Murtha’s My Lai
If you put Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha and I in a room together, we could probably identify with each other around our military experience, but we would agree on little else I’m afraid. If you accept the linear continuum model of political orientation (which I don’t, but at least it’s well known), then Murtha is center-right, and I am crimson-left.
That’s precisely why this accolade I am about to write to his integrity can be taken seriously.
He is taking a lot of heat — again — for telling truths about the American war of conquest in Iraq.
On November 19th last year, a convoy fo Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines drove through the village of Haditha — a Euphrates River farming town in northwestern Anbar Province of Iraq — where they were hit with an impovised explosive device, killing Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. Fifteen Iraqi civilians were then killed by the Marines, who later claimed that the civilians were killed by the blast of the roadside bomb.
But in January 2006, Time Magazine went to the Pentagon with video footage of the scene and 28 eyewitness reports that suggested something else happened altogether. Those reports, photographs, and video made an extremely strong case that the Marines of Kilo Company went on a vengeance rampage, kicked in the doors of civilian homes, and slaughtered 15 people, including men, women, and small childen, two of adults being elderly grandparents.
The Time story went public in March 2006. Subsequent inquires, outside the military — who insists it is still investigating — have strongly supported the eyewitness reports.
There is some kind of unwritten protocol to give troops the benefit of the doubt beyond anything that would be reasonable for anyone else. Catharine MacKinnon writes, “Manners are often taken more seriously than politics. There’s a poltics to that.”
If anyone in the United States were a suspect in 15 homicides, it’s a pretty good bet they’d be in custody. It’s also a pretty good bet that these guys are not.
Murtha is telling the public that the Pentagon investigation will show that the US Marines massacred civilians in Haditha in November 2005.
That is why I am grateful to Representative John Murtha for not adhering to what is considered good manners. He is not only defying the spineless and oportunistic Nancy Pelosi’s directive to avoid the issue of the Iraq war, when he says saying we need to get our troops out of there pronto; he is now being very explicit about why. The fact that he is a former Marine with scar tissue from Vietnam only makes his public statement, that the result of the investigation will confirm a massacre at Haditha, discomfit the war-boosters of the right and the Schumer-Pelosi sales managers of the center that much more.
They know Murtha has an inside line to the Pentagon. That’s why he prefigured the rebellion of the Generals earlier this year with his declaration last year that the aggression in Iraq is a disaster that will only improve by ending it. Murtha knows what I know, and a lot of veterans who are willing to tell the truth know. Imperial occupations are by their very nature — in the words of Daniel Ellsberg — atrocity producing situations.
The war in Iraq is an atrocity itself — and no Democrat who fails to oppose it deserves to ever hold public office again.
The antagonism between the Iraqi population — over 85% of whom want the US out — and those whose job description is to “control” that population by any means necessary, is inherent, and therefore inescapable.
Murtha is going to take some serious heat on this. Our political culture abhors a non-conformist, and saying in a straightforward way that we need to backhaul US troops out of Iraq — even though that is now a majority position — is about as non-conformist as you get over there these days. Pointing out that the military behaves in ways that don’t conform to our chauvinistic ideals of them is even more out of the box. So let there be no doubt: Murtha is now a target.
That means it is our responsibility to get his back. We have to write and call his office to thank him for his integrity. We have to write op-eds and letters to the editor rebutting the inevitable and hateful demogogy that will be leveled at him. We have to blog our approval, speak publicly of our approval, call radio programs and C-Span with our approval, and tell our own Representatives that he is the example we want them to emulate.
Why do we need to do this (oh yuck) lobbyish thing? For the same reason we need to bear down right this second with the same members of Congress to sink the Hayden nomination.
We have a government now running an imperial war that is reeling with corruption scandals, lying scandals, spying scandals, resignations, and the popularity of a roundworm infection. But they are still very big, and they are still very powerful, so we have to hit them over the head with clubs, throw sand in their eyes, bite their fingers, scratch, kick, and otherwise pummel them until they can’t get up. The loss of the Hayden nomination combined with a My Lai massacre exposure are terrific blows against this crew’s ability to govern… and not just here, but out in the empire.
