Army pilot who saved villagers dies (at My Lai)

[KG]

Obituary
Army pilot who saved villagers dies
At My Lai, he and two others rescued Vietnamese civilians being massacred by U.S. troops.
By Associated Press
Published January 7, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - Hugh Thompson Jr., a former Army helicopter pilot honored for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow GIs during the My Lai massacre, died early Friday (Jan. 6, 2006). He was 62.

Mr. Thompson, whose role in the 1968 massacre did not become widely known until decades later, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.

Trent Angers, Mr. Thompson's biographer and family friend, said Mr. Thompson died of cancer.

"These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them," Thompson recalled in a 1998 Associated Press interview.

Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon U.S. ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.

They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the U.S. soldiers to prevent more killings.

MORE>>> http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/07/Worldandnation/Army_pilot_who_saved_.shtml

[ck4829]

1. A true hero has passed on.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. War can make a criminal out of the best of men. The blame lies

with the people who send them into it.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Hugh Thompson, patriot and hero.

Thompson is the kind of person who makes me proud to be an American and a vet.

[IndyOp]

4. Kicked and rec'd - This *is* important folks - we need whistleblowers

who will risk their lives for core values more than ever right now!

Thompson was a brave, brave man.

:kick:

[Cocoa]

5. a profile in courage for sure

and heroes unfortunately pay a price for their courage...

http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=4328854

<snip>

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 walked out his door to find 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."