In Vietnam it was close-up, the territory wasn’t taken, and the difference between civilian and combatant was blurred into oblivian. And still, rounding them up and shooting them was not OK.

However, I can guarantee you that neither Amnesty International nor the UN was going to come into the area to try to determine the combat status of the people there. They would have lasted about as long as a pound of hot dogs at a Boy Scout campout.

If Amnesty International or the UN had tried to insert people to determine whether villagers were civilian or combatants they would have lasted about as long as a pound of hot dogs at a Boy Scout campout.

On the way to freeing them from the tyranny of Saddam.

Country villages and plantations too small to garrison were depopulated, and the peasants rounded up into concentration camps where they could be guarded. The idea was to prevent country folk from providing rebels with recruits, shelter or food. The detainees were fed by relief agencies from Europe and the US, although food was scarce, (especially after the US instituted a naval blockade). Hundreds of thousands died of starvation and disease. That figure is not an exaggeration.

Anyone caught in the deserted villages was shot on sight as a rebel, and the houses and fields were burned to deny shelter and food to the rebel forces (which, by the way, were not guerrilla bands, but organized military units.)

The war was brutal and long. To this day, the Catholic Church does not enjoy the support it does in other Latin American countries because the church sided with the Crown.

I don’t think Captain Medina used the term “free fire zone”, I did because it describes the situation. He was alleged to have said that everyone in the My Lai villages was VC. The usual body counts were important, and anyone dead was considered a hostile.

I do know that “free fire zone” was used in areas deemed to be rife with VC and NVA without leaflets being dropped. Units moving into those areas were instructed that everyone was a hostile until proven otherwise. Maps were issued with large areas so designated. One didn’t protest the designation of an area as a “free fire zone” twice.

The idea was to get them to leave their villages so they wouldn’t support the Viet Cong, and move into fortified “strategic hamlets” where we could more easily control them.

If you ask me, this “Free fire” thing is illegal. Why hasn’t extranational organisations like Amnesty International and the UN intervened?

Calley was given to think that he was in a free fire zone, that everyone in that village was a hostile, and that it was OK to kill them. He was ordered to kill the livestock and burn down the houses.

Calley rounded up a group of people in the center of a village and ordered them shot. He also shot them. More groups were rounded up and Calley participated in their massacre.

Calley in my opinion had the duty to disobey the order given by his company captain, to kill all all VC, VC being identified as all villagers.

One can understand the bind Calley was in. He was a weak person seeking the approval of his superiors AND he had a duty to disobey that order.

That he didn’t, that he slaughtered hundreds of civilians, earned him the death penalty. As should Captain Ernest Medina, his immediate superior.

As, possibly, should have people under Calley. In my opinion.

Also, was he used by the others? Did they pin the blame on him? They sure did. And the rest of them got away free.

Whatever else, it would have been an illegal order, but Calley was not the sort to buck authority. There were many others involved, however, in the massacre and in the cover-up, reaching way up into higher ranks.

Calley, not a strong person, was in an atmosphere which regarded all Vietnamese as hostile, was disdained by fellow officers and his unit was suffering casualties. He did not receive the proper support and guidance from his leaders. As a junior officer he was both a pawn and a king. Feeling impotent and rejected, he did what he could to feel powerful and in control. He taught them.

One’s heart can go out to him. He undoubtedly felt he was following orders. The massacre was covered up by people far above him. They should have all been prosecuted, and no one was. Germans were executed for less.

Enlisted people who were shooting were aware it was wrong, but that there was an order. Again, that excuse was not allowed Germans in WWII, who received far more than 3.5 years house arrest.

Calley deserved the firing squad. So did others, above and below him. He was a scapegoat, sacrificed by his own Army, a person who should have ignored what he perceived as orders to commit an illegal act. One can understand, one can sympathize, and one can’t overlook that 347 people, most of them innocent, were slaughtered. The American military and the American people do not like to think of themselves that way, and it’s true.