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In The New York Times of Sunday, August 23, 2009, in the first section of the paper but inconspicuously buried below the fold on page 24, was a brief Associated Press story about William Calley. Somewhat belatedly, it reported that the previous Wednesday Calley had surfaced from 38 years of obscurity to address about 50 members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Georgia.
He isn't the first murderer to attempt to salve his conscience, but for many of my fellow combat soldiers there is nothing he can ever do to deserve anyone's forgiveness.
In 1968, Calley was a Army lieutenant in Vietnam with his unit, Company C, 1st Battalion 20th Infantry, a part of the 23rd Infantry Division, also known as the "Americal." The name, purportedly a contraction of "American, New Caledonian" Division, was a vestige of the unit's service in the South Pacific in World War II, when it was one of only two US divisions with a name but no number.
Although every armed conflict generates its share of tragedies, the atrocious conduct of Calley and the soldiers he led was particularly heinous and serves as a sobering benchmark for what can happen when people have no moral compass.
On March 16, 1968, in a hamlet that became known as My Lai, more than 350---and perhaps as many as 500---Vietnamese civilians, most of them women, children and the elderly, were slaughtered by Calley and his men. Calley was convicted of murder in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. To the president's great discredit, Richard Nixon arranged for Calley to serve not in prison but under house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia, and after a habeus corpus appeal, a court found that Calley's trial was tainted by publicity and ordered him released. In the end, for participating in the premediated murder of hundreds of people, William Calley served a total sentence of about 3 1/2 years under house arrest.
The reasons advanced to excuse the behavior of Calley and his men are well-worn and familiar: he was just following orders; previously, the unit had lost men killed and wounded and was stressed-out; in Vietnam one could never distinguish between friendly civilians and enemy troops. None can excuse inexcusable behavior. And exceptionally galling in Calley's session with the Columbus Kiwanis was his statement that he still feels remorse for "what happened that day in My Lai." The use of the passive voice---"mistakes were made" and all that nonsense---is the favorite construct of the guilty who want to make it sound as if someone else, or circumstances beyong their control, were to blame.
I have spent as much time in vicious and continuous armed combat as most soldiers and have never encountered---nor can I conceive---a tactical situation in which it is difficult to distinguish between right and wrong. To be sure, innocent people are killed accidentally in war, but for the majority of us the premeditated slaughter of unarmed non-combatants ranks as a war crime, the guilt for which can never be expiated.
For some, the story of the monstrous behavior of William Calley is best left to dissipate quietly. But it is not. Thomas Jefferson, who himself understood the difference between right and wrong and was still capable of choosing to do wrong, observed, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It is painful to reflect on the cost of freedom, but it is a cost that will have to be paid by those who love their country. It is similarly painful to resurrect the horrible story of My Lai, but it is occasionally helpful to be reminded of the reprehensible things people can do so that we will never find it easy to excuse them.
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