How My Lai Was Pacified

C
alley was at the drainage ditch on the eastern edge of the village, where
about seventy to eighty old men, women, and children not killed on the
spot had been brought. Calley ordered the dozen or so platoon members
there to push the people into the ditch, and three or four GIs did. Calley ordered
his men to shoot into the ditch. Some refused, others obeyed. One who followed
Calley's order was Paul Meadlo, who estimated that he killed about twenty-five
civilians.
Calley joined in the massacre. At one point, a two-year-old child who somehow
survived the gunfire began running towards the hamlet. Calley grabbed the child,
threw him back in the ditch, then shot him. 1

You have just read part of a description of what happened at My Lai, in Vietnam.
The man held responsible for the events in My Lai on March 16, 1968 claimed he was
acting under orders, and higher ups should be held responsible for his actions. Spiro
Agnew, Vice-President of the United States thought that it was unfair to punish a
patriotic American boy who answered his country’s call to duty and allow Americans
who deserted and skipped off to Canada to go free. Some wanted Callley's superior,
Captain Medina. who spent most of the day just 150 yards away from My Lai, to be
punished. Americans strongly opposed to the war thought that the top officials in the US
government who were responsible for blanket bombings in Vietnam that killed
hundreds of thousands were also chargeable for individual acts of brutality committed
by American soldiers not properly instructed to respect the lives of innocent civilians.

This chapter examines the many questions raised by the My Lai incident and the
trial of Lt. William Calley that followed.

My Lai: The Cast of Characters

The reader should know the people whose names are closely associated with the
My Lai massacre:

Paul Meadlo — with Calley at My Lai. He said he was told to shoot prisoners in a
ditch and obeyed orders; Meadlo was granted immunity from prosecution and
testified at the court martial trial.

Hugh Carter — told to shoot civilians. He shot himself in the foot to avoid carrying
out these orders.

Lt. William Calley — the U.S. soldier directly accused of killing and ordering the
death of 350 innocent civilians. He said he was carrying out orders.

Captain Ernest Medina — Captain of Charley Company, 150 yards away from
where the killing took place. He said he did not know what was going on, and did

1Testimony by Hugh Thompson in Doug Linder, An Introduction to the Court Martial Trial, My Lai
home page.
 not give orders to kill civilians; he also claimed only 20-28 civilians were killed at My
Lai.

General Westmoreland — U.S. Commander in Vietnam. He said he knew nothing

about My Lai, and that U.S. soldiers always acted according to the rules of war.

President Johnson — President during the military build up in Vietnam. He misled

the American public, directed the escalation of the war and was ultimately
responsible for the manner in which it was prosecuted.

Preparation for My Lai

Under the command of Captain Ernest Medina, Charley Company was patrolling
an area where the Vietcong 48th Battalion was operating. On February 25, 18 men in
Charley Company were killed or injured crossing a minefield. Two weeks later a
popular soldier was killed. At the funeral service, Captain Medina told his men not to be
afraid to show their feelings.

The next day, Charley Company was scheduled for action around My Lai. Captain
Medina allegedly told his men to 'destroy everything with life'. Medina later denied this
in court. But he admitted to allowing his soldiers to believe that the only people in the
area would be enemy soldiers.

What Happened at My Lai?

Early on March 16, 1968, Lt.

Calley and his platoon were flown to
My Lai. When they arrived, another
helicopter cleared the landing place by
covering the area with bullets. Calley
and his men landed without drawing
enemy fire. Calley entered the village
and ordered his men to round up
Vietnamese for questioning. But he
never questioned them. Instead, Calley
and other soldiers in his platoon began
to kill women, children and old men.

One group of 15 - 20 women and

children were in a temple where they
were kneeling, crying, and praying.
American soldiers came up behind
them and shot all of them in the head.

2 Meanwhile, Calley had 80 women, children, and old men taken out of their huts
Publication of this and other pictures taken at My
and brought to the center of the village. Calley told
Lai by Ronald Haeberle on the day of the
massacre led to an2 official and eventual trial of
five LIFE, December 5, 1969 Pathfinder.com/photo/essay/mylai/mylaihp.htm
US soldiers
Private Meadlo that he knew what to with them. When he came back 10 minutes later,
Calley saw these prisoners were still alive. He then ordered Meadlo to "waste (kill)
them" and the private obeyed. Calley helped out, firing somewhere between 250-300
shots into the crowd.

Altogether some 350 old men, women, and children were killed at My Lai that day.
None of the men were of military age. The Vietcong in the area had plenty of time to
leave My Lai before Calley arrived. No enemy shot at American soldiers that day. The
only American hurt was Carter, who shot himself in the foot to avoid carrying out
orders to kill Vietnamese civilians.

There was some question where Captain Medina was on March 16. He said, he
never entered My Lai while the shooting was going on, but several soldiers including
Calley said he saw him there. He admitted his helicopter landed about l5O yards away
from the village.
In his report at the end of the day, Captain Medina stated that 125 Vietcong had been
killed, and 3 weapons captured. He later admitted that there were 20-38 civilian
casualties.

Word of My Lai Gets Out Slowly

Medina's report on My Lai made first page news in some American newspapers.
But no one in Saigon or in America seemed to be surprised that so many enemies could
be killed and only three weapons captured. None of the men on the 60 helicopters that
flew over My Lai that day believed what they saw there was so unusual that a special
report was needed. An official photographer took pictures of women tied and shot, and
ditches full of dead women and children. It was not until Life magazine published these
pictures seventeen months later that American public showed concern about the
incident. Faced with overwhelming evidence that a massacre had taken place, the Army
launched an investigation and brought Calley to trial.