Get dirty. It’s time.
Timothy R. Anderson:
Understatements everywhere. I went hopping through the stats over at http://www.icasualties.org today. The final tally for the entire month of May 2003 , U.S. soldiers dead in Iraq , was THIRTY SEVEN . That, dear readers, was yesterday. The current tally for May 2006 is FIFTY. Is it any wonder the Republican-ruled Washington D.C. is trotting out the old standby prize pony named ” Let’s Blame The Mexicans ? ”
18 May 2006, 2:24 pmAs for Congressman Murtha, I say good on him. He’s
a good start. Another good start was an opinion-editorial written by Nathaniel Fick , in the USA Today newspaper , that I saw last month. Nathaniel Fick said, in a very polite tone, that the U.S. Dept.
of Defense needs to seriously consider removing Rumsfeld and Rumsfeldism . Sad to say, the Fick
opinion-editorial has NOT really caught on ;
perhaps he was TOO polite. ( There IS such
a thing, y’know. )
The lyrics to ” Scarecrow People ” by the English
alternative-rock band X.T.C. can be found at
http://www.sing365.com
Take care everybody, Timothy R. Anderson
http://www.warisaracket.org
bob m.:
excellent.
18 May 2006, 4:25 pmAmen and Semper Fi!
stephen:
I just went to the Google News top page and right there at the top of the U.S. section was the headline: “Stan Goff: Murtha’s Example”.
18 May 2006, 10:55 pmMade my day.
eoin howe:
The US military did such a great job of exacting justice for what was done at My Lai (didnt Calley get a 2 year sentence for complicity in several HUNDRED murders?) what do you think the chances are of seeing anyone held responsible for this?
Now, just as during Vietnam, I have a feeling the “public” response to this event, and any others like it, will be twofold:
1) “Our” boys dont do that sort of thing, so it didnt happen: Since we know our boys dont do that sort of thing, but it clearly did happen, then they must have been provoked by those terrible, ruthless A-rabs who dont respect any international law anyway. Poor Marines, who are we to judge the response to the stresses they find themselves in? Or “the Platoon response”.
2) Whoo-haa! Thats what you get when you mess with the Corps, ragheads! Or “the Rambo response”.
For a while I collected ‘letters to the editor’ justifying war crimes in Iraq, but the file got so stuffed I gave up. One NW Ohioan managed to compare everyone in Iraq to a “nest of vipers” who we shuld show no mercy whatsoever. I dont think sympathetic feeling is running too high for “the enemy”.
19 May 2006, 1:02 amSICK OF IT ALL:
I would sleep a lot better at night if the murderers in Washington simply liked to slip out of the side door of the White House at night with an axe or a ice pick and kill some hapless citizen on the sidewalk for the thrill of it. That would be far less dangerous for America than having a government which plans mass murder as an act of state and claims the right to do so.
19 May 2006, 1:13 ameoin howe:
Re: Above. Just to share, I looked up one of my favorites from back in 2004. The author is a College Republican, far-right Bushite. Im sure you all remember the case he is talking about, which wasnt even nearly as bad as the one described in the post. I know critiquing these guys is like shooting dead fish in a small barrel, but i think it is a great example of what to expect from “the mainstream” in response to further US atrocities in Iraq. Of particular importance are paragraphs 6 and 9:
“Media works against our army
David Scharfeld
Issue date: 11/21/04
A month straight of front page news coverage of Abu Ghraib wasn’t enough for the liberal agenda. Now they have a new scandal full of Marines defending themselves, which is considered “execution” by those on the left.
The new “execution scandal” is full of video from embedded reports that shouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place. Bigger and better for the American left, they now have a new tool to demean our troops in combat; it’s Abu Ghraib version 2.0.
For the sake of proving liberals wrong, let’s imagine something for a moment. You are a Marine involved in an intensive battle for the city of Falluja. You just watched other Marines die because an insurgent faked death in order to get close to your friends and blow them up. Then you enter a building full of wounded and dead people who a day earlier were trying to kill you. You see a man faking death, what would you do?
