Pinkville Massacre Essay

Often dubbed as the Pinkville Massacre, the My Lai massacre is notoriously known as one of the most brutal incidents during the Vietnamese War, even being considered a genocide by some. It is considered to be “the most shocking episode of the Vietnamese War” (Espiritu 17). The massacre consisted of the killing of up to 500 unarmed men, women and children. While a part of Task Force Barker, Company Charlie had been ordered to destroy the remainders of a Vietcong Battalion, situated in the Son My village area. Colonel Oran K. Henderson had ordered them to be aggressive with the enemy, suspecting that the village was a supply area for the Vietcong. Captain Medina had given his men erroneous intelligence, stating that all civilians would leave
The massacre was described as being “a bloody day-long battle” in the Stars and Stripes magazine. The reality was rather that GI forces opened fire without warning onto hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. At Calley’s testimony, he stated that he took cover from fire when he heard shooting. Once again, the reality was that Calley fired into the civilians along with PFC Paul Meadlo, with there being no firefight whatsoever. Any documents which exposed the massacre at My Lai were immediately covered up. Colin Powell was charged with investigating a letter sent from 21 year old soldier Tom Glen to General Creighton Abrams. The letter detailed the soldier’s belief in the hypocrisy of the American character along with a greater level of control from the MACV and a stricter interpretation of the Geneva Convention. The My Lai massacre was not the only incident of casualty cover-up. A confidential letter sent from a sergeant to Army Chief of Staff Westmoreland regarding Operation Speedy Express was discovered in declassified National Archive Documents. Army policy had stressed the fabrication of casualty statistics, marking down dead civilians as hostile