My Lai survivors gather, 40 years later
More than 1,000 people turned out Sunday to remember the victims of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1968, members of Charlie Company killed as many as 504 villagers, nearly all of them unarmed children, women and elderly.
When the unprovoked attack was uncovered, it horrified Americans, prompted military investigations and badly undermined support for the war.
Sunday’s memorial drew the families of the victims, returning U.S. war veterans, peace activists and a delegation of atomic bombing survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“We are not harboring hatred,” said Nguyen Hoang Son, vice governor of Quang Ngai, the central Vietnamese province where the incident occurred. “We are calling for solidarity to defend peace, to defend life and to remind the world that it must never forget the massacre at My Lai.”