Calley, Army lieutenant during Vietnam, apologizes for My Lai Massacre

Source: McClatchy

Calley, Army lieutenant during Vietnam, apologizes for My Lai Massacre

By Dick McMichael | The Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer

William Calley, the former Army lieutenant convicted on 22 counts of murder in the infamous My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, publicly apologized for the first time this week while speaking in Columbus.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

In March 1968, U.S. soldiers gunned down hundreds of civilians in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. The Army at first denied, then downplayed the event, saying most of the dead were Vietcong. But in November 1969, journalist Seymour Hersh revealed what really happened and Calley was court martialed and convicted of murder.

Calley had long refused to grant interviews about what happened, but on Wednesday he spoke at a Columbus Kiwanis meeting. He made only a brief statement, but agreed to take questions from the audience.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/74138.html

IMO the Army was actually more accountable in Nam.

Then soldiers were conscripted from the general population....now they are all volonteers...and you must ask yourself why one would volunteer to kill people.
And the next difference is that in this privatized military industrial complex killing is just being a good soldier and sociopaths have the upper hand.
Today Callie would be promoted and welcomed home as a hero for what he did. And there are no Seymour Hersh's in the press today that are in bedded with the military.

"Then soldiers were conscripted from the general population....now they are all volonteers...and you must ask yourself why one would volunteer to kill people."

:thumbsup:

Most US casualties in Vietnam were volunteers. I know lot's of people in the Army, and your insinuation that there is something wrong with wanting to serve your country is absurd.

I don't think it was, but most kids who sign up for the Army think they are serving the country and leave the specifics to the politicians. So, I have clarified my insinuation, are you going to clarify yours?

are doing so for different reasons than they did in the sixties. The Army is throwing boatloads of money at them (offering a path out of poverty) and promising hi-tech thrills.

They have to. In the sixties we were just outside of two defensive wars that had nothing to do with conquest, and little to do with global posturing. Fighting was still an honorable job, because there was an honorable cause behind it - at least that's what kids going into Vietnam thought.

Since then we've turned our own soldiers into mercenaries.

Many did not think they had a choice.

My infantry battalion was over 70% draftees, and it was by no means unusual; the few exceptions were mostly the officers & senior career NCO's--and a good many of the 2Lt-type officers were guys who went to OCS after being drafted. Most people who volunteered did so in order to get safer "strap-hanger" jobs.

Welcome Home Bro--- You and I have been here a long time, A shout out from NE WI

:-) :-)

and back atcha from Chippy Waffles.

Hey how about Mullin's call for more troopies in the Afghan/Kabul clusterfuck?

For example all Officers are Volunteers, even if the alternative was to serve as a grunt in the same unit. If you wanted any option, other then serving as line infantry, you enlisted so you had those options, draftee went where needed. NCOs were also viewed as "Volunteers" even of they were on their first hitch (i.e. during their draft period). All of these tended to expand the numbers of "Volunteers" in the Military. The fallacy of this was shown AFTER Vietnam when the US went from a Draftee Army to true "Volunteer" army, the numbers and quality of the Officers, NCOs and other ranks went down hill (The Military, at that time the early to mid 1970s were as pro-draftees and draftee army as the modern military is pro"volunteer" army). The Army took to the early 1980s to recover from Vietnam (and the Army did so by increasing the slots open to women, something like 10% of all position were open to Women, way in excess of the number of Women in the Navy and Air Force. This is do to the underlying law which, at that time, restricted the slots women could have in the Air Force and Navy, but NOT the Army).

