The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley

• Author: Major Deon M. Green
• Pages: 08

THE VIETNAM WAR ON TRIAL: THE MY LAI MASSACRE AND THE COURT-MARTIAL OF LIEUTENANT CALLEY1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR DEON M. GREEN2

His court-martial was about much more than whether Lieutenant Calley had committed murder. He had, and professional soldiers, horrified by the unprofessional way he had conducted himself at My Lai[ ], did their duty as jurors and convicted him. Americans could not accept their verdict, however, because it seemed to them like a condemnation of all the young men they had sent to fight in Vietnam and ultimately of themselves for sending them there.3

Ask a thousand different people what they think of when they hear the words "Vietnam War" and you will probably hear a thousand different answers. Ask an Army judge advocate what they think of when they hear those words and there is a good possibility they will refer to the trial of First Lieutenant (1LT) William L. Calley, Jr. The Army court-martialed 1LT Calley after a former U.S. Soldier brought to light the horrific tale of the slaughter of hundreds of Vietnamese citizens in a village called My Lai.4 It is from the relatively untapped perspective of a former military officer that Michal Belknap's book, The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley, delves into an exhaustively reported subject: America's war in Vietnam. In this highly critical literary work, Belknap puts the U.S. military, U.S. government, military justice system, and American public on trial in relation to the media circus that surrounded 1LT Calley's case.5 The Vietnam War on Trial is a step-by-step journey into the massacre at My Lai, the trial that resulted from those events, and the politics surrounding the trial. In the midst of these interdependent situations, the author poses

the following questions: Who is responsible for crimes committed on the battlefield and who should be held accountable for them?6

This book serves as an eye-opening portal into a military justice system often described as cumbersome and self-serving.7 The author ventures deep into the realities of the struggles involved in a court-martial; that fact alone makes Belknap's book a must read for those who practice in military courtrooms. At the beginning of 2004, the world again was exposed to atrocities committed by members of the U.S. military during combat operations. The discovery of countless incidents of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq shocked the conscience of people around the world and elicited outrage much in the same vein as the My Lai massacre.8 Service members should read The Vietnam War on Trial to learn of the atrocities and their consequences in an effort to help train others to avoid similar problems in the future. Surely, reading one book could never serve as an immovable roadblock to prevent such atrocities, however, revisiting the issues addressed in The Vietnam War on Trial certainly serve as a reminder to keep ones moral compass pointed in the right direction.

Belknap graduated from the Army Reserve Officer's Training Program at UCLA. After entering onto active duty, the early stages of his military career virtually mirrored that of 1LT Calley.9 Although both men were in different sections, 1LT Calley and Belknap completed infantry officer's basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, on the very same day and served as U.S. Army infantry officers during the Vietnam War.10 As someone who completed the same military training as 1LT

Calley, yet did not end up in the same predicament, Belknap's perspective adds legitimacy to his analysis of 1LT Calley's plight. By the time Belknap authored The Vietnam War on Trial, he was a professor at California Western School of Law,11 and had published a book on political trials.12 Accordingly, it is easy to understand why The Vietnam War on Trial has more references to comments made by presidents and congressmen than attorneys. Belknap's experience as a professor further explains why the premise of The Vietnam War on Trial is more akin to a question on a law school final exam than a literary thesis.

In addition to providing a vivid account of the Vietnam War itself, the author does a tremendous job of providing the reader with a comprehensive biography on the life and times of William "Rusty" Calley.13 Beginning with 1LT Calley's early childhood, proceeding all the way through his tour of duty as an Army officer in Vietnam, the author chronicles every step of 1LT Calley's educational and professional development, or lack thereof.14 In an effort to lend credence to his assertion that "Rusty Calley should never have been a

[L]ieutenant[,]"15 Belknap pays a tremendous amount of attention to 1LT Calley's sub-par academic performance and how educational failures resulted in 1LT Calley erroneously being selected as an Army infantry officer.16 In Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story, by John Sack, 1LT Calley is quoted as follows: "[w]e did just about everything wrong in those days . . . . On our first operation out we even forgot the hand grenades."17 Such examples of ineptitude, from 1LT Calley himself, tend to validate Belknap's assertion that 1LT Calley was unqualified to serve as an infantry officer.

Belknap also contends that "education was the key" to avoiding combat-related jobs and, as 1LT Calley's educational record was so poor,

he was unable to escape that fate.18 The author claims that 1LT Calley's educational shortfalls similarly warrant titling him as a "loser."19 This negative characterization of America's fighting force is disconcerting and, though Belknap makes a valiant statistical effort at validation, not well supported.20

The author's innate ability to take information from multiple sources and accurately piece it together into a sensible story is but one of the things that makes this book so compelling. Though there are times when Belknap repeats facts, his writing style actually adds emphasis to certain issues. One such instance is when the author discusses the intricate correlation...