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Title: Four Hours in My Lai by Michael Bilton, Kevin Sim ISBN: 0-14-017709-4 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating and Disturbing
Comment: I purchased this book when I was writing a sociology paper on crime and deviance. I read numerous books about My Lai and this outstanding book stands as a shining testament to the authors' though research efforts concerning this controversial 'incident'. The British authors provide an unprejudiced and comprehensive chronological recount of the series of events and institutional factors that surrounded Charlie Company's massacre of Vietnamese civilians during the 'Vietnam Conflict'. Interviews with ex-members of Carlie Company are complemented with an unparalleled recounting of the historical facts. The authors detail the chain of command within the US army, the US's policy agenda relating to the 'Vietnam Conflict', an attempt by officers to cover-up the massacre and the subsequent prosecution and defence of those who were brought to trial. Vague orders, a guerilla warfare scenario, an endemic culture of racism that promoted the dehumanisation of the Vietnamese people, an altered moral sphere, a revenge filled frenzy and soldiers' unquestioning deference to authority were among factors that contributed to the massacre. This book is both disturbing and fascinating and will provide the reader with a valuable insight into the US's military institution during the troubled times of the late sixties and early seventies.
Rating: 5
Summary: Shocking.
Comment: It is a shocking book that left my stomach in a knot. There is no indication that the Troops in Charlie were battle scarred as the synopsis here at Amazon states. In fact, the troops had seen very little action (according to the authors) and had been there for only three months. It will sicken you to the core with its graphic details of rape, mutilation, pyschological abuse, wanton destruction, torture and cold blooded murder and mass execution of babies, toddlers, kids and their parents, the sick and elderly by American Troops in the undefended village of My Lai, Vietnam. It gets worse. The authors reveal how High ranking Officers covered up this massacre and politicians (some still in power today) and the American people overwhelmingly supported this disgusting event. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. Lest we forget.
Rating: 5
Summary: Strangers in a strange land
Comment: An excellent and even-handed book. As a father of four, I would take my helmet off to Thompson and hope that I would have done the same thing in those circumstances.
However, as a jumpy eighteen-year-old who had spent three months seeing his buddies slaughtered in booby trap after booby trap, having their heads blown off by snipers you never see or get to track, Army trucks full of draftees decimated by grenades thrown by smiling elderly villagers and children, I really don't know how much I would have given a damn for any village anywhere in that country.
Yes, the massacre was wrong, and thank God for men like Thompson, but if anybody is going to judge My Lai or any other total breakdown of discipline and artificially-sustained morality, it should be men and women who have served in extreme combat environments, not bourgeois middle-class Liberals who have never had to get their hands dirty.
Vietnam was a filthy war, and because it never had a distinct purpose or Win Scenario driving it, it was a pointless war. Ironically, one of the things that triggered My Lai was the very fear and frustration generated by the VC's own tactics, including the mutilation of American corpses and the constant goading and provocation that GI's had to endure.
This was the same Enemy that massacred French garrisons and lined the approach roads with the severed heads of the defenders to demoralize the relief columns. The same Enemy that even booby trapped live babies in order to kill American soldiers and shock them into a state of psychological collapse.
Read the book, by all means, and be outraged. Yet while the massacre can never be justified, with the kind of background, only some of which I have just outlined, it can perhaps be understood - above all, as others have rightly said, in the absence of strong leadership and the stability provided by having a good sprinkling of experienced Vets throughout the Company.
No, it should never have happened, but then, neither should the War.
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Title: Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow ISBN: 0140265473 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Nuremberg : Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico ISBN: 014016622X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Lieutenant Calley: his own story by John Sack ISBN: 0670428213 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 1971 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Why The North Won The Vietnam War by Marc Jason Gilbert ISBN: 0312295278 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 31 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Brian VanDeMark, Robert S. McNamara ISBN: 0679767495 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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