The Rules of War

Some people have considered it an exercise in futility. Nevertheless, over the

centuries, international lawyers and judges have drawn up a series of laws known as the
"rules of war." These international
rules, revised at the Geneva
Convention in 1949, include the
following:

 It is forbidden to kill or
wound an enemy that has
surrendered.

 The attack or bombardment,

by whatever means, of
undefended towns, villages,
or buildings, is prohibited.
  Volunteer corps" (or guerrilla fighters) have the same rights and duties as armies. 3
4

Bodies of dead left lying on the side of the road just out-
During their military training, Side of My Lai
U.S. soldiers, including Calley, were supposedly instructed about the rules of war
(Calley claimed he never was). But once they got to the rice paddies of Vietnam, little if
anything was said about these rules — and many didn't believe they should be applied
in Vietnam.

At his trial in 1971, Lt. Calley's main defense was that he was obeying orders and
that he could be court martialled for refusing to obey them. He had been told by Medina
that everyone in My Lai was an enemy, and:

Not to let anyone get behind us. It was paramount in our mission that we would
have to go through My Lai 4,5, and 6 as secondary objectives and then our primary
objective was My Lai 1. When we went through there again he stressed let no one get
behind you while moving through there. Everyone and everything would be
destroyed. The only remark he made as to civilians was…[t]hat all civilians had left
the area. And anyone there should be considered enemies.5

After the case had been presented, the judge instructed the jury to decide whether:

"a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know the order (Calley followed
or thought he followed) was unlawful"

Suggested Student Exercises:

1. Review what you think are the important facts in this case.

2. Do you think Lt. Calley was guilty of having committed war crimes and should be
jailed for at least ten years? Or do you think he was he a loyal soldier merely following
orders?

3. Aside from Calley, how far up and down the chain of command should responsibility
for My Lai go? Explain.


At the famous Nuremberg trials twenty-two German World War II leaders were tried for war
crimes, twelve were sentenced to death, and seven received sentences ranging from ten years to
life. While some defiantly proclaimed their innocence or challenged the Court’s right to bring
them to judgement, one, Albert Speer, admitted though he did not know the extent of the crimes
committed under Nazi rule, “being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge
creates direct responsibility for the consequences”
4
LIFE, December 5, 1969 Pathfinder.com/photo/essay/mylai/mylaihp.htm
5 Quoted in Arthur Everett, Katheryn Johnson, and Harry Rosenthal, Calley, Dell Publishing

Company, New York, 1971, p. 262.

Epilogue

After deliberating for a record thirteen days, the military jury found Lt. Calley
guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life imprison. Following an
overwhelming popular opposition to the verdict, President Richard Nixon ordered
Calley transferred from a military stockade to house arrest. In 1974 Calley was paroled,
in 1976 he was married and found a job selling jewelry in his father-in-law’s store.

Whether or not one believes that Calley was innocent, his case raised the issue
once more about what responsibility individuals in nations at war, from the top military
and civilian leaders to the ordinary soldiers on the field of battle, have to avoid the death
of non-combatants. This question is particularly crucial when one realizes that the
number of civilians killed by direct and deliberate actions of US soldiers was a very
small per cent of the total 1.5 million Vietnamese who died in the war. Most of these
died because of the 14 million tons of explosives (seven times more than used in all of
World War II), amounting to 700 pounds for every man woman and child in Vietnam —
North and South. These bombs created an estimated 26 million craters, contaminating
20% of all the land in the country. Aside from powerful bombs, the U.S. often used an
effective skin burning jelly (napalm) that could not be extinguished and burned right
down to the bone; they repeatedly used anti-personnel weapons that would blow the leg
off a man, woman, or child; and they routinely used a defoliating, cancer-causing
contaminate called agent orange to destroy areas where enemy troops may be seeking
cover. Before setting their
helicopters down near villages, U.S.
soldiers commonly sprayed the area
with bullets that often killed
civilians. Furthermore, the U.S.’s
actions forced a third of Vietnam’s
population out of the countryside
and into crowded towns and cities,
creating 870,000 orphans, and
driving 200,000 women into
prostitution.

In the light of the horrors

just described, Calley’s crime was
only a miniscule sample of what the
United States did in an effort to
save the Vietnamese from
communism. If Lt. Calley indeed
Vietnamese children fleeing a misdirected air attack was guilty of deliberately murdering
by U.S. planes. The young girls in the center of this Vietnamese civilians one should ask
famous pictue survived and is a nurse living in who should be held responsible for
Canada. the policies which resulted in the
 death of many thousand times the
number that died at My Lai.

In discussing the issue of responsibility, one might again consider the words of
Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, while contemplating his own guilt:

In the final analysis I myself determined the degree of my evasion . . . . Whether I

knew or did not know, or how much or how little I knew, is totally unimportant
when I consider what horrors I ought to have known about and what conclusions
would have been natural ones to draw from the little I did know. Those who asked
me are fundamentally expecting me to offer justifications. But I have none. No
apologies are possible.6

Your Verdict
After reading the epilogue, should the US pay war reparations to the current Vietnam
government because of instances like My Lai and the lasting effects of the war upon the
people of Vietnam?

6 Quoted in Daniel Ellsberg, Papers on the War, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1972, pp.275-76