William Laws Calley Jr. (June 8, 1943 – April 28, 2024) was a United States Army officer convicted by court-martial of the murder of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War.

[4] Calley then had a variety of jobs before his army career, including as a bellhop, dishwasher, salesman, insurance appraiser, and train conductor.

Men in his platoon reported to Army investigators that Calley lacked common sense and could not read a map or use a compass properly.

[8] In May or June 1969 near Chu Lai Base Area, Calley and two other Americal Division lieutenants were involved in a physical confrontation with five enlisted members of the United States Marine Corps.

They murdered hundreds of civilians consisting mostly of South Vietnamese elderly men, women, children, and infants using automatic weapons, grenades and bayonets.

[12] In April 1969, nearly 13 months after the massacre, Ron Ridenhour, a GI who had been with the 11th Brigade, wrote letters to the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and 30 members of Congress.

[13] Due to Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention excluding allied civilians from the status of protected persons in an international armed conflict, Calley and his fellow soldiers could not be legally tried as war criminals.

[14][15][16] Calley was instead charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)[16] for the deaths of 109 South Vietnamese civilians near the village of Son My, at a hamlet called My Lai.

On November 12, 1969, investigative reporters Seymour Hersh[17] and Wayne Greenhaw[18] broke the story and revealed that Calley had been charged with murdering 109 South Vietnamese.

[20] In presenting the case, the two military prosecutors, Aubrey M. Daniel III and John Partin, were hamstrung by the reluctance of many soldiers to testify against Calley.

[21] One holdout, Private First Class Paul David Meadlo, having been granted immunity,[22] was ordered by Judge Reid W. Kennedy to testify or face contempt of court charges.

[21] Meadlo thus took the stand and recounted that as he stood guard over some 30 villagers whom he, along with Private Dennis Conti, had gathered at a defoliated area at the hamlet's southern tip, he was approached by Calley and told, regarding the civilians, "You know what to do with 'em.

[25] Taking the witness stand, Calley, under the direct examination by his civilian defense lawyer George W. Latimer, claimed that on the previous day, his commanding officer, Captain Medina, made it clear that his unit was to move into the village and that everyone was to be shot, saying that they all were Viet Cong.

After President Nixon intervened in the trial, the assistant prosecutor, Captain Partin, wrote a letter to the White House saying that the presidential intervention had "degraded" and "defiled" the military justice system.

[31] After deliberating for 79 hours, the six-officer jury (five of whom had served in Vietnam) convicted him on March 29, 1971, of the premeditated murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians.

On March 31, 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor at Fort Leavenworth,[32] which includes the United States Disciplinary Barracks, the Department of Defense's only maximum security prison.

Georgia's Governor, Jimmy Carter, future President of the United States, instituted American Fighting Man's Day, and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on.

[36] Nixon received so many telegrams from Americans requesting clemency or a pardon for William Calley that he remarked to Henry Kissinger, "Most people don't give a shit whether he killed them or not.

[41] On August 20, 1971, Lt. Gen. Albert O. Connor, Commanding General of Third Army,[42] in his capacity as the convening authority, reduced Calley's sentence to 20 years in prison.

[47] The district court once more found the pre-trial publicity, the denial of defense witnesses, and improperly drawn charges had denied Calley a fair trial, and ordered him released on September 25, 1974.

[54] Calley worked at his father-in-law's store and became a gemologist and obtained his real estate license, which had initially been denied due to his criminal record.

[31][53] During his divorce proceedings, Calley stated that he had prostate cancer and gastrointestinal problems that gave him no chance of earning a living.

[31] On August 19, 2009, while speaking to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Calley issued an apology for his role in the My Lai massacre.