The Confessions of Lieutenant Calley (2024)

William Calley, the Army lieutenant charged with leading the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, died earlier this year at the age of 80, though the news was first reported in July. In 1970, Calley approached Esquire about buying his version of the My Lai story. John Sack, whose 1966 Esquire feature “M” is considered a landmark piece of war reportage, agreed to meet with Calley; Sack didn’t want to glorify a murderer and needed to spend some time with Calley before making a decision. Sack was convinced, and agreed to collaborate on an as-told-to account, published in three installments in Esquire and then as a book. (Calley was convicted by court-martial in 1971 and dismissed from the Army. He lived most of the rest of his life in obscurity.) From the November 1970 issue of Esquire, here is the first installment—which may contain attitudes and sensibilities about race, sex, and trauma that are outdated and potentially triggering.

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I liked it in South Vietnam. I knew that I could be killed there, but I could also be more alive there than in America. In Vietnam, I had to take every moment and really live it. Say if I had a couple of C-ration cans to make dinner out of. I could just sit and say, God, are those bad, or I could pick up some chili peppers or some onions that in Vietnam are growing wild, and I could make a gourmet meal. It would be slower, sure: but I would be more excited by fixing a can of C rations than by being spoon-fed at a restaurant in Atlanta. Or say if I was invited out to a Vietnamese home. I wouldn’t like the food (I could hardly eat it)—still it would be an experience. Which a co*cktail party isn’t.

I began feeling, I belong here. It may seem ridiculous saying this. Why in the world would a guy ever commit himself to South Vietnam? Well, why would a guy commit himself to South Dakota? Why would a guy become a plumber? Or a Professor Einstein? I only knew, It isn’t working here. I’m an American officer and I still belong in South Vietnam. For an Army man, a tour in Vietnam is generally twelve months, but I extended for another six in November, 1968, and I was about to extend again in May, 1969. Then, I was called to Division headquarters, and I was told there that a reassignment order from the Department of the Army was in. It said:

Calley, William L. Jr. Service number, et cetera. Unit, et cetera. DEROS Vietnam 30 May 1969. Reassignment to CBR Warfare School, Fort McClellan, Alabama. TDY three days, Office of the Inspector General, Washington, D.C. See special instructions below.

And these said:

Immediately on arrival in CONUS contact the Office of the Inspector General, Washington, D.C.

What ran through my mind was: I would be going into a chemical, biological, and radiological warfare school at Fort McClellan, Alabama, and I would be assigned there to the Inspector General’s Corps (I had been an insurance investigator in civilian life). I figured I had three days in Washington so I could be briefed about it.

The clerk said, “Or do you want to extend in Vietnam?”

I said, “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

He said, “Okay. There’s been a mistake on the orders, apparently. It says you’re to leave here on 30 May—” Right then was 30 May. “It must be 30 June.”

I said, “No hurry.” I even kidded my C.O. about it, later that day. I said, “I’m on my way home today, sir. I’d better pack up.”

He said, “You’ll eat whale sh*t! You ain’t going nowhere!”

Well—it was seven days later, and I walked into the orderly room. And the first sergeant asked me, “What in the hell did you do, Lieutenant?”

I said, “What’s up?”

He said, “I don’t know, but Division’s hot! Who did you piss on, Lieutenant?”

I borrowed the first sergeant’s jeep, and I went up to Division again. I asked them, “What’s going on?”

Division said, “I don’t know, but the Pentagon said the orders are right.” And they gave me my orders, my personnel records, and my airplane ticket to Washington. On a plane that was leaving in sixty minutes!

I packed a bag hurriedly, and I kissed my cleaning girl on her forehead. I told her, “I come right back.”

She said, “No no no. Will no come back.”

I said, “I come right back,” and I jumped on a plane to Camranh Bay. I checked in, I ordered a bourbon at the officers’ club, and suddenly there came a couple of M.P.’s shouting, “Lieutenant Calley! Lieutenant Calley!” I got on a plane (I guess I had bumped some poor G.I. who really wanted to go) and I was in Washington the following day. I thought I was getting a medal or something. It was intriguing.

Across the street from the Smithsonian there’s the Inspector General’s Office, and I reported in. And that’s when I knew, Something’s wrong. No one said anything but “Sit down here,” and “Sit down here,” and “I’ll be right with you, Lieutenant Calley.” At last a full colonel—a large man, I’d say about six-foot-four (I’m five-four and I’m not good at estimating height)—a colonel took me into another room. He seemed uncomfortable when he introduced me to Mr. Such-and-Such. “This is a court reporter, and he’ll be taking down everything that’s said here.”

“Well, that’s nice. What’s going on?”

“Sit down, Lieutenant. This is a formal investigation for the personal use of the Chief of Staff. Do you want an attorney?”

“Would you mind telling me what’s going on? I mean, do I need an attorney?”

“That’s up to you. Do you think you need an attorney?”

I suppose that I slammed my hand on the colonel’s table. “Well, listen! I’m tired! I’ve just flown in! What in the hell’s going on?”

“Sit down, Lieutenant. This is about operations on 16 March, 1968, in or about the village of Mylai 4. At the conclusion of this investigation you will probably—” No, the colonel said, “you could possibly be charged with murder.”

“Do you mean you pulled me out of Vietnam just to tell me—” Well, it seemed like the silliest thing I had ever heard of. Murder.

“Well, do you want an attorney?”

“Do you think I should have an attorney?”

“Yes, I would have an attorney.”

“I’ll have an attorney.” And in a minute they had an attorney for me. A captain.

The colonel said, “I’ve a few questions for you.”

“Well, shoot.”

The attorney said, “I don’t think you should answer them.”

“I’ll answer anything!”

The attorney said, “Be careful. You can be charged with murder.”

“Is that serious?”

The attorney looked at me kind of oddly. He answered, “Yes. You can get the death penalty for murder.”

“Oh, that is serious then.” For the seriousness of it just hadn’t filtered in on me! Murder—what a preposterous idea. I had thought that if I wanted to, I would be going right back to South Vietnam. Tomorrow even. I said, “The way this lawyer is telling it to me, Colonel, you’re out to hang someone for something, aren’t you?”

He said, “No no! I’m not! This isn’t for me! It’s for the Chief of Staff!”

I said, “You tell the Chief of Staff this: if I can help him in tactics, after-action reports, anything, where we screwed up, I’ll be glad to. But if you’re out to hang someone, I don’t want to talk about it.”