For those with common sense and a knack for wanting to be alive you would shoot the faker and save lives. For the liberals this warrants investigation of an illegal execution. Where are these liberal do-gooders when the insurgents are violating the Geneva Convention?
They are sitting back and waiting for Americans to violate that same convention before they say a word. These are the same individuals who blame the U.S. for war in Iraq and not Saddam; the same individuals who protest President Bush as often as they go to the bathroom instead of protesting real tyrants like Hussein.
If Iraqi insurgents refuse to play by the rules then so should we. Fight fire with fire. How can the left expect our brave soldiers in combat to do their jobs if they are watching from the sidelines of CNN and critiquing everything?
The perfect liberal world is one where Marines participate in “community military operations” consisting of counseling terrorists and helping them find a job; or just sticking them on welfare for the rest of their Jihadist lives.
If you expect the U.S. to win the battles in Iraq and come home safely then do not throw you arms up in a liberal fuss when one Marine violates a rule because he doesn’t want his fellow soldiers to get blown up. Support your troops, even when they shoot those faking death in order to protect themselves.
This is a war; it is not a pretty thing to look at, which is why cameramen shouldn’t be running all over the country as if the new Clinton library opened there. Keep the troops in Iraq, let them fight the insurgents and get the cameramen out of their way. Media deception led to a loss in Vietnam and it can do the same in Iraq.”
19 May 2006, 2:23 amDon Adamson Jr:
Sir,
19 May 2006, 2:49 pmIn your sentance “If you put Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha and I” the word “I” should be replaced by the word “me.” You wouldn’t say “If you put I,” would you?
DeAnander:
barbarism is like toothpaste…
why is anyone surprised?
note to men: y’all need to get over the “romance of war” just like we all need to get over the “romance of rape” — and for very parallel and overlapping reasons.
I wish to hell everyone would stop talking about these behaviours of troops in Iraq as shocking and startling and exceptional and so on. they are shocking only in the way that murder and rape are always shocking, even though we know they happen quite often: wanton destructiveness is always shocking. but Haditha is not startling or surprising. it’s biz as usual in empire. that’s how empires work. that’s why empires are a Bad Thing (TM). this is what we bloody mean when we say Empire is a Bad Thing. this is what we mean when we say “patriarchy” and “male acculturation”.
throwing a wild tantrum of violence in a rage to get back at someone — anyone — for a real or imagined affront or loss, is SOP immature male behaviour (sometimes female too). the oxymoron “vigilante justice” as purveyed endlessly, relentlessly, in US pop media trains us in exactly this response: to go on a rampage is the culturally accepted response to grief or harm: to flatten Iraq “because” someone, possibly Saudis, knocked down a couple of buildings and killed 3000 people. it’s the same senseless displaced rage that we see when a guy beats up his wife because his team lost the NFL playoffs; someone has to pay for his disappointment and upset, anyone he can reach.
secondly — aside from lifelong training in how to displace anger unjustly, stupidly, and as violently as possible — WTF do we think occupational troops are for? they are there to impose control by a nervous small minority of housebreakers on a large, angry, and jittery majority of family that has been burgled and humiliated and seen their home wrecked. Romans in Palestine, Germans in France, Mongols in China, Spanish in S America, white slaveowners on the plantations worldwide — colonial/occupational armies are the same, same, same. the only way they can dominate the local population which outnumbers them greatly is by terror, arbitrary collective punishment, torture, and so forth. well I said all this in one of the links above… getting repetitive, sorry.
what I’m trying to get at is that situations produce behaviour “appropriate” to the situation (not ethically good, I mean, but predictable, humanly predictable). and how occupational armies behave is predictable. Haditha is what Cheney and Rummie sent the troops there to do. it’s not an accident or an isolated incident. it’s how imperial occupation works. it make my brain squelch to hear the “bad apples” and “stressed out” defences and denials springing up all over. of course they’re goddamn stressed — so were the SA men who shot hundreds of people per diem in liquidation programmes. being a thug is not good for your mental health. so?
