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My Lai To Abu Ghraib: A History Repeated
By
Zachary S. Pollack, B.A., M.ED

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The My Lai Massacre and the Abu Ghraib incident are two notorious military scandals,
which tarnished the reputation of the United States military, embarrassed the country, and set
back the military’s strategic goals during the Vietnam and Iraqi Wars. In both instances, the
killing torture, sexual abuse and complete dehumanization took place against unarmed civilians.
The My Lai Massacre was an immoral act by soldiers from Charlie Company of the 11th
Infantry Brigade on the Vietnamese residents of My Lai. Similarly, United States servicemen
abused and dehumanized Iraqi detainees during the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal. The common
denominator in both episodes is the violent reaction by the servicemen to the message being sent
down from the highest levels of authority: that the enemy is everywhere and must be found and
killed. Although these incidents were separated by more than three decades, the political climate
was the same. The country was fighting against an elusive enemy. A close examination of both
events shows that protocols of training had not materially changed since the Vietnam War. Both
events occurred due to lack of leadership and failure to effectively train military personnel. The
military is now making an effort to prevent such abuses and violations of International Law from
occurring again.
Political Climate
The greatest fear among American policy makers during the Cold War was the spread of
Communism throughout Southeast Asia. Those who subscribed to the domino theory believed
that if Vietnam fell the Communist forces would eventually take over all Southeast Asia. As one
solider explained, “Too many Americans were caught up in the so-called, domino theory.”1 The
1 Barack Goodman, director, American Experience: My Lai, DVD, directed by Barack

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fear was that Communist forces would take over Vietnam and this ideology would spread
throughout Cambodia, Laos, and even to Japan.
Similarly, the Bush Administration, although separated from Vietnam by almost thirty
years, had an over-simplified view of the Iraq War as, “A War on Terror.” Servicemen were
trained to keep a keen eye on those labeled as an insurgent. This was a clear and direct policy
announcement by the Bush Administration, which influenced those who were training
servicemen. Similar to Communism, military leaders educated servicemen on the issue of
terrorism. The threat was thought to come primarily from Islamic extremists. It was this threat
of terrorism and a desire for revenge, which led to the United States invasion of Iraq. Terrorism
became the new rallying cry in that it was a threat that had to be combated at all costs. Just as
Communism was a threat to the United States political system and way of life in post-World War
II, so too was terrorism in more recent times
By 1963 approximately 16,000 United States troops were deployed in Vietnam.2 An
increase in troop strength was justified by those who believed in “any means necessary” to win
the war. As one servicemen explained, “Policy makers knew we could not lose this war. They
had to train us the most efficient way possible. Justifiable or not.”3 During this unpopular war,
racism and prejudice was rampant. There was no way to develop friendly relations with the
Vietnamese civilians out of the fear that they could assist the enemy in a “surprise attack.”
Moreover, it was difficult to tell the civilians apart from the Viet Cong.
Military Training during The Vietnam War
Goodman (Atlanta Georgia: 2010).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.

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Captain Ernest Medina trained the men of Charlie Company. Medina was a powerful
man who was tough but respected by the men of his company. Although Medina was hard and
demanding most of the time, the men respected him and wanted to work for him.4 Men were
trained to hate the enemy as they were told Communism would spread like wildfire if they did
not prevent it. Military training during the Vietnam War was between seven to nine weeks long.
Most trainees were young and inexperienced. Training was challenging as men had to adjust
from their “civilian lifestyle” to shooting “Gooks.”5 In a 2011 interview with Ronald Winter, a
serviceman during the Vietnam War in 1968 explains that soldiers were young men ranging from
eighteen years old to twenty-two years of age on average. With very little knowledge and
experience in this military campaign, soldiers went through psychological training. Military
leaders were verbally aggressive and abusive towards servicemen during boot camp. This created
a dangerous atmosphere and can be an explanation for why war crimes, such as My Lai
occurred:
When I went to boot camp recruits were debased, insulted, embarrassed and harassed to
a degree that would get a drill instructor in jail today. That was routine and it was
considered to be necessary to prepare recruits for the rigors of battle. We even got hit
occasionally which is absolutely forbidden today. We were told that if you couldn't take a
hit in training how would you stand up to an enemy soldier when your life was on the
line.6
This form of military training was emotionally exhausting, as drill sergeants would
verbally abuse servicemen in order to make them be part of a successful unit. As Winter
explains, whether they liked it or not, the men had a war to win and a country to protect and that
was understood. “We were given real-life scenarios in which we were to immediately respond.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ronald Winter, interview by author, Hartford, CT, October 26, 2011

