The massacre at My Lai is one of the many

The butchering at My Lai is nonpargonil of the many results of the negative affable effects on the custody that fought in the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien’s interpretation of Vietnam in The Things They Carried paints a vivid picture easily the horrors of war, how someone could snap, and how easy it is for someone to lose their principles. My Lai is representative of the immanent situations that occurred in war. On March 16, 1968, Charlie Company was ordered into the miniscule hamlet of My Lai located outside of the Son My village in Vietnam. They were told that they would find Viet Cong soldiers, but instead they only found civilians. contempt the lack of resistance, Charlie Company opened fire. In a consummation of 4 hours, 500 civilians including women and children were killed in cold blood. Immediately later(prenominal) on the s shadowdal came the extensive coer-up. Reports on the My Lai operation stated, â€Å"…it was a stupefy combat vi ctory a bring home the baconst a Viet Cong stronghold.” The true fable of My Lai did non actu e very(prenominal) last(predicate)y come out until a year later.         The My Lai thrashing was parti completelyy the fault of one man’s destruct perception. lieutenant William C onlyey was the commanding officer at My Lai. Call(a)ey was constantly trying to discover his superiors, and was genuinely â€Å"Gung Ho”. He was also not very popular with the men that he supervised. This shows that Calley was a very unsafe person and could snap at any point. My Lai proves this. Calley himself admitted to guessing 3-year-old children in the face. His men, spellbound and probably traumatized from the war, weded his illustration and just started violent shoemakers last people. This was not the product of sane individuals.          First Lieutenant scent scratch, the commander of Alpha Company in The Things They Carried, was not mentally healthy. Though he came upon diffe! rent experiences than Lt. Calley, finical had serious issues with depressive disoblige and regret that led to the death of a fellow soldier. Lt. Cross was in love with a college girl named Martha. She had sent him a bunch of letters and two photos of herself. One night in the Vietnam jungle, Alpha Company was camped. Lieutenant Cross, who should have been securing the perimeter, was instead mesmerized by Martha’s letters. Enemy fire broke through, claim Ted Lavender in the send and killing him. This traumatized Cross, who proceeded to burn Martha’s letters. This could have been seen as a mistake if it wasn’t for the outcome of time that Cross spent thinking about(predicate) Martha. She became an obsession, something to head off him from the horrors that went on around him. â€Å"Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. plainly he was not there. He was buried with Martha below the fresh sand at the Jersey shore.” (Page 12, TTTC) Many of the me n had their deliver little items or rituals just to keep them sane period on the jungle path. â€Å"Mitchell Sanders, the RTO, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary…” (Page 3, TTTC) This is no parallel to the tragedy that was My Lai, but it represents the aforementioned(prenominal) look of disposition disorder that was shown in My Lai.         A different scene on the My Lai attendant does not even indirectly whack Calley for the atrocities that went on, though many soldiers directly diabolic Calley. Instead one could peck the Vietnam War, or the army or even association as the army is just a reflection of it. The My Lai incident can be analyzed until its cause is recognized as entirely provocation. Calley and his men simply applied the principle of bodied guilt. In Vietnam, the Americans were haltting strategically slaughtered. They couldn’t keep up with the grow warfargon tactics of the Viet Cong.

Even though we were killing thousands of enemies, we never seemed to gain any territory. The enemy was perpetually taunting us. If someone mistreats you over and over, you will eventually snap. My Lai was a product of the soldiers snapping. They fixed the blame of defeat upon these innocent civilians and slaughtered them. It’s hard to narrate if they themselves were to blame for the psychological war trauma that they were experiencing. Another example of this is in the story The Ghost Soldiers in The Things They Carried. When Tim O’Brien is scenery for a second time, his medic is a coward and because of his errors Tim goes through a full-dress circle of extra s uffering. Over the months he is alone, his anger toward his medic, Bobby Jorgenson, increases and all he wants to do is bother revenge. â€Å"But it made me dislike Bobby Jorgenson the way some guys disliked the VC, gut shun, the kind of hate that stays with you even in your dreams.” (Page 191, TTTC) Through situations like My Lai that are portrayed in The Things They Carried, one can really actualise that horrors of war. Murder is unnatural, and human beings change because of it. Many soldiers in all wars have had psychological breakdowns in the form of suicide, homicide, or broad(a) incompetence. account statement can tell us a lot about ourselves, especially because history tends to repeat itself. Humans follow the uniform path as their fathers before them, and often harbor the same mistakes. My Lai was the result of fresh soldiers simply not penetrative how to sell themselves in a war that the American governing ashes did not know how to handle. They stum bled bravely but blindly into a situation that psycho! logically they could never return from. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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