来自越南的信 犯罪现场
作者：西摩·赫什 2015 年 3 月 23 日
大屠杀发生时，美莱博物馆馆长范青功 (Pham Thanh Cong) 十一岁。 他的母亲和四个兄弟姐妹...
美莱博物馆馆长范清功（Pham Thanh Cong）在大屠杀时十一岁。 他的母亲和四个兄弟姐妹去世了。 他说：“我们原谅，但我们不会忘记。”摄影：Katie Orlinsky
美莱村有一条长长的水沟。 1968 年 3 月 16 日早上，这里挤满了死者的尸体——数十名妇女、儿童和老人，全部被年轻的美国士兵枪杀。 四十七年后的今天，美莱村的沟渠似乎比我在屠杀新闻照片中看到的还要宽：侵蚀和时间的作用。 越南战争期间，附近有一片稻田，但现在已将其铺平，以使每年数以千计的游客更容易到达美莱村，这些游客会走过描述这一可怕事件的简陋标记。 美莱村大屠杀是这场误打误撞的战争中的关键时刻：一支由大约一百名士兵组成的美国分遣队，被称为查理连，在收到糟糕的情报后，以为他们会遇到越共军队或同情者，结果在早餐时只发现了一个和平的村庄。 。 然而，查理连的士兵强奸了妇女，烧毁了房屋，并将他们的 M-16 步枪转向了美莱村手无寸铁的平民。 这次袭击的领导人之一是威廉·L·卡利中尉，他是一名从迈阿密大专退学的人。
到1969年初，查理公司的大部分成员都结束了旅行并返回家乡。 当时我是华盛顿特区的一名三十二岁的自由记者。我决心了解年轻人——实际上是男孩——是如何做到这一点的，因此我花了数周时间追踪他们。 在很多情况下，他们会公开地、大部分是诚实地与我交谈，描述他们在美莱村所做的事情以及他们计划如何带着那段记忆生活。
在陆军调查前的证词中，一些士兵承认自己在沟渠里，但声称他们违反了卡利的杀戮命令。 他们说，其中一名主要枪手以及卡利本人是一等兵保罗·米德洛。 真相仍然难以捉摸，但一名 G.I. 我后来了解到，他向我描述了他的大多数战友都清楚地记得的一个时刻。 在卡利的命令下，米德罗等人向沟渠里开了一枪又一枪，并扔了几颗手榴弹。
随后传来一声尖锐的哀鸣声，声音越来越大，一个浑身是泥和血的两三岁男孩在尸体中爬行，爬向稻田。 他的母亲很可能用她的身体保护了他。 据目击者称，卡利看到了发生的事情，并追赶孩子，把他拖回沟里，把他扔进去，然后开枪射杀了他。
屠杀发生的第二天早上，米德洛在例行巡逻时踩到地雷，右脚被炸掉。 在等待直升机送往野战医院时，他谴责了卡利。 “上帝会因为你让我做的事而惩罚你，”一名大兵说。 米德洛回忆道。
“把他带上直升机！” 卡莱喊道。
米德洛一直咒骂卡利，直到直升机到达。
米德洛在印第安纳州西部的农场长大。 经过很长一段时间，我把一毛钱投入公用电话，给全州的信息运营商打电话，终于在特雷霍特附近的小镇新戈申找到了一个米德洛家族。 接电话的是一位女士，原来是保罗的母亲默特尔。 我说我是一名记者，正在写有关越南的事情。 我问保罗近况如何，并想知道第二天我是否可以过来和他谈谈。 她告诉我欢迎我尝试。
米德洛斯一家住在一个摇摇欲坠的养鸡场里，有一栋带有隔板壁板的小房子。 当我把租来的车停下来时，默特尔出来迎接我，并说保罗在里面，尽管她不知道他是否会说话，也不知道他会说什么。 显然他没有告诉她太多关于越南的事情。 然后默特尔说了一句话，总结了一场我越来越讨厌的战争：“我派给他们一个好孩子，他们却把他变成了杀人犯。”
米德洛邀请我进去并同意谈话。 他二十二岁。 他在前往越南之前结了婚，和妻子育有一个两岁半的儿子和一个尚在襁褓中的女儿。 尽管受伤，他还是在工厂工作以养家糊口。 我请他给我看他的伤口并告诉我治疗的情况。 他摘下假肢并描述了自己的经历。 没过多久，话题就转向了美莱。 米德罗不停地说着，显然迫切地想要重新获得一些自尊。 他毫无感情地描述了卡利的杀戮命令。 他没有为自己在美莱村所做的事情辩护，只是说这些杀戮“确实减轻了我良心上的负担”，因为“我们失去了朋友。 这只是报复，仅此而已。”
米德洛讲述了他的行为
乏味、令人震惊的细节。 “[美莱]本来应该有一些越共分子，我们开始对其进行扫荡，”他告诉我。 “我们一到那里就开始聚集人们。 。 。 开始把他们分成大群。 村子中央大概有四十、四十五个平民围成一个大圈。 。 。 。 卡利让我和其他几个人去看他们。” 据他回忆，十分钟后卡利回来告诉他：“接受吧。 我要他们死。” 米德洛说，卡利从大约十到十五英尺远的地方“开始向他们射击。 然后他告诉我开始拍摄它们。 。 。 。 我开始向他们开枪，但其他人不肯这么做。 所以我们”——米德洛和卡利——“直接杀了他们。” 米德洛估计他已经杀了圈子里的十五个人。 “我们都听从命令，”他说。 “我们都认为我们正在做正确的事情。 当时这并没有困扰我。” 有官方证词显示，米德洛实际上对卡利的命令感到极度痛苦。 查理连的一名士兵回忆道，在卡利让他“照顾好这群人”后，米德洛和一名战友“实际上是在和孩子们玩耍，告诉人们在哪里坐下，并给孩子们糖果。” 当卡利回来并说他希望他们死时，士兵说：“米德洛只是看着他，好像不敢相信。 他说，‘浪费它们？’”当卡利说是的时候，另一名士兵作证，米德洛和卡利“敞开心扉，开始开火。” 但随后米德洛“开始哭泣”。
哥伦比亚广播公司的迈克·华莱士对我的采访很感兴趣，米德洛同意在国家电视台上再次讲述他的故事。 演出前一天晚上，我在 Meadlo 家里的沙发上度过，第二天早上与 Meadlo 和他的妻子一起飞往纽约。 有时间交谈，我了解到米德洛在日本的一家陆军医院花了数周时间进行康复治疗。 回国后，他对自己在越南的经历只字不提。 一天晚上，他回来后不久，他的妻子在其中一间儿童房里歇斯底里的哭声中醒来。 她冲进去，发现保罗正在猛烈地摇晃孩子。
华盛顿特区一位年轻的反战律师杰弗里·考恩 (Geoffrey Cowan) 向我透露了有关美莱村的消息。考恩几乎没有什么具体信息，但他听说一位不愿透露姓名的大兵在 发疯了，杀死了数十名越南平民。 三年前，当我为美联社报道五角大楼时，从战争中归来的军官告诉我正在发生的越南平民被杀害的情况。 有一天，在追踪考恩的线索时，我遇到了一位年轻的陆军上校，我曾在五角大楼击败过他。 他在越南腿部受伤，在康复期间得知自己将晋升为将军。 他现在在一个负责战争日常事务的办公室工作。 当我问他对那个无名大兵了解多少时，他用尖锐而愤怒的眼神看着我，然后开始用手敲打膝盖。 “那个男孩卡利没有射出比这更高的球，”他说。
我有一个名字。 在当地的一家图书馆，我发现了《泰晤士报》中埋藏的一篇短篇故事，内容是关于一名卡利中尉被陆军指控在南越谋杀了数量不详的平民的故事。 我找到了卡利，他被陆军藏在乔治亚州哥伦布本宁堡的高级军官宿舍里。 那时，军队里有人允许我阅读一份机密指控单并做笔记，指控卡利有预谋地谋杀了一百零九名“东方人”。
卡利看起来一点也不邪恶。 他是一个二十多岁的瘦小、紧张的男人，皮肤苍白，几乎半透明。 他努力让自己看起来很坚强。 喝了很多啤酒后，他告诉我他和他的士兵如何在美莱村的一场激烈交火中与敌人交战并杀死敌人。 我们聊了一夜。 有一次，卡利借口借口去洗手间。 他把门半开着，我可以看到他正在吐血。
1969 年 11 月，我写了五篇关于卡利、米德洛和大屠杀的文章。 我去《生活与展望》杂志没有成功，所以我转而求助于华盛顿的一家小型反战通讯社——《特派新闻社》。 那是一个焦虑和不安日益加剧的时期。 理查德·尼克松 (Richard Nixon) 通过承诺结束战争赢得了 1968 年大选，但他真正的计划是通过升级和秘密轰炸来赢得战争。 1969 年，每个月有多达 1500 名美国士兵被杀——几乎与前一年持平。
霍默·比加特、伯纳德·法尔、大卫·哈尔伯斯坦、尼尔·希恩、马尔科姆·布朗、弗朗西斯·菲茨杰拉德、格洛丽亚·爱默生、莫利·塞弗和沃德·贾斯特等战地记者从战场上发出了无数的快讯，越来越清楚地表明这场战争在道德上毫无根据，在战略上失败了 ，与西贡和华盛顿的军事和政治官员向公众描述的情况完全不同。 1969年11月15日，两日
在我发表第一篇美莱快讯后不久，华盛顿举行了一场反战游行，吸引了五十万人参加。 尼克松最信任的助手兼执行者 H. R. 霍尔德曼 (H. R. Haldeman) 在椭圆形办公室做了笔记，这些笔记在 18 年后被公开。 他们透露，1969 年 12 月 1 日，在保罗·米德洛的揭露引发强烈抗议时，尼克松批准使用“肮脏的伎俩”来抹黑大屠杀的关键证人。 1971年，陆军陪审团判定卡利犯有大规模谋杀罪，并判处他终身苦役，尼克松进行了干预，下令将卡利从陆军监狱释放，并软禁以等待审查。 尼克松卸任三个月后，卡利获释，并在接下来的几年里在他岳父位于佐治亚州哥伦布的珠宝店工作，并为愿意付费的记者提供自私的采访。 最后，在 2009 年，他在基瓦尼斯俱乐部的一次演讲中表示，“我无时无刻不在为美莱感到悔恨”，但他却在执行命令——“我猜这是愚蠢的”。 卡利现年七十一岁。 他是唯一因参与美莱村大屠杀而被定罪的警官。
1970 年 3 月，陆军调查对包括将军和上校在内的 14 名军官提出了从谋杀到玩忽职守等多项指控，指控他们掩盖大屠杀。 除了卡利之外，只有一名军官最终面临军事法庭，并被判无罪。
“现在给他们打电话已经太晚了——他们已经睡熟了。 他们住在康涅狄格州！”
几个月后，在校园广泛反战抗议活动最激烈的时候——其中包括俄亥俄州国民警卫队杀害了四名学生——我去了明尼苏达州圣保罗的马卡莱斯特学院，发表了一场反对战争的演讲。 战争。 休伯特·汉弗莱曾是林登·约翰逊忠实的副总统，现在是该学院的政治学教授。 他在 1968 年的选举中输给了尼克松，部分原因是他无法将自己与林登·约翰逊的越南政策分开。 演讲结束后，汉弗莱要求与我交谈。 “我对你没有意见，赫什先生，”他说。 “你正在做你的工作，而且做得很好。 但是，至于那些走来走去说‘嘿，嘿，L.B.J.，你今天杀了多少个孩子？’的孩子们？”汉弗莱的肉圆的脸涨红了，他的声音每说一句话就变得更大。 “我说，‘操他们，操他们，操他们。’”
