My Lai Massacre

                The story of the My Lai Massacre begins on March 14 1968 with a trap set on the American battalion, Charlie Company. The ambush sparked anger and rage after “killing a popular sergeant, blinding one GI and wounding several others.” Charlie Company wanted revenge. After the service held for the sergeant Captain Medina gave the soldiers a “pep talk” in which he is speculated to have told his men that they were to kill everybody in the town of My Lai in the next mission. My Lai was a suspected Vietcong stronghold. The mission was to involve 75 soldiers and multiple gunships to eliminate possible Vietcong within the town. By the time Charlie Company arrived the Vietcong had already left leaving innocent civilians, men, women and children. At 7:22 a.m. on March 16, the choppers lifted off for the mission. Soldiers were ordered to destroy houses, poison wells and search out suspected Vietcong. The mission soon turned into a massacre in which 500 civilians were murdered.

                Based on the evidence given the death of the popular sergeant and the revenge that Charlie Company wanted most likely caused the incident as well as the hate for the Vietnamese felt by platoon leader William Calley.

                The event was covered up immediately after it ended. The official report stated that 128 had been killed with only one American casualty. Medina also said that only “twenty to twenty-eight” civilians were killed. A second report was issued after an investigation confirming that there were only twenty civilians harmed. Had it not been for “a twenty-two-year-old ex-GI from Phoenix, Ronald Ridenhour” the massacre would have never been revealed to the public.

                A court martial ensued after intense investigation by the military. Most of the men evolved were no longer a part of the military thus saving them from the court martial. A total of twenty-five men were prosecuted. Only a few were actually tried and the only one found guilty, William Calley.

 In my opinion justice was served as much as possible. Due to the varying reports and vagueness of some and varying accounts of what was actually said by who and where it would be hard to get fail safe convictions on anyone involved. It is terrible that these people were found not guilty but without sufficient evidence you cannot put someone in jail. Justice was not served in respects to the civilians that were murdered and probably not of been served even if every man involved was found guilty.

Somalia

United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) was the name for the United Nations involvement into facilitating peace in the war torn Somalia. The purpose of the mission was to maintain the ceasefire created by the UN in the early 1990’s to keep the Somalian Civil War from getting any worse than it already was. The reason of the involvement was to keep the intense violence at a low level and to create peace within the struggling country. A large amount of Somalia’s population was in danger of starvation and lethal disease and the UN attempting to fix the problem by supplying food and water. Somalia was being run by warlords who controlled the supply of food into the country and employed civilians to do their bidding in return for food. The United States mission (UNOSOM II) was split into four phases. The first was to deploy troops and secure harbors and airports for continuous deployments. The second phase was to expand the security zone south. The third was to further expand the security zone into other major areas and the fourth and final was to hand over control to the UN.

                The United States withdrew from Somalia in order to negotiate a peace treaty. The withdrawal was part of the agreement in the peace treaty. From that point on the US was determined to withdraw troops as quickly as possible and use the small surge of troops to aid in the withdrawal.

                Somalia has not had any recognized central government since the fall of its leader, Siad Barre in 1991. There have been multiple attempts to install any type of organized government but all have failed due to the hostility between the nation’s major warlords. These warlords control all of Somalia and refuse to give power to anyone else but themselves.

I Hate the 1960's

I would hate to live in the 1960’s. For starters I have always disagreed with the laid back lifestyle of hippies or the rebellious lives that college students led. I have never seen the point in attempting to fight or boycott ones government especially ours. We have a fantastic government that has done a wonderful job of supplying us with protection and a very large amount of freedoms shared by few other countries around the world. However there are always exceptions to the rule for instance a revolution or rebellion is needed for a tyrannical government or an oppressive one but those exceptions do not apply to us. Some of the people used the riots and rebellions to actually make a point but it eventually escalated to where kids did it to be cool or to just have fun and it no longer had a strong message.

                I have also always seen the view of “why can’t we all be friends” a silly viewpoint. I find it to be naïve and foolish to think that everybody should get along. It would be great if that were even semi-possible but it is not. People will always discriminate, they will always find ways to make money through war and there will always be crazed leaders that are so paranoid that they will kill and threaten.  There will always be conflicts even if they are over absolutely nothing because it is in our nature and the idea there will ever be complete peace is moronic. It would be nice but it will never happen.

                Another reason why I would never want to go is because I don’t like be forced to do things including go to war. Even though serving has always been an interest of mine I would never want to be forced into it. I am the type of person that if you just leave alone I will do whatever it is I need to do but the minute you hassle me or force me to do something I will find any way I can to get out of it. Not to mention the Vietnam War had some huge impacts on returning veterans that majorly affect their lives and those of their families. I would hate to have that happen to me because as a result I would blame the government for enacting the draft and forcing me to go which is the last thing I want because I would then become the thing I dislike about society the most, rebellious. 

Translating the War

A.      I agree with the article when it talks about the level of realism in the violence shown in the movie. It is hard for producers to know what is too far and when dial down violence but be able to still make a moving war film. Producers and directors want their films to be remembered and a good way to do this is through violence and action but they struggle to find what is right and what is too much.

B.      It is hard to find something in the article that I “disagree” with due to the fact that it is mostly factual and there really isn’t a opinion section that I can either agree or disagree with. It talks about the themes shown through the movie Saving Private Ryan and why those themes are important or what they show about Americans in general. It also talks about its ability to do this as well as its ability to show the feelings of people involved in the war. The film does a great job of showing all of these things and that is what the article points out so it is hard for someone to sit down and look for something to “disagree” with.

