Lt. Calley's Secret Departure

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

It was revealed yesterday that (former) Lieutenant William Calley, Jr, died quietly at his home in Gainesville, Florida, on April 28th of this year.  The family of the ex-Army officer had apparently tried to keep his death a secret, but it was discovered yesterday by a researcher who was digging through public records.

William Calley was, to much of the world, the ugly and bloody face of American involvement in Vietnam.  In March of 1968 while serving with the US Army in the South Vietnam, Lt. Calley led about 100 US troops into the South Vietnamese village of My Lai which was reportedly a sanctuary for enemy combatants who referred to themselves as Viet Cong.  During that incursion the US troops killed the entire population of the village - 504 individuals from 247 families, including 24 families who lost everyone, three generations with no survivors.

The 504 human beings who died on that terrible day in March of 1968 included elderly individuals, women, some of whom were pregnant, and 173 children - 53 of whom were infants.

Calley's troops used automatic weapons, grenades, and bayonets in their orgy of rape and mass murder.  Lt. Calley himself was accused of spraying a group of frightened villagers with automatic gunfire.

The atrocity committed by Lt. Calley and his troops went unreported during the war and was covered up by the Army, but after his return to the States and discharge from the military service, a GI who had not been involved in the incident but who had specific knowledge of it began writing letters.  Ron Ridenhour wrote letters to President Nixon, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and thirty members of Congress.  In his letters Ridenhour told in graphic detail about some of the atrocities as they had been described to him.

Calley, who was by then a civilian, was brought before a military tribunal in March of 1971, three years after the massacre.  His first line of defense was that the destruction of the village and the killing of its entire population had been the result of a misguided air strike.  When that didn't work, he said he had been following the orders of his company commander.

Former Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of the premeditated murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians, and was sentenced to life in prison.  Twenty-six officers and soldiers had originally been charged, but Lt. Calley was the only one convicted.  President Nixon had been accused of interfering in the trial, and he had Calley removed from prison and placed under "house arrest" while his appeals played out.  Several states and politicians rose to Calley's defense, including Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia who instituted an "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive with their lights on for a week in support of William Calley who was at that time a Georgia resident.  There was a massive movement to get Nixon to pardon Calley, but the politician declined to go that far in his support of the former soldier.

Lt. Calley was paroled by the Secretary of the Army in September of 1975.  He married the daughter of a jeweler in Columbus, Georgia, and spent his working career designing and making jewelry in his father-in-law's jewelry store.  He died at the age of eighty this past April, and his family apparently chose to keep his passing a secret.

But some things need to be remembered.