Vietnam re-enactments

dys :

might not be long and there will be re-enactments of the afghan "war " - perhaps with real opium ?

i'm sure some re-enactors just can't wait - it's always so nice to play in the "sandbox" - hardly anyone ever gets really hurt or killed .
one just needs to shout : " bang , bang , you're dead !!! " - and everybody can go home for icecream and cookies later (or whatever their choice) .
hbg

Why would anybody want to play Vietnam?

They don't come more ugly or shameful than the Vietnam War.

Amen, brother.

I was never sent to 'Nam but served Stateside during the worst of it. I agree -- this really stinks.

I'm guessing there are some/many peeps that think that if only they had been there the outcome would have been different, which is a slander against those of us that were there.

You mean the kind of people who were unable to attend because of student deferments? We've developed a special name for these people - Boss.

I know what you mean, MA. You go where they send you. I was sent to Germany, especially surprising since I had the nominal MOS as crewchief on the OV-1 Mohawk.

I didn't go either. I got out of the Navy right about the time going over became compulsory, if they needed you there. My oldest brother was kept at Fort Hood, because they wanted his carpentry skills on base. One other brother was drafted but refused to go. I found the war to be a traumatic experience, and yet all those other guys did all the work.

Speaking in a soft, sometimes labored voice, the only U.S. Army officer convicted in the 1968 slayings of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai made an extraordinary public apology while speaking to a small group near the military base where he was court-martialed.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," William L. Calley told members of a local Kiwanis Club, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported Friday. "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

Calley, 66, was a young Army lieutenant when a court-martial at nearby Fort Benning convicted him of murder in 1971 for killing 22 civilians during the infamous massacre of 500 men, women and children in Vietnam.

More From 'All Things Considered'
NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Al Fleming, a friend of William L. Calley.

Add to PlaylistDownloadTranscriptThough sentenced to life in prison, Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest after President Richard Nixon later reduced his sentence.

After his release, Calley stayed in Columbus and settled into a job at a jewelry store owned by his father-in-law before he moved to Atlanta a few years ago. He shied away from publicity and routinely turned down journalists' requests for interviews about My Lai.

But Calley broke his long silence Wednesday after accepting a longtime friend's invitation to speak at a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus.

Enlarge The Ledger-Enquirer/APCalley, now 66, speaks to a Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Ga., about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968.

The Ledger-Enquirer/APCalley, now 66, speaks to a Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Ga., about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968.
Wearing thick glasses and a blue blazer, he spoke softly into a microphone, answering questions for a half-hour from about 50 Kiwanis members gathered for their weekly luncheon in a church meeting room.

"You could've heard a pin drop," said Al Fleming, who befriended Calley about 25 years ago and invited him to speak. "They were just slack-jawed that they were hearing this from him for the first time in nearly 40 years."

Both Fleming and Lennie Pease, the Kiwanis president, told The Associated Press in phone interviews Friday that Calley's apology came at the beginning of his brief remarks before he began taking questions.

William George Eckhardt, the chief prosecutor in the My Lai cases, said Friday he was unaware of Calley ever apologizing before. Eckhardt said that when he first heard the news, "I just sort of cringed."

"It's hard to apologize for murdering so many people," said Eckhardt, now a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. "But at least there's an acknowledgment of responsibility."


There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.


- William L. Calley
Calley didn't deny taking part in the slayings on March 16, 1968, but insisted he was following orders from his superior, Capt. Ernest Medina " a notion Eckhardt, the former prosecutor, rejects.

Medina was also tried by a court-martial in 1971, and was acquitted of all charges.

When asked whether he broke the law by obeying an unlawful order, the newspaper reported, Calley replied: "I believe that is true."

"If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a second lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them " foolishly, I guess," Calley said.

Pease said the Kiwanis Club tried to keep Calley's appearance quiet, not wanting to attract outside attention. He said it was obvious that Calley had difficulty speaking to a group, though he addressed every question head-on " and received a standing ovation when he finished.

"You could see that there was extreme remorse for everything that happened," Pease said. "He was very, very soft-spoken. It was a little difficult to hear him. You could see he was labored answering questions."

The last listed phone number for Calley in Atlanta has been disconnected. Fleming declined to give his number to an Associated Press reporter.

Fleming said he has spoken several times with Calley about his combat experiences in Vietnam. He describes Calley as "a compassionate guy," despite his infamous role at My Lai.

"I think he may feel like it was time to say something," Fleming said. "Over the years, I have come to know him so well that it doesn't seem like a great big thing anymore. But I guess it is."

I imagine the 7th Army had a few Mohawks as well as the troops in 'Nam.

