PBS’s Frontline is arguably the finest show on television today. It’s new season began last night with an insightful and graphic documentary – Obama’s War – a look at the Afghanistan war. As the President ponders his next move, Frontline explores both sides of the issues, deploy more troops or walk away from a war that possibly cannot be won.
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If you missed it, you can view Obama’s War online.
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William Calley, the only man convicted of one of the worst war crimes in US history – the My Lai massacre – apologizes.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai, “ William Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus today. His voice started to break when he added, “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”
I find it difficult if not impossible to feel anything but moral outrage over Mr. Calley and his hallow words when reminded of what happened at My Lai on that day.
The Wikipedia entry…
The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children, and elderly people.
Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe of Son My village during the Vietnam War. While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. He served only three years of an original life sentence, while on house arrest.
When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. Three U.S. servicemen who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were denounced by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Only 30 years after the event were their efforts honored.
I’ll choose to believe that the vast majority of men and women who serve in the Armed Forces are decent people out to do a job. It’s the William Calleys as are the people behind Abu Ghraib who are a disgrace to the country. The following from the comment section expresses it well:
I was also stressed when I served as an infantryman with the 25th Division in 1968, but I never understood how an American soldier could have participated in the large scale killings than occurred that day in My Lai. Awful things occur during battle, of course. But for me, I would have rather put a bullet in my own head than push dozens women and children into a ditch and shooting them. Calley, his chain of command, and the others responsible should have paid for their crimes.
Your thoughts?
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Via the DailyDish comes this reminder of wars being fought and the brave souls who fight them…
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Serenity Miller, 4, clings to her father Cpt. David Miller after he and fellow U.S. Army soldiers arrived home from Iraq on August 18, 2009 to Fort Carson, Colorado. Approximately 575 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat team from the 4th Infantry Division returned Tuesday following a 12 month deployment to Iraq. By John Moore/Getty.
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A close friend told me he joined the Army to see the world and joked he didn’t realize how much of the world was covered in desert. His comment brought to mind the beginning of the War on Terror and resulting 24/7 news channels’ courting of War. There were ceaseless maps, diagrams, experts, embed reports, and when war casualties ensued– reports of how many died that particular day complete with a profile or two of selected fallen. All other news was relegated to bottom screen crawls or sound bite news seconds.
Over the last six years News has lost interest. It’s taken more glamorous mistresses than old ugly conflicts and relegated its war maps, diagrams, experts, and embedded sweethearts to the country house. News’s most recent 24/7 paramours have been a celebrity death complete with medical and death experts, familial gets, and a grave expert (huh?); the Sotomayor hearings with legal and reverse racism experts; the Dem/Repub health care reform stalemate with health care and political experts; the policeman/homeowner incident with legal and racism experts; and the most gleaming inamorata of all, News consorting with its own self. Did it over cover a story? Is its reporting balanced? All these stories are absolutely newsworthy but should news of troop and civilian war casualties be consigned to bottom screen crawls or sound bite seconds?
Our troops have been dispatched around the world by this Nation to defend her interests. Sometimes these individuals are in mid-desert with no amenities or hygiene products, living with sand in their eyes, mouth, ears and soul. When they do return to Base the store shelves are often empty and some of our troops have no mail, no pedestrian news of home. When these individuals die, their deaths impact whole families and towns. We can but imagine the impact on significant others who have had their lives fragmented in a roadside bomb instant, on now motherless/fatherless children who are either too young to understand anything beyond Mommy or Daddy won’t be home to push them on a swing anymore or old enough to understand one parent can no longer attend their life events.
No matter your feelings about war, about violence, these enlisted men and women deserve our everyday thanks and recognition. They deserve to be more than a news afterthought or statistical crawl at the bottom of the screen. They deserve to know our Nation’s people appreciate them. Hence, if moved to do so, adopt a soldier if you can, or send the occasional anonymous care package or write letters, anything to let these men and women who fight and die to protect how we live know we acknowledge their sacrifice, that they aren’t an afterthought, they are lead stories in our hearts and prayers, let them know they will never be reduced to a news crawl at the bottom of our thoughts.
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My brother Ron and I had a favorite summer game when we were children. We’d play war. Those were the days when Combat was a hit television series and one of the top comic books was Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Ron and I were the envy of all our buddies, for you see, we had real WWII army helmets to place on our heads and a real WWII backpack which we filled with stones to give it weight and make it that much more real.
We’d trudge through the combat grounds of that huge empty field behind our childhood home and eat peanut butter sandwiches in a foxhole we spent a week digging. War, at least in the eyes of a 10 year old, was a glorious thing.
And then, one summer morning, it all ended for us. Heading down to the cellar where our dad kept his WWII mementos – the German helmets, the backpack, the bayonet, eating utensils and the rest of it - we found only empty shelves. We soon discovered that our dad had thrown it all out. The war years was a time of his life he wanted to forget, at least for the period of time his children were young.
In time, I came to learn that June 6 1944 was a day that forever changed my dad’s perception of the world. He barely spoke of the war but for the few times he did, his eyes would fill with tears and his voice would tremble. He’d try to recount, in bits and pieces, the hell of the D-Day landing. And as he spoke of Normandy, his eyes would glaze and he’d look passed us as if that ugliest of days was playing out before him once more.
He could never recount much of that day before he’d break down and put his head down and cry. What I did pick up though was that my dad was only one of about 10 in his barge who lived to remember that day. As a young man I had read accounts of D-Day but it was not until watching Saving Private Ryan did I begin to get a sense of what it must have been like to land on the beaches of Normandy on that fateful day.
And so, to Joseph Piperni, corporal in the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, and to every other man and woman of the 156,000 who stepped foot on the beaches of Normandy, be you American, Canadian, British or other nationality, you will forever have my praise, respect and gratitude.
On that day, a day when over 10,000 allied troops were killed, wounded or went missing, you changed the course of history.
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