Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre

Rating:
Summary: My Lai: A Failure of Command, NOT a Typical Event.
Review: I don't know why, but I am not surpassed in reading FACING MY LAI, edited by David L. Anderson, that after 25 years not too many people, including the contributors understand why My Lai happened. Furthermore it is no surprise, that the poet and the novelist were the two contributors, who understood two fundamentals: The first is that each man is responsible for his own actions and the second is that amends must be made, if there is to be healing. Ridenhour still wants to blame the top brass and the system, as if the average American doesn't know that it is wrong to kill babies. Nowhere in the book does anyone look into the role of fundamental religions setting the stage for the massacre. After all the communists were atheists who were "the servants of Satan." I heard these sermons during the war, as did most Americans. Why was Thompson the hero, where were the others that could have stopped the massacre in the beginning? I venture to say that they were in! Canada or in U.S. prisons for refusing to serve. Racism, was another subject, which should have been discussed in depth. Neither was it discussed why we send Nazi criminals back to Europe for trial while we let these murderers walk free in the US, when they are wanted in Vietnam for war crimes?

In short the book fails to get at the root cause of the massacre. Most of the contributors want to pass the buck. On the 30 annual observation of the massacre, I was on my way to My Lai when I friend told me not to go there because they all died. He then arranged for me to go to a neighborhood in HoChiMinh City where many families from Quang Ngai had resettled after the war. I observed the anniversary with a family that had survived the war. They told me that a massacre of village was not common place during the war, but the shooting of farmers in their fields was common place.

If you are looking for the root causes of the massacre you will not find it in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Facing My Lai fails to address the root cause.
Review: I don't know why, but I am not surpassed in reading FACING MY LAI, edited by David L. Anderson, that after 25 years not too many people, including the contributors understand why My Lai happened. Furthermore it is no surprise, that the poet and the novelist were the two contributors, who understood two fundamentals: The first is that each man is responsible for his own actions and the second is that amends must be made, if there is to be healing. Ridenhour still wants to blame the top brass and the system, as if the average American doesn't know that it is wrong to kill babies. Nowhere in the book does anyone look into the role of fundamental religions setting the stage for the massacre. After all the communists were atheists who were "the servants of Satan." I heard these sermons during the war, as did most Americans. Why was Thompson the hero, where were the others that could have stopped the massacre in the beginning? I venture to say that they were in! Canada or in U.S. prisons for refusing to serve. Racism, was another subject, which should have been discussed in depth. Neither was it discussed why we send Nazi criminals back to Europe for trial while we let these murderers walk free in the US, when they are wanted in Vietnam for war crimes?

In short the book fails to get at the root cause of the massacre. Most of the contributors want to pass the buck. On the 30 annual observation of the massacre, I was on my way to My Lai when I friend told me not to go there because they all died. He then arranged for me to go to a neighborhood in HoChiMinh City where many families from Quang Ngai had resettled after the war. I observed the anniversary with a family that had survived the war. They told me that a massacre of village was not common place during the war, but the shooting of farmers in their fields was common place.

If you are looking for the root causes of the massacre you will not find it in this book.

Rating:
Summary: mislead
Review: I found the book to be a surprize i thought the book was for educational use only that should answer one reviewer question four hours in My Lai is a better reading book i feel

Rating:
Summary: mislead
Review: I found the book to be a surprize i thought the book was for educational use only that should answer one reviewer question four hours in My Lai is a better reading book i feel

Rating:
Summary: My Lai: A Failure of Command, NOT a Typical Event.
Review: I served two full Infantry tours in Vietnam as a Rifle Company Commander, Battalion staff officer and MACV advisor. I am proud of the American soldiers who served with me, both under my command and otherwise. In my experience, there is no doubt that My Lai was an aberration. The men who committed the atrocities at My Lai were common criminals and murderers who should have been convicted and hanged. They were in no way acting like the vast majority of American soldiers in Vietnam. Most soldiers and marines went to Vietnam as ordered by proper military authority, performed our duty in very difficult -- and different -- ground combat, returned home and resumed productive lives. "Facing My Lai" rehashes the old leftist, anti-war themes of the Vietnam vet as a victim, haunted by the nasty things he did while there (like shooting down women and children at every opportunity), while suffering from the effects of PTSD and Agent Orange. That is exactly the image that most Vietnam vets have been trying to counteract ever since it was invented by the anti-war left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am somewhat surprised that good people like Harry Summers and Hugh Thompson would be included with the likes of Jay Lifton, the anti-war leader who invented and perfected the concepts of Post-Vietnam Syndrome and PTSD, in an attempt to make Vietnam vets feel guilty about their service and to blame all their failings in life on their Vietnam experience.

If the reader really wants to know how most infantrymen -- and other military personnel -- performed in Vietnam and adjusted to life after their tour(s) there, I recommend two books: "Stolen Valor" by B.G. Burkett, and my book, "Platoon: Bravo Company." You owe it to those who actually fought the war to get it right!