KANSAN Comment
"Please! There must be some mistake! We couldn't do that! Read our history books!"
What price glory?
"North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that."
—President Richard M. Nixon November 3, 1969
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"The slaughter (at My Lai) called in question the U.S. mission in Vietnam in a way that all the antiwar protesters could never have done."
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Time Magazine December 5,1969
"All I remember was people being killed. There was blood all over. White Americans and black Americans both did the killing. Heads were broken open and there were pieces of flesh all over everyone."
Do Thi Chuc My Lai survivor
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"Just outside the village (My Lai) there was this big pile of bodies. This really tiny kid—he only had a shirt on, nothing else—he came over to the pile and held the hand of one of the dead. One of the G.Ls behind me dropped into a kneeling position 30 meters from this kid and killed him with a single shot."
SP5 Jay Roberts
Army Information Director
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"Capt. Medina didn't give an order to go in and kill women or children. We thought we'd run into heavy resistance. He was telling us that here was the enemy, the enemy that had been killing our partners."
Sgt. Charles West Company C
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"To us they were no civilians. They were VC sympathizers. You don't call them civilians. To us they were VC. If they were VC and got away, then they could turn around and kill you. You're risking your life doing that work. And if someone kills you, those people aren't going to feel sorry for you."
SP4 Varnado Simpson Company C
Sgt. Michael Bernhardt Company C
Sgt. Charles West Company C
"We met no resistance, and I only saw three captured weapons. As a matter of fact, I don't recall seeing one military male in the entire place, dead or alive.
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—Sgt. Ron Haeberle Army photographer
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"They (the soldiers) might have been wild for a while, but I don't think they went crazy. If an individual goes crazy, you can't reason with him. Once everything was secured, everything did cease. If these men had been crazy they would have gone on killing people."
"There was a little boy walking toward us in a daze. He'd been shot in the arm and leg. He wasn't crying or making any noise. A GI fired three shots into the child. The first shot knocked him back, the second shot lifted him in the air. The third shot put him down and the body fluids came out. The GI just simply got up and walked away."
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Cpl. William Kern Company C
"You can't blame (Lt.) Calley's platoon; you've got to blame everyone. It was a free-fire zone. And you know, if you can shoot artillery and bombs in there every night, how can the people in there be worth so much?"
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"There was one gook in a shelter, he was all huddled down in there—an older man. And Sgt. Mitchell hollered 'Shoot him.' And so the man shot him."
—Sgt. David Mitchell Company C
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"I think it is more than just Lt. Calley involved here. I think the national policy is on trial."
Sen. George McGovern D-South Dakota
Readers' write
To the editor:
I agree with the general point that graduate assistants' salaries are shamefully low at KU. They were shockingly bad in 1960, when I lived on one and their tiny rise coupled with the massive upward spiral of living costs makes them even worse today.
However, I must speak out against one of Al Wallace's suggestions: that an allowance be granted for dependents. The single person already bears more than his share of the tax burden in this country, and for decades women have been paid far less than men for the same jobs of the weak excuse that they're not breadwinners for a family. To suggest that universities help perpetuate this injustice would be very wrong.
Certainly salaries should be higher for A.I.'s and I would not object to some kind of governmental aid for people with families. It's most unjust that no kind of welfare help or head-start programs are available for people such as the Wallaces but there could be no justification for paying a man more for the same job of work, merely because he has added to the world's population, than another man or woman doing that job. Women and single men should not tolerate such a practice.
Nan Scott M.A., 1965
Off the wire
By United Press International
CHICAGO — "Chicago Seven" trial witness Mrs. Sarah Diamant describing how she felt allegedly being sprayed with chemical Mace;
"It felt as if my cheeks were on fire."
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WASHINGTON—Newly appointed commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Charles C. Edwards:
"Obviously, it FDA isn't the most healthy agency in the federal government or I wouldn't be here."
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Broward County Sheriff Ed Stack detailing damage at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport after a tornado struck:
"It's quite a mess. Airplanes are scattered all over the perimeter road and fuel is all over the place."
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SANTA CRUZ, Calif.-Santa Cruz Mayor Richard Werner asked if he would "do it again" after being acquitted of malicious mischief for admittedly tearing down a Viet Cong flag at a private home:
"You're darned right I would do it again."
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NEW YORK—Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew, explaining why he criticized news media and antiwar demonstrators:
"Because like the great silent majority, I had had enough. I had endured the didactic inadequacies of the garrulous in silence, hoping for the best but witnessing the worst for many months."
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LONDON—Britain's Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, stressing his support of the U.S. war in Vietnam despite reports of alleged U.S. atrocities;
"When men engage in war, they are brutalized, but you can not say that because atrocities are committed on one side that therefore the whole cause for which that side is struggling is wrong."
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