Photo Essay : A Visit to My Lai Memorial

As befits a memorial to the victims of a brutal war, a quietness hangs in the air above the scattered tombstones and graves. Statues, and even a mosaic, portray the agony experienced on these grounds. Smoke from incense sticks, lit to honor the dead, drifts lazily through the stillness.

This is My Lai today, 24 years after one of the most shocking events of the Vietnam War: the killing of hundreds of villagers--men, women and children--by American soldiers.

The grounds here include a museum, opened in 1976, with a bust of the late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh at the entrance. Inside, a plaque listing 504 people said by the Vietnamese to have been killed on March 16, 1968, covers one wall. (The official U.S. account says about 200 died.) Graphic black-and-white photographs of the dead are displayed. In one corner are rusty remnants of artillery shells.

The museum site is surrounded by rice paddies. A visiting American photographer points her lens in the direction of some women and children tending the grounds. But when they see the camera, they duck out of sight, behind graves or bushes.

Few foreigners visit here.

Back at the entrance to the village, several workers sit on scaffolding, painting and repairing the concrete gateway in preparation for the lunar New Year season. As Vietnam gradually rejoins the world community, more foreigners will doubtless pass through the gate to this grim memorial.