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Many of us older folks hereabouts recall the Vietnam War era. Some the war itself, some were sheltered in other places like Germany, some weren’t directly involved at all due to age, student status, asthma\/bone spurs, what have you – but I suspect all remember the most infamous officer in the war, Lt. William Calley, the platoon leader held responsible for the My Lai massacre. He died on April 28th, according to the Washington Post. He was 80.<\/p>\n
Calley had lived in obscurity in the decades since he was court-martialed and convicted in 1971, the only one of 25 men originally charged to be found guilty in the massacre that helped turn American opinion against the war in Vietnam.\u00a0 AP<\/a><\/p>\n
During the Tet Offensive in January 1968, attacks were carried out in Qu?ng Ng\u00e3i by the VC 48th Local Force Battalion. U.S. military intelligence assumed that the 48th Battalion, having retreated and dispersed, was taking refuge in the village of S?n M?, in Qu?ng Ng\u00e3i province. A number of specific hamlets within that village \u2013 designated M? Lai (1) through M? Lai (6) \u2013 were suspected of harboring the 48th. S?n M? was located southwest of the Batangan Peninsula, a VC stronghold throughout the war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Task Force Barker was assigned to go after the 48th.<\/p>\n
It was formed in January 1968, composed of three rifle companies of the 11th Brigade, including Charlie Company, led by Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Frank A. Barker. S?n M? village was included in the area of operations of TF Barker.<\/p>\n
In February 1968, TF Barker had already tried to secure S?n M?, with limited success. After that, the village area began to be referred to as Pinkville<\/i> by TF Barker troops.<\/p>\n
On 16\u201318 March, TF Barker planned to engage and destroy the remnants of the 48th Battalion, allegedly hiding in the S?n M? village area. Before the engagement, Colonel Oran K. Henderson, the 11th Brigade commander, urged his officers to “go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good”. In turn, LTC Barker reportedly ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy food supplies, and destroy and\/or poison the wells.<\/p>\n
On the eve of the attack, at the Charlie Company briefing, Captain Ernest Medina told his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in S?n M? village would have left for the market by 07:00, and that any who remained would most likely be VC or VC sympathizers.My Lai Wiki<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Remember being lectured to about illegal orders? It was a hot topic for both enlisted an officers’ training 50 years back, and My Lai was why.<\/p>\n
Instead, over several hours, the soldiers killed 504 unresisting civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community.<\/p>\n
The men were angry: Two days earlier, a booby trap had killed a sergeant, blinded a GI and wounded several others while Charlie Company was on patrol.<\/p>\n
Soldiers eventually testified to the U.S. Army investigating commission that the murders began soon after Calley led Charlie Company\u2019s first platoon into My Lai that morning. Some were bayoneted to death. Families were herded into bomb shelters and killed with hand grenades. Other civilians slaughtered in a drainage ditch. Women and girls were gang-raped.\u00a0 AP<\/a><\/p>\n
Some, including platoon leaders, testified that the orders, as they understood them, were to kill all VC and North Vietnamese combatants and “suspects” (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells. He (CPT Medina – ed.)\u00a0 was quoted as saying, “They’re all VC, now go and get them”, and was heard to reply to the question “Who is my enemy?”, by saying, “Anybody that was running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes even if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her.” My Lai Wiki<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Out of 25 charged, only Calley was convicted. His defense was an Einsatzgruppen-like “I was just following orders” – many felt CPT Medina was culpable, but Medina was acquitted and Calley alone took the rap. He served three days of a life sentence before President Richard Nixon reduced his sentence to three years of house arrest.<\/p>\n
Months after the massacre, he returned home, then re-upped for another tour. Eventually, he was wounded, awarded the Purple Heart, and won two Bronze Star medals.AP<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Interestingly – I combed through quite a few images and all the ones of him in uniform show NO medals, not even an NDSM,\u00a0 much less a Bronze Star. Only a CIB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"