oh criminy. raving again. I just wish more people, especially men, would get over romanticising warfare and soldiering. sure there is camaraderie and opportunities for heroism and so on; but any hazardous situation offers those oppos — fire fighting, ocean rescue, civvy policing, bike racing, investigative journalism, nonviolent civil disobedience, emergency room nursing — or being a hitman for the Mafia. camaraderie and the high of shared danger and triumph over the odds have nothing to do with the morality or ethics of the undertaking: people can bond and achieve and have adventures while at sea on a pirate whaler killing the last few gt blues, or at sea with Greenpeace trying to prevent the crime. bad guys have adventures too. bad guys bond and do teamwork and save each other’s lives and swear vengeance on anyone who kills one of their own. all that warm fuzzy masculine Boys’ Own Magazine stuff is emotionally real whether or not you’re the good guys. it doesn’t make you the good guys. it doesn’t ennoble the enterprise. and the enterprise of imperialism is filthy and criminal and brutal.
so I have no patience left for all this delicate shock and horror and concern over what terrible stresses must have “made our boys do these things” — they’re doing what they were sent there to do. to occupy, to terrify, to break the spirit and the back of any popular resistance. gawd what a lot of Mama Corleones Americans are: they want the comfy life that the Don’s thuggery pays for, they will kick and scream and whine and chew the carpet rather than give up one BTU/annum of their energy hoggery — but show them the actual process of mugging and theft and “enforcement” and dead bodies that keeps the Don’s cash flow rolling and they get all upset and claim it must be some extraordinary aberration. except for the insanely amoral few who do know the score and psychopathically insist that “the price is worth it.”
Libruls fetishising the Legions… I’m too angry and fed-up to be coherent. sorry.
19 May 2006, 5:02 pmJames M:
Yeah, Stan, what the hell were you thinking with your misuse of personal pronouns? Little fuckups like those only deligitimate you in the eyes of millions of grammatically-correct HuffPo readers. I couldn’t focus at all on the substance of your article after catching that mistake in the first sentence.
Don Adamson and me are in agreement here, specifically on the “sentance” he was referring to.
19 May 2006, 5:30 pmDeAnander:
btw, that Scharfield guy that eoin quotes, counts in my book as one of the clued-in psychopaths. he knows that aggressive/colonial war is brutal crime, mass murder, tax payer funded terrorism. and he’s all for it.
19 May 2006, 6:28 pmStan:
“They kill people; and then they say they are sorry. I hate them.”
http://media.putfile.com/Iraqi-Girls-Story
19 May 2006, 8:24 pmJoe Ciarrocca:
Thank you Stan for your article, ‘Murtha’s My Lai’
In 1969, during a bomb unrep aboard an aircraft carrier, a first class ‘petty’ officer told me I was on report for disobeying a direct order. The direct order was stupid by any criteria! And this was in the war zone so I guess the charges were more severe? I was taken to the officer in charge. Fortunately for me, the officer was inundated with so many hassles he simply stated, everyone get back to your jobs. Why are so many people ‘obeying’ the absurd, the stupid, the incompetent, the corrupt? Do sleepwalkers find it is simply easier to comply with authorities and relinquish their humanity, which for most was done shortly after leaving the womb or least upon entering the system called education! What level of shock effect will awaken the masses?
20 May 2006, 2:16 pmRob:
I am always moved (almost to tears, literally) when somebody opposes these wars in terms of the suffering inflicted by our troops and not simply the suffering endured by them.
22 May 2006, 3:54 pmJosh "Maury" Narins:
I think the most reliable source for pinpointing positions on the single dimension of “left-right” in Congress are the folks at http://www.VoteView.com
A few Professors who practice the crazy sounding “psychometrics,” a practice completely mathematical and not at all psychic.
One of their more informative charts includes ratings every Congresscritter and President of the last 75 years in one scale.
But I really came to write about joining the Army.
My logic works like this.
We’ve got crazies and idiots over there running the show. I’ve read your Hideous Dream and I know that, at some level, if a moral person has some say then some level of sanity will prevail (even if, in the end, your own guys ruin it for you).
If I were an infantry officer, I could be sure that one group of grunts were acting on better orders, perhaps even close to ideal orders, to keep our footprint on the necks of Iraqis as light as possible.
I really don’t think you’ll agree, but I’d appreciate it if you told me why.
