Ron Ridenhour’s Last Talk: My Lai and Why it Matters
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- Ron Ridenhour delivers his final lecture, at Tulane University on March 15, 1998 - the 30th anniversary of the My Lai massacre - with an introduction from Randy Fertel. He reflects on the central question that looms over the horrific event to this day: whether it was an aberration, or an operation - a tool that remains in the US Military’s toolkit to this day.
I was in the army at that time. In 1971 I was stationed at Ft Sill, OK, in Med Company. Most of the guys I ran with were former combat medics. One of them that I dated told me about being on dust-off flights. When they would get calls to pick up wounded POWs, he said, members of military intelligence would always go with them. What he told me the MI guys would do to the POWs has to have been war crimes. He said one time the MI people wanted to question the POWs and when none of them would answer they ordered him to inject air into their veins to kill them, one by one, until someone would talk. He refused to do that, telling them he was a medic to save lives, not to take them. So they would question the POWs and if they would not respond, they would toss them out of the helicopter, one by one, hoping to scare the others into talking. He said he sat by until all but one had been thrown out of the helicopter, at high altitude, and none of the POWs responded. He said things like that were routine when they were sent out to bring in wounded POWs. Another friend I knew there had been a conscious objector. He could have avoided service but was willing to serve so long as he did not have to carry a weapon, or shoot anyone. He served as a combat medic and had actually earned medals for valor under fire. One time some sergeant handed him a rifle and told him to guard an old woman, who took off walking away and he was ordered to shoot her. He said he just dropped the gun and turned away. Someone else killed her. He died shortly after getting out of the army from an accident where he was riding a motorcycle while under the influence. So many of the kids I knew who had served in Vietnam as combat medics ended up dying from drugs, alcohol or outright suicide.
I've been reading about Vietnam since 1979. I watched the names scrolled at the end of newscasts of the KIAs that day. I've never read anything so informative as yours and others in the comments.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Your nation is dirty and unless your nation comes to grips with the wrongs, your nation will end. Your nation gunned down innocent natives on Oklahoma, now this. Just because you don't see it now, mark my word your nation will pay. Its called Karma. The sins of the father get passed on to the children.
And you believed them with absolutely no proof? I am an Army veteran of the Vietnam war era. So much of what was said by non combatants who served in Vietnam was BS.
@@tomquinn607 I bet you hate weed too huh?
Thank you Ron Ridenhour. We owe it to you to keep the truth alive.
"Why should we remember the war that we fought? Because it became the nature of the wars that we fostered."
The United States of Babylonia (... and those who rule over it but don't own it -- and in spite of the song, neither do you) made killers out of Mom and Dad's kids, then sent them overseas to murder happy families who lived in unwalled villages that their ancestors had carved out of the jungle.
After a year the matured murderer came home with his belly full of distilled hate and it ate him alive from the inside out. That's the story in a nutshell skull.
Afghanistan is a media secret and the American conscience lives in a place where the sun never shines. Soon you'll wake up only to drop dead at the hands of angelic executioners.
You, Sir, Earned the Respect and Love from everysingle Vietnamese. Thank You
Love from England 🫶
Ron raised some awareness when he said "Year's down the line, like with the Germans, the world (other countries) will ask the same question ; When will we get our justice from the atrocities committed by this country".
Well said brother, justice for the victims is all we ask for, all who took part must be held to account and time should not deter this. Justice 💯⚖️✊
Ron... you are SUCH a good man..... what a horrific tragedy that you found yourself in such hideous circumstances.....
I salute you sir. As a former combat vet myself, I can attest that there are some really sick people serving in our armed forces. It takes courage above and beyond to stand against unjust killings in a combat zone. RIP
100% agree
All we need is one good director to turn his life into a film, TV series or Documentary…
I can't believe this clip has less than 10k views. This should be mandatory viewing for all service personnel.
Makes you wonder if those servicing in the US now knows about the My Lai massacre at all 🪖
@@raceva1982 Before watching this video…I thought Calley was just crazy out of control 😢😢😢
Because it is hard to face such shameful past of your own soldiers, who you want to see as heroes. It is the same in any country, they barely talk about their own armies' war crimes, Japan is also a great example from the many. But I agree, these things should get bigger attention, at least showing remorse and accepting responsibility, so death of the innocent people would be honored as well. I think it is the minimum, those innocent people deserve.
Thank you Sir. Rest in peace.
Even if those women and children were sympathetic to the VC way.... they shouldn't have been killed by that. Army fights battles with combatants... they don't execute children and women, but these stupid soldiers did.
Try being out there...Watch your friends get killed in front of you by some SOB who hides or poses as a farmer. You feel a frustration and a rage and you WILL lash out. Bet on it!
@@davidrobinson8337 Lt Calley watched a kid 5 year old kid climb out of a pile of bodies and then ordered one of his men to shoot the kid, when the soldier refused, LT Calley shot the kid with his own pistol. Don't think I would do that. The account was spoken by one of his soldiers who later committed suicide, watched it here on YT.
@@davidrobinson8337 You're a true patriot!
Now see that enemy combatant trying to crawl away from underneath its dead mother?