Yes, the quality of the troops went down hill starting about 1968 and continue to go down hill till about 1975. About 1975 do to a much smaller Army, a bad economy AND vastly increasing the slots women could serve in the Army bottomed out and started to slowly improve. I mention this to show you that the mere fact many casualties were "Volunteers" not Draftees is often more a product of spin, then reality. Many 18 years old, to preserve their options enlisted rather then wait to be drafted. To call such "enlistee" as true "Volunteers" is to expand the term "Volunteers" to far. It is like the rule in the law, economic duress is NOT duress i.e. if you are forced to do something do to economic reasons, that is a "Voluntary" action under the law. The same with the numbers of "Volunteers" in Vietnam, to "Volunteer" to serve as an Officer, to keep up the option of NOT serving in the Infantry is not a real "Volunteer" but under most classification used by the Military are "Volunteers".

In fact the Navy and Air Force were able to fill their ranks with such "Volunteers" for most of the years we fought in Vietnam (Both services did take some draftees but most draftees went to the the Army or to the Marines). Again the reason for such Volunteers was to avoid the Draft NOT to enlist in the Service.

Notice I did NOT ask you for the citation for your statistics. I question such facts for the Army rarely, if ever, reported on the draft status of people killed. Part of this traced to WWII and FDR's decision to forbid ANY enlistment after 1942, i.e. if you wanted to serve in the Military after 1942 you had to be drafted, you could NOT enlist. Prior to 1942 you could enlist but not afterward. This ended in 1945 but the Military still maintained the tradition of NOT reporting WHY any one soldier died OR if he (or she) was an enlistee or a Draftee. For this reason I doubt your statement even if ignore the above "Volunteers". I would have to see some independent source for that fact, i.e. report from the US Army, US Department of Defense or someone who had access to such data NOT someone who made the statement on the Net (Even if based on "Personal" known ledge, most people did NOT say they were drafted or enlisted thus a lot of assumption were made and are repeated for that is what people what it to be NOT what it was).

As to people saying what they wanted it to be instead of what it was is the issue of enlisted ranks fragging officers. I have run across several Right Wing persons who told me that the only officers fragged were incompetent officers who would NOT lead their men into Combat. I have also run across someone involved in a Pentagon Internal Report on fragging. The report says clearly it was the Gung Ho officers who were fragged NOT officers who were "incompetent" from a combat point of view. Just a simple case of people re-writing history to fit their view point, this time from fragging Gung Ho officers to fragging non-Gung ho officers. Happens all the time and the main reason I am asking for some citation for your claim that "most" casualties were "Volunteers" not draftees.

I appreciate the education on the subject. I defer to you on it.

I had many friends and acquaintances and very few of the volunteered to go to Viet Nam. Most of them were drafted.
And they went there with the belief that they were protecting the world from communism.

Why volunteer to kill people?

your defenders to make excuses for you, and not once told them that their was no excuse for killing babies and Mother's begging for their lives as you and your soldiers shot them down

the apology may not -- definitely will not -- erase what happened, but we should never reach the point where we do not want someone to see the error of their ways or admit it.

yes, speaking out years ago might have spared the many repeats of the massacre since then, but even that does not, or should not, be an excuse for someone, anyone, not to apologize.

it is never, ever, ever too late. never.



Tansy Gold, who rarely says never

than not moving at all.



TG

i think Mr Calley speaking from his heart may help someone else to make a more compassionate choice in the future.

I have to wonder when that started. This week?

and you and you and you..........

...

Calley mentions the killings, but I notice he doesn't mention the rapes.

What about Colon's part in that mess?

serve much time and, ultimately, Nixon commuted his sentence.

"He did not deny what had happened that day, but did repeatedly make the point — which he has made before — that he was following orders.

Calley explained he had been ordered to take out My Lai, adding that he had intelligence that the village was fortified and would be “hot” when he went in. He also said the area was submitted to an artillery barrage and helicopter fire before his troops went in. It turned out that it was not hot and there was no armed resistance. But he had been told, he said, that if he left anyone behind, his troops could be trapped and caught in a crossfire.

Asked about American casualties, Calley said there were two injuries, but neither was the result of enemy fire, adding, “They didn’t have time.”

One person asked about the story of a helicopter coming into My Lai during the massacre and its pilot threatening to open fire if the killing of civilians didn’t stop.

