My Lia and the lynchings of the late 19th century should not be catogrized in the same column of unjust doings by US hands. Mob lynchings with no trial, and no direct proof is morally unjust and wrong. These people destroyed men on a whime because of hatred ingrained in them since child birth. The soilders in Vietnam, though wrong, were given orders to obey, and though they followed them, they were just in combat. I know this sounds cold hearted, but, what is a soilder that cannot follow orders? The men that gave the bad intel reports, and the Captian of the company should all be brought under criminal arrest for not fully being aware of, or stopping the situation after the fire fight took place. The other soilders wre just doing thier duty, and following orders.

I agree that My Lai and the lynchings are two different things. However, I do think that there is a difference between following orders and doing what may be morally right. Yes, those soldiers were following orders, but could they not see that these people were women and children, and were unarmed? Does our being conditioned to follow orders and "do right" by societal standards prevent us from making truly moral decisions in situations such as this? I have no idea. I guess it just really really bothers me that those soldiers killed innocent people and used "I was just following orders" as an excuse. I'm not judging them; I don't even know what I'd do if faced with the same situation. But, I just can't let the images go of helpless people needlessly getting killed and no one did a thing about it. Currently, some of our soldiers in Iraq are facing charges that they tortured prisoners at Abu Garib (I think that's how it's spelled) because one soldier had the courage to come forward and tell how people were being tortured. The soldiers violated the Geneva Convention. They were "following orders". I guess my conclusion from all this is that it takes courage to go against the gradient and that it takes someone who is really thinking morally to stop an unjust action from occurring. I only hope I'd act the same way if faced with such a situation.

I think that as far as these soldiers knew, they were doing what was right. The soldiers weren't knowingly going against the Geneva Convention, or consciously doing something immoral. To the best of their knowledge the people involved were contributing to the war and were responsible for the deaths of Americans. Vietnam was a war that pitted American troops against extreme guerrilla warfare. A war where children would carry bombs into bars and women would do similar things. Simply being a woman or a child no longer made you innocent. They weren't dealing with societal standards that were at all normal. And I don't feel as though "following orders" is just an excuse either. It is what holds our military together in situations like the storming of the beaches in Normandy. I don't want to think of these men as being unable to make a moral decision. I guess I feel like we can't know what we'd do in that situation or begin to understand it until we're there. I guess this post isn't really relating to education, sorry about that.

Sadly, I think we can indeed group My Lai, the lynchings, and even the atrocities at Abu Ghraib in this discussion. And justifiably so.

The big picture here is the ability to think. We are studying the effects of educational systems, governmental systems, and social systems that either inhibit or promote free thought. The problem is that what we are looking at in all three of these human corruptions is the inability to think individually.

In My Lai, it was said that they were merely following orders. Same thing was said about Abu Ghraib. And in class we discussed the horrors of the mob appeal. In every instance people are refusing to disobey.

I ask again, are we the chains the hold the children down, or are we the shadows that portray the light of the world? These are all related and all significant. We have to foster free thought.

I have a supreme hope in the human race that the participants of these actions do not believe in the violence that took place. I am quite aware that these are all different scenarios with their own motives and dynamics. But the large picture is one of blind obedience.

And that applies to all of them.

I think they do all have a common thread and that is hate. I cannot stand in judgment on what anyone did in each situation because I cannot say for certain what I would do.

I have two daughters and each time I hear about a child molester and think if that were my child there would be no trial. The suspect would be held accountable to me and I would be judge and jury. In the instance of My Lai, I think the soldiers may have been in the same mind set. Their fellow comrades had been attacked in the past and they wanted justice. I am not condoning their actions just trying to understand what they were thinking that may have influenced their actions. Those soldiers are also having to live with the tragedy of what they did.

A soilders life is that of blind obedience. The ability to follow an order is what keeps his alive in a fire fight. He is programmed from day one to follow orders from superiors. To take that away is to stripe away te cain of command. This is seen all through time on wha a worrier is. All the great worriers of the past followed an code to blindly obey thier leaders. The samiuri of anceient Japan call this GIRI or obligation. Even if thier leaders demand them to do something that they were agains they were and are obligated to do it. I agree, that this was a tragic incident in this war. But, as stated above, how do you know who your enemy is when women and children had done things as well. I wish the outcome was different, and no innocent women or children were killed. But, it happened, and the Leaders that could have stopped had thier chance but, did not. They are on the field to give orders not the men that carried them out. This is not a mob, this was soildiers following orders from a dirtbag of a captian. He is solely to blame.

