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Speaker 1: Word of warning. Today's episode contains mentions of physical and

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Speaker 1: sexual violence. Hi again, Welcome to this day in History class,

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Speaker 1: where history waits for no one. Today is March sixteen.

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Speaker 1: The day was March sixteenth, nine. The US was in

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Speaker 1: the thick of the Vietnam War, a deadly and costly

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Speaker 1: conflict where communist North Vietnam in South Vietnamese supporters of

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Speaker 1: the National Liberation Front went up against South Vietnam and

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Speaker 1: the United States. The National Liberation Front has also been

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Speaker 1: and still is referred to as the Vietcong, but the

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Speaker 1: term Vietcong has been considered offensive. U s soldiers have

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Speaker 1: been getting Quang Nai Province, where Melai is located, because

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Speaker 1: it was home to a lot of National Liberation Front activity.

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Speaker 1: When US forces found out the troublesome forty Battalion of

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Speaker 1: the National Liberation Front would be in the Melai area,

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Speaker 1: Army Captain Ernest Medina told his soldiers this would be

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Speaker 1: their opportunity to fight them. On May. Captain Medina had

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Speaker 1: told his soldiers that all the residents of Meli would

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Speaker 1: have left and that the only people left would be

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Speaker 1: National Liberation Front sympathizers and enemy troops. But this was

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Speaker 1: not the case. The soldiers ended up murdering as many

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Speaker 1: as five hundred unarmed civilians in Melai that day. The

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Speaker 1: Melai Massacre took place in the wake of the Tet Offensive,

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Speaker 1: a series of North Vietnamese attacks in South Vietnam that

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Speaker 1: greatly weakened US support for the war. US military intelligence

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Speaker 1: to sugested that the n LF Battalion had taken refuge

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Speaker 1: in sun me E Village, where the Meli hamlets were located.

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Speaker 1: The Charlie Company, part of the Americal Divisions eleventh Infantry Brigade,

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Speaker 1: had already suffered a lot of losses due to enemy attacks. Regardless,

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Speaker 1: Charlie Company was sent to sun me E on March

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Speaker 1: sixt on a search and destroy mission under Task Force Barker,

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Speaker 1: with the directive to shoot anyone and destroy buildings, crops,

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Speaker 1: and livestock. So, around seven thirty in the morning, U

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Speaker 1: S forces shelled son me E and entered the village.

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Speaker 1: As the US bombarded the village with artillery rounds, villagers

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Speaker 1: thought cover fled and hid in their homes. Within twenty minutes,

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Speaker 1: Charlie Company was headed towards Me Lai, but thet NLF

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Speaker 1: Battalion was not there nl F units had fled in

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Speaker 1: the previous days. A few NLF members were scattered about

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Speaker 1: sunm E, but the U S soldiers were mainly met

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Speaker 1: by locals. But that didn't seem to matter. Though there

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Speaker 1: had been no resistance or enemy fire. Charlie Company rounded

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Speaker 1: up villagers and shot them. They even raped and mutilated

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Speaker 1: some of the girls and women before killing them, and

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Speaker 1: at nine am, Second Lieutenant William Cally, who led Charlie

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Speaker 1: Company's first platoon, ordered the execution of dozens of locals

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Speaker 1: in an irrigation ditch. Some soldiers objected to shooting the

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Speaker 1: villagers at first, but in the end, somewhere between three

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty seven and five hundred and four unarmed

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Speaker 1: villagers were killed, including women, children, and the elderly. The

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Speaker 1: only death on the U. S side occurred when a

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Speaker 1: soldiers shot his own foot it. An army photographer took

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Speaker 1: pictures of the atrocities, photos that would go on to

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Speaker 1: fuel anti Vietnam war sentiment. Around eleven am, Captain Medina

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Speaker 1: ordered the soldiers to break for lunch. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson,

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Speaker 1: who was an Army helicopter pilot, and his crew members

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Speaker 1: blocked U S. Soldiers from continuing to attack locals, and

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Speaker 1: took wounded villagers to get medical care. After the massacre

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Speaker 1: was over, higher ups tried to keep the truth of

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Speaker 1: the massacre on the hush. Officials said the operation had

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Speaker 1: been successful, but ron ryd and Howard, a soldier in

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Speaker 1: the eleventh Brigade who had not been involved in the events,

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Speaker 1: didn't interview with journalist Seymour Hirsch outing the harsh realities

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Speaker 1: of the massacre. The U. S. Army ordered a special

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Speaker 1: investigation into the day's events and the cover up afterward

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Speaker 1: put only fourteen men were charged with crimes related to

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Speaker 1: the massacre, and all were acquitted, except for Cali, who

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Speaker 1: was found guilty of premeditated murder. And sadly, Meli wasn't

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Speaker 1: the only instance of sinceless killing of Vietnamese civilians during

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Speaker 1: the war. After the massacre and investigations, support for the

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Speaker 1: Vietnam War and the U S. Twindled, and American troops

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Speaker 1: morale was shrinking. Still, the war didn't end until nineteen

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Stepcote, and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. Here's a note

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Speaker 1: about the naming conventions. When it comes to the villages

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Speaker 1: and the hamlets, American map makers named hamlets based on

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Speaker 1: the administrative district followed by a number, not what locals

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Speaker 1: actually called the villages a lot of the time, so

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Speaker 1: villagers knew me Lie number four as sam Land and

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Speaker 1: being tie. We love it if you left us a

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Speaker 1: comment on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. At t d i

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Speaker 1: h C podcast, come back tomorrow for another tidbit from history.

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Speaker 1: M