Calley said the pilot asked if he could take children out of the area and he relayed that request to his captain, who said the pilot could.

As far as any threats to fire on American soldiers by the pilot, or any threats of firing on the chopper, he said he does not recall hearing about that. He did say the helicopter was making a lot of noise during his conversation with the pilot.

Asked if the story about the threat to fire on troops killing civilians came from the pilot, Calley replied, “It certainly didn’t come from me.”

When asked if obeying an unlawful order was not itself an unlawful act, he said, “I believe that is true. If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a second lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them — foolishly, I guess.” Calley then said that was not an excuse; it was just what happened.

The officer Calley said gave those orders was Capt. Ernest Medina, who was also tried for what happened at My Lai. Represented by the renowned Defense Attorney F. Lee Bailey, Medina was acquitted of all charges in 1971.

That same year, Calley didn’t fare as well.

After four months of testimony in a Fort Benning courtroom and almost two weeks of jury deliberation, he was convicted of premeditated murder. After the verdict was read, but before sentencing, Calley was allowed to address the court.

“I’m not going to stand here and plead for my life or my freedom,” Calley said. “If I have committed a crime, the only crime I have committed is in judgment of my values. Apparently I valued my troops’ lives more than I did those of the enemy ...”

Calley was sentenced to life in prison, which was later shortened considerably.

Many at the time considered Calley a scapegoat, forced to take the fall for those above him. That sentiment had been very strong when the late federal Judge J. Robert Elliot released Calley from custody after a habeas corpus hearing. An appeals court reversed Elliot’s ruling and Calley was returned to Army custody, but the Army soon paroled him.

Calley then settled in Columbus, married a young woman named Penny Vick and worked in her father’s jewelry store here for years. He now lives in Atlanta with his 28-year-old son, Laws, who is doing doctoral work in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech.

Calley has been free now for years, but he remains stripped of some of his civil rights.

“No, I still cannot vote,” he said. “In fact, I’m not even supposed to go into the post office, I guess.”

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/813820.html





Others present who took a different course:



"Harry Stanley, a 21-year-old machine gunner from Gulfport, Mississippi, categorically refused Calley’s orders that he mow down a group of civilians. In turn, Calley threatened to have his subordinate court-martialed. “If he could do that and get away with it, I told him to go ahead,” Stanley later recalled. The standoff reached its climax when Calley turned his rifle on Stanley and Stanley responded by drawing and cocking his .45-caliber pistol. The two men withdrew, and Calley ordered other troops to finish the killing.


{note: so much for valuing the life of his troops}


Nor was Harry Stanley the only serviceman to exhibit tremendous moral courage that day. Flying over My Lai, Hugh Thompson, a 25-year-old warrant officer serving as a helicopter pilot with the 123rd Aviation Battalion, saw the unfolding scenes of carnage, landed his helicopter, and confronted Calley and his troops. Outraged to see an American soldier kick a young, wounded girl with his boot and then shoot her point-blank, Thompson reboarded his helicopter, moved it in between the ground troops and a large number of villagers, and instructed his door gunner, Lawrence Colburn, to open fire on any American soldier who aimed at the villagers. Together Thompson and Colburn saved several My Lai residents and radioed back an urgent report that spurred headquarters to order an immediate cease-fire.

An overwhelming majority of Americans—79 percent of those polled—registered disapproval of Calley’s conviction, and most of them—71 percent—believed that other officers and enlisted men should share responsibility with the platoon leader. Sixty-nine percent worried that Calley was being made a scapegoat for his commanding officers."

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20060329-lieutenant-william-l-calley-my-lai-massacre-vietnam-army-ernest-medina-charlie-company-seymour-hersh-vietcong-harry-stanley-richard-nixon.shtml



See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.

crimes he committed - he got all the heat, when at least Medina should have shared it.

