William Calley
Encyclopedia
William Laws Calley (born June 8, 1943) is a convicted American
war criminal and a former U.S. Army
officer
found guilty of murder for his role in the My Lai Massacre
on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War
.
, Florida
. His father was a United States Navy
veteran
of World War II
. Calley graduated from Miami Edison High School
in Miami and then attended Palm Beach Junior College
in 1963. He dropped out in 1964 after receiving unsatisfactory grades, consisting of two Cs, one D, and four Fs. Calley then worked at a variety of jobs, including as a bellhop
, dishwasher
, salesman, insurance appraiser and train conductor. While living in San Francisco in 1966, Calley received a letter from the Selective Service board requesting reevaluation of his medical condition. While attempting to return to Miami, his car broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico
, where Calley then reported to a recruiting official, enlisting in the U.S. Army on July 26, 1966.
, Georgia
, followed by eight weeks advanced individual training as a company clerk at Fort Lewis
, Washington. Having scored high enough on his Armed Forces Qualification tests, he applied for and was subsequently accepted into Officer's Candidate School (OCS)
. He then began 16 weeks of junior officer training at Fort Benning in mid-March 1967. Upon graduating from OCS Class No. 51 on September 7, 1967, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry
. Following his commission, Calley was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion
, 20th Infantry Regiment
, 11th Infantry Brigade
, and began training at Schofield Barracks
, Hawaii
, in preparation for deployment to Vietnam
.
Calley was not highly regarded as a platoon leader; his evaluations described him as merely "average" as an officer. Later, as the My Lai investigation progressed, a more negative picture emerged. Men in his platoon reported to army investigators that Calley lacked common sense
and could not read a map or compass properly. A number of men assigned under Calley claimed that because he was so disliked some secretly discussed assassinating him.
Calley was charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder
for the deaths of 104 Vietnam
ese civilians near the village of My Lai, at a hamlet
called Son My, more commonly called My Lai in the U.S. press. As many as 500 villagers, mostly women, children, infants and the elderly, had been systematically killed by American soldiers during a bloody rampage
on March 16, 1968. Had he been convicted, Calley could have faced the death penalty.
On November 12, 1969, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
broke the story and revealed that Calley was charged with murdering 109 Vietnamese.
Calley's trial started on November 17, 1970. It was the military prosecution's contention that Calley, in defiance of the rules of engagement, ordered his men to deliberately murder unarmed Vietnamese civilians despite the fact that his men were not under enemy fire at all. Testimony revealed that Calley had ordered the men of 1st Platoon
, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) to kill everyone in the village. In presenting the case, the two military prosecutors, Aubrey Daniel and John Partin, were hamstrung by the reluctance of many soldiers to testify against Calley. Some refused to answer questions point-blank on the witness stand by citing the Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination. However one holdout, a soldier in Calley's unit named Paul Meadlo, after being jailed for contempt of court by the presiding judge, Reid W. Kennedy, reluctantly agreed to testify. In his testimony, Meadlo described that during the day's events, he was standing guard over a few dozen My Lai villagers when Lt. Calley approached him and ordered him to shoot all the civilians. When Meadlo balked at the orders, Calley backed off 20 feet (6 m) or more and opened fire on the people himself, and Meadlo joined in.
Another witness named Dennis Conti, who was also reluctant to testify, described the carnage, claiming that Calley had started it and the rest of the 105 soldiers of Charlie Company followed suit. Another witness, named Leonard Gonzalez, told of seeing one of the soldiers of Calley's unit herd some men and women villagers together and order them to strip off their clothing. When the villagers refused, the enraged soldier fired a single round from his M-79
grenade launcher into the crowd, killing everyone.
Calley's original defense that the death of the villagers was the result of an accidental helicopter or aerial airstrike was quashed by the few prosecution witnesses. In his new defense, Calley claimed he was following the orders of his immediate superior, Captain Ernest Medina
. Whether this order was actually given is disputed; Medina was acquitted of all charges relating to the incident at a separate trial in August 1971. Taking the witness stand, Calley, under the direct examination by his civilian defense lawyer George Latimer, claimed that on the previous day, his commanding officer, Captain Medina, made it clear that his unit was to move into the village and that everyone was to be shot for they all were Viet Cong. 21 other members of Charlie Company also testified on Calley's defense corroborating the orders. But Medina publicly denied that he had ever given such orders and he had meant enemy soldiers, while Calley assumed that his order to "kill the enemy" meant to kill everyone. In his personal statement, Calley stated that:
After deliberating for 79 hours, the six-officer jury (five of whom had served in Vietnam) convicted him on March 29, 1971, of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31, 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor at Fort Leavenworth.
