My Lai Massacre-Lt. Calley Apologizes

[montana]

Gary Hall although i did work in the oilfeilds for a cupple years it wasnt anywhere near Texas,,,was in eastern Montana and North Dakota

ggyoung those who were on that killer team wereLCpl Michael Krichten PfcThomas Boyd PfcSam Green Pvt Randy Herrod<----<<< was the one in Norths Plt up north and was the team leader.. Pvt Michael Schwarz

[FistFu68]

Zulu 36 when You were a PFC or L/Cpl. where You as Dumb as the Lt. before You became General

[A Co Legal]

What didn't get said regarding the massacre was that an Army chopper pilot by the name of Hugh Thompson Jr. was the one that gave his door gunner an order to open fire on the 11th Brigade.

That war was a massacre for America and Viet Nam. 13 from my high school paid the ultimate price.

Regarding the Mongols: They never conquered the country we now know as Viet Nam.

[Supersquishy]

What didn't get said regarding the massacre was that an Army chopper pilot by the name of Hugh Thompson Jr. was the one that gave his door gunner an order to open fire on the 11th Brigade.

WTF happened?

[Shrink]

Gentle Souls:

Sometime in 1962, if memory serves, General Shoup, then CMC, asked a group of officers attending a briefing in re items that were on the JCS agenda for that day if they knew of any recent successful counterinsurgency effort by anyone anytime?

I returned to my office, and sent a book and memorandum signed by me up to him "via the vias." This meant that since I originated the process it had to be "chopped" (signed off on) by my boss, the head of the Plans Section, through his boss, the head of "P&O Plans and Operations Division, G-4, HQMC, the G-4 (then MGen Lenny Chapman); the Chief of Staff (then LtGen Wallace M. Greene); and finally through the Military Secretary to the Commandant before reaching the desk of the CMC. The routing slip was returned to me with the annotation that "CMC has seen and noted."

Question: What book did I bring to General Shoup's attention? Let's see how many of you know a bit about MC history. I'll give you a hint: Gen Shoup, then a Lt, was court martialed for killing a civilian during this counter-insurgency operation.

Shoup, for the record was absolutely against any US involvement on the "mainland" of Asia, and referred consistently to the position taken on that subject by General MacArthur. Although he was urged by various "action officers" on JCS agenda items to express the MC's "Direct Concern" in some of the matters that came before the JCS he adamantly refused to do so. Shoup had a running argument with the principal MC JCS planner who kept prodding him to express, if nothing else, some of the items that the JCS considered with Southeast Asia implications.

One aside on the CAP Platoons. Actually the first such platoon was in the Phu Bai TAOR where LtCol Tut Vale commanded. There was nothing new in the basic idea. The MC had a history of carrying out this type of operation before and doing it successfully until a new POTUS changed US policy.

I inherited a CAC Company in late May of 1966. My XO had returned to the TAOR to help get our ducks in a row prior to 1/4 assuming responsibility. In the process he had taken a look at the CAC Company....and immediately shut down all its operations until I could get back and look at the situation. Talk about "Terry and the Pirates," that CAC company and its platoons and squads had what I referred to as "Gone Asiatic" and until we could make some sweeping changes in leadership and personnel were a danger to themselves and everyone else in the TAOR. And that's all I'm gonna say bout 'dat. Respectfully, Semper Fidelis, Sully

[Zulu 36]

What didn't get said regarding the massacre was that an Army chopper pilot by the name of Hugh Thompson Jr. was the one that gave his door gunner an order to open fire on the 11th Brigade.

That war was a massacre for America and Viet Nam. 13 from my high school paid the ultimate price.

Regarding the Mongols: They never conquered the country we now know as Viet Nam.

The gunner never fired on US troops. The pilot plopped his helo down between the US troops and Vietnamese civilians and told his gunner to shoot if the US troops didn't stop shooting civilians. The pilot got out of his chopper and started raising holy hell and stopped the killing in the area he was at. The helo pilot was also the guy that reported the killings first, in fact he was *****ing about it on the radio while he flying around the area - lots of people heard him.

The story is really quite complicated, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.

[Shrink]

Gentle Souls:

My congratulations to Zulu 36. The latter obviously has done his homework and actually consulted a reference that others of us on this board may read and profit thereby in our overall understanding of what really went down at My Lai.