Thanx for that Calley update, edgar. I always thought he was made the scapegoat for the decisions of his commanders. He really was only following orders. Haig et al. should have been brought to trial.

I never liked the way they handled it either, merry andrew.

Eighth Infantry had at least two. I know; their little compound was one of the guard posts I walked at Finthen Army Airfield, while assigned to a 4th echelon repair facility.

Someday, I'll have to expain why "Military Intelligence" is considered the ultimate oxymoron.

lol. how true.

Yes, it does. I managed to come home whole and be able to put the 15 months into a box that is in the back of a closet somewhere.
But every once in a while I will think back to 40 years ago. I will think about most all of the guys I knew in high school, on the football team, for example, who suddenly developed bad knees. Except for the QB, who ended up flying a chopper for the 101st, my unit.
Some people served there while others got lucky and served somewhere else. And then there were those who found a way out.
In my professional life, I have dealt with guys from each group. And I guess you just have to move on.
Sin loi, or something like that.
So it goes.

Trust me, John. It wasn't till much later that I realized I really was lucky. Some of us were kind of dumb back then.

I enlisted in the Army when I finished college. I would have been drafted in due course. I realized I was in trouble when they sent this poor southern boy to Ft Dix, NJ, for Basic Training in Nov-Dec. I have never been so cold in my life. Send the re-enactors there!
Then, deciding that my college degree and my having passed the CPA exam meant nothing, they sent me to Ft Lost in the Woods, Missouri, and taught me how to blow stuff up.
In retrospect, perhaps, being a combat engineer with a backpack full of C-5 was more fun than being a CPA, except for the getting shot at aspect.

We didn't know the extent of our Dad's involvement in WWII until he was in his 70's and our Mother was in the late stages of Alzheimers. We knew he installed the early warning radar up and down the entire East Coast, we knew he was an air traffic controller during the war but some of the other things we thought were true had been a smoke screen. He was a member of "Special Weapons" and they would be air dropped in prior to an Allied operation, and then clean the area and eliminate anyone who could provide tip-offs to the enemy forces. They were demolition experts and would target areas that needed to be destroyed prior to US and Allied operations. They were assassins who were trained in the "art" of eliminating human obsticals and carried knives because knives are so quiet if you know what you are doing.

He started to talk about it one Thanksgiving, and at first we didn't know if he was making it up/but also knew he wouldn't have made up something like that. The thing that really made an impression on me was his concern over what had happened to the families of the men they killed. He said they were all scared young men, and neither side really wanted to be there. I'm ashamed I hadn't given much thought to that.

Now when you start talking about Vietnam, I had many male relatives who were sent to Vietnam.....some of them came back like different people. Boys I knew from High School came back with incredible wounds, mutilations and some came home in a box. I worked for DOD during the Tet offensive, and many Vietnam vets were stationed with us until they either re-uped for additional tours or finished their service. I remember the day the heating/cooling unit in our office malfunctioned and before it began to smoke it emitted a god awful sound that caused about 8 men to hit the floor because it sounded like incoming. The really sad part is that most of the civilians didn't know what incoming sounded like, and chuckled when the men hit the floor. These guys were totally pissed....and I can't blame them. They reacted to their training, the training that kept them alive in Vietnam.

To sum up, the idea of a bunch of armchair warriors running around in a fake jungle trying to relive the excitement of Vietnam is sickening to me. I worked side by side with Military personnel my entire career. They go where they are told to go, they follow orders and they are loyal to their units and the men. (Back then women didn't serve in combat...and if they were in Vietnam they were most likely nurses). So in a perfect world, our government would be as loyal to the troops as the troops are to the Armed Services. We are blessed as a nation that when our troops are called, they perform their duty. Anybody running around pretending to be Rambo should be a laughing stock. If they are really hungry for the ultimate war experience, they can still sign up to serve in Iraq or Afganistan.....I hear that's a real party.

I wonder if there's money to be made in a book about military intellegence.

I don't know if anybody would read an acurate accounting of various wars and the intell support except history buffs and intell folks. Too many people like the idea of a John Wayne version of the Old West/Custer/and his WWII flicks. But everybody should remember that truth is stranger than fiction, and there are so many stories that haven't been told.

I'm sure that kind of book has been done, and didn't make the bestseller list. I'm comparing Military Intelligence to the intelligence of the military. Like taking a CPA and sending him out to be shot at while carrying a backpack full of high explosives. Meanwhile, Uncle Ben's Rest Home is full of Finance and Accounting, and Personel Management trainees, just begging for a qualified instructor.