几个月前，我和家人第一次访问了美莱村（美国陆军对这个村庄的称呼）。 回到案发现场对于一定年龄的记者来说已经是老生常谈了，但我却无法抗拒。 1970 年初，我曾向南越政府寻求许可，但当时五角大楼正在进行内部调查，该地区已不对外人开放。 我于 1972 年加入《泰晤士报》，并访问了北越的河内。 1980 年，西贡沦陷五年后，我再次前往越南为一本书进行采访，并为《泰晤士报》做更多报道。 我以为我知道有关大屠杀的全部或大部分内容。 当然，我错了。
美莱村位于越南中部，距离连接河内和胡志明市（现在的西贡）的 1 号高速公路不远。 美莱博物馆馆长范清功（Pham Thanh Cong）是大屠杀的幸存者。 当我们第一次见面时，丛是一个五十多岁的严肃、矮胖的男人，很少谈论他的个人经历，只使用生硬、熟悉的短语。 他形容越南人是“热情好客的人民”，并避免任何指责。 “我们原谅，但我们不会忘记，”他说。 后来，当我们坐在小博物馆外的长凳上时，他描述了他记忆中的大屠杀。 那一年，丛十一岁。 他说，当美国直升机降落在村庄时，他和母亲以及四个兄弟姐妹挤在茅草屋顶房屋内的一个原始掩体中。 美国士兵命令他们离开掩体，然后将他们推回掩体，向他们扔了一枚手榴弹，并用 M-16 开火。 聪的三个部位受伤——头皮、躯干右侧和腿部。 他昏倒了。 当他醒来时，发现自己躺在一堆尸体中：他的母亲、他的三个姐妹和他六岁的弟弟。 美国士兵一定以为丛也死了。 下午，当美国直升机离开时，他的父亲和其他几个前来埋葬死者的幸存村民找到了他。
后来，在与我和家人共进午餐时，丛说：“我永远不会忘记那种痛苦。” 在他的工作中，他永远不能抛下它。 丛告诉我，几年前，一位名叫肯尼思·席尔 (Kenneth Schiel) 的退伍军人曾在美莱村参观过该博物馆，他是当时唯一参观过该博物馆的查理公司成员，当时他是半岛电视台电视纪录片拍摄的参与者。 大屠杀四十周年。 席尔高中毕业后入伍参军
奥尔，在密歇根州斯沃茨溪，弗林特附近的一个小镇，经过随后的调查，他被指控杀害了九名村民。 （指控被驳回。）
这部纪录片讲述了与丛的对话，丛被告知席尔是一名越战老兵，但并没有听说他去过美莱村。 在视频中，席尔对采访者说：“我开枪了吗？ 我会说我开枪了，直到我意识到出了什么问题。 我不会透露我是否射杀了村民。” 在得知他参与了大屠杀之后，他在与丛的谈话中就更加不乐意了。 席尔一再表示他想“向美莱村的人民道歉”，但他拒绝进一步说明。 “我一直问自己为什么会发生这种事。 我不知道。”
丛质问：“当你向平民开枪并被杀时，你感觉如何？ 对你来说很难吗？” 席尔说，他并不属于射杀平民的士兵之一。 丛回答说：“所以也许你来到我家杀了我的亲戚。”
博物馆存档的文字记录包含了谈话的其余部分。 席尔说：“我现在唯一能做的就是为此道歉。” 聪的声音听起来越来越痛苦，他继续要求席尔公开谈论他的罪行，而席尔一直说：“对不起，对不起。” 当聪问席尔回到基地后能否吃上饭时，席尔开始哭泣。 “请不要再问我任何问题，”他说。 “我无法保持冷静。” 然后席尔问丛是否可以参加纪念大屠杀周年的仪式。
聪拒绝了他。 “这太丢脸了，”他说，并补充道，“如果当地人知道你是参与屠杀的人，他们会非常愤怒。”
离开博物馆之前，我问丛为什么对席尔如此不让步。 他的脸色变得严肃起来。 他说，他无意减轻一名美莱村退伍军人的痛苦，因为他拒绝完全承认自己的所作所为。 康的父亲曾为越共工作，大屠杀后与康住在一起，但他在 1970 年的战斗中被一支美国作战部队杀害。 丛去附近村庄的亲戚那里住，帮助他们养牛。 战争结束后，他终于能够回到学校。
“我想我刚刚遇到了我的灵魂伴侣。”
从丛和博物馆工作人员编制的综合统计数据中可以了解更多信息。 死者的名字和年龄刻在一个陈列室上方的大理石牌上。 博物馆的统计数字已无争议，共有来自 247 个家庭的 504 名受害者。 二十四个家庭被消灭——三代人被杀害，无一幸存。 死者中有一百八十二名妇女，其中十七名怀孕了。 一百七十三名儿童被处决，其中包括五十六名婴儿。 六十名老人死亡。 博物馆的统计还包括另一个重要事实：那天大屠杀的受害者不仅在美莱（也称为美莱 4），而且也在一个被美国人称为美溪 4 的姊妹定居点。这个定居点，一英里或一英里 因此，在东边的南中国海，遭到了另一支美国士兵布拉沃连的袭击。 博物馆列出了美莱 4 号的 407 名遇难者和美溪 4 号的 97 名遇难者。
传达的信息很明确：美莱四号发生的事情并非单一事件，也不是异常现象； Bravo 公司也复制了它，但数量较少。 布拉沃与查理连隶属于同一支部队——巴克特遣队。 这次袭击是巴克特遣部队所属的美国师所有作战部队当天进行的最重要的行动。 该师的高级领导层，包括其指挥官塞缪尔·科斯特少将，全天飞进飞出该地区，检查进展情况。
这有一个丑陋的背景。 到 1967 年，南越省份广义省、广南省和广治省的战争形势十分严峻，这些省份以独立于西贡政府以及支持越共和北越而闻名。 广治省是该国遭受轰炸最严重的省份之一。 美国战机用包括橙剂在内的落叶化学品洒满了这三个省份。
在我最近的旅行中，我在越南统一后的首都河内呆了五天。 那里的退休军官和共产党官员告诉我，美莱村大屠杀通过支持美国国内的反战异议，帮助北越赢得了战争。 我还一次又一次地被告知，美莱村的独特之处仅在于其规模。 最直接的评价来自阮氏平 (Nguyen Thi Binh)，她在越南被称为平夫人 (Madame Binh)。 七十年代初，她担任巴黎和谈中民族解放阵线代表团团长，以直言不讳、美貌出众而闻名。 平夫人，八十七岁，退休
在担任两届越南副总统后，她于 2002 年退出公共生活，但仍然参与与战争有关的慈善事业，帮助橙剂受害者和残疾人。
“我会诚实地告诉你，”她说。 “我的赖氏是在被美国人报道后才在美国变得重要的。” 大屠杀发生几周后，北越驻巴黎发言人公开描述了这些事件，但这个故事被认为是宣传。 “我记得很清楚，因为美国的反战运动因此而发展，”平夫人用法语补充道。 “但在越南，不仅有一家美莱店，还有很多家。”
一天早上，在岘港这个拥有约 100 万人口的海滨度假胜地和港口城市，我与 Vo Cao Loi 喝咖啡，他是 Bravo 公司在美溪 4 号袭击事件中为数不多的幸存者之一。Loi 说，当时他十五岁。 口译员。 当他的母亲听到直升机接近村庄时，她有一种“不好的预感”。 此前该地区曾开展过行动。 “这不像一些美国人会突然出现，”他说。 “在他们来之前，他们经常会开炮轰炸该地区，然后他们就会派出地面部队。” 美国和南越陆军部队多次经过该地区，没有发生任何事件，但这一次，雷在袭击发生前不久被他的母亲赶出了村庄。 他的两个哥哥正在与越共作战，其中一人在六天前的战斗中丧生。 “我认为她很害怕，因为我几乎是一个成年男孩了，如果我留下来，我可能会被殴打或被迫加入南越军队。 我走到河边，大约五十米远。 很近，足够近了：我听到了火焰和尖叫声。” 雷一直躲到晚上才回家埋葬他的母亲和其他亲戚。
两天后，越共军队将雷带到了西部山区的一个总部。 他还太年轻，无法参加战斗，但他被带到了在广义省活动的越共作战部队面前，描述了美国人在美溪所做的事情。 目的是激励游击队更加努力地战斗。 黎最终加入了越共，并在军事指挥部服役直至战争结束。 美国侦察机和部队不断搜寻他的部队。 “每当我们认为美国人已经逼近时，我们就会转移总部，”洛伊告诉我。 “在总部工作的人都必须绝对忠诚。 里面分三圈：最外面的一圈是供应商的，第二圈是维修和后勤人员的，最里面的一圈是指挥官的。 只有师长才能留在内圈。 当他们离开总部时，他们会打扮成普通士兵，所以人们永远不会知道。 他们走进了附近的村庄。 有时候美国人杀害了我们师的军官，但他们不知道他们是谁。” 雷说，与美国陆军一样，越共军官经常通过夸大他们杀死的敌方战斗人员的数量来激励他们的士兵。
“春天？ 我关心什么？ 我已经确定了。”
雷说，美莱和美溪的大屠杀虽然可怕，但却动员了人们对反美战争的支持。 当被问及他是否能理解为什么美国指挥部会容忍此类战争罪行时，雷说他不知道，但他对美国在越南中部的领导质量持悲观态度。 “美国将军必须对士兵的行为负责，”他告诉我。 “士兵们听从命令，他们只是在履行职责。”
雷说，他仍然为家人感到悲痛，并且经常做关于大屠杀的噩梦。 但是，与范清功不同的是，他几乎立即找到了一个代理家庭：“越共爱我并照顾我。 他们养育了我。” 我告诉 Loi Cong 对 Kenneth Schiel 的愤怒，Loi 说：“即使别人对你做了可怕的事情，你也可以原谅它并走向未来。” 战争结束后，雷转入越南正规军。 他最终成为一名上校，并在服役三十八年后退休。 他和他的妻子现在在岘港拥有一家咖啡店。
越南近 70% 的人口年龄在 40 岁以下，尽管战争仍然是老一代人的主要问题，但美国游客却为经济带来了福音。 如果说美国大兵犯下了暴行，那么法国人和中国人在其他战争中也犯下了暴行。 在外交上，美国被视为朋友，是对抗中国的潜在盟友。 1975 年，数千名在越南战争期间为美国人工作或与美国人一起工作的越南人逃往美国。他们的一些孩子回到了共产主义越南，这让他们的父母感到困惑，尽管越南存在许多弊病，从猖獗的腐败到严厉的政府审查制度。
五十七岁的作家兼记者 Nguyen Qui Duc 在河内经营一家颇受欢迎的酒吧和餐厅，后来逃到了越南
1975 年，埃丽卡 17 岁。 三十一年后，他归来。 在旧金山，他是一位屡获殊荣的记者和纪录片制片人，但是，正如他告诉我的那样，“我一直想回到越南生活。 十七岁离开家，在美国以另一个人的身份生活，我感觉自己还没有完成。 我很感激美国的机会，但我需要一种社区意识。 我作为国家公共广播电台记者第一次来到河内，就爱上了这里。”
德告诉我，像许多越南人一样，他已经学会接受美国在战争中的暴行。 “美国士兵犯下了残暴的行为，但在战争中这样的事情就会发生，”他说。 “事实上，越南人无法承认自己在战争中的暴行。 我们越南人有一种务实的态度：如果你能得到一个需要的朋友，最好忘记一个坏敌人。”
战争期间，德的父亲阮文岱 (Nguyen Van Dai) 担任南越副省长。 1968年，他被越共抓获，一直被监禁到1980年。1984年，德在美国外交官的帮助下，成功向政府请愿，允许他的父母移民到加利福尼亚州； 德克已经十六年没有见过他的父亲了。 他在机场等他时向我讲述了他的焦虑。 他的父亲在中国边境附近的一所共产主义监狱里与世隔绝，遭受了可怕的痛苦。 他经常无法移动四肢。 他会坐在轮椅上，还是精神不稳定？ 杜克的父亲在民主党总统初选期间抵达加州。 他走下飞机，向儿子打招呼。 “杰西·杰克逊怎么样？” 他说。 他找到了一份社会工作者的工作，又活了十六年。