I was upset! I got to my hotel that day (I was at Hospitality House) and I was—well, extremely hurt. I couldn’t understand this. I kept on digging, though. I thought, There must be something here. Something strange. What did I do that’s wrong? Well, the war’s wrong. Killing’s wrong. I realized that. But that’s what my country asked me to do. I sat there and I couldn’t find the key. I tried to picture the people of Mylai, and they didn’t bother me. I had accomplished my mission there. I had found and I had closed with the enemy, and I’d no other way to do it. And now—the people who were accusing me were the people who sent me to Mylai, the people of the United States.

And then, I guess I became afraid. I thought, What if the Army’s right? What if the public thinks I’m a murderer, really? I was afraid to think about it. I stayed afraid till I got here to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Not to Fort McClellan, Alabama. The reason was, I was reassigned here by a colonel with the Inspector General’s Office. “You’ll have a better chance at Benning,” the colonel told me. Everything here is infantry, and I would have a court of infantry—of combat officers, and if you weren’t in Vietnam in combat you won’t understand what I had to do. You’ll say a V.C. is a man that carries a weapon and you’ll describe what a civilian is: “He has a house. He goes to work every day. He comes home for dinner. He is of an age between birth and death. And he thinks—ah, all good thoughts. A civilian.” But if you’re ever in combat—well, a combat officer knows that you simply can’t say, “Who is V.C. around here?” A lot of his enemies are people who in America are being called civilians. And at Benning the chance that an officer on a court-martial jury did the same identical thing that I did is damn better than at Fort McClellan, or, say, at Fort Houston, Texas, where all you’ve got are Wacs and doctors.

In fact, I’ve been at Benning a year now (I’m saying this in June, 1970) and I still haven’t met an officer who’s down on me. Generally, when an officer sees the CALLEY over my shirt pocket he’ll say to me, “Saw you on TV the other night! You’re looking good,” or “I’m behind you all the way,” or “I’m with you.” It has happened every day at the officers’ club and the deputy post commander’s office and the PX—

“I’m behind you.”

“Thank you.”

“How can I help you?”

“Thank you. But you help me just being behind me.”

I work in the deputy commander’s office here. I guess everyone here was asked, “Hey! Can you give a job to Lieutenant Calley? Keep him busy,” and I was assigned as the deputy commander’s assistant. I haven’t really much to do. Generally, I get to work at eight o’clock with a “Good morning, Mrs. Peterson!” She is the deputy commander’s secretary, and we have a cup of coffee together, saying, “How are your children?” “How is your girl friend?” “How is—” et cetera, until we start to catch up on The Columbus Inquirer and The Atlanta Journal. I’m sick of the front page now, and I generally turn to B.C., Peanuts, and Snuffy Smith. And to Ann Landers. Simultaneously, the secretary and I come to the horoscope page, and that’s something else to talk about—but if I am ambitious I may answer some of my letters. I’ve had about five thousand, about ten of them derogatory about me. Like, “You’re a son of a bitch!” “Our brothers and sisters died in Mylai!” “I hope you’re damned!” The others—well, I’ve letters and letters telling me, “Gee, why are they picking on you? I was in Vietnam also, and one day—” I wouldn’t repeat it, though, the Army’s in trouble enough as it is. I’ve letters and letters like:

I served in Korea from June, 1953 to August, 1954. I heard of many similar incidents.

I’m a retired Marine. I spent twenty years in the service of God and Country. I was in two operations in Korea where women and children were killed.

In 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946 I was a first lieutenant with the 45th Infantry Division. I was witness to many incidents similar to the one you’re being held for.

I served in combat in the German war. My fellow soldiers and I did on occasion kill enemy soldiers, civilians, and children. Marquis of Queensberry rules do not prevail in war.

During my duty in Africa we were under orders to shoot the Arabs to keep them from taking our clothes.

I was given the order to seal a cave where a mother and her eleven or twelve children were holed up. This took place in 1944 on the island of Ie Shima.

On Okinawa, I saw men throw grenades on old men and women, figuring what the hell—they’re the enemy.

What the hell! I’m positive there were a countless number of people, anywhere you could care to mention, who, in our efforts to liberate a given locale, died. It is inevitable.

Many years ago I had a platoon, and we went through the villages as you and your people had to do.

In fact, I even have a letter from a retired colonel from the Spanish-American War. A well-written, a well-spelled, a letter-perfect letter. The colonel said the Spanish used to put people in concentration camps, and the great white father in Washington said, “We’re going to save you!” So we went there on our horses. And we pounced around, we created havoc, we beat the living hell out of Spain—and we put people in concentration camps. In which the colonel said thousands died.

I’ve letters and letters telling me, “Please visit us,” or “Please come for Christmas dinner,” to Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, to New York, Ohio, Nebraska, Oregon. It’s flattering: I’ve letters from the John Birchers and The American Legion and the N.A.A.C.P. and the Civil Liberties Union. All of them writing me, “How can I help?” And telephone calls from as far away as London, England. Once, I was afraid if I went shopping in Georgia someone might ask me, “Are you Lieutenant Calley? Pow,” and take a punch at me. But instead—well, the first time it ever happened was at Miller’s Discount Store in Columbus. I was there with my girl friend for a can of red paint for my motorboat when a gentleman said, “Are you Lieutenant Calley?” I figured, I’ll face it, though my girl friend turned away and started to walk around in Miller’s.

I answered, “Yes, I’m Lieutenant Calley.”

He said, “I agree with you, Lieutenant. I am behind you all the way. I think it’s a terrible thing when the Army calls it a crime when it just happens every day. I know what war is! I was in World War II and Korea, and I’m lucky that we weren’t tried in Korea—”

I answered, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, I have to go.” Because what all of the letters, the telephone calls, and the people just do to me is embarrass me. Flatter me but embarrass me. What can I say if a gentleman tells me, “I agree with you.” I still don’t know if I agree with him, I don’t know if I agree with me. Maybe the mission in Mylai was wrong. What can I say if a gentleman tells me, “I know you’re right,” if I have an inner conflict and I myself don’t know it? Gee, I even don’t know if Mary was right in doing a three-hundred-and-sixty that day. It hurts when my girl friend is making as though she isn’t with me. But then, I don’t demonstrate a hell of a lot of faith in me either. One day her mother and father came, and I told them, “Hi. I am Rusty Calley.” But it didn’t register: it doesn’t on anyone if I don’t say, “I am First Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr. of Mylai.” That’s what the world knows me as. My last name is Mylai—but I said to Mary’s parents, “Hi. I am Rusty Calley. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m very glad to meet you.”

