The massacre in the village of My
Lai during the Vietnam War remains one of the blackest marks on the record of
the American military. Over the
course of about four hours, the American GIs of the 1st platoon,
Charlie Company killed 504 Vietnamese noncombatants of all ages. Three men, however, attempted to stop
the killing. Hugh Thompson, Jr.,
Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn put themselves between advancing American
soldiers and a bunker of Vietnamese civilians, later evacuating them to a South
Vietnamese hospital. In the
actions of those soldiers who participated at My Lai we are able to see a clear
illustration of many of the points Staub, Milgram, and others make about the
nature of mass killing. In
addition, we can look to the varied American response to the actions of
Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn, as well as the Vietnam War in general, as
evidence of Mann’s claims about stratified societies and the effect of
stratification on the public discussion of war.
The actions of the soldiers of Charlie
Company are cited in the epilogue of Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority as a prime example of ordinary men
transformed into heartless killers.
In essence, the army, by isolating cadets from potential competing
authorities, establishing conformity among the men, and forcing them to accept
the dominance and infallibility of military leadership, creates a monolithic
society, as defined by Ervin Staub.
“In a monolithic society,” he says, ”there is limited variation in
values and perspectives on life…strong authority or totalitarian rule enforces
uniformity. The authorities have great power to define reality and shape the
people’s perception of the victims.”
Monolithic societies, according to
Staub, create an “us-them” mentality, a precondition for extraordinary
violence. In the case of American
GIs in Vietnam this mentality was also promoted by differences in race and
nationality. We can link this to
Eric Weitz’s “The Modernity of Genocide,” in which he highlights revolutionary
movements and race as two factors that create a hospitable environment for mass
killing. It is sometimes forgotten
that the Vietnam War was, in fact, a revolution-turned-civil war between North
and South Vietnam, with the United States backing South Vietnam. Although the American troops would not
have seen themselves as revolutionaries per se, the conflict itself created
“difficult life conditions” as referenced by Staub. American forces in the field were almost constantly under
attack. Indeed, the night before
the My Lai massacre one of Charlie Company’s men was killed by a Viet Cong land
mine, and less than a month before My Lai the radio operator and friend of
Second Lieutenant William Calley, who led the assault, was killed by a Viet
Cong sniper.
Charlie
Company’s attack on My Lai, “justified” as retaliation for the death of their
comrades, was also, as Weitz posits of many types of killings, quite
ritualized. The GIs entered an
area (a house, or square where peopled had gathered), forced those people in
that area to move to a different area (a bunker, well, or ditch) and then fired
on them or dropped grenades in with them, and torched all remaining
property. Those Vietnamese who
were not killed in a large group were often eviscerated with bayonets, killed
while fleeing, or executed while begging for mercy. These killings lost some of the set ritual of the others,
but took on a whole new aspect of performance: an American soldier encountering a Vietnamese villager
killed him or her to show his comrades that he could, and to cement his
presence in the group. Thompson,
Andreotta, and Colburn, by insinuating themselves into the situation and trying
to stop the violence, interrupted the ritual killings and performances of their
fellow GIs and were met with strong opposition from Second Lieutenant Calley,
who ordered them away, an order which was refused. Thompson proceeded to fly twenty Vietnamese civilians to
safety in his helicopter as Andreotta and Colburn remained to protect those
awaiting rescue.
Following
the return of Charlie Company to the United States and the eventual revelation
of what occurred at My Lai, the reaction of the public was quite mixed. Few people would argue that Americans
were unified in their support of the Vietnam War, and both those who were and
those who weren’t were quite vocal and willing to act on their convictions. “Baby killers” became a disparaging
moniker for veterans following the infamous “And babies” interview on national
television, and Second Lieutenant Calley was court marshaled and sentenced to
life in prison for his part in the massacre. On the other hand, Thompson received death threats, dead
animals left on his doorstep, and calls from congressmen for his court
marshaling for being un-patriotic.
Calley was also pardoned by the president two days after his sentencing
and spent three years under house arrest and received, among other things, a
Mercedes-Benz from a wealthy, anonymous supporter.
All
of these occurrences serve to illustrate some of what Mann says about stratified
societies. In a stratified
society, rights have slowly been extended to all groups, generating a climate
where conflicts of opinion between groups are legitimized, allowing (ideally)
the free expression of political ideas and support. If the United States had been an organic society, what’s to
say that disagreements between hawks and doves wouldn’t have turned into open
warfare on the home front as well?
The
events of My Lai, generalized as the assault of a defenseless “other” group by a
monolithic society forged by a military and deposited in the middle of a
hostile territory, shows us a prototypical example of many of the theories of group
motives for mass killing. The
American response, both positive and negative, also shows us how stratification
can prevent violent conflict among ourselves, and allows, if not facilitates, public
discussion and expression.
Sources:
http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/publications/documents/ThompsonPg1-28_Final.pdf
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/HIUS316/mbase/docs/mylai.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-485983/Found-The-monster-My-Lai-massacre.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTJgMmHZNYQ&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL67E9354D52985F2A
http://books.google.com/books?id=R-QCAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=thompson&f=false
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