Of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai Massacre or the subsequent cover-up, only Calley was convicted. Many saw My Lai as a direct result of the military's attrition strategy with its emphasis on "body counts" and "kill ratios."
Many in America were outraged by Calley's sentence; Georgia's governor Jimmy Carter
instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on. Indiana's governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley, and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict. The Arkansas
, Kansas
, Texas
, New Jersey
, and South Carolina
legislatures requested clemency for Calley. Alabama's governor George Wallace
visited Calley in the stockade and requested that Nixon pardon him.
After the conviction, the White House received over 5000 telegrams; the ratio was 100 to 1 in favor of leniency. In a telephone survey of the American public, 79% disagreed with the verdict, 81% believed that the life sentence Calley had received was too stern, and 69% believed Calley had been made a scapegoat.
Many others were outraged not at Calley's guilty verdict, but that he was the only one within the chain of command who was convicted. At the Winter Soldier Investigation
in Detroit organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War
January 31-February 2, 1971, veterans including First Lieutenant William Crandell of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division expressed their outrage:
There is a view in defense of Calley, South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commanding Officer Chae Myung Shin
remarks "Calley tried to get revenge for the deaths of his troops. In a war, this is natural."
Richard Nixon
ordered him transferred from Leavenworth prison to house arrest
at Fort Benning, pending appeal. This leniency was protested by Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense. The prosecutor, Aubrey Daniel wrote, "The greatest tragedy of all will be if political expedience dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons." On August 20, 1971, the convening authority — the Commanding General of Fort Benning — reduced Calley's sentence to 20 years. The Army Court of Military Review affirmed both the conviction and sentence (46 C.M.R. 1131 (1973)). The Secretary of the Army reviewed the sentence and findings and approved both, but in a separate clemency action commuted confinement to ten years. On May 3, 1974, President Nixon notified the Secretary that he had reviewed the case and determined he would take no further action in the matter.
Ultimately, Calley served only three and a half years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning. He petitioned the federal district court
for habeas corpus
on February 11, 1974, which was granted on September 25, 1974, along with his immediate release, by federal judge J. Robert Elliott
. Judge Elliott found that Calley's trial had been prejudiced by pretrial publicity, denial of subpoena
s of certain defense witnesses, refusal of the United States House of Representatives
to release testimony taken in executive session of its My Lai investigation, and inadequate notice of the charges. (The judge had released Calley on bail on February 27, 1974, but an appeals court reversed it and returned Calley to U.S. Army custody on June 13, 1974.)
Calley was sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth
, Kansas. At his release, the press eagerly awaited his arrival at the prison's South Gate, as promised by the prison commandant. Instead, at Calley's request, he was released at West Gate and taken directly to the Fort Leavenworth airfield, where his escort had him flown home. The press were notified of his departure after the fact.
The army appealed against Judge Elliott's decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and asked an appeals judge to stay Calley's immediate release, which was granted. However, the full Court upheld the release pending appeal and decided the entire court would hear the appeal (normally not done in the first instance). The Army won a reversal of Judge Elliott's habeas corpus
grant and a reinstatement of the judgment of the courts martial, with 5 judges dissenting. (Calley v. Callaway, 519 F.2d 184, 9/10/1975). In a long and extremely detailed careful opinion, the reviewing court disagreed with Judge Elliott on the law and significantly on Elliott's scope of review of the courts martial proceedings. On November 9, 1974, the Court noted that although by now Calley had been "paroled" from confinement by the Army, that did not moot the habeas corpus proceedings. Later in 1974, President Nixon tacitly issued Calley a limited Presidential Pardon. Consequently, his general court-martial conviction and dismissal from the U.S. Army were upheld, however, the prison sentence and subsequent parole obligations were commuted to time served, leaving Calley a free man.
since 1975, and moved to downtown Atlanta to live with his son, William Laws Calley III. In October 2007, Calley agreed to be interviewed by the UK newspaper the Daily Mail
to discuss the massacre, saying, "Meet me in the lobby of the nearest bank at opening time tomorrow, and give me a certified check for $25,000, then I'll talk to you for precisely one hour." When the journalist "showed up at the appointed hour, armed not with a check but a list of questions," Calley left.
