Could you have just reported this and left, knowing youd at least made an effort? The pilots were briefed, if the crew was briefed it was by the pilot in the aircraft on the way to the area. At first, I just felt shock. They killed everything. After My Lai, did you feel traumatized or feel like you carried a huge burden? Jon Wiener is professor emeritus of history at UC Irvine, and working, with Mike Davis, on a book on Los Angeles in the 1960s. %%EOF Hugh told me that was what was going through his mind, he was thinking of Nazi Germany, people digging trenches, forced to march into those trenches, mass graves.. Thompson told his crew, Im going to go over to the bunker myself and get these people out. He didnt have much support for decades. How did you and Hugh reconcile what you knew happened with the outpouring of public support for Calley and his men? Calley pointed his weapon at him and threatened him with a court-martial. Then he assumed the Army initiated an investigation. Glenn shouted, Hes firing into the ditch again!, How did Hugh react when reason failed? Ill have no part of this, Ill tear these wings off and never fly again! Fortunately, people calmed him down before he reported to Colonel Henderson. Then He Assassinated a US President. Hugh and I were skeptical in 01, so we asked him a lot of questions and he told us things only he could have known. Amid a flurry of corporate earnings releases and somewhat lackluster market activity last week, an important milestone went largely unnoticed. It went on like that for another year and half until finally they agreed to award medals to all of us. In unison, all three of us shouted, You son of a bitch! That was Captain Ernest Medina. On March 16, 1968, did you have any expectations of serious action? Thompson spent the rest of his life wondering if he could have saved more lives. Everywhere wed look, wed see bodies. So, how did you guys feel when you got the Soldiers Medals in 1998? At 8 years old, he made his way about 10 miles through the jungle by himself to the village. In mid-March 2022, posts about a warrant officer named Hugh Thompson and his role in the My Lai massacre circulated on social media, including a tweet describing that time period as the 50-year anniversary of that incident:. The only radio communication we had was with the low gunship. Hugh Thompson was a United States Army Major and a former warrant officer in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division who helped end the My Lai Massacre of the South Vietnamese village known as Sn M on March 16, 1968. He is still tiny, but he remembers everything. If Hugh knew that, it would have made everything he went through worthwhile for him. Among those numbers were 17 pregnant women and 56 infants. Testimony to the Truth He made some notes on a legal pad and excused me and I left. To see people herded up like so many animals, marched into a ditch and machine-gunned? Colburn said. I just figured it was time to do something, to not let these people get killed. All of a sudden I hear my name called, I had no advance knowledge, no idea what was happening until they pinned the Bronze Star with Valor on me. At that point, no one had a clue beside you and Hugh? I looked at them and the first thing I saw was, Reason: to conduct necessary military business. So thats all I would tell the CO. In the Peers inquiry testimony, I believe there were 14 rapes that were reported. By this time, Lt. William Calleys Charlie Company was reaching My Lai? I guess thats the $64,000 question isnt it? When Hugh asked me to come with him and report what had happened, he said: Just tell the truth. If there was anything that was cleansing for me that was it. Join Facebook to connect with Hugh Thompson and others you may know. HUGH THOMPSON: I'm Hugh Thompson. He didnt want to appear to be frantic; he wanted to be taken seriously by Henderson. Instead, the Army hid the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people, including 182 women and 173 children. Hannah's Testimony. There was also testimony of absolute insanity. Just then Glenn spotted some people in an earthen bunker, saw faces peering out of the entry. Glenn went down into the ditch and found the boy that he had seen moving and handed him up to me. Prepared Testimony and Statement for the Record of Hugh Thompson Chief Technology Officer Hearing on "Bolstering the Government's Cybersecurity: Lessons Learned from WannaCry" Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Oversight and Subcommittee on Research and Technology But remember, at My Lai only about a third of the men participated in the massacre, but no one else tried to stop it. Thompson had a famous emotional outburst upon returning to base? When I first joined the company, the commander took the volunteers to the flight line and showed us bullet holes in the aircraft and asked us if we knew what they were. "I threatened never to fly again. After the trial, Hugh Thompson received death threats. . Even though the military has admitted to the massacre, many people are not capable of acknowledging and processing that information. We