The documentary about Seymour Hersh, 'Cover Up', is available on Netflix from today (Dec 26). Here are my initial thoughts on the parts that concern the My Lai Massacre. 1/

There is one piece of evidence that's never really mentioned in 'The Stringer' - images are clearly numbered on film-roll and it should have been fairly straightforward to determine the sequence and whether different photos were taken on the same roll or not. Or maybe I'm missing something...

Watched 'The Stringer' last night - the forensic evidence is compelling and shows how unlikely it is that Nick Ut could have taken 'Napalm Girl'. The framing of the documentary is not entirely convincing, though, and in places the hammy sentimentality threatens to undermine the larger project.

The real issue here is that people mean different things when they say 'military history' - I study war, violence and atrocity but I am *not* a military historian and I wouldn't want to be mistaken for one. If you ask the same questions as military educators do, we are not the same...

The misrepresentation of the My Lai Massacre begins with the name itself: My Lai 4 was the American designation of a village that the locals referred to as Thuan Yen or Tu Cung, and today as Son My. 'My Lai' meant nothing to the Vietnamese who lived there, and 'Pinkville' was somewhere else entirely

Staring in historian of Western imperialism...

The AI discourse is deeply tiresome - people who have never carried out original research insisting that scholars with decades of training are just being stubborn by refusing to drink the Kool-Aid. Show me how AI can materially improve our historical analysis and understanding or shut up...

This old interview with a survivor from My Lai hits differently. I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to retell and relive a deeply traumatising experience over and over again - for 60 years.

Establishing the exact number of victims is one of the most harrowing aspects of writing about atrocities. Numbers alone can never tell the full story and yet it is essential that we get it right since the first step of a cover up is inevitably to minimize the violence. #MyLai1968

That feeling when you find 60 pages of unpublished and unedited interviews with survivors from the My Lai Massacre... Photo is from the CID investigation at My Lai, Nov 1969. Incense sticks have been placed in cans from the C-rations left by Charlie Company.

Book proposal finally finished and sent off to my agent - plan is to have it out by March 2028, in time for the 60th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre. This will be the last book in my massacre trilogy - but stylistically very different from both 'Amritsar 1919' and 'Massacre in the Clouds'...

"After the firing stopper, she could see the short soldier take pictures of the group of bodies with a camera" First time I've come across an eyewitness account that suggests Lt. Calley might have had a camera at My Lai. If true, no-one has ever seen these photos...

This morning I finished the first chapter of my Rashomon-inspired book on the My Lai Massacre - an immersive, step-by-step account of what army photographer Ron Haeberle and reporter Jay Roberts saw on March 16, 1968. And then I sent it to Ron and Jay to see what they make of it...

Artist: Bill Sanders. Milwaukee Journal, 1972

Where have you been for the past few centuries? US exceptionalism at its finest...

Maybe some day people will get the basic facts right - but Hersh didn't 'uncover' the My Lai Massacre (he exposed the cover-up) - just as Calley didn't 'order' the massacre, and Thompson didn't 'stop' it. These are great headlines but poor history... www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

"WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF THEMSELVES AS THE 'GOOD GUYS' REGARDLESS OF THE VIOLENCE THEY INFLICT, THERE IS ULTIMATELY NO ATROCITY THEY ARE NOT WILLING TO JUSTIFY" From my book 'Massacre in the Clouds' - written about early 20th-century events, but seemingly still relevant...

'Dad, why do you have pictures of dead people on your desk?' This is how I know Christmas has arrived...😑

In attempt to distract myself from 21st century war-crimes, I read about a 20th century wartime atrocity. Cannot recommend this book enough. Excellent writing, assiduously researched. Should find a place on your America in the Philippines book shelf.

Interesting how the existence of visual evidence is what ultimately matters. Had the footage not existed, we might never have heard of this. Which begs an uncomfortable question...

The fact that Calley was the only officer convicted after My Lai has massively distorted public memory and understanding of this event. Calley commanded just one of the three platoons in Charlie Company and there were many others who killed and raped that day. One man does not a massacre make.

