Vietnam attrocities a reminder of war

Vietnam attrocities a reminder of war

(EXCERPT) By CECIL HERNDON editor@kentuckynewera.com

Killing another human being who is trying to kill you is one thing;
killing a defenseless fellow human being who means you no harm is
something else entirely.

The first is called self-defense; the second might be called one among
many things, unfortunately including an act of war, or sometimes an
act within a war.

Unintended victims of targeted military strikes often are referred to
by military people as "collateral damage," an inevitable and
regrettable aspect of warfare.

But what reportedly happened in Vietnam's Song Ve Valley in 1967
cannot be described as collateral damage. Neither can it be described
as an act of war. Instead, it was an act, or a series of acts over
seven months, within a war.

The Blade, a Toledo, Ohio, newspaper, recently investigated and
reported the killings of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians -- most of
them women, children and elderly --...

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Otis Willie
Associate Librarian
The American War Library
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com