Anything done that day, transposed contextually to Nazi occupied Poland, would not have resulted in charges against a single low-ranking officer - it would have encompassed everyone from the privates who did the shooting to the colonel who ordered the operation.

Mi Lai will always be a stain on America - but the disingenuous response is a far worse stain. Our failure to vigorously prosecute up and down the line did more to damage America's reputation in the world than almost anything else before or since. It showed that our own ideals of law and justice are hollow.

Thank you for posting that. I've linked to his Wiki article on an earlier occasion. He died not so long ago. I want him remembered forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr

or even know their names or what they did. :applause:

I hate how Calley says he did not remember Thomposn threatening him, only asking to take some kids away.

In 2005, he retired from Louisiana Veterans Affairs. At the age of 62, after extensive cancer treatment, Thompson was removed from life support and died on January 6, 2006 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. Lawrence Colburn came from Atlanta, Georgia to be at his bedside. Thompson was buried in Lafayette, Louisiana, with full military honors, including a three-volley salute and a helicopter flyover. On February 8, 2006, Congressman Charles Boustany (R-LA) made a statement in Congress honoring him, stating that the "United States has lost a true hero, and the State of Louisiana has lost a devoted leader and dear friend".

A true hero in every sense of the word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Force

Investigations of war crimes

Tiger Force in the Dak Tan Kan Valley
Tiger Force on 9-mile march ending Operation Hawthorne in 1966In December 2002, Michael Sallah, a reporter at the Toledo Blade newspaper, obtained unreleased, confidential records of U.S. Army commander Henry Tufts. One file in these records referred to a previously unpublished war crimes investigation known as the Coy Allegation. To investigate this further, Sallah obtained access to a large collection of documents produced by the investigation held at the National Archives in College Park, MD.<6>

Sallah and fellow Toledo Blade reporter Mitch Weiss found that between 1971 and 1975 the Army's Criminal Investigation Command had investigated the Tiger Force unit for alleged war crimes committed between May and November 1967.<7> The documents included sworn statements from many Tiger Force veterans, which detailed war crimes allegedly committed by Tiger Force members during the Song Ve Valley and Operation Wheeler military campaigns. The statements, from both individuals who allegedly participated in the war crimes and those that did not, described war crimes such as the following:

-the routine torture and execution of prisoners<8>
-the routine practice of intentionally killing unarmed Vietnamese villagers including men, women, children, and elderly people<9>
-the routine practice of cutting off and collecting the ears of victims<10>
-the practice of wearing necklaces composed of human ears<11>
-the practice of cutting off and collecting the scalps of victims<12>
-an incident where a young mother was drugged, raped, and then executed<13>
-an incident where a soldier killed a baby and cut off his or her head after the baby's mother was killed<14>

Mad Magazine oldie but goodie

40+ years!

The man is a real treasure. There are so, so few real journalists left.

a DUer praises that OVERRATED ASSHOLE Powell, what you mention.

Calley wasn't the only officer involved.

Captain Medina was found innocent of all charges.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115996,00.html
Nov. 20 1989

"Rusty doesn't deny what he did," says TV anchor Al Fleming. "He'll say, 'I did what they charged me with.' Anyone who killed women and children has got to feel remorse. But I think he's come to grips with his conscience. He was following orders. They trained him and ordered him to leave the ground scorched, and he took it literally."

Yet Calley shares such thoughts only with a few close friends. "I passed through Columbus a few years ago," says former Sgt. Kenneth Hodges. "I stopped in. He was not rude or ugly. But he didn't care to be bothered."

"He feels that he took the rap for all of them—that he's the fall guy," says one friend. "He sometimes thinks the government may still be watching him, that his phone is tapped. Once he told me, 'If I were to say what I really thought, I'd end up getting sued.' He is particularly resentful toward William Westmoreland."

