Hood were returnees, but no one really zeroed in on what was happening. 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 It was in their hands. Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr. (April 15, 1943 - January 6, 2006) was a United States Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. I was aghast at hearing how Lt William Calley got away with cold blooded murder, spending one day behind bars as a convicted criminal. Upon coming home, he got death threats and the like. How did you feel about that? 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. He had to make sure his mother, brother and sister, killed in the ditch, were buried properly. 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. The military was forced after an eight-year letter writing campaign by David Egan, a professor at Clemson University, and a businessman named William Cavanaugh. Spec Ops Magazine 2023 All Rights Reserved. We didnt talk too much about it ourselves because we reported on it and we were, frankly, preoccupied with the next mission. The sergeant waited until Thompson left and then fired on the helpless civilians. Upon returning from the mission, Thompson reported what he had seen and experienced to his. Nixon and the My Lai massacre coverup - New York Post We want to recognize people in the military and all walks of life who really make difficult decisions the way Hugh did. 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. 1st Platoon of Company C, commanded by Lieutenant William Laws Calley Jr., forced approximately 7080 villagers, mostly women and children, into an irrigation ditch and murdered the civilians with knives, bayonets, grenades, and small arms fire. I remember catching one of the soldiers eyes and I waved to him and he waved back. I met Thompson in 2000 and interviewed him for my radio program on KPFK in Los Angeles. I thank God to this day that everybody did stay cool and nobody opened up. Then, as I was in this crowd, I turned around and there he waswith his beautiful wife and new baby boy. The conclusion Hugh and I came to was they were trying to keep us quiet by giving us a phony award. Hugh Thompson was determined to stop the massacre. Thompson and his crew managed to evacuate the civilians and stop the massacre. How many men were in squad and were they threatening? However, Ive spoken to survivors on different occasions who had been at the bottom of the pile. I had no idea what it was about. He told me not to say anything to anybody, and just tell the truth when I got there. 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. What happened next was one of the most remarkable events of the entire war, and perhaps unique: Thompson told the American troops that, if they opened fire on the Vietnamese civilians in the bunker, he and his crew would open fire on them. At first, they only wanted to give it to Hugh at a private ceremony. Finally, the Army launched an inquiry. Did you expect something would be done as a result? Thompson felt obliged to return to military service when the Vietnam War began. U.S. ArmyWilliam Calley, the officer who ordered the slaughter at M Lai. It was like he dropped out of the sky. When he had a heart attack he said he would slow down, but he didnt. The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story (First Edition Only he would have known that. He kept the aircraft and himself in between these people and the squad. Out of the blue, our unit was called out onto the tarmac for an awards and decoration ceremony. When you see something like that happen, with no negative repercussions, you begin to think perhaps this is the method of operation. Mr. Thompson remained in combat, then returned to the United States to train helicopter pilots. But Ive had my episodes. After the initial shock, I think some sort of a defensive mechanism kicked in. 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 started accusing me of being with CID. Facebook gives people the power to. The Army covered it up. Thompson spent the rest of his life wondering if he could have saved more lives. I lost faith in the whole military organization and wanted to put it all behind me. You had no radio contact with the men on the ground? And Hugh said, What about my crew? They said they didnt have any intention for awards of the crew. We thought that was good, that they would be out of the way. before the subcommittee, and then refused to release the transcripts of the testimony. I think he broke his flight helmet, he threw it down so hard. As we found out from the farce of justice being served via trials of the monsters responsible, politicians and their cronies cant be trusted either. He walked about 50 meters and encountered the lieutenant who was leading the squad. He was presumably mindful of the ostracism he had faced and the long wait for that medal ceremony in Washington. There was a sergeant standing by the ditch by himself. Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. Interview: Larry Colburn | American Experience | PBS 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. Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, had threatened to fire on the American troops in order to rescue Vietnamese women and children from the slaughter. Thats unlikely to improve anyones mental health, Letters to the Editor: Yes, we need to talk about Bidens age. You started out on an OH-23 scout helicopter? I was a helicopter pilot that day, and I guess I was invited here to tell you about a day of my life. Did you get help? Hugh said, Im going to take him on the right, which meant he was my target. Thompson ran over and said, These are civilians, we got to help them out.. An Account of the My Lai Courts-Martial - University of Missouri Hugh Thompson, a pilot of the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Americal Division, flew an observational helicopter supporting Task Force Barker on March 16, 1968. The citation, bestowed in a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, said the three crewmen landed "in the line of fire between American ground troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians to prevent their murder.". So I was not a good guy.. In late December 1967, at the age of 25, Hugh Thompson was ordered to Vietnam and assigned to Company B, 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division. No. Genevieve Carlton earned a Ph.D in history from Northwestern University with a focus on early modern Europe and the history of science and medicine before becoming a history professor at the University of Louisville. The troops also burned the village and Sn Ms surrounding hamlets to the ground and slaughtered the livestock. The bodies of massacred villagers at M Lai, as captured by a U.S. Army photographer. Yet in the midst of the chaos and bloodshed, one U.S. soldier followed his convictions. For hours, they raped, mutilated, and slaughtered innocent civilians until a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. put his own life on the line to stop the massacre. U.S. ArmyHugh Thompson in his Army uniform, c. 1966. Calley was convicted, and Medina was acquitted. We kept flying back and forth, Thompson recalled, and it didnt take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Nearby, a squad of soldiers approached with weapons drawn. That was a point of no return for Thompson? That one person will go on to tell 10 other people. It was Hugh and he told me that I would be getting orders to report to Washington. I guess thats the $64,000 question isnt it? Would I have? Ill always know that we did was morally right, we did what we could to help people who could not defend themselves. Thank you both for being of upstanding and outstanding moral character and having the backbone to stand up for what you know is right! *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. What led you to enlist in the Army? But many in the Army and the public supported Calley over Thompson. So he called our low gunship, piloted by a friend of his, Dan Millans, and said: Danny, I need a favor. When the orders came down, the CO called me into his office and demanded to know what they were for. As he approached the soldiers, he told them to stop. Hugh was running scenarios through his head to figure it out. Hugh Thompson - Ballotpedia But when he returned to his Stateside home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Thompson. Hugh Thompson Jr. graduated from Stone Mountain High School on June 5, 1961. That same day, the cover up started. You and Hugh had the opportunity to tell your stories to young military officers. I wish I was, but I wont lie to anybody. How could I ever be prepared for something like that? Like the trials, it was forced. I imagine he wants to get right with God; hes not a young guy anymore. People need to know who Hugh Thompson was, what he did and why he did it. Then he assumed the Army initiated an investigation. Colburn came from Atlanta to be at his bedside. 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. Hugh was the generals personal pilot. From the air, Thompson and his two-person crew quickly realized American soldiers were slaughtering innocent civilians. HUGH THOMPSON: I'm Hugh Thompson. Following graduation, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served in a naval mobile construction battalion at Naval Air Station Atlanta, Georgia, as a heavy equipment operator. I think I may have been in shock to some extent. The outcome of the trails was disgraceful, and Hugh and I saw that it was a sham. There was no time to get an ethics opinion or consult authorities. They could communicate with the command craft that was flying at altitude. Any hesitation? I said, Thank you, sir, and went back to work. Hugh Thompson in his Army uniform, c. 1966. It was absurd, but you have to be willing to pay the price. I was 17 when I enlisted in 1966 with some friends. In about 10-15 minutes we were back to the same spot where we saw the villagers on the road leaving. The dead were women, old men and children. Andreotta died in action a few weeks later, but Thompson and Colburn were key witnesses in the investigations and trials to follow. You and Thompson must have been good mutual support. If you are an American who thinks all of our foreign policy and actions over the years is as pure as the driven snow, well that is just not reality. In the midst of it, they had a conversation like this: Remember those old guys from Vietnam and what they told us back at Annapolis?. Im giving interviews and working with students. When he arrived, American soldiers had already killed 504 Vietnamese civilians (thats the Vietnamese count; the U.S. Army said 347). 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. I testified in the trials of Henderson, Medina and Calley. Hugh struggled, but you see the people who survived are still in the same village, doing what they do. Thompson had become something of a professional witness. I waited in the hospital waiting room for about four hours to see a psychologist. An army helicopter piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson arrived in the My Lai vicinity about 9 a.m. Thompson noticed dead and dying civilians all over the village. 