Calley and My Lai
William Calley has died at eighty. For those of us old enough to have been sentient during the Vietnam War, Calley’s name is instantly recognizable as one of the major players in the horrific and shameful My Lai massacre. He was the only person prosecuted, although hardly the only person involved.
I’ve written several previous posts about My Lai: for example, this as well as this. The latter contains some quotes based on an article that no longer can be found at the URL in that post; here’s a reference to the article but not the article itself. (If anyone can find the actual article, please give the URL in the comments).
But here are some quotes from the original article, taken from my 2005 post about the article. I think you’ll see why I think it is extremely relevant to present-day events – specifically, the activities of Hamas and other Islamic terror groups – as well as shedding light on what happened in My Lai:
The Viet Cong conducted a guerrilla war that can best be described as “clutching the people to their breast.” They disguised themselves as civilians, hid amongst civilians, often fortified villages (with noncombatants being the vast majority of the population), and even used civilians of all ages and both sexes (little children, women, and old men, included) for logistical support, intelligence, and to plant mines and booby traps. There was widespread belief among American soldiers that the Viet Cong would use the type of civilians mentioned above to throw grenades. An expert on the Vietnamese army remarked that “the Vietnamese communists erased entirely the line between military and civilian by ruling out the notion of noncombatant.” …
A member of the Viet Cong would later confirm that: “Children were trained to throw grenades, not only for the terror factor, but so the government or American soldiers would have to shoot them. Then the Americans feel very ashamed. And they blame themselves and call their soldiers war criminals.” It was not rare for small children to wave an American patrol into a booby trap or minefield. Additionally, the Viet Cong would use women and children as lethal ploys or ruses to lead Americans into deadly ambushes. Female Viet Congs were just as effective as their male counterparts, especially in sniper fire. In other words, the civilians were not exactly sitting out the war. American servicemen soon grew wary and suspicious of all Vietnamese. …
… C Co.’s first casualty comes from a booby trap on 28 January 1968. The following month, on 25 February 1968, C Co. walked into a minefield. CPT Medina kept his head and, after three died and twelve suffered serious injuries, managed to lead his soldiers out. The soldiers of C Co. blamed the Vietnamese villagers nearby who failed to warn them of the minefield and booby traps.
1LT Calley, who had just returned from leave, saw the helicopters transporting the dead and wounded. 1LT Calley also noticed that, from that point on, the attitude of his soldiers toward Vietnamese children had changed — they no longer gave them candy, and kicked them away. According to one account, 1LT Calley could hardly restrain his satisfaction when he said “Well, I told you so.” Prior to the minefield incident, Task Force Barker had failed on two separate attempts to trap the 48th LF Bn in the Quang Ngai Province. During the second attempt, A Co. came under heavy automatic and mortar fire coming from My Lai 4., the second time in a month that Task Force Barker had encountered resistance from around the hamlet of My Lai. Its company commander is among the fifteen wounded, five other soldiers died.
After the minefield incident, C Co.’s esprit de cops and morale sagged and eventually vanished. They went down to 105 soldiers. To make matters even worse, on 14 March 1968, SGT George Cox, an NCO well liked and respected by the soldiers of C Co., an NCO with a reputation for looking after his soldiers, was killed by a booby trap while on patrol. Since arriving in Vietnam three months earlier, C Co. had suffered twenty-eight casualties, including five killed. All the casualties were caused by mines, booby traps, and snipers.
None of this information is meant to excuse anything that happened in My Lai at the hands of the American soldiers. But it gives the background events leading up to the massacre.
Nice post, always a worthy topic to discuss. I don’t have time for a long post, but did want to throw this out there.
https://warrantofficerhistory.org/PDF/Forgotten_Hero_of_My_Lai-WO_Hugh_Thompson.pdf
I was in the Army in the early 80s. When the topic came up, every NCO I ever met held Calley in contempt, sometimes with a vehemence that surprised me. I should note, these guys were all Vietnam vets. It was an an utter failure of leadership at every level.
– He did well enough on his ASVABs (military standardized SAT/IQ test), but he was a failed community college student and yet still he was placed into into OCS.
– The he was placed in command of an Infantry company.
– Finally his failure to lead that day.
Shitty soldier, shittier war.
Period.
I’m old enough to have a good memory of the 60’s. I knew about the Communist tactics, mainly from the earlier version of the vast right wing conspiracy e.g. National Review. But if all you knew was what the networks, Time, Newsweek or the largest dailies told you. you probably missed it.
Using civilians as shields/combatants with the expectation they’ll killed and can be used for propaganda. Sound familiar?
I think Calley was the designated fall guy. He was the only one prosecuted ?
