Captain led company that committed mass murder in Vietnamese village
‘‘I have regrets for it, but I have no guilt over it because I didn’t cause it ... But then again, maybe the war should have never happened.’’
Ernest Medina US Army soldier b August 27, 1936 d May 8, 2018
Ernest Medina, who has died aged 81, was a United States Army captain who was charged with overall responsibility for the My Lai massacre, when soldiers under his command in Vietnam slaughtered hundreds of civilians. He was later acquitted at a court-martial.
Medina was the commanding officer of Charlie Company, in the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade, when the unit was tasked with securing a Vietnamese hamlet on March 16, 1968.
But his company, known as the Charlie Cats, was still green. Three of its four platoon leaders were recently installed, including a young lieutenant, William Calley, and in February six of its men were killed after walking into a minefield.
Medina recalled that, in early March, he had received intelligence reports that a battalion of Viet Cong guerrillas occupied a community known as My Lai 4, part of a larger village called Son My in Vietnam’s south central coast.
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces had swept through the countryside beginning in late January as part of the Tet Offensive, and Medina said he had been given permission to ‘‘destroy the village’’ as part of a search-and-destroy effort aimed at depriving them of resources and manpower.
The destruction that ensued formed one of the darkest chapters in US military history.
In place of Viet Cong, Medina’s men found only unarmed men, women and infants, many of them cooking rice for breakfast. While Medina was initially stationed at a nearby landing zone, Calley and others rounded up civilians and shot them with machineguns. Some were stabbed with bayonets, and several of the women and girls were raped and murdered. Bodies filled a drainage ditch.
An army investigation eventually concluded that 347 men, women and children had been killed. A Vietnamese memorial at the village places the death toll at 504.
The killings were brought to light by Ron Ridenhour, a helicopter doorgunner who learned what had transpired from friends present at My Lai and sent letters to military and political leaders detailing the massacre. A military inquiry ensued, and in September 1969 Calley became the first of 25 people charged with participating in or covering up the murders.
Calley testified that he was following the orders of his commanding officer. Medina said he neither ordered nor saw ‘‘any slaughter at My Lai-4 that day’’. He faced a court-martial and a slew of charges, including the murder of more than 100 civilians (the charge was reduced to involuntary manslaughter) and the murder of an unarmed Vietnamese woman. (He said he shot on instinct, believing she was armed.) An additional charge of covering up the massacre was dropped after two weeks.
Medina testified that he had indeed ordered his company to ‘‘destroy’’ My Lai. But when one of his men asked whether they ought to kill non-combatants, Medina recalled saying: ‘‘No, you do not kill women and children. You must use common sense. If they have a weapon and are trying to engage you, then you can shoot back. But you must use common sense.’’
Some in his company remembered the orders differently. In a 1998 interview with Newsday, Michael Bernhardt said Medina ‘‘didn’t actually say we were to kill every man, woman and child, but it was clear that he wanted us to wipe the place out’’.
Medina, who was represented pro bono by star lawyer F Lee Bailey, was acquitted of all charges in 1971. Major General Samuel Koster, commander of the Americal Division, and Colonel Oran Henderson, commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, were among those acquitted as well.
Calley, convicted of murdering 22 non- combatants, was the only person found guilty as a result of the incident. He was sentenced to life, with hard labour, but served only about three years, much of it under house arrest. He later worked as a jeweller in Georgia.
Ernest Lou Medina was born in Springer, New Mexico, and joined the army in 1956. After resigning his commission, he was a vicepresident of Enstrom Helicopter Corp, which Bailey acquired during the My Lai trial.
He later joined a real estate business run by his wife, the former Baerbel Dechandt, whom he met while stationed in Germany. She survives him, along with three children and eight grandchildren.
‘‘I have regrets for it, but I have no guilt over it because I didn’t cause it,’’ he said in 1988, looking back on My Lai. ‘‘That’s not what the military, particularly the United States Army, is trained for.
‘‘But then again, maybe the war should have never happened. I think if everybody were to look at it in hindsight, I’m sure a lot of the politicians and generals would think of it otherwise. Maybe it was a war that we should have probably never gotten involved in as deeply as we did without the will to win it.’’ –