William Calley, who led the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, has died: NPR

Lt. William L. Calley, Jr., pictured here during his court-martial at Fort Benning, Georgia, on April 23, 1971. Calley, who as an Army lieutenant led the U.S. soldiers who killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre, the most notorious war crime in modern American military history, died April 28 at a hospice in Gainesville, Florida. The Washington Post reported on July 29. He was 80 years old.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. – William L. Calley Jr., the U.S. Army lieutenant who led U.S. soldiers who killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre, the most notorious war crime in modern American military history, has died. He was 80.

Calley died on April 28 at a hospice in Gainesville, Florida. The Washington Post reported Monday, citing his death certificate. The Florida Department of Health in Alachua County did not immediately respond to Associated Press requests for confirmation.

Calley had lived a life of obscurity in the decades since his court-martial conviction in 1971. He was the only one of the 25 men originally charged to be found guilty of the Vietnam War massacre.

On March 16, 1968, Calley led American soldiers from Charlie Company on a mission to confront an elite unit of their enemies, the Viet Cong. Instead, within a matter of hours, the soldiers killed 504 unresisting civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community.

The men were angry: Two days earlier, during a Charlie Company patrol, a sergeant had been killed by a booby trap, a GI had been blinded, and several others had been injured.

Soldiers eventually testified before the U.S. Army Commission of Inquiry that the killings began soon after Calley led the first platoon of Charlie Company into My Lai that morning. Some were bayoneted to death. Families were herded into bomb shelters and killed with hand grenades. Other civilians were massacred in a sewage ditch. Women and girls were gang raped.

News of the massacre did not become public until more than a year later. And although the My Lai massacre was the most notorious massacre in modern US military history, it was no exception: it is estimated that between one and two million civilians were killed during the US ground war in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973.

Three decades of U.S. military records detail 300 other cases that could reasonably be described as war crimes. The My Lai case stood out because of the shocking number of deaths in a single day, the sickening photographs and the gruesome details revealed by an investigation at the highest levels of the U.S. military.

Calley was convicted in 1971 of murdering 22 people during the rampage. He was sentenced to life in prison, but only served three days because President Richard Nixon ordered a reduction in his sentence. He spent three years under house arrest.

After his release, Calley remained in Columbus and found employment at his father-in-law’s jewelry store before moving to Atlanta, where he avoided publicity and routinely declined interview requests from journalists.

Calley broke his silence in 2009 at the urging of a friend when he spoke to the Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Georgia, near Fort Benning, where he had been court-martialed.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley said, according to a report of the meeting published by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer“I feel sorry for the Vietnamese killed, their families, the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”

His mistake was following orders, he said. He used this to defend himself in court. His superior was acquitted.

William George Eckhardt, the lead prosecutor in the My Lai cases, said he had no knowledge of Calley ever apologizing before that 2009 appearance.

“It’s hard to apologize for the murder of so many people,” Eckhardt said. “But at least there is an admission of responsibility.”