一些美国退伍军人已返回越南生活。 查克·帕拉佐 (Chuck Palazzo) 在布朗克斯区亚瑟大道 (Arthur Avenue) 的一个陷入困境的家庭长大，高中辍学后，加入了海军陆战队。 1970年秋，经过一年的训练，他被分配到一支精锐侦察部队，其任务是确认情报并在夜间伏击敌方导弹阵地和作战部队。 他和他的手下有时会冒着炮火跳伞。 “我参与了与许多北越正规军以及越共的激烈战斗，我失去了很多朋友，”帕拉佐在他现在生活和工作的岘港喝酒时告诉我。 “但是当我还在这里的时候，热情就消失了。 我开始阅读和理解战争政治，我的一位军官私下同意我的观点，即我们在那里所做的事情是错误且毫无意义的。 警官告诉我，‘小心点，赶紧离开这里。’”
帕拉佐于 1970 年乘坐包机首次抵达岘港，飞机滑行时他可以看到战场上排列着的棺材。“直到那时我才意识到自己正处于一场战争之中，”他说。 “十三个月后，我再次在岘港排队，准备登上带我回家的飞机，但我的名字没有出现在乘客名单上。” 经过一番争先恐后，帕拉佐说：“我被告知，如果我那天想回家，唯一的出路就是护送一批棺材乘坐 C-141 货机飞往美国。” 所以他就是这么做的。
离开海军陆战队后，Palazzo 获得了大学学位，并开始了 IT 职业生涯。 专家。 但和许多退伍军人一样，他带着创伤后应激障碍“回到现实世界”，并与毒瘾作斗争。 他的婚姻破裂了。 他失去了各种工作。 2006年，帕拉佐做出了一个“自私”的决定，返回胡志明市。 “这一切都是关于我如何应对创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）。 并面对我自己的鬼魂，”他说。 “我的第一次访问就与越南人结下了不解之缘。” 帕拉佐希望为橙剂受害者尽其所能。 多年来，退伍军人管理局以证据的不确定性为由，拒绝承认橙剂与许多接触橙剂的人的疾病（包括癌症）之间的联系。 “在战争中，连长告诉我们那是蚊子喷雾，但我们可以看到所有的树木和植被都被摧毁了，”帕拉佐说。 “我突然想到，如果美国退伍军人能得到一些东西、一些帮助和补偿，为什么越南人不能呢？” Palazzo 于 2007 年搬到岘港，现在是一名 I.T. 美国反战非政府组织“退伍军人和平”当地分支机构的顾问和领导人。 他仍然积极参与橙剂行动小组，该小组寻求国际支持以应对脱叶剂的持续影响。*
在河内，我遇到了查克·瑟西（Chuck Searcy），他是一位高个子、白发的男人，七十岁，在佐治亚州长大。 瑟西的父亲在突出部战役中被德国人俘虏，瑟西从未想过要避开越南。 “我认为约翰逊总统和国会知道我们在越南做什么，”他告诉我。 1966年，瑟西从大学退学参军。 他是一名情报分析员，在西贡机场附近的一个单位工作，负责处理和评估美国的分析和报告。
“三点之内
几个月来，我作为一个爱国的佐治亚男孩的所有理想都破灭了，我开始质疑我们作为一个国家是谁，”瑟西说。 “我看到的情报是一个巨大的知识谎言。” 南越人显然对美国人传递的情报不以为然。 有一次，一位同事在西贡的一个市场买了鱼，发现它被包裹在他单位的一份机密报告中。 “1968 年 6 月，当我离开时，”瑟西说，“我感到愤怒和痛苦。”
瑟西结束了他的欧洲陆军之旅。 他的回家是一场灾难。 “我父亲听到我谈论战争，他感到难以置信。 我变成共产党员了吗？ 他说他和我母亲“不再知道你们是谁了”。 你不是美国人。’然后他们叫我滚出去。” 瑟西后来从佐治亚大学毕业，并在佐治亚州雅典编辑了一份周报。 随后，他开始了政治和公共政策的职业生涯，其中包括担任佐治亚州民主党国会议员威奇·福勒的助手。
1992 年，瑟西回到越南，并最终决定加入其他少数移居越南的退伍军人的行列。 “1968 年，当我飞离越南时，我就知道有一天，我会以某种方式回来，希望是在和平时期。 甚至在那时我就觉得我正在抛弃越南人，让他们陷入可怕的悲惨命运，而我们美国人对此负有主要责任。 这种情绪从未完全离开过我。” 瑟西参与了一个有关扫雷的项目。 美国在越南投放的炸弹数量（按重量计算）是二战期间的三倍。 从战争结束到 1998 年，超过 10 万越南平民（估计其中有 40% 是儿童）被未爆炸弹药炸死或炸伤。 战后二十多年来，美国拒绝为炸弹或橙剂造成的损害支付费用，尽管政府在 1996 年开始为扫雷提供少量资金。 2001年至2011年，越南退伍军人纪念基金还资助了扫雷计划。 “很多退伍军人认为我们应该承担一些责任，”瑟西说。 该计划帮助越南人，特别是农民和儿童了解未爆炸武器造成的危险，伤亡人数已经减少。
瑟西说，他早期对战争的幻灭在战争结束前不久得到了证实。 他的父亲打电话询问他们是否可以喝咖啡。 自从他被命令离开家以来，他们就没有说过话。 “他和我母亲一直在说话，”瑟西说。 “他告诉我，‘我们认为你是对的，我们错了。 我们希望你回家。”他说，他几乎立刻就回家了，并一直和父母保持着亲密的关系，直到他们去世。 瑟西曾两次离婚，他在一封自嘲的电子邮件中写道，“我拒绝了越南人让我再次结婚的善意努力。”
越南还有很多东西值得学习。 到 1969 年初，查理连的大部分成员都回到了美国或被调往其他作战部队。 掩盖工作正在发挥作用。 然而，那时，一位名叫罗纳德·里登霍尔（Ronald Ridenhour）的勇敢的退伍军人已经写了一封详细的信，讲述了这场“黑暗而血腥”的大屠杀，并将其副本邮寄给三十名政府官员和国会议员。 几周之内，这封信就送到了美国驻越南军事总部。
在我最近访问河内时，一位政府官员要求我在驱车几英里前往美莱之前礼节性拜访广义省的省级办事处。 在那里，我收到了一本新出版的该省旅游指南，其中详细描述了战争期间发生在广义省外长乐村的另一场据称是美国大屠杀的事件。 据报道，1969 年 4 月 18 日早上 7 点，一个执行搜索和摧毁行动的陆军排抵达长乐，此时距美莱村事件发生一年多一点。 士兵们把妇女和儿童从家里救出来，然后放火烧毁了村庄。 报告称，三小时后，士兵们返回长乐，杀害了 41 名儿童和 22 名妇女，仅留下 9 名幸存者。
美莱村事件发生后，情况似乎没有发生什么变化。
1998 年，美莱村大屠杀 30 周年纪念日之前几周，五角大楼退休官员 W. 唐纳德·斯图尔特 (W. Donald Stewart) 给了我一份 1967 年 8 月一份未发表的报告副本，该报告表明大多数驻南越美军并不理解 他们根据《日内瓦公约》承担的责任。 斯图尔特当时是五角大楼监察服务局调查部门的负责人。 他的报告是应肯尼迪总统和约翰逊总统领导下的国防部长罗伯特·麦克纳马拉的要求编写的，其中涉及数月的旅行和数百次采访。 斯图尔特的报告称，许多接受采访的士兵“认为他们可以自由地替换自己的判断”
公约的明确规定。 。 。 。 主要是年轻且缺乏经验的部队声称他们会虐待或杀害囚犯，尽管他们刚刚收到了国际法的指示。
麦克纳马拉于 1968 年 2 月离开五角大楼，该报告从未发布。 斯图尔特后来告诉我，他理解为什么这篇报道被压制：“人们把他们十八岁的孩子送到那里，我们不想让他们发现他们正在割掉耳朵。 我从南越回来，认为事情已经失控了。 。 。 。 我非常理解卡利。”
“我爱水果。”
事实证明，罗伯特·麦克纳马拉也这么做了。 1969 年底，当我报道美莱村时，我对斯图尔特的研究一无所知，但我确实了解到，麦克纳马拉早在几年前就已经注意到越南中部的血腥虐待事件。 我的第一篇《我的莱》故事出版后，《纽约客》的年轻作家乔纳森·谢尔给我打电话，他曾于 1968 年为该杂志发表了一篇关于广义省和附近省份不断发生的爆炸事件的毁灭性报道。 （谢尔去年去世。）他的文章后来成为一本书，《军事的一半》，本质上表明，美国军方相信越共在越南中部根深蒂固，并吸引了大力支持，因此几乎不区分 包括美莱村在内的地区的战斗人员和非战斗人员。
1967 年，谢尔从南越回来，所见所闻让他心碎不已。 他来自纽约的一个显赫家庭，他的父亲是一位华尔街律师和艺术赞助人，是约翰·F·肯尼迪总统前科学顾问杰罗姆·威斯纳在玛莎葡萄园岛的邻居。 时任麻省理工学院教务长的威斯纳还与麦克纳马拉一起参与了一个建造电子屏障的项目，该屏障将阻止北越人沿着胡志明小道向南运送物资。 （屏障从未完工。）谢尔告诉威斯纳他在越南的所见所闻，威斯纳也有同样的沮丧，并安排他与麦克纳马拉交谈。
不久之后，谢尔在华盛顿与麦克纳马拉讨论了他的观察结果。 谢尔告诉我，在写文章之前向政府提交报告让他感到不舒服，但他觉得必须这样做。 麦克纳马拉同意他们的会面将保持秘密，并表示他不会采取任何措施阻碍谢尔的工作。 他还在五角大楼为谢尔提供了一间办公室，让他可以在那里听写笔记。 制作了两份副本，麦克纳马拉表示，他将使用他的副本开始调查谢尔所描述的虐待行为。
谢尔的故事于明年初发表。 他没有再听到麦克纳马拉的任何消息，也没有任何公开迹象表明政策有任何变化。 然后是我关于美莱的文章，谢尔给麦克纳马拉打了电话，麦克纳马拉后来离开了五角大楼，成为了世界银行行长。 他提醒他，他给他留下了一份关于美莱地区暴行的详细记录。 现在，谢尔告诉我，他认为写下他们的会面很重要。 麦克纳马拉表示，他们已经同意不公开此事，并坚持要求谢尔履行承诺。 谢尔向我寻求建议。 当然，我希望他来写这个故事，但告诉他，如果他真的与麦克纳马拉达成了非正式协议，他别无选择，只能遵守。
谢尔信守诺言。 2009 年，他在《国家》杂志上一篇纪念麦克纳马拉的文章中描述了他对麦克纳马拉的访问，但没有提及他们达成的非凡协议。 谢尔写道，会面十五年后，他从合众社国际**、《泰晤士报》和《纽约客》的出色战地记者尼尔·希恩（Neil Sheehan）以及《光明的谎言》的作者那里得知，麦克纳马拉向谢尔发送了 给美国驻西贡大使埃尔斯沃斯·邦克的笔记。 麦克纳马拉显然不知道，西贡的目标不是调查谢尔的指控，而是抹黑他的报道，并尽一切可能阻止该材料的发表。