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The goal was for men to forget about themselves as individuals and to begin strategic thinking as
a strong and well-equipped cohesive military unit.”7
Basic training was all of the training that the servicemen received before being shipped
overseas. Drill sergeants told the men that they were a “Team not an individual.” If one man
made an error, the entire company was punished. Basic training was designed to teach men
simple lessons of warfare and to withstand their weaknesses. Importantly, the recruits were torn
down to extinguish any individual ideas and were drilled so that they would survive and be
successful only as a team.8 The team was the only thing that would keep them alive. They were
instructed that the enemy was deceptive and had to be destroyed at all costs. The enemy was
debased to make them easier to kill.
During the war, there were areas in Vietnam known as free fire-zones. Soldiers were
allowed to shoot anything or anyone who moved. Any living creature in the free fire zone was
fair game. In Ethics Education in the Military, Paul Robinson analyzes first hand interviews
with military personnel throughout United States history. Robinson interviews former
servicemen to understand what training was like during the Vietnam era. From these interviews,
Robinson argues that there needs always to be an increase in ethics training; otherwise incidents
such as My Lai can occur again. For eight hours every day (expect Sunday), men would hold
their rifle in hand. With many of the men being inexperienced with no previous knowledge of
infantry, the idea was to get the men acclimated to weapons which were heavy and
unconventional. After holding the rifle all day, men were to master the art of infantry training in
which they were to shoot various targets as if it were the enemy. There was such a profound
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.

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emphasis on killing the enemy. Military leaders taught their men that killing more Vietnamese
was better than killing no Vietnamese. The United States military did not want to run the risk of
not killing the enemy since military leaders used "the body count" as a way to explain to the
American people that the war was being won. It was justifiable to take any means necessary to
accomplish their goal of killing the Vietcong.9
Throughout the period of the Vietnam War, military training was designed to assist the
servicemen to become more aware of the enemy and more strategic in their thinking. Lessons
were to be learned based on previous combat. The Tet Offensive of 1968 took place only months
prior to My Lai. Tet was a coordinated attack by the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong
allies. This fear of the enemy was still fresh in the minds of many soldiers in Vietnam. Despite
this being a military victory for the Americans abroad, it was a loss at home. In February of
1968 Charlie Company saw atrocities against its men by the Viet Cong. One member of the
company was killed by land mines and booby-traps and several others were injured.10 They did
not know where they could move or stand in fear of dying in the jungles. The more men Charlie
Company lost, the more aggressive they came. Military leaders took precaution as they became
overly apprehensive and wanted to avoid further casualties.11
With the fear of unexpected enemy attacks, men were instructed on how to dig foxholes.
This was a way to hide servicemen from the enemy and to ultimately shelter them from danger.
Men were given precise instruction on how to handle them in the foxhole. The notion of “there
9 Nigel de Lee and Don Carrick and Paul Robinson, Ethics Education in the Military
(Aldershot, England.: Ashgate, 2008), page 1-78
10 Barack Goodman, disc 1, American Experience: My Lai, DVD, directed by Barack Goodman
(Atlanta Georgia: 2010).
11 James, Olson., and Randy Roberts. My Lai: A Brief History with Documents. Boston:
Bedford St./Martins. 1998. 66.

