“This is my business,” Calley said. “We’ve got our orders.”
“Orders? Whose orders?”
“I’ve got my orders, Thompson, and you’ve got yours. Intel tags all these people as the enemy—”
“Intel? Tell me, Lieutenant, have you never known intel to be dead wrong before?”
“I told you, I’ve got my orders! Now get the hell out of here so we can damn well do our job!”
“You ain’t heard the last of this,” Thompson spat, heading back for the radio in his aircraft.
When the helicopter had taken off again, Calley walked up to Campbell and the others, and he said, “Now, men, let’s do what we came here to do.”
? ? ?
More than any other detail in those next minutes, Campbell remembered the feel of pulling the trigger—the unholy ease of it. He hadn’t been the first to start shooting all those people—grandmothers and grandfathers, women and boys and girls, almost no one of fighting age at all—but once he’d brought himself to make that one small motion with his right-hand index finger, the hardest part was behind him. From then on he killed efficiently and without hesitation.
As people died and fell to the ground there was nowhere for the others to run. Many began to jump down into the drainage ditch, some shielding their children with their own bodies. A few started forward, pleading, their arms outstretched as if they could stop the bullets with their hands. They were cut down like all the others.
When his ammo ran out, Campbell knelt to reload, then stood again and stepped to the edge of the ditch to scan for survivors. Each time he saw movement, he fired.
At last the ditch grew quiet; a still sea of arms and legs and bodies and faces with empty, staring eyes. Morgan Campbell looked around when it seemed like it was over and realized he was the only soldier remaining at his post and ready to fire.
It appeared that some of the men had put down their weapons and refused Calley’s orders. Others seemed to have simply fled the area. Another dozen or so were following the lieutenant as he chased a small group of villagers that had somehow been missed in the sweep of the town.
Campbell followed them, watching the pursuit. The survivors ran toward a bunker with the small contingent of Charlie Company in hot pursuit.
Campbell caught up just as the Vietnamese disappeared underground. Calley called out for his grenadiers to advance on the bunker, and that’s when Hugh Thompson landed his helicopter again, right between the soldiers and their unarmed, fleeing prey.
Thompson’s door-gunners unharnessed their machine guns and stepped out, facing their fellow Americans. It was a standoff; neither side took aim, but neither side looked like it was going to back down, either. And then the unarmed pilot walked out between all those guns and made an announcement.
“I’m going to go over to that bunker, now,” Thompson shouted, so all the soldiers could hear him clearly, “and I’m going to fly those civilians out of here myself. And Lieutenant, if you make a move to shoot them or me, by God you’d better be ready to take the consequences!”
Campbell continued to watch as three, then seven, then maybe fifteen people were brought out of the bunker. It was far too many to fit into his helo, but Hugh Thompson wasn’t going to leave anyone behind. He called down a pair of gunships to help ferry the group away.
Then, as he was departing, Thompson made one last pass over the drainage ditch. He hovered low, and Morgan Campbell saw the gunners jump down and wade into all that death and gore to pull a small boy, alive, from the depths of the mountain of bodies.
It wasn’t until that moment that he understood what he had done. What they’d all done.
Campbell dropped to his knees, numb from the realization, gritted his teeth, and grabbed the barrel of his M60 with his bare right hand. The metal was still hot as a branding iron from all the killing he’d done. He held on tight, his skin burning to the bone, until the pain overcame him and finally swept his consciousness away.
Tuttle-Woods Convalescent Home
Camden, New Jersey
March 16, 2008
Except for the storm outside, the room was quiet again. Morgan Campbell had stopped talking, as though he’d reached a moment in the retelling of his past that he didn’t wish to venture beyond.
“And what happened next?” Julia Geller asked.
Campbell blinked a time or two.
“Next?”
“Yes. What happened to everyone?”
The old man answered slowly, as though each detail required a deeper search of his failing memory.
“They covered it up, that’s what happened next. They told us to shut up about My Lai, and then they sent all of us up into the highlands, the real dangerous country. We were up there, cut off from civilization, for fifty-eight days. I don’t think they wanted any of us who’d been part of the mission to ever come back.