Thanks for the link, Mike Plaiss- Hugh Thompson was a man of incredible courage. Reading about his role gives better context, I think. Also, I agree with Mike K, it’s hard to believe that Calley was the only one prosecuted.
NVA/VC also massacred villages and murdered civilians wholesale. It was calculated policy to do so. Pour encourager les autres.
Neo said:
“I’ve written several previous posts about My Lai: for example, this as well as this. The latter contains some quotes based on an article that no longer can be found at the URL in that post; here’s a reference to the article but not the article itself. (If anyone can find the actual article, please give the URL in the comments).”
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Neo:
I’m not sure this is what you’re talking about, but it might be this article saved at Archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030107093320/https://policeandsecuritynews.com/marapr02/bulletprofmind.htm
A short note from someone who was on the ground in Vietnam.
When you arrived “in country,” you were briefed about the security situation. It was touchy. We were stationed on Tan Son Knut Air base, which was supposed to be relatively secure. That said, we were cautioned to keep our sidearms with us and be ready to use them at all times. Going off base was not allowed except for official business.
I had to go to MACV headquarters one day. There was a military bus that took people there. It was heavily fortified against grenade attacks, which had happened. The main assumption was that you could not trust any civilian. It creates a sense of dislike and even hatred towards these simple, yet possibly lethal people that you couldn’t avoid. It created a paranoia that’s unpleasant. You’re on constant alert for trouble. It can warp your judgement.
My Lai was wrong, but if the Viet Cong used brutal techniques to control the people. So, it’s a case of how do you fight a war against someone who purposely blurs the lines between civilian and military and is ruthless? How do you attack an enemy that uses civilians as shields? There aren’t any good answers, only tradeoffs.
All-out war between two well-armed opponents who follow the Geneva Conventions is horrible and had enough. Fighting guerilla wars and following the Genevea Conventions is much harder. That’s what Israel is up against. That’s what we were up against in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No easy answers.
Once, when I was in El Salvador on a mission trip I learned about a similar massacre in the village of El Mozote in 1981 by a unit of the Salvadoran army. I hadn’t heard about it before, so I visited the site. Horrific. That was in a war similar to Vietnam, where the lines between civilian and military were blurred, and the other side was also committing atrocities. But still, it’s hard to imagine such brutality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mozote_massacre
Couple of points:
After Oct 7, at a discussion group, I mentioned it is illegal to set up to fight from amongst civilians. Surprise for all these supposedly well-informed people. The attacker is restricted in the use of massed fires and other conventional techniques.
As a result, beginning in Viet Nam, we’ve been losing guys as a cost of trying to abide by such restrictions. See, for example. Extortion One Seven. And the Kabul airport suicide bombing.
Surprise to all these supposedly well-informed people.
Glasser, a physician working in a hospital in Japan with guys evaced there, wrote “365 Days”. It was mostly a string of what seem like anonymized stories of the fighting in Viet Nam. One mirrored the description of the experiences of Calley’s unit, and ended with something like “fifty pair of boots moving through the grass toward the village”. Ominous.
What this anonymous and possibly fictional unit was going to do would likely be wrong. But it would seem, given an understanding of human nature, likely. And also a victory for the VC. While the massacre at Hue wasn’t a problem for our Just and Righteous.
Yes, Hue. One of many. Literally countless.
Glasser’s book is iconic. Amazon Audible has an audio version. It’s excellent.
I sometimes wonder what I would have done as an 18 year-old soldier, just arriving in the war zone and finding myself in a unit taking part in a massacre like My Lai or El Mozote. Would I have had the courage to try to stop it or at least report it? I’m ashamed to say it, but in all honesty, looking back at the 18 year-old me, probably not. I may not have taken part, but I doubt that I would have had the kind of courage it would have taken oppose it. Although I’m sure that the memory would have tormented me for the rest of my life as I’m sure it has for many of the young soldiers involved.
Chris
Your reaction would likely be different if you were new in country or if you’d had a couple of months with the company going through their operations and casualties, and seeing how vague was the line–voluntary or not–between VC combatants and civilians.
Richard- I’m sure you’re right.
Well that does put things into perspective why were the upper ranks not charged at mylai
There was a similar incident in afghanistan pangwai valley in 2011
Miguel cervantes- interesting that you should mention the Pangwai Valley incident. That and another incident involving a “kill team” from the 5th Stryker Brigade 2nd Infantry Division which murdered Afghan civilians, was based at Joint Base Lewis McCord. When my son finished AIT he was assigned to that brigade as they were returning home from Afghanistan. As I recall, because of those incidents the brigade commander was fired and the brigade was re-flagged as the 1st Stryker Brigade 2nd Infantry Division. My son deployed with them a year or so later back to Kandahar Province. They saw a lot of action there, but they served honorably and there were no further incidents.
