One Is Lying

Exactly four months after it began, testimony in the trial of Army Lieut. William L. Calley ended last week on a note of absolute certainty: one of two officers in charge the day of the My Lai massacre is lying.

Captain Ernest Medina, Calley's superior officer, who commanded Charlie Company on its sweep into the South Vietnamese village, testified, as Calley had earlier, to the shock effects of combat. Like Calley, he recited a grisly story about the company's casualties when the men walked over a Viet Cong minefield 20 days before the massacre. One man hit by mine fragments, said Medina, "was split as if somebody had taken a cleaver right up from his crotch all the way to his chest cavity." Discussing the day of the massacre, Medina said: "For those of you who have been on a combat assault, the adrenalin starts pumping, the pucker factor goes up . . ."

Whatever the influence of battle conditions, the crucial question was whether or not Medina had ordered his men, at previous briefings and during the assault itself, to "waste" everyone in the village, women and children included. Calley has based much of his defense on the argument that he participated in the massacre on explicit orders from Medina, and two dozen other members of the company have corroborated Calley's story.

Last week Medina, who himself faces a court-martial, denied that he had issued any such orders. "One of the questions that was asked of me at the briefing [the night before the assault] was, 'Do we kill women and children?' My reply was that 'No, you do not kill women and children. You must use common sense. If they have a weapon and are trying to engage you, then you can shoot back, but you must use common sense.' " Further, said Medina, "there were no instructions given as far as the capture or collection of any noncombatants in the village of

My Lai 4." The standard procedure, he said, was to sweep through such a village and herd its inhabitants into an open space on the far side. When he learned how many innocent civilians had been killed, said Medina, his reaction was, "Oh my God, what is ... What has happened?" Now the six-man jury of officers, who will begin their deliberations this week, must decide whether Calley or Medina was lying.

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