page_title: My Lai massacre
section_title: Remembrance
hierarchical_section_title: My Lai massacre / Remembrance
caption_attribution_description: English: A diorama in the museum of the My Lai massacre memorial site, near Quang Ngai, Vietnam, depicts the up-close nature of the massacre. June 2009.
context_page_description: The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in Sơn Tịnh District, South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, as were children as young as 12. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served only three-and-a-half years under house arrest.
  This war crime, which was later called "the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War", took place in two hamlets of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi Province. These hamlets were marked on the U.S. Army topographic maps as Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê.
  The U.S. Army slang name for the hamlets and sub-hamlets in that area was Pinkville, and the carnage was initially referred to as the Pinkville Massacre.
context_section_description: Mỹ Lai holds a special place in American and Vietnamese collective memory.
  A 2.4-hectare (5.9-acre) Sơn Mỹ Memorial dedicated to victims of the Sơn Mỹ (Mỹ Lai) massacre was created in the village of Tịnh Khê, Sơn Tịnh District, Quảng Ngãi Province, Vietnam. The graves with headstones, signs on the places of killing and a museum are all located on memorial site. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City has an exhibition on Mỹ Lai.
  Some American veterans chose to go on pilgrimage to the site of the massacre to heal and reconcile.
  On the 30th anniversary of the massacre, 16 March 1998, a groundbreaking ceremony for the Mỹ Lai Peace Park was held 2 km (1 mi) away from the site of the massacre. Veterans, including Hugh Thompson Jr. and Lawrence Colburn from the helicopter rescue crew, attended the ceremony. Mike Boehm, a veteran who was instrumental in the peace park effort, said, "We cannot forget the past, but we cannot live with anger and hatred either. With this park of peace, we have created a green, rolling, living monument to peace."
  On 16 March 2001, the Mỹ Lai Peace Park was dedicated, a joint venture of the Quảng Ngãi Province Women's Union, the Madison Quakers' charitable organization, and the Vietnamese government.
caption: Mỹ Lai massacre memorial site, in Quảng Ngãi, Vietnam
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