Calley's Confessions

The Army's prosecution of military personnel for the slaying of South Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in March of 1968 is still mired in pretrial maneuvering. Charges against eight of 15 officers accused of covering up the massacre have been dropped. The Army is, however, expected to set a date soon for the most sensational of the courts-martial, that of Lieut. William Calley Jr., who is accused of murdering 102 civilians. Beginning in its November issue, Esquire magazine is giving Calley a chance to reflect on his Army experiences with the aid of a professional writer, John Sack. Self-serving though it is, the first-person account is a haunting revelation of one man's uncertain and contradictory reactions to the Viet Nam War.

As an officer trainee, Calley insists, he was never taught that he might encounter friendly Vietnamese. Instead, "it was drummed into us, 'Be sharp! Be on your guard! As soon as you think these people won't kill you--zap!' " When he first arrived in Viet Nam on Dec. 1, 1967, Calley felt "like the meanest, the most tremendous weapon there is. My rifle swung low. My helmet pulled down. I was scowling even. I felt this is my big day. And these are my men. And we're going to end this whole damned war tomorrow. I'm superior. I thought, I'm the American from across the sea. I can really sock it to these people."

Kill Count. Calley was still eager when he took his platoon into the countryside south of Danang and set up an ambush for Viet Cong troops. "I knew the V.C. were somewhere nearby because--well, I was in South Viet Nam. Our captain, Captain Medina, wouldn't send me somewhere if I couldn't get a big kill count, right?" For hours nothing happened. Calley's bravado turned to fear when he realized that his inexperienced soldiers had made too much noise to surprise any approaching enemy. "The V.C. must know I'm here. They must be sneaking up."

He ordered a mortar platoon to light up his position with flares. "I could see around for miles--of course, everyone for miles around could also see me." Then came a radio scolding from Medina: " 'You are without doubt the stupidest second lieutenant on the face of this earth.' 'Yes, sir! I am stupid, sir! What should I do?' 'Turn off them goddamned lights!' "

As more nights of ambush without combat followed, Calley became depressed. "What am I pulling ambushes for? What am I running patrols for? Or searching for? We want to fight." Instead of seeing Viet Cong, his men had to deal mainly with prostitutes seeking business, and swarms of kids selling Cokes and offering to do the G.I.s' laundry. Calley tells of making shy love to a young madam and then trying to dis cuss political philosophy with her: "Susie had never heard of Communism or democracy." If he explained the difference, Calley thought, and she said that she preferred Communism, "What am I to do? Kill her? Capture her? Because if she is a Communist, that's what my duty is."

Late Doubts. Duty, he insists, was uppermost in his mind. He was willing to do "everything the American people want me to. That's what the Army's for. Majority rules, and if a majority tells me, 'Lieutenant, go and kill 1,000 enemies,' I'll go and kill 1,000 enemies. But I won't advocate it. I won't preach for it. I won't be a hypocrite about it."

The first Esquire article does not carry Calley through the My Lai attack, but after he was charged with the multiple murders, he clung to that same sense of duty: "Well, the war's wrong. Killing's wrong. But that's what my country asked me to do."

Back in the U.S., Calley began to be bothered by doubts. People would come up to him and say that they were on his side. "What can I say if a gentleman tells me, 'I know you're right,' if I have an inner conflict and I myself don't know it? Maybe the mission in My Lai was wrong. What is a V.C.? Is a man with a hand grenade a V.C.? Someone who houses him, is that a V.C.? I'm home now and I hear people saying, 'Everyone there is a V.C.' Are these people right? Maybe so. I hear people screaming, 'Stop the war.' Are they right? Maybe so." Today Calley even wonders whether the Vietnamese farmer who wants only to till his land would really suffer under Communism. "It probably wouldn't hurt him a damned bit--compared to a war, Communism could be a godsend."

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