It's odd about war crimes. We seem to have tried people only if they've lost the war. - William Calley

In war, the dead people don't cry. The ones who are still alive do.

I know you'll say, "All right: if Medina said to kill everyone in Atlanta, would you?" And someday an Army officer may, the way this country is going now. I say this: if this were a hundred years ago, if I were a Union lieutenant and if Sherman told me, "Kill everyone in Atlanta," I guarantee I would have to. I once got a letter on Mylai saying, "My god! Why are the Yankees upset?" It said in the CIvil War, the Yankees were up against guerrillas, too. All the South's men, women, and children were out to defeat them. A very smart man in Missouri said, "If the Yankees come through here, do whatever you can. And poison the horses, and poison everyone's food. And invite the GIs-" I mean, "And invite the Yankees in, let them sleep with all your daughters, and if they're in the latrine for a pee: then shoot them. Let them believe you and kill them." The same as Vietnam: the people became guerrillas then. And used unconventional warfare: but the North wasn't about to sit in its trenches worrying, Gee, can I feed my horses here? It wasn't about to live afraid, and Sherman said if they wouldn't let the Army be, then there wouldn't be a Southerner left. He ordered his men to burn, to kill, and as soldiers say: to rape, pillage, and plunder the South. And there was no stopping him. The tactic worked. If you're a Yankee, you'll tell me, "Sherman's great," and you'll put a statue of Sherman in Central Park. As for me, I'd hate to see a monument to Calley's March to the Sea. But damn it! Sherman knew the solution to unconventional warfare.

We had a Plan, Medina was telling everyone now. And went to a Jeep: and taking a shovel out, he drew in the sand beneath him a map of our operation area. From left to right, this was Mylai Four, Mylai Five, Mylai ix, and Mylai One: or Pinkville, on the China sea. Pinkville now was the VC basecamp, Medina said, but we didn't want to get fired on from behind and we would start at Mylai Four. And continue on to Mylai Five, Mylai Six, and Mylai One. "We mustn't let anyone get behind us," Medina said, as I remember it. "Alpha and Bravo got messed up because they let the VC get behind them. And took heavy casualties and lost their momentum, and it was their downfall. Our job," Medina said, "is to go in rapidly and to neutralize everything. Kill everything." "Captain Medina? Do you mean women and children, too?" "I mean everything."