Let me first say that I have never put my life on the line for our country. And I give nothing, but complete repect for the men and women who have and do. I agree with you Ty that My Lai and African American lynchings are not the same, but I must say both make me sick and quite sad. Being that I have never served in the military, I have no idea if "following orders" is a good enough excuse for soldiers. I know that I do not agree with many military actions, but like I said, I've never been in their shoes.

I guess I just want to say that I have empathy for both sides of the argument.

And as far as the "following oders"excuse goes, I want to raise a few questions. If a soldier has the order to go in and take a town by force. Why does this mean kill everything in site? What does brutally murdering and raping have to do with a military strategy? And why in those situations if people are "just following orders," do they spend the rest of their lives tortured by the dicisions that they made?

This might be somewhat of an uneducated (whatever that means, right?) reply, as I do not know much about Vietnam nor do I know much about the military. (just a little disclaimer...)
I used to look at incidents like these and think "what is WRONG with these people? just blindly following orders and killing innocent people". But I've heard one too many stories now to think that way. Times of war lead people to do awful things. A lot of the men involved in My Lai were younger than we are right now. NOt to mention that the military strips these boys of who they are and turns them into what they want them to be. And in all honesty, that is a killing machine. Of all my friends in the military, I constantly hear that they are basically trained to kill. They are trained to act fast and without questioning authority. If all the military men questioned authority (or were allowed to question authority), then how would the military make any headway?
So many of those boys who fought in Vietnam are now older men and are still suffering from their actions - nightmares, flashbacks, etc. I think that proves that they are not cold-blooded killers. They had to act and they had to obey orders. And they did horrific things to those people. War makes people crazy.
And I'm not really sure if that will ever change.

I will not argue that it is a soldier's duty to adhere to orders. I will not criticize the military, nor their motivations. This is not an offense.

This is, however, a firm insistance that the mob appeal and the ability to disobey is the perpetrator and the cause of the most horrid of the world's atrocities. I would not question the fact that an officer gave the orders to raze the entire village of My Lai. I would be certain, though, that the orders did not suggest the slitting of a virgin's vagina. What started out as a "common" ambush did not end up as such. Soldiers in My Lai lost control of thier actions, their minds, and themselves.

And this is my point. Students and Soldiers alike must maintain themselves, their identities despite the insistance of their respective systems. Soldiers of the Third Reich succumbed to following orders, but even our own soldiers can not justify the Holocaust. There is a point in the 19th century American South, in My Lai, and in our "stream-lined" school systems when a person must disobey.

A person must control their own actions. He can not rely on a higher power to direct them for him.

I have several family members who have served in the armed forces and my uncle gave his life in Vietnam. It is difficult for us to ever understand what a soldier goes through in times of war. Sadly there are those soldiers who break the law (raping, mistreating, pillaging etc.) But the largest majority of our soldiers conduct themselves valiantly and with honor and great sacrifice. There is, in my mind, absolutely no comparison to the lynch mobs. I also cannot see the comparison between soldiers following orders and students following rules. As Ty mentioned before, a soldiers life almost always depends on his ability to follow orders. While schools may be difficult, I don't think that any of our students are in life or death situations based on the rules they are asked to follow.

Again, there is no disrespect directed towards the armed forces. My focus is not the military whole anyway; the incidents at My Lai are what we are discussing. And My Lai is what I am comparing to the mob lynchings and Abu Ghraib. Again, it is here we see the inability or the unwillingness to disobey.

But this argument is exhausted.

As for my analogy of soldiers, mobs, and citizens to students, there is more occuring in the school systems than we realize. Besides establishing the foundations of democracy, a child's ability to disobey:

- prepares the student for experiences past and outside of the school system that will challenge their beliefs
- prevents the child from being taken advantage of inside the school

and most importantly,

- promotes the ability for a child to think for themselves.

No, most likely a child is not prone to life and death situations within the classroom. However, as teachers, we must realize that we do have a lasting impact on our students. Our inability to promote independent thinking today can easily become tommorow's My Lai. And unfortunately, I do not think this is an exaggeration.

that reply was me, sorry I forgot to log in

After reading my response, I think my point may not have been entirely clear. I just wanted to say that I have the utmost respect for the soldiers over in Iraq. I had a close friend over there and worried about him the whole time. I have several family members who served in Vietnam, and my uncle, in particlular, is still dealing with the repercussions of events that occurred while he was there. Following orders IS critically important in many situations, be it military, school, a place of employment, etc., etc. I also think that by learning to function within a system, we can then learn to identify what might be wrong and try to fix it. Society is made up of systems, and it is the job of a person in society to funcion within those systems and improve it if necessary. I didn't totally make that clear in my last post....