My Lai Hamlet

by Dennis Green

Timing. That’s what first struck me when I heard that PBS was scheduling a retrospective report on “The My Lai Hamlet Massacre.” Some forty years ago, the cover-up began to unwind, and by the time the dust had settled, that “incident” was at the very heart of what the War in Vietnam was all about. So why now? Timing.

They’re all older men now, and they are all over the place, as they were at the time. Some of them deny that they did anything wrong by “just following orders.” Others say they don’t know how they manage to live with the memories. “Jesus! GOD! JESUS GOD! You can’t let this happen!”

And the documentary begins with a reference to the fact that American troops can’t always tell who is “the Taliban.” As a parallel to the Vietcong. And “Pinkville” a parallel to Kandahar..?

“The most controversial development in the history of the war,” it was sometimes called. But no more. That’s the amazing aspect of this report. There is no doubt left about what American troops did that day. The few survivors testify, but so do some of those at the very center of the action. “We massacred a whole village.” Unarmed, unresisting non-combatants..

We. America. We lined them up in a ditch and shot them dead. Old men, women, children, babies in arms. Killed them all. Or at least all those who couldn’t hide under the corpses of their dead family members. That day, we were no better than the worst enemy America ever faced — Nazi Germany — in our viciousness and total disregard for all the conventions of moral warfare.

When you watch that, and listen to the descriptions, you know in your heart that America deserves whatever fate befalls us in the future.

For those of us long-opposed to that war by 1968, there was no question that the war in Vietnam was illegal, immoral, unnecessary and a terrible waste of national treasure and young lives. In its wake, movies such as Apocalypse Now and Platoon detailed just how awful that war truly was, and for many years we knew better than to replicate those tragedies.

But no more. Timing. The story of My Lai is especially pertinent now because of our actions in Afghanistan. The lessons we supposedly learned in Vietnam — about insurgencies, about protecting the native population, building trust with the inhabitants, avoiding the killing of innocent civilians whenever possible — are all being ignored. And not just by those drones. Nothing probative. My Ass!

We have as many “private contractors” and special forces in Afghanistan as we do troops in uniform. Those “Black Ops” have been accused of the sorts of massacres in that tortured land that we lament as the horror of My Lai in Vietnam. Cover-up, of the sort in which President Nixon dismissed charges against Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., is the order of the day.

And yet, many politicians and commentators continue to defend our invasion of Afghanistan, including our President. So what’s going on? National amnesia? Or is it something worse? “Medic! Medic!” Captain Ernest Medina, Private Paul Meadlo and Captain Calley are in their graves, along with more than 500 innocent Vietnamese.

If My Lai is to mean anything in the end, it must tell us to STOP what we are doing whenever it comes to resemble, even remotely, Vietnam. That war tore us apart in ways we’re still trying to deal with, and just prolonging another one of its kind is sheer madness.

I expected some satisfaction from the PBS report, I must admit. Vengeance? A dish best served cold? All I know at this point, 40 years later, is that the men who did this, who were there that day perpetrating a massacre against innocent civilians, deserve our forgiveness and every ounce of help for them that we can muster. No fault, no blame. Judgment, O Lord, is thine!

We didn’t want to believe it then, but we have to believe it now. When “Everybody’s an enemy!” there are no innocents, including ourselves. And…as for our latest “Vietnam,” Let’s just get out…Get Out Now!

©2010 Dennis Green