Needed: A Proper Memorial to Hugh Thompson

Needed:  A Proper Memorial to Hugh Thompson

We need a proper memorial to Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson.

Anger and fear breeds aggression and hysteria.  These can sweep a neighborhood, a community, a supposedly disciplined army unit, or a nation.  Men and women who start out as decent, reasonable human beings forget that the other side – the "enemy" – is also a group of human beings.  Even if the original cause was "just," we target the "enemy" irrationally because everyone who looks vaguely like the actual "enemy" becomes a potential enemy.  Everyone is the enemy.  Everyone must die. 

In 1906, American forces in the Philippines engaged in a campaign against the Moro tribes who saw no reason for Americans to be running their islands.  The Moro tribes perhaps fought back, but in the end mostly ran.  Of these, 600 – men, women, and children – took cover in the bowl of an extinct volcano.  Led by an overzealous general, the American force cornered the "enemy," who were armed with clubs, rocks, and maybe the odd flintlock.  Rifles and even artillery aimed from above made quick work of the "enemy."  No one stood to intervene.  Few of the day's journalists even decried the massacre, though Mark Twain unleashed his justice-based fury – in comments  published after his death.

As Martin Luther King Day approaches, all Americans are reminded of the hatred, fear, and hysteria that led Caucasians to exterminate, rape and terrorize African Americans even a century after a civil fought war in the name of "Abolition."  We are reminded of  men in white hoods forming lynch mobs and burning churches.  We are reminded of not hundreds, but thousands of terror attacks, and of the deep-seated prejudice that made us justify or ignore the hysteria.

Late last week, I was reminded of another mob that started as a military unit.  This one ran amuck in my own lifetime.

I was only seven (7) years old when American servicemen led by Lt. William Calley in Viet Nam massacred hundreds of Vietnamese villagers in a place called My Lai.  Villagers were tortured and raped; the dead included women, children, and the elderly.  I was in my early teens before I understood what "My Lai Massacre" really signified.  I was too interested in the most spectacular thing Americans were doing – encasing men in fragile bubbles of metal-encased air and blasting them into space, all the way to our nearest neighbor. I was too concerned with the future – Mars, the solar system, perhaps someday joining a peace-loving but adventurous crew in a real star voyage.  I eventually read more about the My Lai massacre, but even then did not get the whole story.

Much of America was too busy to notice My Lai.  Much of America failed to hear the story of hysteria fueled by fear, anger, racial profiling – all of the villagers were Asians, after all – and an unjust war fought in the name of ideology.  Hell, most Americans today fail to notice that we sent our men to South Viet Nam to help it fight as a democracy against communist-supported North Viet Nam.  The original fear was of a political system that was simply not as open or free as ours.

Three Americans noticed My Lai, though.  Three Americans counted for a lot, because they arrived while the uniformed lynch mob was still attacking the villagers. 

Hugh Thompson commanded a helicopter gunship on patrol.  His gun crew was Spc. Lawrence Colburn and Spc. Glenn Andreotta.  They saw the ongoing massacre.  At first, they disbelieved what they were seeing, but then knew that the slaughter was not legitimate military action.   Finally, he and his crew landed and confronted the troops who had let hysteria guide them.  With "cover" from his own men – men prepared to fire heavy machine guns on the same-uniformed mob to protect their comrade and a few cornered villagers – Hugh defied the mob.  He put himself and his men between the mob and a few innocents.  They were able to save a few people from the rage that overtook others.  Too late for many, the massacre was halted before every last villager could be exterminated.

His reports "up the line" caused the command structure to intervene – not.  Two years later, another serviceman wrote letters to President Nixon, the Pentagon, and members of Congress.  Word of the My Lai massacre reached public ears soon after.  Then, only then, did the Army appoint an investigator who obtained prosecution.  Hugh testified about the massacre.  His testimony helped bring one soldier-turned-criminal to justice.  However, his courage went without real reward – fellow military men literally turned their backs on him.  He had, somehow, violated the "rules" by doing his legal and moral duty.  Lt. Calley was convicted, but later had his sentence diminished to almost nothing – a  last dishonor.

Hugh Thompson died last week – without enough notice. 

Some news programs mentioned him, and an AP report popped up on my Yahoo page, but the recent death of Rosa Parks received far more notice.  Hugh deserves to be noticed as much as generals and presidents who die, and even as much as Rosa Parks.  Like her, he stood his ground and helped ignite our nation against unjust hysteria.

