U.S. soldiers massacre 500 civilians at My Lai, Vietnam. While serving in Vietnam in late 1967, a U.S. Army regiment named Charlie Company suffered one casualty and several injuries from a Viet Cong booby trap in Quang Ngai province. Captain Ernest Medina, set on revenge, gave the men a pep talk and plotted the destruction of the village known as My Lai 4. At 7:22 a.m. on March 16, 1968, U.S. Army helicopters stormed the village of 700. Their mission was to root out the Viet Cong, and despite a lack of evidence that the village was harbouring enemy soldiers, the troop proceeded to murder men, women and children of all ages. Many who offered no resistance were shot in the back or at close range, regardless. One group was in a drainage ditch as the soldiers fired on them. When a two-year-old boy rose to run from the ditch, platoon leader William Calley threw him back in and shot him. In the end, 500 civilians were killed and a cover-up ensued that took months to bring to light. When the Pentagon’s General William Peers completed his closed-door investigation, he recommended action be taken against the enlisted men and officers for rape, murder and the cover-up. In the end, only Calley was convicted of murder, and President Nixon’s secretary of the Army released him on parole. However, the public’s outraged reaction to the massacre was instrumental in turning American public opinion against the war.
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