SweetBlueJay

On March 16, 1968, US troops were raping and massacring Vietnamese civilians including children and babies at My Lai. Then an American helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. saw what was happening — and decided he could not stand by. Thompson was flying a reconnaissance mission in an OH-23 Raven with his two crewmen, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn. Their job was to scout ahead of the ground troops and identify enemy positions. But something was terribly wrong. From the air, Thompson noticed bodies everywhere — women, children, infants and elderly people. There was virtually no return fire. He marked wounded civilians with smoke so they could receive medical help. But when he came back, he discovered that some of the people he had marked as wounded had been shot dead. He watched a wounded Vietnamese woman lying on the ground. An American soldier approached her, prodded her with his foot — and shot her in the head. Thompson was horrified. He then saw a group of 12–15 Vietnamese women and children fleeing toward a bunker while American soldiers pursued them. He landed his helicopter between the civilians and the soldiers. Thompson confronted the Americans and ordered his crew to cover the civilians. He told his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, to train his M60 on the American troops and fire if they opened fire on the Vietnamese. Think about that. An American soldier had reached the point where he was willing to risk shooting fellow American soldiers to prevent them from committing more war crimes. Thompson then helped get the civilians out of the bunker and called in other helicopters to evacuate them. His crew helped rescue Vietnamese survivors and wounded children. After returning to base, Thompson immediately reported what he had witnessed to his superiors. Hugh and his men deserve to be remembered, not because they were American soldiers, but because they chose humanity when others had abandoned it. While others were killing innocent people, these three Americans risked their lives to save them. That is courage. That is humanity. This is Thompson Hugh Jr.

Here’s something I genuinely wonder about: We have nicer houses, faster cars, better medicine, unlimited entertainment, instant communication, food delivered to our doors, and access to basically all human knowledge from a phone. So why does it seem like so many people are miserable? What are we missing?