Men and women like these deserve our highest praise.  They risk all – life, limb, career, family – to do what is right.  They stand between the hysterical mob-with-an-insignia because they know the mob is wrong.  They live for years named turncoat, traitor, scapegoat because the mob-with-an-insignia will not, cannot admit that it was wrong.  Indeed, until 1998, Hugh and his crew were ignored by a military that should have pinned medals on them in the 1970's, at the latest.

Hugh Thompson needs a statue.

Our President and Vice President say "911" to justify any action against individuals.  They have fueled fear, anger and hysteria to obtain control of our Democracy's machinery.  Though they certainly were faced with good cause for fear, anger, and caution when the Twin Towers fell, they have taken that bonfire and fanned it until the dry forest has blazed.

Our government certainly needed to reassess complacent inattention to terrorism.  We needed to realize that other hysterical mobs exist who are willing to ravage our innocents.  Of course, we should have seen this earlier – the WTC had been a target in the 1990's, as had been the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma.   The "911" terrorist attack was, without a doubt, good cause to finally become more vigilant.

Fueled by fear and anger, appropriate vigilance and lawful defense become vigilantism.  Fanned by fear and rhetoric, vigilantism became mob action.  No, the executive Branch does not want to be called a "mob" – but mob violence, directed from the highest levels of government, is still mob action. 

With all of the morality of a KKK Grand Wizard, our President and Vice President demand fealty, exhorted Congress and the people to fear-driven action, demand that we make examples of anyone who we think might be an enemy.  We have been exhorted to invade two countries, to support two forced changes of government. Only one of these invasions was arguably justified by facts.  This one is largely forgotten though our troops remain.  The other has become a deadly debacle "justified" by ever-shifting arguments – and "bad intelligence."

Ruled by their own fears and the energy of the mob mentality, our President and Vice President's next violence was to our political system.  They used their control over the "mob" – government officials sworn to uphold and defend our Constitution – to set aside the Constitution and laws written to answer a Richard Nixon's abuses of power.  Though no war has been properly "declared" by Congress, they have claimed broad "war powers" justifying their mob mentality. 

Is the "enemy" at least in Iraq?  Of course not.  The enemy is not a nation, not even a faction within a single nation.  It is a nebulous group, sometimes called "Al Qaeda," sometimes "Global Terrorism."  Congress has not issued the necessary "marching orders" to target this enemy as such, regardless of its name.

Bush, certainly supported by Cheney, ordered and continue to defend illegal wiretapping.  If the targets of the "investigation" had been legitimate, the Administration could have easily gotten court orders – up to three days after ordering and commencing each wiretap.  They chose not to, even when a highly-placed deputy of the Attorney General refused to "sign off" on the program in the Attorney General's absence.  Instead, they went to the hospital to interrupt the Attorney General's recovery from gall bladder surgery.

Sometimes the massacre is insidious.

A massacre of civilians ordered by a lieutenant is still a war crime; an attack on the rights of U.S. citizens and residents ordered by President Bush is still a violation of rights. 

Someone in the government saw this.  Someone took the lesson of Hugh Thompson.  Someone landed a metaphorical helicopter in the "battle zone" and blocked the insignia-wearing mob from new assaults. 

This Someone has risked a career.  This Someone is being pursued for the "leak," and may be criminally prosecuted for divulging a "government secret."  Someone's co-workers will turn their backs, and only a few in the government will acknowledge that Someone did the right thing.  Prosecutors will try to force the New York Times' to hand this source over, and jail will likely be sought when a reporter refuses to name names.

Hugh Thompson deserves more notice than his long-belated Soldier's Medal.  He deserves a monument, a statue, somewhere in Washington.  His statue needs to be set where he can remind anyone tempted to governmental vigilantism that brave people will still stand against evil.  Hugh's name will of course top the pedestal, but others should be below – Lawrence Colburn, Glenn Andreotta, Ron Ridenhour, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Twain, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau, and of course Anonymous Wiretap Whistleblower. 

Somewhere in Washington?

Hugh Thompson's statue should be placed right where it is most needed – in the Rose Garden, in full view from the Oval Office. 

Sure, the president's desk is usually placed so that his back is to the Rose Garden.  The president will not see the statute every working moment.  However, Hugh will be there every time the president walks into the office, every time he goes to his desk to pose for a "sleeves rolled up" photo op.  Hugh Thompson's granite eyes will lock with the president's.  Hugh's stare will silently ask each future leader, "Do you think that no one will stand between the innocents and the mob you enrage?"  The names on the pedestal will echo the question.

And, when the President sits down and turns his back, Hugh's gaze will still be boring down.  The President's neck will, perhaps, itch with a reminder that he may not turn our government into a lynch mob.

Copyright © 2006 by Gregory P. Lee