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letters Ridenhour's My Lai Letter
If not for the letter that former serviceman Ron Ridenhour composed detailing what he had learned about My Lai, word of the tragedy might never have come to light. The five-page document was sent to President Nixon; the Joint Chiefs; the Secretaries of State, Defense and the Army; and almost two dozen members of Congress. It described a year's worth of work by Ridenhour to uncover what had happened on March 16, 1968 but his efforts paved the way for the Army to begin a comprehensive investigation.

The full text:

It was late in April, 1968, that I first heard of 'Pinkville' and what allegedly happened there. I received the first report with some skepticism, but in the following Months I was to hear similar stories from such a wide variety of people that it became impossible for me to disbelieve that something rather dark and bloody did indeed occur sometime in March, 1968, in a village called 'Pinkville' in the Republic of Viet-Nam.

The circumstances that led to my having access to the reports I'm about to relate need explanation. I was inducted in March, 1967, into the U.S. Army. After receiving various training I was assigned to the 70th Infantry Defachment (LRP), 11th Light Infantry Brigade at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in early October, 1967. That unit, the 70th Infantry Detachment (LRP), was disbanded a week before the 11th Brigade shipped out for Viet-Nam on the 5th of December, 1967. All of the men from,whom I later heard reports of the 'Pinkville' incident were reassigned to 'C' Company, Ist Battalion, 20th Infantry, 1lth Light Infantry Brigade. I was reassigned to the aviation section of Headquarters Headquarters Company, 11th LIB. After we had been in Viet-Nam for 3 or 4 months many of the men from the 70th Inf. Det. (LRP) began to transfer into the same unit, 'E' Company, 51st Infantry (LRP).

In late April, 1968, 1 was awaiting orders for a transfer from HHC, 11th Brigade to Company 'E,' 51st Inf. (LRP), when I happened to run into Pfc. 'Butch' Gruver, whom I had known in Hawaii. Gruver told me he had been assigned to 'C' Com- pany 1st of the 10th until April 1st when he transferred to the unit I was headed for. During the course of our conversation he told me the first of many reports I was to hoar of 'Pinkville .'

'Charlie' Company, 1/20 had been assigned to Task Force Barker in late February, 1968, to help conduct 4 search and destroy' operations on the Batangan Peninsula, Barker's area of operations. The task force was operating out of LZ-Dotti, located five or six miles north of Quang Ngai city on Viet- namese National Highway 1. Gruver said that Charlie Com- pany had sustained casualties, primarily from mines and booby traps, almost every day from the first day they arrived on the peninsula. One village area was particularly troublesome and seemed to be infested with booby traps and enemy soldiers. It was located about six miles northeast of Quang Ngai city at approximate coordinates B.S. 728795. It was a notorious area and the men of Task Force Barker had a special name for it; they called it 'Pinkville.' [ Actually, the name Pinkville came not from the troublesome nature of that particular place but rather from its color on Army maps; many population centers in villages are so colored; in this case, the Pinkville was the major hamlet, or subhamlet in Son My village, called by the Vietnamese My Khe and by the American Army My Lai (1).] Its mission: destroy the trouble spot and all its inhabitants.

When 'Butch' told me this I didn't quite believe that what he was telling me was true, but he assured me that it was and went on to describe what had happened. The other two companies that made up the task force cordoned off the village so that 'Charlie' Company could move through to destroy the struc- tures and kill the inhabitants. Any villagers who ran from Charlie Company were stopped by the encircling companies. I asked'Butch'several times if all the people were killed. He said he thought they were, men, women, and children. He recalled seeing a small boy, about three or four years old, standing by the trail with a gunshot wound in one arm. The boy was clutching his wounded arm with his other hand, while blood trickled between his fingers. He was staring around himself in shock and disbelief at what he saw. 'He just stood there with big eyes staring around like he didn't understand, he didn't believe what was happening. Then the captain's RTO put a burst of 16 fire into him.' It was so bad, Gruver said, that one of the men in his squad shot himself in the foot in order to be medivac-ed out of the area so that he would not have to par- ticipate in the slaughter. Although he had not seen it, Gruver had been told by people he considered trustworthy that one of the company's officers, 2nd Lieutenant Kally (this spelling may be incorrect) had rounded up several groups of villagers (each group consisting of a minimum of 20 persons of both sexes and all ages). According to the story, Kally then machine-gunnel] each group. Gruver estimated that the population of the village had been 300 to 400 people and that very few, if any, escaped.

After hearing this account I couldn't quite accept it. Somehow I just couldn't believe that not only had so many young American men participated in such an act of barbarism, but that their officers had ordered it. There were other men in the unit I was soon to be assigned to, 'E' Company, 51st In- fantry (LRP), who had been in Charlie Company at the time that Gruver alleged the incident at 'Pinkville' had occurred. I became determined to ask them about 'Pinkville' so that I might compare their accounts with Pfc Gruver's.

