By: Andrea Ross
I have been a bit silent on the blog lately as family travel, with a side of work, has been rather consuming. It seems a shame to return to the blog with a sadder post, but sometimes it’s the things that move us, that end up moving us to share.
This afternoon Brandon and I, with our wonderful Journeys Within guide Binh, visited the My Lay (pronounced Mee Lie) Museum and the site of the infamous My Lay Massacre. On March 16, 1968 a company of the US Army marched into My Lay, a small village suspected as a Viet Cong hideout, and opened fire on the men, women and children, all civilians and all unarmed. The Museum, placed in what was once My Lay village depicts the atrocities that took place that day and it is a heart-wrenching reminder of the tragedy of war.
As I walked through the displays I read letters from soldiers involved in it, expressing their regret and sorrow and their words echoed through the halls. They stated that it never should have happened and they hoped that this lessen would be learned and thus the tragic mistakes and lack of humanity of that day would never again occur. These words did bring some peace. To know that there was regret and to know that while these soldiers who that day lost their moral bearings and decency, did not lose it forever, was almost a relief, but I was also completely overcome with sadness. Even the amazing story of helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson seemed to bring me down. Thompson, circling over the village realized what was happening and saw a group of 10 villagers, among them women and children, fleeing the soldiers. In an amazing act of bravery he landed his helicopter between the villagers and the soldiers and ordered his gunners to point their guns not on the Vietnamese, but at their own troops. With this protection he was able to put the villagers on another helicopter and fly them to safety. However after this heroic act Thompson wasn’t given a heroes welcome, instead he was ostracized and criticized and targeted for abuse because he stepped out against the company. While now Thompson is considered a hero it took a lot of years for him to earn that title, when really, it was earned the minute he landed that helicopter.
In some regards the fact that this was over 40 years ago helps make the museum more tolerable, but it also reminded me of the wars we find ourselves in now, and the loss of life and freedom happening throughout the world. Just last night I received an email asking me to sign a petition to free a female journalist in Libya, who after accusing Libyan forces of rape and brutalization, was dragged away by these same forces not to be heard from again. (Click here to sign the petition: http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_iman_al_obeidi/?cl=1002848789&v=8763) Around the world people are suffering and dying because of the cruelty mankind is capable of and it seems as we grow older and wiser we look back on past mistakes, discuss how they were wrong, hope that they never happen again and then watch the next generation, the next war, the next power, make them all over again.
I have walked through Dachau in Germany, I have sat and looked at the Killing Fields in Cambodia and now I have seen the destroyed village of My Lay, but I don’t know what lessons I have drawn. I know that we are capable of extreme cruelty, yet I don’t know how to stop that cruelty. I know there is regret, but when will the regret of the previous generation be enough to stop the actions that will cause future regret in the next?
As I sat in My Lay today, with a cool breeze blowing off the rice paddies and life going on around me much as it had 43 years ago I made a wish to the keepers of the sky and the earth that those involved in conflict throughout the world realized their own power and humanity. That the politicians and the commanders don’t just keep their own hands clean, but that they guard and applaud the humanity of their soldiers. Today more than ever I wish for peace.
