Hugh C. Thompson, Jr. (April 15, 1943 – January 6, 2006) was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. He is chiefly known for his role in stopping the My Lai Massacre, during which he was flying a reconnaissance mission.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Thompson joined the US Navy in 1961, then US Army in 1966 and trained as a helicopter pilot. He volunteered for the Aerial Scout Unit and assigned to Task Force Barker to fly over Vietnamese forests and try to draw enemy fire, to pinpoint the location of troops. Serving as one door-gunner, his Crew Chief was Glenn Andreotta and his other door-gunner was Spc Lawrence Colburn, both of whom would later also draw claims of heroism for their role at My Lai, though Andreotta died three weeks after the event.
After coming across the dead bodies of Vietnamese civilians outside My Lai on March 16, 1968, Thompson set down their OH-23 and the three men began setting green gas markers by the prone bodies of the Vietnamese civilians who appeared to still be alive. Returning to the helicopter however, they saw Captain Ernest Medina run forward and begin shooting the wounded who had been marked - and the three men moved their ship back over the village where Thompson confronted Lt. Stephen Brooks who was preparing to blow up a hut full of cowering and wounded Vietnamese; he left Andreotta and Colburn to cover the company with their heavy machine guns and orders to fire on any American who refused the orders to halt the massacre. (Needless to say, none of the officers dared to disobey him, although as a mere warrant officer, Thompson was outranked by the commissioned lieutenants.)
Thompson: Let's get these people out of this bunker and get 'em out of here.
Brooks: We'll get 'em out with hand grenades.
Thompson: I can do better than that. Keep your people in place. My guns are on you.
Thompson then ordered two other helicopters (one piloted by Dan Millians) flying nearby to serve as a medevac for the 11 wounded Vietnamese. While flying away from the village, Andreotta spotted movement in an irrigation ditch, and the helicopter was again landed and a child was extracted from the bodies, and brought with the rest of the Vietnamese to the hospital at Quang Ngai.
Thompson subsequently reported the massacre, whilst it was still occuring, to his superiors. The cease-fire order was then given.
Kept in the dangerous OH-23 Raven Helicopter missions, which some considered punishment for his intervention and the subsequent media coverage, Thompson was shot down a total of five times, breaking his backbone on the last attack. He suffered psychological scars from his service in Vietnam through out the rest of his life.
Exactly thirty years later, the three were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.
Thompson and Colburn returned to the village in My Lai, where they met with some of the villagers saved through their actions — including the 8 year old Do Hoa pulled from the irrigation ditch. They also dedicated a new elementary school for the children of the village.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson%2C_Jr.Though his acts are now considered heroic, for years Thompson suffered snubs and worse from those who considered him unpatriotic.Fellow servicemen refused to speak with him. He received death threats, and found animal carcasses on his porch. He recalled a congressman angrily saying that Thompson himself was the only serviceman who should be punished because of My Lai.
"He was treated like a traitor for 30 years," Angers said. "So he was conditioned to just shut up and be quiet. Every bit of information I got from him, I had to drag it out of him."
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisi...list=louisianaMarch 19, 2001
MY LAI, Vietnam (Reuters) - Do Ba is now 42, but to Larry Colburn he will always be the 9-year-old boy he saved from the most notorious massacre of the Vietnam War.
Ba was one of 11 Vietnamese villagers whom Colburn -- then 18 -- and two crewmates from a U.S. army helicopter risked their lives to save on March 16, 1968. A search-and-destroy mission by Charlie Company of the Americal Division had degenerated into a mass murder of civilians, 123 of them children under age 5.
Colburn, from Canton, Georgia, and pilot Hugh Thompson, from Lafayette, Louisiana, were reunited with Do Thursday for the first time since 1968 when they shared the same flight en route to a commemoration ceremony at My Lai.
"After 33 years of thinking of him every day, it's just extraordinary to see him again, truly extraordinary," said Colburn, who was with wife and his own 9-year-old son.
"It's like my own boy, he was the same age as my little boy," he said. "I hoped in all those years that he would never remember what happened." During the rescue, Thompson landed his helicopter between a group of soldiers and the civilians they were about to shoot. He ordered Colburn, a door gunner at the time, to open fire on the marauding GIs if the massacre continued.
Colburn said it was crew chief Glenn Andreotta who had got out into a ditch to look for survivors in a heap of bodies.
"Glenn Andreotta went straight to the ditch and handed the boy to me," he said. "I held him on my lap until we got to the hospital. I thought he was only 4 or 5."
http://www.countryjoe.com/vietarchive.htm#2"Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness' sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 5:10
"Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy" Matthew 5:7
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