When I arrived at 'Echo' Company, 51 st Infantry (LRP) the men I looked for were Pfc's Michael Terry and William Doherty. Both were veterans of Charlie Company, 1/20 and 'Pinkville.' Instead of contradicting 'Butch' Gruver's story they corroborates it, adding some tasty tidbits of information of their own. Terry and Doherty had been in the same squad and their platoon was the third platoon of 'C' Company to pass through the village. Most of the people they came to were already dead. Those that weren't were sought out and shot. The platoon left nothing alive, neither livestock nor people. Around noon the two soldiers' squad stopped to eat. 'Billy and I started to get out our chow,' Terry said, 'but close to us was a bunch of Vietnamese in a heap, and some of them were moaning. Kally (2nd Lt. Kally) had been through before us and all of them had been shot, but many weren't dead. It was obvious that they weren't going to get any medical attention so Billy and I got up and went over to where they were. I guess we sort of finished them off.' Terry went on to say that he and Doherty then returned to where their packs were and ate lunch. He estimated the size of the village to be 200 to 300 people. Doherty thought that the population of 'Pinkville' had been 400 people.

If Terry, Doherty and Gruver could be believed, then not only had 'Charlie' Company received orders to slaughter all the inhabitants of the village, but those orders had come from the commanding officer of Task Force Barker, or possibly even higher in the chain of command. Pfc Terry stated that when Captain Medina (Charlie Company's commanding officer Captain Ernest Medina) issued the order for the destruction of 'Pinkville' he had been hesitant, as if it were something he didn't want to do but had to. Others I spoke to concurred with Terry on this.

It was June before I spoke to anyone who had something of significance to add to what I had already been told of the 'Pinkville' incident. It was the end of June, 1968, when I ran into Sergeant Larry LaCroix at the USO in Chu Lai. LaCroix had been in 2nd Lt. Kally's platoon on the day Task Force Barker swept through 'Pinkville.' What he told me verified the stories of the others, but he also had something new to add. He had been a witness to Kally's gunning down of at least three separate groups of villagers. 'It was terrible. They were slaughtering the villagers like so many sheep. Kally's men were dragging people out of bunkers and hootches and putting them together in a group. The people in the group were men, women, and children of all ages. As soon as he felt that the group was big enough, Kally ordered an M-60 (machine gun) set up and the people killed. LaCroix said that he bore witness to this procedure at least three times. The three groups were of different sizes, one of about twenty people, one of about thirty people, and one of about forty people. When the first group was put together Kalley ordered Pfc Torres to man the machine gun and open fire on the villagers that had been grouped together. This Torres did, but before everyone in the group was down he ceased fire and refused to fire again. After ordering Torres to recommence firing several times, Lieutenant Kally took over the M-60 and fi tished shooting the remaining villagers in that first group himself. Sergeant LaCroix told me that Kally didn't bother to order anyone to take the machine gun when the other two groups of villagers were formed. He simply manned it himself and shot down all villagers in both groups.'

This account of Sergeant LaCroix's confirmed the rumors that Gruver, Terry and Doherty had previously told me about Lieutenant Kally. It also convinced me that there was a very substantial amount of truth to the stories that all of these men had told. If I needed more convincing, I was to receive it.

It was in the middle of November, 1968, just a few weeks before I was to return to the United States for separation from the army that I talked to Pfc Michael Bernhardt. Bernhardt had served his entire year in Viet-Nam in 'Charlie' Company 1120 and he too was about to go home. 'Bernie' substantiated the tales told by the other men I had talked to in vivid and bloody detail and added this. 'Bernie' had absolutely refused to take part in the massacre of the villagers of 'Pinkville' that morning and he thought it was rather strange that the officers of the company had not made an issue of it. But that evening 'Medina (Captain Ernest Medina) came up to me ("Bernie") and told me not to do anything stupid like write my congressman' about what had happened that day. Bernhardt assured Captain Medina that he had no such thing in min, He had nine months left in Viet-Nam and felt that it was dangerous enough just fighting the acknowledged enemy.

Exactly what did, in fact, occur in the village of 'Pinkville' in March, 1968, I do not know for certain but I am convinced that it was sorfiething very black indeed. I remain irrevocably persuaded that if you and I do truly believ in the principles of justice and the equality of every man, how ver humble, before the law, that form the very backbone that this country is founded on, then we must press forward a widespread and public investigation of this matter with all our combined efforts. I think that it was Winston Churchill who once said 'A country without a conscience is a country without a soul, and a country without a soul is a country that cannot survive.' I feel that I must take some positive action on this matter. I hope that you will launch an investigation immediately and keep me informed of your progress. If you cannot, then I don't know what other course of action to take.

I have considered sending this to newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting companies, but I somehow feel that investigation and action by the Congress of the United States is the appropriate procedure, and as a conscientious citizen I have no desire to further besmirch the image of the American serviceman in the eyes of the world. I feel that this action, while probably it would promote attention, would not bring about the constructive actions that the direct actions of the Congress of the United States would.
the INCIDENT the TRIAL the AFTERMATH

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