Her father said, “Hi, Rusty. You’ve really got a lot of big things going on. That Lieutenant Calley—!”

Mary said, “Yes.”

Her father said, “You’re far enough from him, aren’t you, Mary? You’re safe?”

Mary said, “Yes. He lives out at Fort Benning.”

Myself, I went to the kitchen and I got a new round of Scotches. I thought, It just isn’t right. If her father finds out, he will be mortified, but I don’t know if Mary really was right about it. I don’t know if I am someone she shouldn’t associate with. If the Army should find me guilty of a hundred and two premeditated murders, it would be open season against me. Would she be persecuted for going with me? I don’t know, but I’m not about to impose on Mary if she doesn’t want me to. Mary is a made-up name. She asked me to use it.

My own father is so behind me, I get uncomfortable about it. He believes that I am Joe Good Guy and I am completely right and if someone says something derogatory about me, people should jail him. “I listened to So-and-So on television and they should jail him.” In fact, I don’t think my father has really listened to So-and-So or to me, either. But he has been having a horrifying time of it. Night and day: newspaper, radio, and TV men were outside of his little trailer in Miami. My mother isn’t alive, but the TV cameras got my younger sister once at Hialeah High. “Caroline, what do you think of your brother murdering all of those people in South Vietnam?” What a hell of a question to ask a fourteen-year-old! My sister was crying and telling them, “I don’t think he would do it—” Jesus, I was ashamed. I felt, I’m a lousy bastard, I’m hurting my little sister and I can’t stop it. I’d like to have taken her hand and quietly told her, “Let’s go.” She and my father had to move to another city, finally. To change to another school.

It was a hell of a trauma for her. I don’t have to suppose it: I go into a restaurant and I hear people say, “It’s Lieutenant Calley!” “Where?” “There!” I’m afraid that I’ll step on Mary’s foot and she’ll scream and I’ll jump and she’ll hit a waiter and I’ll have a bowl of tomato soup on me—I’m exaggerating, but I’m afraid to embarrass someone who’s with me. I get self-conscious if TV cameras are on me. I think, I have a button open, I have a big piece of spinach between my teeth—My worst time was at the Pentagon with the Peers Committee. ABC and NBC and CBS were there, and a hundred newspapermen with Kodaks or whatever they use. All pushing and shoving and screaming at me, “Walk slower! Walk slower!” Well, I had been getting lots of letters telling me, “Keep a sense of humor about it. Keep smiling.” But my civilian lawyer was telling me don’t be too cheerful, don’t be like I’ve just won a prize, and my Army lawyer was telling me to be sad, to be like they’re torturing me. In fact, I was fairly cheerful that day. I had always wanted to see what’s inside the Pentagon. Someone from my high-school homeroom had written me, “Anytime you’re in Washington please come by,” and I had also hoped to have dinner with her, her husband, and her three children. I knew that she wouldn’t ask me about the Mylai case, and I wouldn’t have to embarrass her by telling her, “No, I can’t talk about it.” I’d had to regret almost all of those invitations to Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and elsewhere in America.

Anyhow, I was in Washington in this limousine, and I could see all the TV and newspapermen on the Pentagon steps. I kidded a guy in the limousine about it, “Gee. I suppose there will be a parade here. Do you think there will be a festival queen?” Then I jumped out and I started up through the microphones, et cetera. I think that an NBC or a CBS correspondent started it.

“Lieutenant Calley! Did you really kill all those women and children?”

“Lieutenant Calley! How does it feel to kill women and children?”

“Lieutenant Calley! Are you sorry you couldn’t have killed more women and children?”

“Lieutenant Calley! If you could go back today to kill more women and children—”

I busted my way through into the Pentagon. I took the Fifth Amendment with the Peers Committee, and I told a colonel there, “I don’t care to go through the crowd again.” We left by a janitor’s room and another door.

It won’t surprise me if I wake up one morning and I am a babbling idiot: it won’t surprise me. I feel as if I’m someone in a carnival who everyone is throwing pies at. Today they say in Playboy that my psychological balance will be questioned and I will be called a mad killer. Well, I’m starting to question my psychological balance myself. I now have a telephone-answering service and a personal secretary, and I ask myself, Is this really me? I sit in the deputy commander’s office with a couple of thousand letters and a captain comes by. “What is that you’re doing?” God what is it I’m doing? I’m signing autographs. Two hundred people have written me, “I have enclosed a self-addressed envelope and the cover of Time magazine. Will you please autograph it?” God! I haven’t the vaguest idea of why they would want this. To hang it next to Hitler? Or to hang it next to Santa Claus? I feel I’m walking around in a windstorm, and a thousand literal pieces of paper are swirling around me.

Believe me, I would go bananas if I couldn’t sometimes cease to be Lieutenant Calley. Then if I feel, I’m in a cage and I’m running around it, I’m batting my brains out, I can’t escape it, I do escape by getting away to Atlanta or New York City. I am not recognized there if I don’t wear an officer’s uniform with a CALLEY tag or a T-shirt with a picture of Mylai on it. Generally, I wear a three-piece suit, and hair that’s a little bit longer than the Army style. On Earth Day, I walked for twenty blocks down the center of Fifth Avenue, and I didn’t hear one “It’s Lieutenant Calley!” I ate in New York City at Sardi’s, the Russian Tea Room, the Right Bank, the Brasserie, the Plaza, the Algonquin, and the Fountain Café in Central Park, and I was never stared at except once at Bradley’s in Greenwich Village. By a girl sitting sort of catty-corner from me. I thought, Oh gosh, she recognizes me, except it was simply a hooker out to solicit me. Most people think if I’m not a big hairy monster with an M-16 slung over me, I can’t be Lieutenant Calley.

So—I go to Atlanta wearing a three-piece suit. I’ll take in as much as I can of the theatre there. Like Hello, Dolly! I’ll go through an art gallery and I’ll say, “That’s nice,” or “That’s crap, and I don’t care if they call it Mona Lisa,” I am that type of person. I am the same about music. I guess I should advertise here for Stone Mountain, Georgia, but I really like the outdoor elevators at Hyatt House in Atlanta. They are in capsules, and they skyrocket up with people screaming. It’s a carnival ride! In April, I went to New York City and I saw Hair and Oh! Calcutta! The music I loved. The nudity didn’t shock me—god, was it supposed to? Except that in Hair there was a shocking scene, and I was extremely offended by it. An actor in Hair wrapped himself with an American flag as though it were nothing but a rag to use to clothe himself with. He made a mockery out of it! He sang something like, “Screw the American flag,” and he walked on it, stomped on it, dragged it around, et cetera, and I just gritted my teeth. I’ve pride in my country and I hate someone making a slant against it. Sure, America’s got a lot of flaws. It’s made a lot of mistakes. There is too much poverty in America. This war in Vietnam is ridiculous. But if I can’t think of a better way to do it, I’m not going to curse it. I’m not going to simply say, “It is horrible.” I think what we have in America today with its horrors still is the best there is. What would we have without it? Chaos.