我在报纸上发表文章几个月后，《哈泼斯杂志》出版了我正在写的一本书的摘录，书名为《我的赖 4：关于大屠杀及其后果的报告》。 这段摘录对所发生的事情进行了更为详细的描述，强调了卡利中尉连队的士兵在大屠杀前的几个月里是如何受到残酷对待的。 麦克纳马拉二十岁的儿子克雷格反对战争，他打电话给我，说他在父亲的客厅里留下了一本杂志。 后来他在壁炉里发现了它。 麦克纳马拉离开公共生活后，他开展了反对核武器的运动，并试图为自己在越南战争中所扮演的角色赢得赦免。 他在 1995 年的回忆录《回顾：越南的悲剧和教训》中承认，这场战争是一场“灾难”，但他很少对给越南人民造成的伤害表示遗憾。
以及像保罗·米德洛这样的美国士兵。 “我对自己的成就感到非常自豪，但我对在完成任务的过程中犯下的错误感到非常抱歉，”他在 2003 年上映的纪录片《战争迷雾》中对电影制片人埃罗尔·莫里斯说道。
麦克纳马拉在五角大楼任职期间的解密文件显示，麦克纳马拉在给约翰逊总统的私人报告中多次表达了对这场战争的怀疑。 但他从未在公开场合表达过任何怀疑或悲观情绪。 克雷格·麦克纳马拉告诉我，在他临终前，他的父亲“说他觉得上帝抛弃了他”。 悲剧不仅是他一个人的。
*本文的早期版本错误地描述了尼尔·希恩 (Neil Sheehan) 担任记者的组织。
**帕拉佐对其兵役的描述受到质疑。
发表于 2015 年 3 月 30 日的印刷版。
Seymour M. Hersh 于 1971 年为《纽约客》撰写了他的第一篇文章，并自 1993 年以来一直是该杂志的定期撰稿人。
The Scene of the Crime
By Seymour M. Hersh March 23, 2015
Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, was eleven at the time of the massacre. His mother and four siblings died. “We forgive, but we do not forget,” he said.Photograph by Katie Orlinsky
There is a long ditch in the village of My Lai. On the morning of March 16, 1968, it was crowded with the bodies of the dead—dozens of women, children, and old people, all gunned down by young American soldiers. Now, forty-seven years later, the ditch at My Lai seems wider than I remember from the news photographs of the slaughter: erosion and time doing their work. During the Vietnam War, there was a rice paddy nearby, but it has been paved over to make My Lai more accessible to the thousands of tourists who come each year to wander past the modest markers describing the terrible event. The My Lai massacre was a pivotal moment in that misbegotten war: an American contingent of about a hundred soldiers, known as Charlie Company, having received poor intelligence, and thinking that they would encounter Vietcong troops or sympathizers, discovered only a peaceful village at breakfast. Nevertheless, the soldiers of Charlie Company raped women, burned houses, and turned their M-16s on the unarmed civilians of My Lai. Among the leaders of the assault was Lieutenant William L. Calley, a junior-college dropout from Miami.
By early 1969, most of the members of Charlie Company had completed their tours and returned home. I was then a thirty-two-year-old freelance reporter in Washington, D.C. Determined to understand how young men—boys, really—could have done this, I spent weeks pursuing them. In many cases, they talked openly and, for the most part, honestly with me, describing what they did at My Lai and how they planned to live with the memory of it.
In testimony before an Army inquiry, some of the soldiers acknowledged being at the ditch but claimed that they had disobeyed Calley, who was ordering them to kill. They said that one of the main shooters, along with Calley himself, had been Private First Class Paul Meadlo. The truth remains elusive, but one G.I. described to me a moment that most of his fellow-soldiers, I later learned, remembered vividly. At Calley’s order, Meadlo and others had fired round after round into the ditch and tossed in a few grenades.
Then came a high-pitched whining, which grew louder as a two- or three-year-old boy, covered with mud and blood, crawled his way among the bodies and scrambled toward the rice paddy. His mother had likely protected him with her body. Calley saw what was happening and, according to the witnesses, ran after the child, dragged him back to the ditch, threw him in, and shot him.
The morning after the massacre, Meadlo stepped on a land mine while on a routine patrol, and his right foot was blown off. While waiting to be evacuated to a field hospital by helicopter, he condemned Calley. “God will punish you for what you made me do,” a G.I. recalled Meadlo saying.
“Get him on the helicopter!” Calley shouted.
Meadlo went on cursing at Calley until the helicopter arrived.
Meadlo had grown up in farm country in western Indiana. After a long time spent dropping dimes into a pay phone and calling information operators across the state, I found a Meadlo family listed in New Goshen, a small town near Terre Haute. A woman who turned out to be Paul’s mother, Myrtle, answered the phone. I said that I was a reporter and was writing about Vietnam. I asked how Paul was doing, and wondered if I could come and speak to him the next day. She told me I was welcome to try.
