There are always two sides to every story, and in My Lai by Mrs. Ha Thi Qui we find out the Vietnamese perspective on tragic day of February 26, 1968. Mrs. Ha Thi Qui explains that this morning was like any another morning, and seeing the American troops represented just another patrol or stroll through the village.
While reading and learning about My Lai, i was completely shocked from an American perspective. I never thought that men with our flag on their arm's could and would commit such an horrendous crime. Of course i thought about the peopleand their deaths, but i never thought how the shock effected them. In this reading except, she says "they gave the children candy." Imagine how unexpected it would be to have a trusted neighbor who has been in contact with your child, coming back and killing him. Not just your family, your entire village. All that you have known. These people didn't run because they felt they didn't have to. They never thought that a large scale killing spree would take place. They were unarmed, and unaware of what would happen on that day. The enormous amount of feelings that people of My Lai must have felt would be indescribable. To them, they were tricked into believing that these American troops were going to help, or at least not bother them at all. Because of their trust, many of them died.
Before the Vietnam war even started, Ho Chin Minh respected and idolized America and looked for them to help his country fight for their independence. I don't think Minh or any person at that time thought America would be the one to fight a modernize tech-no war on this small Indo China country. After the war started, we still had many people in Vietnam who trusted us. After My Lai, the South Vietnamesee who thought of our troops as bringing candy, shattered the trust and respect they had for us. In order for the My Lai massacre to occur the American's had to dehumanize the South Vietnamese people who they murdered. In order for the South Vietnamese to comprehend the massacre at My Lai, they had to dehumanize the Americans, who they no longer viewed as peaceful people, but as murderers.