"I'm sure he thinks about the people he killed," says old friend Lincoln Stone. "He's not cold-blooded. He's a compassionate guy. But he's also tough. Rusty's father was only about Rusty's size—and he played football for Georgia Tech. Rusty took after him. He's emotionally resilient. He knows who he is and doesn't have too many illusions about himself. He's not a guy who feels sorry for himself."

What Calley prefers to talk about these days is losing his hair and watching his son grow up. He is thinking about moving the jewelry store to a better location. These are the normal concerns of an average man—a good man, according to those who know him—who stands convicted of the ugliest crimes of an ugly war. "Someday he'll tell his side of the story," says his friend Dr. Evans. "But he's not ready yet."

Jane Fonda went to North Vietnam during wartime and posed with an anti-aircraft weapon used to kill American pilots - apparently wishing to kill a few herself.

Bringing Death:


Kerry served in Vietnam, realized that what we were doing was not what we said we were doing and, like many of us, joined the protests which (may have) ended the war.

Bringing Life:

perpetuate the calumny against a person who was doing her level best to STOP such things?

Take your nazi-ish name and fuck yourself.

Lt. Calley, fuck you.

Gee.. you are "sorry". You murderous piece of shit. Here I thought you had done the "honorable thing" back in the 70's. Imagine my surprise to discover you are still alive, that you had a life, that you raised a family. You piece of shit garbage. Do your children know who you are? Do they know how you pushed people, mothers, fathers, children, into a ditch and shot them? Do they? Do you talk about it at Christmas dinners? You fucking piece of garbage.
Do you tell them how you threatened a soldier who refused to murder? Are you fucking proud of that? Are your children proud of that? Are they proud of their Daddy who raised his weapon to an American soldier who refused to murder?

Just wondering, you piece of shit. The fact that you are still walking around means you have no clue, no guilt, no remorse. I hope your children die in front of you. (Not that you would lift a finger to help them... but they probably know that.)

would call for the deaths of a persons children as some sort of revenge. The children are blameless and innocent of anything their father did. It maybe just my opinion, your line of thinking is much more in keeping with the tone of those that frequent the Free Republic web site than the Democratic Underground.

</SARCASM> for those dim-bulbs

I for one will not participate in this, although I tend to agree with what most of the "Jackpine Radical" posted.

By several eye-witness accounts Calley caught an approximately two-year old toddler who had fled from the pit in which his family had just been murdered, threw the child back in on top of his dead family and then shot him. To my thought, I should not have to know that Calley is still alive: That he went on to live an ordinary life after such atrocities. Please remember, he was convicted by the Army itself of 22 separate murders - many more than Charles Manson.

So, my feelings about Calley are certainly in-line with those expressed above.

However, I agree with you, and cannot accept that Calley's children bear any responsibility for the actions of the father, and certainly do not feel that they should be punished in any way (much less by death) for their unfortunate choice of male parent.

The bible, however, teaches differently and quite clearly states that descendents - even to the fourth generation - are to be held responsible for the sins of their fathers (but, apparently not for those of their mothers).

Thus, in wishing death upon Calley's children, the poster is only showing his/her acceptance of the holy word of the god of Abraham, and, that too I agree with you on, is more often found in right-wing forums.

------
Exodus 20:5
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Numbers 14:18
The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Deuteronomy 5:9
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

It's sometimes hard to explain something that happened over 40 years ago using today's historical context.

But there's no need to bring in the man's children.

At his conviction he said:

"I'm not going to stand here and plead for my life or my freedom. If I have committed a crime, the only crime I have committed is in judgment of my values. Apparently I valued my troops' lives more than I did those of the enemy ..."

His immediate superior (defended by F. Lee Bailey) Captain Medina was acquitted. Medina's superiors were never charged. Also, of note, My Lai was when Major Powell first surfaces in the news. He was furiously spinning the tale of how the American troops had barely survived an ambush (2 were wounded - not, as Calley admits now, by enemy fire, whilst hundreds of men, women and children were shot down by the US Army.)

From Wikipedia "Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated..."