Word: martialled
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...gook in a shelter, he was all huddled down in there?an older man. And Sergeant Mitchell hollered, 'Shoot him.' And so the man shot him." (Sergeant David Mitchell, 29, one of Galley's squadron leaders, has been charged with assault with intent to commit murder, but a court-martial has not yet been ordered.) Meadlo says his group ran through My Lai, herding men, women, children and babies into the center of the village?"like a little island...
...implications of the story grew, everyone got very busy. The Army decided that it would indeed hold a public court-martial for Calley. It seems certain that Sergeant Mitchell will face a court-martial on charges of intent to murder some 30 Vietnamese. The biggest mystery so far is why no charges have been placed against Captain Medina, who played an important role in the slaughter by the accounts of a number of his men, though exactly what orders he issued is disputed (see The Legal Dilemmas, page 32). At the same time, the Army has ordered a top-level...
TIME Correspondent Ken Danforth interviewed Calley before the Army announced that the lieutenant would be court-martialed on charges of premeditated murder. Danforth saw him again at Fort Benning last week, but this time was not allowed to speak to him. "He could communicate only with a gesture of recognition," Danforth reports. "He shuffled papers nervously, trying to look busy at his practically empty desk. Under the circumstances, he seemed reasonably cheerful." Calley is attached to the staff of the deputy post commander, Colonel Talton Long, designing plans for the colonel's parking lot and working on an infantry museum...
Despite the rules, Americans have committed a disturbing number of atrocities in Viet Nam-and prosecution has often been prompt. In the I Corps area last year, for example, seven Marines summarily hanged a Viet Cong suspect and shot two others to death. At a court-martial, one defense lawyer argued that his client had gone through "hell" after seeing Marine bodies "burned and tortured, some with their testicles cut off." Nevertheless, all seven Marines were convicted and imprisoned, one for life...
What if a U.S. soldier is actually ordered to commit an atrocity? According to the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial, he is justified in not following an order if "a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal." The trouble is that such echoes of Nürnberg are drowned out by every drill sergeant's most basic lesson-instant obedience. Under military law, in fact, a man who refuses to follow an order is presumed guilty of this offense until he proves that the order was illegal at his subsequent court-martial. Disobedience...