What makes My Lai important goes well beyond the body count. It goes to the fact that "We have viewed ourselves as fundamentally different from the rest of the world, free from the abuse of despots and the inhumanity of other humans" (Olson & Roberts 1998 vii). Americans considered themselves as always fighting for human rights, and aggressively pursuing those who did not live up to our standards. And yet, here American soldiers are found to be "inhuman" in the sense of having killed seemingly innocent Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai. The question to be answered here is: Was My Lai an aberration during the Vietnam War or a relatively common occurrence? Research will show that this was NOT an aberration, and in fact was a common occurrence- on BOTH sides of the conflict. This is not offered as an excuse, but as a reality: Vietnam was not the sort of battle exercise taught in West Point or military schools. American leadership, from the very top on down, was not psychologically or physically trained for this sort of combat nor this sort of enemy.
Perhaps one needs to begin with the fact that this war was not fought in the way professional soldiers had been trained. It is also reasonable to assume that the draftees who comprised the vast majority of American troops were ill equipped to fight the sort of guerilla and jungle warfare in which the North Vietnamese were trained.
While Lieutenant Calley seemed to bear the brunt of the mass
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