The Helicopter Pilot Who Saw a Massacre Unfold Beneath Him
American soldiers went on a bloody rampage near the Vietnamese village of Son My on March 16th, 1968. Over several hours, with only a short lunch break, they massacred about 500 unarmed civilians. Most victims were women, quite a few of whom were violated and mutilated before they were murdered, children, even infants. Horrible as the massacre was, it would have been worse if not for the heroic intervention of one man: Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot who arrived on the scene halfway through the slaughter.
As he described what he saw: “We kept flying back and forth, reconning in front and in the rear, and it didn’t take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Everywhere we’d look, we’d see bodies. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever“. At first, Thompson and his crew thought the casualties were accidental collateral damage from American artillery. They realized what was happening when they saw the soldiers’ commanding officer, Captain Ernest Medina, execute an unarmed, wounded woman. Thompson immediately swung into action.
