An American Atrocity: The My Lai Massacre Concretized in a Victim's Face Author(s): Claude Cookman Source: The Journal of American

History, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Jun., 2007), pp. 154-162 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094784 . Accessed: 10/04/2014 23:22
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An American

Atrocity: The My Lai Massacre Concretized in a Victim s Face

Claude Cookman
Some people think that the Japanese committed atrocities, that theGermans
mitted don't any atrocities, commit other that the Russians Well, committed isn't atrocities, so. American but that atrocities. this just troops are as

com
as

the Americans capable

of committing

atrocities.1

?Robert

Rheault,

1970, former commander ofU.S.

Special Forces, Vietnam

Few military operations have been documented as thoroughly as theMy Lai massacre from army investigations and congressional hear during theVietnam War. Documents views with the soldiers who perpetrated it and the villagers who survived it?detail how American soldiers murdered more than 500 unarmed women, children, and old men on March 16, 1968.2 Itmight have been the most forgotten operation. The officers of Charlie Company
ings, court-martial transcripts, articles, books, and documentaries?all based on inter

would have and their superiors in theAmerical Division covered up themassacre, and it remained buried, except for Spec. Ron Ridenhour, who learned of the event from friends who participated. After his discharge from the army,Ridenhour reported the killings in a letter to President Richard M. Nixon, several senators and representatives, and Pentagon March officials in 1969. He quoted one sergeant who said, "They were slaughtering the so many sheep."3 like villagers letter and the investigations it launched, the massacre would Despite Ridenhour's not been for photographs taken by Sgt. little have made public impact, had it probably same another that Ron Haeberle. (On company massacred at least ninety women day and children a mile away inMy Khe?an atrocity few have heard of.) The publication in lateNovember and early December of Haeberle's photos in Life and Time magazines to attention.4 international national and 1969 propelled the story
is an associate professor at Indiana University where he teaches the history of photography. He Claude Cookman was an army officer inVietnam when theMy Lai massacre occurred. at ccookman@indiana.edu. Readers may contact Cookman 1 Grace Sevy, ed., The American Experience in Vietnam: A Reader (Norman, 1989), 129. 2 For an account of the events atMy Lai and their aftermath, I relied on Michal R. Belknap, The Vietnam War on M. Hersh, My Trial: TheMy Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley (Lawrence, 2002); Seymour Massacre and ItsAftermath (New York, 1970); James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, My Lai: A Lai 4: A Report on the (New York, 1998); W. R. Peers, TheMy Lai Inquiry (New York, 1979); and Sevy, ed., Brief History with Documents American Experience in Vietnam. 3 Peers, My Lai Inquiry, 6. 4 Nov. 28, atMylai," et al., "The Massacre Life, Dec. 5, 1969, p. 41; "MyLai Massacre," Time, Joseph Eszterhas, 1969, pp. 17-19.

154 The Journal ofAmerican History

June

2007

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The My Lai Massacre Concretized

in aVictims Face 155

1.Army these women and children sergeant Ron Haeberle Figure photographed seconds before American soldiers shot and killed them. They were Lai, Vietnam, more than 500 unarmed women, and old men massacred children, by American

in My among troops

onMarch 16, 1968. Photo by RonHaeberle. Courtesy GettyLmages.

By themselves, photographs are never enough to explain the past. Combined with ver bal and statistical accounts, however, they enrich our historical understanding. Haeber the one that shows seven villagers seconds before theywere le's photographs?especially us teach slain?can important lessons about our shared humanity and our duty as citi zens. (See to remember thatAmerican soldiers com figure 1.) Using Haeberle's pictures mitted that atrocity has value in itself, and using that memory to formulate a personal
stance?pro or con?toward our government's use of military force is an act of mature

citizenship.

Charlie Company's men were angry, frightened, and struggling to stay alive inMarch three months earlier, four of their comrades had 1968. Since their arrival inVietnam been killed and thirty-eightwounded, most bymines, booby traps, or snipers. They were frustrated because the enemy avoided open battle, denying them a chance to retaliate. Two days before themassacre, a popular sergeant was ripped apart when he stepped on
a mine.