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are no atheists in foxholes” was preached to servicemen. Men were to trust one another, stand by
one another and be united whether in combat or training. Another training method instilled in the
soldiers was how to react if they become and prisoner of war.12 During the later years of the war
this became likely and it was up to servicemen to protect themselves and their fellow comrades
from being captured by the Viet Cong.
As one member from Charlie Company expresses, it wasn’t just Calley who told the men
to kill and torture the enemy, it was Medina who was often the mastermind behind treating the
civilians poorly. “Captain Medina made it very clear that when we entered an area which he
believed was occupied by Viet Cong sympathizers we were to destroy everything. If we saw
something growing, we were to cut it. If there was a building, burn it and if something was alive
kill it.”13 The idea of destroying anything and everyone, civilian or not was the norm. The risk of
not killing a person because they did not look like a Viet Cong sympathizer was too great. If
servicemen were in free-fire zones and believed the enemy was near them, they felt they had an
obligation to destroy an entire village. This was the mindset of the soldiers of Charlie Company.
Take care of business now, and worry about the consequences later.
During the third week of basic training, servicemen received a paperback pamphlet,
“Rules of War booklet.” Soldiers were to read this manual and watch a film on international war
ethics and military justice. This booklet was designed to assist the soldiers in differentiating legal
acts from potential violations of the Geneva Accords.14 Following the film, men were to take a
written exam answering various questions about international warfare. During this process it was
12 Ibid.
13 Christian G. Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (New York:
Penguin (Non-Classics), 2004), 348.
14 Nigel de Lee and Don Carrick and Paul Robinson, Ethics Education in the Military
(Aldershot, England.: Ashgate, 2008), 56

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presented that if illegal orders were given, men were not forced to follow such orders despite
military protocol. This military ethics training was between one to two days long and served as a
brief overview of how to treat civilians during a time of hostility. The essence of training
however was not to necessarily teach men how to treat the non-combatants but how to defeat the
enemy or anyone who looked like them.15 The men in Charlie Company became more
aggressive. Kill first and ask questions later were a typical refrain. It was so confusing to many
of the soldiers because they could not separate the enemy from the civilians.
The attempt to instill some notion of ethics was contradicted by the more repeated
directions to kill this dangerous and tricky enemy. The land was foreign and it was not easy to
tell the enemy from the civilian. The ethical aspect of training was not rigidly enforced and was
only reviewed once in ten weeks of training. This brief and non-effective way of limited
education explains one of the main reasons why atrocities occurred. As Paul Robinson, author
of Ethics Education in the Military explains, defeating the enemy by increasing the number of
troops was far more important than expressing the gravity of military ethics:
In Vietnam between 1965 and 1970 the politics of war necessitated a rapid
increase in the size of the Army, with corresponding decrease in attention paid to
ethics education and training. The drug use, racial tensions, and ethnical
relativism characterizing American society in the 1960s darkened the ethical
fabric of the American Army.16
Military Training during the Iraq War
Similar to the Vietnam War, military training for servicemen during the Iraq War was
from seven to ten weeks long. Servicemen start the day at 5 A.M. in which they complete their
obligatory morning responsibilities such as completing morning calisthenics in which men run
15 Ibid., 57.
16 Ibid., 58

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on average five miles daily. This is designed to see endurance skills. It is instructed that in order
prepare for the worst; endurance at all hours must be at its best. Most of the training, which takes
place, is physical stamina training. Training is mostly designed to keep men physically fit to
fight the enemy.17
Aside from physical training, in order to prepare servicemen for battle, the training
emphasized the goal of preparing the servicemen to maintain vigilance sufficient to keep them
safe. It was imperative that the men were to become acclimated to their surroundings and
understand why they were engaging in this military campaign. Servicemen are told they are to
train as a unit and to forget about themselves as the individual; as in a time of warfare a
successful unit is what brings a military victory, not an individual achievement. This emphasis
on the team has not changed from the Vietnam War era.
Servicemen are trained to be in the right mindset in order to distinguish the combatant
from the non-combatant. Throughout the duration of Iraq War, there has been less of an
emphasis on “fire-training.” During the Vietnam War, fire training was used as one of the ways
to teach men how to handle a weapon. They were to shoot targets or most notably, shoot in areas
where most of their fellow servicemen were located. As men have died through friendly fire,
this type of training was not as prevalent during the Iraq War. With no military draft, enlisted
men have joined on their own, rather than being drafted as seen in the 1960s.
During basic training the dehumanization and mistreatment against insurgents or those
who looked to be insurgents was well known. As Janis Karpinski, a former general who
participated in the Iraq War and former commander of several prisons in Iraq, explained,
17 Janis Karpinski, One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her
Story (Miramax, 2005), 74.

