Ronald Haeberle Essay
Ronald Haeberle Ronald Haeberle was an Army photographer that was assigned to C Company when the troops entered the hamlet of My Lai in the March of 1968. His role in the massacre as a combat photographer was to take pictures of the expected battle between American soldiers and Viet Cong in My Lai. The pictures he took had a huge impact in across the world when they were released to the public, and all of them were innocent My Lai men, women, and children cowering at gunpoint, or in piles of dead bodies. These same pictures were used to conduct an investigation lead by the Army to find the truth about what really happened in My Lai (Theiss). As combat photographer, Haeberle was tasked with taking pictures of the My Lai assault on March
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After the public discovered what happened in My Lai, the people no longer knew what to think of the military efforts, they just knew they were sick of the war and constant bloodshed. When news of the massacre came out “Demands for withdrawal from Vietnam continued to grow, while others questioned the idea of blind loyalty to military leadership” (Experience). The people were already not happy with the war, but knowing that hundreds of innocents had been slaughtered completely destroyed their trust; more people began asking for a withdrawal from Vietnam and questioning the ideal of blindly following orders. These pictures didn’t just impact the Americans at home however, after the implementation of “Vietnamisation” many of the ground troops began to lose morale. The morale was so low among the ground troops that “many of them were annoyed, frustrated and addicted to drugs as a result”(Rohn). The My Lai massacre served as a huge turning point in the public opinion of the war; people no longer supported the war and soldiers could not handle such low morale, to the point where many soldiers turned to drugs. A mix of all these things coming together brought forth the idea of Vietnamisation, a system to equip and expand South Vietnamese soldiers and pull out American
After the public discovered what happened in My Lai, the people no longer knew what to think of the military efforts, they just knew they were sick of the war and constant bloodshed. When news of the massacre came out “Demands for withdrawal from Vietnam continued to grow, while others questioned the idea of blind loyalty to military leadership” (Experience). The people were already not happy with the war, but knowing that hundreds of innocents had been slaughtered completely destroyed their trust; more people began asking for a withdrawal from Vietnam and questioning the ideal of blindly following orders. These pictures didn’t just impact the Americans at home however, after the implementation of “Vietnamisation” many of the ground troops began to lose morale. The morale was so low among the ground troops that “many of them were annoyed, frustrated and addicted to drugs as a result”(Rohn). The My Lai massacre served as a huge turning point in the public opinion of the war; people no longer supported the war and soldiers could not handle such low morale, to the point where many soldiers turned to drugs. A mix of all these things coming together brought forth the idea of Vietnamisation, a system to equip and expand South Vietnamese soldiers and pull out American