“Same for Hugh Thompson. After they debriefed him they sent him out to one of the worst hellholes possible. He was shot down five times. The last crash broke his back. But Hugh had already raised such a stink that they had to investigate. Colonel Henderson handled the job himself. Surprise, surprise, it was a total whitewash. After a month his people issued their verdict: Only twenty civilians had been killed in My Lai that day, not four or five hundred. All twenty had apparently died by accident.
“It took more than a year before the American press got enough real information to take notice, and then the military finally had to take some real action. The first truth to come out was that our intel for that day had been completely wrong. The morning we came into My Lai the entire Forty-Eighth VC Battalion that we were supposed to wipe out was camped one hundred and fifty miles away.”
“There were trials and convictions,” Julia said. “I remember that much. What happened to everyone?”
“Captain Medina was brought up on charges,” Campbell said, “but F. Lee Bailey did for him what he later helped do for O. J. Simpson, and he got off with hardly a hitch. The heart of his defense was that he’d never given any orders to kill civilians.
“Calley was found guilty on twenty-two counts of premeditated murder and it caused an uproar among some. Jimmy Carter was the governor of Georgia at the time and he asked people to drive with their lights on for a week in protest of the verdict. George Wallace flew up from Alabama to visit Calley in the stockade and petition for a presidential pardon. State legislatures across the country made resolutions and requests for clemency.
“They handed down a life sentence for Calley, but a few days later Nixon intervened on his behalf and had him transferred to Fort Benning for a term of house arrest in a two-bedroom apartment. Three years later he was released for time served.
“I’m not sure if anyone was ever punished, not really—except for Hugh Thompson. Some congressman tried to get him court-martialed. He held a press conference and said that Hugh Thompson was the only one at My Lai that day who should be charged with a crime. Hugh got death threats and hate mail, and people drove by and threw dead animals onto his front porch.
It was thirty years before anyone in power ever bothered to officially call Hugh Thompson a hero and a patriot for what he did. In 1998 they gave him and his crew the Soldier’s Medal. That’s the highest award the U.S. Army can give for bravery in action not involving direct contact with the enemy.”
“And what about you?” Julia asked quietly.
“What about me?” Campbell repeated. His voice was weak; it was like he was fading away from where he’d been.
“Yes, Mr. Campbell. What happened to you?”
“I got off, all right.” He struggled against his restraints. “But don’t you see? I never really got away.”
? ? ?
Later that night, Everly Davison hung up his uniform, walked out, and never came into work again.
He watched the newspaper for days afterward, but Julia Geller’s story never appeared. When he called her up to ask about it, she told him that her editor had turned it down, saying there was nothing new in Morgan Campbell’s story, and certainly nothing that the paper’s dwindling audience would be very interested in reading about. In its place they ran a puff piece about some local beauty pageant for rich little girls and their pampered mothers.
That should have been the end of it, but something was sticking in Everly’s mind.
He kept thinking about Hugh Thompson, and the truth, and about doing the right thing, no matter if it meant you might never live it down. He thought of that old woman who’d died at the hands of those storm troopers for hire, of the guard who’d spoken up and been fired, and of the promotion he’d taken as a result.
Everly Davison picked the phone back up and called Julia Geller. He told her that he had an idea for another story, one that, if there was any justice left in this world, might just make the front page.
12
The Missing 9/11 Terrorist: The Power of Everyday Heroes
Orlando International Airport
August 4, 2001
Jose Melendez-Perez stood and observed the first row of customs agents screening passengers seeking admittance to the United States. From afar it all seemed pretty routine: Name, passport, nature of trip. Then give them a stamp and let them through. But Melendez-Perez knew better. This job was far from routine.
He checked his watch, his eyeglasses slipping a little down his angular nose. He stroked his salt-and-pepper mustache and reflected on how his job was not unlike combat: moments of extreme intensity, followed by long periods of quiet during which even the best were challenged to maintain their focus and discipline.
Seventeen hundred hours, he whispered to himself. After two combat tours in Vietnam and twenty-six years in the U.S. Army, Melendez-Perez found no need to transition to “civilian time.” His life was about protecting the United States of America—be it with a gun in some far-off land, or with a badge right here within shouting distance of one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.
