March 16, 1968 - U.S. troops in South Vietnam killed 504 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, a pair of hamlets in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province. The victims were from 247 families, completely eliminating 24 of them, three generations with no survivors. Among the dead were 182 women, 17 of them pregnant, and 173 children, including 56 infants, and 60 older men.

Lt. William L. Calley, Jr. commanded the men of Charlie Company, First Battalion, America l Division, and was the only one tried out of 80 involved in what is called the My Lai Massacre. The Army, including a young Major Colin Powell, at first tried to cover it up and the media resisted reporting it.

Some of Calley's soldiers refused to participate, but only 24-year-old helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his crew stopped it by putting themselves between the villagers and the troops pursuing them.

Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt described how Thompson responded to what he found when he put his helicopter down: "[Thompson] put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital...flew back [to headquarters], standing in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding on the table saying, 'Notice, notice, notice'...then had the courage to testify time after time after time."

#MyLai

#OTD in 1968 Hugh Thompson and two helicopter crew members placed themselves between American troops and the villagers they were murdering at My Lai in #Vietnam. Thirty years later the three men visited Vietnam and a few of the (now) women they saved. One woman asked why the other men (those doing the killing) didn't come along ... so they could forgive them.

Detailed story well worth reading. Hugh Thompson was pilot in command,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr.

#MyLai #War #Military #Massacre

Today in Labor History March 16, 1968: Up to 500 Vietnamese villagers were slaughtered by U.S. troops in the My Lai Massacre. The story was broken by investigative journalist Sy Hersch, who also covered Watergate, the secret US bombing of Cambodia, CIA domestic spying within the US, and the US torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. More recently, he has written articles showing that Syrian rebel forces, not the Assad regime, contrary to US propaganda, were responsible for the sarin gas attack in Ghouta. And that the US, with Norwegian collaboration, blew up the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany (also contrary to US propaganda).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mylai #massacre #WarCrimes #vietnam #seymourhersch #AbuGhraib #torture #nordstream #sabotage #russia #putin #watergate

#OTD 16 March 1968, Thảm sát Mỹ Lai #MyLai, #Vietnam

Brigadier General John William Donaldson, 11th Infantry, "they [Colonel Donaldson] used to bet in the morning how many people they could kill – old people, civilians, it didn’t matter,"

Colonel Oran K. Henderson, 11th Infantry Commander "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good"

Captain Ernest Lou Medina, 11th Infantry “They're all VC, now go and get them"

Rifleman Varnado Simpson, Charlie Company, "We were told to leave nothing standing. We did what we were told, regardless of whether they were civilians."

#MAGA = Massacre America Great Again.

Mechanical excavators dug graves in #Minab, #Iran, for >160 girls #martyred by American attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_airstrike

58 years after #MyLai, Minab joins the long list of American massacres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Iraq_War

Expect from the #Pentagon the usual pile of lies. And from the #Democrats the usual "we're better than this" lies.

This happens with invasions.

You can be good guys, or you can be invaders. Choose a lane.

Interview with Laura Poitras about 20 years making “Cover-Up” doco about Seymour M. Hersh—known for his investigative journalism on #MyLai and #AbuGhraib
https://www.cjr.org/the-interview/cover-up-laura-poitras-investigates-seymour-hersh.php

#Documentary #Films #Iraq #Journalism #LauraPoitras #SeymourHersh #Vietnam

Ik bezocht My Lai in Vietnam. In 1968 vond hier tijdens de Vietnamoorlog een verschrikkelijk bloedbad plaats. Het bloedbad van My Lai is het beschamendste hoofdstuk van de Amerikaanse inmenging in Vietnam. Wil je meer weten wat er in 1968 in My Lai is gebeurd, lees dan mijn website. 👇

https://jtravel.nl/azie/vietnam/my-lai/

#mylai #vietnam