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Anatomy of US and South Korean Massacres in the Vietnamese Year of the Monkey, 1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Heonik Kwon
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What happened in My Lai in March 1968 is remembered in the outside world as one of the most tragic episodes of the Vietnam War. However this was not an isolated event and should be considered in relation to other similar incidents of mass civilian killings. This essay investigates the Vietnam War's history of village massacres, including those by US forces and South Korean forces, and how these catastrophic events are remembered in the affected communities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 6 , June 2007 , e13
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

Notes:

[1] Ministry of Defense Institute of Military History, The Vietnam War and the Korean Army, vol. 3 (Seoul: Ministry of Defense Institute of Military History, Republic of Korea, 2003), p. 412.

[2] Quoted from Quang Ngai General Museum, A Look Back upon Son My (Quang Ngai: Quang Ngai General Museum, 1998), p. 12.

[3] Robert M. Blackburn, Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's “More Flags”: The Hiring of Korean, Filipino, and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994).

[4] Noam Chomsky, preface to John Duffett, ed., Against the Crime of Silence (New York: Clarion, 1970), pp. xiv–xv.

[5] Frank Baldwin, Diane Jones, and Michael Jones, America's Rented Troops: South Koreans in Vietnam (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1974).

[6] Toi Ac Xam Luoc Thuc Dan Moi Cua De Quoc My o Viet Nam (Crimes committed by America during her neocolonial invasion of Vietnam) (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban chinh tri quoc gia, 1975), pp. 30–52, 58–113.

[7] Vietcong, or VC, is the term by which Americans referred to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a communist-led alliance of a dozen political and religious groups, formed in 1960.

[8] Ho Khang, The Tet Mau Than 1968 Event in South Vietnam (Hanoi: The Gioi, 2001), p. 31.

[9] Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, eds., Vietnam and America: The Most Comprehensive Documented History of the Vietnam War (New York: Grove, 1995), pp. 390–91.

[10] Dalloz, La guerre d'Indochine, 1945–1954 (Paris: Seuil, 1987), pp. 115–202.

[11] Jonathan Schell, The Real War (New York: Pantheon, 1987), p. 114.

[12] Dau Tranh Cach Mang Cua Dang Bo Va Nhan Dan Xa Dien Duong, 1930–1975 (The revolutionary struggle of the Communist Party and the people of Dien Duong Commune,1930–1975), (Tam Ky: Nha xuat ban Tam Ky), pp. 123–24.

[13] Ibid., pp. 135–39.

[14] To Lan, “Special Relationships between Traditional Viet Villages,” The Traditional Village in Vietnam (Hanoi: The Gioi, 1993), pp. 295–96, 301–4.

[15] From the written text of the speech delivered in February 1999, copied in my field notes.

[16] See Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 224–25.

[17] Dau Tranh Cach Mang Cua Dang Bo Va Nhan Dan Xa Dien Duong, pp.106–7.

[18] The Buddhist crisis originated on May 8, 1964, in the central Vietnamese city of Hue, when government troops fired into the crowd that gathered to protest the government order that banned the display of banners on the Buddha's anniversary.

[19] Dau Tranh Cach Mang Cua Dang Bo Va Nhan Dan Xa Dien Duong, p.106. The Geneva Peace Accords, signed by France and Vietnam in 1954, ended the first Indochinese War (French War) and ordered the temporary partition of the country at the seventeenth parallel. The agreement included an agenda according to which national elections would be held in 1956 to unify the country, which did not happen.

[20] Giai Phong, June 1, 1967.

[21] By 1969, about fifty thousand South Korean troops were engaged in combat in Vietnam. There were an additional fifteen thousand civilian laborers and technicians. Their participation in the war contributed significantly to the economic takeoff of South Korea as an Asian industrial force. See Se Jin Kim, “South Korea's Involvement in Vietnam and Its Economic and Political Impact,” Asian Survey 10, no. 6 (1970): 519–32; Carl E. Meacham, “Money for Men,” New Republic (October 9, 1971): 7–9. For the U.S. administration, their participation was crucial not only for justifying the war by internationalizing it but also for easing the burden on the U.S. ground forces. See Yu-Mi Moon, “The Participation of Korean Troops in the Vietnam War” (Ph.D. diss., Seoul National University, 1994), pp. 68–83; Robert M. Blackburn, Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's “More Flags”: The Hiring of Korean, Filipino, and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994), pp. 31–66; Stanley Larson and James Collins, Allied Participation in Vietnam (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1985).

[22] See Jonathan Schell, The Military Half: An Account of Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968).

[23] For brief accounts of massacres in the province of Quang Ngai, see Di Tich Thang Canh Quang Ngai, pp. 206–8, 211–14; Dai Cuong, Lich Su Viet Nam Tap III (History of Vietnam, vol. 3) (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban giao duc, 2001), pp. 207–8.

[24] Dau Tranh Cach Mang Cua Dang Bo Va Nhan Dan Xa Dien Duong, pp. 138–39.

[25] Lich Su Dang Bo Quang Nam Da Nang, pp. 182–85, 240–47; Chu Cam Phong, Nhat Ky Chien Tranh (Diary of a war) (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban van hoc, 2000), pp. 18–26, 125–39; Dang Bo Huyen Duy Xuyen Xuat Ban (The Communist Party of Duy Xuyen District) (Da Nang: Nha xuat ban Da Nang, 1964), pp. 85–87.

