History 1BB3: America and the World: The Twentieth Century

Dr. Stephen M. Streeter

McMaster University, Winter 2002

 

Tutorial 8

Putting a Single Event Into Historical Context: Interpreting the My Lai Massacre

Introduction:

Certain episodes stand out when we think about the American past. One such event was the My Lai massacre, which occurred during the Vietnam War. That American soldiers committed atrocities against Vietnamese civilians in My Lai is not in doubt. Much more controversial is how we attach meaning to this gruesome episode in American history. The background reading describes the massacre itself in detail. In source 1 a renowned expert in the trauma of warfare discusses the psychological difficulties that many Americans experienced in coming to grips with My Lai. In source 2, a popular American historian compares the My Lai incident to similar atrocities committed in other wars. Source 3 presents Vietnamese views about My Lai as well as other war crimes committed by Americans in Vietnam. Source 4 presents an official Vietcong perspective on the My Lai massacre.

Background Reading

James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, My Lai: A Brief History with Documents (1998), pp. 1-25

Sources:

1. "Americans in Vietnam: The Lessons of My Lai" in War Crimes and the American Conscience (1970), pp. 104-27 [edited transcript of the proceedings of the Congressional Conference on War and National Responsibility, Washington, D.C., 1970]
2. Stephen Ambrose, "Atrocities in Historical Perspective," in Facing My Lai, ed. David L. Anderson (1998), pp. 107-120
3. Martha Hess, Then the Americans Came (1993), pp. 84-86, 133-34, 167, 175-77
4. "A Vietcong Leaflet on My Lai" reprinted in America First Hand: Readings from Reconstruction to the Present, vol. 2 (1997), pp. 281-82

Discussion Questions:

1. Is the My Lai massacre a human rights violation of the kind that inevitably occurs in wars, or is there something different about this particular atrocity related to the way that the Americans were fighting in Vietnam?
2. Who was responsible for the My Lai massacre?
3. How did Americans and Vietnamese react to the massacre?

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