25 May 2006, 8:16 pmConsumer:
The NYT finally weighs in with an article dated 5/26.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=b7363380ed080aa4&hp&ex=1148702400&partner=homepage
About freakin’ time. The article is hobbled by the usual see-no-evil bias of US mainstream reporting, that being that only well-documented incidents might have maybe possibly occurred. They say that this “incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq”, NOT something like, “this incident might lend credibility to countless allegations that US forces have committed numerous war crimes in Iraq”.
But we have to take what we can get from the sycophantic US press. On the second page of the online edition, they even quote the “A” word:
“Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that ‘this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians.’ He added, ‘This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity.’”
26 May 2006, 3:34 ameoin howe:
A big enough fuss has been caused to get some jarheads indicted.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060526/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/marines_iraq_investigations
“”We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force. We use lethal force only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful,” Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, wrote in a statement issued by his office. Aides said it was the basis of remarks he intended to make to Marines in Iraq this week.
…….
In Wednesday’s announcement of the latest criminal investigation, Marine officials said a preliminary probe had found enough information to recommend a full investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service.
The Marine Corps provided no details about the alleged killing, including either the gender or age of the victim. It said “several service members” from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, based in the Fallujah area about 40 miles west of Baghdad, were suspected of involvement. They were “removed from operations” and sent back to the U.S. pending the results of the criminal investigation, it said.
A second criminal investigation is probing allegations that Marines from another battalion killed at least 15 civilians, including women and children, last November in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The military initially described the Haditha encounter as an ambush during a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol that involved a roadside bombing in which a Marine died, followed by a firefight. However, residents of the neighborhood maintained that only U.S. forces were shooting after the explosion.”
Now some minimum wage kids from the wrong side of the tracks can have the rest of their lives ruined by doing something they were led to believe was fine and dandy, by those who tell them exactly what IS fine and dandy. Lets hear it for military justice!
Here’s a question: do war crimes trials ever actually do what they are supposed to do? As in, punish the guilty and make war crimes more difficult in the future? Or are they all just back-slapping stick-to-beat-ones-enemies PR exercises? If they are, then what actual purpose do they serve? Does anyone who refuses to believe in the rule of law have any right to demand the rule of international law?
26 May 2006, 10:21 amfrank:
Now some minimum wage kids from the wrong side of the tracks can have the rest of their lives ruined by doing something they were led to believe was fine and dandy, by those who tell them exactly what IS fine and dandy. Lets hear it for military justice!
Why doesn’t the law hold accountable ALL in the chain of command, especially the guys with the fruit salad all over their chests? i.e. Abu Ghraib- Are we to believe that the officers in charge, even the staff and flag officers, had no knowledge of the abuses being committed? And since they are responsible for the conduct and training of these same troops, a judicial manhole cover dropped from above upon them would surely send an example to others of the same rank- ach, it’s that privilege and patriarchy prevailing yet again. Enron/Halliburton/Army War College- same difference.
26 May 2006, 5:39 pmeoin howe:
I believe the phrase is “Plausable Deniability”. No American officer in his right mind would ever go on the record, either on paper or in an interview, saying that he told/allowed/encouraged his men to commit illegal acts. Therefore, its never going to go any further up the chain of command than the highest ranking soldier actually proved to be at the scene.
27 May 2006, 11:37 amWitness the trials of those grunts involved at Abu Ghraib. They all said the same thing- “Intelligence officers/Special Forces/CIA guys told us to do that stuff, and said it was fine.” Utterly plausable. The completely legal and reasonable response of the court: “Where is the evidence of this?”
Of course, to ask for a copy of those sorts of orders in writing at the time would mean that you essentially knew you were doing something wrong, not just morally, but legally, which would eventually be used to convict you anyway.
Besides, the Geneva Conventions have all enshrined the principle that every individual is legally bound to be responsible for their own conduct. This is why “I was only obeying orders” is not a valid defence, even if you can prove it.
