In 1968, U.S. soldiers were attacked by the Viet Cong, Vietnamese communist guerilla soldiers. The soldiers then hid in the nearby town, Son My. The commander of the U.S ordered Charlie Company to consider all Vietnamese people who were found in Son My as Viet Cong, and ordered them to destroy and burn the village. However, the soldiers did not find the VC, but instead found civilians. Even though the Charlie Company could see that the people were unarmed and innocent, the commander ordered his men to begin slaughtering them. Over five hundred people were killed, including 182 women, 174 children, and 56 infants. The soldiers not only committed murders, but also raped women including girls as young as twelve years old, and also committed arson on numerous buildings and homes in the village. 

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The brutal incident was ended by Hugh Tomson, the U.S. army helicopter pilot. While he was flying over Son My, his crew saw unarmed women being shot and groups of people forced to get into a bunker to be massacred. Immediately, Tomson and his crew requested help for the wounded through radio and landed between soldiers and innocent villagers, threatening to open fire if they continued the violence. The helicopter crew carried out the bodies with their aircrafts, as well as the survivors trapped between the corpses.

Although the brutal incident was publicized, of the one-hundred Charlie Company soldiers who participated in the slaughter, only twenty-six were found involved in the massacre and one was found legally convicted. 

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The May Lai massacre memorial is located in Son My, Vietnam to commemorate innocent victims of the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. It was one of the most horrible and cruel massacres that happened to unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War, perhaps in the entire history of humanity. There are over five hundred names on the walls of the memorial and sculptures commemorating the victims.