William J. Calley, who was convicted for his commanding role in the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, has died at age 80.
Calley only served three years under house arrest at his military apartment for the crime, before being released and cashiered from the Army. About 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed before a helicopter pilot heroically intervened, with some ground troops assisting him. Calley was convicted on 22 counts of murder, having been originally charged with about 100, but only served three days behind bars before President Nixon confined him to house arrest.
He kept to himself after release, but maintained the classic "only following orders" defense, which is no defense at all. He became a successful businessman in Columbus Georgia. In later years he admitted to friends that he'd committed the acts charged with. In 2009 he issued a public apology, stating:
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.
He was in some ways an interesting example of the officer corps at the time, in that he had gone to, but failed to complete, college. He entered the Army due to poverty in 1966.
Four solders were charged with crimes due to the massacre, but only Calley went forward to conviction. There was at the time some reason to believe his "following orders" story, but in a general, rather than specific, sense.
Oddly, on this day, I'm drinking Vietnamese coffee. I have some baseball type "patrol" caps from Australia around here that were made in Vietnam. Vietnam is courted by the US as an ally against the country's traditional enemy, China, even though it remains a Communist state controlled country and economy. A vast amount of the shrimp served on American tables comes from Vietnamese waters. The country has become a tourist destination for Americans, and there is, bizarrely given the build of the Vietnamese, a Victoria's Secret in Hanoi.
Most Americans, and Most Vietnamese, were born after his conviction in 1973.
The world moved on, save for those whose lives ended that day, or were impacted by those events over 50 years ago. Calley, at 80, was a member, however, of the generation which is only now beginning to lose its grip on power. Joe Biden is just about the same age. Donald Trump, who was not impoverished, is two years younger and obtained four student draft deferments while being deemed fit for military service. In 1968, the year of My Lai, he was classified as eligible to serve but later that same year he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, as the draft was winding down, he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs. No combat veteran of the Vietnam War has been elected President and none every will be, as they begin to pass on. Al Gore, agre 76, who served in the country as a photographer, was a Vietnam Veteran, however, and George Bush II, age 78, was an Air National Guard pilot who did volunteer for service in the country, but who did not receive it.
Calley's generation, which is now rapidly passing, was the most influential in American history, and in many ways which were not good ones, which is not to say that there weren't ways in which they were positive influences. They'll soon be a memory, like the generation that fought World War One became some twenty or so years ago, and the generation that fought World War Two basically has been.
Calley's death serves as a reminder and a reflection of a lot of things.
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