William L. Calley Jr., convicted in the My Lai massacre, dies at 80

Transcript

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Just a heads-up - this next story contains descriptions of extreme violence and killings. It takes us back to one of America's darkest moments of the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre. The only U.S. soldier convicted for that massacre, died in April, though it wasn't until this week that his death was first reported by the Washington Post. Former U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley was 80 years old. NPR's Quil Lawrence has our report.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: On March 16, 1968, a platoon led by 24-year-old Lieutenant Calley spent 4 hours killing, raping, and mutilating civilians, including more than 200 children. An Army helicopter crew is credited with stopping the massacre. Larry Colburn, Glenn Andreotta and pilot Hugh Thompson landed when they saw women and children herded into a ditch.

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HUGH THOMPSON: We then set down. Two guys, I think, was - came over to the aircraft.

LAWRENCE: Thompson spoke to NPR in 2004.

THOMPSON: Hey, what do you all want? You know, well, there's some civilians over in that ditch. You know, can you help them out? And they said, well, we can help them out of their misery. Aw, man, come on. Quit joking around. How about helping them out? OK. And they walked away. As we took off, we heard machine gun fire. You know, I said, my God, they're shooting into the ditch. And then that's when there was no use fooling ourselves anymore about what was going on.

LAWRENCE: Thompson landed again and ordered his crew to evacuate civilians and shoot any American soldier who interfered. Calley was the only one convicted of 25 Americans criminally charged. Calley expressed no remorse and said he was following orders. In the depths of the Vietnam War, many U.S. politicians took his side, and Calley only ever served a few months confined to barracks. It took until 1998 for the Army to honor Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn with medals for heroism and saving civilian lives. Glenn Andreotta received the medal posthumously - he was killed in action three weeks after My Lai. It took until 2009 for William Calley to publicly express regret for the massacre. My Lai is now taught at military academies as an example of when unlawful orders, like killing civilians, must be disobeyed under the military code of justice.

Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.