The Army drops charges of an alleged cover-up in the My Lai massacre against four officers. After the charges were dropped, a total of 11 people had been cleared of responsibility during the My Lai trials.
The trials were a result of action that occurred in March 1968. During the incident, 1st Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in the 23rd (Americal) Division, allegedly led his men to massacre innocent Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, in a cluster of hamlets in Son Tinh District in the coastal south of Chu Lai.
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By 1971, charges were pending only against Lt. Calley, Capt. Ernest Medina, and Capt. Eugene Kotouc. On March 29, 1971, a Fort Benning court-martial jury found Calley guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 South Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life in prison. Kotouc was cleared by a court-martial on April 29, and Medina was acquitted on September 22.
On May 19, the Army disciplined two generals for failing to conduct an adequate investigation of My Lai, demoting Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster from two-star to one-star rank. At the same time, both Koster and Brig. Gen. George W. Young Jr., his assistant divisional commander at the time of the massacre, were stripped of their Distinguished Service Medals, and letters of censure were placed in their personnel files. The trials ended on December 17, when Col. Oren K. Henderson was acquitted of cover-up charges. He was the highest-ranking officer to be tried.
Of those originally charged, only Calley was convicted. Many believed that Calley was a scapegoat, and the widespread public outcry against his life sentence moved President Nixon to intervene on April 3, 1971. He had Calley removed from the Fort Benning stockade and ordered him confined to quarters pending review of his case. On August 20, Calley’s life term was reduced to 20 years. In November 1974, a Federal Court judge ruled that Calley was convicted unjustly, citing “prejudicial publicity.” Although the Army disputed this ruling, Calley was paroled for good behavior after serving 40 months, 35 of which were spent in his own home.
War is hell.
The Three Heroes of My Lai, Pilot Hugh Thompson, Door Gunners Glenn Andreotta & Lawrence Colburn:
The massacre occurred on March 16, 1968 at an obscure village called My Lai. Three soldiers tried to stop the carnage.
30 years after My Lai, OH-23 Raven helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his door gunners Glenn Andreotta & Lawrence Colburn, were awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for non-combat action (“heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy”). Andreotta’s medal was awarded posthumously because he died shortly after My Lai when his helicopter was shot down:
“Warrant Officer Thompson landed his helicopter in the line of fire between
fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pursuing American
ground troops to prevent their murder. He then
personally confronted the leader of the American ground
troops and was prepared to open fire on those American
troops should they fire upon the civilians. Warrant Officer
Thompson, at the risk of his own personal safety, went
forward of the American lines and coaxed the Vietnamese
civilians out of the bunker to enable their evacuation.
Leaving the area after requesting and overseeing the
civilians’ air evacuation, his crew spotted movement in a
ditch filled with bodies south of My Lai Four. Warrant
Officer Thompson again landed his helicopter and covered
his crew as they retrieved a wounded child from the pile of
bodies. He then flew the child to the safety of a hospital at
Quang Ngai. Warrant Officer Thompson’s relayed radio
reports of the massacre and subsequent report to his
section leader and commander resulted in an order for the
cease fire at My Lai and an end to the killing of innocent
civilians.”
http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/ThompsonPg1-28_Final.pdf
Thompson reports the following exchange when he confronted Lt. Calley on the ground at My Lai in 1968:
“Thompson: What’s going on here, Lieutenant?
Calley: This is my business.
Thompson: What is this? Who are these people?
Calley: Just following orders.
Thompson: Orders? Whose orders?
Calley: Just following…
Thompson: But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.
Calley: Look Thompson, this is my show. I’m in charge here. It ain’t your concern.
Thompson: Yeah, great job.
Calley: You better get back in that chopper and mind your own business.
Thompson: You ain’t heard the last of this!
The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story, pp 119–120, Angers, 1999
In a 1998 interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, Wallace quoted Captain Medina (Lt. Calley’s CO) who in 1969 said:
“We had lost a lot of good people that had served their country in
Vietnam in a mine field, due to sniper fire, due to mines and
booby traps. The entire area was heavily infested with mines and
booby traps. When infantrymen approach an area, the women
and children will place these things out.”
Thompson responded:
“And I suppose he believes the theory if you don’t want those
mines and booby traps planted, it’s okay to kill every child and
woman. I just don’t feel that way. We have a different opinion
on that, obviously”
Thompson added”
“What do you call it when you march 100 or 200 people down in a
ditch and line up on the side with machine guns and start firing
into it? Reminds me of another story that happened in World
War II, about the Nazis.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/return-to-my-lai/
In 1969, Thompson was rewarded for his action at My Lai by being called a traitor by some blowhard congressman:
“In November the following year, Thompson finally testified and was vilified by high ranking members of the military, as well as various senators. Congressman Mendel Rivers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, even accused him of being a traitor to his country and unsuccessfully attempted to have him court-martialed….Back home “I’d received death threats over the phone,” he told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” in 2004. “Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. So I was not a good guy.”
In an interview with the Seattle Times, Door Gunner Lawrence Colburn recalled:
“As Thompson left the helicopter to rescue some civilians from a bunker, he told Colburn: ‘I’m going to go over and get them out of the bunker myself. If the squad opens up on them, shoot ’em.”
Colburn also said:
“Oh, the children. That’s what struck all of us. It appeared to be automatic weapons fire, small arms, from pretty close range. When a high-velocity round hits a child, there’s not a lot of mass there and yeah, it was grotesque. Sure. Babies. Lying with their mothers and grandmothers. Baskets right there.
That’s when Mr. Thompson, we all, started trying to figure out what happened. The last thing we wanted to admit to ourselves was that it was our own men.
People had been herded up systematically, made to get down in this irrigation ditch, and they were executed. We started marking some of the bodies that were still alive with green smoke, (dropping smoke grenades from the helicopter) so the medics on the ground could help them. We marked this one woman who had chest wounds. She was moving one arm, feebly, asking for help, so we marked her. Mr. Thompson backed up 20, 30 feet and hovered there 10 feet off the ground because he saw a soldier coming over to her. That was (Capt. Ernest) Medina. We pointed down to her. He kicked her, stepped back and blew her away right in front of us. That’s when we simultaneously said something like: “You son of a bitch.” Then we knew. The mystery was solved. It was people from Charlie Company.”
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020310&slug=pgunner10
After being taken off life support, Thompson died of cancer in 2006 at a VA Hospital in Louisiana. Colburn was at his bedside.
Lawrence Colburn passed away in 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/asia/larry-colburn-my-lai-massacre-dies.html
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Thank you for that. For all the worthless bastards who get called ‘hero’ for simply wearing a uniform, Hugh Thompson is the standard for the word.
There has been a photograph of Hugh Thompson hanging on my wall (in my Hall of Heroes) for several years now. That has to have been one of the most noble and gutsy thing that’s ever been done.
JR
Truth to power and all that. He has my respect.
I was unaware of the rest of the story. Thanks.
Calley was the fall guy.
The ENTIRE WAR was a WAR CRIME!
“innocent Vietnamese civilians, including women and children”
Every case of innocents being slaughtered uses the phrase ‘women and children.’ It never says ‘including men.’
Wonder why.
We’ll never know the exact breakdown of ages & genders. The Army reported 347 killed; the Vietnamese reported 504 dead. One witness (Sgt. Michael Bernhardt) reported:
“It was just like any other Vietnamese village-old Papa-Sans, women and kids. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive.”
http://www.cleveland.com/plain-dealer-library/index.ssf/2009/11/eye_witness_account_of_the_my_lai_massacre_story_by_seymour_hersh_nov_20_1969.html