Unlawful Orders?     
An Enemy Without Description     

Part 2 of 3

   Lt. Calley's jury found him guilty of murdering at least 22 civilians, and sentenced him to life in prison. Total toll: 504 deaths and 247 homes burned. 

   The lieutenant, who was rejected for service before the Army needed to ramp up, told the court: "My troops were getting massacred and mauled by an enemy I couldn't see. Nobody ... ever described them as anything other than Communism. They didn't give it a race ... a sex ... or an age. That was my enemy out there."

   He later told a local TV news anchor that Charlie Company had been sent to My Lai to "scorch the earth," and that he still felt he'd done what he'd been ordered to do, wrote Smithsonian.

   The men had spent months losing friends to booby traps, land mines and sniper fire ... without once engaging directly with an enemy combatant. 

   Five former participants agreed to be interviewed for Smithsonian's article. One of them, age 18 at the time, said, "Most of everything that was going on was insanity in my view. It was trying to survive. When you step on a mine there's nothing to take your anger out on. So when we thought we had a chance to meet them head-on, we were pumped." 

   Other soldiers concurred that they were carrying out the order as it was issued. What was the order?

   Capt. Ernest Medina did not respond to interview requests. Smithsonian wrote, "The captain reportedly told his soldiers that they were finally going to meet the Viet Cong 48th Local Force Battalion, their tormentors. Medina later claimed that he'd never told his men to kill innocent civilians." 

   Medina was charged and tried...

Tomorrow: What Americans thought; what Vietnamese want