Maybe if I were President, I could change things. Till then, I’ll be like anyone else and I’ll carry my orders out. I’ll do everything the American people want me to. That’s what the Army’s for. It’s a chisel, whose job is to keep itself sharp and let the American people use it. Even if the people say, “Go wipe out South America,” the Army will do it. No question about it. Majority rules, and if a majority tells me, “Go across to South Vietnam,” I’m going to go. If a majority tells me, “Lieutenant, go and kill one thousand enemies,” I’ll go and kill one thousand enemies. But—I won’t advocate it. I won’t preach for it. I won’t be a hypocrite about it. Or maybe that is a hypocrite, but I’ll do as I’m told to. I won’t revolt. I’ll put the will of America above my own conscience, always. I’m an American citizen.

I had joined the Army in July, 1966. I had been in insurance then: I would investigate if a $100,000 home was a $100,000 home or a $100 shanty. I’d sometimes find if I could get past the CONDEMNED signs that the $100,000 home was in six feet of water, and I’d take a picture and say, “House submerged.” I had been doing this in New Orleans, Houston, and San Francisco (I lived uphill from the hippies there) and I had a letter suddenly from my draft board in Miami. It said I wasn’t home at my old address and I’d have to go to Miami to answer why. Okay, I was tired of California anyhow. I was a little lonely, and I started to tool across the country till in Albuquerque the water pump for my Buick busted. It meant that I was broke too. A new water pump was $36, and a motel room in Albuquerque was $8—I’d never make it to Miami now. I think I had $4.80 left.

The next day I went to an Army recruiter there, and I said, “My damn draft board wants me. How about wiring them I need money?”

He said, “No, the draft boards don’t work that way.”

I said, “What am I going to do?”

He said, “Well—”

I guess he was low on his monthly quota. A recruiter, see, is a salesman like anyone else: he doesn’t have the most desirable product, but he is trying like hell to sell it. This one looked like an American high-school hero—oh, about six-foot-one or six-foot-two. He had some of those cardboards behind him, a Wac and an Army nurse. He said that I should enlist.

“What can I do in the Army for three years?”

“We’ll find a place for you! Is there something you’d like?”

“Yeah. I’d like to get to Miami to talk to my draft board.”

“Like to be an airborne ranger?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s someone jumps out of airplanes and—”

“No man! I’d rather sit in an air-conditioned office all day. Him—the guy over there. What does he do?”

“He’s a clerk.”

“Okay. I’ll be a clerk.”

“Okay.” And ten minutes later, I was in the United States Army.

Well, I was destitute, remember. I had no qualms about the Army, I’d grown up with people telling me, It’s one of those things you do. You serve (and I think if you join the Army to question it, you’re wrong). I took my basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, and I went to clerical school at Fort Lewis, Washington. And in March, 1967, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia, to Fort Benning School for Boys. That’s what we called the officer candidate school there, and we had to learn the “alma mater” the first day in.

From the banks of Chattahoochee
To the shores of—trala troy
I forget it—
Stands our stately alma mater,
Benning School for Boys.
Ever forward, never backward,
To the point of embarkation—

Oh, I can’t remember it. Call it harassment, but I learned here at O.C.S. that if I try I can do almost anything. O.C.S. taught that to me. I did an obstacle course once—I was a P.O.W., supposedly, and if I didn’t escape over a pool of electrified water and a wall twelve feet high, I would die. Solution: I was thrown over them! Four other officer candidates took me and threw me. They shouted to me, “Make it, you son of a bitch,” and I grabbed the edge of that twelve-foot wall and I made it. Even the pogie-bait parties at O.C.S. gave me more confidence in myself. Pogie bait is any snack that is not prepared by the government in a government mess hall by government-employed personnel—that is not served on a steel tray. co*ke, candy, pizza, anything sweet, or anything else was classified at O.C.S. as pogie bait and it was strictly taboo! It was a daring thing to have a pogie-bait party: the penalty was very heavy but, of course, if you were at O.C.S. you tried at least once. It meant sneaking two hundred pizzas in without getting caught at it.

How? Well, right before taps we would take all the garbage out. And as soon as the trash, wastepaper, dirt, et cetera, had been dumped out, we would meet the “Pizza on Call” truck to load up two hundred pizzas in the garbage cans: I guess we had twelve cans to carry the pizzas back to the barracks in. What was ridiculous was, we would devour a pizza in seconds flat (I think the record was an eighth of a second) and we just couldn’t enjoy it. Slurp, and a pizza’s gone, and we would all be spraying the barracks with Right Guard. But a couple of hundred pizzas in a room smelling completely of Johnson’s Paste Wax—well, the deodorant wouldn’t do. A tac officer (the closest thing at O.C.S. to a sergeant) could be miles away and he could tell, There is pizza there! I’ll have to take immediate action. When we were lucky—when we had a big inspection due, he sent us all into the shower rooms. Now, did you ever take a shower eating a pizza pie? It is so blah, it generally made us gag, it ran up our noses then, it got in our sinuses when we sneezed—that’s when we were lucky, remember. If not, “Gee, you love pizza, don’t you, Candidate Calley. Why not just rub it over all of your bed sheets?” And of course, that’s what I’d do: rub pizza into my bed sheets and my pillowcases so I could wallow in it. Or maybe, “Gee, Candidate Calley. That guy—he seems to love pizza too. Why not throw him a piece of pizza?” Meaning, of course, into his face. Oh, they would let us—make us, have pizza fights till we just reeked of pizza, the walls would be annihilated, the spit-shined floors would just be ruined. They’d keep us till three in the morning until, “Okay. Pogie-bait party’s over. Lights out.” So that’s when the real confidence course began—with three hours to reveille we had to clean the sheets, clean the walls, clean the floors (and I mean spit-shined clean), clean ourselves. In the dark!