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servicemen were told to treat terrorists as if they were inhuman. In an interview with Amy
Goodman, radio host for “Democracy Now”, Karpinski pleaded her side as to why she received
the blame during the Abu Ghraib scandal. “They told us to treat all terrorists like dogs. We were
refrained from showing them any respect and we were told to not treat them like humans unless
they gave us a reason for doing so.”18 Servicemen were trained to treat the enemy as if they were
sub-human. Ironically servicemen were given military ethics training to combat unjustifiable
moral ethics yet at the same time the real orders given were to treat all suspected terrorists as less
than human.
Parallels between training during the Vietnam War and Iraq War are clear. There was
great emphasis on physical training and overcoming weakness when training for combat. In both
wars, mere lip service was given to the ethical treatment of civilians and prisoners. The
emphasis was on results and that meant only one thing, killing the enemy before the enemy
killed you. Clearly not enough emphasis was given to treat all prisoners including suspected
insurgents as human beings who possess certain basic rights that must be respected.
Lack of leadership and cover-ups
The My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib incident have become synonymous with cover-ups
and lack of leadership by the United States military. From the My Lai Massacre until the Abu
Ghraib incident, military training had not been sensitive to the role the soldiers play as they
interact with civilians. Training lacked an emphasis on the rules of war and how to treat civilians
compared to insurgents.
18 Democracy Now, “Interview with Janis Karpinski,” (October 7, 2011 [originally aired
October 26, 2005])

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Prior to the My Lai Massacre, Charlie Company was considered to be one of the most
inept companies in the battalion. The company was assembled of men who were not prepared for
war and who had little to no experience with military training. Charlie Company was a diverse
group of men, coming from all different cultures and ethnicities. More than half of the company
had dropped out of high school or did not attend college. Inexperience of the men became
obvious, as many men did not understand the role they were to play in this largely unpopular
military action.19
The perception of good morale and being the best-equipped company was not true.
Within Charlie Company it was believed by individual members that they were not a cohesive
unit as men were poorly prepared for the rigors of training. Captain Ernest Medina trained the
men of Charlie Company. During the incident at My Lai, the soldiers entered the village of My
Lai, led by Lieutenant William Calley, on a search and destroy mission. Their mission was to
search for and kill Viet Cong. Under the command of Captain Medina and Lt. Calley, the men
entered the Village and were told by Medina to kill everything they saw.20
According to most members of Charlie Company Calley was often mistreated by Medina.
Medina’s mistreatment negatively affected Calley. Calley maintained little to no control over his
men, as many did not respect him. To the men in Charlie Company, Calley was incompetent at
his position. Medina often embarrassed Calley in front of the men by calling him “Captain Shit-
head.20” According to many who served in Charlie Company it was strange that Calley obtained
19 James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, My Lai: a Brief History with Documents (Boston:
Bedfords/St. Martins, 1998) 43.
20 Ibid.

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the rank of an officer. Prior to his entrance into Officer Candidates School, Calley had failed out
of college.21
Journalist Seymour Hersh, who leaked information regarding the My Lai Massacre to the
American public, recalls hearing reports about Calley raping a Vietnamese woman with a gun to
her head several days prior to the Massacre. The allegation, that Calley was, “only following
orders” from Medina, is untrue. There is clear evidence that dehumanization of the Vietnamese
took place before the My Lai Massacre and policy makers felt obligated to call the My Lai
Massacre a so-called “isolated incident.” Hersh goes onto mention that following the killing of
approximately five hundred civilians in the village of My Lai, there were immediate cover-ups,
which took place.22 Throughout the war, cover-ups were universal. Medina was responsible for
giving false numbers of deaths. He stated that the United States won a successful military
campaign by killing hundreds of Viet Cong, and made his men take an oath of secrecy that they
would not reveal what happened to policy makers such as General Westmoreland and President
Johnson.23 Instead higher-ups believed that Charlie Company won a successful battle and
defeated the enemy. Medina believed if word got it would represent a failure of Charlie
Company and would give the United States a reason to pull out of this unpopular war. If the
American public found out about this atrocity it would sway public opinion even further, along
with getting imprisoned and court-martialed for their inhumane acts. When President Nixon first
heard what happened, through a letter, he ignored it. However once this became public he had no
choice but to term this an “isolated incident.”
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Democracy Now, “Interview with Seymour Hersh,” (October 5, 2011[originally aired
March 17, 2008])