The muted television in the operations center was tuned to Fox News. The big stories of the day played out in a seemingly endless loop: large protests at the G-8 Summit in Genoa; Robert Mueller confirmed as FBI director two days earlier; a small car bomb attack in London, perpetrated by the IRA. The biggest news seemed to be about President Bush’s recent visit to Kosovo and NATO’s commitment to send peacekeeping troops to Macedonia to quell a Muslim uprising in the former Yugoslav republic.
Melendez-Perez thought back to the recent security briefings. There had been a few warnings in the aftermath of the G-8 Summit, but nothing that warranted a state of heightened security.
Melendez-Perez’s supervisor walked over and handed him a file. “Got a Saudi. No English. Incomplete I-94 and Customs Declaration. You got secondary.”
Melendez-Perez nodded. “Roger,” he said.
Incomplete arrival or departure forms and customs declarations were not unusual—especially among those who didn’t speak much English.
Walking to the holding room, he rehearsed the usual process in his mind: question the traveler; check his credentials; determine his eligibility to be admitted into the United States. Question, check, determine eligibility. Routine, but important. Never one to be complacent, Melendez-Perez put on his game face and ran through his checklist of tasks.
First task: secure an interpreter. He looked up the on-call Arabic translator and saw that it was Dr. Shafik-Fouad. He called, explained the situation, and put him on standby. The next step was to review the subject’s information. Melendez-Perez opened the file and scanned the important details.
Mohammed al Qahtani had departed Dubai for London, checking one bag, before arriving here in Miami on Virgin Atlantic Flight 15. Melendez-Perez knew that many Saudi nationals connected from Riyadh or Dubai through London in order to visit Disney World. Nothing unusual here, he thought, as he stepped into the small waiting room, quickly scanning the twelve faces to identify his subject.
“Mohammed al Qahtani,” he called, staring directly at the man who was the best match for the picture in the file.
Melendez-Perez watched as Qahtani lifted his dead eyes from gazing at the floor and locked his black irises onto him. The subject wore a black, long-sleeved shirt, black pants, black shoes, and a black belt with a silver buckle. He had a wild black mane, thin facial hair, broad shoulders, and a scowl that could probably melt ice.
“Please follow me,” Melendez-Perez said, indicating the way with his hand. He led Qahtani to a small room that resembled an interrogation cell, but he left the door open. The illusion of free will, he thought as he ushered the Saudi into the room.
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Three months earlier: May 11, 2001
Mohammed al Qahtani dug his foot into the sand like a bull about to charge a matador. His basic training instructor stood nearby with a stopwatch. Qahtani’s heart raced with anticipation.
“Thalatha, ithnan, wahed . . .” Three, two, one . . .
Qahtani sprinted toward the mud pit covered in barbed wire—navigating it with ease, spitting grit as he charged forward to the rope climb. His powerful shoulders and long arms helped him scale the wall in record time as he flipped over the backside and high-stepped through a series of old tires.
Qahtani knew that he was on a record pace, and, if he finished that way, he would likely be chosen to go the front lines to fight the Northern Alliance. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to demonstrate his personal courage and fervent dedication to Islam.
After that it would be up to his commanders to decide if he would be chosen for another mission—one that had been whispered about in tents and caves for a long time, but one that no one outside of senior leadership seemed to know much about. Qahtani didn’t care about the details. If it was important to the cause, he wanted in.
Inshallah. God Willing.
Orlando International Airport
August 4, 2001
Melendez-Perez leaned across the small gray table and put Dr. Shafik-Fouad on speakerphone. At the sound of the interpreter’s voice Qahtani smirked, as though a familiar accent implied he had an ally.
“On the phone is Dr. Shafik-Fouad. He is our interpreter. I am Officer Melendez-Perez of United States Immigration and I am empowered to ask questions of you so that we may determine whether you are able to be admitted to the United States.”
Melendez-Perez waited while Shafik-Fouad translated. Qahtani’s icy stare remained steady, as though he were a boxer attempting to intimidate his opponent.
“Why don’t you have a return ticket?” Melendez-Perez asked.
Qahtani stood and pointed his finger at the immigration agent.
“I have no idea where I am going next. How can I buy return ticket when I don’t know where I will be?”