Never forget My Lai

William Calley, the face of one of the worst war crimes in U.S. Army history, died earlier this year, though it was acknowledged only recently. In 1968, Lt. Calley led a platoon of the 11th Infantry Brigade into Son My, an archipelago of South Vietnamese settlements, including the hamlet of My Lai. They were on a search-and-destroy mission to root out Viet Cong soldiers. They found none. Instead, over the next several hours, American soldiers torched homes, slaughtered livestock, gang-raped women and girls, and murdered between 350 and 504 defenseless civilians, including old men, women, children, and infants. Calley’s passing reminds Americans to remember this dark day.

Historical memory is a moral responsibility. With an event like the My Lai massacre, a part of this responsibility is the refusal to let the errors of our national past recede into oblivion. This includes not just the atrocity itself, but also the circus of cover-ups, denials, blame-shifting, lies, and unjust exonerations that characterized the initial American response. For his part, Calley was neither the most senior officer involved at My Lai nor was he the only soldier brought to trial. He was, however, the only one convicted. But after being sentenced to life in prison, he served only three days behind bars before President Richard Nixon ordered his release. He ultimately served only three years of house arrest. Taken together, the events before, during, and after My Lai signaled failures at every level of the military hierarchy, from the commander in chief to the lowliest private. Recognizing these failures led to the realization that U.S. troops needed better training in the rules of engagement and the legal implications of combat action. They also needed deeper formation in moral leadership and personal character.

But Calley’s story is not the only truth we must remember about My Lai. Another involves Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, the pilot of a “Skeeter,” a small bubblelike helicopter with two M-60 machine guns, and his crewmen Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn. Their initial mission was to provide air support to the advancing American troops on the ground. As they became aware of the massacre unfolding below them, however, they quickly changed their mission. They intervened.

In one dramatic sequence, Thompson landed between a group of cowering Vietnamese civilians and a squad of Calley’s soldiers advancing to kill them. Thompson confronted Calley—his superior—demanding he stand down. But Calley ignored him and continued toward his prey. At one point, he even threatened Thompson with a grenade. Years later, Thompson explained, “I tried asking. I tried talking. I tried screaming. Nothing else was working.” And so, Thompson finally ordered Andreotta and Colburn to kill any American who continued to threaten innocent villagers. Calley finally relented only after another helicopter landed in support of Thompson. With the standoff momentarily resolved, the helicopter crews were able to airlift several loads of villagers to safety.

Calley, who was 80, died back in April, but such is the obscurity in which he lived since My Lai that his death was publicly reported only two weeks ago. He never granted interviews, but in 2009, at the request of a longtime friend, he finally broke his silence and spoke at a Kiwanis meeting. Calley’s opening statement was one of regret: “There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”

Calley fell something short of a full admission of guilt. “I felt then and I still do,” he insisted, “that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the orders that I was given, and I do not feel wrong in doing so.” Nevertheless, his remorse for both his victims and his own troops reveals important command responsibilities.

The actions of Calley and Thompson now serve as important case studies in ethics courses at the U.S. service academies. In addition to driving home their moral responsibility toward noncombatants, our nation’s future officers grapple with their leadership obligations for the physical and moral care of their subordinates. Calley betrayed his responsibilities to his troops. By allowing them—indeed encouraging them—to commit atrocities, he left them susceptible to potentially crippling soul wounds that would prevent them from ever coming home spiritually whole.

A better Army officer than Calley, Gen. George Marshall, spoke to the dangers of this: “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul, are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, he cannot be relied on and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end.” Those are words every soldier—and every American—should never forget.