Uncertain Forgiveness

Pham Thi Thuan, My Lai, Vietnam     March 30, 2012 © Marissa Roth 

On March 16th, 1968, the 11th Infantry Brigade of the American Army received an order to destroy four hamlets suspected of collaborating with the Viet Cong. Although they were met with no resistance, the soldiers led by Lieutenant William Calley, massacred 504 people that morning, mostly women and children, and completely destroyed the village.

Pham Thi Thuan, now 74 years old, along with her 2 young daughters, miraculously survived that terrible day without injury, as they laid in an irrigation ditch with dead and dying people on top of them. "My life after that was very hard. But it's a long time ago. Now the US and Vietnam have a good relationship, so I don't want to be angry anymore. I've tried to come over it".

The Long Road Home

 Marissa Roth, March 2012, by Hoang Thi Huong

The wonderful woman I was traveling with in Vietnam, journalist Hoang Thi Huong, took this picture of me on the final day of my three-week trip, just as the last shoot was finished on March 8, 2012. We were about an hour outside of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in a mangrove forest that was growing on land that had been defoliated by Agent Orange during the American war there.

This was the final trip for my entire project, "One Person Crying: Women and War", so in spite of the seriousness of the subject, a yelp of joy at the completion of this 28-year body of work was in order.