Talk:My Lai massacre

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WG3416.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The epithet 'baby killers'

I removed this sentence:

The epithet "baby killers" was often used by anti-war activists to describe American soldiers, largely as a result of the Mỹ Lai Massacre.

The statement is sourced to an interview between Myra McPherson and Haberle. But the fact that Myra McPherson asks the question "How do you view the fact that veterans were stamped “baby killers” largely as a result of the My Lai massacre that you exposed?" does not make it true.

There is contrary evidence on the issue: The allegedly common scene of mockery and confrontation of returning Vietnam Veterans is contested by The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke. Lembcke finds survey data showing that 75% of returning veterans opposed the war as of 1975, that most reported positive experiences on their return, etc. The book also documents numerous fictional accounts that string together "baby killers" shouts and spitting, which Lembcke finds to lack factual foundation. He describes it as an enduring myth about the end of the war.--Carwil (talk) 02:15, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

PFC Herbert L. Carter Motivation Claim

The article currently claims that Carter’s gunfire was accidental and his desire to leave the site was concocted later. The only citation for this claim is currently defunct, if someone could find one that corroborated that the gunfire was accidental I think it would significantly improve the article. Deku link (talk) 06:04, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Gratuitous inclusion of a subjective and seemingly biased characterization of the subject matter

From the introduction:

“This war crime, which was later called ‘the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War…’" By whom?

The reference is to a book entitled War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam, by Bernd Greiner and published by Yale University Press. Did the author of this book make this assessment or was he quoting one or more others who did?

Regardless who made this assessment, it seems totally subjective. What exactly rendered this massacre the “most shocking”? Was it because it was perpetrated by American forces, with the implication being that ignoring similar atrocities by the other side that dwarfed My Lai in body count--such as this one presented publicly by no less an esteemed source than Wikipedia-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF --as not so shocking as what else can one expect from a bunch of Godless communist savages? This implication seems more than a bit chauvinistic, not to mention racist, to me and I believe the quote and reference should be removed as being totally subjective and unworthy for inclusion in such an unbiased and objective publication as this one!

Thank you.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 22:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The quote appears to be taken from the first sentence of a description of the book on the inside front flap of the jacket cover. It is unclear to me who wrote this. I think this weakens the case that the quote is supported by a reliable source since it is coming from something like a book review rather than the text of the book itself. At the very least I think this discrepancy should be reflected in the citation. Fiwec81618 (talk) 06:16, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Are the photographs in the gallery wholly necessary?

Some of the photographs seem more suited to a site like Documenting Reality. I don't necessarily mind the gallery, but for a kid accidently stumbling upon this article to see brains like that is a little bit iffy in my opinion. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 10:03, 9 January 2022 (UTC)