15, following a memorial service for the sergeant, Capt. Ernest Medina, Charlie Company's commander, psyched up his troops for the attack. Evoking fear, he On March

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156 The Journal ofAmerican History

June

2007

told them theywould be outnumbered two to one and should expect a fierce battle. He said the operation was their opportunity to avenge their lost comrades. Several testified later that they believed Medina had ordered them to destroy the village and its inhab itants. Compounding that situation were the racist ideas internalized by many G.I.'s: who deserved to be thatVietnamese were "gooks," "dinks," and "slopes"?subhumans Army intelligence reported that theViet Cong's Forty-eighth Battalion was located in the Son My district ofQuang Ngai province, located on the South China Sea about mid way between Saigon and Hanoi. Son My, where My Lai is located, was known as a Viet were considered Viet or sympathizers. Cong guerrillas Cong stronghold, and its people Americans called My Lai "Pinkville," at first because of its color on military maps, but was a soon as shorthand forCommunist territory. Intelligence reports said that because it a.m. Lt. Col. Frank Barker Saturday morning all civilians would have leftformarket by 7 to attack My Khe, and Al ordered Charlie Company to attack My Lai, Bravo Company a.m. artillery launched the attack to intercept fleeing Viet Cong. At 7:24 pha Company Lai. Between and 7:30 7:47, helicopters dropped Charlie Company by bombarding My northwest of the village. The landing zone was "cold"?no enemy fire challenged theAmericans. Contrary to were not at market. My Lai were no there guerrilla fighters, and the villagers intelligence, was full of civilians, many still rice. their As breakfast the barrage began, they hid cooking it ended, they emerged to encounter Charlie Company. in underground bunkers. When The soldiers shot any villager who tried to run and herded the others into groups. Lt.Wil liam Calley, the First Platoon leader, ordered his men to shoot them at point-blank range. some refused, Calley set his rifle on automatic and executed many of the villagers When himself. G.I.'s tossed hand grenades and dynamite into the bunkers, killing villagers who remained inside. Soldiers killed a Buddhist monk, threw his body into a well, and tossed
in "greased," "wasted," or "hosed down."

tried to escape. They killed water buffalo, pigs, and ducks. They raped women and teen at age girls and then killed them. Spec. Varnado Simpson admitted killing and mutilating to to their throats in Lai. "From them least twenty-five people scalp My cutting shooting to cutting off their hands and cutting out their tongue," he said, "I did that."5 ing them Haeberle described the callousness of one killing: "There was a little boy walking to ward us in a daze. He'd been shot in the arm and leg. He wasn't crying or making any noise." As he knelt down tomake a picture, a "GI fired three shots into the child," Hae berle said. "The first shot knocked him back, the second shot liftedhim into the air. The third shot put him down and the body fluids came out. The GI just simply got up and
away."6

grenades

to contaminate

the water.

They

set houses

afire

and

shot

the

residents

as

they

walked

under the bod A fewVietnamese, including Sa Thi Qui, survived by lyingmotionless ies that fell on top of them. She said the villagers were not afraid, because G.I.'s had vis ited the village before and had given the children candy. This time, however, they "killed witnessed the bodies of "a naked everybody, destroyed everything." After they left, Sa a woman who had been raped and virgin girlwith her vagina slit open."7
5 "Remember My Lai," May 23, 1989, transcript of tv show, pbs: Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ 41.

frontline/programs/transcripts/714.html. 6 Eszterhas, et al., "Massacre atMylai," 7 "Remember My Lai."

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The My Lai Massacre Concretized

in a Victim's Face 157

One American who acted with compassion was Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, who was piloting a reconnaissance helicopter overMy Lai. When he and his crew saw the a smoke near a wounded woman piles of bodies, they tried to help. They dropped grenade and radioed for the soldiers to give her medical aide. "A fewminutes later up walks a cap tain, steps up to her, nudges her with his foot, steps back and blows her away," Thompson recalled.8 At his court-martial, Medina acknowledged shooting thewoman but claimed she had made a threatening move. women and children huddled in a bunker, Spotting Thompson landed between them and soldiers led by Calley. Thompson asked if Calley and his men could help get the peo was with a ple out, and Calley responded that the only way grenade. Enraged, Thompson told his door gunner, Spec. Lawrence Colburn, to train his machine gun on theAmeri cans. "He told us if theAmericans were to open fireon theVietnamese as he was getting them out of the bunker," Colburn recalled, "we should return fireon theAmericans."9 a Thompson radioed for larger helicopter, which ferried the villagers to safety. A memorial erected in My Lai lists the total number of victims at 504, including "182 women, of whom 17 were pregnant, and 173 children, of whom 56 were of infant age. Sixty of the men were over 60 years old."10 Three Viet Cong were killed by helicopter gunners as they fled the village early in the operation. The Americans were never firedon. One G.L shot himself in the foot so he would be evacuated because he could not stand the killing.

