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From From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal. On March 16, 1968, American soldiers entered the Vietnamese hamlet of Mili. What followed was one of the most horrifying war crimes

in U.S. history. Hundreds of unarmed civilians, men, women, and children were gunned down in cold

blood. Some were raped. But instead of confronting this atrocity, military leaders tried to bury

it, and for more than a year they succeeded. When the truth finally came to light,

it shocked the world and raised a disturbing question, how could the United States Army allow

something like this to happen? And yet, despite the fallout, only one man was convicted of a crime

while dozens more went free. My guest today is Fred Bork, a retired army lawyer and regimental historian

of the Judge Advocate General Corps. He's written extensively about how Mili shaped military justice,

and today we'll explore how the U.S. military confronted the legacy of this massacre

and whether the lessons it claimed to learn still hold up more than 50 years later.

Our conversation is next.

What if I told you that the crime of the century is happening right now?

From coast to coast, people are fleeing flames, wind, and water.

Nature is telling us, I can't take this anymore.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups, and the things we're doing to either protect the earth or destroy it.

This is Lawless Planet.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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