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Along with lack of leadership within the United States Military, blame for these cover-
ups must be shared with President Nixon. Only Calley was court-martialed and sentenced to
prison. However, President Nixon was responsible for releasing Calley. To those who covered up
the My Lai Massacre asked why was Calley the only member of Charlie Company blamed for
what happened, while Captain Medina the “architect” of My Lai was not charged with war
crimes? If Medina had been charged, it would have represented more of an institutional failure
and would have contradicted Nixon’s claim that this was nothing more than “an isolated
incident.”24
These findings would have further cast a negative light on United States involvement in
Vietnam. Designating Calley as the scapegoat meant the United States Government was placing
the blame solely on him for the horrors. Although Calley is to blame for the gruesome actions,
the same blame should be placed on Medina and the soldiers of Charlie Company. Men had the
right to refuse orders, which were illegal. It is quite evident that a close look at the My Lai
Massacre reveals violations of the Geneva Convention and a disregard for basic human decency.
Although military training has improved and advanced since 1968, soldiers always had the right
to refuse illegal orders. A lack of proper military training played an influential role in which
soldiers in Charlie Company did not recognize the enemy from the civilian.25
The Abu Ghraib Prison Incident
After thirty-six years, things had changed, but many things remained the same. The Abu
Ghraib incident is yet another prime example of lack of leadership by the United States military.
24 Marilyn B. Young, John J. Fitzgerald and A. Tom Grunfeld, The Vietnam War: A History in
Documents (Pages from History) (Oxford University Press, USA, 2003), 130-131
25 Nigel de Lee and Don Carrick and Paul Robinson, Ethics Education in the Military
(Aldershot, England.: Ashgate, 2008), 67

14. 14
By 2004, The United States was in Iraq to locate weapons of mass destruction and seek revenge
against the architects of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S homeland. This
ignorance started with the Bush Administration and ran through the upper level military
leadership and the mid-level offices that were responsible for over-seeing Abu Ghraib. The Bush
administration made it clear that this was simply a “War on Terror.” This black and white view
instilled in the military leadership worked its way down the chain of command to those officers
who were in charge of Abu Ghraib.
This made it difficult for the prison guards to distinguish the difference between prisoners
who did something wrong versus those prisoners who were suspected of doing something wrong.
The war was on “terror” rather than a war engaged against a particular country. Seymour Hersh
explains how President Bush at first covered up the incident at Abu Ghraib because there were
no rules for prisoners.”
Bush kept on saying, we don’t torture, I’ve told everybody that torture is not acceptable.
At the same time, he’s running a regime in which there are no rules basically for
prisoners. You can do what you want despite all this talk and the investigations. The
bottom line on the prisoner issue is that there are no rules; just do what you want.26
In Janis Karpinski’s book One Woman's Army: the Commanding General of Abu Ghraib
Tells Her Story she argues that the United States leaders were at fault. Karpinski was a central
figure during the Abu Ghraib scandal as she was demoted in rank from General to Colonel for
mistreatment of detainees. There was no difference between a terrorist and someone who
appeared to be an insurgent. This message was instilled in the prison guards who then took a
rough stance with the prisoners in order to obtain as much intelligence as possible. This led
directly to the mistreatment of those in captivity.
26 Seymour Hersh. “The Progressive. Interview by author David Barsamin, 2005.

