The Mỹ Lai massacre was a war crime committed by the United States on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by the United States Army in Sơn Tịnh district, South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of murdering 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence.
William Laws Calley Jr. is a former United States Army officer and convicted war criminal by court-martial for the murder of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the Mỹ Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley was released to house arrest under orders by President Richard Nixon three days after his conviction. A new trial was ordered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit but that ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court. Calley served three years of house arrest for the murders. Public opinion at the time about Calley was divided.
Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. was a United States Army Major, and a former warrant officer in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division. He is credited with ending the Mỹ Lai Massacre of the South Vietnamese village known as Sơn Mỹ on March 16, 1968, alongside and hierarchically above Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn.
Lawrence Manley Colburn was a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 Mỹ Lai massacre.
William Ray Peers was a United States Army general, who is most notable for presiding over the Peers Commission investigation into the Mỹ Lai massacre and other similar war crimes during the Vietnam War.
Varnado Simpson was an U.S. Army soldier who participated in the My Lai Massacre, torturing, murdering, and mutilating multiple South Vietnamese civilians. He committed suicide out of guilt nearly 30 years later.
Ronald L. Haeberle is a former United States Army combat photographer best known for the photographs he took of the Mỹ Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968. The photographs were definitive and unassailable evidence of a massacre and war crime, making it impossible for the U.S. Army or government to ignore or cover up. On November 21, 1969, the day after the photographs were first published in Haeberle's hometown newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Melvin Laird the Secretary of Defense discussed them with Henry Kissinger who was at the time National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Laird was recorded as saying that while he would like "to sweep it under the rug," the photographs prevented it. "They're pretty terrible", he said. "There are so many kids just laying there; these pictures are authentic". Within the Army, the reaction was similar. Chief Warrant Officer André Feher, with the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID), was assigned the case in early August 1969. After, he interviewed Haeberle, and was shown the photographs which he described as "evidence that something real bad had happened", he and the Pentagon officials he reported to realized "that news of the massacre could not be contained." They felt the pictures were "the first hard evidence a massacre had taken place, evidence that could be used in court".
John Ernst Steinbeck IV was an American journalist and author. He was the second child of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Ernst Steinbeck. In 1965, he was drafted into the United States Army and served in Vietnam. He worked as a journalist for Armed Forces Radio and TV, and as a war correspondent for the United States Department of Defense.
The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of the armed forces, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years 1963–1970.
The Sơn Mỹ Memorial is a memorial to victims of the My Lai Massacre in Son My, Vietnam. This monument was sculpted and donated by Vietnamese artist Ho Thu, husband of Vo Thi Lien who was one of the few survivors of this atrocity. She was only 13 years old at the time.
The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam was founded in New York by Ralph Schoenman in November 1969 to document American atrocities throughout Indochina. The formation of the organization was prompted by the disclosure of the My Lai Massacre on November 12, 1969 by Seymour Hersh, writing for the New York Times. The group was the first to bring to public attention the testimony of American Vietnam War veterans who had witnessed or participated in atrocities.
The Sound of the Violin in My Lai is a short film that examines the history and legacy of the My Lai massacre, an incident of the Vietnam War in which hundreds of Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. Army soldiers. The film investigates the effects of the massacre, with the story centering on the return of American soldiers Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn to My Lai on the 30th anniversary of the event.
First Tuesday was a monthly television documentary strand, shown in the United Kingdom on the ITV network and was produced by Yorkshire Television. The subject matter was mainly social issues and current affairs stories from around the world. It ran from 5 April 1983 to 2 November 1993, with programmes being shown on the first Tuesday of the month, hence the title. In 1993, Network First was a part replacement for First Tuesday.
My Lai is a documentary film detailing the My Lai massacre. It aired as an episode of American Experience on PBS.
The Vietnam War is a 10-part American television documentary series about the Vietnam War written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The first episode premiered on PBS on September 17, 2017. The script is by Geoffrey Ward, and the series is narrated by Peter Coyote. This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating.
The Thuy Bo incident was the killing of civilians by U.S. Marines from 31 January to 1 February 1967, during the Vietnam War in Thủy Bồ village in Điện Bàn District, Quảng Nam Province 15 km southwest of Đà Nẵng, in an area close to the foothills of the Central Highlands and situated near the Bo Bo Hills. Vietnamese communist sources claim that the Marines massacred civilians here and the memorial erected to the event records 145 civilian deaths, mainly women, children and elderly men. US sources claim that 22 civilians were killed in two days of fighting between Marines and the Vietcong who occupied the village.
Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War is a non-fiction book edited by Ron Carver, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty. It was published in September 2019 by New Village Press and is distributed by New York University Press. In March 2023 a Vietnamese language edition of the book was launched at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Terry Marvell Whitmore was an American soldier, deserter and actor.
The Vietnam War Song Project (VWSP) is an archive and interpretive examination of over 6000 Vietnam War songs identified. It was founded in 2007 by its current editor, Justin Brummer, a historian with a PhD in contemporary Anglo-American relations from University College London. The project analyses the lyrics, and collects data on the genre, location, ethnicity, nationality, language, and time period of the recordings. It also involves the preservation of the original physical vinyl records. Additional items collected include cassette tapes, CDs, MP3s, record label scans, and sheet music.
Rape during the Vietnam War, as well as other acts of wartime sexual violence, was committed against Vietnamese civilians by military personnel from the United States, South Korea, and other combatants. According to American academic Elisabeth Jean Wood, wartime rape was frequently committed by U.S. troops because their commanders tolerated them. Weaver stated that not only were documented crimes against Vietnamese women by United States military personnel ignored during the international legal discourse which occurred immediately after the war, modern feminists and other anti-war rape campaigners, as well as historians, have continued to dismiss them.
