William Calley, the U.S. lieutenant who commanded troops that massacred 504 civilians at My Lai in Vietnam in 1968, died in April at age 80, according to the Washington Post, which consulted the death certificate.
The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War is the most notorious war crime in modern U.S. military history.
Calley died on April 28, according to the death certificate, which indicates that the former soldier lived in an apartment in Gainesville, Florida.
The death was first reported by the Washington Post, citing the death certificate.
Calley lived in obscurity for decades after his court-martial trial and conviction in 1971, and was the only one of the 25 soldiers initially charged to be found guilty of the massacre, which, among other factors, also helped to turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War.
On March 16, 1968, Calley led American soldiers from Charlie Company (C) on a mission to engage a group of “enemy Viet Cong.”
Instead of continuing their combat mission, the soldiers killed 504 civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, in the town of My Lai and a nearby village. The soldiers eventually testified before a U.S. Army commission of inquiry that the killings began shortly after Calley led the first platoon of Charlie Company into My Lai that morning.
Some were killed by bayonet charges, families were herded into shelters and killed with hand grenades, civilians were slaughtered in a drainage ditch, and women and girls were gang-raped. It was more than a year later that news of the massacre became public, following an investigation by journalist Simon Hersh.
According to the Associated Press, while My Lai was the most notorious massacre in modern U.S. history, U.S. military records, archived over three decades, describe 300 other cases that could have been considered war crimes.
My Lai was notable for its shocking number of deaths in a single day, photographs and the “gruesome details” exposed by a high-level U.S. military inquiry.
The investigation into the massacre and allegations of a Pentagon cover-up were launched following a complaint filed by a helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson Jr., who rescued 16 Vietnamese children in the village and later testified against Calley.
Several other soldiers at the scene also testified after the scandal broke.
Calley was convicted in 1971 of murdering 22 people during the massacre and sentenced to life in prison, but served only three days because President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) ordered his sentence reduced. He served three years under house arrest.
In 1971, without apologizing or admitting guilt, Calley reflected on the legacy of the massacre in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press as he awaited the verdict. "I can't say I'm proud of being at My Lai or being in the war. But I would be extremely proud if My Lai showed the world what war is and that the world needs to do something to end wars," he said.
After serving his sentence, Calley married and got a job at his father-in-law's jewelry store in Columbus, Georgia, and had a son.
He later divorced and moved to Atlanta, where he avoided public exposure and consistently declined interview requests. Calley broke his silence in 2009 at the urging of a friend when he spoke at the Kiwanis Club in Columbus, near Fort Benning, where he had been court-martialed.
"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day at My Lai," Calley said, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
"I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am sorry," he said.
Calley also reiterated that his mistake was "following orders" and that his "superior was acquitted."
William Calley was born on June 8, 1943 in South Florida. He dropped out of school and worked in restaurants, as a bellhop, a railroad engineer, a salesman, and an insurance adjuster before enlisting in the Army in 1966.
Months after the massacre, during his first draft, he returned home but re-enlisted for another tour of duty.
Estimates of civilian deaths during the United States' ground war in Vietnam, from 1965 to 1973, range from one million to two million.