The Meadlos lived in a small house with clapboard siding on a ramshackle chicken farm. When I pulled up in my rental car, Myrtle came out to greet me and said that Paul was inside, though she had no idea whether he would talk or what he might say. It was clear that he had not told her much about Vietnam. Then Myrtle said something that summed up a war that I had grown to hate: “I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer.”
Meadlo invited me in and agreed to talk. He was twenty-two. He had married before leaving for Vietnam, and he and his wife had a two-and-a-half-year-old son and an infant daughter. Despite his injury, he worked a factory job to support the family. I asked him to show me his wound and to tell me about the treatment. He took off his prosthesis and described what he’d been through. It did not take long for the conversation to turn to My Lai. Meadlo talked and talked, clearly desperate to regain some self-respect. With little emotion, he described Calley’s orders to kill. He did not justify what he had done at My Lai, except that the killings “did take a load off my conscience,” because of “the buddies we’d lost. It was just revenge, that’s all it was.”
Meadlo recounted his actions in bland, appalling detail. “There was supposed to have been some Vietcong in [My Lai] and we began to make a sweep through it,” he told me. “Once we got there we began gathering up the people . . . started putting them in big mobs. There must have been about forty or forty-five civilians standing in one big circle in the middle of the village. . . . Calley told me and a couple of other guys to watch them.” Calley, as he recalled, came back ten minutes later and told him, “Get with it. I want them dead.” From about ten or fifteen feet away, Meadlo said, Calley “started shooting them. Then he told me to start shooting them. . . . I started to shoot them, but the other guys wouldn’t do it. So we”—Meadlo and Calley—“went ahead and killed them.” Meadlo estimated that he had killed fifteen people in the circle. “We all were under orders,” he said. “We all thought we were doing the right thing. At the time it didn’t bother me.” There was official testimony showing that Meadlo had in fact been extremely distressed by Calley’s order. After being told by Calley to “take care of this group,” one Charlie Company soldier recounted, Meadlo and a fellow-soldier “were actually playing with the kids, telling the people where to sit down and giving the kids candy.” When Calley returned and said that he wanted them dead, the soldier said, “Meadlo just looked at him like he couldn’t believe it. He says, ‘Waste them?’ ” When Calley said yes, another soldier testified, Meadlo and Calley “opened up and started firing.” But then Meadlo “started to cry.”
Mike Wallace, of CBS, was interested in my interview, and Meadlo agreed to tell his story again, on national television. I spent the night before the show on a couch in the Meadlo home and flew to New York the next morning with Meadlo and his wife. There was time to talk, and I learned that Meadlo had spent weeks in recovery and rehabilitation at an Army hospital in Japan. Once he came home, he said nothing about his experiences in Vietnam. One night, shortly after his return, his wife woke up to hysterical crying in one of the children’s rooms. She rushed in and found Paul violently shaking the child.
I’d been tipped off about My Lai by Geoffrey Cowan, a young antiwar lawyer in Washington, D.C. Cowan had little specific information, but he’d heard that an unnamed G.I. had gone crazy and killed scores of Vietnamese civilians. Three years earlier, while I was covering the Pentagon for the Associated Press, I had been told by officers returning from the war about the killing of Vietnamese civilians that was going on. One day, while pursuing Cowan’s tip, I ran into a young Army colonel whom I’d known on the Pentagon beat. He had been wounded in the leg in Vietnam and, while recovering, learned that he was to be promoted to general. He now worked in an office that had day-to-day responsibility for the war. When I asked him what he knew about the unnamed G.I., he gave me a sharp, angry look, and began whacking his hand against his knee. “That boy Calley didn’t shoot anyone higher than this,” he said.
