Who Is Responsible for My Lai?

WHEN Lieut. William Calley took the stand last week for 2 1/2 days in his own defense, the incredible brutality of U.S. troops at My Lai began to seem understandable--at least by the terrible logic of combat in Viet Nam. Calley's testimony was one of the more painful commentaries on the war.

In the small, carpeted courtroom, his counsel, George Latimer, led him back and forth across the countryside of Quang Ngai province. With violent and painful detail, the young officer recapitulated the events of March 1968.

The attacks on "Pinkville" came on the heels of the massive Tet offensive, and U.S. troops were undoubtedly, as Calley said of himself, feeling "hyper." A few weeks before My Lai, Calley's radio operator was killed walking behind him in the first Pinkville assault. "The bullet just took his entire kidney out," Calley testified, "so he died within a matter of minutes."

Soon afterward, during a three-day rest and recreation at the seaside town of Vung Tau, Calley saw six "mama-sans," Vietnamese women, machine-gunned on their way to market by South Vietnamese police simply because they were on the streets a half-hour before curfew lifted. "It was the first time," Calley said, "that it dawned on me that we weren't playing games, that we weren't supposed to be a bunch of Boy Scouts out there."

American Philosophy. Calley returned to his company, arriving just as its casualties were being helicoptered back from an assault--six men dead and twelve wounded. Calley helped unload the helicopter: "The chopper was filled with gear--rifles, rucksacks. The thing that really hit me hard was the heavy boots. There must have been six boots there with feet still in them, brains all over the place, and everything was just saturated with blood. I believe there was one arm on [the helicopter] and a piece of a man's face." How did Calley react? "Anger . . . hate . . . fear . . . generally sick to your stomach. It instilled a deeper form of hatred toward the enemy."

One crucial issue of the trial is how, during guerrilla warfare, the enemy can be recognized. In his training, Calley said, he learned "that everyone was a potential enemy and that men and women were equally dangerous. The Vietnamese women, for some reason, are better shots than the men are." Children were used, Calley said, to throw hand grenades or plant mines. He concluded "that it was essential that troops in Viet Nam put out of their minds the World War II and Korean concept of giving candy and chewing gum and things to children. The Communists used that American philosophy against us."

Calley's defense rests in part upon the argument that he was obeying orders when he killed villagers at My Lai. Said he: "For refusing an order in the face of the enemy, you could be sent to death." Calley testified that he was never instructed that he had the choice of refusing an order that he considered illegal. Indeed, since My Lai, the Army has added more explicit training on the rules of war.

Before the My Lai attack, Calley received two briefings from his company commander, Captain Ernest Medina. According to Calley, Medina repeatedly emphasized that "we would have to neutralize My Lai completely, not let anyone get behind us. He said it was completely essential that we not lose our momentum of attack." According to Calley, Medina suggested that the troops would not encounter any civilians, that psychological-warfare units had warned civilians to clear the area, and that "anyone there would be considered enemies." Said Calley: "I believe somebody asked if that meant women and children. He said that meant everything." Not only was My Lai in a "free fire zone"--meaning that anything and anyone could be fired upon--but the operation had "political clearance," which, Calley said, meant permission to "burn and destroy everything in the area."

In the Dark. At about 8:30 a.m. on March 16, the men of Charlie Company were lifted by helicopter toward My Lai. "I was definitely hyper," said Calley. The men feared most the sort of minefields that had previously decimated their unit. In a minefield, Calley said, "it's kind of like being in the dark, knowing there is a step there and afraid to walk. You almost have to force every foot down."

The 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 to 15. He conceded that he joined in firing into the ditch. Ex-Private Paul Meadlo has testified that Calley actually started the killing at the ditch with the words: "We got another job to do, Meadlo."

One 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.

A total of 25 officers and enlisted men were charged in connection with My Lai. Last week it was announced that for failing, among other things, "to conduct a proper and thorough investigation" of the incident, Colonel Oran K. Henderson, former commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, will be tried by a general court-martial. Of those charged, all have been freed except Henderson, Calley, Medina and Captain Eugene M. Kotouc, who did not participate in the raid but is accused of having assaulted a Vietnamese during interrogation just after My Lai.

If one could accept such a defense, Calley and Medina, the only actual participants still charged, could both be acquitted on the ground that they were following apparently lawful orders from Colonel Frank Barker, their task force commander, who died three months after My Lai. Thus My Lai could conceivably enter history as a massacre for which no one is legally held responsible. Calley, who is well aware that he was his own best witness at the trial, considers himself by now an expert on the horrors of war. He has said that he would some day like to make a combat movie so realistic and grotesque that the audience would lurch from the theater and vomit on the sidewalk outside. For many, the My Lai testimony has long since made such an enterprise unnecessary.

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