It was early spring of 1967. U. S. military officials strongly suspected Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam, as being a Viet Cong stronghold. Military officials declared the province a free-fire zone and subjected it to frequent, violent bombing missions and artillery attacks. By the end of 1967, most of the dwellings in the province had been destroyed and nearly 140,000 Vietnamese civilians were left without homes. The war had taken on a hard-nosed character of its own; it was getting bloodier. By March of 1968, many in the company had given in to an easy pattern of violence. Soldiers systematically beat unarmed civilians. Some civilians were murdered. Whole villages were burned. Wells were poisoned. Rapes were common. On March 16, 1968, Captain Ernest Medina ordered Charlie Company, a unit of the U.S. Eleventh Light Infantry Brigade, into combat. The 150 soldiers, led by Lt. William Calley, stormed into the hamlet, and four hours later more than 500 civilians, mostly unarmed women, children, babies and elderly people, were dead. The objective of the U.S. military mission was clear: search and destroy the My Lai hamlet.…