I had a name. In a local library, I found a brief story buried in the Times about a Lieutenant Calley who had been charged by the Army with the murder of an unspecified number of civilians in South Vietnam. I tracked down Calley, whom the Army had hidden away in senior officers’ quarters at Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia. By then, someone in the Army had allowed me to read and take notes from a classified charge sheet accusing Calley of the premeditated murder of a hundred and nine “Oriental human beings.”
Calley hardly seemed satanic. He was a slight, nervous man in his mid-twenties, with pale, almost translucent skin. He tried hard to seem tough. Over many beers, he told me how he and his soldiers had engaged and killed the enemy at My Lai in a fiercely contested firefight. We talked through the night. At one point, Calley excused himself, to go to the bathroom. He left the door partly open, and I could see that he was vomiting blood.
In November, 1969, I wrote five articles about Calley, Meadlo, and the massacre. I had gone to Life and Look with no success, so I turned instead to a small antiwar news agency in Washington, the Dispatch News Service. It was a time of growing anxiety and unrest. Richard Nixon had won the 1968 election by promising to end the war, but his real plan was to win it, through escalation and secret bombing. In 1969, as many as fifteen hundred American soldiers were being killed every month—almost the same as the year before.
Combat reporters such as Homer Bigart, Bernard Fall, David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Malcolm Browne, Frances FitzGerald, Gloria Emerson, Morley Safer, and Ward Just filed countless dispatches from the field that increasingly made plain that the war was morally groundless, strategically lost, and nothing like what the military and political officials were describing to the public in Saigon and in Washington. On November 15, 1969, two days after the publication of my first My Lai dispatch, an antiwar march in Washington drew half a million people. H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s most trusted aide, and his enforcer, took notes in the Oval Office that were made public eighteen years later. They revealed that on December 1, 1969, at the height of the outcry over Paul Meadlo’s revelations, Nixon approved the use of “dirty tricks” to discredit a key witness to the massacre. When, in 1971, an Army jury convicted Calley of mass murder and sentenced him to life at hard labor, Nixon intervened, ordering Calley to be released from an Army prison and placed under house arrest pending review. Calley was freed three months after Nixon left office and spent the ensuing years working in his father-in-law’s jewelry store, in Columbus, Georgia, and offering self-serving interviews to journalists willing to pay for them. Finally, in 2009, in a speech to a Kiwanis Club, he said that there “is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse” for My Lai, but that he was following orders—“foolishly, I guess.” Calley is now seventy-one. He is the only officer to have been convicted for his role in the My Lai massacre.
In March, 1970, an Army investigation filed charges ranging from murder to dereliction of duty against fourteen officers, including generals and colonels, who were accused of covering up the massacre. Only one officer besides Calley eventually faced court-martial, and he was found not guilty.
“It’s too late to call them —they’ll be sound asleep. They live in Connecticut!”
A couple of months later, at the height of widespread campus protests against the war—protests that included the killing of four students by National Guardsmen in Ohio—I went to Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota, to give a speech against the war. Hubert Humphrey, who had been Lyndon Johnson’s loyal Vice-President, was now a professor of political science at the college. He had lost to Nixon, in the 1968 election, partly because he could not separate himself from L.B.J.’s Vietnam policy. After my speech, Humphrey asked to talk to me. “I’ve no problem with you, Mr. Hersh,” he said. “You were doing your job and you did it well. But, as for those kids who march around saying, ‘Hey, hey, L.B.J., how many kids did you kill today?’ ” Humphrey’s fleshy, round face reddened, and his voice grew louder with every phrase. “I say, ‘Fuck ’em, fuck ’em, fuck ’em.’ ”
Ivisited My Lai (as the hamlet was called by the U.S. Army) for the first time a few months ago, with my family. Returning to the scene of the crime is the stuff of cliché for reporters of a certain age, but I could not resist. I had sought permission from the South Vietnamese government in early 1970, but by then the Pentagon’s internal investigation was under way and the area was closed to outsiders. I joined the Times in 1972 and visited Hanoi, in North Vietnam. In 1980, five years after the fall of Saigon, I travelled again to Vietnam to conduct interviews for a book and to do more reporting for the Times. I thought I knew all, or most, of what there was to learn about the massacre. Of course, I was wrong.
My Lai is in central Vietnam, not far from Highway 1, the road that connects Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now known. Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, is a survivor of the massacre. When we first met, Cong, a stern, stocky man in his late fifties, said little about his personal experiences and stuck to stilted, familiar phrases. He described the Vietnamese as “a welcoming people,” and he avoided any note of accusation. “We forgive, but we do not forget,” he said. Later, as we sat on a bench outside the small museum, he described the massacre, as he remembered it. At the time, Cong was eleven years old. When American helicopters landed in the village, he said, he and his mother and four siblings huddled in a primitive bunker inside their thatch-roofed home. American soldiers ordered them out of the bunker and then pushed them back in, throwing a hand grenade in after them and firing their M-16s. Cong was wounded in three places—on his scalp, on the right side of his torso, and in the leg. He passed out. When he awoke, he found himself in a heap of corpses: his mother, his three sisters, and his six-year-old brother. The American soldiers must have assumed that Cong was dead, too. In the afternoon, when the American helicopters left, his father and a few other surviving villagers, who had come to bury the dead, found him.
Later, at lunch with my family and me, Cong said, “I will never forget the pain.” And in his job he can never leave it behind. Cong told me that a few years earlier a veteran named Kenneth Schiel, who had been at My Lai, had visited the museum—the only member of Charlie Company at that point to have done so—as a participant in an Al Jazeera television documentary marking the fortieth anniversary of the massacre. Schiel had enlisted in the Army after graduation from high school, in Swartz Creek, Michigan, a small town near Flint, and, after the subsequent investigations, he was charged with killing nine villagers. (The charges were dismissed.)
The documentary featured a conversation with Cong, who had been told that Schiel was a Vietnam veteran, but not that he had been at My Lai. In the video, Schiel tells an interviewer, “Did I shoot? I’ll say that I shot until I realized what was wrong. I’m not going to say whether I shot villagers or not.” He was even less forthcoming in a conversation with Cong, after it became clear that he had participated in the massacre. Schiel says repeatedly that he wants to “apologize to the people of My Lai,” but he refuses to go further. “I ask myself all the time why did this happen. I don’t know.”
Cong demands, “How did you feel when you shot into civilians and killed? Was it hard for you?” Schiel says that he wasn’t among the soldiers who were shooting groups of civilians. Cong responds, “So maybe you came to my house and killed my relatives.”
Cong rebuffs him. “It would be too shameful,” he says, adding, “The local people will be very angry if they realize that you were the person who took part in the massacre.”
Before leaving the museum, I asked Cong why he had been so unyielding with Schiel. His face hardened. He said that he had no interest in easing the pain of a My Lai veteran who refused to own up fully to what he had done. Cong’s father, who worked for the Vietcong, lived with Cong after the massacre, but he was killed in action, in 1970, by an American combat unit. Cong went to live with relatives in a nearby village, helping them raise cattle. Finally, after the war, he was able to return to school.
“I think I’ve just met my soul mate.”
There was more to learn from the comprehensive statistics that Cong and the museum staff had compiled. The names and ages of the dead are engraved on a marble plaque that dominates one of the exhibit rooms. The museum’s count, no longer in dispute, is five hundred and four victims, from two hundred and forty-seven families. Twenty-four families were obliterated—–three generations murdered, with no survivors. Among the dead were a hundred and eighty-two women, seventeen of them pregnant. A hundred and seventy-three children were executed, including fifty-six infants. Sixty older men died. The museum’s accounting included another important fact: the victims of the massacre that day were not only in My Lai (also known as My Lai 4) but also in a sister settlement known to the Americans as My Khe 4. This settlement, a mile or so to the east, on the South China Sea, was assaulted by another contingent of U.S. soldiers, Bravo Company. The museum lists four hundred and seven victims in My Lai 4 and ninety-seven in My Khe 4.
The message was clear: what happened at My Lai 4 was not singular, not an aberration; it was replicated, in lesser numbers, by Bravo Company. Bravo was attached to the same unit—Task Force Barker—as Charlie Company. The assaults were by far the most important operation carried out that day by any combat unit in the Americal Division, which Task Force Barker was attached to. The division’s senior leadership, including its commander, Major General Samuel Koster, flew in and out of the area throughout the day to check its progress.
