Posted on 01/06/2006 11:09:16 AM PST by Joe 6-pack
Just heard Hugh Thompson passed away. While many people don't know Hugh by name, most remember "the helicopter pilot," generally credited with putting a stop to the My Lai massacre.
Hugh lived close by, and up until I quit drinking a few years back, Hugh and I spent more than a few hours together in the bars. After retiring from the Army, Hugh went to work with the Louisiana Department of Veteran Affairs. We disagreed on some politics, but agreed on many things in life in general.
God bless you Hugh. Rest in Peace buddy.
You're the one who keeps bringing it up. What about that Vietnam thing?
That's very sad but I think your anger is being transferred to what Hugh Thompson and others did to stop the killing of innocents. I'd like to think your cousin would have done the same thing Hugh did.
"...get behind lead penny and eat me too."
How clever. I'll bet you you use all those other knee-slappers like "so's your ol' man" and "I know you are but what am I?" don't you?
No, you're not a fool because I don't like your opinion. You're a fool because you're a damn FOOL! Who lowered the standards here, anyway? FR is getting to be too much like public school.
"I'd like to think your cousin would have done the same thing Hugh did."
Hmmmm... Ya know, Im going to have to agree with you on that.
what year are scheduled to graduate?
"I'm curious, kid, where'd you learn about Vietnam?"
He watched Full Metal Jacket too many times. That would account for his odd sexual fixations, as well.
BTW, I'd forgotten Gen. Peers headed up that commission. He was our 4th Division commander when I was there in 67-68. I have a chaplain friend from those days who was a personal friend of the general. Speaks very highly of him.
Calley should still be breaking rocks in Leavenworth.
Instead of popping off with uninformed opinions, why not take a little time to inform yourself.
Read "When the Killing Stopped"
Caley was a punk who never should have had bars on his shoulders. Thompson was am honorable man and in the best tradition of the United States Army.
And the of comparison My Lie to the juvenile fraternity pranks at Abu Graib is total BS. My Lie was not a prank. It was mass murder. There is no comparison except in the over hyped scripts endlessly rolled out by the hate-America left. Please! Don't reinforce their BS propaganda or you and we will lose another damn war. And unlike Vietnam, if we lose this one, it won't be millions of innocents in Southeast Asia who suffer and die under the forces of evil. IT WILL BE US.
R.I.P for Hugh Thompson. He faced the test and passed with flying colors.
So you think the world wide publicity over the abuses at Abu Grahib was a good thing?
Do you think there are many in this country who know or care about the hundreds of thousands of lives lost as a direct result of our cutting and runnng from Viet Nam?
Men like Thompson make me wish I was deeply religious so I didn't feel a little hypocritical when I think "God Bless You".
Defending the indefensible puts you on the inevitable road to defeat.
Hugh Thompson spoke to my ROTC class a few years back on ethics and their role in the military. Up till then I only got the lefty spin on My Lai. It was good to know that the official events were quite different from the actual events. Sad to hear Mr Thompson died.
Yeah, my dad was a crew chief. He got into with a few helicopter pilots who thought they were the ones in charge. ;)
Once he stepped off and unhooked to keep a pilot from lifting off before a soldier who had his foot blasted off could be loaded on. He figured that the pilot would get into more trouble for leaving a crew chief than leaving a wounded soldier.
The exposure wasn't the problem. It was certain people in the gov't who rather than handle the situation in private tried their best to ignore it in total. Calley, arguably his company, violated orders and in doing so committed a war crime. When you're killing innocent civilians to release some anger you're due more than a transfer.
Heard of it but Ive never seen Full Metal Jacket. I saw Apocolypse Now in the theater many years ago but Martin Sheen has been on my blacklist for over twenty years now.
When you step off a huey and you tell your gunner to train on American soldiers you're taking a bold step. I don't believe I ever remember American forces having to actually fire upon American forces as they would the enemy.
Thompson did what was right that day and he never once blamed the military for what happened. The people he had animosity for were the ones back home who rather than handle Calley tried their best to cover up the incident.
The cover up is what hurt America. Not the crime.
"Defending the indefensible puts you on the inevitable road to defeat."
Cant argue with you there. Who lost in Viet Nam?
"Do you think there are many in this country who know or care about
the hundreds of thousands of lives lost as a direct result
of our cutting and runnng from Viet Nam?"
Surely not as many as there should be.
But I'm guardedly optimistic about things at least heading in
the right direction.
With the Internet and more people in home-schooling...
the hideous consequences of our "cut and run" in Vietnam are
becoming more apparent.
And thanks to talk radio, I've learned a lot about that time period
that I didn't pick up as a child.
E.g., hearing radio host Michael Medved detail the machinations
of the Democrats to not even send medical aid to the faltering
Republic of South Vietnam.
If you want to expose someone to the untruths told about the fall
of South Vietnam, here is a convenient way to do it, with Medved's
"Three Big Lies About The Vietnam War":
https://www.treefarmtapes.com/catalog/product.asp?productid=14142
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