ally from the United States.In March of 1969, a year after the attack, Richard Ridenhour, then 23, a former SF4, sent information he had pieced together in 30 letters to the president, congressmen, and other Washington officials. He was not involved in My Lai, nor a witness. He heard about it from friends and was deeply disturbed by the events he heard. At first he didnt believe, but he soon realized they were true; do the the similarities of people's stories The letters written by Richard Ridennhour led to the investigation of the platoons in action on March 16. The investigation was suspiciously barren. The Army recorded that there was an almost total absence of files and records of documents relating to the Son My incident and its subsequent investigation. (Goldstien 313) The files had been purged of most all legal documents and records. They had been either removed or destroyed, but not maintained. An exception to the missing files was COL. Hendersons April 24 report, which was found in another indiscriminate file. These findings led to the accusations of: Failure to report all civilian killings (Stated at 20-28, reality 400-500). Failure to report all acts of murder and other war crimes. False report of noncombatant casualties. Failure to report distruction of private property. Withholding and suppression of knowledge and evidence of war crimes by information office personnel. The troops were accused of failure to report complete facts, report alleged war crimes and not taking appropriate action when convinced a cover up was taking place.No one had reported the crime. Things just went on as they had before. The only thing that was recorded was that officers would report to higher officials how many VC killed and who they were. They stopped reporting illegally at 8:40 am. The final report was that 38 VC were killed. This was not true. Only 3 or 4 were confirmed Viet Cong. There were however probably several unarm...
