My Lai Massacre. The villages of central Vietnam known collectively as My Lai have been stamped by history as places of horrific acts of war. More than 500 people, many of them women and children , were slaughtered here by American G.I.s on March 16, 1968. On that fateful day the angry and frustrated men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division entered the village of My Lai. "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and you've got it," said their superior officers. A short time later the killing began. When news of the atrocities surfaced, it sent shockwaves through the US political establishment, the military's chain of command, and an already divided American public.