- Varnado Simpson
Private First Class Varnado Simpson was an American soldier who participated in theMy Lai Massacre . He was wracked with remorse after the killings and eventually committedsuicide .Simpson joined the U.S. Army in 1967 at the age of 18, and the following year was posted to
South Vietnam . He was assigned to Charlie Company, under the command of CaptainErnest Medina , and participated in the massacre at the village of My Lai, where he reportedly killed at least eight unarmed villagers, including a mother and her baby ("I shot them, the lady and the little boy. He was about two years old." [ [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,107922,00.html An American Tragedy] TIME magazine] ). His official statement on the event was succinct: "I killed about eight people that day. I shot a couple of old men who were running away. I also shot some women and children. I would shoot them as they ran out of huts or tried to hide." [http://star.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?f6oiEwsr3jFA3vblix8NMeDLJ6Hv8p1tuauLrSCAnbvk6bDyr.G5od@AYqtUqqnWsVhQ0wfs8eyzY@2PjeEQJWU3frLl.mUol@ijrh8tf.o/1540148004.pdf]In 1977, Simpson's 10-year-old son was accidentally killed by a random shot fired by some neighborhood teenagers. [http://www.mnsd.net/mnhs/apush/unitXV/Varnado_Simpson.pdf] Simpson recalled the day later by stating "He died in my arms. And when I looked at him, his face was like the same face of the child that I had killed. And I said: This is the punishment for killing the people that I killed." Sometime later his daughter also died after being stricken with meningitis.
In 1982 he was admitted to a
Veterans Affairs hospital inJackson, Mississippi , where he was diagnosed withparanoia after recounting his actions in the village, as well as his recurring fears that the dead villagers would come back for vengeance upon him.Twenty years after that initial statement, in a 1989 interview, Simpson claimed to have killed about 25 people and added
scalping and bodilymutilation to his description of events. "The baby’s face was half gone, my mind just went…and I just started killing. Old men, women, children, water buffaloes, everything…I just killed…That day in My Lai, I was personally responsible for killing about 25 people", he said. [ [http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/dark_5.html Into the Dark: The My Lai Massacre] Crime Library] At this point he was being heavily medicated forpsychological disorder s, and it is unclear which memories of the events are more accurate.For years Simpson had lived with all his doors and windows locked and shuttered. After three unsuccessful attempts, he committed suicide in his home in May 1997 at the age of 48 with a shotgun blast to the head. [ [http://www.stpaulshalifax.org/Sermons/sermon990328.html "Being forgiven"] ]
ee also
References
* Michael Bilton & Kevin Sim, "Four Hours in My Lai". Penguin Books, 1992.
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