The Reality of the My Lai Massacre and the Myth of the Vietnam War

Since the Vietnam War, the United States has been involved in several major military conflicts. Critics of US military intervention have consistently looked back to the Vietnam War for "lessons." Perhaps the most common and forceful "lesson" is that the military cannot be trusted to fight these wars" ethically." In making this argument, critics consistently point to the My Lai Massacre (March 16, 1968) as evidence that the US military is prone to committing atrocities or that the realities of the conflict make fighting it "ethically" impossible. This book addresses such criticism by offering a detailed analysis of the My Lai Massacre and the way it has come to be understood in the US.

First, using a fine-grained analysis of 18,000 pages of perpetrator testimony and 5,000 pages of official documents, this study presents the most detailed reconstruction of the massacre itself available. Using this account, author Marshall Poe shows that standard histories of the massacre once incomplete and misleading. Second, using detailed survey of the American press, governmental records, and academic treatments of My Lai over the period 1968 to the present, Poe analyzes the origins and history of the commonplace that there were "many My Lais." Furthermore, Poe argues that this commonplace came to serve the interests of both liberal and conservative critics of the Vietnam War.

The Reality of the My Lai Massacre And the Myth of the Vietnam War is an important resource for those studying American history and military history.