was army reporter Working with Haeberle Spec. JayRoberts. Their assignment was to cover the operation for a division newspaper. Haeberle used an army-issue camera loaded with black-and-white film for the newspaper but shot color film in his own camera. With less than a week left on his Vietnam tour, he did not tell his superiors about the color film, taking it back to the States with him. The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story inNovember and network television 1969.11Newspapers, magazines, own with their versions. followed With interest sold his photo Haeberle quickly high, to to first the Cleveland Plain then for Dealer, $50,000. graphs, Life Some of the pictures show G.I.'s sprinting from their choppers at the zone landing and throwing rice baskets onto the flames of burning houses. Many focus on wounded or dead villagers. The most extreme show victims with their skulls split open, their intestines spilled onto the ground, or their bodies lying in burning rubble. None of the published same framewith the photographs put American soldiers in the villagers.12 Critics faulted Haeberle for not stopping the killings and not showing his photographs to senior officers. They accused him of being more concerned about selling his work than about the slain villagers. Under cross-examination at Calley's court-martial, he denied the profitmotive and said he and Roberts had decided not to report the incident but "to
8 "The Heroes ofMy Lai: Hugh Thompson's Hugh Thompson, Story," Famous American Trials: TheMy Lai Courts-Martial, 1970, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_hero .html. 9 Hersh, MyLai 4, 64. 10 Mark Gado, "Into the Dark: The My Lai Massacre: Cover Up," CourtTV: Crime Library, http://www.cnme library.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/up_7.html. 11 109 Civilians," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 13, 1969, Seymour Hersh, "Lieutenant Accused ofMurdering p. 1A, 19A. 12 For some examples of these photographs, see "My Lai Massacre: 'Something Dark and Bloody,'" Asia-Pacific Network: Cafe Pacific, http://www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/resources/aspac/viet.html.

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158 The Journal ofAmerican History

June

2007

keep quiet until someone came to us and not to start the ball rolling."13 Based on a year of photographing colonels and generals who rejected any pictures thatmade the army look bad, Haeberle implied that senior officerswould have destroyed his color images.With out condoning his inaction, one can acknowledge that he probably could not have halted He the rampage. may also have feared retaliation from the soldiers. Haeberle smost frequently published photograph documents the age and gender of the victims and suggests the scale of the killing. In a tangle of limbs and torsos,more than women and children lie on a blood-soaked are twenty-five path. Faces disfigured by blood and bullet wounds.14 Chunks of flesh are missing from a torso. A boy's blood-splattered an infant.Three toddlers are legs frame the head of sprawled along the trail, their naked bodies in stark relief against the dark clothing of the adults. This image has become the primary visual representation of themassacre, but it is not themost powerful.

The most emotionally compelling photograph shows seven villagers while they are still alive. (See figure 1.) Two women, two teenage girls, and three children stand barefoot, a woman with an a digging their toes into muddy path. In front, agonized expression clutches a cloth to her abdomen. One teenager hides her face in the woman's neck and a woman tries to comfort a clasps her hands around her waist. At the left, partially hidden terrifiedgirl. A relatively slow shutter speed blurs thewoman's hand and softens the girl's face. On the right, the other teenager adjusts her blouse as she holds a bewildered boy a against her hip. Clutching his leg is boy in pajamas.

Color and tonality are crucial to the composition. The villagers' faces contrast sharply with their black and burgundy clothes. The lightness of the first woman's face and its fron tal position make it the compositional focus of the picture as well as its emotional center; from it, the viewer's eyemoves to the other faces, then to the hands and feet. are also important. Haeberle, who to probably felt rushed, failed Framing and space observe a rule taught in beginning photography classes?"Watch your edges." That is, be fore clicking the shutter, photographers should run their eye around the frame to avoid cut off the feet of the principal woman and content. Haeberle eliminating important most of the face of the boy at right.His tight framing removes all foreground, adding to the picture's shallow spatial depth. His closeness to the people and choice of lens com press the foreground and middle ground. A thicket of bamboo closes off the background, Unlike the picture of the bodies on the path, this is not a stage except for a patch of sky. like settingwhere we remain outside the scene looking in. Instead, we stand on the same or five feet from the villagers. path, four The photograph captures the climax of a narrative that began with attempted rape and ended with mass murder. Roberts and Haeberle came upon several G.I.'s attempting to rape the girl at the right.Haeberle
"Let's see what she's made out

recalled their comments as they pulled off her clothes:

one said. Another called her "vc boom-boom," or

of,"

