Sometimes, heroes do not match the obvious traditional ideas of what heroes are. Some people think of artists or musicians, some think of superheroes, some think of people who provide brilliant military heroics on the battlefield, to the glory of themselves and their country. Some think of people who, at great danger to themselves, rush into dangerous situations to help save people.
Hugh Thompson was an American helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, and he responded to what was going on in My Lai, the infamous massacre of Vietnamese citizens by American troops. It happened on March 16, 1968 - 50 years ago.
By the time that Thompson arrived, American troops had already killed more than 500 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. That obviously is horrific, yet it could have been worse had Thompson not been there, and done what he had done.
Thompson is a real American hero. Maybe he does not fit a conventional kind of image of a hero, and many people simply were disgusted with the war, and My Lai seemed to be perhaps the most symbolic event of that war for some. Most people just did not want to hear about an event like this, where American troops were allowed to let off steam, so to speak, by killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children and the elderly. That did not fit the traditional images of American soldiers as purely heroic, as the good guys bravely fighting evil Communism in some faraway land.
Yet, it happened, and Thompson's involvement in preventing it from being worse never really got the credit that it deserved. Again, this story does not fit the traditional sense of what is heroic, and what is not, but it ended the massacre. Thompson threatened that he and his crew would shoot any American troops who continued to shoot at Vietnamese civilians, and this ended the massacre.
In 2000, Jon Weiner of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Thompson about his involvement in ending the My Lai massacre. Here are some of his recollections from that event:
"We started noticing these large numbers of bodies everywhere, people on the road dead, wounded. And just sitting there saying, 'God, how'd this happen? What's going on?' And we started thinking what might have happened, but you didn't 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.
"They were not combatants. They were old women, old men, children, kids, babies."
Was he worried that American troops might incite violence against him and his crew, because they were threatening to fire upon them? Thompson answered:
"Well, it didn't come to that. I thank God to this day that everybody did stay cool and nobody opened up. ... 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."
He met some of the people he saved on the 30th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, and recalled that memorable event:
"There were real good highs, and very low lows. One of the ladies that we had helped out that day came up to me and asked, 'Why didn't the people who committed these acts come back with you?' And I was just devastated. And then she finished her sentence: she said, 'So we could forgive them.' I'm not man enough to do that. I'm sorry. I wish I was, but I won't lie to anybody. I'm not that much of a man.
"I always questioned, in my mind, did anybody know we all aren't like that? Did they know that somebody tried to help? And yes, they did know that. That aspect of it made me feel real good."
So, even though I missed the actual 50th anniversary of this event, it seemed like a necessity to honor Hugh Thompson, a true American hero who ended a massacre that needed to be ended. It might not seem like the conventional notions of heroism, but he was certainly a brave hero on that day, and possibly hundreds of Vietnamese people who otherwise might not be here today can thank Thompson for being there that day.
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