the fear of losing their