"The divergent views of Calley as a martyr by some and a murderer by others was reflective of a deeply divided U.S. citizenry, those for the war and those against it. Those who supported the war tended to see it as a means of stopping the spread of atheistic communism and protecting the people of South Vietnam from the oppression of a totalitarian government. Those who opposed it viewed it as variously a no-win war of attrition that was claiming the lives of tens of thousands of America's young men, an immoral war where hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians- ninety percent of whom were women and children- were being killed in bombing raids and through other means by military people from both sides wih callous disregard for the value of human life."
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Trent Angers, The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story (1999), p. 179
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Calley
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William Calley
William Laws Calley Jr. (June 8, 1943-April 28, 2024) is an American war criminal and a former United States Army officer convicted by court-martial for the premeditated killings of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the Mỹ Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley was released to house arrest under orders by President Richard Nixon three days after his conviction. A new trial was ordered by the [[w:United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit|
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