When Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry left the hamlet of My Lai on March 16th, 1968, leaving 470 unarmed Vietnamese civilians dead in it's wake, it forever changed the perception of the world that American troops operated in a more humane and honorable manner toward civilians than soldiers of other nations. My Lai: A Brief History with Documents is James Olson and Randy Roberts' courageous attempt to address the events at My Lai objectively, fairly, and honestly, without drawing conclusions regarding the conduct of Charlie Company, investigators, or jurors at courts-martial. That difficult task the authors leave to the reader.
Olson and Roberts begin My Lai with the story of Ronald Ridenhour, a Vietnam veteran who learned about the massacre at My Lai from another soldier in a Vietnamese bar in April of 1968. This soldier, Charles Gruver, told Ridenhour that this company had gone to My Lai and killed everyone they found. (1) Over the course of the next few months, Ridenhour confirmed the story with other soldiers he knew that had been involved. Ultimately, he wrote a detailed letter to his Congressman, several Senators, President Richard Nixon, and others detailing all of the events that had taken place, even though doing so implicated several of his friends in the commission of war crimes.
The remaining text is divided into two elements. The major portion consists of the documentary evidence of the incident: after action reports, briefing notes, witness testimony, congressional reports, courts martial proceedings, and newspaper accounts. The remainder of My Lai consists of background and explanatory information provided by Olson and Roberts. The combination of the two elements is what makes My Lai such a useful tool for understanding both the incident at My Lai hamlet and the Vietnam War as a whole. This value of the background and interpretive information is quite easy to demonstrate, particularly if the volume is approached with the understanding that at least some readers will have little understanding of the issues of the war. A particularly important passage illustrates the differences between North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Ho Chi Minh is described a nationalist leader who led his people against the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and continued to fight against the French after the war, earning the respect of the Vietnamese. Ngo Dinh Diem, on the other hand, is described as “a corrupt, anti-Buddhist Roman Catholic who soon alienated most South Vietnamese.” (4) The result was that the United States was propping up South Vietnam by 1965.
Background is even more important in understanding the events leading directly to My Lai, and in the text encompasses two separate issues. The first issue is the nature of the fighting in Quang Ngai province, the region My Lai was situated in. Quang Ngai was considered a Vietcong stronghold, and the home of the 48th Vietcong Local Force Battalion, which was long a thorn in the side of American and South Vietnamese forces. Immediately before the massacre at My Lai, both the 48th Battalion and Charlie Company were active in the area, with Charlie Company taking many casualties from snipers and booby-traps without being able to engage the enemy. The area immediately surround My Lai had supposedly been cleared of Vietnamese civilians, leaving only Vietcong and Vietcong sympathizers. This is particularly important in understanding the tragedy at My Lai, as both factors may have led the soldiers of Charlie Company to believe that only combatants would be in the area. (17)
The background issue relates specifically to Charlie Company’s leadership and training. The two most important leaders, in terms of culpability for the massacre, were the company commander Captain Ernest Medina and Lt. William Calley. Captain Medina is described as an incredibly competent officer who took care of his men and used an “us vs. them” philosophy to create unit cohesion. (17) Lt. Calley, the major villain of the episode, appear to be the antithesis of Capt. Medina. Where Medina had worked his way up to his position through discipline and perseverance, Calley was pushed through Officer Training School despite his obvious incompetence. (12) These differences led Medina to despise Calley, and Calley to behave obsequiously toward his superiors.
Charlie Company appears to have received adequate training in the combat arts and following orders, however, both the background information and findings of the Peers Commission indicate that Charlie Company received little serious instruction in the laws of war, despite receiving carry cards with instructions for interacting with civilians and enemy prisoners. Specifically, Charlie Company soldiers that were questioned before the Peers Commission had little memory of their training in the Geneva Convention’s rules other than that the training officer had acted like the rules could be freely ignored (42), but that training to obey orders without question came to the forefront of their memories.
The final element leading to the My Lai Massacre, according to Olson and Roberts, was operation orders that were understood by many of the men, particularly in Lt. Calley’s 1st Platoon, to mean that anyone found in My Lai was to be killed. While this was disputed by Captain Medina and Army journalist Jay Roberts, and 1st Platoon’s Gregory Olsen (among others), 2nd Platoon’s weapons squad leader Mat Hutson testified that Medina had briefed the Company that, “he had orders to kill everyone in the village.” (63) This belief was shared by 1st Platoon’s Harry Stanley, who testified that, “we all agreed that Captain Medina meant for us to kill every man, woman, and child in the village.” (63)
Ultimately, My Lai: A Brief History with Documents uses official documents, accompanied with the commentary of the authors to illustrate one of the United States Army’s darkest moments. It does this not only by presenting documents directly related to My Lai, but also by discussing the origins of the Vietnam War, the prevailing conditions in Vietnam in 1968, the mental state of American soldiers, and the practice of ticket punching that shuttled officers in and out of the region. Both the documents and the background information are required for readers to make sense of the events of March 16th, 1968, not to mention the cover-up that followed. Olson and Roberts especially take the time to discuss the massacre, the cover-up by officers ranging from Lt. Calley to General Westmoreland, and the reaction to both at home in the United States. If any criticism can be found of My Lai it would be that no stand is taken regarding the actions of Charlie Company. However, the lack of a stand can also be considered a strength, in that it allows the reader to draw his own conclusions.