0 Had you ever seen anything even approaching this before? The Army covered it up. Our main job was to fly close to the deck, entice fire to get the enemy to give up their position, mark it, suppress fire and get out of the gunships way. Yes. 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 aspect of it made me feel real good.. Upon returning from the mission, Thompson reported what he had seen and experienced to his. Mr. Thompson, you and Mr. Colburn are indeed the heroes in this sordid story and I am ashamed at how they were treated. But, after going through the process and seeing the ultimate outcome, I wasnt really surprised, but I was disillusioned. Ive tried to put myself in their position, tried to empathize. Did you have a sense that what you had seen at My Lai was and isolated incident or did you suspect similar atrocities were happening elsewhere? 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 Thompson returned to M Lai in 1998 and met some of the people he saved. It is amazing to see the strength of the human spirit. One of the ladies that we had helped out that day came up to me and asked, Why didnt the people who committed these acts come back with you? And I was just devastated. This is not how this military organization supposed to conduct operations. Except for the boy, it appeared the rest were already dead. It took the Army 30 years, but in 1998, they finally acknowledged that Thompson had done something good. The Army covered it up, but the facts eventually came to light and the responsible officer, Capt. We took him out of the area to a hospital and gave him to a nun. Its like the line from the movie No Country for Old Men when the Vietnam veteran played by Josh Brolin, who responds to another guy who introduced himself and says he was in Nam too: Oh, you were in Vietnam too. Of course anyone thinking of making a career in the military probably pretended they never heard anything. If they fire on these people, or fire on me while Im doing that, shoot em! Now Hugh really had no idea who or what was in that bunker, could have been an AK47 waiting for him there. At some point they finally did call for a cease-fire, but by then it was too late. As we got back on station, we saw a lot of villagers leaving and figured that we may have dropped leaflets or had fired some artillery in morning. 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. We loved those guys in the field. One of the instructors told me a story that he wished Hugh could hear. PFC. All of the investigations led to nothing, Hugh and I felt like all three trials were just window dressing. They waited until the sun went down and they crawled out of that ditch. Hugh Thompson Jr. - Wikiwand Innocent people didnt die that day They didnt just fly off the handle and engage a target that was borderline. View Hugh Thompson's professional profile on LinkedIn. Did they know that somebody tried to help? Nearby, a squad of soldiers approached with weapons drawn. Youve got to love this guy. If we would have had direct contact, we could have told them that these people are unarmed, no threat. Id never seen nor heard of anything like that before, except in World War II. The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story - Goodreads Typically, when we post testimonies here on truthsaves, we're detailing conversion experiences. I didn't want to be a part of that. The best therapy I got was in those four hours and seeing the people who were so broken physically. Central to the case prosecuted by the Civilian Complaint. Mr. Thompson remained in combat, then returned to the United States to train helicopter pilots. Calley was paroled just three years later, in 1974, after Richard Nixon commuted his sentence. He struggled too. 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. When we would come back to those we marked, wed find they were now dead. ArmyThe bodies of massacred villagers at M Lai, as captured by a U.S. Army photographer. Still, Thompson had saved civilians who would have been killed if he had not intervened. We were told by the prosecuting attorneys to keep our mouths shut, and I didnt advertise the fact I was at My Lai. He is still tiny, but he remembers everything. He also wanted to be able to get out quickly if need be. Ill never fly again, he vowed. Hugh said: These people are going to die. Hugh Thompson Profiles | Facebook And then she finished her sentence: she said, So we could forgive them.'. ' Thompson recalled. There was a sergeant standing by the ditch by himself. We kept flying back and forth, Thompson recalled, and it didnt take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. And when Hugh Thompson testified against William Calley, the officer who ordered the massacre, Thompson received death threats. He received a life sentence in 1971 for premeditated murder which was later reduced to 10 years. Indeed, for a time, Thompson himself feared court-martial. Did you experience retaliation for what you did that day, or for talking to Henderson? Thats unlikely to improve anyones mental health, Letters to the Editor: Yes, we need to talk about Bidens age. Bettmann/Getty ImagesHugh Thompson on his way to testify against William Calley on November 23, 1970. made a statement in Congress honoring Thompson, stating that the United States has lost a true hero, and the State of Louisiana has lost a devoted leader and dear friend. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. So I was not a good guy.". It was unusual, the only time it happened while I was there. Thompson left the Army in 1983 and became a private helicopter pilot in the South. 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. Hell, I didnt want to believe it, either, but I had no choice because I saw it. It was fresh enough that things hadnt changed much. I stayed on gunships for rest of my time in Vietnam. When he had a heart attack he said he would slow down, but he didnt. Hugh struggled, but you see the people who survived are still in the same village, doing what they do. The conclusion Hugh and I came to was they were trying to keep us quiet by giving us a phony award. And you want to instill the spirit of Thompson in others. It was so blatantly wrong what they were doing, we had no choice, we had to do what we did. Nobody would be held responsible. 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. He is an amazing person made me cry just reading the research about him.
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