Word: calley
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...artillery bombardments and helicopter gunships were still propping the My Lai area when Charlie Company landed. Calley described how his men entered the village, dropping grenades into bunkers and firing to "neutralize any personnel inside any building." He said he saw many dead Vietnamese before he saw one alive. At one concrete house, "there were about six to eight individuals lying on the floor, apparently dead, and one man was going to the window. I shot him. There was another man standing in a fireplace-and I shot him. I took him as NVA cadre...
Thus the killing began. But even when enemy resistance did not materialize, the savagery continued. Twice during the morning, said Calley, Medina radioed him, demanding that he hurry and "get rid of" or "waste" the Vietnamese so that the attack could press forward. At one point, said Calley, "I broke out in a clearing, and my men had a number of Vietnamese in a ditch and were firing upon them." According to the charges, there were at least 70 men, women and children killed at the ditch, but Calley estimated the number last week at from four...
...Clip. Despite testimony to the contrary, Calley said he never joined other soldiers in killing a group of Vietnamese at an intersection of trails where about 30 are said to have died. He admitted to two other incidents. "I just saw a head moving through the rice and fired." It turned out to be a small boy. Later, Calley said, he "butt-stroked" a man in white garb, possibly a monk. He denied the claims of other witnesses that he blew off the man's head...
...Calley also denied a charge that he seized a child by the arm, threw him into the ditch and shot him. He claimed that the entire day he did not expend one full M-16 ammunition clip, customarily loaded with 18 rounds. "I felt then and I still do," Calley concluded, "that I acted as I was directed and that I carried out the orders that I was given, and I do not feel wrong in doing so, sir." Meadlo testified earlier that at the ditch alone, Calley used 10 to 15 clips...
This week the prosecution will call witnesses in rebuttal, after which the case will go to the jurors. Calley could receive the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted of the premeditated murder of any one of 102 Vietnamese. If the jurors, all infantry officers with combat experience themselves, decide that Calley was only partially responsible, they could reduce the charges. Conceivably, he could go free. Psychiatrists testifying for the defense have argued that Calley was mentally impaired because of combat stress; other psychiatrists called by the prosecution said he was able to premeditate murder at the time...