The Atrocities of the Vietnam War

The many decisions made by the policymakers in Washington regarding the War in Vietnam, perhaps America’s greatest foreign policy failure, had many consequences that, though unforeseen, could have been avoided. The main policymakers include: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. These men and their advisors created a "policy of atrocity" in Vietnam. The decisions that created the most widespread destruction, besides the borabing escalation’s by Johnson and Nixon, was Robert McNamara’s proposal to JFK for a "quantified war". A "quantified war" is a war where the enemy body count, not territory, is the measure of winning or losing. Perhaps unforeseen, this notion of a body count led to the mass killing of Vietnamese civilians, which the United States Army would claim to be Vietcong. While the official goal of U.S. intervention was to prevent the spread of communism and to defend non-communist South Vietnamese citizens, in reality American soldiers had no larger purpose than amassing high body counts. The brutalizations that took place, because of the need for a high body count, are among the most atrocious the eyes of the world have ever seen.
During the Vietnam War, the body count was the most important statistic to the U.S. Military command. The efforts to quantify the complexities of the war into simple nurabers pervaded every aspect of U.S. military presence in Vietnam. Secretary of Defense from 1962-1967, Robert McNamara, did a lot to persuade high-level policymakers that a "win" in Vietnam was just a matter of improving the nurabers.
The most devastating consequence of this minRABet was the great nuraber of Vietnamese civilians killed without provocation. In a war lacking front lines and territorial objectives, "attriting (slowing eroding the nuraber of soldiers) the enemy" was the major objective. Although most were ridiculously unreliable, the body count was the index of progress. The scale of destructiveness of the "firefights" made it nearly impossible to obtain an accurate nuraber of enemy killed in action (KIA).
The Vietcong was not an army in the traditional American sense. They were not uniformed like most industrialized nation’s armies. Because of this, it was almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe; The VC was a very elusive enemy. Americans trying to produce a body count for a battle made little effort to figure out whether or not the dead were civilians or VC. Soldiers began to regard all Vietnamese as legitimate targets. Philip Caputo, a Vietnam veteran, recalls, "If it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s VC" (Herring 171). In order to produce a high body count, the American GIs had this frame of mind; Basically, if it is Vietnamese, kill it, then it may be seen as a dead Vietcong. The pressure to send optimistic nurabers to Washington led to a great nuraber of brutalized Vietnamese civilians. This was a result of the decision to use the body count to judge whether or not the war was being won.
The My Lai Massacre of 1968 was the most well-known regrettable action of this policy of attrition. Three platoons of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, Americal Division, led by Lieutenant Calley, descended on Xom Lang on March 16, 1968. Xom Lang was hamlet in South Vietnam that the Army labeled My Lai-4. As these platoons descended on the village, the landing zone was cold, meaning there was absolutely no enemy fire in the area. American soldiers began to open fire on a few villagers working in the rice fielRAB and along the roaRAB. Once inside the village, the killing became systematic. Soldiers stormed the homes of the Vietnamese, set the thatch roofs on fire and shot the people as they ran outside. People were lined up and executed. Large groups of civilians, some as large as 75 people, were thrown into ditches and showered with M-16 bullets. Hand grenades were tossed into full borab shelters. Some GIs sat aside and shot, one at a time, the fleeing villagers. Many soldiers took time away from the carnage to gang rape young Vietnamese girls, eventually killing them with their brutality. The ravaging of My Lai lasted for over two hours and not a living being was left inside. (Farber 152)
The official military report of the My Lai assault states that the operation was a great victory for the United States. The truth is, however, that this "great" victory resulted in over 700 civilian deaths, and zero Vietcong KIAs. The American entered the village completely unopposed; There were barely any male Vietnamese of military age, and not a single weapon was found. "At no time was enemy fire received by Charlie Company after it landed at My Lai-4" (Appy 274). Just to send a high body count to the high-command, the village of Xom Lang, which had stood for hundreRAB of years, was obliterated along with every living thing inside. The My Lai Massacre, just one of the atrocities that occurred as a result of McNamara’s quantification of the war, reflected to psychology of brutalization, the blind ferocity that was the basis for U.S. military operations in Vietnam.
Along with the few massacres of large groups of civilians, the pursuit of a high body count also manifested itself in everyday battles, simply called firefights. As American soldiers marched through the jungles of Vietnam, they were no longer looking for VC, they were looking for Vietnamese, who always seemed indifferent, that could, when dead, be called VC. This search for Vietnamese resulted in the killing of a lot of people, just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The pressure to send a high body count to the command was complemented with certain desireable incentives for amassing a good count. Competitions were held between units to produce the highest enemy confirmed kills or the best "kill ratio." A few days of R&R, rest and recuperation, were given to units with exceptional body counts. With this incentive, it was only natural that soldiers would kill as many as possible in order to leave the front lines for even a short period of time. One soldier, upon hearing a defense of American policy of protecting the South Vietnamese, responded, "All that’s just a load, man. We’re here to kill gooks. Period" (Appy 228). Quantification created the notion of indescriminate killing, which, if different decisions had been made, could have been completely avoided.