On August 19, 2009, while speaking to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus
, Calley apologized for his role in the My Lai massacre. According to the Ledger-Enquirer and a blog maintained by retired broadcast journalist Dick McMichael, Calley said:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
war criminal and a former U.S. Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
found guilty of murder for his role in the My Lai Massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
Early life
William Calley was born in MiamiMiami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. His father was a United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Calley graduated from Miami Edison High School
Miami Edison High School
Miami Edison High School is a secondary school located at 6161 NW 5th Court in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami, Florida, USA. The provost is Dr. Pablo G. Ortiz...
in Miami and then attended Palm Beach Junior College
Palm Beach Community College
Palm Beach State College is a member institution of the Florida College System,a public state college located in Lake Worth, Florida. Palm Beach State College was formerly known as Palm Beach Community College and before that Palm Beach Junior CollegePalm Beach State College enrolls more than...
in 1963. He dropped out in 1964 after receiving unsatisfactory grades, consisting of two Cs, one D, and four Fs. Calley then worked at a variety of jobs, including as a bellhop
Bellhop
A bellhop, also bellboy or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform , like certain other page boys or doormen...
, dishwasher
Dishwashing
Dish-washing is the process of cleaning cooking utensils, dishes, cutlery and other items. This is either achieved by hand in a sink or using dishwasher and may take place in a kitchen, utility room, scullery or elsewhere...
, salesman, insurance appraiser and train conductor. While living in San Francisco in 1966, Calley received a letter from the Selective Service board requesting reevaluation of his medical condition. While attempting to return to Miami, his car broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
, where Calley then reported to a recruiting official, enlisting in the U.S. Army on July 26, 1966.
Military career
Calley underwent nine weeks of basic combat training at Fort BenningFort Benning
Fort Benning is a United States Army post located southeast of the city of Columbus in Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia and Russell County, Alabama...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, followed by eight weeks advanced individual training as a company clerk at Fort Lewis
Fort Lewis
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is a United States military facility located south-southwest of Tacoma, Washington. The facility is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army Joint Base Garrison, Joint Base Lewis-McChord....
, Washington. Having scored high enough on his Armed Forces Qualification tests, he applied for and was subsequently accepted into Officer's Candidate School (OCS)
Officer Candidate School (U.S. Army)
The United States Army's Officer Candidate School , located at Fort Benning, Georgia, provides training to become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army...
. He then began 16 weeks of junior officer training at Fort Benning in mid-March 1967. Upon graduating from OCS Class No. 51 on September 7, 1967, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
. Following his commission, Calley was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
, 20th Infantry Regiment
20th Infantry Regiment (United States)
The 20th Infantry Regiment is a United States Army infantry regiment.-History:It was organized on 6 June 1862 at Fort Independence , as the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Infantry, one of the nine "three-battalion" regiments of regulars, each battalion containing eight companies of infantry, in...
, 11th Infantry Brigade
11th Infantry Brigade (United States)
The 11th Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade of the United States Army. It was first formed as part of the United States Army's 6th Division during World War I, however it is best known for its service as a separate Brigade in the Vietnam War...
, and began training at Schofield Barracks
Schofield Barracks, Hawai'i
Schofield Barracks is a United States Army post and census-designated place located in the City and County of Honolulu and in the Wahiawa District of the island of Oahu, Hawaii, United States. Schofield Barracks lies adjacent to the town of Wahiawā, separated from most of it by Lake Wilson...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, in preparation for deployment to Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
.
Calley was not highly regarded as a platoon leader; his evaluations described him as merely "average" as an officer. Later, as the My Lai investigation progressed, a more negative picture emerged. Men in his platoon reported to army investigators that Calley lacked common sense
Common sense
Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
and could not read a map or compass properly. A number of men assigned under Calley claimed that because he was so disliked some secretly discussed assassinating him.
