22 Facts About William Calley

William Calley was born on June 8,1943, in Miami, Florida.

William Calley dropped out in 1964, having failed a majority of his classes.

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

William Calley enlisted in the US Army on July 26,1966, and underwent eight weeks of basic combat training at Fort Bliss, Texas, followed by eight weeks of advanced individual training as a company clerk at Fort Lewis, Washington.

William Calley then began 26 weeks of junior officer training at Fort Benning in mid-March 1967.

William Calley was assigned to 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division "The Americal Division", and began training at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in preparation for deployment to South Vietnam.

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

On March 16,1968, William Calley led around 100 soldiers of Charlie company into the village of My Lai.

William Calley was instead charged on September 5,1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice 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 and Wayne Greenhaw broke the story and revealed that William Calley had been charged with murdering 109 South Vietnamese.

Testimony revealed that William Calley had ordered the men of 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 23rd Infantry Division to kill everyone in the village.

William Calley returned 10 minutes later and became enraged by the fact that the villagers were still alive.

Medina publicly denied that he had ever given such orders and stated that he had meant enemy soldiers, while William Calley assumed that his order to "kill the enemy" meant to kill everyone.

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

William Calley was the only one convicted of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai massacre or the subsequent cover-up.

William Calley appealed his conviction to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

William Calley asked the Circuit Justice of the Fifth Circuit, Lewis F Powell Jr.

William Calley was released on bail while the government appealed the ruling.

William Calley appealed the Fifth Circuit's ruling to the US Supreme Court, but it declined to hear his case on April 5,1976.

On May 15,1976, William Calley married Penny Vick, the daughter of a Columbus, Georgia, jewelry store owner.

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

William Calley died there on April 28,2024, at the age of 80.