icers were court-martialed, but eleven were dismissed for lack of evidence. Five of those were acquitted. Only Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of premeditated murder of at least thirty-three Vietnamese . He was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to life. The sentence was reduced to twenty years by President Nixon, and after Calley had served three years of house arrest, President Nixon pardoned him.A situation like this really sheds some light on the animalistic mentality of war. William Calley was a man void of any real sense of reality or morality. During the course of the Vietnam war, watching fellow comrades dying left and right, twisted his mind into a type of killing machine. What he did was horrendous and he should never had been pardoned from his sentence. But perhaps the real problem is war itself. Under such circumstances, anyone could turn into the monster he became. Forgive it, understand it, or loathe it, My Lai will always serve as a reminder of American's tragic involvement in Vietnam....
