hugh thompson testimony

Calley pointed his weapon at him and threatened him with a court-martial. Everybody's 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. Hugh Thompsonsdefiance and courage with that of his crew had given a new lease of life to others that they saved and will be remembered by all in the face of Humanity and History. Hugh Thompson and his crew rescued a surviving child whom they flew to the nearest field hospital. And it turned out it was a good thing that they did. And the Army company only stopped because Thompson literally put himself between the soldiers and the civilians and threatened to shoot them if they didnt end the killings. When I got to Vietnam I was attached to a headquarters company. Where else in history has a massacre of civilians been stopped in the middle of the massacre? It was about six months ago that the S&P 500 dipped . 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. By this time, Lt. William Calleys Charlie Company was reaching My Lai? As we did, we heard automatic weapon fire. There was a guy at the ditch with Calley, shooting people not yet dead. I hope to take as many speaking engagements as I can. At first, I just felt shock. For the sake of any kind of lame justice, they should have been put to death for their atrocities. I thought someone else was getting recognition for something. Just then Glenn spotted some people in an earthen bunker, saw faces peering out of the entry. But I really didnt know what was going to happen or how to react. There was also testimony of absolute insanity. Thompson landed his helicopter next to a ditch that contained 150 people many dead, but many others wounded and trying to escape. If its not sincere, it doesnt mean anything. Nearby, a squad of soldiers approached with weapons drawn. I dont know how they found me, but I gave a brief interview, and it appeared with the Life magazine photo spread in December 1969. 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. I thought Hugh would pull it off, when I saw some pull their rucksacks off and leave it to the lieutenant to have it out with Hugh. I always thought the American people deserved to know what was going on and I just thought it was good the public got a color photo layout of what happened at My Lai. Hugh P. Thompson was the chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In this exclusive interview with Vietnam magazine and VietMag.com, Larry Colburn talks about his late friend Hugh Thompson, the My Lai massacre, the subsequent cover up, investigations and trials, his journeys back to Vietnam and meetings with survivors and the Hugh Thompson Foundation, which he formed after Thompsons death in 2006. hb```,(qaB3W[ 4 `Tfc" QB\%xv{ I dont know, at the time I thought about creating a diversion, discharging my weapon in another direction. I got there and Ill never forget my mother taking me into the kitchen and telling me if I didnt want to tell these people anything, I didnt have to. Hugh told me to keep my mouth shut and I did. 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. I wish we could have done more to thank him. It was time to stop it, and I figured, at that point, that was the only way the madness, or whatever you want to call it, could be stopped.. Out of the blue, our unit was called out onto the tarmac for an awards and decoration ceremony. I was always comfortable as the sidekick and enjoyed the time with Hugh. Using hand signals, Mr. Thompson persuaded the Vietnamese to come out while ordering his gunner and his crew chief to shoot any American soldiers who opened fire on the civilians. Are you guys with me?. I felt that my testimony validated Hughs, and that was why it was important. It couldnt be gunships, they werent firing on people. Ive had PTSD issues for 42 years. They were not combatants. We thought that was good, that they would be out of the way. Whats that make you, my buddy? So, just because guys served in the same theater doesnt necessarily mean we are all that close. He said youre a plant arent you. Instead, the Army hid the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people, including 182 women and 173 children. I have come to understand him more now than I did when he was here. . Hugh came back to the aircraft and because we had flight helmets on and the aircraft was running, we had to literally put our heads together as Hugh shouted instructions. "Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. In the middle of a firefight I was an E4, what was I to do? 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. He angered some GIs as he tried to photograph them as they fondled the breasts of a fifteen-year-old Vietnamese girl. The outcome of the trails was disgraceful, and Hugh and I saw that it was a sham. We were very protective of the men on the ground. 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. Whenever I felt discouraged about things, Hugh would remind me that if we get through to just one person, its worth it. But I still dont think the topic really gets the exposure it really needs. We know that Americans committed a massacre 50 years ago today; and we also know that an American stopped it. After the trial, Hugh Thompson received death threats. 