kept flying back and forth, Thompson recalled, and it didnt take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. I enjoyed that. Hood and my CO called me in, said I had a phone call. It couldnt be gunships, they werent firing on people. Anyway, they remembered our story about My Lai, and instead of just lighting up a target, they took the time to analyze and study the situation. I have a few lined up at some universities this year. Testimony in the case against Officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis is scheduled for Tuesday, with follow-ups expected in May. Nearby, a squad of soldiers approached with weapons drawn. Id never seen nor heard of anything like that before, except in World War II. In harsh times, heroes are ordinary men doing extraordinary things. We started noticing these large numbers of bodies everywhere, he told me, people on the road dead, wounded. Did the word about what happened at My Lai get around? I just thank God everybody kept their cool and no one made any quick moves. The truth of the M Lai massacre did not come out until a year and a half later when a soldier whod seen reports on the massacre contacted a journalist. I just wish our crew that day could have helped more people than we did.". In 1964, Thompson received an honorable discharge from the Navy and returned to Stone Mountain to live a quiet life and raise a family with his wife. When we would come back to those we marked, wed find they were now dead. Likewise, what Hugh did has been ignored or glossed over in history texts, much the same way the incident has been. The eyewitness testimony of Thompson and his surviving crew member helped convict Calley at a court-martial. As children ran for safety, soldiers gunned them down. The outcome of the trails was disgraceful, and Hugh and I saw that it was a sham. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever.. That was a point of no return for Thompson? Well, Hugh told them, if you just give it to me Ill take the medal, with a camera crew, to the first mens room I can find and Ill flush it down the toilet. This is a colonel he is talking to. It was a case of bloodlust. Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot who rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre, reported the killings to his superior officers in a rage over what he had seen, testified at. So he called our low gunship, piloted by a friend of his, Dan Millans, and said: Danny, I need a favor. I did hear that the men on the ground were told to pretend like it never happened. We came across a ditch, with probably 150 or more people in it and the wounded trying to crawl out. Thompson was later promoted to Major, but Thompson was a Warrant Officer in his heroic acts. Do you think most people realize there was more than just the killing that was going on? The high gun stayed in the air and circled. That morning, Hugh said, This is supposed to be a VC stronghold, but you know G2. Usually, when intelligence said an area was hot, it wasnt, and visa versa. I think it is deception, and that remains constant today. That aspect of it made me feel real good.. Thompson wanted you to also make a report? Then came the backlash. And then she finished her sentence: she said, So we could forgive them.'. before the subcommittee, and then refused to release the transcripts of the testimony. Hugh Thompson was a volunteer officer in the Vietnam War who turned his squad's weapons on American soldiers to stop them raping and murdering more women and . Harry's phone-hacking testimony contained 'troubling factual inconsistencies', hacking judge says. There were probably 10 in the squad. Hugh said: These people are going to die. The story of My Lai is well known: On the morning of March 16, 1968, a company of U.S. soldiers killed as many as 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, a village in South Vietnam. It was absurd, but you have to be willing to pay the price. They could communicate with the command craft that was flying at altitude. He walked about 50 meters and encountered the lieutenant who was leading the squad. When did you meet Hugh Thompson? Does it worry you that it was, and remains, in our capacity to excuse or rationalize an atrocity like My Lai committed by Americans? None. And on the 30th anniversary of the massacre, Hugh Thompson returned to M Lai. We took him out of the area to a hospital and gave him to a nun. In harsh times, heroes are ordinary men doing extraordinary things. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Hugh said that was OK, because that was the appropriate place. Ive tried to put myself in their position, tried to empathize. Were you prepared to fire on the squad? From the air, Thompson and his two-person crew quickly realized American soldiers were slaughtering innocent civilians. His final term would have expired in December 2018; he retired in January 2017. We were very protective of the men on the ground. What about those who didnt stand up to evil in their midst? You and Hugh had a pretty low profile during and after the trials? Hugh was running scenarios through his head to figure it out. We were told by the prosecuting attorneys to keep our mouths shut, and I didnt advertise the fact I was at My Lai. He has had an impact on many young minds in the military. In 1999, Thompson and Colburn received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award. From his helicopter, Hugh Thompson could not communicate with Charlie Company on the ground. Hugh said, No, lets do it at the Wall. They said no, the weather might be bad or something. Im Irish so Im to suffer. Had you ever seen anything even approaching this before? When we first saw him in 2001, he said all he wanted was to get out of Ho Chi Minh City where he worked in a factory at low wages, and get back to village and find a wife. Those on station knew something about it but not many saw it up close and personal except for the men on the ground and a couple of helicopter crews. I was a helicopter pilot that day, and I guess I was invited here to tell you about a day of my life. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else.. There was no time to get an ethics opinion or consult authorities. You found later that that wasnt true? People should realize that when atrocities are committed like this and covered up, it degrades us all. However, Ive spoken to survivors on different occasions who had been at the bottom of the pile. Calley was convicted, and Medina was acquitted. At some point they finally did call for a cease-fire, but by then it was too late. Mercy Thompson, Testimony, Church of Christ in Missouri v. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 70 F. 179 (8th Cir. Calley had many supporters, who condemned and harassed Thompson. She asked me what it was about, and I said I wasnt sure. They landed their helicopter between the American forces and the civilians, and they trained their guns on the advancing Americans. Thompson was more experienced than Lt. Calley, more ethical, more talented, and brighter, and probably recognized Calley didnt know what he was doing. He tried to explain that these people appeared to be civilians, that we hadnt taken any fire and there was no evidence of combatants in that area. Still, Thompson had saved civilians who would have been killed if he had not intervened. I was aghast at hearing how Lt William Calley got away with cold blooded murder, spending one day behind bars as a convicted criminal. We came in from altitude down to low level. So you were encouraged at that point? But when he returned to his Stateside home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Thompson. When I moved to the East Coast, I stopped at a VA hospital and had a list of things I thought I should get out. After learning about the heroism of Hugh Thompson Jr. during the M Lai Massacre, read about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that started the Vietnam War. Particularly because of the Peers and the IG investigations, I thought there were people sincere about upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I have come to understand him more now than I did when he was here. If they fire on these people, or fire on me while Im doing that, shoot em!. He angered some GIs as he tried to photograph them as they fondled the breasts of a fifteen-year-old Vietnamese girl. Yes, and we were checking the perimeter as they were coming in and starting the combat assault. Probably not. He told me not to say anything to anybody, and just tell the truth when I got there. Mr. Thompson radioed for a helicopter gunship to evacuate the group, and then his crew chief, Glenn Andreotta, pulled a boy from a nearby irrigation ditch, and their helicopter flew him to safety. Indeed, for a time, Thompson himself feared court-martial. Larry Colburn was a door gunner with crew chief Glenn Andreotta and Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson as pilot of a small scout helicopter during a combat assault at the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. When you see your lieutenant or captain initiate these things, some enlisted men on the ground are more likely to do the same thing. I went back in 2008 for the 40th anniversary. Ronald L. Haeberle/U.S. Now Trent Angers, who chronicled Hugh Thompson's heroism during the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians in 1968, believes he has uncovered information about an unseen adversary Thompson fought . Meet Hugh Thompson, The Hero Who Stopped The M Lai Massacre And Was Branded A Traitor For It. You and Hugh had the opportunity to tell your stories to young military officers. Exactly what you saw. Since we were sitting shoulder to shoulder, we saw virtually the very same things. There was a sergeant standing by the ditch by himself. U.S. ArmyHugh Thompson in his Army uniform, c. 1966. When Mr. Thompson returned home, it seemed to him that he was viewed as the guilty party. When did you see those particular villagers again? As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Thompson and Colburn returned to Sn M to meet with survivors of the massacre at the Sn M Memorial in 1998. At the age of 62, after extensive cancer treatment, Thompson was removed from life support