We learned one thing at O.C.S. that we had been taught through childhood was bad: killing. We came to believe that we would go to Vietnam and be Audie Murphys. Run in the hooch, kick in the door, give it a good burst: kill. We would get a big kill ratio there—get a big kill count. In today’s society everything is, “How many thousands?” “How many millions?” Which is a farce, but it’s the same at O.C.S.: it’s numbers. The one thing wrong with O.C.S. was, we never learned that in Vietnam there will be friendly civilians all around us. Sure: in Saigon there will. In the secure areas the Vietnamese may be clapping and cheering like the French in the 1944 newsreels do, “Yay for America!” But we would be somewhere else: we would be where the V.C. are. It was drummed into us, “Be sharp! Be on your guard! As soon as you think these people won’t kill you—zap! In combat you haven’t any friends! You have all enemies!” Over and over in O.C.S. we heard this. I told myself, I’ll act as if I’m never secure. As if everyone in Vietnam’s going to do me in. As if everyone’s bad. I went from O.C.S. to Hawaii: to Charlie company, and I still didn’t hear a word about friendly villages. All through the autumn we just invaded the beaches and climbed the Kahukus, the tallest, the steepest, the meanest mountains anywhere, which the Army keeps to train infantry, antelopes, mountain goats, anything. We learned how to assault them, how to take base camps, how to kill or capture enemy: I mean that Charlie was made for war! We were mean! We were ugly! But we never conceived of old people, men, women, children, babies—of friendly civilians being near us. Never did anyone tell us—

Oh no, I’m wrong about that. The day before we all went to Vietnam we were given an orientation talk, Vietnam Our Host. I should know: I had to give it. Charlie company made a horseshoe around me. I told it, “Wake up! We’re going to Vietnam! Wake up! We’re going to Vietnam because they’re our host—” Oh, what a farce that was. I read off an S.O.P. of “Do”s and “Don’t”s that the Pentagon had sent us. Items like—I don’t remember all of it. Do not insult the women. And do not assault the women. And—god, I’m too foggy about it. Items like be polite.

I think I had just three minutes for Vietnam Our Host. I did a very very poor job of it. I realize now I might have done better.

The next morning, at four o’clock all of Charlie company was up and waiting to “Load up the buses, men!” We waited till one in the afternoon. We were being picketed at Honolulu airport, and we didn’t want to get stoned or struck by the STOP THE WAR signs or something. I am just guessing what the picket signs said: we snuck in another way, by way of Pearl Harbor.

We went to Vietnam on Pan American Airways. We landed on December 1, 1967, in—Danang, I suppose, and I admit that I acted asinine that day. I almost thought, I’ll be in hand-to-hand combat today, and I was standing there in a trailer truck like the meanest, the most tremendous, the most dangerous weapon there is. My rifle swung low. My helmet pulled down. I was scowling even! I realize now, I couldn’t have impressed the Vietnamese less. None of them looked up and looked at me—Another truck of G.I.’s? Big deal, and they couldn’t give a damn. I even saw a Vietnamese woman take a crap right alongside us! Still, I felt, This is my big day! And these are my men! And we’re rough and we’re tough! Charlie’s here—Charging Charlie! And we’re going to end this whole damned war tomorrow! I felt superior to these people. I thought, I’m the American from across the sea. I can really sock it to these people. We stayed in Danang overnight, then the company took up residence two hundred kilometers south at Landing Zone Carrington. There we were thirty days. All we really accomplished there was to blow up Vietnamese wells or anyhow try to. Our colonel had a thing about wells, but he wasn’t about to tell a lieutenant why or listen to a lieutenant tell him, “Sir, you can’t destroy wells with TNT.” I would put twenty pounds of TNT in, I threw that in, I ran and—kaboom, and I got rained on. And the well would fill up again.

I bet my troops thought, “Oh, this will be a fun-fun year!” In fact, we didn’t fire in anger in all thirty days at Carrington. There were no V.C. anywhere near it, probably. It had been searched and destroyed until it had just nothing left to be searched or destroyed. So we simulated for thirty days. We practiced in the deserted villages. For instance, I saw a deserted shack and I called my first artillery mission in. “Artillery, this is Charlie One. Request—ah, a fire mission.”

“Roger. Send it.”

“Grid—ah, 387602. Proximity of friendlies—ah, four hundred meters. Azimuth—” I was new, and I was a bit nervous about it.

“Roger. Will this be live artillery?”

“Yeah!”

“What will it be?”

I guess I said something dumb like, “What have you got? Chocolate? Strawberry—” No, I didn’t really say it.

“Will this be a battery one, battery two, battery three—”

“Give me a battery six!”

“Stand by.” A battery when I was an officer candidate was a single gun. But in Vietnam—

Boomboomboomboom! All of a sudden the world lit up—the trees, the shack, the world was blowing away! It was like a slow-motion movie of some atomic bomb, and I knew everyone back in America must be hearing it! President Johnson! Congress!

“Jesus,” I said. “You’re blowing away all of South Vietnam!”

“You wanted a battery six. You got it.”

I guess I learned more in that month at Carrington than in six months of manuals at O.C.S. For instance, I took out my first ambush party! I asked, of course, for volunteers, since this was a mission many of us might die on—I really believed it. I was a new young second lieutenant, remember. I thought I would slay one or two hundred enemy between the hours of sunset and sunrise and I might end the war. I didn’t want to go after dark, though, and I talked the C.O. into letting us out during daylight hours. Even so, I couldn’t find a place for my ambush like any I had seen at O.C.S. Old empty cornfields were all I saw. No bushes, no trees, no places to camouflage ourselves—god, I looked all over hell, and I had to put my ambush in a cornfield after dark.

It kept going crunch. I was crawling around, I was placing each guy and telling him, “Be quiet,” but I was just making hordes of noise in that cornfield stuff. I think I dropped my rifle once and I had to search for it. I realized, God, I am spooking the water buffaloes and I’ll have herds of water buffaloes overrunning me. I am waking the V.C. nation up. They always told me at O.C.S., the thing with an ambush was to keep perfectly quiet. To tie up things so they wouldn’t rattle. Not to use rifle slings. To carry a full canteen so the water wouldn’t slosh—of course, we didn’t think of asking them, “How can we drink then?” But in Vietnam then, if there was a V.C. within ten miles of us I bet he was listening and laughing himself to death.

Well, I was naïve, I still hadn’t been in Vietnam a month. I told every man, “Stay awake now! They’re going to be here pretty soon,” and I patted them on their backs. I knew the V.C. were somewhere nearby because—well, I was in South Vietnam! There was a war going on! Our captain, Captain Medina—Medina wouldn’t send me somewhere if I couldn’t get a big kill count, right? He really knew his poop, and I was excited, I was tensed up. And suddenly clump! I said, They’re coming.