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 alerted the low gunship as to what we had seen on the ground. Upon seeing that, Hugh Thompson landed the helicopter, approached Calley, and talked to him. Amid a flurry of corporate earnings releases and somewhat lackluster market activity last week, an important milestone went largely unnoticed. Wed done what we could. After My Lai, did you feel traumatized or feel like you carried a huge burden? So, he decided to do something. Jon Wiener is professor emeritus of history at UC Irvine, and working, with Mike Davis, on a book on Los Angeles in the 1960s. There are those hardcore people who do still say we shouldnt have told the truth, that we should have covered for those guys in the field; that we didnt know what it was like on the ground. When the officers take part in it, it just escalates things. We are inundated with information but we are not very well informed. On March 16, 1998, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Colburn attended a service at My Lai marking the 30th anniversary of the massacre. You can imagine the emotions that surfaced. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever.. I had no idea what it was about. Hugh was the generals personal pilot. I just wish our crew that day could have helped more people than we did.". 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. I give credit to my sister Mary, who saw my condition when I came home. The troops also burned the village and Sn Ms surrounding hamlets to the ground and slaughtered the livestock. Did you consider bringing gunships to ferry out others from the ditch? Thompson was vilified by many Americans for his testimony against United States Army personnel. Thompson had a famous emotional outburst upon returning to base? Billy Waugh, Famed Special Forces Warrior and CIA Legend, Dies At 93. Im not judge, jury and executioner. Company C (Charlie Company), 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of Task Force Barker, led by Captain Ernest Medina, moved into Sn M. Whats going on? And we started thinking what might have happened, but you didnt want to accept that thought because if you accepted it, that means your own fellow Americans, people you were there to protect, were doing something very evil.. ArmyThe bodies of massacred villagers at M Lai, as captured by a U.S. Army photographer. In unison, all three of us shouted, You son of a bitch! That was Captain Ernest Medina. And then she finished her sentence: she said, So we could forgive them. Im not man enough to do that. I said, Thank you, sir, and went back to work. By then I was a civilian and was trying to attend college on the GI Bill, but I kept getting subpoenas. It was a case of bloodlust. Jan Swango Emerson and Hugh Feiss, eds., Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages (New York: Garland, 2000); . Hugh was running scenarios through his head to figure it out. He remembered Glenn picking him up, seeing me in the ditch. At 8 years old, he made his way about 10 miles through the jungle by himself to the village. I was on the backup team that day and we went out to try to retrieve the bodies. Thompsons father played a central role in his childrens education. 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 recounted in a CBS 60 Minutes television program in 2004, "I'd received death threats over the phone.Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up." [14] [7] When you testified in Washington for the Army investigation led by General William Peers, did you feel they were after the real story? In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. That particular morning we were to provide reconnaissance for a ground operation that was going on in My Lai . Harry claimed a 'secret agreement' stopped him bringing hacking claims earlier As the wounded tried to crawl out, they were fired on by someone who had been left there to do just that. Hugh transmitted what he could to the low gun in hopes that it would get up to the commander and someone would make a decision to stop it. In an interview first broadcast in 2004, Hardtalk's Tim Sebastian spoke to Mr. Hell, I didnt want to believe it, either, but I had no choice because I saw it.. Then came the backlash. Oh, no, Mr. Thompson, let me see what we can do, he said. But remember, at My Lai only about a third of the men participated in the massacre, but no one else tried to stop it. He looked up and saw us and then took off for the tree line. 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? 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:. If they fire on these people, or fire on me while Im doing that, shoot em!. Charlie Company arrived in M Lai with orders to destroy the village. We had different missions. When the orders came down, the CO called me into his office and demanded to know what they were for. Thompson was the first to communicate back to headquarters about the killing occurring on the ground. For more information about the Hugh Thompson Foundation, visit www.designaire.com/HughThompson, Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. We didnt talk too much about it ourselves because we reported on it and we were, frankly, preoccupied with the next mission. They were not listening, so he did the unbelievable, he drew his own sidearm and pointed it at them. No, because the commander was on a different frequency. Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. was born on April 15, 1943, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, to Wessie and Hugh Clowers Thompson. 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. And when Thomson reported the horrific actions, the Army tried to cover up the M Lai massacre. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. There could be a reason for doing it, or there could have simply been a complete breakdown in leadership. The sergeant waited until Thompson left and then fired on the helpless civilians. When did you see those particular villagers again? Upon returning from the mission, Thompson reported what he had seen and experienced to his. Glenn shouted, Hes firing into the ditch again!, How did Hugh react when reason failed? One of the instructors told me a story that he wished Hugh could hear. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Opinion: California wants more psychiatric detentions. Testimony in the case against Officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis is scheduled for Tuesday, with follow-ups expected in May. Upon coming home, he got death threats and the like. None did. endstream endobj 172 0 obj <. Would I have? Were you talking about this at the time? I thought that from a historical perspective, something needed to be in place so that when Im gone, what Hugh did at My Lai wont just fade into obscurity. When Hugh gave his order, I distinctly remember pointing my weapon directly down at the ground, so there was no question. Medina and maybe higher. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. I met Thompson in 2000 and interviewed him for my radio program on KPFK in Los Angeles. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Yes, and we were checking the perimeter as they were coming in and starting the combat assault. He was saying: Ill never fly again. I was back in Mount Vernon, outside Washington, and I got a call from my mother saying there were some people at the house who wanted to talk to me. Ill always know that we did was morally right, we did what we could to help people who could not defend themselves. Was this part of the cover up? 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 the inquiries and received a commendation from the Army three decades later, died yesterday in Alexandria, La. After Hugh died, I was invited to Annapolis to speak one more time. At some point they finally did call for a cease-fire, but by then it was too late. Ive tried to put myself in their position, tried to empathize. Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr. (April 15, 1943 - January 6, 2006) was a United States Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. 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. 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. It was like he dropped out of the sky. I waited in the hospital waiting room for about four hours to see a psychologist. We even started marking the wounded with smoke, thinking the men on ground would come assist them. Id never seen nor heard of anything like that before, except in World War II. Testimony to the Truth [Smyth, Reverend Hugh P.] on Amazon.com. Hugh struggled, but you see the people who survived are still in the same village, doing what they do. I just thank God everybody kept their cool and no one made any quick moves. Ernest Medina and Lt. William Calley were court-martialed. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing this? It all crystallized in that moment. 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. I would be there from December 67 to December 68. Did you know when the story was about to break? 199 0 obj <>stream They killed everything. What drove you to create the Hugh Thompson Foundation? Then he assumed the Army initiated an investigation. He walked about 50 meters and encountered the lieutenant who was leading the squad. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. These people are going to die, Thompson said to his crew. As I understand, that part of brain doesnt develop until 25. Did you have any knowledge of who was being inserted into My Lai that morning? Hugh said, No, lets do it at the Wall. They said no, the weather might be bad or something. Andreotta died in action a few weeks later, but Thompson and Colburn were key witnesses in the investigations and trials to follow. It was fresh enough that things hadnt changed much. His final term would have expired in December 2018; he retired in January 2017. She enticed me to move to east Oregon, near a ski area. Im Irish so Im to suffer. 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. In about 10-15 minutes we were back to the same spot where we saw the villagers on the road leaving. I just figured it was time to do something, to not let these people get killed. We came across a ditch, with probably 150 or more people in it and the wounded trying to crawl out. He left the aircraft in flight idle, as rotor blades can be somewhat intimidating. before the subcommittee, and then refused to release the transcripts of the testimony. In 1998, 30 years after the massacre, Hugh Thompson and the two other crew members, Andreotta and Colburn, were awarded the Soldiers Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Armys highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy. Did you expect something would be done as a result? 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. Hood were returnees, but no one really zeroed in on what was happening. Court-martial me, and he left his weapon and walked away. That morning was clear and as we came over a hilltop we saw a suspect in uniform with a pack, carrying a carbine in the middle of a rice paddy. From the air, Thompson and his two-person crew quickly realized American soldiers were slaughtering innocent civilians. They approached but because the aircraft was at flight idle they tended to stay back a little. But to see people herded up like so many animals, marched into a ditch and machine-gunned?
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