My Lai 50th Anniversary Vigil

One of the most painful moments of the US war in Viet Nam was the deliberate murder in My Lai on March 16,1968, of 504 innocent civilians, including women, children and grandparents.

More would have died but for the heroic intervention of a US helicopter crew led by Hugh Thompson. The Pentagon tried to hide the massacre story until exposed more than a year later by Ron Ridenhour and Seymour Hersh. Only Lt. William Calley was ultimately held responsible by court martial, but he was pardoned by President Nixon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

The 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre is an appropriate time not only to honor the victims and those who challenged that infamous event, but also to bring to light less known or still unknown atrocities. It is an occasion for our nation to acknowledge the millions of deaths of innocent civilians during the war in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos and to take responsibility for the ongoing humanitarian legacies.

VIEW MY LAI APPEAL

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Join us March 16 or organize your own local vigil.
Download printable PDF event flyer >

View event program handout >
View bios of event speakers >

Religious services held March 16-18 are encouraged to include attention to My Lai. Download our 30 page My Lai Worship Resource.
 

Among the goals of the vigil are:

• To acknowledge moral responsibility for crimes of war committed in our name;
• To end military strategies that target civilians with anti-personnel weapons and drone strikes;
• To demand adequate U.S. government aid to clean up Agent Orange, land mines, and unexploded ordnance still claiming lives in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia;
• To seek the release of all government sequestered evidence of additional criminal actions committed by U.S. forces in Indochina, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere

Please join us to make sure that the lessons and legacies of the war in Viet Nam are learned, resolved and applied to similar current conflicts.

My Lai Vigil Press Advisory

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RECENT BOOKS

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (American Empire Project) by Nick Turse

Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen

My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness by Howard Jones

The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story by Trent Angers

�Four Hours in My Lai� by Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim

EARLIER BOOKS BY SEYMOUR HERSH
 

My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh

Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at MyLai 4 by Seymour M Hersh

ARTICLES

Was My Lai just one of many massacres in Vietnam War? By Nick Turse for the BBC

WORSHIP GUIDE

Created by the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committed for the 50th anniversary. Download the 30 page My Lai Worship Resource (PDF)
 

FILMS

4 Hours in My Lai: Anatomy of a Massacre - 1989 Film by Yorkshire Television (watch on YouTube)

Winter Soldier - 1972 film featuring testimony of over 125 veterans at the hearing they organized on atrocities (on DVD)

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In February 1971, a public inquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam was held in Detroit. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized this event which they called the Winter Soldier Investigation. More than 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed and committed, including a young John Kerry.

"Winter Soldier is an important historical document, an eerily prescient antiwar plea and a dazzling example of filmmaking at its most iconographically potent. But at its best, it is the eloquent, unforgettable tale of profound moral reckoning."
–Washington Post

95 Minutes • Discussion following the film

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