The Cover-up
The massacre at My Lai ended only after Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot on the reconnaissance mission, landed the helicopter between the villagers running away and the soldiers chasing them and threatened that he would open fire if the soldiers kept attacking. The soldiers who did not participate in the bloodbath were so shocked and frightened of what they witnessed. The dimensions of the slaughter were huge, the exact number of the dead will be unknown, but the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Army estimated 374 dead. Knowing the news of the massacre would cause scandal, officers in command of Charlie Company and the 11th Brigade made efforts for the violence to decrease.
The cover-up continued until Ron Ridenhour, soldier in the 11th Brigade who heard reports of the massacre but has not attended, started a campaign to bring events to light. After writing to Richard Nixon, the President in the Pentagon, State Department, and etc, with no answer, Ron Ridenhour decided to give an interview to the journalist Seymour Hersh, who spread the story in November 1969. Also, only one person had proof of what really happened on March 16, 1968. Ron Haeberle had all the evidence of the killing and gore at My Lai. The photographs he released shamed a nation and broke the heart of America like never before.