Two years later, with the escalation in Vietnam, standards for enrollees changed and Calley-neither a valedictorian nor a troublemaker, just a fairly typical American young man trying to figure out what to do with his life-was called up.īefore the decade was over Second Lieutenant Calley would become one of the most controversial figures in the country, if not the world. After getting low grades and dropping out of Palm Beach Junior College, he tried to enlist in 1964, but was rejected because of a hearing defect. was never really meant to be an officer in the U.S.