[26] Ho So Toi Ac Cua Linh Pac Chung Hy (The crimes of the soldiers of Pac Chung Hy [the president of South Korea, 1961–1979]), report from BK25 to VK25, A85 on March 25, 1968, Quang Nam Province, Archive Da Nang; Ve Cuoc Dan Tranh Chong Bon Nam Trieu Tien Cua Dong Bac Dien An Thu Thang Loi (Victory in the struggle against the Korean mercenaries by the people of Dien An), report from PK25, So 5 TB/VP on March 1, 1968, Quang Nam Province, Archive Da Nang. A government newspaper of North Vietnam reported the incidents in April of that year: “To Cao Toi Ac Da Man Cua My Va Tay Sai o Quang Ngai, Quang Nam (We denounce the savage crimes of the Americans and their henchmen in Quang Ngai and Quang Nam),” Nhan Dan, April 17, 1968.

[27] Di Tich Thang Canh Quang Ngai, pp. 206–14; Bao An Dat Va Nguoi (Defending the land and the people) (Da Nang: Nha xuat ban Da Nang, 1999), pp. 162–63.

[28] The U.S. special forces trained thousands of recruits from ethnic minority groups at Hoa Cam, south of Da Nang, in the early 1960s. See John Prados, The Hidden History of the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995), pp. 74–76.

[29] See Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, Four Hours in My Lai (New York: Penguin, 1992), chs. 4 and 5.

[30] Hersh, My Lai 4, p. 75.

[31] As recorded by a village elder in “Xom Tay, Dat Va Nguoi,” “The blood [of the victims] covered our land, and their bodies were not properly buried. There was no funeral for them. … The enemy burned down the entire village and flattened the graveyards. The tombs of our ancestors were desecrated, and the enemy assaulted the dead bodies [of the victims] and mass-buried them in the hope of concealing their crime. Such criminal acts are unheard-of in human history.” For the traditional Vietnamese laws against the desecration of tombs, see Gustave Dumoutier, Rituel funeraire des Annamites (Hanoi: Schneider, 1904), pp. 254–60.

[32] Another common form of political protest was to block the roads with ancestor altars and perform ceremonies to hold up troop movements. This tactic was used mainly against the government troops. See James W. Trullinger, Village at War: An Account of Conflict in Vietnam (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 125.

[33] The official accounts by the ROK Army claim 4,687 ROK casualties in Vietnam and 41,400 enemy casualties.

[34] This extract is cited from his original draft manuscript written for inclusion in Dau Tranh Cach Mang Cua Dang Bo Va Nhan Dan Xa Dien Duong. Part of the essay was edited out of the printed version (Tam Ky: Nha xuat ban Tam Ky, 2003). The list of heroic entitlements, however, is included in the book (pp. 175–76).

[35] W. R. Peers, The My Lai Inquiry (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 229–45; United States Department of the Army, “Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident,” in Joseph Goldstein, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz, eds., The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-up: Beyond the Reach of Law? (New York: Free Press, 1976), pp. 20–372; James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, My Lai: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998), p. 24; Telford Taylor, “War Crimes: Son My,” in Jay W. Baird, ed., From Nuremberg to My Lai (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1972), p. 265.

[36] Seymour M. Hersh, Cover-Up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4 (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 268. Also Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, p. 14.

[37] Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 (New York: Harper-Perennial, 1991), p. 244; Olson and Roberts, My Lai, p. 25; Tim O'Brien, “The Mystery of My Lai,” in David L. Anderson, ed., Facing My Lai: Moving beyond the Massacre (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 171–78.

[38] Olson and Roberts, My Lai, p. 10.

[39] Ibid., p. 16. Townsend Hoopes, the undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force from 1967 to 1969, blames the cultural gap for this error of mistaking civilians for combatants: “Americans could not get to the heart of local politics in Vietnam, because the Vietnamese would not permit the necessary intimacy, and because it was beyond U.S. capability to provide enough operatives with the knowledge and skill to break through the formidable barriers of language and cultural difference.” The Limits of Intervention, pp. 70–71.

[40] Olson and Roberts, My Lai, p. 16. On the dynamics of depersonalization in atrocious mass violence, see Tzvetan Todorov, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps (London: Phoenix, 2000), pp. 158–78.

[41] See Neale, The American War in Vietnam, p. 130.

[42] On the general situation after the Tet Mau Than event of 1968, compare Ronald H. Spector, After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1993), and Ho Khang, The Tet Mau Than 1968 Event in South Vietnam (Hanoi: The Gioi, 2001).

[43] See the intriguing analysis of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms by Allan Young, “Bodily Memory and Traumatic Memory,” in Paul Antze and Michael Lambek, eds., Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 99. Also Allen Young, The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 124–28.

[44] On the state of denial, see Stanley Cohen's States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).

[45] Trullinger, Village at War, p. 129.

[46] Personal communication with Ha Phuc Mai, the director of the Da Nang War Museum, who advised the project.

[47] On the role of Cao Dai in the politics of war, see Jayne Werner, Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Vietnam (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1981).

[48] Interviews with the family of the wartime village chief in An Bang, in December 1997.

[49] Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 292–96.