A few good men

What is so significant about the death of a retired American army pilot at age 62, even as the march of death is unabated for scores of acti...

What is so significant about the death of a retired American army pilot at age 62, even as the march of death is unabated for scores of active US soldiers in the quagmire of today8217;s Iraq? But Hugh Thompson, who died on January 6, was no ordinary soldier.

The massacre of more than 500 innocent Vietnamese in 1968 by the US army at My Lai would have been long forgotten if he had not shown the courage to speak out.

It was March 16, 1968 when 24 year old Thompson along with his crew was flying over this remote village in Vietnam when he saw scattered corpses. He landed in the village and to his utter dismay found that Lt Calley and his men were butchering people. He forcefully intervened and saw to it that the killing stopped. Of course, none of his seniors nor the US establishment took kindly to his demeanour. At one point, he was to be courtmartialled under fabricated charges. But Hugh did not give up. Senior journalist Seymour Hersh who got the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his exposure of the My Lai massacre described Thompson as 8216;8216;one of the good guys8230; You can8217;t imagine what courage it took to do what he did8217;8217;.

It took 18 months for the My Lai massacre to reach the media. Hugh testified before the Congress, a military inquiry and a court martial, which decided to convict Lt William Calley for his involvement in the massacre. Much on the lines of Guernica, a village flattened by Nazi forces during World War II or later day Srebrenica or Falluja which also saw the massacre of thousands, My Lai today has become a metaphor for the barbarities unleashed by conquerors over innocent people.

One does not know whether any of the survivors of the My Lai massacre have any photograph of the legendary pilot who had the courage of his convictions. But it is heartening that there are people in the US army who have imbibed the values for which Hugh lived.

Abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq could not have come to light if army specialist Joseph Darby of the 372 military police company had not dared to report on his fellow soldiers. And who can forget Captain Ian Fishback, the 82d Airborne West Pointer, part of the combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, who tried for 17 months to tell superiors that detainee torture was a systematic problem in the US military.

And last but not least, Captain Lawrence Rockwood of the 10th Mountain Division. It has been more than 10 years that he was deployed in Haiti where defying orders he investigated detainee abuse at the heart of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. He was court-martialed for criticising the US military8217;s refusal to intervene and was kicked out of the army. His friends say that while on duty, he always kept a photograph on his desk of a man he greatly admired. It was Captain Hugh Thompson.