Trump talking about extracting natural resources from Congo just a few days after his Secretary of War(crimes) is quoted as saying 'kill them all' - a bit on the nose if you ask me.

Did Leopold II write this speech?

With every day that passes, my research on historical atrocities - and the ways in which they are justified, covered up or simply forgotten - becomes both more urgent yet seemingly also more obsolete. We are so far through the looking-glass at this point...

Scapegoating a military officer after an atrocity caused a public outcry? Never heard of such a thing...🤔

Taken on my birthday last month in Maryland.

One way or the other, somebody is going to get disappointed...

There is of course a long tradition of US military commanders giving exactly this order - from Col. John Chivington at Sand Creek in 1864 to Gen. Jacob Smith at Samar in 1901, or Capt. Ernest Medina at My Lai in 1968... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Really looking forward to the Ken Burns episode on Bud Dajo...😏

Don't make me tap the sign...

It's frustrating to see people invoke Lt. Calley as an example of how 'just following orders' is not a legitimate excuse. He was barely punished and there were dozens of US soldiers who literally got away with murder after the My Lai Massacre. I really wish Americans knew their own history better.

The life of a historian: today I've been reading and writing about explosive head wounds - and looking at photos thereof. Krakens and mermaids sound funner...

Your daily reminder that there are plenty of 'lawful orders' that have historically led to atrocities. Doesn't mean it's not a good thing for people to stand up to Trump, but let's not be naive...

Sometimes you don't even need Isaac Chotiner to do a Chotiner...

50% off books from Yale Universoty Press - including 'Amritsar 1919', the first volume in my massacre trilogy. Perfect Christmas present for that special one in your life who is into atrocities (and the history and afterlives of the British Empire in India)

Spent veteran's day with Ron Haeberle and a group of Vietnam veterans at a high school in Ohio. I'm still trying to make sense of the particular brand of popular politics that instills unquestionable pride in military service *and* at the same time acknowledges what happened at My Lai...

'World' is doing a lot of work here...

Currently visiting Ron Haeberle - the army photographer who took the images at My Lai in 1968 - and nothing could really have prepared me for seeing the original 35mm slides in person.

Good to know that Samar, My Lai and Abu Ghraib were all *departures* from the American way of making war. Some weapons-grade US exceptionalism (i.e. acute historical amnesia) from Jonathan Horn here...😑 www.wsj.com/opinion/sple...

The youngest wanted to be an android geisha for Halloween - one more addition to the collection...

Well, that's exciting - Michael Mann working on a new Vietnam war movie:

During the Philippine–American War, the US Army’s massacre of between 600 and 1,200 civilians made for “sensational news in the United States when it was first reported…. Eventually the event disappeared from popular consciousness and barely figured in popular accounts.” —Vicente L. Rafael

More people were killed during the Bud Dajo Massacre in 1906 than at Wounded Knee and My Lai combined - and yet this American atrocity has been largely forgotten. Review of my book 'Massacre in the Clouds' by @vrafael82.bsky.social in @nybooks.com: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Just bought this on Ebay for $5 - Alfred (of 'Mad Magazine' fame) as Lt. Calley, 'National Lampoon', August 1971

If only someone had written a book about this particular form of historical erasure...🤔

My current project on the My Lai Massacre is heavily influenced by the polyphonic structure of 'Rashomon'/'In the Grove' - and it's quite reassuring to find that contemporaries themselves drew that comparison. This commentary is from December 1969, just after the story first broke:

Not really a fan of Chomsky, but he was quite perceptive and clearly ahead of his time when he denounced the use of 'remote-controlled unmanned aircraft' in 1970, during the Vietnam War...

As a historian, writing about the past - no matter how violent or horrific - increasingly feels like escapism...

My approach to research these days is to read absolutely everything I can put my hands on that will help me get the 'feel' of an event or time-period right. Next up is Jean Larteguy's (author of 'The Centurions') fictionalised account of the disappearance of Sean Flynn in Cambodia in 1970...