The My Lai Massacre _ History

Gentlemen, it was late in April 1968 that I first heard of Pinkville and what allegedly happened there. But in the following months, I was to hear similar stories from such a wide variety of people that it became impossible for me to disbelieve that something rather dark and bloody did indeed occur in a village called Pinkville in the Republic of Vietnam. In April 1968, I happened to run into Private 1st Corporal Butch Groover. He told me that Charlie Company 1st Battalion 20th Infantry had been assigned to Task Force Barker to help conduct search and destroy operations on the Patongan Peninsula. One village area was particularly troublesome and seemed to be infested with booby traps and enemy soldiers. And the men of Task Force Barker had a special name for it. They called it Pinkville. One morning in March, Task Force Barker moved out from its firebase headed for Pinkville. Its mission? Destroy the trouble spot and all of its inhabitants. Any villagers who ran from Charlie Company were stopped by the encircling companies. I asked Butch several times if all the people were killed. He said that he thought they were. Men, women, and children. He recalled seeing a small boy, about three or four years old, standing by the trail with a gunshot wound in one arm while blood trickled between his fingers. He just stood there, staring around like he didn't understand. He didn't believe what was happening. Then, the captain's radio operator put a burst of M-16 rifle fire into him. One of the company's officers, 2nd Lieutenant Calley, had rounded up several groups of villagers. According to the story, Calley then machine-gunned each group. Groover estimated that the population of the village had been 300 to 400 people, and that very few, if any, escaped. After hearing this account, I couldn't quite accept it. Somehow, I just couldn't believe that not only had so many young American men participated in such an act of barbarism, but that their officers had ordered it. I became determined to ask them about Pinkville so that I might compare their accounts with Private 1st Corporal Groover's. Instead of contradicting Butch Groover's story, they corroborated it. It was terrible. They were slaughtering villagers like so many sheep. Exactly what did, in fact, occur in the village of Pinkville in March 1968, I do not know for certain, but I am convinced that it was something very black indeed. I think that it was Winston Churchill who once said, a country without a conscience is a country without a soul, and a country without a soul is a country that cannot survive. I feel that I must take some positive action in this matter. I hope that you will launch an investigation immediately and keep me informed of your progress. If you cannot, then I don't know what other course of action to take. Sincerely, Ron Reidenhower