There was an ugly context to this. By 1967, the war was going badly in the South Vietnamese provinces of Quang Ngai, Quang Nam, and Quang Tri, which were known for their independence from the government in Saigon, and their support for the Vietcong and North Vietnam. Quang Tri was one of the most heavily bombed provinces in the country. American warplanes drenched all three provinces with defoliating chemicals, including Agent Orange.
On my recent trip, I spent five days in Hanoi, which is the capital of unified Vietnam. Retired military officers and Communist Party officials there told me that the My Lai massacre, by bolstering antiwar dissent inside America, helped North Vietnam win the war. I was also told, again and again, that My Lai was unique only in its size. The most straightforward assessment came from Nguyen Thi Binh, known to everyone in Vietnam as Madame Binh. In the early seventies, she was the head of the National Liberation Front delegation at the Paris peace talks and became widely known for her willingness to speak bluntly and for her striking good looks. Madame Binh, who is eighty-seven, retired from public life in 2002, after serving two terms as Vietnam’s Vice-President, but she remains involved in war-related charities dealing with Agent Orange victims and the disabled.
“I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “My Lai became important in America only after it was reported by an American.” Within weeks of the massacre, a spokesman for the North Vietnamese in Paris had publicly described the events, but the story was assumed to be propaganda. “I remember it well, because the antiwar movement in America grew because of it,” Madame Binh added, speaking in French. “But in Vietnam there was not only one My Lai—there were many.”
One morning in Danang, a beach resort and port city of about a million people, I had coffee with Vo Cao Loi, one of the few survivors of Bravo Company’s attack at My Khe 4. He was fifteen at the time, Loi said, through an interpreter. His mother had what she called “a bad feeling” when she heard helicopters approaching the village. There had been operations in the area before. “It was not just like some Americans would show up all of a sudden,” he said. “Before they came, they often fired artillery and bombed the area, and then after all that they would send in the ground forces.” American and South Vietnamese Army units had moved through the area many times with no incident, but this time Loi was shooed out of the village by his mother moments before the attack. His two older brothers were fighting with the Vietcong, and one had been killed in combat six days earlier. “I think she was afraid because I was almost a grown boy and if I stayed I could be beaten up or forced to join the South Vietnamese Army. I went to the river, about fifty metres away. Close, close enough: I heard the fire and the screaming.” Loi stayed hidden until evening, when he returned home to bury his mother and other relatives.
Two days later, Vietcong troops took Loi to a headquarters in the mountains to the west. He was too young to fight, but he was brought before Vietcong combat units operating throughout Quang Ngai to describe what the Americans had done at My Khe. The goal was to inspire the guerrilla forces to fight harder. Loi eventually joined the Vietcong and served at the military command until the end of the war. American surveillance planes and troops were constantly searching for his unit. “We moved the headquarters every time we thought the Americans were getting close,” Loi told me. “Whoever worked in headquarters had to be absolutely loyal. There were three circles on the inside: the outer one was for suppliers, a second one was for those who worked in maintenance and logistics, and the inner one was for the commanders. Only division commanders could stay in the inner circle. When they did leave the headquarters, they would dress as normal soldiers, so one would never know. They went into nearby villages. There were cases when Americans killed our division officers, but they did not know who they were.” As with the U.S. Army, Loi said, Vietcong officers often motivated their soldiers by inflating the number of enemy combatants they had killed.
“Spring? What do I care? I’m fixed.”
The massacres at My Lai and My Khe, terrible as they were, mobilized support for the war against the Americans, Loi said. Asked if he could understand why such war crimes were tolerated by the American command, Loi said he did not know, but he had a dark view of the quality of U.S. leadership in central Vietnam. “The American generals had to take responsibility for the actions of the soldiers,” he told me. “The soldiers take orders, and they were just doing their duty.”
Loi said that he still grieves for his family, and he has nightmares about the massacre. But, unlike Pham Thanh Cong, he found a surrogate family almost immediately: “The Vietcong loved me and took care of me. They raised me.” I told Loi about Cong’s anger at Kenneth Schiel, and Loi said, “Even if others do terrible things to you, you can forgive it and move toward the future.” After the war, Loi transferred to the regular Vietnamese Army. He eventually became a full colonel and retired after thirty-eight years of service. He and his wife now own a coffee shop in Danang.
Almost seventy per cent of the population of Vietnam is under the age of forty, and although the war remains an issue mainly for the older generations, American tourists are a boon to the economy. If American G.I.s committed atrocities, well, so did the French and the Chinese in other wars. Diplomatically, the U.S. is considered a friend, a potential ally against China. Thousands of Vietnamese who worked for or with the Americans during the Vietnam War fled to the United States in 1975. Some of their children have confounded their parents by returning to Communist Vietnam, despite its many ills, from rampant corruption to aggressive government censorship.
Nguyen Qui Duc, a fifty-seven-year-old writer and journalist who runs a popular bar and restaurant in Hanoi, fled to America in 1975 when he was seventeen. Thirty-one years later, he returned. In San Francisco, he was a prize-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, but, as he told me, “I’d always wanted to come back and live in Vietnam. I felt unfinished leaving home at seventeen and living as someone else in the United States. I was grateful for the opportunities in America, but I needed a sense of community. I came to Hanoi for the first time as a reporter for National Public Radio, and fell in love with it.”
Duc told me that, like many Vietnamese, he had learned to accept the American brutality in the war. “American soldiers committed atrocious acts, but in war such things happen,” he said. “And it’s a fact that the Vietnamese cannot own up to their own acts of brutality in the war. We Vietnamese have a practical attitude: better forget a bad enemy if you can gain a needed friend.”
During the war, Duc’s father, Nguyen Van Dai, was a deputy governor in South Vietnam. He was seized by the Vietcong in 1968 and imprisoned until 1980. In 1984, Duc, with the help of an American diplomat, successfully petitioned the government to allow his parents to emigrate to California; Duc had not seen his father for sixteen years. He told me of his anxiety as he waited for him at the airport. His father had suffered terribly in isolation in a Communist prison near the Chinese border; he was often unable to move his limbs. Would he be in a wheelchair, or mentally unstable? Duc’s father arrived in California during a Democratic Presidential primary. He walked off the plane and greeted his son. “How’s Jesse Jackson doing?” he said. He found a job as a social worker and lived for sixteen more years.
Some American veterans of the war have returned to Vietnam to live. Chuck Palazzo grew up in a troubled family on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and, after dropping out of high school, enlisted in the Marines. In the fall of 1970, after a year of training, he was assigned to an élite reconnaissance unit whose mission was to confirm intelligence and to ambush enemy missile sites and combat units at night. He and his men sometimes parachuted in under fire. “I was involved in a lot of intense combat with many North Vietnamese regulars as well as Vietcong, and I lost a lot of friends,” Palazzo told me over a drink in Danang, where he now lives and works. “But the gung ho left when I was still here. I started to read and understand the politics of the war, and one of my officers was privately agreeing with me that what we were doing there was wrong and senseless. The officer told me, ‘Watch your ass and get the hell out of here.’ ”
Palazzo first arrived in Danang in 1970, on a charter flight, and he could see coffins lined up on the field as the plane taxied in. “It was only then that I realized I was in a war,” he said. “Thirteen months later, I was standing in line, again at Danang, to get on the plane taking me home, but my name was not on the manifest.” After some scrambling, Palazzo said, “I was told that if I wanted to go home that day the only way out was to escort a group of coffins flying to America on a C-141 cargo plane.” So that’s what he did.
After leaving the Marines, Palazzo earned a college degree and began a career as an I.T. specialist. But, like many vets, he came “back to the world” with post-traumatic stress disorder and struggled with addictions. His marriage collapsed. He lost various jobs. In 2006, Palazzo made a “selfish” decision to return to Ho Chi Minh City. “It was all about me dealing with P.T.S.D. and confronting my own ghosts,” he said. “My first visit became a love affair with the Vietnamese.” Palazzo wanted to do all he could for the victims of Agent Orange. For years, the Veterans Administration, citing the uncertainty of evidence, refused to recognize a link between Agent Orange and the ailments, including cancers, of many who were exposed to it. “In the war, the company commander told us it was mosquito spray, but we could see that all the trees and vegetation were destroyed,” Palazzo said. “It occurred to me that, if American vets were getting something, some help and compensation, why not the Vietnamese?” Palazzo, who moved to Danang in 2007, is now an I.T. consultant and the leader of a local branch of Veterans for Peace, an American antiwar N.G.O. He remains active in the Agent Orange Action Group, which seeks international support to cope with the persistent effects of the defoliant.*
In Hanoi, I met Chuck Searcy, a tall, gray-haired man of seventy who grew up in Georgia. Searcy’s father had been taken prisoner by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, and it never occurred to Searcy to avoid Vietnam. “I thought President Johnson and the Congress knew what we were doing in Vietnam,” he told me. In 1966, Searcy quit college and enlisted. He was an intelligence analyst, in a unit that was situated near the airport in Saigon, and which processed and evaluated American analyses and reports.
