THERE is little in the life of William Laws Calley Jr., whom G.I.s of his old Americal Division now refer to noncommittally as "that lieutenant." to suggest that he would become the focal figure of controversy in so horrible a nightmare as the My Lai massacre. To his hometown friends in Miami, he has always been known as "Rusty," for his reddish-tinged brown hair. He was born in Miami 26 years ago, and grew up with his three sisters in a two-story stucco house in the city's northeastern section. Mrs. Arnold Minkley, who lived across the street from the Galleys for several years, remembers Rusty: "He was a wonderful boy, and would do anything for you."
To another neighbor, Karl Zaret, Rusty was "a good kid." Zaret adds: "I believe Rusty was just carrying out orders. The boy I knew respected his parents. He listened to what they said. He was a very reserved, quiet boy and very cooperative." Rusty's father, a Navy veteran, sold heavy construction equipment, and business was good. The Calleys had a vacation house in North Carolina, and in high school Rusty had his own car. He was too small for varsity sports —even now he stands only 5 ft. 3 in. and weighs 130 Ibs.—but he spent a good deal of time at sandlot football, water-skiing and skin diving.
Rusty left Miami for two years at Georgia Military Academy, but returned to graduate from Miami's Edison High School. His best subjects were government and English history. Rusty was on the debating team, and he was popular enough with his classmates to be elected .to the prestigious Mike and Mask Club. He dated regularly, dressed well, drank beer with his buddies and kept things moving in any group. "He'd come up with things quickly at the right time to make people laugh," says Rick Smith, an Edison classmate. There was a deeper side. Another high school friend, Chuck Queen, calls Calley "a moral character" and "compassionate."
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After Rusty left high school, things did not go so well. He quit Palm Beach Junior College in Lake Worth after a year, dropping out with two Cs, one D and four Fs in his seven courses. "It just seemed like the 13th year in high school," Calley says now. He had an ulcer at 19. After he left college, he worked as a hotel bellhop, then a restaurant dishwasher. He became a strikebreaking switchman on the Florida East Coast railroad; soon he was promoted to freight-train conductor and earning as much as $300 a week with overtime. He once got demerits for letting several cars get loose from a locomotive and smash into a loading ramp. Still, a Florida East Coast terminal superintendent says: "He was a hard worker. I'd like to have him back."
During this time, Calley's father's business was slowing down and his mother became mortally ill with cancer. The father, a diabetic whose health was also failing, was forced to sell the family house in Miami and move to the North Carolina cabin. Rusty stayed on in Florida. Once he and Chuck Queen flew up to visit the Calleys. "He was upset about it," Queen recalls. "It was a bad situation, but Rusty kept it within him." Young Calley always seemed calm and even-tempered. "I can't ever remember him getting mad," says Rick Smith. "He never let things faze him too much."