You know what to do
War is a terrible thing, I’d hope I had the same courage as this man in the face of such inhumanity
And Mr Ridenour dies at the age of 52 of a heart attack less than two months after this lecture. Hmm, seems like a lot of Viet Nam vets met very early deaths.
@Joseph Delacy
What are you insinuating?
@@rudolphguarnacci197 What are you insinuating?
@@squirtbottle3764
See above
Ron and I were friends in the 1980's and he was one of the finest people I've ever known. From what I've been told, he had a heart issue that he was unaware of, and died after playing handball. RIP Ron.
I think he died of what is called a “Broken heart”. Some people died from a broken heart like Ron, like after their loved one died, children missing, lost their life long values etc.
This is a masterpiece of a documentary.
His dramatic expressions, effects etc.
Really give you an idea of the environment these men lived through.
And he was right, this wasn't a war against Communists.
The Vietnamese we're defending their fatherland from Imperialism and Colonialism.
They were actually "Nationalist" that Uncle, Shlomo/ Sam, demonized by labelling them Communist.
The US actually helped, led and supplied these "communists" back in WW2 against the Japanese. So in a sense, the Viet Com was really shocked at the beginning that their former big-brother ally all of sudden saw them as mortal enemies.
And the reason most of the South Vietnamese forces did so poorly, was because they didn't want to kill their fellow Vietnamese.
South Vietnam, an American puppet state was no more than occupied territory with a population that was largely hostile to the American forces.
If somebody asks why, they should ask themselves why so many people were hostile to the Germans when they occupied most of Europe during World War II.
What an important and heartbreaking lecture.
Rest in peace, Mr. Ridenour.
RIP, Mr. Ridenhour.
Sgt. Torres in our Airborne Company in Panama, 1969, was sent to Fort Benning for the trial; he confessed to us what he had done; he was a very disturbed man..Never understood my Central American Nations needed such large military forces; other than to maintain personal power and control of resources...
Thank you for this information.
I joined the Navy at 17. I'm a female. I served on two carriers. No big deal. All I did was operate radars. My personal experiences and lessons learned early, and also we were the first females on carriers. Morals have always been important to me. I was there to do a job. Trust your shipmates......never. What do I think people are capable of, especially in Vietnam at that age with weapons and medal hungry officers.....life is nasty. I did my four and got out.
Imagine the outcry if any Russian war crimes in Ukraine were treated the same as the American war crimes.
Ukraine is Nazzzi state. But your to lazy to find out facts. Sad
Balls!
Anyone here with a brain knows he was snuffed. Victors write the history. Nothing new under the sun man.
R.I.P. FRIEND
In life, there are people of ‘moral stature’, and there are ‘little’ people. Ron Ridenhour and Hugh Thompson are people of moral stature. William Calley and Ernest Medina are ‘little’ people.
You know nothing, sorry.
Playin ragz - what an utterly ridiculous thing to say. You’re contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation.
@@tinamac2380 fair enough how about facts. LERP teams were working for Operation Phoenix who’s leader testified to murder of 40,000. Interrogation included rape and torture to eliminate suspected Communist’s in Vietnam. LERP teams were also given the task of assignation of civilian and military targets. Most of which were innocent! Secondly Hugh Thompson watched hundreds murdered and is famous for stopping them ONE TIME. How about the other hundreds he watched being slaughtered? Fact is you can’t watch one video and have a reasonable opinion. You must RESEARCH to get real facts on everything!
Calley and Medina were just following orders
Same defence used by Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
The answer to the first question from the audience is that there's a lot of money to be stolen from the taxpayer trough by the strategists who create conflicts.
There were tremendous resources in SE Asia. Oil in Indonesia had been a focus of WW2. Fisheries, rubber in malaysia, the control of the straits of malacca etc. Alas Ridenhour didn't have a view from the top, where global finance and transnational corporations *wanted* these resources (as did soviet bloc at the time). Those elements controlled US policy during the cold war, indeed that's what the cold war was about. The nukes, Korea, all of it.
@@ToddBoyle
And it baffles me how these lecturers consistently fail to mention ANY of that. It's like they're so myopically focused on their book and no other ideas are considered. I don't even watch stuff like this any more. I get it. The war sucked. But tell me why, O Great Lecturer, how was it that we endured it so long? Bunch of windbags trapped inside the academia bubble.
You and your third grade mentality probably think LBJ had arranged the murder of JFK !!!! + The moon landings were fake, ETC.......
@@sumbeech1484
Hmm, Mr. I-picked-a-clever-pseudonym, why do you think my level of education is even that high?
This guy was a hero.
They knew that there was a combat photographer there at the time taking pictures 🤔🤔
Not exactly the way to win “hearts and minds.” No wonder we had such great body counts - shooting unarmed civilians. So My Lai was just typical of American atrocities (Vietnam Cong and Vietnam Mihn did similar). How inhumane and senseless was the Vietnam war. Capt Medina and his platoon commanders should have served hard time.
Johnson and Westmoreland should have been tried the same way as the top nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.
Life for a life...that is what they should have paid.