Neo said:
“I’ve written several previous posts about My Lai: for example, this as well as this. The latter contains some quotes based on an article that no longer can be found at the URL in that post; here’s a reference to the article but not the article itself. (If anyone can find the actual article, please give the URL in the comments).”
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As I said, it’s not completely clear to me what you’re looking for, but here’s a second try. Same as before, the article has been saved at Archive.org.
Here’s the link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070731093256/http://www.buffgrunt.com/buffgrunt_pdf/Four%20Hours%20in%20My%20Lai%20A%20Case%20Study.pdf
Here’s a shortened URL:
https://tinyurl.com/yy965b2w
Massacres of civilians are not unknown in American history, sometimes by Native Americans, and sometimes by European Americans.
While the blurred lines of citizen & soldier are culpable in many cases, there are also just outright vicious murders, often “under cover of law.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawn%27s_Mill_massacre
AesopFan, the Hawn’s Mill massacre of Mormons reminds me of another massacre of Mormons, in Nauvoo, Illinois circa 1838. My great-grandfather was born in 1859, and spent his life not far from Nauvoo. I was told that my great-grandfather had heard first-hand accounts of the Nauvoo massacre. Which is comparable to my hearing accounts of the Great Depression from people who had lived it.
The demand for massacres sometimes exceeds the supply.
See the Haditha Massacre, ginned up by Time Magazine.
Mountain Meadow Massacre.
Jenin “Massacre”. Worth remembering for showing Palestinian casualty exaggerations aren’t just 2x but can be 10x or more. We had that again this time with the “hospital bombing” which might have been 100x. For some reason the “corrections” don’t get as much prominence as the reports from “Gaza health authorities”.
Scrolled through the comments to this post and found not a single one that pointed out the real culprits in the My Lai event, to wit: “the best and the brightest” who sent American citizens to fight a war between two foreign entities located as far from America as it is possible to get, barring interplanetary travel. That is where we should look to find parallels with contemporary events. Russia versus Ukraine is the most obvious place where America does not belong. Let me be clear, however, that Israel versus Iran is not among such conflicts, because Israel is quite capable of defending itself as long as it is given a chance to do so, by which I mean to assist it with appropriate economic and military support (which are basically the same thing, given that the economic support is mostly recycled to American arms suppliers). Another difference is that Israel’s enemy, nominally Iran and its proxies, but in truth, most of the islamic world is also America’s enemy. Or have we forgotten their motto, “Death to Israel, death to America” which is chanted regularly by jihadi-minded moslems? It is because I was alive when the American misadventure in Viet Nam was at its height that I can perform this comparison. It is because I have performed this comparison (as has, no doubt, Donald Trump) that I am firmly in the non-interventionist, protectionist, “America first” group, and why (among any number of reasons) I support Trump’s return to the presidency.
Might be a similar thing:
On D-Day or a day later, a group of US troops, having made a successful assault against a German position, broke into a barn and shot all the animals.
In Korea, in similar circumstances, a US unit came across a Nork supply site and shot all the mules.
I guess you could say the “blood was up” or some such having to do with maximum adrenalin, hate, fear, and had gotten oneself up for killing.
At My Lai, it was deliberate, as far as we know. At least by some hours, although the cumulative effect of the past couple of months was certainly taking guys beyond themselves. Might be down some from the actual fighting but not gone away. See PTSD, it never does, entirely. How much does it abate in two days, for example?
Archive dot org — “The Wayback Machine” is your friend. They often, not always, but usually — have copies of stuff. In fact, it’s one way to get past the NYT paywall, sometimes.
The Jane Fonda piece:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070217043630/http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/13/234848.shtml
Peter Maass piece:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081013083017/http://www.petermaass.com/core.cfm?p=1&mag=91&magtype=1
Police & Security News:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060208160227/https://policeandsecuritynews.com/marapr02/bulletprofmind.htm
Offshoot — regarding military training:
}}} NVA/VC also massacred villages and murdered civilians wholesale. It was calculated policy to do so. Pour encourager les autres.
Of course. But this was/is never ever mentioned, because it detracts from the anti-America purpose of our PostModern Liberal Media… and it was the first time that the PMLs were largely in charge of that social foundation.
By this time, the PMLs had thoroughly infested Education, Journalism, and the Courts, and were well on their way to infesting the various national/state/local legislatures. They all began to ramp up thoroughly as the 60s wore on into the 1970s.
As I have asserted so many times before:
PostModern Liberalism is a Social Cancer. Literally, not figuratively.
}}} Fighting guerilla wars and following the Genevea Conventions is much harder. That’s what Israel is up against. That’s what we were up against in Afghanistan and Iraq. No easy answers.
