en.wikipedia.org
The
Mỹ Lai massacre (
/ˌmiːˈlaɪ/;
Vietnamese:
Thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰâːm ʂǎːt mǐˀ lāːj] (
listen)) was the
mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese
civilians by
United States troops in
Sơn Tịnh District,
South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968 during the
Vietnam War. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by
U.S. Army soldiers from
Company C, 1st
Battalion,
20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion,
3rd Infantry Regiment,
11th Brigade,
23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the
women were gang-raped and their
bodies mutilated, and some mutilated and
raped children were as young as 12.
[1][2] Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant
William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of murdering 22 villagers, he was originally given a
life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under
house arrest after President
Richard Nixon commuted his sentence.
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