My Lai Massacre Argumentative Essay

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It is understandable that one fifth of Americans were against Calley, since these people were most likely to believe information from primary sources. In addition to this statement, there was not much publicity around the witnesses, and so the truth was able to be revealed in a more direct way. It would be less direct if it was told by the newspapers, due to the fact that they can always reform the actual context into something they think will sell a large amount. A possible reason why these Americans were not in support of William Calley is because they also believed that a “cocky little man with a baby face [...] loyal to the army” and “would kill without question” (Waitley 202-203) should pay for the consequences for his actions. They felt…show more content…
Some may view it as a man being released from a sentence that he was not suppose to serve. Others see it as a man who escaped enduring the consequences of killing five hundred innocent Vietnamese villagers. No matter how people might perceive this event that took place on March 16th 1968, this massacre increased the amount of support given in favor of the Vietnam War. The massacre in My Lai can also be related to events that have occurred in present day. Forty years after, there was a shooting in the southern Kandahar province which is located in Afghanistan (Carter). The shooting that was conducted by American soldiers such as Robert Bales, and took the lives of 16 people, had evident similarities with the My Lai Massacre (Carter). The relation this attack has with the My Lai Massacre is the people involved such as Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr, had the length of their sentence reduced (Carter). Instead of serving his ten year sentence, Graner only had to experience life in prison for six and a half years (Carter). In the article My Lai Revisited, it mentioned how both Graner and Calley were supposed to serve their sentences at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth in

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