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.