Yeah, not very clear. I think it means Nixon did not issue a pardon as such but gave orders which softened the penalty and amounted in fact to a pardon.
In war, the fear from being shot at and the constant fear of being killed by the enemy, and also being shouted at by commanding officers to obey orders or be Court Marshaled, well… I think one just had to be there and experience what Calley had to go through to pass an honest judgement.
Ex-Army Sergeant,
Jake
That’s a good reason to avoid starting wars and invading countries.
But before the war we always hear how it’s going to be nice and clean and cheap, and after it’s started all we hear is excuses. Excuses for Americans who commit atrocities and human rights abuses because the other side gets no sympathy for their stress. They just get to be killed.
That there should be sympathy and apology in America for what Calley did is a disgrace.
I understand the fog of war and that Calley was probably a scapegoat, but re: the other soldiers - was rape part of your training? He almost certainly did evil things, but likely others did worse, and “I was following orders” lasts only so far.
Read the report. The only American casualty that day was a soldier that shot himself in the leg because he wanted to get the hell out of there because he was so disgusted with what was going on. Calley’s soldiers marched men, women and children, who were no threat, into a ditch and and machine gunned them to death. The American soldiers had no fear of being shot at or killed. It was an out and out massacre of innocent civilians.
It so happens I toured Mei Li with an Army General who was a LRRP during the Vietnam war and later worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He told me that Calley was and is a despicable person. What went on that day was not defensible in any way.
Calley went through nothing except getting his jollies from killing innocent people.
Calley eventually apologized for when went on that day but it was way too late by then.
We seem to forget things like Dresden and Hiroshima, where we kill thousands of civilians with blockbuster bombs, but, when we kill 22 civilians with rifles and pistols, we demand trials and punishment.
War ain’t good. If we’re in it, there’s going to be breakage, and it isn’t pleasant.
Where is the line between good and bad drawn, in a war?
We can talk right and wrong all day long, but, unless you’re in it, talk is cheap.
So before the government goes to war they should tell it like that and not sugarcoat it with lies about how they will be liberating people. Tell the truth that they will be killing innocent women and children.
What had the Vietnamese people done to deserve their being bombed and napalmed and killed by America? The victims of Calley had done nothing to deserve their deaths. And if “war is hell” is enough reason then the deaths of 9/11 in America are just as justified.
Anyone who excuses or defends what Calley did is a monster just like anyone who defends of excuses what happened in 9/11. There is no difference.
The fact that a huge segment of America defended and defends what Calley did is very telling.
I am not confusing anything. If what Calley did was excusable then any violence is excusable. What Calley did was horrendous and a huge crime and he still gets lots of sympathy in America. Even though he was found guilty in a court of law. I’d like to see if he had killed 22 innocent people in his home town. Then would he be excused? I don’t think so.
Admittedly I was not alive during that that time but the impression I always got is that the sympathy was in that he was made the scapegoat for what everyone did that day. I don’t know of anyone excusing what he did but the feeling is there should have been a lot more convicted than just Calley.