William Calley's Experience At My Lai Massacre And The Vietnamese Massacre

A court-martial named William Calley is a platoon leader for the U.S. in Charlie Company. He led his men into a Vietnamese Massacre. But before doing so he completed basic training when he was 23. March of 1967 Officer Candidacy School accepted him and he went six months of junior officer training. After that was complete he got a promotion to be lieutenant. On March 16, 1968 Calley commanded his men to land at My Lai. On March 16, 1968, Soldiers of the Charlie Company which is a unit of Americal Division’s arrived in My Lai in the north part of South Vietnam. The company had been on a search and destroy mission as a part of a year long operation. While they were searching for the 48th Viet Cong Local Force Battalion, the soldiers entered

And many middle aged people were also killed. On top of all that, the vietnamese women were raped and a lot of other civilians were clubbed and stabbed. Even some victims were pinned down and got “C Company” carved into their chest. There were hands, tongues and hair all over the place. The hair was from the scalping the soldiers did on the victims. All of the soldiers were brought to trial. But not all of the soldiers were involved and many that were didn’t have witnesses against them that actually saw they did the crime. There were many witnesses. Most of them were Calley’s soldiers. And when brought to get questioned, they were hesitant but rated Calley out. Calley was first charged with premeditated murder of 22 vietnamese civilians. Which includes infants, children, women, and elderly men. And charged with the intent to kill a toddler. The case was emerged due to the investigations that were conducted by Colonel William Wilson. During one of several nationally publicized court martial trials in 1971, many witnessed attested to the crimes carried out by William Calley. Each of those witnesses are active military personnel. And many were scared and

He was also a soldier from Calley’s company. Recalled a specific situation of Calley killing a civilian. He recalled a vietnamese woman walking out her hut with a baby and Calley shot her and her already wounded child. “There was no reason for the killing. It was murder”. Carter stated. Later that day Calley took the stand in his own defense. He was asked to explain his decision to gather and shoot many young, old, male, and female civilians. Calley simply stated “The order was to destroy the enemy… that was my job at that time. That was the mission given to me and i did not take the time to think about who i was killing in terms of age or gender”. Calley did not speak of doing “what he was commanded to do” with any errors of judgement. he only stated how he was following orders. So in other words he thinks no wrong in his actions. In Calley’s mind he believes that him and his soldiers faced constant attack after attack by guerrilla fighters , so there was no distinction between enemies and civilians. After the jury hearing this, (which is made up of commissioned military officers) they deliberated for 13 days. After 13 days passed the jury did not buy into Calley’s defense. So Calley was found guilty for all 22 murders he committed, and for the ordering