Murder trial
The events in My Lai had initially been covered up by local divisional command. In April 1969, nearly thirteen months after the massacre, a G.I. who had been with the 11th Brigade wrote letters to the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. In these letters the G.I. described some of the atrocities by the soldiers at My Lai, that he had been told about.Calley was charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...
for the deaths of 104 Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese civilians near the village of My Lai, at a hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
called Son My, more commonly called My Lai in the U.S. press. As many as 500 villagers, mostly women, children, infants and the elderly, had been systematically killed by American soldiers during a bloody rampage
Rampage
Rampage may refer to:* Rampage , an American rapper* Dodge Rampage, a subcompact, unibody pickup truck* Rampage , a video game series....
on March 16, 1968. Had he been convicted, Calley could have faced the death penalty.
On November 12, 1969, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
broke the story and revealed that Calley was charged with murdering 109 Vietnamese.
Calley's trial started on November 17, 1970. It was the military prosecution's contention that Calley, in defiance of the rules of engagement, ordered his men to deliberately murder unarmed Vietnamese civilians despite the fact that his men were not under enemy fire at all. Testimony revealed that Calley had ordered the men of 1st Platoon
Platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...
, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) to kill everyone in the village. In presenting the case, the two military prosecutors, Aubrey Daniel and John Partin, were hamstrung by the reluctance of many soldiers to testify against Calley. Some refused to answer questions point-blank on the witness stand by citing the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
right against self-incrimination. However one holdout, a soldier in Calley's unit named Paul Meadlo, after being jailed for contempt of court by the presiding judge, Reid W. Kennedy, reluctantly agreed to testify. In his testimony, Meadlo described that during the day's events, he was standing guard over a few dozen My Lai villagers when Lt. Calley approached him and ordered him to shoot all the civilians. When Meadlo balked at the orders, Calley backed off 20 feet (6 m) or more and opened fire on the people himself, and Meadlo joined in.
Another witness named Dennis Conti, who was also reluctant to testify, described the carnage, claiming that Calley had started it and the rest of the 105 soldiers of Charlie Company followed suit. Another witness, named Leonard Gonzalez, told of seeing one of the soldiers of Calley's unit herd some men and women villagers together and order them to strip off their clothing. When the villagers refused, the enraged soldier fired a single round from his M-79
M79 grenade launcher
The M79 grenade launcher is a single-shot, shoulder-fired, break-action grenade launcher that fires a 40x46mm grenade which used what the US Army called the High-Low Propulsion System to keep recoil forces low, and first appeared during the Vietnam War...
grenade launcher into the crowd, killing everyone.
Calley's original defense that the death of the villagers was the result of an accidental helicopter or aerial airstrike was quashed by the few prosecution witnesses. In his new defense, Calley claimed he was following the orders of his immediate superior, Captain Ernest Medina
Ernest Medina
Ernest Lou Medina is a former captain of infantry in the United States Army. He served during the Vietnam War and was acquitted in a court-martial of war crimes charges in 1971...
. Whether this order was actually given is disputed; Medina was acquitted of all charges relating to the incident at a separate trial in August 1971. Taking the witness stand, Calley, under the direct examination by his civilian defense lawyer George Latimer, claimed that on the previous day, his commanding officer, Captain Medina, made it clear that his unit was to move into the village and that everyone was to be shot for they all were Viet Cong. 21 other members of Charlie Company also testified on Calley's defense corroborating the orders. But Medina publicly denied that he had ever given such orders and he had meant enemy soldiers, while Calley assumed that his order to "kill the enemy" meant to kill everyone. In his personal statement, Calley stated that:
- "I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children. They were all classified as the same, and that's the classification that we dealt with over there, just as the enemy. I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the order that I was given and I do not feel wrong in doing so."
After deliberating for 79 hours, the six-officer jury (five of whom had served in Vietnam) convicted him on March 29, 1971, of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31, 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor at Fort Leavenworth.
Of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai Massacre or the subsequent cover-up, only Calley was convicted. Many saw My Lai as a direct result of the military's attrition strategy with its emphasis on "body counts" and "kill ratios."
Many in America were outraged by Calley's sentence; Georgia's governor Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on. Indiana's governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley, and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict. The Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
legislatures requested clemency for Calley. Alabama's governor George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
visited Calley in the stockade and requested that Nixon pardon him.
