Word: calley
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West, a squad leader in a platoon commanded by Lieut. Jeffrey La Cross, followed Calley's platoon into My Lai. "Everyone was shooting," he says. "Some of the huts were torched. Some of the yanigans [his term for young soldiers] were shooting kids." In the confusion, he claims, it was hard to tell "mama-sans from papa-sans," since both wear black pajamas and conical hats. He and his squad helped round up the women and children. When one of his men protested that "I can't shoot these people," West told him to turn the group over to Captain...
Another soldier in the group following Calley's was SP4 Varnado Simpson, 22. "Everyone who went into the village had in mind to kill," he says. "We had lost a lot of buddies and it was a V.C. stronghold. We considered them either V.C. or helping the V.C." His platoon approached from the left flank. "As I came up on [the village], there was a woman, a man and a child, running away from it toward some huts. So I told them in their language to stop, and then they didn't and I had orders to shoot them down...
...detailed account came from Paul David Meadlo, 22, a member of Calley's platoon. As they walked toward the village, he told CBS, "there was one gook in a shelter, he was all huddled down in there?an older man. And Sergeant Mitchell hollered, 'Shoot him.' And so the man shot him." (Sergeant David Mitchell, 29, one of Galley's squadron leaders, has been charged with assault with intent to commit murder, but a court-martial has not yet been ordered.) Meadlo says his group ran through My Lai, herding men, women, children and babies into the center...
...Lieut. Calley came over and said...
...people, and we had about seven or eight, and we put them in the hootch and then we dropped a hand grenade in there with them. And then they had about 70-75 people all gathered up by a ravine, so we threw ours in with them and Lieut. Calley told me, 'Meadlo, we got another job to do.' And so he walked over to the people, and he started pushing them off and started shooting. We just pushed them all off and just started using automatics on them...