Uncovering the secrets behind the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, this is "a brutal, cautionary tale that serves as a painful reminder of the worst that can happen in war."—Chicago Tribune.

A trenchant and haunting account of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and its aftermath.

Allison tells the story of a terrible moment in American history and explores how to deal with the aftermath. On March 16, 1968, American soldiers killed as many as five hundred Vietnamese men, women, and children in a village near the South China Sea. In My Lai William Thomas Allison explores and evaluates the significance of this horrific event. How could such a thing have happened? Who (or what) should be held accountable? How do we remember this atrocity and try to apply its lessons, if any? My Lai has fixed the attention of Americans of various political stripes for more than forty years. The breadth of writing on the massacre, from news reports to scholarly accounts, highlights the difficulty of establishing fact and motive in an incident during which confusion, prejudice, and self-preservation overwhelmed the troops. Son of a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War—and aware that the generation who lived through the incident is aging—Allison seeks to ensure that our collective memory of this shameful episode does not fade. Well written and accessible, Allison’s book provides a clear narrative of this historic moment and offers suggestions for how to come to terms with its aftermath.

But these questions are asked again in the hope that they might lead to a better understanding of what My Lai means for us now.

An account of the My Lai incident based on interviews with the men of Charlie Company and on a limited number of transcripts from the Army's investigation.

Uncovering the secrets behind the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, this is "a brutal, cautionary tale that serves as a painful reminder of the worst that can happen in war."—Chicago Tribune.

The massacre at My Lai on March 16, 1968 continues to haunt students of the Vietnam War as a moment that challenges notions of American virtue. James Olson and Randy Roberts have combed unpublished testimony and gather a collection of eyewitness accounts from those who were at My Lai and reports from those who investigated the incident and its cover-up.

Consists of the report first issued in 1974 under title : Report of the Department of the Army review of the preliminary investigations into the My Lai incident : volume I, The report of the investigation. Vols. 2 and 4 of the original report were not released and v. 3 was not reproduced.

Based on classified documents and interviews, argues that American acts of violence against millions of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War were a pervasive and systematic part of the war.

In the fall of 1969, Gary Bray landed in South Vietnam as a recently married, freshly minted second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. His assignment was not enviable: leading the platoon whose former members had committed the My Lai massacre—the murder of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians—eighteen months earlier. In this compelling memoir, he shares his experiences of Vietnam in the direct wake of that terrible event. After My Lai documents the war’s horrific effects on both sides of the struggle. Bray presents the Vietnam conflict as the touchstone of a generation, telling how his feelings about being a soldier—a family tradition—were dramatically altered by the events he participated in and witnessed. He explains how young men, angered by the deaths of comrades and with no release for their frustration, can sometimes cross the line of legal and ethical behavior. Bray’s account differs from many Vietnam memoirs in his vivid descriptions of platoon-level tactical operations. As he builds suspense in moment-by-moment depictions of men plunging into jungle gloom and tragedy, he demonstrates that what led to My Lai is easier to comprehend once you’ve walked the booby-trapped ground yourself. An intensely personal story, gracefully rendered yet brutally honest, After My Lai reveals how warfare changes you forever.