My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness

Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre—the slaughter of 504 old men, women, and children by American troops in the South Vietnamese village of Son My on Mar. 16, 1968—and the massacre’s legal and political aftermath. Jones (Blue and Gray Diplomacy), professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history. To Jones’s credit, he succeeds in his goal of presenting a “balanced and accurate account” of the still-controversial incident. He also tackles the thorny questions of why the massacre took place, and whether it was an aberration. Jones boils down the answer to the former question to character flaws and the lack of “a notion of decency” among the troops who did the killing and raping. As for whether My Lai was a Vietnam War aberration, Jones cites other massacres in Vietnam and previous U.S. wars, but notes that My Lai “stands out, in part because of the numbers” of people killed. Maps & Illus. [em](June) [/em]