Word: calley
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...tries to whip its new all-volunteer force into shape, the U.S. Army is doing its best to rid itself of the lingering legacies of Viet Nam. Two weeks ago, Army Secretary Howard H. Callaway paroled Lieut. William L. Calley, the only man convicted for taking part in the My Lai massacre. With Calley free, Callaway last week took another calculated step toward exorcising the demon of Viet Nam. Saying he wanted "to tell it like it is," the Secretary released key parts of the Army's official inquiry into what happened at My Lai on the morning...
...came to symbolize much that went wrong with the long and searing U.S. involvement in Viet Nam was set free last week. Former Army Lieutenant William L. Calley, accused of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968, was released in a complex interplay of military and civil justice. He had served 40 months of his ten-year sentence, 35 months of it rather comfortably confined to his own living quarters...
...courts-martial growing out of what happened at My Lai, Calley was the only man convicted of any crime in the massacre. His attorneys appealed that verdict in the civil courts, and last September a federal judge overruled the Army and threw out Calley's conviction, partly on the grounds that pretrial publicity had prejudiced his case. That set the stage for last week's double denouement: the civil courts released Calley pending the Army's appeal to uphold the conviction, and Army Secretary Howard H. Callaway paroled Calley, since he had served with good behavior...
...seemingly contradictory Army actions reflect two realities. The military wants to put Viet Nam behind it, particularly the case of Calley. But it is concerned about the effect on military discipline of the precedent that civil courts may reverse court-martial judgments. Thus the Army will continue to appeal the overturning of Calley's conviction, even though Calley's freedom is now no longer an issue...
...contrast to the American government's unwillingness even to let people who never killed anyone, and in many cases went into exile to stay that way, back into the country. And the cases are a reminder that people with greater responsibility for more deaths than the Guardsmen or Calley, and whose orders made the Guardsmen's and Calley's actions likely--the folks running the Ohio and especially the United States governments--never came up for trial at all. Indeed, the idea of trying them remains as unconsidered as a proposition that the government owes draft-dodging exiles not just...