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Military leadership turned a blind eye to these occurrences, as there were no military
standards as how to treat detainees who had the stigma of “terrorists.” Lynndie England and
Charles Graner are two former military reservists who participated in the torture and
dehumanization in the prison. Graner had the responsibility of prison guard duty, while England
had no training and was not an official guard of the prison. She visited the prison to be with
Graner, who was her fiancé at the time. These two figures were caught when photographs of the
abuses went worldwide. Both Graner and England were court-martialed and sentenced to
prison.27 Today England states that she was only following orders from Graner who manipulated
her into participating in these war crimes.
After September 11th occurred, a new threat emerged. This was the threat of terrorism.
The Bush administration felt excessive pressure to gain intelligence from terrorists and those
who were confined in the Abu Ghraib prison. This was the easiest way to gain intelligence
without searching for the enemy. Servicemen were to assume that everyone who inhabited the
prison was terrorists and obtained secret intelligence of weapons of mass destruction, which the
United States desired. Added to this atmosphere was a lack of sufficient military training. There
was also a lack of proper guidance for the soldiers and an insufficient review of the Geneva
Accords and the Rules of War.28 This was a recipe for disaster and was how the dehumanization
of detainees took place. Former Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger speaking on behalf of
United States servicemen who were charged with illegal conduct, places the blame on those in
command for their deficient leadership.
27 Gary S. Winkler, Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib, and the Photographs That
Shocked the World. Bad Apple Books, LLC, 2009), 44.
28 Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade. 2004. The Taguba Report.
Antonio Taguba,37.

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The events of October through December 2003 on the night shift of Tier 1 at Abu Ghraib
prison were nothing more than acts of brutality and purposeless sadism. We now know
that these abuses occurred at the hands of both military police and military intelligence
personnel. The pictured abuses, unacceptable even in wartime, were not part of
authorized interrogations nor were they even directed at intelligence targets. They
represent deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline…29
The lack of leadership should also be blamed on those military leaders who allowed the
soldiers to enter this difficult territory without ensuring that they were properly trained on how to
interact with civilians. Today, because of the unique role that the United States military plays
internationally, the armed forces are required to develop working relationships with the civilians
it encounters. The United States military not only must follow international law when
encountering civilians, but also a critical part of its strategic plan requires it to develop friendly
relations with the local population. While this is the goal of the military, the incidents at Abu
Ghraib prison were just the opposite. Images of these extensive abuses received worldwide
condemnation and set back U.S interests throughout the region. As Major General Attorney
Antonio Taguba explains, the military was not prepared for this mission. If that is the case,
blame can be placed not only directly on the inadequate training but also on the leaders who
allowed this to happen.
I find that the 800th MP Brigade was not adequately trained for a mission that included
operating a prison or penal institution at Abu Ghraib Prison Complex. I also concur that
units of the 800th MP Brigade did not receive corrections-specific training during their
mobilization period. MP Units did not receive pinpoint assignments prior to mobilization
and during the post mobilization training, and thus could not train for specific missions.
The training that was accomplished at the mobilization sites were developed and
implemented at the company level with little or no direction or supervision at the
Battalion and Brigade levels, and consisted primarily of common tasks and law
enforcement training.30
29 James Schlesinger. Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DOD Detention
Operations, August 2004. Schlesinger, 4.
30 Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade. 2004. The Taguba Report.
Antonio Taguba.,37.

17. 17
In a separate interview, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviewed Samuel
Provance, former military intelligence sergeant and whistleblower who spoke out about the
violence at the Abu Ghraib prison. He is the only military soldier mentioned in the Taguba
Report (a highly regarded inquiry regarding the abuses at the prison.) Provance describes the
bluntness in which fellow servicemen would describe the way they treated prisoners.
And, you know, I would ask questions about interrogations and stuff, and the things they
started telling me were alarming, you know, beginning with the nudity. You know, one
girl was an interrogator just out of the schoolhouse, a reservist, nineteen years old, and
she was telling me about, you know, interrogating somebody in the nude. And, you
know, I’m thinking, even me, as a man, would have some reservation about doing
something like that, or, you know, if I could do that. But here she is, a nineteen-year-old
girl, you know, interrogating a naked prisoner. But she talked about it without batting an
eye, you know, like it wasn’t an issue for her.31
Provance was forbidden to speak about what he had learned at Abu Ghraib. He was told
that he couldn’t speak with the media and testify to what he knew. With fear and understanding
that the entire scandal was being covered up, Provance decided to speak out and report what he
knew.
I started thinking, OK, you know, if I don’t say anything, then nobody is going to say anything.
So I had to say something. And then I actually hoped that when I spoke out that other people
would start speaking out, too, but that didn’t happen. They just watched as, you know, I got into
all that trouble, and then they saw what would happen to them if they spoke, too. And so, a lot of
them to this day remain quiet.32
The goal was to treat these prisoners poorly and deny all accusations as they took place.
Similar to the My Lai Massacre and the notion of “kill now and answer questions later”,
servicemen at the Abu Ghraib Prison treated the prisoners unlawfully and told all members
31 Democracy Now, “Interview with Samuel Provance,” (November 2, 2011) (aired October
26, 2005)
32 Ibid.

