March 16, 1968: The My Lai Massacre

March 16, 1968: The most infamous war crime committed by American troops on foreign soil occurs, at My Lai, Vietnam.

The U.S. Army had killed more people at one time on home soil, Native Americans. Those instances were before the advent of nationally-syndicated newspapers, or film, or radio, let alone television. And it would take some time before the My Lai Massacre was revealed to the American public. But, once it was, the outrage surpassed anything that was ever done to "the Indians."

At My Lai (pronounced "Mee Ligh"), between 347 and 504 civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12.

As the Army's investigation proceeded, the events were kept out of the public eye until November 13, 1969, when Seymour Hersh published an article about it with Dispatch News Service. With a major antiwar demonstration scheduled for Washington 2 days later, the timing could not have been much worse for the Nixon Administration.

There were 26 soldiers charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted, the verdict read on March 31, 1971. Found guilty of murdering 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence.

The tide had turned: Most of the noise now was by pro-war people, who believed that Calley was justified. The telegrams received by the White House were 100 to 1 in favor of leniency. Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who sought to take over the Democratic Party and end its pro-civil rights and pro-civil liberties stances, and also sought to take conservative votes away from President Richard Nixon in 1972, visited Calley at Fort Leavenworth, and asked Nixon to flat-out pardon him.

After Calley had served 3 1/2 years under house arrest, Nixon commuted his sentence to time served. Years later, one of Nixon's Oval Office tapes was declassified, and showed that he had said to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "Most people don't give a shit whether he killed them or not."

Calley went on to become a real estate agent. In 2009, he made a public statement: "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." As of March 16, 2022, he is still alive.

UPDATE: He died on April 28, 2024, at the age of 80. It had been 20 years since the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in the Iraq War, and Americans had become desensitized to such things. Calley's death was barely noted in the media.

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March 16, 1968 was a Saturday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Baltimore Bullets, 136-111 at the Baltimore Civic Center. The building still stands, named the CFG Bank Arena.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls, 144-122 at the Chicago Stadium. Wilt Chamberlain scored 35 points.

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 124-106 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. The next season, the Hawks moved to Atlanta.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 135-108 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

One game was played in the American Basketball Association: The Dallas Chaparrals beat the Denver Rockets, 108-96 at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. Today, we know these teams as the San Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets, respectively.

There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-4 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

*The Detroit Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-3 at the St .Louis Arena.

* And the New York Rangers, the Chicago Black Hawks, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Oakland Seals were not  one-shot deals.

And in English soccer, the North London soccer team of whom I would eventually become a fan, Arsenal F.C., lost to Wolverhampton Wanderers -- "Wolves" beating "The Gunners" -- 2-0 at Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton, outside Birmingham.