Word: sergeant
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...West, 23, a Charlie Company sergeant. "I was frustrated, same as the rest of the guys." On the way in, he said, "some individuals jumped out of a hedge 15 to 20 yards ahead of us. They had what we thought were guns. It was a surprise and we opened fire. When something like this happens, you don't stop to ask questions." West learned that his group had slain four women and two old men. Their "guns" turned out to be the traditional sticks that peasants use to carry belongings...
...detailed account came from Paul David Meadlo, 22, a member of Calley's platoon. As they walked toward the village, he told CBS, "there was one gook in a shelter, he was all huddled down in there?an older man. And Sergeant Mitchell hollered, 'Shoot him.' And so the man shot him." (Sergeant David Mitchell, 29, one of Galley's squadron leaders, has been charged with assault with intent to commit murder, but a court-martial has not yet been ordered.) Meadlo says his group ran through My Lai, herding men, women, children and babies into the center...
...Sergeant Michael Bernhardt said no one shot at the G.I.s. "We met no resistance, and I only saw three captured weapons. As a matter of fact, I don't remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive." He claims Calley's men were "doing strange things?they were setting fire to the hootches and waiting for people to come out and then shooting them; they were gathering people in groups and shooting them. I saw them shoot an M79 [grenade launcher] into a group of people who were still alive...
...pursued the matter for a year and talked to a dozen participants in the massacre. He finally found one, Sergeant Bernhardt, who agreed to verify the details if Ridenhour reported the affair to authorities. Discharged last December, Ridenhour asked friends what he should do about the matter, was repeatedly told "to forget about it." But last April he decided to mail his letters. "I thought that what happened in that village was so terrible nobody should get away with it," he explains. "The shocking thing is not that I wrote, but that there weren't other letters...
...implications of the story grew, everyone got very busy. The Army decided that it would indeed hold a public court-martial for Calley. It seems certain that Sergeant Mitchell will face a court-martial on charges of intent to murder some 30 Vietnamese. The biggest mystery so far is why no charges have been placed against Captain Medina, who played an important role in the slaughter by the accounts of a number of his men, though exactly what orders he issued is disputed (see The Legal Dilemmas, page 32). At the same time, the Army has ordered a top-level...