“Has the United States ever apologized?
Or are we too big to apologize?”
—Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson
The Chaplains Handbook has no confiteor or rite,
neither Book of Common Prayer nor missalette,
for scrutinies that beg forgiveness from the torn
and desecrated dead. We come contrite
for reports of helicopter gunships,
bodies observed in a ditch, the undress
of a girl who covered only her eyes:
Noncombatant gang rape, with bayonet.
“Kill anything that moves,” bloodlust, U.S.
Our Agnus Dei mocked your mutilation.
Five hundred and four in My Lai, Son My.
Old age we robbed, our own years condemn.
We confess to you, brothers and sisters:
We beg. We pledge. Remember them.
This spring marks the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre (March 16, 1968) by U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine. She is author ofBending the Arch: Poems.
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