William L. Calley, Jr., the only American officer convicted of war crimes in Vietnam, died April 28 in Gainesville, FL, where he was in hospice care. No public announcement was made of his death, which was first reported by the Washington Post (William Calley, Army officer and face of My Lai Massacre, is dead at 80).
William Laws Calley, Jr. was born in Miami, FL, on June 8, 1943. His father was a machine salesman. Calley was a poor student in high school and dropped out of Palm Beach Junior College after one semester. He worked as a bellhop, a dishwasher, and a switchman for the Florida East Coast Railroad. After some unpleasantness involving a train blocking five downtown Miami intersections during rush hour, he cleared out and headed west. He made it as far as Albuquerque, NM, where his car broke down, and he enlisted in the Army.
The war in Vietnam was heating up, and the Army…