and died on January 6, 2006, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pineville, Louisiana. Hugh Thompson in his Army uniform, c. 1966. One of the instructors told me a story that he wished Hugh could hear. He said youre a plant arent you. He was presumably mindful of the ostracism he had faced and the long wait for that medal ceremony in Washington. Are you guys with me?. You felt pretty vulnerable in that little helicopter. I didn't want to be a part of that. Months later you were surprised with a medal for action at My Lai? Did you consider bringing gunships to ferry out others from the ditch? That is completely false, there was no backstabbing going onwe were right in their face at My Lai, we were ready to confront those people then and there. Then, take a look through these declassified Vietnam War photos. Trent Angers, Thompsons biographer and friend, analyzed the list and found about 50 there who were 3 years old or younger. And it turned out, after we dropped him off with the nun at the hospital, he didnt stay 24 hours. No, we had no knowledge of who they were, we just knew they were Americans on the ground and we would have done anything for them. Through the years, he continued to speak out, having been invited to West Point and other military installations to tell of the moral and legal obligations of soldiers in wartime. When you testified in Washington for the Army investigation led by General William Peers, did you feel they were after the real story? Youve been back a few times? Did they know that somebody tried to help? Nicholas Goldberg: Is God on the side of blasphemy laws? Commentdocument.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a49bccbef3b55dea5fdfe48a500a42a9" );document.getElementById("c08a1a06c7").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Content on this website is free to use and share, but please provide a link back to Spec Ops Magazine as a source. First He Castrated Himself. Testimony to the Truth [Smyth, Reverend Hugh P.] on Amazon.com. How many men were in squad and were they threatening? "Something terrible happened here 30 years ago today," Mr. Thompson was quoted as saying by CNN. Since Hughs death, I have become the recipient of some of the hate mail he used to get. View the profiles of people named Hugh Thompson. It all crystallized in that moment. When they started convicting people, I thought, now this is how it should unfold. Calley was the only person found guilty out of the 14 charged. Like the trials, it was forced. Whenever I felt discouraged about things, Hugh would remind me that if we get through to just one person, its worth it. Letters to the Editor: Hey, leave linoleum out of the DeSantis-Disney fight. Did you expect something would be done as a result? Thats what keeps me going. It was fresh enough that things hadnt changed much. We started thinking what might have happened, but you didnt want to accept that thought, Thompson said in a 2000 interview, because if you accepted it, that means your own fellow Americans, people you were there to protect, were doing something very evil.. Glenn had a visual on some sort of movement in the ditch, so Hugh landed, and Glenn and I got out. He tried to persuade him to stop the attack but with no success. Sorry thats not what we did and I dont care what they think of me. After we took the boy to Quang Nai, we went back to our base, and Hugh Thompson and I reported to Colonel Oran Henderson. That is what other people say. In an interview first broadcast in 2004, Hardtalk's Tim Sebastian spoke to Mr. They were taking volunteers for the 11th Brigade. The best therapy I got was in those four hours and seeing the people who were so broken physically. ", Hugh Thompson, 62, Who Saved Civilians at My Lai, Dies, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/us/hugh-thompson-62-who-saved-civilians-at-my-lai-dies.html. Remember, this was later in the morning approaching noon, most of the killing had already been done. It was about six months ago that the S&P 500 dipped . That was the only enemy combatant we saw that day. I remember catching one of the soldiers eyes and I waved to him and he waved back. At the time, I figured he was 3 or 4 years old, he was tiny. It is denial, a refusal to believe our young men could run amok the way they did. The troops also burned the village and Sn Ms surrounding hamlets to the ground and slaughtered the livestock. As murderous bloodlust unfolded on the ground below, Thompson and crew confronted fellow GIs to save numerous civilians from the fate of some 500 others that morning. But still, who do you shoot? History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Were you glad you got it? Justice, if it could ever be achieved in this case, would have been to line each and every one of them up in front of a firing squad and start shooting from the knees up. HUGH THOMPSON'S TESTIMONY: I'm Hugh Thompson. You risked your lives, I said, to protect those Vietnamese civilians., Well, it didnt come to that, he replied. When Hugh gave his order, I distinctly remember pointing my weapon directly down at the ground, so there