The Long Term Affects

During the time of the My Lai Massacre, I was 12 or 13. In case some of you don’t remember or are to young to know, A group of soldiers known as Charlie Company led by Lt. William Callie went into My Lai, a Vietnamese village filled with only old men, women, and children, and they slaughtered 400 of these innocent people. If it had not been for the heroic action of another soldier, who landed his helicopter between the Vietnamese and Charlie Company, there would have been more than 400 dead. IN fact, one man shot himself in the foot so he could be air lifted out and not have to kill the innocent. For more information go here: http://www.rotten.com/library/history/war-crimes/my-lai-massacre/ and then I think of the words to that song, "War, good god y’all, what is it good for, absolutely nothing" and then I wish that our soldiers didn’t have to go there and make those choices of going along with the orders or the crowd or what ever and commit these acts against humanity. For a men to kill innocent men, women, and especially children, there has to be a major flaw in their personalities, and unfortunately for us, many of those flawed personalities are in charge of our men and women serving in Iraq. This brings me to what it was I was trying to say. The press coverage of the Mi Lai Massacre has haunted me for decades. I wasn’t there, I didn’t shoot or see anyone get shot, but I did see the trials, read the papers, and learned, over time, the atrocities that were committed. It affected me. If this affects me so, and sometimes I find it hard to cope, how will those soldiers who are there and who witnessing or participating in the killings and torturing fare? It’s so time for this war to end and for our boys and girls to come home.