Seymour Hersh Speech; very powerful ( My Lai Massacre )

Machette

Read this in the adbusters and in my opinion its the most powerful speech I've read in a while...here it is

...a group of soldiers in 1968 went into a village. They had been in Vietnam for three months and lost about 10 percent of their people - maybe 10 or 15 - to accidents, killings and bombings. There were 550 women, children and old men in the village and they executed them all. It took a day. They stopped in the middle and they had lunch. The black and Hispanic soldiers - about 40 of them, there were about 90 men in the unit - shot into the air. They wouldn't shoot at the villagers in the ditch. The soldiers collected people in the three ditches and just began to shoot them. The blacks and Hispanices shot up in the air, but mostly the white, lower middle class soldiers - the kids who join the Army Reserve today and National Guard looking for extra dollars - those kind of kids did the killing. One of them was a man named Paul Medlow, who did an awful lot of shooting. The next day, there was moment that everybody remebered afterward. One of the mothers at the bottom of the ditch had taken a child - a boy, about two - and got him under her stomach in such a way that he wasn't killed. When they were sitting having the K rations, the kid somehow crawled up through the bodies and began screaming. And Calley, the famous Lieutenant Calley, the Lynndie England of that tragedy, told Medlow: Kill him "Plug Him", he said. And Medlow somehow, who had done an awful lot as I say - 200 bullets - couldn't do it. So Calley ran up as everybody watched, with his carbine. Calley had a smaller weapon, a rifle, and shot the kid in the back of the head. The next morning, Medlow stepped on a mine and he had his foot blown off. He was being medevaced out. As he was being medevaced out, he cursed and everybody remebered one of the chilling lines he said. "God has punished me, and he's going to punish you, too"

Fucking chilling statement...

It's not copy and pasted so their could possibly be spelling mistakes..

ninty · 05-13-2005, 03:26 PM

messed up annoy:

Johnj · 05-13-2005, 06:12 PM

And the point of bringing up this particular part of history would be?

Whatada · 05-13-2005, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnj

And the point of bringing up this particular part of history would be?

It wasn't because it was a Vietnam murder story. It was because he thought it was a powerful story.

Machette · 05-13-2005, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnj

And the point of bringing up this particular part of history would be?

That's like saying anything to do with history is irrelevant... annoy:

pos hick

Jimbo@ · 05-13-2005, 09:04 PM

I believe that was the Mai Lai massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

Johnj · 05-14-2005, 05:30 AM

I know it's about the Mai Lai massacre, I asked what prompted the posting. Also what makes you think that statement means that I think history is irrelevant. Your bringing up an ugly part of America's history for some purpose aren't you.

Stammer · 05-14-2005, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnj

I know it's about the Mai Lai massacre, I asked what prompted the posting. Also what makes you think that statement means that I think history is irrelevant. Your bringing up an ugly part of America's history for some purpose aren't you.

So your saying that we should never look back? Americans have commited war crimes too and we shouldn't just brush them off as "ugly parts". The whole point of drudging things up like this is shove it in peoples face and say you better not forget, why do you think schools talk about the Holocaust all the time, and slavery?

Johnj · 05-14-2005, 08:30 AM

I didn't say that at all, I questioned the purpose of the post. Could be that you should think before you act because you don't know what the result will really be. Those men were told by their officers that this massacre was justified. Those officers were punished and in retrospect the men feel bad and that "God" is going to punish them.

This is the kind of shit that is going to happen when your country goes and plays at waging war.

BTWIMO the men who were really guilty of the crimes commited at Mai Lai will never be punished in this realm.

Machette · 05-14-2005, 09:36 AM

I posted it for feedback..I wanted to know what and how they feel about this speech.

Ferich · 05-14-2005, 09:53 AM

[quote:98dfb]A US Army scout helicopter crew famously halted the massacre by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and told them he would open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians.

While the other two members of the helicopter crew — Spc. Lawrence Colburn and Spc. Glenn Andreotta — brandished their heavy weapons at the men who had participated in the atrocity, Thompson directed an evacuation of the village. The crewmembers have been credited with saving at least 11 lives, but were long thereafter reviled as traitors. On April 8, 1968, Glenn Andreotta and Charles Dutton, crewmen on an OH-13 (62-03813) "Warlord" scout were killed when their aircraft was shot down, crashed and burned. It was not until exactly thirty years later, following a television report concerning the incident, that the three were awarded the Soldier's Medal, the army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.[/quote:98dfb]

Think I'd do the same, if I were in that crew's position.

Machette · 05-14-2005, 10:05 AM

interesting.

Madmartagen · 05-14-2005, 11:21 AM

true, no excuse for killing unarmed women and children. i would like to think i would have done the same thing.

Tripper · 05-14-2005, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferich

[quote:0b4b9]A US Army scout helicopter crew famously halted the massacre by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and told them he would open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians.

While the other two members of the helicopter crew — Spc. Lawrence Colburn and Spc. Glenn Andreotta — brandished their heavy weapons at the men who had participated in the atrocity, Thompson directed an evacuation of the village. The crewmembers have been credited with saving at least 11 lives, but were long thereafter reviled as traitors. On April 8, 1968, Glenn Andreotta and Charles Dutton, crewmen on an OH-13 (62-03813) "Warlord" scout were killed when their aircraft was shot down, crashed and burned. It was not until exactly thirty years later, following a television report concerning the incident, that the three were awarded the Soldier's Medal, the army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.

Think I'd do the same, if I were in that crew's position.[/quote:0b4b9]

I'd never even heard that part of the story before - It's good to hear that at least someone went out of their way to challenge such an atrocity.