So General Westmoreland apparently didn’t have a clue what was going on at platoon and company level. No wonder the body counts of “VC” were so favorable. The responsibility goes all the way from Calley and the other platoon commanders to LBJ and Nixon. We criticized the WW2 cruelties of Japanese and Nazis and Viet Cong in the Vietnam war but we’ve done the same. Admittedly our atrocities weren’t national policy, but the cover ups did not speak well of our leaders.
Don’t think Westmoreland was clueless… he was not care /considered the issue was of any importance 😢😢😢
Wonderful Human being.... 🙏🙏🙏
🙏thanks. We can’t remember if we don’t understand.
How many Politicians are still in power when these Masakers in the Nam and other parts of the world ?. They are all Criminals but will never be unmasked.
@@davidgreen5997
Never.
@@davidgreen5997 👍you might find this interesting.czcams.com/video/EyPy3wc5a4U/video.html
David Green, NOT “Nam”. It's VIET NAM. People, don't call NAM anymore. There's no such thing as Nam. Please.
@@ptiaptia7347 imagine getting mad at someone for typing some word on the Internet that you don't like. They could've misspelled it, or they probably wanted to spell it that way. Either way, it's not your business bro, and you need to chill the fuck out
I am an US Army Vietnam era veteran. I had guard duty at the court house where Lt. Calley was on trial while I was going through jump school at Benning. I was never a proponent of the Vietnam war and never an apologist for My Lai. But I disagree with his unsubstantiated claim that similar massacres were commonplace. He has no proof but makes that ugly assertion anyway. And in reference to South America does anyone believe that the USA needed to train South American rebels in torture? I agree that Calley and many others should have been sentenced to prison for life. But this dude makes countless off the cuff and ugly accusations which he cannot substantiate. He denigrates the service of all Americans that served in Vietnam in courage and integrity.
if we think about it the entire US war strategy in Vietnam , search and destroy , winning by body counts ...ect..The South Korean were mass killing civilians in the Korean wars and in the Vietnam war alongside American soldiers too . However there are always men like Hugh Thompson ..
hey you czcams.com/video/8DruoRRwkbE/video.html
I understand your indignation, but you are simply wrong that these claims cannot be substantiated. Check out Nick Turse's book, "Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam." While researching another topic, Turse ran across records of investigations of more than 300 incidents like My Lai conducted by special armed forces commission. He copied those records before they disappeared from the US National Archive, analyzed them and presented them and his findings in his book in 2012 or 2013. Ridenhour's claims are neither off the cuff nor any uglier than they have to be. They are as close to the truth as most ever get, and now there is evidence to support them.
@@dr.troymcginnis I am "simply wrong" according to You and Nick Turse? Well Fck you and Nick Turse! Have You and Nick documented all the Viet Cong/NVA atrocities against American soldiers? Why so one sided? I explained my position on the Vietnam war clearly. Many innocents on Both sides died. But You choose to Denigrate my brothers in arms while ignoring atrocities from the other side. Go to DC and look at the names on that wall. They didn't read Mr. Turse's book.
Those orders to deploy to Vietnam were unlawful and should have been challenged in court LBJ and his wife took financial control of Bell helicopter and made large investments in Genral dynamics just before he sent troops to Vietnam
There never really was a South Vietnam and the only Vietnamese to ask us for help was ho chi min
Everyone that went over there is a war crimanl no exceptions
I was a grunt in Vietnam 1971. It was an intense year for me. Americal Division 196th Inf
Americal was a shit division, not everyone was that bad.
My stepdad was a vet there he’s disgusting he was talking about heads on sticks so repulsive 🤮 I was army to cpsd from when I was a kid so much mess man so much pain
Was this the journalist who took the photos with his personal camera..?
Does he have proof of these manuals? Or aware of what went on at the School of the Americas?
Read about Hugh Thompson Jr.
it should be a war policy,if you don't have uniform and you don't have one and you are neither in war,you are guilty of man slater
Why did he stay in the army at all
Lrps really
war releases legitimacy in the beast
No way you were special forces.you are no lurp either .because l was. You would not have last long in our units.
Watching this, I am TRULY convinced that we - Homo-Sapiens - are no better (possibly worse in many cases) than the lowest form of life that inhabits this planet!
History passing us veitnam locac veitnam vetrian pass by hurry up visit there
Come to Islam n success
Ok I’m dumb and have no idea what I’m talking... sorry for my Ignorance
You put three question marks to express anger at my simple question, delete it, then cop out of your rant. Live a long life.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 yep I’m idiot
Just a dumb person
@@rudolphguarnacci197 what fucking rant..... I asked a question about something that he was talking about.... other stories about our country going into other countries and committing these type of killings....he spoke of Regan and other presidents suppling money.... ammo... hell obma sent 80 millions to fucking Afghanistan..... sooo I was wondering about the bae of pigs...and I respect everyone who fought in that war and died... we should have never been there.... I have more respect for those men who fought in a war that we should have never been.....
@@whoknows3972
I watched the rest and saw at the q&a session how your point about the Bay of Pigs is similar to all of the u.s. black ops.
Chess not checkers
LERP Team were assassins.this guys a hypocrite.
don't you heard about the "Tiger Force" in Vietnam?