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.