The Son My Memorial is a memorial for the victims of the My Lai Massacre, where US soldiers killed 504 unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War on March 16, 1968. The victims included men, women, children, and infants; some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies were mutilated.
Although 26 soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, only the platoon leader, Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., was convicted. He was originally given a life sentence, but ended up only serving 3.5 years of house arrest.
The walkways around the memorial are made to reflect what the town roads would have looked like the day of the massacre - villager and American soldier footprints, bike tire tracks, and small shell impact craters give a sense of the horror and mayhem that took place that day.
The museum on the memorial grounds was also very moving - it showed the destruction of the village and included photos taken by an American photographer of dead and dying villagers. The story of Office Thompson is also on exhibit - he was an American officer who arrived during the massacre and managed to save some of the villagers. He instructed his men to open fire on American soldiers if they tried to intervene and kill the innocent children.
The My Lai massacre was captured on camera by Ronald Haeberle, an army photographer. He took pictures with both the army camera as well as with his own color camera. He sold his personal photos to the media.
No comments:
Post a Comment