Standing Tall: One Man’s Moral Courage During the Vietnam War

This installment of ‘When Courage Counted’ features Hugh Thompson Jr. and his heroic crewmates who helped end the My Lai Massacre.

(Left) Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr., together with (Top Right) Glenn Andreotta and (Bottom Right) Lawrence Colburn, stopped American troops from killing civilians during the Vietnam War. Public Domain

On March 16, 1968, American soldiers brought hell on earth to Vietnam’s Son My, a cluster of villages including My Lai, My Khe, Co Luy, and Tu Cung. Under the command of Capt. Ernest Medina, Charlie Company went on a spree of murder, rape, and arson that resulted in 300 to 500 Vietnamese deaths of men, women, and children slaughtered individually or in groups for their supposed support of North Vietnamese troops.

Though the military initially covered up the massacre, contending first that the soldiers had fought the enemy and then quietly launching an investigation, on Nov. 12, 1969 journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story of these atrocities, shocking American voters and fueling the antiwar movement. With this news, the shame of what came to be called the My Lai (pronounced “mee lie”) Massacre became a black stain on American history.