Calley's apology: 41 years late

After years of radio silence on his war crime, Lieutenant William Calley has apologized for the My Lai massacre, where he ordered and participated in the mass rape, torture, and murder of some 450 Vietnamese non-combatants, including infants and children:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened.

I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.

My first thought is "McNamara Syndrome" -- I wonder if he's just had a cancer diagnosis. My second thought is that he's not apologizing for the acquittal of the other participants, nor for the military's cover-up of the event. (The initial report, reducing the massacre to the sad result of the combat unit's psychological breakdown, disclosed only about 120 dead and appeared to excuse the action with a claim that the soldiers had found a few American weapons in enemy hands.) My third thought is to follow some bouncing links and dig up some testimony:

[Infantryman] Paul D. Meadlo, his [landmined] right foot and self-respect gone, came to the motel determined to relieve his conscience and describe the horrors of My Lai. He stated that Calley had left him and a few others with the responsibility of guarding a group of about eighty people who had been taken from their homes and herded together. He repeated Calley’s instructions. “You know what I want to do with them,” Calley said, and walked off. Ten minutes later he returned and asked, “Haven’t you got rid of them yet? I want them dead. Waste them!” After telling about this, Meadlo raised his eyes to the ceiling of the motel room and began to cry. His compassion for the victims had taken control of him months before, and his body shook with sobs as he continued. “We stood about ten to fifteen feet away from them and then he started shooting. Then he told me to start shooting them. I used more than a whole clip -- used four or five clips.”

Calley ended up serving 3 years house arrest. He was the only person who served any time at all, or was even convicted, for My Lai and a few related massacres.

Pete Seeger comments in 1971 (0:27 to 2:40):

Do I see Lieutenant Calley?
Do I see Captain Medina?
Do I see Gen'ral Koster and all his crew?
Do I see President Nixon?
Do I see both houses of Congress?
Do I see the voters, me and you?

Who held the rifle? Who gave the orders?
Who planned the campaign to lay waste the land?
Who manufactured the bullet? Who paid the taxes?
Tell me, is that blood upon my hands?

At the meeting this week where Calley apologized for the massacre,

[h]e did not deny what had happened that day, but did repeatedly make the point -- which he has made before -- that he was following orders. Calley explained he had been ordered to take out My Lai, adding that he had intelligence that the village was fortified and would be "hot" when he went in.

In other words, "I was just following orders and acting on faulty intelligence."

The village was populated with babies, non-combatant women, and old people (very large PDF includes photos), and Calley was observed personally killing dozens of them. He's been called a scapegoat and fall guy. Poor Lieutenant Calley and his lame, qualified apology.