For Those Who Were There      
Memories Won't Die      

As told in Smithsonian magazine

   Capt. Medina was found innocent, leaving Lt. Calley - the goat. 

   One former private remembers Medina's speech this way: "We're going to get even with them. We're going in there, we're killing everything that's alive. We're throwing bodies down the wells, we're burning the villages, and we're wiping them off the map." (One man's version.) 

   Overwhelmingly, Americans sided with Calley. Even "doves" said he had taken the fall for generals and politicians who dragged America into the conflict. 

   The White House received more than 300,000 messages, and Calley himself was getting 10,000 supportive letters and packages a day. 

   Paul Meadlo said, "When I'm sleeping I can see the faces ... and the terror and all those people's eyes. And I wake up and I'm just shaking and I just can't hardly cope with it." 

   He is still angry at the U.S. Government for sending him to Vietnam, but he no longer holds a grudge against Calley. "I think he believed that he was doing his duty..." 

   Tran Nam, the 6-year-old, now works as gardener at the museum dedicated to the memory of his family and the others. Among the names on a black marble plaque are 17 pregnant women and 210 children under age 13. 

   Former U.S. soldiers visit the museum, including Vietnam vet Billy Kelly, who takes or sends 504 roses there on March 16 every year. 

   Survivor Pham Cong, now museum director, is aware that the soldiers went free. Even Lt. Calley was released in less than four years.

   "For Vietnamese, when a person knows his sin, he must repent, pray and acknowledge it in front of the spirits," Cong told Smithsonian. "Then he will be forgiven."  

   "I hope he will come to Vietnam. These 504 spirits will forgive his sins, his ignorant mind that caused their death."

 Maybe the spirits of those in authority in 1968 

should handle that assignment. - JD