to earn. Then, on March 16, Lt. Calley became fed up with not receiving the respect the thought the deserved. On a routine investigation of the small village of My Lai, Calley discovered an outlet for his rage (Hersh, Chpt. 2). Calley ordered for the 300 plus Vietnamese civilians to be lined up and be systematically excited, one by one while the others watched. Every civilian found was killed. The following is a portion of a letter from a GI concerning the incident:...Some of the guys are so careless! Today a buddy of mine called "La Dai" (come here) into a hut. An old man came out of the shelter. My buddy told the man to get away from the hut, and since we have to move quickly on a sweep, just threw a hand grenade into the shelter. As he pulled the pin the old man got excited and started jabbering and running toward my buddy and the hut. A GI, not understanding, stopped the old man with a football tackle just as my buddy threw the grenade... After he threw it, and was running for cover, we all heard a baby crying from inside the shelter. There was nothing we could do.... After the explosion we found the mother, two children (ages about six and twelve, boy and girl), and an almost newborn baby. That is what the old man was trying to tell us!... (Hersh, 12-13) November 17, 1970 Lt. Calley was tried for, and eventually convicted for, his part in the premeditated murder of 109 "Oriental human beings". In a court-martial, murder is punishable by death by hanging. After a long deliberation, the jury returned a sentence of life imprisonment, of which William Calley served three years. Calley is now a successful jeweler in Columbus, Georgia (Knappmar, 598-601).Whether or not Lt. Calley was acting on order, as he claimed, or out of pure rage may never be known. It is known, however, that without the psychological stresses caused by Vietnam, the My Lai Massacre may have never happened. The remainder of this paper is an investigation of the cause...
