When military members murder
prisoners, they are committing a crime!

918. ARTICLE 118. Murder

Case Law    "Just Following Orders?"   
U.S. service members take an oath to uphold the Constitution. In addition, under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial, service members must obey lawful orders and disobey unlawful orders. Unlawful orders are those that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution, international human rights standards or the Geneva Conventions.

Service members who follow an illegal order can be held liable and court-martialed or subject to prosecution by international tribunals. Following orders from a superior is no defense.

Our poll, fielded between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that service members understand these rules. Of the 818 active-duty troops we surveyed, just 9% stated that they would “obey any order.” Only 9% “didn’t know,” and only 2% had “no comment.”

Orders that clearly break international law, such as targeting non-combatants, are not just illegal — they’re immoral. As military personnel, we have a duty to uphold the law and refuse commands that betray that duty.

• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• United States v. Keenan[1] was a court case in the United States where the accused, US Marine PFC Charles W. Keenan, was found guilty of murder after he shot and killed a Vietnamese man[2] under orders from a superior officer. The Court of Military Appeals held that following orders was not a justification if "the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal".[2] The soldier who gave Keenan the order, US Marine Corporal Stanley Luczko, was convicted of killing another Vietnamese person during the same incident.[2] The case gained renewed attention in 2025 as part of a controversy over the issue of following unlawful orders.[3]
• US soldier pleads guilty to murdering bound Iraqi prisoner
• Fran Yeoman in Berlin
• Tuesday March 31 2009, 1.00am BST, The Times
• An American army sergeant faces up to 35 years in prison after admitting his involvement in the summary executions of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners.
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• US Sergeant First Class Joseph Mayo told a court martial in Vilseck, southern Germany, that he thought the shootings were in the best interests of his troops because he feared the prisoners would attack them if released.
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• The 27-year-old and fellow soldiers killed the four men with pistol shots to the head before pushing their bodies into a Baghdad canal in spring 2007 after fatal attacks on their patrol. His lawyer claimed that American troops on the ground in Iraq received insufficient support but military prosecutors said Mayo had demonstrated a “total lack of moral courage”.
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• Mayo, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, told his court martial at the US Army’s Rose Barracks that he was guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Asked by the judge whether he thought he had the authority to shoot the prisoners, he replied: “I thought it was in the best interests of my soldiers.”
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• American military law forbids harming enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody. Mayo was one of seven soldiers who were initially implicated in the case, although charges against two have now been dropped and one of three non-commissioned officers to face trial for murder. Sergeant Michael Leahy, an army medic and co-defendant, was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole last month. Master Sergeant John Hatley, the most senior soldier to be charged, is due to face a court martial in Vilseck on April 13. He also faces similar charges “stemming from a separate incident that occurred in early January 2007,” a US army statement said.
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  My Lai massacre  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  
• (Redirected from My Lai Massacre)
• "My Lai" redirects here. For the documentary, see My Lai (film).
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• Thảm sát Mỹ Lai
• Part of the Vietnam War
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• Photo taken by U.S. Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle in the aftermath of the massacre, showing mostly women and children dead on a road— famously used in the "and babies" poster[1]
• Map
• Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
• Interactive map of My Lai massacre
• Thảm sát Mỹ Lai
• Location 15°10′42″N 108°52′10″E
• Sơn Mỹ village, Sơn Tịnh district, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam
• Date 16 March 1968 (57 years ago)
• Target Mỹ Lai 4 and Mỹ Khe 4 hamlets
• Attack type Massacre, war rape, torture
• Deaths
• Vietnamese government lists 504 killed in both Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khe
• United States Army lists 347 (not including Mỹ Khe killings)
• Perpetrators United States Armed Forces
• C Company
• 1st Battalion
• 20th Infantry Regiment
• B Company
• 4th Battalion
• 3rd Infantry Regiment
• 23rd Infantry Division
• Defenders Hugh Thompson Jr., Lawrence Colburn, Glenn Andreotta
• Convictions Premeditated murder (22 counts), assault with intent to murder
• Sentence Life imprisonment; commuted to three years' house arrest by President Richard Nixon
• Convicted William Calley
• vte
• Mass killings during the Vietnam War
• The My Lai massacre (/miː laɪ/ MEE LY; Vietnamese: Thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰâːm ʂǎːt mǐˀ lāːj] ⓘ) was a United States war crime committed on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of unarmed civilians in Sơn Mỹ village, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War.[2] At least 347 and up to 504 civilians, almost all women, children, and elderly men, were murdered by U.S. Army soldiers from C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade and B Company, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (Americal) Division (organized as part of Task Force Barker). Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children as young as 12.[3][4] The incident was the largest massacre of civilians by U.S. forces in the 20th century.[5] This extension allows editing the code of block in the app. Also, it's possible to add code to the head and body parts of pages.