Andersonville Prison vs My Lai Massacre
13,000 dead from malnutrition, lack of sanitation and exposure. 500 innocent civilians dead, killed by American G.I.s; unarmed, they were stabbed, raped, and slaughtered. These were actual events in our history, eschewed for as long as possible to keep America’s reputation untarnished; these events have been left out of text books and curriculums.
Three years after the Civil War had started, in 1864, Andersonville Prison, then referred to as Camp Sumter, was built. Andersonville Prison was built in Andersonville, Georgia because the small town only had 20 people and did not have the political power to oppose it. Originally made to hold 10,000 union prisoners, by July, it held 33,000 prisoners. Andersonville Prison did not offer any shade, shelter, proper nutrition or sanitation, and in result, around 100 prisoners died every day. The conditions were so terrible at Andersonville Prison, “Wuld that I was an artist & had the material to paint this camp & all its horors or the tounge of some eloquent Statesman and had the privleage of expresing my mind to our hon. rulers at Washington, I should gloery to describe this hell on earth where it takes 7 of its ocupiants to make a shadow.” (Sgt. David Kennedy of the 9th Ohio Cavalry). By the time Andersonville Prison was closed due to fear of union attack, 13,700 men had died in the walls of Andersonville Prison.
On March 16, 1968, more than 500 unarmed women and children were brutally killed in the village of My Lai, Vietnam. The American G.I.s, under the command of Lt. William Calley of the Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division marched into the village of My Lai with the order “This is what you’ve been waiting for – search and destroy – and you’ve got it.” There were no reports of opposing fire, but eye witnesses reported elderly were stabbed, girls were raped, and people were forced into a ditch and mowed down with machine gun fire. Near the end of the massacre, when the Vietnamese realized they were not going to be let free, they started to run, just then, a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson landed his chopper in between the G.I.s and the running Vietnamese. He ordered his gunman to shoot any G.I. who continued to peruse the Vietnamese citizens. Near the end of 1969, almost a year and half after the massacre, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story to the American public. Outraged by the massacre, the American public demanded justice for the G.I.’s wrong doing, Lt. Calley was the only man court-martialed for the entire war. He was found guilty on 109 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Four years later, he was let out; he went in to the insurance business.
The Andersonville Prison and the My Lai massacre were very different, but deal with the same topic. At Andersonville, it was a prison where soldiers were mistreated and malnourished, whereas at the village of My Lai, innocent people were shot, stabbed, and raped for no reason at all. These topics should be brought up while reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien because they bring up the topic of what is wrong in war and how far we are willing to go.
Both Andersonville Prison and the village of My Lai are infamous events in our history, these atrocities are looked upon in shame and will never be forgotten in hopes of learning from our mistakes and not having events like these take place in our future again.
