William Calley, the former Army lieutenant convicted on 22 counts of murder in the infamous My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, publicly apologized for the first time this week while speaking in Columbus.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”
Calley claims that he was following orders on that day, and I suspect that he was. In fact, I have read that the orders for the massacre and the cover-up go all the way up to a certain Maj. Colin Powell. War is hell on soldiers as well as civilians, and I often wonder how some -- like Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn -- find the moral strength to intervene when something is so terribly wrong, while others follow orders and perpetrate events such as the My Lai massacre.
I am moved by Calley's apology. I wonder if he could/would return to My Lai on a mission of peace and restorative justice. What would that be like for him, and for the survivors of the massacre and their families?