“Lieutenant? Lieutenant?” It was just my machine gunner. “Lieutenant? Where are you?”

“I’m over here.”

“Where?”

“I’m over here.”

“Sir, can I load the machine gun now?”

I thought, My god. I had been taught at O.C.S. to wait until now to load a machine gun—a safety idea. “Yeah yeah! Load the machine gun.”

“I’ll do it, Lieutenant.”

Anyone know how an M-60 sounds if it’s being loaded? How all of that ammunition sounds? First there is a clink clink clink. Then a clank clank clank. Then the horrible sound of the bolt closing—CLANK. I lay there and I just cringed! I said, God! They never said it would be this way at O.C.S. Never said the hardest thing to do in Vietnam would be silence. Why, a guy on that ambush suddenly started to scream at us, “Waaa! Waaa! Son of a—” You know, the whole religious routine. A regular tantrum. I couldn’t tell if V.C. were stabbing him or doing what, but I ran over. I got hit, incidentally, by his fatigue shirt, the G.I. was standing and screaming and stripping wildly! He was doing a maniac strip!

I said, “Kid, what’s the problem?”

“These goddamn ants!”

“What goddamn ants? Where?”

“Everywhere! On me!”

I was sitting there in this ambush and I had a guy in Vietnamese ants.

I relocated him, and I settled down. Ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock. And midnight—and I got disappointed, and I got annoyed! Never at O.C.S. had we had to wait three hours: at O.C.S. the enemy had stumbled upon us promptly. I think I really began to despise the V.C. then. Not only are V.C. Communists, but they would be overdue, damn it, they wouldn’t hurry into my killing zone. I even thought I might call up Captain Medina, “Charlie Six? This is Charlie One. I think we’ve made an error, sir. I’ve been waiting three hours, and the V.C. haven’t shown.” I was depressed, really, till it began to register that we had caused so much noise that—the V.C. must know I’m here. Jesus Christ. They must be sneaking up. And then I was terror struck, and I grabbed for the radio. One of my two choices was to call up Medina and say, “Sir, I think the enemy blew it. I’m coming in.” I didn’t think of the second choice till I grabbed the radio and I said, “Charlie Four! Charlie Four!” That was the mortar platoon. “This is Charlie One.”

“Roger, Charlie One. What you got?”

“I’ve got a fire mission! Give me continuous illumination.”

“Roger, Charlie One.”

From then on I had continuous flares over me. High yellow flares—I had never seen anything like it! I could see around for miles, of course everyone for miles around could also see me. I had those flares for, I guess about an hour and a half until—

“Charlie One. This is Charlie Six.” It was Captain Medina.

“Ah—Charlie Six? This is Charlie One.”

“Charlie One. What in the goddamn hell are you doing out there?”

“Charlie Six. Sir, it’s a dark and a rainy night and—”

“You nitwit. You are without a doubt the stupidest second lieutenant on the face of this earth.”

“Yes sir! I know sir! I am stupid sir! What should I do?”

“Turn off them goddamned lights.” Then the Captain said to the mortar platoon, “Charlie Four? Did you roger that?”

“Roger.”

And four hours later the sun came up. The night had been just a comedy of errors, but it didn’t matter much: we weren’t dead, and we had lived and learned. Soon if I called artillery in I wouldn’t always say, “Grid—Proximity—Azimuth—” I could sometimes say, “Hey! I am here and I want artillery there! Savvy?” And they would answer me, “Roger!” The second time I took an ambush out, I knew how to do it. From that day on, I pulled ambushes every other night.

But there is where the depression set in. After my second, my third, my fourth, my fifth, my tenth, my twelfth, my twentieth ambush, I still hadn’t had any V.C. in my killing zone. I had had perfect ambush sites, too! I couldn’t keep my troops awake or their spirits up any longer—then the depression started. I asked myself, What am I pulling ambushes for? I hadn’t met any V.C. troops in daylight, either. What am I running patrols for? Or searching for? Or humping for? What did I have sixteen months of training for? Charlie was made for fighting! Charlie was made for war! Charlie was combat infantrymen: we want to fight!

We first met the Vietnamese people by Carrington. One thousand kids, out to solicit the laundry business when we were standing guard on a Vietnamese highway bridge. All of my G.I.’s loved them! Gave the kids candy, cookies, chewing gum, everything. Not me—I didn’t trust them. I had promised myself, I’ll act as if I’m never secure here. I was afraid of Vietnamese kids. I’d heard enough of kids putting things in a gasoline tank or a G.I.’s hooch. Same as I was afraid of Vietnamese prostitutes (I’ll come to the prostitutes soon), but no, I was more afraid of Vietnamese kids because we had thousands there. And these little kids had been around. They realized, What can a G.I. do to us? Merely to spank them was an assault on a Vietnamese national, and to scream—well, it couldn’t hurt much. My orders were no Vietnamese on the bridge, so I would radio the colonel when his helicopter came by us, “Sir, I’m keeping them off the best I can.” I had my ass chewed once by Captain Medina. I was taking a nap when somebody said, “Ah—the captain’s outside, sir. He wants you.” I thought, What in god’s hell, but I went outside to Medina’s jeep and I said, “Yes sir?”

Medina said, “Go back in. Get dressed.” I had been naked, so I went and I put a towel on.

“Yes sir. What is it?”

“Kids. All over the bridge.”

“Sir, I can’t keep them off day and—”

“Are you an officer of the United States Army?”

“Yes sir.”

“And can you control your men?”

“Yes sir—”

Which wasn’t true, it turned out. Because the men loved those kids and I couldn’t encourage them not to. I couldn’t make the G.I.’s believe, They’re bad. And they’re going to harm us. Because the kids would help us so: shine shoes and do laundry, everything. And promise us, “I friend.” And sell us Coca-Cola. And teach us in Vietnamese, “I love you,” “Where are the V.C.?” “Are you V.C.?” Those energetic kids, I never saw anything like it except in Vietnam. My troops would tell me, “God, Lieutenant! Why do you want to stop it? Eighteen years in the United States and I’ve never had anyone say to me, I friend.”

So, I said to Medina, “Yes sir, I can control these men.” I saluted, Medina saluted, and I went to where the G.I.’s were. I told them, “One little son of a bitch is going to drop a grenade one day,” and I went to my bunker again and I went to sleep. How can an Army officer enforce it? Give a guy an article fifteen? Take a P.F.C. stripe away?

