My Lai

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My Lai, a hamlet in Quang Ngai Province was the site of a massacre of several hundred women and children in March 1968, just after the Tet offensive.

Circumstances

A US Army platoon commanded by Lt. William Calley forced unarmed Vietnamese into ditches and killed them.

U.S. criminal process

He and his immediate superior Capt. Medina were both tried in military courts. Medina was found innocent, but Calley was found guilty and served four years in prison; his sentence of life imprisonment was commuted in 1975 by President Richard Nixon. The case became a focus of national guilt and self-doubt, with antiwar leaders alleging there were many atrocities that had been successfully covered up.[1]

References

  1. ↑ Michal R. Belknap, The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley (2002). excerpt and text search; "Famous American Trials: The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970" online
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