Billy Kelly:
Sorry for length of this comment. Items were written prior to 11 September, save for last letter. The venue has changed but the ugliness and depravity of war has not. And it never will! I have attended My Lai on every anniversary for 7 years. I missed this year to participate in “Walkin’ To New Orleans”. I think wherever Viet Nam or My Lai is mentioned, one could substitute Iraq and Haditha. And, countless other villages from either country.
Last year, before travelling to Quang Ngai to interview survivors of the ‘Tiger Force’ massacres, I spoke with an old friend, a Viet Cong Colonel. He remarked that he could be blindfolded and given a dart. Thrown at a map of Viet Nam hung on a wall, he stated that wherever it might land, that site would have its own My Lai or Tiger Force story to recount.I am certain same can be said for Iraq or Afghanistan. We do remember the latter, no?
My Lai/Son My Letters
1)March 1999
I am writing this letter from Sai Gon, Viet Nam. In recent days, I have found myself focusing more and more on the anniversary that will occur next week, the 16th of March. It will have been 31 years since a group of American soldiers, ‘led’ by a Lt. William Calley, participated in the massacre of some 500 Vietnamese civilians in the hamlets we know as My Lai.
For me this one event stands out above all the other horrors of that era. The dark events of that day took place over a time-span of some four hours. The length is important because it eliminates the extenuating circumstance of a ‘momentary madness’. The acts must have been performed in ‘cold blood’.
I, too, was an American soldier of that period and I served in the same area, the province of Quang Ngai, as did those troops of Calley’s. We were infantrymen or ‘grunts’ and it has always been the lot of the foot-soldier to bear the brunt of war and witness at first hand the gore and brutality that need be a necessary part of combat.
But because of this intimate exposure to the terrible realities of battle, I believe that infantrymen can, do, and must live by a personal code of honor. It is only in this manner that some connection with humanity can be maintained. Geneva Convention Rules? Never once heard them mentioned in field. They are worth the paper they are written on.
There was little honor or humanity exhibited on 16 March 1968 at My Lai. I am repulsed by those evil events, not as an American, but as a human being and as a soldier. The nations of the world take great pride in celebrating the events and individuals that illustrate the lofty moments of their cultures and traditions. I sometimes wonder if we should not also remember those events and individuals that expose our darker side.
I plan to be at My Lai on the 16th. I hope this gesture can assure the souls of those victims that they have not been and will not be forgotten.
Possibly the striking but coincidental similarity in our names and units has always heightened the impact and poignancy of this event for me.
Lt. William Calley, Jr. Lt. William Kelly, Jr.
Co.’C', 1/20 Bn., 11th LIB, Americal Division
Co.’C', 3/1 Bn., 11th LIB, Americal Division
2)March 1999
A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to the Viet Nam News concerning some thoughts I had about the up-coming anniversary of the My Lai Massacre. At the end of my letter I mentioned that I hoped to be present at the site on the 16th of March to pay my respects to the victims. Many of my friends here in VN, particularly my Vietnamese friends, were a bit bewildered as to the intensity of my desire to make the journey. I, too, was hard-pressed to explain it, even to myself. It just seemed fitting that I be there and it felt like the right thing to do.
I made the trip. It entailed a flight to Da Nang and a car-ride to Quang Ngai province. We arrived about 10 AM and I was happy that there were very few others present. I wasn’t sure if there might be a ceremony or not. But for the two hours that I was on that hallowed ground there was an aura of peace and quiet. Befitting.
I was left alone with my thoughts and permitted to contemplate the horrible doings of that day. I visited the grave markers and said my silent prayers for the dead. As I strolled about, I was continually drawn to that ‘ditch’ where so many lives were taken.
I found myself trying to imagine what it must have been like for those people 31 years ago. There is very little shade in that area of Quang Ngai and I’m sure the brutal noonday sun was the same as it almost invariably is at this time of year. I could smell the cordite that would permeate the air as the soldiers emptied the magazines of their M-16’s, probably on full ‘rock-n-roll’, into the terrified, bewildered groups of women and children.
Automatic fire is less personal.
Their fear must have been palpable. Was there screaming and crying? Did they plead in Vietnamese to their English speaking executioners? Or had they seen so much before in their lives that this too could be stoically accepted.