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. He struggled too. Among those numbers were 17 pregnant women and 56 infants. We would have died for them. That seemed suicidal to me, going out with next to no backup or firepower. Join Facebook to connect with Hugh Thompson and others you may know. Hugh Thompson and My Lai - CounterPunch.org 0 US military helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson helped stop one of the most infamous massacres of the Vietnam War. I think it is deception, and that remains constant today. 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 . I dont know, at the time I thought about creating a diversion, discharging my weapon in another direction. I flew from Ft. I thought someone else was getting recognition for something. And the people guilty of committing war crimes should have been dealt with. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else.. How do you intend to spread the word about the foundation? He is best known for his role in stopping the My Lai Massacre, in which a group of US Army soldiers tortured and killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mutilating their bodies after they had been murdered. But, after going through the process and seeing the ultimate outcome, I wasnt really surprised, but I was disillusioned. If Hugh knew that, it would have made everything he went through worthwhile for him. Meet the Participants | American Experience | Official Site | PBS Amid a flurry of corporate earnings releases and somewhat lackluster market activity last week, an important milestone went largely unnoticed. Were you glad you got it? endstream endobj 172 0 obj <. endstream endobj startxref The villagers offered no resistance as U.S. soldiers shoved them into a ditch and opened fire with machine guns. That aspect of it made me feel real good.. Testimony of Dr. Hugh Thompson, HTA Engineering (Expert Witness) (Exhibit Allegra-10) Exhibit Allegra-10 includes Survey Notes and 12 photographs taken by HTA Engineering on January 12, 2010. I had an administrative MOS and was ordered to Hawaii where I was working as a courier. You still didnt understand what was actually happening? I wish we could have done more to thank him. People should realize that when atrocities are committed like this and covered up, it degrades us all. On March 6, 1998, the Army presented the Soldier's Medal, for heroism not involving conflict with an enemy, to Mr. Thompson; to his gunner, Lawrence Colburn; and, posthumously, to Mr. Andreotta, who was killed in a helicopter crash three weeks after the My Lai massacre. To this day I cant remember exactly about that day reporting to Henderson. In harsh times, heroes are ordinary men doing extraordinary things. When I finally got in to see the guy, he was a major, he wouldnt make eye contact as I read my list. So I was not a good guy.". Thompson kept testifying against the butchers of My Lai in hopes of securing justice for the civilians killed that day. Well, I took the prescriptions, ripped them up into little pieces and walked out. For the sake of any kind of lame justice, they should have been put to death for their atrocities. To see people herded up like so many animals, marched into a ditch and machine-gunned? Colburn said. His final term would have expired in December 2018; he retired in January 2017. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Hugh Thompson discover inside connections to recommended job . Ive tried to put myself in their position, tried to empathize. The best therapy I got was in those four hours and seeing the people who were so broken physically. I have mine put away somewhere, but I think Hugh threw his away one night. . "Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. Im a garden-variety human being and thats all there is to it. We surveyed around the bunker and saw that squad approaching. Who were the people lying in the roads and in the ditch, wounded and killed? ArmyThe bodies of massacred villagers at M Lai, as captured by a U.S. Army photographer. I was on the backup team that day and we went out to try to retrieve the bodies. William Calley, the officer in charge of Charlie Company, ordered American soldiers to round up the villagers and open fire. 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. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didnt. But I really didnt know what was going to happen or how to react. But remember, at My Lai only about a third of the men participated in the massacre, but no one else tried to stop it. There was some chatter since most of the people at Ft. You were a witness for the prosecution in the trials that followed? Then came the backlash. But it turns out he was 8. Meet the Soldier Who Prevented More Killings During the My Lai Massacre He found 69 between the ages of 4 and 7, and 91 between the ages of 8 and 12. He didnt want to appear to be frantic; he wanted to be taken seriously by Henderson. A sergeant stood by the ditch. On March 16, 1968, Chief Warrant Officer Thompson and his two crewmen were flying on a reconnaissance mission over the South Vietnamese village of My Lai when they spotted the bodies of men, women and children strewn over the landscape. 30 years after the massacre, Thompson and the two other members of his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreott. But despite Thompsons heroic actions, the Army tried to cover up the massacre.
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