Abstract Richard Hammer's book "One Morning in the War: The Tragedy at Son My", describes the massacre of a Vietnamese village by American troops during the Vietnam War. The paper examines how Hammer's work investigates the reasons for the tragic killings of the villagers of Son My and the consequences of the incident, both in Vietnam and America.
From the Paper "While this explains the initial mistake, it still leaves the massacre of about 400 civilian Vietnamese unexplained. The American troops encountered no opposition that morning. Almost all of those slaughtered on that day were women, children and older Vietnamese. In order to understand how American soldiers could do such a thing, Hammer explains how the American troops felt at this time. He explains that most of the men were very young, between 19-21. They were in Vietnam because they were not in college or did not have the right connections to avoid being drafted. These boys were sent to a strange country where they quickly learned to fear everyone and everything. A rock could be a mine; a stick could be a trip for a booby trap; a grandmother could be a human bomb; a fourteen year-old girl could be an assassin. The Americans were completely unable to tell whether any Vietnamese they encountered was a friend or enemy. Hammer explains that this fear led to anger towards all Vietnamese."
