Letters to God

The Mỹ Lai Massacre

Introduction: This is some background on the events this short story depicts. 

The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai) was the Vietnam mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Victims included women, men, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies were later found to be mutilated  and many women were allegedly raped prior to the killings.] While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.

The incident prompted global outrage when it became public knowledge in 1969. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Three U.S. servicemen who had tried to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were initially denounced by several U.S. Congressmen as traitors. They received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. The three were later widely praised and decorated by the Army for their heroic actions.

U.S. forces planned a major offensive against those hamlets using Task Force Barker, a battalion-size unit made up of three rifle companies of the Americal Division and led by Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker. Colonel Oran K. Henderson urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good".Barker ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy foodstuffs, and perhaps to close the wells.

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"I suppose the point I am trying to symbolize for the benefit of my reader is that punishment is only something that exists as a perspective... for our punishment was an utter miscarriage of justice"

South Vietnam, 1968

I could endure an eternity in anguish and despair, yet even this would not suffice as punishment enough for my crime. I am not a human, I am a monster, deserving of nothing but misery for the rest of my days... however at this present moment I roam the earth a free man, exonerated from all guilt and ramification, I was never even convicted... the only punishment delivered to anyone involved in this brutality rested solely upon the shoulders of Second Lieutenant William Calley, who was our platoon leader in Charlie Company... found guilty, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, nevertheless he too was free after serving only three years under house arrest.  

I did not understand our actions then, and I still do not understand them now... what could have possibly obliged us to commit such an atrocity? I suppose it were a combination of several decisive elements, namely fear and disgust. We had lost many men before that fateful day and I believe this weighed heavily on our minds; we were seeking a chance for retribution, and when our instructions came "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good" it emanated throughout our entire platoon as does sweet music to the ear. Overcome with fury and rage our emotions clouded our senses and the clear waters of our sanity became polluted with the desire to obliterate anything and everything that we could not associate with ourselves.  

Our orders were clear, but our actions remain to this present day, and I suspect forevermore, totally unforgivable. We killed murdered and mutilated hundreds mercilessly, and as we stood on the outside of that ditch confronting the terrified faces of those defenceless villagers, those men, those women and those children, we did not think for a second of any conceivable consequence. 

The conflict that exists between social conventions and individual libertarianism cannot be solved by allowing people the right to decide freely what constitutes their interpretation of justice. I have realised now that there is in reality, no difference between an act of war and an act of violence. Both are identical in the regard that they are unjustifiably evil... I am in no way trying to shift blame from myself, I accept my actions and as I think back upon it now I, am filled with nothing but regret and shame, on several occasions I have contemplated ending my own life, though I realised long ago that in reality I am too pathetic to do even this.  I chose to reside within the comfort of my dreams, yet even these portals of escape are tainted with images of children in pain, screaming for their mothers, these are the things that my conscience will not afford me the luxury to forget. Morality herself has passed judgment upon me and I am forever condemned to hear the screams of those I have killed for an eternity.  I wish I could revisit that moment... I would willingly relinquish my insignificant life in exchange to amend the pleasure we provided to the forces of evil on that dreadful day...