The truth of "Land of War": "Four Hours in My Lai Village" exposes the brutal massacre by the US military

　　[Global Times Comprehensive Report] On March 16, 1968, the US military carried out inhuman massacres on more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including many elderly people, women and children, in My Lai Village, Quang Province, Vietnam.

For this massacre that shocked the world, many countries shot documentaries to reproduce the real history.

The 1989 documentary "Four Hours in My Lai Village" produced by Yorkshire Television in the United Kingdom revealed much new evidence about the massacre.

After the film was screened in the United States, it attracted widespread attention.

"This is my punishment for killing me"

　　Based on the book of the same name by British investigative journalist Michael Bilton and documentary filmmaker Kevin Simm, "Four Hours in My Lai Village" includes interviews with American soldiers involved in the massacre and subsequent trials of those involved.

The documentary tells the story of the U.S. Army's 11th Infantry Brigade, showing photos of U.S. servicemen torturing civilians before the massacre, and exposing the atrocities of soldiers who raped Vietnamese women before the massacre.

The documentary first aired on ITV in the UK and was later introduced by PBS in the US.

　　In the documentary, soldier Varnardo Simpson says he was young when the My Lai massacre took place.

In the summer of 1989, at the age of 41, Simpson lived alone in a humble cottage in Mississippi. There were many railings on the windows and multiple locks on the door. The curtains in the room were always drawn, and the room was somewhat gloomy.

During the interview, Simpson was shaking with tears in his eyes.

Simpson admitted to killing about 25 people in My Lai village, and was involved in scalping and dismembering corpses.

He revealed that the order to kill actually came from Captain Ernest Medina, Captain of Charlie's Company, and his order was not only to kill, but also to kill cats and dogs.

"I shot them - the lady and the little boy, who was only about 2 years old. I shot the elderly, women and children who were running away."

　　Not only that, he also disclosed some perverted atrocities of the U.S. military in the documentary, "I started shooting, old people, women, children, buffalo, etc... I just killed... I shot them, slit their throats, stripped them They scalped them, chopped off their hands, cut off their tongues, I did it all." Simpson said he had been haunted by the massacre over the years, had frequent nightmares and was often unable to sleep.

He claimed that the people he killed in Vietnam didn't really die and those people would come back to kill him.

In 1977, Simpson's 10-year-old son was accidentally shot in the head by someone across the road while playing in his front yard. "He died in my arms, I looked at him, his face was like I killed him. That kid, this is my punishment for killing me." Later, Simpson's daughter also died of meningitis.

After being interviewed by the filmmakers of "Four Hours in My Lai Village", Simpson still did not come out of his inner condemnation. After three suicide attempts, Simpson shot himself in 1997.

Helicopter flies over trench full of corpses

　　Every weekday at 5:45 p.m. in Columbus, Georgia, a middle-aged businessman locks up his jewelry store, strolls through the parking lot to his Mercedes, and drives home.

This little man with the law of life is a notorious war criminal in the United States. His name is William Kelly. This name is inseparable from the My Lai Village Massacre.

But Kelly refused to be interviewed by Four Hours of My Lai Village, historians and reporters were not welcome at his jewelry store, and when the camera crew went to interview him, he whispered: "It's a business place, you don't Understand? This is where I do business. Please leave."

　　Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and helicopter shooter Lawrence Colborn in the My Lai massacre were also interviewed by My Lai Four Hours.

Thompson said he was saddened by what he had witnessed in My Lai village, and that he was saddened by his inability to stop the massacre.

On March 16, 1968, Thompson and his crew were ordered to support ground operations around My Lai Village.

At 9 a.m., they found an injured Vietnamese woman when they flew the helicopter over My Lai village, so they let the helicopter hover at a low altitude, only to see Captain Medina walk up to the woman, kick her first, and then shoot and kill her. took her.

Colburn said: "We saw a young woman of about 20 years old lying on the grass, she was unarmed, she was injured in the chest. As we were circling low, Medina came up and kicked her and he was right there with us. Watching and doing this, our people are killing people like this."

　　The helicopter then flew over a ditch full of dozens of corpses. Thompson was shocked by the scene. "In my opinion, something is wrong. We saw a ditch full of corpses. There is a problem here." Thompson believes that the ditch The movement indicated that there were still people alive there.

When Thompson asked a sergeant if he could help people in the trenches, the answer was that the only way to help them was to get them "out of pain" as quickly as possible.

Afterwards, U.S. aircraft opened fire on the trench.