I was left to my musing for a long time. It was not the first time for me to entertain such thoughts nor would it be the last. At that moment I felt sorrow for more than just My Lai. That ground and that day could be a metaphor for the whole era of American involvement in Viet Nam. Something went terribly wrong.
I do not wish to imply that the actions of that day were the norm. But if we can leave the wantonness and cruelty and gratuitous brutality aside, might there only be a relative difference in the act of dropping a bomb from a distance where neither party can see or hear each other? Is it a form of brutality to shoot artillery into areas marked on a map as ‘free-fire’ zones? Is that what war really is? If so, you had better be damned sure you know what you are fighting for. I certainly didn’t!
We left My Lai and travelled a bit further south on Highway One. I had planned to visit the town of Duc Pho where my base camp was located. About 10 kilometres short of our destination, I asked my driver to turn around and head back to the airport in Da Nang.
I suddenly realized that I didn’t need or want to see another fire-base. What I did see and what heartened me was the stream of school-children pedalling their bikes to and from class. The beautiful and uniquely Vietnamese sight of young high-school girls with their ao dais flowing behind. A proud, hopeful symbol of a proud, hopeful nation.
We began the long trek northward and I couldn’t stop my mind from dwelling upon that long-ago era. There was a gnawing anger that had been experienced for so long that its edge had been dulled from overuse.
When would an elected leader of my nation have the ‘balls’ to stand up and say we made a horrible error?
When would that leader arise who was ‘big’ enough to say we were sorry?
When would America extend a hand in true friendship to Viet Nam?
The Vietnamese people are owed. The American people are owed. And I think the greatest debt is owed to the unwitting GI. We were young and naive then. Now we are wiser.
3) March 2000
I have just returned from Quang Ngai province where I visited the site of the massacre which took place on this date 32 years ago. It was the third consecutive year that I had travelled to the site to pay my respects to the innocent victims. Actually, it was my fourth time there, for as an American infantryman, I patrolled in those hamlets in 1969. A year after the deed and some months before the story became known to the public. I think of My Lai often and I am still bewildered by the horrible actions performed by that group of American soldiers. Five hundred and four lives. For nothing.
Or so it seems. Most commentators and historians dealing with the American War consider the Tet Offensive of early 1968 as the turning point. They point to this because of the effect it had on the American resolve to continue prosecuting a war that seemed to be, at best, stalemated. And Tet most assuredly played an important role in America’s disengagement. The ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ was something powerful moving forward. However, I believe that My Lai was the true catalyst for the American withdrawal. It opened the eyes of all to the harsh reality of our involvement in Viet Nam. Thus I like to think that those 504 lives were not taken in vain. Their seemingly pointless sacrifice could very well be viewed as one that shortened the conflict and so by helped to save the lives of so many others.
I left 504 flowers at the graves and this note exhibiting some of my Irish sentimentality and romanticism.
“Today I have brought you some flowers and my wish is that they will represent to you all the flowers that you would have received had your lives not been stolen from you. For those of you who were older in age, please accept them as a token of all the flowers you would have received from your children and grandchildren. And for you who were so very young, I would like you to think of them as coming from your first boy-friend or girl-friend. I hope you will smile and be happy today.
With Love,
Billy Kellyâ€
4)March 2002
Today marks the 34th year since those horrible events took place in Viet Nam at the hamlets we now know as My Lai. Unfortunately it is not a unique occurrence in the annals of mankind’s behavior during wartime. Yet for the American public it struck a nerve showing that we, too, were not impervious to succumbing to our baser instincts.
We should not forget.
And by remembering we can assure that those 504 human beings did not die for naught.
Four days ago I visited My Lai, Viet Nam to pay my respects to the 504 victims of the massacre perpetrated by American soldiers. The date was 16 March 1968.
We Americans will always remember 7 December 1941 and 11 September 2001. Would we not show some wisdom by remembering those dates that remind us that we, too, can act less that honorably.
Those innocent at My Lai must have felt great incomprehensive ‘terror’ over a span of four hours.
Violence can take many forms but it is always repugnant.
Is morality relevant?
William (Billy) Kelly Jr.