Viet Cong whore. As they assaulted the girl, thewoman "tried to help her, scratching and at the soldiers."When the soldiers noticed the journalists, they abandoned their clawing sexual assault and herded thewomen and children together. "I yelled, 'Hold it,'"Haeberle recalled, "and shotmy picture." As he did, the assaulted teenager,who had already pulled up her trousers, attempted to fasten her blouse. The denouement followed quickly. As
13 for the Prosecution," Famous American Trials: The "Calley Court Martial Excerpts: Ronald Haeberle, Witness Lai Courts-Martial, 1970, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_thabe.htm. 14 'Something Dark and Bloody.'" "My Lai Massacre:

My

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The My Lai Massacre Concretized

in a Victim's Face 159

Postmodern theorists have insisted place of these people and identifywith their agony. that all photographs objectify their subjects. They claim that people from Third World from the photogra countries are especially relegated to the status of "other"?separated an socioeconomic cultural and differences. Ac of viewers and by unbridgeable gulf pher as to it is I this still believe those differences, experience possible photograph knowledging more than an objectification. Just as literature lets us identify with characters very differ ent from ourselves, so do great photographs let us empathize with their subjects. Human ism animates much of photojournalism, and Haeberle recorded these people as humans. While their situation exceeds our experience, we can identifywith their expressions of confusion, fear, disbelief, sadness, and incomprehension. We can see them as more than
"gooks."

an M-60 [machine gun] go off, and when theywalked away, Roberts said later, "I heard we turned back around, all of them and the kids with them were dead."15 was taken The emotional power of the photograph derives from our knowledge that it were alive, as they realize they are about to be killed. these seconds the last people during not have missed the They were surrounded by bodies and burning houses, and they could sounds of gunfire and screaming. They must have understood the G.I.'s meant to shoot them also. Few photographs show people contemplating their imminent, violent death as vividly as this one. is not as con Despite the intimacy of its framing and its emotional power, the picture camera not look into the frontational as it and, do not, might have been. The victims do contact with us. They look outside the frame toward the G.I.'s, make extension, eye by us escape the full brunt of their pleading, accusatory expressions. letting Even so, the picture might function as a mirror. We might imagine ourselves in the

The picture might also prompt us to identifywith the soldiers?to try to understand what caused them tomurder defenseless people and to reflecton the guilt they felt. Simp son's experience is a powerful example. After returning home to Jackson, Mississippi, he suffered profoundly for his actions. In a 1989 television documentary, he gestured to a scrapbook with the photographs from Life and told the interviewer, "This ismy life, this ismy past, this ismy present, this ismy future, and I keep it to remind me." Referring me thisway." to the extreme trembling in his hands and legs, he said, "This iswhat made When his young son was accidentally shot and killed, Simpson saw it as punishment for My Lai. Diagnosed with paranoia and under heavy medication, he committed suicide in 1997, on his fourth attempt.16

When

some published, Haeberle's photographs fueled antiwar sentiment among people and denial among others. Over time, the photos took their place among such iconic Viet a nam War images as Eddie Adams's 1968 photograph of the execution of suspected Viet a of and Nick Ut's burned 1972 image by napalm. Recently, commentators Cong girl have compared Haeberle's photographs with those showing American soldiers mistreat ing captives atAbu Ghraib prison, which spurred similar criticism against the IraqWar.17

15 Eszterhas, et al., "Massacre atMylai," 43, 36, 43. 16 "Remember My Lai"; "The Vietnam War: Update on theVernado Simpson Story," Coach Burkes Home Page: Americas Wars, http://www.homestead.com/coachburke/My_Lai_-_Vernado_Simpson_update..doc. 17 For Eddie Adams's photo, see "100 Photographs That Changed the World, by Life: Execution of a Viet Cong For Nick Ut's pho Guerrilla, 1968," The Digital Journalist, http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lml2.html.

