My Lai Hero To Be Honored

My Lai Hero To Be Honored



(CBS) "I went for 30 years without every saying a word about it," says Vietnam veteran Hugh Thompson.

He didn't say one word about 1968, the year when Thompson piloting a chopper over Vietnam, stopped a murderous rampage in the village of My Lai.

As CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports, U.S. soldiers were burning it down hut by hut, rounding up civilians and gunning them down in cold blood: old men, women, even babies.

"I'll never get that out of my mind, because this is not what the American soldier does," says Thompson.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/25/eveningnews/main608686.shtml

Kerry for acknowledging war atrocities in Viet nam

THAT man shouldn't get an award! He interfered with a mission that was key to the national security of this nation! He committed treason and stabbed our troops in the back!

That was sarcasm, though I shouldn't have to point that out to people.

He received hundreds of death threats for saving 11 Vietnamese from Calley's SS Death Squad.

It was only in 1998 that he received, get this, "The Soldiers Medal" for saving their lives.

I got in the above discussion with 3 or 4 freepers who have come here to disrupt in the last year. The one guy, was defending the Colonel who put a plastic bag over the Iraqi man's head and fired a 9mm pistol 3 inches from his ear rupturing the ear drum.

The other cretin insisted that the American MP's at a prison could basically kick someone to death, to maintain order among, his words "The RagHeads"

There is a sick mentality that allows for this to happen. Beware--- they will probably attack you.

isnt that how the new John Kerry feels?

Remember those names.

Two Heroes of the United States, and more importantly, the Human Race.

Powell was part of the My Lai investigation, and I have heard many describe it as a whitewash.

n/t

in a more just world, Hugh Thompson would be our secretary of state now, instead of that liar Powell who helped cover up the atrocity that Thompson risked his life to stop.

There are no words whatsoever to adequately express how much one can hate what he saw happening, nor to thank him for his actions, as late and futile as he may have felt they were.


Hope somehow he gets a chance to live peacefully, in complete security for a long, long time.

Thanks for posting this IMPORTANT article, liberalnproud.

I really needed to end my day on an upbeat note. I never knew about this - certainly not about the human elements of this event. Thompson and his door gunner Larry Colburn are American Heros of the highest order, and I'm blinded with pride from the tears in my eyes. That these two men are an example of the America that I love.

Thanks.

Hope the story gets plastered all over the media

Iran Contra Alumni in Bush Government
By The Associated Press, March 13, 2002

Former Iran-Contra figures who have been given jobs in the Bush administration:

-COLIN POWELL. In 1968, as a staff army major in Vietnam, Colin Powell played a direct role in suppressing the inquiry into the My Lai massacre, and into related atrocities against civilians. As a White House fellow during the Watergate years he earned a reputation -- but only for keeping his mouth shut.

As a military assistant to Caspar Weinberger during the Reagan administration, he helped to deceive Congress about the trading in heavy weapons with Iran, about the exchange of those weapons for hostages, and about the diversion of the illicit proceeds to finance another illicit operation in Nicaragua.

In Panama, in 1989, he helped shape an operation that totally disregarded international law and took many civilian lives.

During the Gulf War, he strongly opposed any military help for the Kurdish and Shia rebellions against Saddam Hussein.

In the Bosnian conflict, he publicly opposed any intervention against Slobodan Milosevic and his forcible creation of a "Greater Serbia."

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Bill Clinton, he repeatedly intervened to influence political decisions, not only about the Balkans but about the right of homosexuals to serve in the military.


http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/reagan.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views/122600-103.htm

of his COs.

Now look at him!

I've even seen some DUers suggest he ought to be given a role in a Democratic administration. Incredible.

We needn't have waited for his disgraceful performance whoring for Bush before the UN to know the nature of the man. He lies. He covers up. He habituates to corrupt power.

know the depths to which this whore has stooped.

We know who he is, and who he aligns himself with.

nobody is that ignorant, just that complicit.

The man is a hero. Put him up next to aWol and I'll bet aWol flees.

I have written many times and asked why this man did not get a Medal Of Honor.

He deserves one.

Three members of Lt. Calley slaughter were on a show several years ago and detailed the slaughter. They said they had not had a good nights sleep since .

One said his hero was the chopper pilot who saved lives instead of taking them.

He will never get a medal from this administration of slaughternuts.

I served in the same division (Americal) as Calley and at about the same time. The first year I was in the field in combat. My second tour I flew reconnaisance missions in fixed wing prop engine small planes, and stationed at Division HDQ in Chu Lai, about 10 miles north of My Lai.

For some reason, I used to hang around with chaplains. They were all officers, and hung together at the O-club. I had several conversations with these guys about how racist the attitudes of most GIs were. One time I really got on their ass and asked them pointedly why they didn't preach a more humanitarian attitude toward the locals in their Sunday services. After a lot of hemming and hawing, one of them, a Major and Protestant chaplain, said--to the agreement of the half-dozen others sitting around--that "If we did that the Colonel (meaning the chief Division chaplain) would have our necks."

There was a deliberate attempt then, as there is now in Iraq and Afghanistan, to teach aggressiveness via racism, a sense of smug superiority, and a keen sense of distrust of the locals. There was absolutely no teaching of restraint whatsoever in dealing with civilians.

Some day, in a better world, hopefully under John Kerry, learning how to treat civilians like human beings--especially those of another race--will be a mandatory part of US military training. Enlightened restraint will become as important as aggressiveness.

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Oh, and may I add, God Bless you, Hugh Thompson!