U.S. high-level downplays massacre

　　The documentary also revealed how the top U.S. leadership downplayed the My Lai massacre at the time.

Alexander Hague, deputy national security adviser to President Nixon, told White House staff in a memo that "no one can be investigated, charged or convicted in any case arising out of the Vietnam War." William Kelly was by no means the only response to My Lai The man responsible for the village massacre, but he became the only one convicted.

Under Nixon's interference, he became America's most privileged prisoner, and 35 months in captivity was like a vacation.

　　"Four Hours in My Lai Village" won an Emmy for Best Documentary Shortly after its premiere.

The domestic public opinion in the United States has mixed opinions on it.

The Boston Globe said the documentary provided "a wide range of context, from the shocking loss of Charlie Company to the military cover-up to the acquittal of multiple Army officers."

Washington Monthly praised the documentary for "telling the complete story, from the invasion to the cover-up, in direct and often harrowing detail."

A Chicago Tribune review, however, said the film "paints a distorted picture of the Vietnam War."

Veteran who was "sealed" uncovered the truth about the My Lai village massacre concealed by the U.S. military

　　After the My Lai massacre, the U.S. military kept it a secret for a long time.

It was not until more than a year later that the truth gradually emerged.

In order to expose the lies of the U.S. military and bring the culprits of the massacre to justice, American filmmaker Joseph Stryker and his team searched across the United States for people who participated in the massacre, and finally found five willing to defy The veterans of the army's "Ganging Order" restored the real scene of the massacre in My Lai Village.

　　The documentary "Interview with Veterans" was filmed in 1970 and lasted 22 minutes.

According to the recollections of these veterans, the My Lai massacre was deliberate by the U.S. Army, and the night before the massacre, Capt. Ernest Medina, Captain of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade, U.S. Army, told his soldiers , many small villages, including My Lai, are full of enemy troops and no civilians.

When the US troops arrived, the situation was reversed. There were no armed men in the village. The villagers were preparing for the market. When the US troops arrived, they did not panic or flee at first.

One veteran recalled that no one was shooting at the U.S. military at all.

However, the troops, instigated by an officer named William Kelly, spent four hours killing the villagers and burning their houses.

　　All five veterans interviewed said they were carrying out orders and that there was a sense of "revenge" in the troops on the day the massacre was carried out.

In March 1968, the officers and men of Charlie's Company were in a state of anger and fear, desperate to survive the war.

The company had suffered more than 40 casualties since arriving in Vietnam in December 1967, just two days before the massacre, when a soldier in the company was killed by a landmine.

At the beginning of the massacre, a soldier stabbed a villager with a bayonet, then another soldier pushed a villager into a well and threw a grenade into it.

The massacre expanded rapidly, with a group of women and children kneeling around a temple, all of whom were shot in the head soon after.

In the documentary, a veteran admits he shot a woman from the back, killing her and her months-old baby.

A large group of villagers was driven into a ditch by the U.S. military, and Lieutenant Kelly repeatedly ordered everyone to be killed, and the women chanted "No Viet Cong," but it didn't help.

　　A black veteran said in an interview at the park that he didn't want to kill women and children, but with a gun pointed at his head, officers told him "either you or them."

During the massacre by the US military, many women lay on top of their children to protect them, and the children were alive at first, but Lieutenant Kelly shot them frantically when he saw the children stand up.

A veteran said the bodies were piled up in the trenches.

Veterans say more than 200 children were killed by heavy machine gun fire.

　　In addition to the massacres, the five veterans disclosed many more appalling atrocities.

Multiple veterans mentioned that the U.S. military cut off the ears of the victims and that women were raped and dismembered.

The women allegedly raped in My Lai Village range from 10-year-old girls to middle-aged women in their 40s.

Many women suffered sexual violence before their deaths, and U.S. soldiers gang-raped them.

As one US soldier stripped the girl, another viciously called her a "Viet Cong prostitute."

　　"Interview with the Retired" premiered in New York in February 1971 and soon won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Critics said the perpetrators themselves described how they destroyed My Lai, making the film one of the most nerve-wracking films of the 1970s.

"The New York Times" said that the soldiers' testimony is true and rational, and after reading it, it will produce almost indescribable sadness.

There are also comments that "Interview with the Retired" is a rather cold-blooded film, "The Vietnam War veteran is so calm and cold when he tells about burning people, shooting babies and many other crimes. America is really hopeless!" Although only 22 minutes, but the film stirred up anti-war sentiment in the United States, with many Americans taking to the streets to protest U.S. atrocities in Vietnam.

(Author Hou Tao Ge Yuanfen)