3 June 2006, 7:35 pm1st LT US Army Infantry; Quang Ngai, Viet Nam; 1968-1969
steeley:
Hmmm, what do we need an investigation for?
You can only praise Murtha and Stan if you assume:
1- that it’s all true.
2- that it is SOP
3- that it’s acceptable to the military
Any measure of rationality would at the least wait until the investigation is completed. All anyone outside the military investigation knows for sure is 1 Marine was killed, two wounded, and 15 civilians were killed, including women and children. Everything else is speculation at this point. The military has aerial video, digital pictures by an after-action unit, bullet holes, ballistics, and all sorts of “evidence” that needs contex *that can only be provided by a trial*.
And may I make the point, having been through 3 USMC Summary Court Martials and found not guilty in each, that until the trials have been conducted and the evidence given context, everyone is in grave danger of “ready-fire-oops”. I can personally attest to the serious cluster-f**k that’s created when one leaps to conclusions.
But let’s assume for the sake of arguement for the moment the charges are substantially acurate. The military has the means and will to deal with the situation, much more effectively and justly than the civilian courts and press do (remember, in your favorite miscomparison My Lai, that Calley was freed by a civilian court. My Lai was an unprovoked mini-genocide of somewhere between 350 and 500 villagers, not the sooting of 15 civilians after an IED blew up one Marine and wounded 2 others. Let’s be somewhat rational here..). If the Marines involved are proven guilty of the charges, few will excuse their behavior. We may understand it, but not excuse it. But if they aren’t, in fact guilty, if this is merely a good presentation by an increasingly propaganda-savvy insurgency, who will give back those Marines and Navy Corpsman their reputations and respect? Or will y’all just scream cover-up and travety because the facts turn out not to agree with your desperate wishes?
Given that, one has to ask what the objective is to get out in front of this in the press. Whose interest is served? The public? America? The war? The Iraqis who want some measure of self-determination? The Marine Corps? The Navy Corpman sitting in the brig in Diego without having been charged with anything yet? How about a sense of respect and balance for the principles we hold dear? Or how about Murtha’s personal political goals, being put above all else.
We oft say there are no “ex-Marines”, once a Marine, Always a Marine.
Murtha is an EX-Marine.
-Steeley
7 June 2006, 9:49 pmUSMC 1971-1975
steeley:
(Psst, Murtha, Stan.. any comments on this gross violation of Abu’s civil rights?)
8 June 2006, 8:24 amStan:
Steeley, I leave this post of your here so people will kinow why you won’t be back. Your Islamophobic, ergo racist, remarks in the other post were deleted.
You haven’t read the rules. Differences of opinion are tolerated. Flaming is not. This suggestion that Murtha or I are supporting Zarqawi by opposing US-led massacres is pure provocation without content or reason, except to provoke.
You are welcome to engage in this kind of mindless macho attack any time you want, and as often as you want… elsewhere (might I suggest Free Republic, where you will be welcomed by at least a dozen like-minded whitemen).
It’s again’ the rules here… ta ta.
Stan
8 June 2006, 1:21 pmUS Army 1970-1996
Timothy R. Anderson:
My local newspaper was NOT that informative about the dead and injured persons left devasted by a truck-bombing in Iraq earlier this week. Approximately 80 persons died and at least 200 persons were injured.
The coverage of that event in my local newspaper
was shallow.
You know, it’s sad. All the borrowed money that
goes into the Iraq War and yet, yet, the result is
still : Iraqi civilians die ugly horrible deaths,
American military personnel die ugly horrible deaths .
Newspapers make money selling advertising. The reason they sell so much advertising is that refuse to do anything that could possibly upset the advertisers, the readers, the good-hearted folks who claim to only want what’s “best” for the U.S.A. the world,etc.
That’s sad.
It is sad, pathetic, troubling. Persons in positions of power here in the U.S.A. are not really representing the desires of a big and increasing-in-size part of the American civilian population .
What must be pursued now, in my opinion, is
a reminder - ing towards the Congresspeople that
Iraq was presented its sovereignty on June 28, 2004 . . . so, uh, let’s truly let Iraq have its country back, okay ?
Tim
23 June 2007, 12:00 pm