was no question. That seemed suicidal to me, going out with next to no backup or firepower. Ultimately, it was a pubic relations move, they had to give the medal. Then again, it was a Saturday morning and they were possibly going to market. Every time Ive been back there, the survivors ask me, Why dont the men who committed the atrocities come back and ask for forgiveness so that we might forgive them. Theyre Buddhists you know, they can forgive, put it behind them and carry on. We would have died for them. So he gave me prescriptions for several psychotropic drugs. William Calley, the officer in charge of Charlie Company, ordered American soldiers to round up the villagers and open fire. He knew the importance of getting people who are struggling the attention they need so they can transition back into civilian life and deal with problems, be they physical or emotional. We had thought there were two or three, but there were about 10 in the bunker. He struggled too. When you see something like that happen, with no negative repercussions, you begin to think perhaps this is the method of operation. Thats when he crashed about five helicopters in five months. I flew with him dozens of times and saw sporadic action. I was back at Ft. No one wants a president to die in office. How do you think your story, of an event now long in the past, can make a difference? I hope to take as many speaking engagements as I can. Hugh Thompson was a helicopter pilot in 1968, on a day American soldiers gunned down more than 500 unarmed civilians in a village called My Lai. He was evacuated to a hospital in Japan and began a long rehabilitation period. Mr. Thompson remained in combat, then returned to the United States to train helicopter pilots. He had to make sure his mother, brother and sister, killed in the ditch, were buried properly. 171 0 obj <> endobj Were you talking about this at the time? Fortunately for the monsters that committed these crimes against everything that is good, the generations that remember this (I remember the headlines and I was only 11 years old) are dying off and the current generations of American citizens think the world revolves around them and cant see past the end of their cell phones. The alternative was to be in an infantry unit, and I was told it would be a good idea to attach to an aviation company, better odds there. I waited in the hospital waiting room for about four hours to see a psychologist. Thompson testified about the massacre in the U.S. government's military trials, but according to author Trent Angers, two Congressmen who were working in concert with Nixon, managed to seal that. This is not how this military organization supposed to conduct operations. Larry Colburn talks about his late friend Hugh Thompson, the My Lai massacre, the subsequent cover up, investigations and trials. Hugh Thompson returned to M Lai in 1998 and met some of the people he saved. Thompsons father played a central role in his childrens education. As he told The Associated Press in 2004: "Don't do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come. Thompson left the Army in 1983 and became a private helicopter pilot in the South. Did the gunship crews know what was happening on the ground before this? Billy Waugh, a fabled Special Forces Green Beret and CIA military operative, served in Vietnam and helped hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists. The sergeant waited until Thompson left and then fired on the helpless civilians. Upon entering Sn M, officers and soldiers of Company C moved through the Song My Village and vicinity, murdering civilians, raping women, and setting fire to huts. If we would have had direct contact, we could have told them that these people are unarmed, no threat. It was an enemy tactic to blur the lines between combatants and noncombatants. Except for the boy, it appeared the rest were already dead. You must have had some post-traumatic stress after your experience in Vietnam. So we continued our recon. The . How many of them went on to draw military pay and benefits? Everybodys heard of the My Lai massacre March 16, 1968, 50 years ago today but not many know about the man who stopped it: Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot. I was raised with a sense of duty. When Hugh realized it was our people doing this killing, he knew he had to take drastic measures. Afterwards Thompson testified at the trial of Lt. William Calley, the commanding officer during the massacre. No, but Hugh was sent on missions in his OH-23 with his back up another OH-23no gunshipsinto Dragon Valley, where there was rocket activity. He was saying: Ill never fly again. The conclusion Hugh and I came to was they were trying to keep us quiet by giving us a phony award. Company C (Charlie Company), 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of Task Force Barker, led by Captain Ernest Medina, moved into Sn M. From Testimony to Tragedy: My Lai in Personal Perspective Michael W. Flamm Michael W. Flamm Michael W. Flamm is professor of history at Ohio Wesleyan University.

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