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160 The Journal ofAmerican History

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2007

Such photographs cannot end a war, but they do affect the debate that surrounds it and help shape itshistorical representation. Reaction to theMy Lai story and Haeberle's photographs revealed how sharply the war had residents found that 49 percent be polarized the country. A survey ofMinnesota lieved the storywas false. Rep. Mendel Rivers, chair of theHouse Armed Services Com mittee, spoke formany Americans when he said, "You know our boys would never do a movement. "I don't be anything like that." Some labeled the story tactic of the antiwar lieve it actually happened," said a Los Angeles salesman. "The storywas planted by Viet are trying to get us out of Viet Cong sympathizers and people inside this country who
nam sooner."18

where

Such denials are understandable given the cherished myth of the perfectly balanced in battle but chivalrous toward noncombatants. As Edward American warrior?fierce Linenthal has established, the ideology of the volunteer citizen soldier?who lays down the plow and picks up the rifle to fight, and, ifnecessary, to sacrifice himself by shedding to regenerate the nation?began with the Minuteman.19 Faced with the redemptive blood the Haeberle's with of popular image of G.I.'s giv photographs impossibility reconciling to the bars children, many simply rejected photographs. Others defended the ing candy soldiers by arguing that theViet Cong had committed worse atrocities, that "war is hell" such incidents must be expected, that the victims deserved were following orders. ported theViet Cong, and that theG.I.'s
Life characterized the reaction of its readers as "horror, shame

it because
shock,

they sup
also . . .

and

but

uncaring acceptance and even benumbed lack of interest."A Florida mother wrote, "My much more precious tome (and should be to every fellowAmerican) than the child ... is lifeof any enemy, no matter what their age or condition." A Utah woman charged, "Your ... will be more deaths among our boys." Some sounded responsible formany Mylai issue
the

wrote. "The buck will be passed down and not up."20 Others drew parallels to Nazi war crimes. "If the principles of the Nuremberg War trials mean anything at all," one Life reader commented, "then these men who killed women, children and old men should never be allowed to hide behind the excuse that T massacre was "just like a was just following orders.'" A Charlie Company soldier said the "I The said, finally thought about theNazis, helicopter pilot Thompson Nazi-type thing." I guess, and marching everybody down into a ditch and blowing em away." Two research ers concluded thatAmericans were deflecting responsibility with the same defense mecha nisms Germans had used to rationalize theHolocaust. A few people blamed all Americans for not stopping thewar. To find who is to "blame for this latest horror," one woman said, "Allwe need to do is look in our mirror."21
to, see "Nick Ut and theNapalm Girl Photo," online posting, Sept. 30, 2005, Shards ofPhotography blog, http:// For the photos at Abu Ghraib, http://www.thememoryhole.org/

"scapegoat"

theme.

"The

Army

will

not

try those who

are

really

responsible,"

one man

shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/2005/09/nick-ut-and-napalm-girl-photo.html. see "Photos of Iraqis Being Abused by US Personnel, page 2," TheMemory Hole,

war/iraqis_tortured/index2.htm. 18 On the survey, seeHersh, MyLai 4, 153. For theMendel Rivers quote, see Peers,My Lai Inquiry, 21. For the salesman quote, see Hersh, MyLai 4, 150. 19 Edward Tabor Linenthal, Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields (Champaign, 1993), 17-28. 20 atMylai," "Americans Speak Out on theMassacre 19, 1969, pp. 46-47. Life, Dec. 21 soldier quote, see Hersh, MyLai 4, 72?73. For the Hugh Thompson Ibid. For the Charlie Company quote, "It see "Remember My Lai." On Americans deflecting responsibility, see Edward M. Opton Jr. and Robert Duckies, War: A Legal, Political-Documentary, and Psychological and Besides, They Deserved Didn't Happen It," in Crimes of into theResponsibility ofLeaders, Citizens, and Soldiers for Criminal Acts in Wars, ed. Richard A. Falk, Gabriel Inquiry

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The My Lai Massacre Concretized

in a Victims Face 161

Many rejected the photographs because they challenged themyth of American inno cence; others because they felt helpless to respond. In 1972, the British author and art critic John Berger theorized thatwe react to photographs of atrocities with despair or in us a dignation, adding that both responses leave "personal moral inadequacy."25 feeling In contrast, I believe theMy Lai photographs can help us reflect on our responsibilities as humans and as citizens. Such reflection two questions: First,What might begin with does this photograph tell us about our country's position in theworld? The disbelief that our soldiers could murder defenseless women and children may stem from a belief in America's moral superiority. As Thompson put it, "we are supposed to be the good guys in thewhite hats." That attitude accords with a particular religious form of exceptional notion is the that the States United different from other countries. Since ism, qualitatively to a "a reference 1630 hill," many have believed thatAmerica John city upon Winthrop's is a Christian nation?pure in itsmotives and altruistic in its actions. That our soldiers executed defenseless women and children as they pleaded for their lives forces a reconsid eration of this version of exceptionalism. Robert Rhealt, the former commander of U.S. Special Forces inVietnam, denied any moral superiority, insisting, "American troops are
as capable as any other of committing atrocities."26