After the conviction, the White House received over 5000 telegrams; the ratio was 100 to 1 in favor of leniency. In a telephone survey of the American public, 79% disagreed with the verdict, 81% believed that the life sentence Calley had received was too stern, and 69% believed Calley had been made a scapegoat.
Many others were outraged not at Calley's guilty verdict, but that he was the only one within the chain of command who was convicted. At the Winter Soldier Investigation
Winter Soldier Investigation
The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War from January 31, 1971 – February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War...
in Detroit organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Veterans Against the War is a tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation, originally created to oppose the Vietnam War. VVAW describes itself as a national veterans' organization that campaigns for peace, justice, and the rights of all United States military veterans...
January 31-February 2, 1971, veterans including First Lieutenant William Crandell of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division expressed their outrage:
- We intend to tell who it was that gave us those orders; that created that policy; that set that standard of war bordering on full and final genocide. We intend to demonstrate that My Lai was no unusual occurrence, other than, perhaps, the number of victims killed all in one place, all at one time, all by one platoon of us. We intend to show that the policies of Americal Division which inevitably resulted in My Lai were the policies of other Army and Marine Divisions as well. We intend to show that war crimes in Vietnam did not start in March 1968, or in the village of Son My or with one Lieutenant William Calley. We intend to indict those really responsible for My Lai, for Vietnam, for attempted genocide.
There is a view in defense of Calley, South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commanding Officer Chae Myung Shin
Chae Myung Shin
Chae Myung Shin is a Republic of Korea Army general and South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commanding Officer during the Vietnam War.-Korean War:...
remarks "Calley tried to get revenge for the deaths of his troops. In a war, this is natural."
House arrest
On April 1, 1971, only a day after Calley was sentenced, U.S. PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
ordered him transferred from Leavenworth prison to house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
at Fort Benning, pending appeal. This leniency was protested by Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense. The prosecutor, Aubrey Daniel wrote, "The greatest tragedy of all will be if political expedience dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons." On August 20, 1971, the convening authority — the Commanding General of Fort Benning — reduced Calley's sentence to 20 years. The Army Court of Military Review affirmed both the conviction and sentence (46 C.M.R. 1131 (1973)). The Secretary of the Army reviewed the sentence and findings and approved both, but in a separate clemency action commuted confinement to ten years. On May 3, 1974, President Nixon notified the Secretary that he had reviewed the case and determined he would take no further action in the matter.
Ultimately, Calley served only three and a half years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning. He petitioned the federal district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
for habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
on February 11, 1974, which was granted on September 25, 1974, along with his immediate release, by federal judge J. Robert Elliott
J. Robert Elliott
J. Robert Elliott was an American politician and a federal judge.Elliot was born to a Methodist minister on 1 January 1910 in Gainesville, Georgia. After he graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1930, he taught school to earn money for his law degree, which he received from Emory...
. Judge Elliott found that Calley's trial had been prejudiced by pretrial publicity, denial of subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
s of certain defense witnesses, refusal of the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
to release testimony taken in executive session of its My Lai investigation, and inadequate notice of the charges. (The judge had released Calley on bail on February 27, 1974, but an appeals court reversed it and returned Calley to U.S. Army custody on June 13, 1974.)
Calley was sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in the upper northeast portion of the state. It is the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C. and has been in operation for over 180 years...
, Kansas. At his release, the press eagerly awaited his arrival at the prison's South Gate, as promised by the prison commandant. Instead, at Calley's request, he was released at West Gate and taken directly to the Fort Leavenworth airfield, where his escort had him flown home. The press were notified of his departure after the fact.
The army appealed against Judge Elliott's decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and asked an appeals judge to stay Calley's immediate release, which was granted. However, the full Court upheld the release pending appeal and decided the entire court would hear the appeal (normally not done in the first instance). The Army won a reversal of Judge Elliott's habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
grant and a reinstatement of the judgment of the courts martial, with 5 judges dissenting. (Calley v. Callaway, 519 F.2d 184, 9/10/1975). In a long and extremely detailed careful opinion, the reviewing court disagreed with Judge Elliott on the law and significantly on Elliott's scope of review of the courts martial proceedings. On November 9, 1974, the Court noted that although by now Calley had been "paroled" from confinement by the Army, that did not moot the habeas corpus proceedings. Later in 1974, President Nixon tacitly issued Calley a limited Presidential Pardon. Consequently, his general court-martial conviction and dismissal from the U.S. Army were upheld, however, the prison sentence and subsequent parole obligations were commuted to time served, leaving Calley a free man.
