Former US Army lieutenant convicted of war crimes in the infamous My Lai massacre, William Calley, has passed away at the age of 80.
According to the Washington Post, Calley died on April 28 in Gainesville, Florida, though the news was only recently made public through a records search.
In 1971, Calley became the sole US Army member convicted of war crimes related to the My Lai massacre, one of the most horrific events in US military history.
The massacre occurred on March 16, 1968, when Calley’s brigade, acting on incorrect intelligence, raided the village of My Lai, believing that Viet Cong soldiers were hiding among the civilians.
At just 24 years old, Calley ordered his soldiers to kill the villagers despite finding no evidence of enemy combatants.
The massacre resulted in the torture, rape, and killing of hundreds of innocent Vietnamese, mostly women, children, and the elderly.
The US Army concealed the My Lai events for over a year, and while the exact number of casualties is disputed, estimates suggest that between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians were killed.
A survivor of the massacre, Pham Thanh Cong, lamented that Calley never returned to Vietnam before his death.
Cong, who was 11 at the time of the massacre, lost his family when American soldiers attacked them with grenades and gunfire.
“Many other Americans returned to Son My,” Cong, now 67, told AFP, referring to the village by its Vietnamese name. “They came to pray, to ask for forgiveness from the souls of the dead, but Calley… he never came back.”
Cong, who ran a memorial for the victims until his retirement, expressed regret that Calley did not witness the revival and progress of the village.
Calley faced a high-profile court-martial where he claimed he was merely following superior orders.
Despite 12 other officers being charged with related crimes, all were acquitted. Calley was convicted of murdering 22 noncombatants and initially sentenced to life in hard labor.
However, his sentence was commuted by President Richard Nixon, and he was released after serving three years of house arrest.
Following his release, Calley lived a largely quiet life in Columbus, Georgia. In 2009, he spoke at a Kiwanis Club event, where he publicly expressed his remorse for his actions.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley said. “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”