Prostitutes, too, I had orders on from higher headquarters. Which said if the “boomboom girls” try to solicit us, I was to quickly shoo (I think that was it verbatim—shoo) the girls from the bridge, we were not to associate with the Vietnamese girls. A mother might hold the Army responsible or a congressman might say, “This officer is giving his soldiers puss*. It isn’t right.”

I told it to my platoon same as I’d heard it. I said, “You’re members of the United States Army. And by the laws of the United States—” How did I phrase it? “Prostitution’s illegal. And prostitutes come to this bridge at approximately 1800—”

“Yay! Bring on the prostitutes!”

“No one,” I said, “is to prosper the business of the prostitutes. Is that understood?”

It wasn’t, of course. Face it: most every guy in America, the average guy is looking for puss*. To buy it, cheat it, steal it, get it however possible. What can an Army officer do about it? Announce—? “There will be girls in. And they’ll be starving. And they’ll be telling you, My mother, my father, my sister, my brother is starving too. And they’ll be selling it, guys, and if you touch it you’ll get an article fifteen. Or a summary court.” Say if you send every second man in your platoon to Leavenworth. You realize, Gee, I’ve got twenty people now. I’m going around at half strength. I say if a little puss* keeps my platoon together, a little puss* they’ve got.

At twilight two of the boomboom girls came by. Dressed up and heavily made up like they’re going to god knows where: the rouge on, the powder caked on, the typical whor*. One girl, one of her front two teeth wath mithing and she talked like thith. She looked stupefied, like a girl walking around with a question or looking for the number of the truck that hit her, I don’t know. She was a dumb-looking ugly broad. The other one was fairly flamboyant, though. They had a couple of “dink” or whatever you call the Vietnamese straw hats and a Honda fifty to ride on. A pimp in Italian shoes was driving it and was telling guys, “Forty dollars.”

The troops were trying to act natural about it. Cool. What is the word? Blasé. As if, They’ll be extremely lucky if I sleep with them. I can have any girl in Asia, but I could hear the commotion and I went outside. I asked a sergeant, “Where are the bridge guards now?”

He said, “They’re with the boomboom girls.”

I said, “Get them back on the bridge.” Then, I broke the party up. I said, “Guys! You’ve been in the woods awhile. And you’re a little horny now. But forty dollars! Don’t be damned fools!” As it happened, the pimp was angry: the troops had been riding his Honda around, and after he got it back he left us. The boomboom girls too.

Pretty soon, up to us came three other motorbikes, six other boomboom girls, and a mamasan: a madam. I was inside again but I heard the bidding. And the bitching. And the haggling. And everything, and I just couldn’t take it. Remember: my troops are old enough to fight, they’re old enough to vote, or should be, they’re old enough to make money and to spend it. And some, they’ll be dead in a month—so I went and I said, “Okay, mamasan. You want twenty dollars. I have twenty soldiers. One dollar one G.I.”

She said, “No no.”

I said, “One dollar every time.”

She said, “No no—” We compromised on $4 every man. All the girls all night.

So there were—let’s see. Two girls apiece in two of the bunkers—no, one girl apiece in two of the bunkers. And two girls apiece in two of the bunkers, right? And the mamasan—well, I had relieved a Negro lieutenant here and he had briefed me. “She doesn’t screw. But do you know? She is all right. She is just twenty-eight. And she stays in the command bunker. Yours.”

I was supposed to be honorable then. Okay, and I invited the mamasan in. The command bunker didn’t have any chairs, only a pair of double-decker bunks made out of ammunition cans on top of P.S.P. The runway stuff. But being shy of a G.I.’s beds, the mamasan sat on a Vietnamese mat on the bunker’s floor. She wore a Saigon, a long white gown and a white pair of pants underneath it. Some paraffin in a C-ration can formed sort of a chandelier, and it illuminated her. A very beautiful woman.

I said, “My name is Rusty.”

She said, “My name Susie.”

I said, “Do you live around here?” I admit it, I’m shy about girls. I’ve got to ask silly questions if I meet one at a co*cktail party back in Miami. “Do you live in Miami?” “Yeah.” “Well gee. What part of Miami?” “The Shores.” “Well gee. Do you work in Miami? Or do you always run to New York—” Stupid questions. Same as I asked of Susie in the bunker then, but I didn’t care: I wanted to break the ice. Susie had already asked me to sit on the floor with her, and I had jumped to it! I figured, It could be the first step. I confess I wanted to sleep with her: I was trying to.

Outside, I would hear my G.I.’s get a little too rowdy, a little rambunctious. I would get up (I kept my R.T.O., my radio telephone operator, inside, of course) and I would go outside and say, “Everything in moderation. We’re in Vietnam and we aren’t raising hell at Coney Island.” Other times, I would go see if the bridge guards were on. And once—well, I said to Susie, “Cigarette?” I had my Camels across on some ammunition crates, and I started to get up. She being a Vietnamese she jumped up and right up into the C-ration paraffin can. It spilled, and Susie said, “Ow—” “Oi—” “Oh—” something in Vietnamese and hurried out. I followed her.

Susie was at the river: she was kneeling there and letting her hair in and rinsing all the paraffin out. Or trying to, because, of course, it just became solid lumps, and Susie had to return to the bunker to try instead with a cheap plastic comb. Remember how if you’re at a swimming pool and a girl’s putting suntan oil on? You go up? You help rub it on? This combing sort of gave me an in. At first, Susie was hesitant (it isn’t a Vietnamese custom that a man should comb a woman’s hair), but I sat down beside her and I began. I felt I had great compassion for Susie. I wanted to move closer, to kiss her and caress her—if she would let me, certainly. Then one of Susie’s girls ran in saying a G.I. had hit her. Had popped her one. I asked the trooper, “Did you?”

“Hell no! But she wouldn’t screw for us.”

“I do one time all G.I.! No do two time all G.I.!”

“Enough is enough,” I told him.

“We want our twenty dollars then!”

“No no no—”

Finally, I suppose that Susie told her, “You’ve got to screw the G.I.’s again.” And when everyone left us, Susie leaned over and up against me. I put my arm around her, I just smoked a cigarette and I was in bliss!

Then my R.T.O. said, “Well. I’m just about ready to go to sleep.”

I said, “It’s getting late.”

He said, “Inside the bunker is awfully warm, I figure. I’ll sleep outside.”

I said to Susie, “Sleep?”

