Based on classified documents and first-person interviews, a
startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civilians
The American
Empire Project
Winner of the
Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction
Americans have long
been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were
isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by just a few "bad
apples." But as award-winning journalist and historian Nick
Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence
against Vietnamese noncombatants was not at all exceptional during
the conflict. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the
predictable consequence of official orders to "kill anything
that moves."
Drawing on more than
a decade of research into secret Pentagon archives and extensive
interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse
reveals for the first time the workings of a military machine that
resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded-what
one soldier called "a My Lai a month." Devastating and
definitive, Kill Anything That Moves finally brings us
face-to-face with the truth of a war that haunts America to this day.