18. 18
involved to not report this to the American media, looking for any action to leave Iraq. This
parallels Medina telling his men to cover-up what happened and swearing them to secrecy.
Military Training Today
Military training has changed in 40 years. As the physical aspect of training remains
challenging, the military has made it a priority to keep physical training an important goal.
However, since these two notorious incidents, the United States military has made several efforts
to improve training through educating its servicemen on the rules of war. These efforts have been
made through a better education of the servicemen. The emphasis is now on role-playing and
group discussions to help the servicemen recognize dangerous situations and distinguish those
from morally ambiguous situations. With this new way of training, the United States is making it
a priority to prevent events like My Lai and Abu Ghraib from occurring again. Lieutenant
Colonel Dean Bland of the United States Army speaks about how through better training
throughout the military it is unlikely that these types of events will happen again. When
servicemen begin the training they are given a manual of the Laws of War. This document
discusses in depth what is permitted and what is not during times of war.33
During earlier times this wartime document was handed to servicemen and not reviewed
on a regular basis.34 Since 2004, this document is reviewed frequently and is designed to become
second nature to servicemen. Rather than simply reviewing the Rules of War, role-play learning
games are conducted in which the instructor gives servicemen certain scenarios and the men are
to act and judge based on what they believe is deemed ethical and appropriate under international
33 Dean, Bland. The Abu Ghraib Scandal: Impact on the Army profession and the Intelligence
process., (2005):3.
34 Ibid.

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law.35 Today the main goal is for its servicemen to interact cooperatively and respectfully with
the civilian populace while conducting their duties. Due to hostilities, which have largely been
against terrorists and insurgents, that cooperative role is even more critical for the military today.
In addition, at military academies such as West Point, there are lectures and classes which
servicemen are required to attend. Classes are offered on World War Two, the Holocaust, and the
Vietnam War. The ability to learn from previous incidents in order to help the servicemen
understand what is right from wrong in warfare is the objective of this educational training
process. Another goal of military leaders is to teach the future leaders to stress to their charges
the ability to distinguish combatants from non-combatants.36 If it cannot be distinguished, service
men are to make a moral decision based on the best interest of themselves and their unit. War as
we know it is brutal. Every war has a dark side. While the United States military continues to
remain actively involved throughout the 21st century, an important priority is to emphasize to
servicemen that the United States must observe not only the letter but also the spirit of
international law.37
Parallels between the My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib prison incident are clear. Both
events occurred due to inadequate military training during both wars. Charlie Company prepared
to enter the Village of My Lai and attack all Viet Cong and their sympathizers. United States
servicemen intentionally abused and mistreated those who appeared to be suspected terrorists. At
times it was confusing for the servicemen to distinguish the enemy from the civilian population.
However, a conscious decision was made to assume everyone encountered was the enemy. This
belief can be traced directly to a lack of competent leadership and the inconsistent message being
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.

20. 20
sent to the servicemen. On one hand lip service was being paid to the notion that International
Law was to be followed while the command stated that the enemy was everywhere and it must
be stopped. Although the United States is making conscientious efforts to prevent events like this
from occurring again, incidents such as My Lai and Abu Ghraib will continue to reoccur until the
observance of International Law becomes the priority and not an afterthought.
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