- TĐH: Below is an article written by Mike Hastie, an American Army medic who started his service in Vietnam in 1970, two years after the Mỹ Lai Massacre happened. Mike has been raising funds to support My Lai Massacre Memorial and the last time he visited My Lai was on April 5-6, 2016. He wrote this article on the occasion of the 49th Anniversary of the Massacre.
- These articles by American veterans about Mỹ Lai have always been some education for me. They are always full of pain, anger, shame and guilt, so full and fresh as if everything has just happened yesterday. And that always amazes me about the American soul.
- We Vietnamese don’t keep things that long. We may talk about an event, but always with a distance between us and it, more like a history lesson than a fresh wound. I teach my Buddhist students non-attachment: “Do not grasp onto anything. All things – good or bad, happy or sad, rewarding or punishing – are simply fleeting clouds sailing through the blue transparent permanent sky which is our Buddha heart.” But these veterans’ letters, always fresh in anguish, show me more than often the depth and the purity in the American heart. Though I would still say: “Don’t grasp onto anything. Let go”.
- This article is about misery but also about healing. It is a history lesson and a lesson about the human heart.
- After Mike’s article is a comment from our friend Chuck Searcy.
My Lai Massacre Anniversary
Today, March 16, 2017, is the 49th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, located in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam.
It was Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, when approximately 115 U.S. Army soldiers of the Americal Division’s Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, landed in helicopters just outside the village of My Lai 4. Over the course of the next four hours, these American soldiers, and their Military High Command, who were flying overhead in helicopters observing the massacre, took part in a horror show far beyond the human imagination. They took the term “War Crimes” and added a butcher shop to the equation of morbid extermination. In essence, they became a U.S. version of the final solution. They committed an act of barbarity that would redefine the war in Vietnam. It would take years to decipher what happened that day, as denial is the elixir that protects us from experiencing national shame. It is these two words, ” National Shame,” that continues to hide the truth of what really happened in Southeast Asia. Tiếp tục đọc “My Lai Massacre Anniversary”
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