Except the real problem for Israel as well as Iraq/Afghanistan, and, indeed, Vietnam, wasn’t the issue of guerilla warfighting. It is the lying shit merdia doing everything possible to undermine the ones trying to “fight fair”.
Social.
Cancer.
}}} Scrolled through the comments to this post and found not a single one that pointed out the real culprits in the My Lai event, to wit: “the best and the brightest” who sent American citizens to fight a war between two foreign entities located as far from America as it is possible to get, barring interplanetary travel.
This, of course, follows the PML anti-America line, and ignores the key fact that this was a proxy war, we were drawn into it by our feckless ally, France, on the wrong side**, and thus got stuck.
Despite this, we still won it in the early months of 1968, but that win was handed away — literally — by our lying shit merdia.
I believe the biggest complaint about US Foreign and Military policy in the post-WWII era is how often we come in on the wrong fucking side. Sometimes, it’s not obvious beforehand, but usually, it is something one can guess as likely to be the case even at the onset of the issue.
For a pure FP example, just look at 2009 in the Honduras:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
A congenital idiot could see that we should have supported the “coup” and not Zelaya. But for some bizarro reason — either money or politics — we supported Zelaya, who was so obviously not right it’s pitiful. He blatantly violated his country’s own existing laws, was taken out of power by the rightful Honduran forces acting in defense of those laws, and still we pushed for them to back down and put him back in power. SMH.
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** Ho Chi Minh was a former student in the USA, and a big fan of the US, and actually wanted to set up an American style Democracy there. But he was rebelling against the French, who called us in to help, and then almost as quickly bowed the fuck out. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution at that point, HCM was stuck seeking Chinese and Soviet help, which made it a proxy fight rather than a soluble problem.
Russia versus Ukraine is the most obvious place where America does not belong.
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We’re not there. We are providing funds and equipment, which is perfectly proper.
but what kind of regime, ho chi minh, was a stalinist regime, of course you have the self serving accounts of archimedes patti, who believed much of what he told us, american intelligence is very gullible in this way, anyone who survived the stalinist purges, well it makes you think,
of course the tragedy in mylai ultimately redounds to the fact, that the US high command, didn’t have an objective goal or even understanding of the enemy, the same problem seems to have obtained two generations later in Afghanistan,
no moyar points out, we were on the wrong foot since the Diem coup, which came from State relying on accounts from Halberstam who relied on a Vietminh stringer, why did we miss this, in part because Ellsberg, was an unreliable narrator and that’s being charitable. he was Halberstam and Sheehan’s source so he was aces in their book,
probably the first test we didn’t what we were getting into was in the la drang valley,
which we were soldiers reminds us the French had been in a decade before,
The My Lai debacle was a direct product of the astonishing success by which most of the sons of bourgeoisie managed to evade conscription; the ROTC programs at several universities —most notably at Kent State in Ohio— were literally firebombed out of existence; or at best were shut down in the face of student and faculty outrage.
The “peace movement” that so severely de-legitimated the American participation in the 2nd Indochina war, and —on top of the de-facto Marxist-leaning university faculty-although not so unilateral, and relentlessly so as now— led to a phenomenally ignorant and demoralized cohort of company-grade officers (2LT through CPT): generally excepting the relative handful of Academy graduates.
FWIW, I was an infantry grunt up in the erstwhile Republic of Viet Nam’s Eye Corps at the height of the “American War” (April ’68 – April ’69), arriving just after the My Lai massacre: which I’m quite sure was unknown to the top leadership of the US military until a year or two after it happened, following Seymor Hersh’s blowing the whistle. Thus serving within exactly the same area of operations as Calley’s sister unit in the Americal Division. (N.B., 2LT Calley was a platoon leader, not the company commander: actually CPT Medina, who was not personally on the scene in My Lai, but assuredly no less a lightweight jerk than his subordinate officers.)
Had Calley been given a meritorious service award instead, the war would have ended in 6 weeks.
“Oh, you thought we’d rend our garments and beg forgiveness? Incoming, bitc#es, cover your heads.”
We used to know Dresden is the way to win wars.
no indiscriminate slaughter is not a way to win the war, did the upper ranks not know, or did colin powell, who was S2 of the Americal division, just clean up the broken crockery,
now was mylai typical of what the war was like, no it was rather extraordinary event
it always seems these peace treaties and settlements like the truth and reconciliation committees go one way,northern ireland south africa el salvador, gerry adams mandela, ceron, to cite one example, and those who are paras or 40 commandos, or say Atacl division get the worst treatment,
Miguel, Nagasaki and Hiroshima beg to differ.
“The object of War is not to die for your Country but it make the other die for his.”
And when the line is intentionally blurred, pour encourage les autres.