Four officers and nine enlisted men were charged with the massacre. Many others es were no caped charges because they had left the army and longer subject tomilitary jus were massacre. Most cases were tice. Twelve other officers charged with covering up the were tried. Four were dismissed. Of the twenty-five charged, only five acquitted.22 At his trial,Calley insisted he was following orders fromMedina. He spoke of an "en emy I couldn't see, I couldn't feel, and I couldn't touch" that had "massacred and mauled" his troops. He conflated the villagers with that enemy, adding, "when it became between me and that enemy, I had to value the lives ofmy troops, and I feel that is the only crime I have committed."23 On March 29, 1971, a panel of six officers convicted Calley of the civilians. He was sentenced to life im premeditated murder of twenty-two Vietnamese at hard labor. prisonment White House Many Americans strongly opposed Calley's conviction. Nixon said the received more than 5,000 telegrams, "running 100 to 1 in favor of clemency." In a Gallup telephone survey ofAmericans, 79 percent disapproved of the verdict, 81 percent thought the life sentence was too harsh, and 69 percent thought Calley had been made a scape goat.24Nixon ordered him transferred from prison to house arrest. In 1974 the secretary of the army pardoned Calley, after he had served three and a half years.

Second, What does this photograph tell us about our personal ethics and morals? To to deny one of themost look away?is ignore this photograph?to powerful ways to re member themassacre. As Susan Sontag insists, an ethical act."27 is While "Remembering it can never restore these seven victims to life, a way of is their remembering suffering
atMylai," 47. Kolko, and Robert Jay Lifton (New York, 1971), 444. "Americans Speak Out on theMassacre 22 On the military justice system's treatment of the soldiers involved in the and My Lai massacre, see Olson Roberts, My Lai. 23 "Remember My Lai." 24 Richard Nixon, RN: TheMemoirs ofRichard Nixon "ANewsweek Poll on (New York, 1978), 449-50. Calley's Fate," Newsweek, April 12, 1971, p. 28. 25 Peter Wollen, 18, 2003, "Shooting Wars," Nation, Sept. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031006/ wollen/2. 26 "Remember My Lai." Sevy, ed., American Experience in Vietnam, 129. 27 Susan Sontag, Regarding thePain ofOthers (New York, 2003), in original. 115. Emphasis

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162 The Journal ofAmerican History

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2007

the picture and accepting our responsibility as citizens in honoring them. Contemplating whose name theVietnam War was waged can be an act of contrition. When American forces liberated theNazi death camps in World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, theAllied commander, ordered ordinary Germans to walk through the concentration camps to see the bodies. He wanted them to witness what their govern ment had done, and he wanted proof against denials theHolocaust had occurred. Germa war was lost the and forced ny by theAllied victors to apologize for its atrocities. America lost theVietnam War but was not conquered. Nobody will force us to apologize for My Lai. Nobody will force us to look at this photograph and remember these victims. We
must choose to do so.

To contemplate this photograph and reflect on its meaning does not mean we are wal not mean we our in collective guilt. It does hate country or support its enemies. It lowing
does not mean we condone atrocities committed

means we defeatist or unpatriotic. Rather, it acknowledge themoral ambiguity inherent in all wars and accept the evil our country has perpetrated along with the good. is unpatriotic is to believe that God approves of everything our country does What and to adopt a "my-country-right-or-wrong" attitude, because those positions let us abdi cate our responsibility to govern ourselves. True patriotism requires acting on this photo graph's testimony thatAmericans committed atrocity. That knowledge should teach our to launch war only as the most extreme option. It should teach our military politicians leaders to control our soldiers. It should teach our soldiers to respect the lives of defense less civilians. It should teach us to speak out during current and futurewars. An Alabama woman said of themassacre, "I think we'll forget all about it as soon as
crisis comes along. We don't have very long memories as a nation."28 It need not

by

our

opponents.

It does

not make

us

another

be so. The number 504 is a forgettable abstraction, but the photograph of the 7 villag ersmakes what on March 16, 1968, concrete. We can use it and similar pho happened to remember My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and other misdeeds American soldiers have tographs committed. We can voice and vote our position on the government's policy and practice of war. Whether or not our position prevails, we will be exercising our responsibility as
citizens.

28

"Americans Speak Out

on theMassacre

atMylai,"

47.

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