An American Atrocity: The My Lai Massacre Concretized in a Victim's Face

Abstract

Few military operations have been documented as thoroughly as the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Documents from army investigations and congressional hear ings, court-martial transcripts, articles, books, and documentaries?all based on inter views with the soldiers who perpetrated it and the villagers who survived it?detail how American soldiers murdered more than 500 unarmed women, children, and old men on March 16, 1968.2 It might have been the most forgotten operation. The officers of Charlie Company and their superiors in the Americal Division covered up the massacre, and it would have remained buried, except for Spec. Ron Ridenhour, who learned of the event from friends who participated. After his discharge from the army, Ridenhour reported the killings in a letter to President Richard M. Nixon, several senators and representatives, and Pentagon officials in March 1969. He quoted one sergeant who said, They were slaughtering the villagers like so many sheep.3 Despite Ridenhour's letter and the investigations it launched, the massacre would probably have made little public impact, had it not been for photographs taken by Sgt. Ron Haeberle. (On that same day another company massacred at least ninety women and children a mile away in My Khe?an atrocity few have heard of.) The publication of Haeberle's photos in Life and Time magazines in late November and early December 1969 propelled the story to national and international attention.4