My Lai Massacre Analysis

The My Lai Massacre is an event rarely discussed in the context of American history, yet it remains as one of the many shames associated with the Vietnam War. Though reports vary, between three hundred and fifty to five hundred unarmed civilians were slaughtered in March 1968 by a company of American soldiers in the small village of My Lai. Prior to the slaughter, some of the women were found to be gang-raped with some of their bodies having been mutilated. The My Lai Massacre is representative of the Vietnam War in several ways, as it shows attempts at hiding the events from the general public and the influence that American-based political stakeholders have in information that is released to the media; it shows a depiction of the American military that is contrary to the narrative that had been perpetuated at that point; and it also highlights a significant point in history when the American public began to get a glimpse into a Vietnam War that was not necessarily the Vietnam War that the general public was told.
This analysis delves into how the My Lai massacre came to happen and what was revealed in the handling of the consequences of these actions. Through exploring the contents of Olson and Roberts’ My Lai: A …show more content…
The United States military no longer could be positioned as ‘the good guys’. The physical abuse, the rape, and the murder makes the United States’ military similar to any other national military or rebel group in the world, doing what they need to do to serve an agenda. The soldiers who acted on that day did not necessarily do so maliciously, but acted because they thought that it was what needed to be done according to the orders they were given. How the My Lai Massacre happened and why it happened are important to note, but analyzing the event after the fact reveals the Vietnam War as a new kind of war—a war that could no longer be hidden from the

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