C.      Whenever I watched Saving Private Ryan, I never looked at it to take some moral lesson away or that it so easily and masterfully portrayed the feelings of the soldiers in the war. It shows the politics surrounding the war and the good honest men that are forced to carry out their orders but do it with no hesitation. Whenever I watched it I just looked at it as another good war movie and decided that it was one of my favorites. Now when I watch it I can see all of the ideas that the director wanted to show the audience and that has brought the movie to a whole another level for me.

D.      This article along with this class has taught me to look beyond the special effects and look deeper for what the movie is trying to say about society or themes. I now look at movies as more than just something for entertainment. Behind every movie is a true event that inspired it or some other theme that I can learn from. This makes movies more enjoyable for me and I can now go into a movie looking to learn something rather than sit back and get caught up in the drama of the movie itself.

The Fog of War vs Saving Private Ryan

The Fog of War teaches the viewer much more than Saving Private Ryan.  The two differ majorly because one is a documentary which contains facts and opinions from people who were actually there where the other takes overly exaggerated and patriotic stories and ideas and turns them into a product meant to entertain instead of educate. This does not mean that we cannot learn from them however. The themes portrayed and the values shown were pretty common of the time period. In Saving Private Ryan a platoon searchers for a single soldier to tell him that he may leave and go home. Along the way the platoon shows comradery and bravery. Underneath the very patriotic shell shown, many soldiers would go to great depths to save others.

                Also both films to a great job of depicting the hardships and inhumane acts that were commonly seen. Whether it be firebombing entire cities just to inflict civilian casualties or using terrifying weapons on the ground such as flamethrowers to clear bunkers and pill boxes. War isn’t pretty. It’s all about survival and there are no limits on what soldiers can do to defeat the enemy. If that means striking fear into the civilians or into the opposing soldiers themselves.

                There are important lessons to be learned about war in both The Fog of War and Saving Private Ryan. These films are important to our understanding of the inner workings of war and the politics that surround it. Other movies also do a great job of adding to our knowledge of the second World War but few do it like these.

                

War Movies

         I had a hard time remembering all of the war films I have seen in my life so I looked up the top 100 greatest and ran through it to see which I have seen:

All Quiet on the Western Front                                  Behind Enemy Lines

Saving Private Ryan                                                         Tears of the Sun

Full Metal Jacket (Parts of it)                                       Kingdom of Heaven

Black Hawk Down                                                            Alexander

Troy                                                                                       Glory

Tropic Thunder (If that counts)                                  Pearl Harbor

I love war movies. I have always had a fascination with warfare and combat in general. The only books I have ever liked were ones involving war. I can only think of a few movies that I like that don’t have any guns or action whatsoever in them. My life is full of things involving guns. I have paintball and air soft guns, the movies I watch have guns, the games I play always have guns and the books I read talk about them. I have thought about joining the military, specifically the Air Force or the Army, several times because of my fascination with war and I am still leaving it as an option after high school. 

The more I talk about it the more I become involved and interested. Even while writing this I get jittery to look ups new things for my paintball gun or different types of guns I can get, mainly air soft, BB and paintball seeing how I have no need for an actual gun. All of these interests are shown in my movie selection. War movies are my favorite of all genres of movies and I can’t see that changing any time soon.  I find them very interesting. I am constantly identifying the guns, looking at the things they wear and the technical jargon that is said when I watch war films. Another reason I like them most is because they are the most relatable. I can almost perfectly picture myself in the film, shooting the guns, making decisions and being the hero. 

These films are perfect for me because of my personality. I relate with the common theme seen throughout these types of films of sticking to your squad mates and having the type of instant reactions to save a fellow soldier despite the situation that soldiers must have.  I don’t think I would crack under the type of pressure that they go through. When we had to answer the question whether or not it was better to “let nine guilty men go free than have one innocent man go to jail” I found myself thinking about the situation if I was in it. I would gladly be the one innocent man to go to jail and have nine other guilty follow me. I have always being willing to take “hits for the team” to help others and I have never had a problem with it or have I ever second guessed my decision.

I feel that I’m getting a little to excited about the whole subject and you can probably tell I could write about this for hours so with me being sidetracked  I will bring this to a close by saying, I love war movies.

People Are Good

The films High Noon and It’s a Wonderful Life depict two very similar occurrences but show two very different outcomes. In one the main character is left by the town to defend himself and in the other the main character is saved and supported by the society. It’s a Wonderful Life depicts the more likely scenario because people help each other in troubled times. For instance after the massive earthquake that struck Haiti the US alone donated more than $500 million. After the tsunamis in Asia $163 million was donated. Also after September 11 over $239 million as donated and after hurricane Katrina over $580 million was raised to help the victims as well as thousands of people actually helped rebuild the devastated community.  Most people elect to help and support others in their time of need and in return expect others to do the same. Money isn’t the only thing that is donated. Each year in the US over 8 million people donate blood. Over 15 million units of blood are collected each year. There are also numerous charities and foundations that help victims of assault, natural disasters as well as deadly disease such as cancer and AIDS.  Some popular charities include The American Red Cross, UNICEF, The Salvation Army and The American Cancer Society. The reason why people help others besides the fact that it is the right thing to do is because they feel better about themselves if they help others. It makes people feel better and feel like they have accomplished something if they help another person in their time of need. 

http://philanthropy.com/article/Donations-to-Aid-Haiti-Exce/63756/

http://www.givelife2.org/aboutblood/faq.asp

http://www.dailypress.com/news/newsletter/dp-top10.charities.pg,0,7496730.photogallery