After release
Sometime in 2005 or 2006, Calley divorced his wife Penny, whose father had employed him at the V.V. Vick jewelry store in ColumbusColumbus, Georgia
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...
since 1975, and moved to downtown Atlanta to live with his son, William Laws Calley III. In October 2007, Calley agreed to be interviewed by the UK newspaper the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
to discuss the massacre, saying, "Meet me in the lobby of the nearest bank at opening time tomorrow, and give me a certified check for $25,000, then I'll talk to you for precisely one hour." When the journalist "showed up at the appointed hour, armed not with a check but a list of questions," Calley left.
On August 19, 2009, while speaking to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...
, Calley apologized for his role in the My Lai massacre. According to the Ledger-Enquirer and a blog maintained by retired broadcast journalist Dick McMichael, Calley said:
- There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry....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 2nd Lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them—foolishly, I guess.
See also
- Glenn AndreottaGlenn AndreottaGlenn Urban Andreotta was an American helicopter crew chief in the Vietnam War noted for being one of three who intervened in the My Lai Massacre, in which at least 300 unarmed children, women and men were murdered....
, Lawrence ColburnLawrence ColburnLawrence Colburn is a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 My Lai Massacre....
and Hugh Thompson, Jr.Hugh Thompson, Jr.Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr., DFC, BSM, PH, AM was a United States Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. He is most well known for his role in stopping the My Lai Massacre, in which a group of US Army soldiers tortured and killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mutilating their...
- U.S. helicopter crew members who intervened to stop the My Lai killings - Seymour HershSeymour HershSeymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
- Investigative journalist who broke the story of the massacre and coverup - Major General Samuel KosterSamuel W. KosterSamuel W. Koster was a United States Army officer accused of war crimes. The highest-ranking officer punished in connection with the My Lai Massacre, Koster was slated for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant General at the time he was charged, but was demoted and ended his military career in mild...
- Commanding officer of the Americal Division - Captain Ernest MedinaErnest MedinaErnest Lou Medina is a former captain of infantry in the United States Army. He served during the Vietnam War and was acquitted in a court-martial of war crimes charges in 1971...
- Commanding officer of Charlie Company - Terry NelsonTerry Nelson (musician)Terry Nelson Skinner was an American disc jockey from Russellville, Alabama. Together with a group of studio musicians, Nelson released a single in 1971 on Plantation Records under the name C. Company featuring Terry Nelson. The single, entitled "Battle Hymn of Lt...
- One-hit wonderOne-hit wonderA one-hit wonder is a person or act known mainly for only a single success. The term is most often used to describe music performers with only one hit single.-Characteristics:...
who released "The Battle Hymn of Lt. CalleyThe Battle Hymn of Lt. CalleyThe Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley is a 1971 spoken word recording with vocals by Terry Nelson and music by pick-up group C-Company.- Inspiration and meaning :The song is set to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"...
", a song about Calley in 1971 - Kim Ki TaeKim Ki TaeKim Ki-tae is a reserve Republic of Korean Marine Colonel. Kim was known as a confessor of some civilian massacres of the Vietnam War.-Vietnam war:...
- Commanding officer of Seventh Company, 2nd Marine Brigade2nd Marine Brigade (Republic of Korea)The 2nd Marine Division , notably known as Blue Dragon , is an infantry division of the Republic of Korea Marine Corps.-History:On June 1, 1965, Prime Minister of South Vietnam Nguyen Cao Ky requested military aid from the Republic of Korea...
, Kim conducted similar massacres, but no trails.
External links
- Hugh Thompson Foundation web site: (501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Lawrence Colburn in honor of Hugh Thompson: http://www.hughthompson.org
- TRIAL : William Calley's trial
- Famous American Trials: The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970
- Beidler, Philip D., "Calley's Ghost", Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2003.
- BBC.co.uk | 29 | 1971: Calley guilty of My Lai Massacre
- Songs about My Lai and Lt. William Calley