Everyone said eliminate them. I never met someone who didn't say it. A captain told me, "Goddamn it. I sit with my starlight scope, and I see VC at t… - William Calley

I don't wish to see anyone hurt: or anyone die for anyone else's sins. Not President Johnson or General Westmoreland or Captain Medina: I don't want to defame anyone to defend myself. I'm sorry about it: sometimes, my attorneys did to Medina what the prosecutor would do to me. "Now, wasn't the real villain in Mylai Captain Medina? And not that poor sweet lieutenant?" But the lieutenant wasn't all so sweet, and the captain was no more villain than any American from the President down. The guilt: as Medina said, we all as American citizens share it. I agree. I don't believe in goats, or pigeons, or patsies. I just don't believe they're in America's interest. For years, we Americans all have taken the easy way out. And been hypocritical fools. And gone around saying, "I'm nice. I'm sweet. I'm innocent." "You starved a thousand people today." "Who me?" "You threw away the scraps from the dinner table." "Aw-" "You killed a thousand people today." "Who me?" "You sent the Army to Mylai and-" "That wasn't me! That was Lieutenant Calley!" No, that isn't right for America. I say if there's guilt, we must suffer it. And learn. And change. And go on. For that is what guilt must be really for.

We thought, We will go to Vietnam and be Audie Murphies. Kick in the door, run in the hooch, give it a good burst- kill. And get a big kill ratio in Vietnam. Get a big kill count. One thing at OCS was nobody said, "Now, there will be innocent civilians there." Oh sure, there will in Saigon. In the secure areas, the Vietnamese may be clapping the way the French in the '44 newsreels do, "Yay for America!" But we would be somewhere else: be in VC country. It was drummed into us, "Be sharp! Be on guard! As soon as you think these people won't kill you, ZAP! In combat you haven't friends! You have enemies!" Over and over at OCS we heard this, and I told myself, I'll act as if I'm never secure. As if everyone in Vietnam would do me in. As if everyone's bad.

I know you'll say, "All right: if Medina said to kill everyone in Atlanta, would you?" And someday an Army officer may, the way this country is going now. I say this: if this were a hundred years ago, if I were a Union lieutenant and if Sherman told me, "Kill everyone in Atlanta," I guarantee I would have to. I once got a letter on Mylai saying, "My god! Why are the Yankees upset?" It said in the CIvil War, the Yankees were up against guerrillas, too. All the South's men, women, and children were out to defeat them. A very smart man in Missouri said, "If the Yankees come through here, do whatever you can. And poison the horses, and poison everyone's food. And invite the GIs-" I mean, "And invite the Yankees in, let them sleep with all your daughters, and if they're in the latrine for a pee: then shoot them. Let them believe you and kill them." The same as Vietnam: the people became guerrillas then. And used unconventional warfare: but the North wasn't about to sit in its trenches worrying, Gee, can I feed my horses here? It wasn't about to live afraid, and Sherman said if they wouldn't let the Army be, then there wouldn't be a Southerner left. He ordered his men to burn, to kill, and as soldiers say: to rape, pillage, and plunder the South. And there was no stopping him. The tactic worked. If you're a Yankee, you'll tell me, "Sherman's great," and you'll put a statue of Sherman in Central Park. As for me, I'd hate to see a monument to Calley's March to the Sea. But damn it! Sherman knew the solution to unconventional warfare.