Not About the War, Vietnam

I almost didn't go to My Lai. I was adamantly not doing the War Tour - the DMZ, the Cu Chi Tunnels, or Khe Sanh - and I didn't have to go to My Lai. I didn't want to go. Yet something compelled me to turn off the highway.  I was not yet three years old in March 1968. Why then, standing alone in the tranquil glen, staring at the unadorned granite markers inscribed with the names and ages of those murdered in each home, did I feel so guilty? Why did I feel that the shame was mine, the responsibility mine, mine the need to atone?