My Lai Hero

Because we have such a short collective memory in the United States, we’re doomed to repeat our collective mistakes. Iraq is so much like the Vietnam era my parents described to me.

My parents met at an antiwar demonstration at Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. My mom was a marcher, and my dad was covering the protest for Army radio. He’d been drafted.

My mom was a regular protestor of the Vietnam War. She was even spat upon by Johnson/Nixon/Vietnam War-loving Americans for exercising her First Amendment rights.

Five more Americans in the service of this country have died in Iraq since my entry on Friday, from small arms fire and roadside bombs.

We’ve already regressed to Abu Ghraib, plus Nixon-esque illegal domestic wire tapping and enemies lists (now called the “no-fly list”).

Before we declare victory and leave Iraq, do we have to endure another Kent State? Another My Lai?

I read the most amazing obituary yesterday in the Times, the story of a real American hero, Hugh Thompson.

Thompson, who died too young from cancer at 62 years old, was a Chief Warrant Officer in 1968, flying his helicopter over South Vietnam, when below he witnessed war criminal U.S. Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. and his platoon/death quad carrying out the My Lai massacre. Thompson landed and risked his own and his crew’s lives to save villagers, even drawing guns on Calley’s executioners. Back at base, he reported the cold-blooded mass killings, and demanded action.

“I just wish our crew that day could have helped more than we did,” he said afterwards.

Back home in the States, predictably, this hero Thompson received death threats over the phone and mutilated animals left on his front porch.

“Don’t do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come,” said Thompson.

May he rest in peace.