Summary Of My Lai Massacre

In “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience”, Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton argue that an average person feels justified in participating in massacres after three specific conditions are met: authorization, routinization, and dehumanization. The authors discuss this topic by referencing the specific incident that was the My Lai Massacre. Yet, while examining this specific incident, they are blinded by their academic mindset and manage to overlook that the event was not as black and white as they would like to believe. The authors of the article neglect to acknowledge alternate viewpoints on the incident because of their specific background as scholars and not as soldiers, narrowing their understanding of the situation, which results in a very one-sided article.
In this recap, they mention that the members of Charlie Company, the group of servicemen in question, were already restless due to the fact that one their comrades had been killed by a booby trap. To add to the strain of the upcoming mission, Charlie Company held a funeral for the sergeant just the day prior. The authors describe the Company at the time as being “in a mood for revenge (133)” as a result of this. The article recalls that the orders issued for the annihilation of My Lai were never transcribed and were unclear. While providing this short recap, the authors use diction such as “obliterated (132)” and “destruction (133)” to paint the soldiers who partook in the massacre in a negative