My Lai Massacre Analysis

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Another event during the Vietnam War that hugely impacts O’Brien morally is the My Lai Massacre. O’Brien served in the same division of the infantry that had units involved in the massacre. My Lai Massacre was the mass killing of approximately five hundred unarmed civilians by U.S forces. Among victims, there were men, women that were gang-raped, children, and even elderly people. In regards to the massacre, twenty-six soldiers were charged with war crime. O’Brien recalls that when his unit reaches the area around My Lai: "we all wondered why the place was so hostile. We did not know there had been a massacre there a year earlier. The news about that only came out later, while we were there, and then we knew" (nytimes.com)
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