A Desire for Revenge

The root of the My Lai Massacre happened a few days before the actually event. My Lai was located in the South Vietnamese district of Son My, a heavily mined area of Vietcong entrenchment. The week before the massacre occurred a small squad of American soldiers, called the Charlie Company, were patrolling the area and hit a booby trap put there by the Viet Cong. This trap killed a sergeant that was favored around camp, blinded a GI soldier and wounded several other men.

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The Orders

During the memorial service, Captain Medina started to give the rest of his troops a pep talk about the next mission they were to go on. Medina, being very vague in his speech, told these soldiers that there were many Viet Cong soldiers living in the village of My Lai 4, and to be cautious. Because of the obscurity of these orders, the men were led to believe that the entire village was occupied by enemy and Viet Cong supporters. Little did these soldiers know that they would soon be entering a village full of innocent civilians. As the members of the Charlie Company entered the village on March 16th 1968 they were told, "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy." (5)