Reposting my piece from a few years back, on the 45th anniversary of Seymour Hersh’s My Lai series and all that followed. But this week, now, it’s 50 years since My Lai.
Tomorrow’s the 16th anniversary of the actual massacre: the day Medina and Callley went postal and killed hundreds. We have since learned that that was far from unusual.
And all earlier drafts of my book included a sort of big-picture retelling of those events, focusing on signature dissenters like Hugh Thompson and Ron Ridenhour. Now that I’ll be referring to those events ONLY in a leaner, character-based narrative, I wanted this blog to have this version, of which I am pretty proud.
I do wonder now who’s followed up with the quieter dissenters – the guys who said no. Any miilitary reporters want to tell me?
“But these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir”
At the end of 1969, reports flooded the U.S. newspapers about an incident not dissimilar to what had apparently happened at Liberty Bridge, bearing color photos by Army photographer Robert Haeberle, taken on March 16, 1968 in the hamlet of My Lai.
Nowadays, the name “My Lai” evokes Auschwitz, calling to mind images with which the mind has trouble coping, and Nurnberg, the…
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I Ain't Marching Anymore 