My Lai Massacre : A tale of rapes and cold blooded killings by US Army

 My Lai Massacre : A tale of rapes and cold blooded killings by US Army.

My Lai is a small village in Quang Nai Vietnam. US soldiers used to address this region as "Pinkville" because of the reddish colour(meaning pro communist region) used to indicate the densely populated My Lai area on military maps. 

By the time Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade, arrived in Vietnam in December 1967. “Pinkville” had earned a reputation as a heavily mined hotbed of Viet Cong activity. In January 1968 Charlie was one of three companies tasked with the destruction of the 48th Battalion, an especially effective Viet Cong unit operating in Quang Ngai province. Throughout February and early March, Charlie Company suffered dozens of casualties due to mines and booby traps, but it failed to engage the 48th Batallion. After the debacle of the broad Tet offensive, the Viet Cong had returned to guerilla tactics and tended to avoid direct encounters with U.S. forces.

Intelligence suggested that the 48th Batallion had taken refuge in the My Lai area (though in reality, that unit was in the western Quang Ngai highlands, more than 40 miles [65 km] away). In a briefing on March 15, Charlie Company’s commander, Capt. Ernest Medina, told his men that they would finally be given the opportunity to fight the enemy that had eluded them for over a month. Believing that civilians had already left the area for Quang Ngai city, he directed that anyone found in My Lai should be treated as a Viet Cong fighter or sympathizer. 

On 16 March 1968, Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon, led by Lieut. William Calley was inserted a short distance to the west of a sub-hamlet known locally as Xom Lang but marked as My Lai  on U.S. military maps.

By 7:50 AM the remainder of Charlie Company had landed, and Calley led 1st Platoon east through My Lai. Although they encountered no resistance, the soldiers nonetheless killed indiscriminately. groups of women, children, and elderly men were rounded up and shot at close range.  

Over 500 civilians were killed in a single raid most of whom were women who were gangraped next to their own children.

 Groups of women, children, and elderly men were rounded up and shot at close range.

Bodies were dumped into ditches and the entire village was burned to the ground.

American military committed such atrocities numerous times during the Vietnam War, but were always covered up — usually by claiming that civilians were “inadvertently” killed during a battle with the enemy army.

Even after such a heinous act, only one soldier was convicted. And he spent 3 days in jail and 3 years in house arrest.

Four years after My Lai massacre, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an article revealing the horrific details.