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 Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, was eleven at the time of the massacre. His mother and four siblings died. “We forgive, but we do not forget,” he said.Credit Photograph by Katie Orlinsky  - The New Yorker

Pham Thanh Cong, the director of the My Lai Museum, was eleven at the time of the massacre. His mother and four siblings died. “We forgive, but we do not forget,” he said. Credit Photograph by Katie Orlinsky – The New Yorker

Having recently returned from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and being continually disturbed, and sometimes mystified, about the US role and legacy in that part of the world, I was attracted to the current issue of the New Yorker and Seymour M. Hersh’s article Return to My Lai: The Scene of the Crime – A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past.

Hersh, as you may remember, particularly if you ‘came of age’ during the Vietnam War, broke the story about the My Lai massacre, which, in part, led to a reexamination of our role in that war and in that part of the world.

Now, 47 years later, Hersh returns to Vietnam and specifically to My Lai and discovers things he did not know when he uncovered and wrote about the My Lai massacre.

Check out: Return to My Lai

Also, in a companion ‘article’, there are photographs by New Yorker photojournalist Katie Orlinsky, who accompanied Hersh on this trip. Check out: The Memory of My Lai.

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