September 5: Two Massacres

2014-09-05On 5 September 1969, William Laws Calley, Jr. was charged with six counts of murder for his role in the My Lai Massacre that took place in 16 March 1968. Known in Vietnam as Thảm sát Mỹ Lai, between 347 (U.S. estimate) and 504 (Vietnamese estimate) civilians were killed. Calley would be convicted of murdering 22 of those unarmed civilians.

The My Lai Massacre has been referred to as “the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War;” a war that was extremely unpopular in the United States. The initial cover-up and later revelations of the My Lai atrocities would help increase that opposition.

The Vietnam War was also known as Chiến tranh Việt Nam and the Resistance War Against America. The first American combat troops were sent to South Vietnam on 9 February 1965. However, as part of the Cold War strategies to stop the spread of Communism, American support for South Vietnam began more than a decade earlier. The war would last until 30 April 1975 when Saigon fell to the communists.

Although the Vietnam War was not fought on religious grounds, a religious element did exist. In 1955, Vietnam was divided into North and South. Fearing persecution at the hands of the Communists, more than one 1,000,000 Catholics emigrated from North to South Vietnam. Catholic Ngô Đình Diệm became the leader of South Vietnam. When he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary, he alarmed the Buddhist majority.
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Three years after Calley was charged for his role in the My Lai Massacre, on 5 September 1972, the Munich Massacre took place at the Olympic games when the Palestinian Black September group attacked the Israel team and took 11 hostages. Two of the hostages died during the attack and the remaining nine died the next day.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Caption: Second Lieutenant William Laws Calley, Jr.

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