She rested her hands on her cheek in a praying position: sleep. She took an air mattress down—the other was on the floor already, and Susie then lined them up. I got my poncho liner down, and I got another one for Susie. And we lay down together. And we made love.

After that we talked. But oh—! To get an idea across to each other would take us hours, practically! Did you ever try to talk seriously with a girl whose entire vocabulary was “You G.I.,” “You number one,” “You number ten”? Or to pantomime a philosophy with a girl whose philosophy is unlike yours? Susie would say to me, “You no like V.C. Why?” I would tell her the V.C. are bad, and Susie would say, “V.C. no hurt me, V.C. no hurt you.” Or she would say, “You nice to V.C., he nice to you.” I would tell her the V.C. are bad for the Vietnamese people, and Susie would say, “Same same! V.C. Vietnamese. Vietnamese V.C.” All right, so I would say the V.C. are Communists and Susie would just say, “No bit—no understand.” Susie had never heard of communism or democracy. What could I do about it? Tell her, in a democracy the Vietnamese would be able to choose—no, I wouldn’t say it! What if she answered me, “Well, I choose communism.” Then what am I to do? Kill her? Capture her? Because if she is a Communist, that’s what my duty is.

Sometimes now, I sit down and cry, I really do. Even in Roman times—in Roman movies, the Romans would go and talk to their enemies. Me, I went to Vietnam. I looked at those people there, I looked in their eyes, I listened to their philosophy. And just couldn’t counter it. I couldn’t answer it. I’d be shut off as soon as someone said, “No bit.” I’d sit and I’d have a platoon there and I’d know, I can’t talk to this man. Or woman. Or child (I can’t talk to a twelve-year-old in America even). I can’t talk his language. I don’t know his customs. And yet—I’ve got to convince him that the Communists are bad. Because if I can’t, I was taught that he will become a Communist too: he will become my enemy. And god—! Even the Good Book, the Bible, says, “You shall destroy your enemy.” It wouldn’t be long before I would know, No, I can’t communicate with you. And you already know how it ended.

I gave $20 to Susie. The party was over, and at dawn we got back to being soldiers again.

We had a briefing in January. Medina said we would be moving north that day: we would be Charlie company of a Task Force Barker. Medina said, “There will be action up there.”

It raised our morale! When the convoy left, the G.I.’s were laughing and throwing the kids their rations and whistling and yelling at Vietnamese girls, “Boomboom!” I was sitting up front in the second truck and thinking, I’ll be seeing the enemy now—I was excited. We would be going one hundred kilometers north to a new landing zone. Our mission would be: get established there, and then destroy the V.C. in Mylai 1. Medina had said for twenty-five years the village had been in V.C. hands. The last soldiers ever to get inside it were the French. No—were the Japanese. No—

I’m sorry, I’m not myself today. I didn’t think that I’d be uptight about it, talking about it. I thought, I’ve gone to Vietnam and I’ve come back. I shouldn’t have any hang-up about it. But after talking about it yesterday, I don’t know. I thought about it. I couldn’t sleep. My country accuses me of slaughtering innocent people. Even the President calls it a massacre. I lay there and I asked myself, My god, who are they talking about? I only know, I went to Vietnam and I did my job there the best I could. I even asked myself why did I do it? Why didn’t I stand on a corner like everyone else and say, “I won’t go. It’s wrong.”

I don’t know. I’m only a man who’s been put together with a few philosophies. I was sent to Vietnam with the absolute philosophy that the U.S.A.’s right. And there was no grey and white, no grey and beige, no green or other colors—there was just black or white, and I was sent to kill an enemy because his philosophy was wrong. I personally made no assault on anyone in Vietnam, personally. I represented my country, and I obeyed it. One thing about my court-martial is, I’ll be learning things. What is a massacre? An atom bomb on Hiroshima isn’t a massacre, but a hundred people’s a massacre: I don’t understand. What was my mission there? Was it to find, to close with, and to destroy the V.C.? Then what is a V.C.? Is a man with a hand grenade a V.C.? Someone who houses him, is that a V.C.? Someone who makes him a hand grenade? I’m home now and I hear people saying here, “Everyone there is a V.C.!” Are these people right? Maybe so. I hear people screaming here, “Stop the war! Stop the war!” Are they right? Maybe so.

It’s odd. Soldiers are never tried for a war crime unless they’ve lost the war. Maybe that is an indication we’ve lost it, I don’t know. I’ve had a thousand thoughts on this coming trial: if I’m depressed, if I’m worried, if I’m really uptight, I think, Damn! What if I tell everyone what I did and nobody believes it? And says, “You’re a lowlife killer! You should die!” But other times I think, I’ve been charged. If the Army should find me guilty—hell, it can’t hurt me any worse, it can’t make me cry or embarrass me or make me scream any louder. If people are worthless enough to hang me, forget it. I don’t know how I’d be being hanged: crying like a child, probably, I don’t know. I’d love to be brave, and I’ve had times when I see myself on the gallows saying, “Well, screw you!” Then going through, and my last echoing word in the courtyard is “Geronimo.” Gulp, and that’s it.

Gee, I wish I had a pat vocabulary, I’m doing such a poor job now. If only my jaw would react to my brain or—! I’ve visions, sometimes, of making my point, of showing that I’m just a finger, a fragment, of a Frankenstein monster, just a probe that is being pushed back in people’s faces. But if I can’t say it right—well, I would just as soon forget it. One question, though, is, can this trial come to anything good? I haven’t thought about it before. This is spontaneous, but I’d like it if there was a revolution of thinking. I’d like all Americans to look at the blacks, the Jews, the Mongols—the rest of the world, and say, “When it comes down to living and dying, what in the hell do I have that’s better?” In Vietnam, I used to pick up our propaganda and crumple it up. It’s for the Vietnamese but it practically says, The Stars and Stripes forever. Honeysuckle forever! Lie on the beaches forever! You can do anything as soon as the war’s over! You can be—Bull! A farmer in Asia, he doesn’t want to be any nuclear scientist. He has a water buffalo, and he wants to plow a little land to support his family, that’s all. For a Vietnamese with a paddy of rice, would communism be bad for him? Communism probably wouldn’t hurt him a damned bit! Compared to a war—communism could be a godsend.

A revolution of thinking: I’m optimistic about it. We’re a brave nation. We’ve so much to live for. And we’ll say, “Okay, we believe this. And if you don’t, fine. Let us live happily.” I see it so vividly! Yes, I can see it happening. Yes, I can see it coming.