“Within three months, all the ideals I had as a patriotic Georgia boy were shattered, and I began to question who we were as a nation,” Searcy said. “The intelligence I was seeing amounted to a big intellectual lie.” The South Vietnamese clearly thought little of the intelligence the Americans were passing along. At one point, a colleague bought fish at a market in Saigon and noticed that it was wrapped in one of his unit’s classified reports. “By the time I left, in June of 1968,” Searcy said, “I was angry and bitter.”
Searcy finished his Army tour in Europe. His return home was a disaster. “My father heard me talk about the war and he was incredulous. Had I turned into a Communist? He said that he and my mother don’t ‘know who you are anymore. You’re not an American.’ Then they told me to get out.” Searcy went on to graduate from the University of Georgia, and edited a weekly newspaper in Athens, Georgia. He then began a career in politics and public policy that included working as an aide to Wyche Fowler, a Georgia Democratic congressman.
In 1992, Searcy returned to Vietnam and eventually decided to join the few other veterans who had moved there. “I knew, even as I was flying out of Vietnam in 1968, that someday, somehow, I would return, hopefully in a time of peace. I felt even back then that I was abandoning the Vietnamese to a terribly tragic fate, for which we Americans were mostly responsible. That sentiment never quite left me.” Searcy worked with a program that dealt with mine clearance. The U.S. dropped three times the number of bombs by weight in Vietnam as it had during the Second World War. Between the end of the war and 1998, more than a hundred thousand Vietnamese civilians, an estimated forty per cent of them children, had been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance. For more than two decades after the war, the U.S. refused to pay for damage done by bombs or by Agent Orange, though in 1996 the government began to provide modest funding for mine clearance. From 2001 to 2011, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund also helped finance the mine-clearance program. “A lot of veterans felt we should assume some responsibility,” Searcy said. The program helped educate Vietnamese, especially farmers and children, about the dangers posed by the unexploded weapons, and casualties have diminished.
Searcy said that his early disillusionment with the war was validated shortly before its end. His father called to ask if they could have coffee. They hadn’t spoken since he was ordered out of the house. “He and my mother had been talking,” Searcy said. “And he told me, ‘We think you were right and we were wrong. We want you to come home.’ ” He went home almost immediately, he said, and remained close to his parents until they died. Searcy is twice divorced, and wrote, in a self-deprecating e-mail, “I have resisted the kind efforts of the Vietnamese to get me married off again.”
There was more to learn in Vietnam. By early 1969, most of the members of Charlie Company were back home in America or reassigned to other combat units. The coverup was working. By then, however, a courageous Army veteran named Ronald Ridenhour had written a detailed letter about the “dark and bloody” massacre and mailed copies of it to thirty government officials and members of Congress. Within weeks, the letter found its way to the American military headquarters in Vietnam.
On my recent visit to Hanoi, a government official asked me to pay a courtesy call at the provincial offices in the city of Quang Ngai before driving the few miles to My Lai. There I was presented with a newly published guidebook to the province, which included a detailed description of another purported American massacre during the war, in the hamlet of Truong Le, outside Quang Ngai. According to the report, an Army platoon on a search-and-destroy operation arrived at Truong Le at seven in the morning on April 18, 1969, a little more than a year after My Lai. The soldiers pulled women and children out of their houses and then torched the village. Three hours later, the report alleges, the soldiers returned to Truong Le and killed forty-one children and twenty-two women, leaving only nine survivors.
Little, it seemed, had changed in the aftermath of My Lai.
In 1998, a few weeks before the thirtieth anniversary of the My Lai massacre, a retired Pentagon official, W. Donald Stewart, gave me a copy of an unpublished report from August, 1967, showing that most American troops in South Vietnam did not understand their responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions. Stewart was then the chief of the investigations division of the Directorate of Inspection Services, at the Pentagon. His report, which involved months of travel and hundreds of interviews, was prepared at the request of Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Stewart’s report said that many of the soldiers interviewed “felt they were at liberty to substitute their own judgment for the clear provisions of the Conventions. . . . It was primarily the young and inexperienced troops who stated they would maltreat or kill prisoners, despite having just received instructions” on international law.
McNamara left the Pentagon in February, 1968, and the report was never released. Stewart later told me that he understood why the report was suppressed: “People were sending their eighteen-year-olds over there, and we didn’t want them to find out that they were cutting off ears. I came back from South Vietnam thinking that things were out of control. . . . I understood Calley—very much so.”
“I love fruit.”
It turns out that Robert McNamara did, too. I knew nothing of the Stewart study while I was reporting on My Lai in late 1969, but I did learn that McNamara had been put on notice years earlier about the bloody abuses in central Vietnam. After the first of my My Lai stories was published, Jonathan Schell, a young writer for The New Yorker, who in 1968 had published a devastating account for the magazine of the incessant bombing in Quang Ngai and a nearby province, called me. (Schell died last year.) His article—which later became a book, “The Military Half”—demonstrated, in essence, that the U.S. military, convinced that the Vietcong were entrenched in central Vietnam and attracting serious support, made little distinction between combatants and noncombatants in the area that included My Lai.
Schell had returned from South Vietnam, in 1967, devastated by what he had seen. He came from an eminent New York family, and his father, a Wall Street attorney and a patron of the arts, was a neighbor, in Martha’s Vineyard, of Jerome Wiesner, the former science adviser to President John F. Kennedy. Wiesner, then the provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was also involved with McNamara in a project to build an electronic barrier that would prevent the North Vietnamese from sending matériel south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. (The barrier was never completed.) Schell told Wiesner what he had seen in Vietnam, and Wiesner, who shared his dismay, arranged for him to talk with McNamara.
Soon afterward, Schell discussed his observations with McNamara, in Washington. Schell told me that he was uncomfortable about giving the government a report before writing his article, but he felt that it had to be done. McNamara agreed that their meeting would remain secret, and he said that he would do nothing to impede Schell’s work. He also provided Schell with an office in the Pentagon where he could dictate his notes. Two copies were made, and McNamara said that he would use his set to begin an inquiry into the abuses that Schell had described.
Schell’s story was published early the next year. He heard nothing more from McNamara, and there was no public sign of any change in policy. Then came my articles on My Lai, and Schell called McNamara, who had since left the Pentagon to become president of the World Bank. He reminded him that he had left him a detailed accounting of atrocities in the My Lai area. Now, Schell told me, he thought it was important to write about their meeting. McNamara said that they had agreed it was off the record and insisted that Schell honor the commitment. Schell asked me for advice. I wanted him to do the story, of course, but told him that if he really had made an off-the-record pact with McNamara he had no choice but to honor it.
Schell kept his word. In a memorial essay on McNamara in The Nation, in 2009, he described his visit to McNamara but did not mention their extraordinary agreement. Fifteen years after the meeting, Schell wrote, he learned from Neil Sheehan, the brilliant war reporter for the United Press International**, the Times and The New Yorker, and the author of “A Bright Shining Lie,” that McNamara had sent Schell’s notes to Ellsworth Bunker, the American Ambassador in Saigon. Apparently unknown to McNamara, the goal in Saigon was not to investigate Schell’s allegations but to discredit his reporting and do everything possible to prevent publication of the material.
A few months after my newspaper articles appeared, Harper’s published an excerpt from a book I’d been writing, to be titled “My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath.” The excerpt provided a far more detailed account of what had happened, emphasizing how the soldiers in Lieutenant Calley’s company had become brutalized in the months leading up to the massacre. McNamara’s twenty-year-old son, Craig, who opposed the war, called me and said that he had left a copy of the magazine in his father’s sitting room. He later found it in the fireplace. After McNamara left public life, he campaigned against nuclear arms and tried to win absolution for his role in the Vietnam War. He acknowledged in a 1995 memoir, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” that the war had been a “disaster,” but he rarely expressed regrets about the damage that was done to the Vietnamese people and to American soldiers like Paul Meadlo. “I’m very proud of my accomplishments, and I’m very sorry that in the process of accomplishing things I’ve made errors,” he told the filmmaker Errol Morris in “The Fog of War,” a documentary released in 2003.
Declassified documents from McNamara’s years in the Pentagon reveal that McNamara repeatedly expressed skepticism about the war in his private reports to President Johnson. But he never articulated any doubt or pessimism in public. Craig McNamara told me that on his deathbed his father “said he felt that God had abandoned him.” The tragedy was not only his. ♦
*An earlier version of this article misstated the organization for which Neil Sheehan was a reporter.
**Doubt has been cast on Palazzo’s account of his military service.
