The Ditch at My Lai
Today is March 16, 2010.
It is the 42nd anniversary of the
My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968.
When I went back to Vietnam in
March 1994, I took this picture of
the infamous ditch at the massacre site.
Over 150 innocent Vietnamese civilians
were herded into this ditch and shot at
point-blank range.
It took less than a minute for the locust of
bullets to take the lives of 150 people.
America was on a rampage.
You drain the swamp to kill all the fish.
You carpet bomb to kill everyone.
And while this ditch was filling up with
blood and body parts,
the rest of the U.S Government troops
were under orders to kill the other 350
civilians who were in the village that day.
A total of 504 innocent civilians were
slaughtered.
The U.S. Government troops were there
about four hours, long enough to commit
other unspeakable war crimes before people
were shot.
During the first stages of the massacre,
high ranking military officers were flying
overhead in helicopters directing the massacre.
These people were never found guilty of war crimes.
Obviously.
You always protect the chain of command when
it comes to these kinds of war crimes.
It is an unwritten rule in the call of duty.
The brass are always kept clean.
Very clean.
The code of silence is never broken.
It's the law.
The shooters are always the scapegoats.
The Military Orders disappear in the
U.S. Government archives of insanity.
It's always about bad appples.
Never who ordered the apples,
that became bad apples when ordered
to commit unfathomable crimes against
humanity.
Everything is a cover up.
Misinformation, disinformation, and just
plain point-blank murder.
My Lai was a U.S. Government calling card.
It was a message to the VC in Quang Ngai Province.
You continue to kill American soldiers,
and we will scorch your soul.
The VC knew about calling cards.
A " Total War," experience could be called up
by the U.S. Government in a matter of minutes.
If it was air power, or mass quantities of artillery
rounds,
it was an earthquake of destruction that the
Vietnamese
knew all too well.
When it was over, the insects were dead.
It was pure horror that affected generations
to come.
The Vietnamese were absolutely terrified of retaliation.
The Vietnamese were absolutely terrified of the
Americans.
You don't fuck with the United States Government.
And when they did, which is called self defense,
generations of Vietnamese were never born.
This is what the My Lai Massacre was all about.
It was a U.S. calling card.
It happened all the time in Vietnam.
The only difference is, the U.S. got
caught at My Lai.
But in the end, it didn't matter,
because the whole world would eventually find
out about
the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
It scared the hell out of people all over the
world.
You mess with the U.S. Government,
and America will make you pay for it.
All those calling cards are now in the Middle
East.
You continue to kill American soldiers,
you continue to defend yourself,
and we will scorch your soul.
And except for a few chosen people,
the reason the U.S. Government gets away with
it,
is because the American people will do nothing
to resist.
Obedience is like a bounty hunter.
The truth is executed at point-blank range.
Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
March 16, 2010
In memory of all those 504 names I
touched at the My Lai Massacre site.
When you take your last breath,
your eyes open to a new world.