My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness
Howard Jones
Jul 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by James Patrick Cronin
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17 hr 3 min
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On the early morning of March 16, 1968, American soldiers from three platoons of Charlie Company, entered a group of hamlets located in the Son Tinh district of South Vietnam, located near the Demilitarized Zone and known as "Pinkville" because of the high level of Vietcong infiltration. The soldiers, many still teenagers who had been in the country for three months, were on a "search and destroy" mission. Three hours after the GIs entered the hamlets, more than five hundred unarmed villagers lay dead, killed in cold blood. The atrocity took its name from one of the hamlets, known by the Americans as My Lai 4.
Military authorities attempted to suppress the news of My Lai, until some who had been there, in particular a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson and a door gunner named Lawrence Colburn, spoke up about what they had seen. The official line was that the villagers had been killed by artillery and gunship fire rather than by small arms. That line soon began to fray. Lieutenant William Calley, one of the platoon leaders, admitted to shooting the villagers but insisted that he had acted upon orders. An exposé of the massacre and cover-up by journalist Seymour Hersh, followed by graphic photographs, incited international outrage, and Congressional and U.S. Army inquiries began.
Military authorities attempted to suppress the news of My Lai, until some who had been there, in particular a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson and a door gunner named Lawrence Colburn, spoke up about what they had seen. The official line was that the villagers had been killed by artillery and gunship fire rather than by small arms. That line soon began to fray. Lieutenant William Calley, one of the platoon leaders, admitted to shooting the villagers but insisted that he had acted upon orders. An exposé of the massacre and cover-up by journalist Seymour Hersh, followed by graphic photographs, incited international outrage, and Congressional and U.S. Army inquiries began.
On the early morning of March 16, 1968, American soldiers from three platoons of Charlie Company, entered a group of hamlets located in the Son Tinh district of South Vietnam, located near the Demilitarized Zone and known as "Pinkville" because of the high level of Vietcong infiltration. The sold...
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About the author
Howard Jones is University Research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama, where he taught for thirty-nine years. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Mutiny on the Amistad, as well as The Bay of Pigs, Death of a Generation, and To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
James Patrick Cronin is an accomplished audiobook narrator with over 100 titles to his credit. A classically trained stage actor with an MFA from the University of Louisville, he has performed as an actor and a comedian on stages all over the world.
Howard Jones is University Research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama, where he taught for thirty-nine years. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Mutiny on the Amistad, as well as The Bay of Pigs, Death of a Generation, and To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
Jame...
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