So many of the statements....and I won't embarrass anyone here by singling out a specific misstatement.... could have been avoided by going to a secondary source on My Lai, of which there are a plethora. Zulu 36 contributes one of these important citations and mentions the actions of an Army helo pilot and his crew. That pilot, WO Hugh Thompson, died recently and his obituary tells a great deal about him:

My Lai Hero Hugh Thompson Jr. Dies at 62

NEW ORLEANS -- Hugh Thompson Jr., a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot who rescued unarmed Vietnamese civilians from his fellow GIs during what became known as the My Lai massacre, died early Friday, his biographer and a hospital spokesman confirmed. He was 62.

Thompson, who was from Lafayette, Louisiana, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the central Louisiana city of Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.

Trent Angers, Thompson'a biographer and family friend, said Thompson was being treated for cancer and had been removed from life support earlier this week. Angers said Thompson's former gunner, Lawrence Colburn, had driven in from Atlanta to be at his bedside.

"America has lost a valuable hero of the Vietnam conflict," DeWorth said.

It was March 16, 1968, when Thompson and his crew watched in horror as an American Army officer walked up to an injured Vietnamese girl, flipped her over with his foot _ and shot her dead. It was his first glimpse of the massacre that led to the court martial of Lt. William Calley, one of the pivotal events as opposition to the war was growing in the United States.

Calley was eventually sentenced to life in prison but his sentence was reduced by President Richard Nixon. He served three years under house arrest.

Journalist Seymour Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the massacre in 1970.

Thompson would recall in a 1998 Associated Press interview seeing bodies piled in a ditch and watching American soldiers approaching Vietnamese women, children and old men.
"These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them," Thompson said.

He placed his chopper down in front of the advancing Americans and gave Colburn a direct order: Train your M-60 on the GIs and if they try to harm the villagers, "You open up on them."

Thompson radioed to two gun ships behind him, and together they airlifted at least nine villagers to safety.

By the end of his tour of duty, Thompson had been hit eight times by enemy fire and lost five helicopters in combat. He left Vietnam after a combat crash broke his back, and was awarded both a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

But Thompson's role in ending My Lai didn't come to light until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview with Thompson in a documentary on the massacre.

Egan wrote more than 100 letters to Congress and high-ranking government officials. He pressed others to write. Among those who did: Dean Rusk, secretary of state during the Vietnam years.

Still, no recognition came until Aug. 22, 1996, when the Army told Thompson he'd been approved for the Soldier's Medal, given to those who risk their lives in situations where an opposing army is not involved. He was faxed a copy of the citation.

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."

Born in Atlanta, Thompson joined the Navy in 1961 and left three years later. In 1966, he joined the Army to become a pilot and completed his training in 1967 before being shipped off to Vietnam. He retired as a first lieutenant in 1983.

Odd, isn't it, that the only true hero of the My Lai Massacre became the designated goat and that albatross was hung about his neck for the rest of his life. Respectfully, Semper Fidelis, Sully

[A Co Legal]

Some have made the assumption that the 11th Brigade was fired upon after "an order was given".

I did not write that the door gunner opened-up on the troops.

I wrote about a moment in a sequence of events in circumstances which few will ever experience.

"What wasn't said" was about the publicity involving the incident.

Mr. Thompsons' conduct was a true reflection of honor and duty.

I appreciate all others providing information that fills in the blanks.

[Zulu 36]

Some have made the assumption that the 11th Brigade was fired upon after "an order was given".

I did not write that the door gunner opened-up on the troops.

I wrote about a moment in a sequence of events in circumstances which few will ever experience.

"What wasn't said" was about the publicity involving the incident.

Mr. Thompsons' conduct was a true reflection of honor and duty.

I appreciate all others providing information that fills in the blanks.

I know you didn't write the door gunner actually opened fire. The way you did write it left the result sort of hanging and Supersquishy was asking what eventually happened. Having done previous research on Mei Lei I decided to respond to Supersquishy and provide the Wikipedia link which I had found to be a reasonably accurate rendition of events - according to my research.

I agree that CWO Thompson and his crew's actions that day were examples of the highest order of moral courage and required significant physical courage as well. CWO Thompson was treated shabbily when he was the only bright spot on that whole debacle.

And to Fist. As a PFC and L/Cpl I was every bit as intelligent as I am now (maybe more so). I was a military history buff from my early teens, although I am much more formally educated now. I appreciate your thought that I made General, but I preferred to remain an NCO - it was more fun that way.

[FistFu68]

(lol) Musta been all that chest candy wish You were a General I would have been Your driver know D.C @ Pentagon area like the back of my hand.My High School sweeties Daddy busted Nixon during Watergate S/F Marine