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On March 16, 1968, commanding officers of the United States army instructed a group of American troops into the quiet village of Son My, only a kilometer from the coast of Vietnam in Quang Ngai Province. The U.S called the Vietnam Cong village My Lai 4. These men were told to wipe out the village including every man, woman, child, and animal in the village. These orders were followed and the death toll included 500 innocent civilians, mostly women, small children, and old people. There was no threat to any American GIs and there were no Viet Cong Solders in the area. Most of the murders were conducted, by the order of commanding officers, to round up the families from their homes, forced them into ditches, and then they were shot. Women dove to cover their children. Later, children just old enough to walk crawled out from under their mutilated mothers' bodies, only to be shot as target