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My Lai massacre army officer William Calley dead at 80: The only person convicted over 1968 atrocity in which US troops killed hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese died in a hospice
2024-07-30
[MAIL] William Calley, the army officer who was the only person to be convicted in relation to the mass murder of Vietnamese civilians, including children, in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre, has died at the age of 80.

The Washington Post on Monday first reported Calley's death, which happened in April, according to a death certificate the newspaper cited. The New York Times, citing Social Security Administration death records, also reported Calley's death.

Neither paper reported a cause of death. Calls to numbers listed for Calley's son, William L. Calley III, were not returned.

American soldiers killed 504 people on March 16, 1968, in Son My, a collection of hamlets between the central Vietnamese coast and a ridge of misty mountains, in an incident known in the West as the My Lai Massacre. The killings shocked the U.S. and galvanized the anti-war movement.

Initially charged in an Army court martial for 102 deaths, Calley was sentenced to life in prison in 1971 for the killing of 22 civilians. He was behind bars only three days before then President Richard Nixon ordered him released under house arrest. After being discharged from the service, he lived out his life quietly in Georgia.
Posted by:Skidmark

#7  #5 Armed conflict may not be the only measure of a Man, but it is revelatory. Consider Hamilton Fish, William Tiffany and Woodberry Caton to mention but a few of the genuinely privileged who worried about not qualifying to be Rough Riders, and made their way to the action once they did.
Posted by: Cesare   2024-07-30 16:02  

#6  #5 Yea, well, sorry. Overreacted - been there.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective   2024-07-30 15:46  

#5  #1 I know you weren't. He was a scapegoat. My point is such events may not have even occurred if better people were selected to fill those offices and those parents of those better people insisted that the pols win and not play f*ing games.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-07-30 15:28  

#4  The Viet Cong and the NVA committed similar atrocities against hostile civilians in the South. The Tet Offensive was when a tiny portion of these atrocities came to light. The dreary reality is that they were essential in order to rapidly force civilians who were aiding the enemy to switch sides. The ROKs in Vietnam used similar measures, and in so doing, rejiggered the balance of terror such that the civilians in their sector feared the Koreans more than they feared the VC. The result being that the VC learned to avoid ROK sectors because civilians there would not hide, feed or supply them, for fear of being tortured or killed by the Koreans. For whatever reason, Korean threats outweighed similar VC threats.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2024-07-30 15:11  

#3  ^Wasn't sarcastic P2k.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective   2024-07-30 14:22  

#2  He ended up in the position because the 'best and brightest' were doing their bit to avoid their civic responsibilities (unlike 20 years before).
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-07-30 13:56  

#1  He was behind bars only three days before then President Richard Nixon ordered him released under house arrest.

Bully for Nixon!
Posted by: Grom the Reflective   2024-07-30 13:23  

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