I read Seymour Hersh's My Lai Massacre.

Many of the quotes were very interesting - they created a lot of emotion and showed character and some were very revealing. Here are a few that really stood out to me:

"At one point, he said, more than 20 villagers were lined up in front of a ditch and shot.

'They had them in a group standing over a ditch-just like a Nazi-type thing. ...One officer ordered a kid to machine-gun everybody down, but the kid just couldn’t do it. He threw the machine gun down and the officer picked it up. ...' Terry said. 'I don’t remember seeing any men in the ditch. Mostly women and kids.'

Later, he and the platoon team he headed were taking a lunch break near the ditch when, Terry said, he noticed 'some of them were still breathing. ...They were pretty badly shot up. They weren’t going to get any medical help, and so we shot them. Shot maybe five of them. ..' "

- When I read this quote I felt like I was reading insider information that shouldn't be told to the public; I was surprised and appalled. This gives insight to what really went on in Vietnam.


"Asked what he thought at the time, Meadlo said, 'I just thought we were supposed to do it.' Later, he said that the shooting 'did take a load off my conscience for the buddies we’d lost. It was just revenge, that’s all it was.'"

- This gives interesting insight to what the soldiers felt while in war and would never have the same impact if it weren't a direct quote.


"'They didn’t put up a fight or anything. The women huddled against their children and took it. They brought their kids real close to their stomachs and hugged them, and put their bodies over them trying to save them. It didn’t do much good,' Meadlo said."

- This quote is very graphic and revealing. When you read it, it is really easy to picture in your mind.


Besides the quotes, a lot of his articles were hard to follow because of the extent of military jargon used. I also did not like the use of questions as transitions into new paragraphs/ideas.

As a journalistic work, Hersh's articles brought an overseas issue home at a time when TV wasn't as prevalent. Also, this was an issue that the military wanted to cover up so without Hersh's determination to write this story it probably would not have ever been told. I think it may have served as a check on government and military action in general.