Destroy or die; the true story of Mylai

the long version

This is one of the best books on the Vietnam War that I have read----and I've read nearly 65 (from first-person accounts, to the view from Johnson and McNamara's sides, from Westmoreland's bio and 2Lt Calley's story) It tells the harrowing, complicated, unimaginable and tragic story of events and conditions leading up to one of the worst events in military history. It is a raw, brutal, honest account of what really happened that day and in the days/weeks leading up to the massacre. It does not shirk responsibility, but tries to set the scene for the horror that happened that black day in March. It is the closest to answering the "why" that I've come across.