Pardoning vs Forgiveness: An Analysis of the My Lai Massacre

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Today, forgiveness is a slippery slope, and isolating the distinction between a pardon and forgiveness can be confusing, especially when the pardoning is public. Lately, forgiveness is doled out like candy in a parade. Though unearned and often underserved, it is given without any preemptive question or reasonable justification. Of course, there are those that might argue their forgiveness is in the spirit of their religion, their morals, and fairly enough, in the spirit of growth and healing; however, there are certain circumstances, such as those of the My Lai Massacre, where none of the above can justify forgiveness. In light of this, it was an egregious misjudgment and mistake by the United States Government to pardon the soldiers and officers …show more content…

When he finally broke his silence, he had this to say: “There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” (Goodman). Calley now spends his days lecturing on his service in Vietnam and living a normal life despite his record as a publically pardoned war criminal and murderer (Schroth).
There is much debate over the actions at My Lai. The judge who presided over Lieutenant Calley’s trial had this to say in a documentary about the March 16th at My Lai: “If the orders for that mission included unarmed, unresisting men, women, and babies, it was illegal, and a soldier has a duty to disobey such an order.” Others argue that there are no illegal orders in a war. In war, the rules are kill or be killed, be it by the enemy, or fellow countrymen.
Soldiers in Vietnam or any war that has ever been or ever will be, were sent to earth-constrained hells. They lived in a hell, served in a hell. They are called heroes, and they are. But they should simply be called damned. The damned are pardoned because there is more blame to be dealt than the damage a few sentences might do. The truth is, that in a war there is so much blame to be dealt that there will never be a home for all of

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